“Wrong number.” Ilya slammed the phone back on its cradle, hard enough to shake it on the ancient screws barely securing it into the plaster.
His cell hummed with another call, this time adding a few beeps to indicate a voicemail. Damn, he was popular this morning. Throwing on his pants and tugging his shirt over his head, he thumbed in the code to listen to his messages. There were three. Two from a number he didn’t recognize, with nothing but the empty hiss of air for a message.
The third was from his brother, Nikolai. He hadn’t heard from Niko in a couple of months—nothing unusual about that. Niko had been living overseas for the past few years. Niko hadn’t been stupid enough to get married too young. He’d been smart enough to get the hell out of Covey County and see the world instead.
Without listening to more than the first few words of Niko’s message, Ilya thumbed his brother’s number instead. “Yo. What’s up?”
Silence.
“Niko?”
“Ilya . . . you didn’t listen to the message, huh?”
“No.” Ilya paused his search for a pair of shoes. He straightened. “What’s going on?”
“The nursing home’s been trying to get hold of you for like an hour, man. They finally got me on my cell, but that was a lucky shot. I just happened to be taking a break from work and checked my messages.”
Ilya sat on the rickety chair in the corner, knees suddenly weak. “You sound bad. What is it?”
“It’s Babulya,” Niko said with an edge in his voice. “She’s . . . they say she doesn’t have long to live. You need to get over there right away.”
CHAPTER THREE
Alicia had seen Ilya cry only once before, and that had been the first night they’d ever had sex. She didn’t like thinking of that night at all, but especially not now, not here in Babulya’s sparsely decorated room in the nursing home, as they’d all gathered around her bed. The old woman had been as much a grandma to Alicia and her older sister, Jennilynn, as she’d been to her own two grandsons. The only one Alicia could remember, as a matter of fact, since her own grandparents had all passed away when she was a toddler. And now Babulya was dying, too.
Nikolai was here, travel-worn and exhausted. It had taken him a day and a half to get home from whatever far-off adventure he’d been having, and Alicia hadn’t even had time to say more than a quick “Hey.” Not that she had much more to say to him than that.
Her former brother-in-law had taken charge quickly enough, stepping in where Ilya had faltered, and Alicia supposed she ought to be grateful that someone had, if only because it meant she didn’t have to. Babulya had fallen silent an hour or so ago, but before that she’d been only vaguely alert and scolding all of them for tracking dirt into her kitchen. She’d promised Nikolai some chocolate-chip cookies if he was a good boy and ran to get the mail for her, and though Ilya’s younger brother had stopped being a boy, good or otherwise, a long time ago, he’d nodded and patted Babulya’s hand with a promise to do just that. The old woman had also given Alicia a wavery-voiced bit of advice on how to take stains out of a white tablecloth. Then she’d launched into a muttered jumble of Russian that none of them could understand.
Now Alicia held Ilya’s hand as he sat by Babulya’s bedside, his head pressed to the blankets. She didn’t want to be the one offering him this comfort, but who else was there to do it? She rubbed his back slowly between his shoulder blades as he hitched in silent but sobbing breaths. Alicia caught Nikolai’s gaze from across the bed. His gaze followed the circle she made with her hand on his brother’s back. When he looked back at her with a small, enigmatic smile, she didn’t return it.
Screw him, she thought. Nobody in their families had been super thrilled when she and Ilya had decided to get married, but Nikolai had been the only one to actively speak out against it. The two of them had always had their tiffs as kids. One-upping each other. Pranks and teasing and occasional mean-spirited taunts. But he’d been ballsy enough to accuse her of trying to step into Jennilynn’s shoes and, worse, of being insufficient for the task. Alicia and Nikolai hadn’t spoken more than a few icy words since then; she had never told anyone, not even Ilya, what his brother had said or how deep those wounds had cut. She’d never forgotten, though. Not the accusation, and not how right he’d been that she and Ilya should never have gotten married. She’d never forgotten anything about Nikolai.
She leaned to speak into Ilya’s ear, wrinkling her nose at the faint waft of sweat and fried food. They’d all been taking round-the-clock shifts for the past two days, but Ilya was the only one who’d refused to leave, even sleeping on the uncomfortable chair next to his grandmother’s bed. None of them were happy about Babulya’s decline, of course. They’d all adored her. Still, there was no denying that Ilya had been closer to her than any of them. Her first grandchild. She’d raised him while his mother had worked to support them after his father was killed, when Galina was pregnant with Nikolai.
Alicia wanted to admire his current dedication, but it faintly annoyed her, this sudden show of devotion, when he’d gone to see Babulya no more than a handful of times over the past few months. He’d made excuses instead of visits. That was Ilya, she thought with a frown. He ignored the problems until he had no choice but to face them.
She said in a low voice, “You want to go grab a drink? Get some air? We’re all here with her. You need a little break.”
Ilya shook his head without opening his eyes. She sighed. He was so stubborn. Her fingernails scratched through the soft, faded fabric of his T-shirt, one he’d had for as long as she could remember. They’d argued over it once, when she’d tried to toss it, and he’d snagged it out of the donation pile. It had been one of their few true fights. She looked up to see Nikolai still staring. She stared back, like a challenge. He’d run off to live on the other side of the world, leaving them all behind. He didn’t get to judge her.
“C’mon, man, let’s go grab a couple of sodas and something to eat. You’re fading.” Nikolai stood.
His hand landed on his brother’s shoulder, pinching the fabric of Ilya’s shirt and coming perilously close to pushing hers away. Frowning, she refused to move it. Nikolai’s fingers brushed hers, and that was when she finally let go.
“Ilya,” Nikolai said, quieter. “C’mon. Talk a little walk with me. Grab a drink. You’re going to make yourself sick if you don’t take a break.”
“I don’t want to leave her.”
Alicia let her eyes close for a moment at the sound of anguish in Ilya’s voice. She believed it, and it still irritated her. She had to get away from Babulya’s slow, rattling burble. Away from Ilya’s rising stink and palpable anxiety. She had to get away from being her ex-husband’s comfort simply because he had nobody else. All at once, it was everything Alicia could do not to scream. To run.