Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
I squeeze his hand, soundlessly promising him the pain will eventually lessen. It will never go away, but it will get better. I shift my focus to Mrs. Petrovitch. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Yulia was…” I struggle to find the right words, so I settle with one. “Perfect.”
“She truly was,” her mother agrees, burning my eyes with new tears. “Thank you for helping her.” My tears almost tumble when she drifts her eyes to Maksim and praises him for not leaving her child alone in the cold. “Knowing she wasn’t alone makes the hurt not as devastating.”
Maksim looks prepared to say he doesn’t deserve her praise, but a baby’s coo stops him.
My lips quiver when I drink in the tiny features of a newborn baby in a stroller at the end of the pew. She is the spitting image of her sister, just several years younger.
“I’m sorry. She is due to be nursed.” When Agafa returns her eyes to me, it dawns on me why my parents made the promise they did when Stefania died. They were returning the silent pledges I shrouded them with when I gave them a reason to hold on. They wanted to perish with Stefania, but they lived for me. “Please excuse me.”
When Mr. Petrovitch attempts to follow his wife, instincts have me snatching up his wrist. He looks as broken as my father did the night following my mother’s death, and as hurt as Maksim was when he wondered if I had been injured the same way my mother had been, and it unlocks the words I couldn’t find only seconds ago.
“Nothing that happened was your fault. Yulia’s death isn’t on you.”
He shakes his head, sending tears tumbling down his cheeks. “I gave her the food. I fed her their poison.”
“Because you placed her first.” His sunken eyes and the looseness of his skin announce he went hungry so his daughter wouldn’t. That makes him a man—an honorable one. “Don’t ever feel guilty for doing that.”
“She was my daughter. My baby girl,” he murmurs, his heart breaking before my eyes. “It was my job to protect her, and I failed.” He tosses over the holy water at the edge of Yulia’s coffin, startling the people who have yet to file out of the church before he falls to his wife’s feet to apologize for a wrongdoing that doesn’t belong on his shoulders. “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. It’s my fault. Our little girl is dead because of me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hours later, Lev’s tearful plea for forgiveness at the feet of his wife is still playing in my mind. Agafa immediately denied his begs for redemption before she told him in no uncertain terms that Yulia’s death was no one’s fault bar the men who poisoned the food of people down on their luck, and then wrapped him up in a hug that was so warm it heated my chest.
It’s hard to concentrate on anything, so it takes me longer than I care to admit to realize I don’t recognize this part of Myasnikov whizzing past my window. I’m seated in the back of one of Maksim’s many cars, being driven to an unknown location.
I told Maksim I didn’t want to go out, but he was adamant. Not even a promise to sign on as the Ivanovs’ chief medical practitioner could persuade him to stay in. He said I need this closure as much as Yulia’s parents do, and although he’d never force me to do anything I don’t want to do, this is one thing he won’t let me back out of.
I peer at Maksim in confusion when Ano pulls to the curb at the front of a restaurant that has seen better days. Several tiles on the roof are cracked, the wood siding is moldy, and every surface is paint peeled.
“Maksim—”
“No questions, Doc. Not yet.”
He tells Ano to circle the block before he guides me up the rickety stairs.
The inside of the restaurant isn’t as worn as the outside. Patrons fill the tables, and the aromas wafting out of the kitchen are almost enticing enough to encourage the most grief-stricken people to eat.
“Thank you,” I murmur to the hostess when she hands me a menu after seating us near the back of the restaurant.
We’re right next to the kitchen, and although the food carried out by servers gives reason for the number of people eating at the rundown location, it isn’t as appealing as it should be since we’re also near the restrooms.
The only advantage of this table is that you can take in the entire restaurant. It is almost like we are at the king’s table, and everyone below us are the paupers.
I’ve barely scanned the top line of dishes on offer, faking that I plan to eat, when a friendly voice greets us, “Hello, I’m Felecia. I will be your server this evening. Can we start you with some drinks?”