Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“No, this is Fin. My friend.” I don’t know any Alexander. It was weird when she came up with the name, and weirder still that she keeps mentioning it.
“Come!” She makes a grabbing motion in the air, which is my cue.
Relief and love flood my system as I lean in for a kiss and she takes my face in her hands. She smells of flour and tomatoes and lavender water, the very singular scents somehow ingrained in her skin. “How are you, my love?”
But she doesn’t answer, reaching now for Fin. Those grabbing granny hands must be universal, as I find him next to me. We swap sides, and Baba takes hold of his face.
“Aleksander, you cut your lion mane!”
“I did. But it was for a good cause.” Pressing his hands over hers, he drops to one knee in front of her chair.
“For my Mila?”
“I like to think so.”
“It’s Fin, Baba,” I interject. I know I’m not supposed to correct her, but I find myself doing so anyway.
“Yes, yes. Aleksander. Like the conqueror.”
“Alexander the Great?” I screw up my face. The ancient Macedonian king from way back before baby Jesus hit the scene?
“He looked like a lion. So handsome.”
“And you know that how?” Because when we watched the movie starring Colin Farrell, she tutted and complained about his terribly dyed hair.
“Because he is here!” she says—sort of, you silly girl.
“Alexander the Great?”
“No, your husband. He looks like lion. But where has his hair gone?”
“Baba, what are you talking about?” A frisson, something uncanny, washes over my skin, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand like pins.
This is so freaky.
“You married her, huh? You married my Mila in the sunshine?”
“Yes, that’s right. Just like you told her I would.”
Like she . . . oh, my days.
“You will look after her,” she says, turning his left palm in her hand.
“Always.”
She begins to study his palm, and I feel my cheeks heat with the silly, old-country-ness of it as she runs her finger along the lines. “Many, many lovers,” she says, her eyes dancing as though to say Lucky you! “But that stops now. Here.” She taps his palm. “One love, your whole life. And you will be very, very happy.”
“That’s good to know,” Fin says. “Thank you.”
“Baba.” I make a noise; frustration mixed with pain, though I don’t know why. It’s not as though she’ll remember this conversation. Or at least, not verbatim.
Or maybe it’s because Fin will.
“Money, children.” She glances my way. “Two. The girl you will call Roza.”
I don’t think so—on either front.
She lowers her head, then lifts it immediately again, as though struck by a sudden thought. “Oh! Lucky Mila. Your Aleksander will keep you very happy in the bedroom.”
“Baba! There’s no way you can see that on his palm.” But I look anyway, as though I expect to see some kind of phallic symbol.
“Your grandfather, Stefan.” She shakes her head. “I was not so lucky.”
“I think that’s enough for today.”
Baba reclines a little in her high-backed chair, her face wreathed in a smile. “I told you, darling. I saw your husband in the coffee grounds. This one,” she says with a waggle of her finger. “This one, he is a good one.”
Chapter 29
Mila
He knew about it all along. He knew about her silly premonition, and he never breathed a word—never said that I told him.
Cringe. Cringe. Cringe!
Bloody shrooms. I’m so embarrassed. Not that Baba’s words can have anything to do with our marriage. It’s just a coincidence, that’s all. She didn’t even get his name right and she thought he was Alexander the Great! Not that I would mind seeing him in a toga.
We leave Baba dozing in her chair, though she made him promise to bring the backgammon board next time he visited. Not a backgammon board but the backgammon board. I really want to ask him if he owns one, but I don’t really want to know the answer.
“Where can I take you?”
“I’d really rather make my own way.” There’s a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball, and I’m worried it might shoot out. I’m going to Baba’s flat, and the place is a dump—it all got too much for Roza, and I never realized the extent of her difficulties until I had to move back in. It’s not like I abandoned her when I moved out in my early twenties, but I’d take her for lunch and days out rather than visit. Christmas and Easter she’d come to us. I wanted to treat her, but in doing so, somehow I missed her illness.
But if the flat is a dump, the building is a dumpster fire. In an island of dumpster fires. I don’t want Fin anywhere near the place.
“Seems unnecessary. I have my car, and you’re clearly in a hurry to go somewhere.”