Day fifteen…

I feel dull and hollowed out as I walk through the garden the next morning. I feel as if I’m mourning a death. And worse, it’s the death of something that never was.

The death of a dream can hurt more than the death of something real. Real life is ugly. A dream represents hope, progress, change.

There will be no change here. And as for progress, I feel as if I’m moving backward. I’ve made things worse with Sergei.

On some level, up until now, I still comforted myself with the bright shining lie that you can cure anything with kindness. Sergei threw that back in my face. He made me feel like a fool.

I got greedy. I wanted him to change for me. I’ll even say the L-word, a word that he would never have the courage to utter, a feeling he’d never be brave enough to feel. I wanted him to love me, just a little.

I want him to care. I’ve opened myself up to Sergei in ways I’ve never opened myself up to anybody. I let my body tell him about my twisted, perverted desires. I tried to tell him, without words, that he could trust me. I asked him for mercy.

For those few magical hours, when he held me in his arms, I thought I’d worked a miracle. I thought he’d looked deep into my imperfect soul and cared for me anyway.

Now I fear the distance between us is too vast for us to cross.

He’ll use me again sexually while I’m here. And my body will love it. And my heart will break a little more every time.

I won’t try to reach out to him emotionally again. I can’t survive the aftermath.

When I sit outside and sketch today, it’s like the darkness inside me is flowing through my pastels. The seagulls that swoop overhead have dark, angry eyes and cruel, hooked beaks. The flowers that frame my picture are spiky and stunted.

“Majka!” a little voice cries out, and Lukas is dodging through rose bushes, running straight for me.

He reaches me and hugs me, babbling.

I feel happy and sad at the same time. I love being with him, getting to play with him, but I hate that he’s growing up in this toxic place. And it’s so sad that he wants something that he can’t have.

I flip the sheet of paper over and call up a fresh one. I point at it, and the little boy’s eyes light up. He sits still as I sketch him.

“Willow.” I hear Sergei’s harsh voice summoning me from behind the hedges. Something about that feels odd and out of place, and then I realize that he’s never spent any time with me in the sunlight. I’m his dirty little secret.

I sit there and ignore him in a fit of petty spite. He calls me a second time, and this time his voice is closer. I sit there for just a moment more, hidden behind a hedge of roses, and pretend that I am a free woman who is not at the beck and call of a cruel, sadistic dragon. Like all moments of pure pleasure, it passes too soon. I hear his footsteps thudding toward me.

“What?” I call back, standing up.

He comes around the corner and heads my way, a look of anger on his face that vanishes instantly when he sees Lukas.

Lukas lights up and waves at him, and I feel as if a mountain has been snatched off my shoulders. Lukas is not the least bit afraid of Sergei, and that sends a ray of light beaming into the darkness of my world. Lukas is safe. Whether he’s Sergei’s son or not – and I’m sure he is – Sergei won’t hurt him.

“You heard me the first time,” Sergei says to me, his voice deceptively calm. Today his eyes are not blue. They are a stormy gray, and they hold the promise of pain without pleasure.

“Yes, sir.” I don’t bother to deny it.

Just then, the older couple comes rushing up, breathless. They look worried, but not flat-out terrified. I’m glad they’re not afraid of him. Sergei’s relationship with them and the little boy is different than with anyone else.

Sergei says something to the little boy, his tone mildly chastising. Lukas pouts and hangs his head, then turns back to the couple and says something which I suspect is an apology.

Then he points at me and says something that includes the word Majka, and for the first time it hits me. I think he’s calling me ‘mother’.”

Sergei shakes his head and says something to Lukas, and Lukas bursts into furious tears. He clings to my leg and yells something at Sergei.

Rage burns through me. “What did you say to him?” I snap at Sergei, in a tone I’ve never used with him before.

Sergei scowls down at the child. “I told him that you’re not his mother, and that you will be leaving soon.”

Lukas seems to understand that, because he breaks into heartbreaking sobs and buries his face in my leg.

“You son of a bitch,” I hiss at Sergei.

Sergei looks angry and frustrated. I kneel and wrap my arms around Lukas, who wails like only a heartbroken child can. It’s a sound to make angels weep.

Sergei throws his hands up in the air, furious. “He wants for nothing,” he snaps. “He has more toys than an entire toy store. Clothing. Food. Warmth. He’s cared for by people who love him like their own.”

I stand up, holding Lukas in my arms.

“I keep forgetting that you’ve got a slithering rattlesnake where your heart should be.” I spit the words at Sergei. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, but if I do, it will frighten Lukas. “I keep forgetting that you have no idea what actual human emotions look like. This boy lost his mother, and he doesn’t give a damn about material things. No child at this age does. He wants his mother. He’s so desperate for her that he latched on to the first female stranger he saw and decided it was his mother come back for him. You could throw all the toys in the world at him and he wouldn’t care. “

“He’ll get over it.” Sergei’s words freeze me to the core, but then his next words stab me through the heart. “Children always do.”

There’s so much pain in those words, so much weariness and disgust at the world, so much remembered loss and heartbreak.

A sudden, horrible thought seizes me. Did my father kill Sergei’s mother? As retribution for some fight over turf or product, maybe? I used to think that Sergei’s grab for territory was all about greed and power, but his unrelenting hatred of us make it obvious that he hates us for darker reasons. What did we do to him to set him on this course of destruction?

I struggle to keep my voice steady and calm. “If you don’t want to hurt him, then let him down gently. Sir. Tell him that I’m his friend, and I can play with him for a little while longer today.”

Sergei kneels down next to him and talks, and the boy shakes his head angrily.

I give him the pencil and point at the paper. Sullenly, he starts to draw. He sketches a palm tree. He’s actually quite talented for a child his age. I say nice things to him in Russian, praising the picture. Sergei translates, and a tiny smile curls Lukas’ Cupid’s-bow lips, but I can tell that nothing will lift his mood.

I deliberately avoid looking at Sergei, but I can feel him watching me as he sits on a bench nearby. I’m too well attuned to him; I can sense when he’s near, I can feel his moods, I can anticipate them. Like lovers on the same wavelength – but the opposite. What’s the complete, total antithesis of a lover? Whatever it is, I’m definitely that.

“Sergei!” I hear Jasha calling him, from the direction of the house. There’s a note of tension in his voice, and my heart sinks.

Bad news for Sergei is very likely bad news for me. Even if it just means that Sergei will treat me even worse than usual.

I hand the sketch pad and box of pencils to Lukas, and of course he starts to cry, and of course it makes me want to cry.

Before he can grab me and cling to me, the older man picks him up and carries him away. He is speaking words of comfort to the little boy.

Sergei gestures at me impatiently. “Go back to your room.”

I obey him, and as I walk, the sunlight that warmed me before is nothing but a harsh spotlight on my dull sorrow. I think of the giant ache in my chest every time I remember my mother. It hurts too much to think about her often, so I try to forget her.

Lukas is braver than me. He’ll do anything to keep his mother’s memory alive. Even invent her when she’s not there.

And Sergei is wrong. You never get over a loss like that. You just learn to move through a life that’s paler and colder.