I’m afraid I fell apart after inviting my grandmother to Sergei’s funeral. I ended up in bed crying like a baby. She arranged everything. She got a white pet casket delivered inside of an hour. It has a cross etched on the lid and it is satin lined. She put his favorite toys and blanket into it. She ordered flowers. White roses. She invited the staff to come.

We meet under the apple tree. The sky above is charcoal and a great storm is expected later. The gardener, John, has dug a hole. Nobody can meet my eyes. There is an air of shock and disbelief. The little Polish maid who helps the chef looks frightened. Her eyes dart about nervously.

Baba and I are dressed entirely in black. I hold a handkerchief to my trembling mouth while Baba says a little prayer. I watch everybody throw coins on top of the coffin.

I kneel down and throw the first clump of soil on his casket.

‘My darling Sergei, please forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me that I wasn’t there to protect you,’ I whisper softly. ‘I know I promised that I wouldn't cry and make your spirit anxious, but I just can’t bear this sorrow. Never mind, I'll see you again,’ I say, and begin to stand, but I stumble backwards. I feel an arm come around my back.

‘Don't shed further tears, Tasha. Love is eternal. He will love you from wherever he is,’ Baba consoles, but her voice rings hollow in my ears.

Then everybody else throws their handful of dirt, and Baba comes to me. With her hand firmly around my waist she leads me away.

I let her take me back to the house. At the door she stops and holds out a hand. She is asking for my handkerchief. It is our custom to throw away our used handkerchiefs after a funeral. It is a way of reminding the mourners that one’s sorrows should start to diminish once the funeral has passed and not carried much farther into the future.

Automatically, I put my handkerchief into her hand.

‘Shall we have some tea?’ Baba asks, putting both our handkerchiefs in a plastic bag.

I shake my head. ‘I’ll just lie down for a while,’ I say.

She smiles. ‘Yes. Perhaps you should have a nap. I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours and we can have lunch together.’

I nod vaguely and enter the house. The house is even more silent than it usually is. I feel a strange chill go through me at the deathly silence. I go upstairs to my room.

While I was out someone has cleaned the room. Sergei’s bed is gone and the room smells of air freshener. I go to the window and watch John fill Sergei’s grave. Shovel by shovel until the ground is level. I watch him stop, push his palms into the small of his back, then sit under the tree and light a cigarette. His life seems wonderfully simple and uncomplicated.

Never again to see those eyes.

Tears cloud my eyes as I turn away from the window and walk to the bed. I sit on it and feel as if I am hollow, all my insides eaten away. Sergei’s little funeral has crushed my heart and broken my spirit in a way nothing before has done. I loved Sergei like he was part of me. He was always by my side other than the rare times I could not take him. I don’t even feel real anymore.

I feel as if I am living in a dream.

How can it be anything but a dream, if one moment someone is warm and alive and real and the next they are just gone? Forever. You cannot see, touch, or hear them ever again. How can all of us walk about pretending life is real, that it couldn’t at the drop of a hat pop into nothing?

What almighty arrogance to think that I of all people had anything in my control. What a joke. How my father must be laughing now. I believed, I actually believed, I could have my cake and eat it. I thought I could have Mama, Baba, Sergei, even Papa, and Noah. One big happy family. Fool. In one brutal stroke my father showed me different. I underestimated him.

Badly.

My father doesn’t understand love, but he has a gift of manipulating the love others feel. He sees inside a heart, feels its greatest vulnerability, and attacks. Yes, he took my beloved Sergei from me, but I know Sergei died with his love for me intact forever and mine for him.

There is a soft knock on my door.

I walk to it and open it. Rosita is standing outside. ‘Your father wants you to join him for lunch downstairs,’ she says.

‘Thank you, Rosita. Tell him I’ll be down in a minute,’ I say and close the door. He is home. I did not realize.

I lean against the door, feeling so numb that I cannot even begin to figure out why my father wants me to join him for lunch. Does he want to gloat? Does he want to frighten me more? Does he just want to have lunch with me because what he did to Sergei is not a big deal?

I straighten, open the door, and go downstairs towards the dining room. On the way I meet one of his men. He nods to me and I nod back automatically.

I open the dining room door and my father looks up and smiles. To look at him you would never believe that he sent someone up to his own daughter’s bedroom to murder her dog so she would come home totally unsuspecting and find the slaughter. I don’t smile back. I just stare at him. Shocked that all these years I never really knew him at all.

He puts his fork and knife down. ‘Come in, come in,’ he invites genially, still chewing his food.

I don’t move.

He smiles. ‘Just because it is delivered in a friendly tone do not regard my invitation as anything but a direct order.’

I walk stiffly into the room. My right palm is itching. I hold it in my left hand and scratch it furiously.

‘Come closer,’ he purrs. ‘What are you afraid of?’

I take a few more steps.

He stands up and, bending down, takes something out of a cardboard box. To my absolute horror and disgust it is a blue Doberman puppy. My eyes bulge with shock. Surely not. The puppy is the exact age Sergei was when he gave him to me.

My eyes move slowly up to his.

‘This is a present for you,’ he says, jerking it slightly in my direction.

I stare at him dumbfounded. I thought my father was a monster, but he is not. To be a monster means you have feelings. My mother was right. My father has no feelings. He killed my beloved dog and now he is replacing it with a puppy. He can give then take it away and give it again. What a sick freak. Only a man who cannot feel love would do what he is doing. He jerks the puppy again to encourage me to take it.

I take a step back. ‘I don’t want it,’ I say.

He scowls. ‘If you don’t take it I’ll have to get the staff to drown it.’

My mouth drops open and he takes a step towards me with the puppy wriggling in his outstretched hands. I put my hands out and take it from him. Its body is soft and warm and I feel the tears start to burn the backs of my eyes.

I turn around so he will not see them and run out of the room. I stand for a moment in the grand foyer. Rosita is on her hands and knees polishing the marble steps. I walk up to her.

The puppy makes a small sound that is not quite a bark yet. It tears at my heart. Sergei used to make that sound. It’s not its fault. It’s just an innocent little thing, but I can’t even look at it. My heart is broken. I hold it out to her.

‘Please can you take him and see that he is well taken care of.’

She looks at me with a surprised, confused face, but she puts her hands out and takes the puppy from me. I wipe my hands on the sides of my dress.

‘Thank you, Rosita,’ I croak, and run upstairs.

In my room I fall on my bed and sob my heart out. I don’t even hear the door open, I only feel it when Baba’s hand falls on my head and strokes my hair gently.

‘I hate him,’ I sob. ‘I hate him so much.’

Baba says nothing, just hums an old Russian song she used to sing to put me to sleep when I was a child.