– 11 –
“Childish,” I shake my head. “It’s when a person pretends nothing is happening and hopes everything will go away on its own. And by the way, I honestly wrote down what I thought. In black and white.”
“The selfish dog,” Gordey reminds him calmly. “Very constructive. A perfect example of adult dialogue.”
The heart makes a painful beat.
Yes, I wrote it that way. And at that moment I believed in every letter.
“You wanted it fair and square,” I shrug, feigning indifference. “You got it fair and square.”
He stares at me without blinking. His gaze is heavy, penetrating. It makes me sick inside. Waves of hot, seething anger, mixed with resentment and fatigue, wash over me.
“You could have talked to me,” Gordey repeats stubbornly. “Tell me all this to my face. Don’t hide behind a piece of paper.”
– Why? To hear once again that you don’t want a child from me?
For a second, Gordey clenched his jaw tighter.
“I was talking about risk,” he says quietly. “About how important you are to me. Alive.” But, of course, it’s easier to remember just the phrase taken out of context.
“More convenient?” I gasp. “It was more convenient for you to pretend it was just a contraceptive error. To torment me, while you…”
I take a step forward, feeling myself literally shaking from the inside.
– Have you ever asked how I feel? What your words mean to me?
“But you knew perfectly well what you meant to me,” he snaps. “And yet you still decided to weigh your ‘dream’ against my ‘I won’t survive losing you.'”
He says the word “dream” with such disdain that it makes my eyes darken. Stubborn idiot! Simply impenetrable!
“You didn’t even try to listen,” I whisper. “You came right away with a ready-made solution. ‘I forbid it. I won’t allow it. I don’t need it.’ For you, the child was nothing but a threat.”
He rises abruptly from his chair. The kitchen seems to shrink by half.
“Because I’m used to calculating risks,” Gordey says firmly. “That’s how I live. And yes, when the cardiologist tells me there’s a risk of ‘fatal outcome,’ I don’t clap my hands and run out to buy rattles, Varya. I’m thinking about how to keep you from dying on the operating table.”
I’ll never tell him about Lyova. Never myself. He doesn’t need him. The poor soldier!
There’s something tearing in my chest.
I still remember that office, the doctor’s dry voice, his “it is highly undesirable to become pregnant.”
But I had hope then.
And Gordey only has the risk of a “fatal outcome.”
“Yes. And then,” I whisper, dejectedly, “you go pick up your daughter from the maternity hospital.”
Silence falls between us like a heavy slab.
Gordey looks at me as if I just shot.
“That’s the thing,” he says slowly. “That’s where it all comes from.”
“And after that, you still have the nerve to ask why there’s a note?” My lips tremble, and I grit my teeth to keep my voice down. “Because you clearly told me our child is nothing to you and that you don’t need him, but I received a photo of you holding a pink bundle. Outside the perinatal center. In the very same clothes you left in that morning. On the very day you said you were at work. Do you need any more explanation?”
Gordey is silent. He doesn’t look away.
“I thought,” her voice breaks into a laugh, “that you’d start denying it now. Talking about editing and a setup.”
“There’s no point in denying the obvious,” he answers curtly. “Yes. It was me. Yes, that day. Yes, I was in the perinatal ward.”
A shiver runs down my spine. Even though I knew it, it’s still a blow.
“So?” I exhale. “Were you just passing by? Did you decide to help a stranger hold her baby?”
Sarcasm flows by itself, I can’t control it anymore.
“I picked Nika up from the maternity hospital,” he says, deadly evenly. “Yes. That’s right. She and Anya are dear to me.”
His impudence leaves me speechless.
“Congratulations,” I exhale hoarsely. “You’ve made a great father.”
– 12 –
“Stop it,” Gordey snaps. “I’m not going to explain everything you don’t know and didn’t want to know. And it won’t fix the past.”
“Of course,” I laugh quietly, mirthlessly. “Why? You didn’t think it necessary to tell your pregnant wife about it. The one with the heart condition. The one you were so worried about that you ended up taking the other one out of the hospital.”
Anger flashes in his eyes.
“What did you expect, Varya? When they want to find out something, they talk. You burned all the bridges yourself,” he snaps. “You ran away, cleaned out the safe, wrote that you’d ‘solved the problem, just like I wanted.’ Remember? You yourself said back then that you’d gotten rid of the child. Although I was unhappy, I didn’t force you to do anything. These were all your decisions.”
“I wrote this after the photo,” I say, looking away. “After I saw you with someone else’s child. So don’t shift the blame. You’re with the people you love, so what do you want from me now?”
My heart is beating so hard that I’m afraid it’s going to burst out of my chest.
Gordey looks at me without looking away, breathing heavily.
“I wanted to understand what motivated you, to have you tell me all your grievances to my face, so that it wouldn’t be a guess, but straight out. You made your decision for both of us back then,” he finally says. “Without talking. Without asking. You simply took one picture and drew conclusions.”
“And you decided,” I retort, “for both of us even earlier. When you started lying to me and leading a double life behind my back. You somehow didn’t rush to let me in on your secret family.”
We stand opposite each other, literally incinerating each other with our gazes.
“Nika…” For the first time in the entire conversation, he hesitates slightly, as if he’s uncomfortable even saying it out loud. “That’s a whole other story. And no,” his gaze turns icy, “it’s not a secret family I’ve been hiding from you for years. But you still won’t believe me, because you prefer to see me as a dog.”
“You had time to tell me everything, but you chose to lie. So there was something to lie about and something to hide. And yes, after that, I filled in the missing details myself. And as it turned out, very accurately. Do you know what’s actually more convenient for me, Gordey?” I say with a bitter smile. “I’d rather die on the operating table than live knowing my husband didn’t want our child, while he was holding another, desired, harmless girl in his arms.”
A hot, nasty tear runs down my cheek. I wipe it away with the back of my hand, angry at myself for being so weak.
Gordey smiles crookedly.
“There,” he says quietly. “Finally, it’s honest. You would choose death to spite me. You do everything to spite me.”
“I chose life to spite you,” I snap back.
We both fall silent.
His gaze catches my face, lingering on the dark circles under my eyes. I can almost physically feel the question rising within him: “And how has this life helped you?”
“Well, yes. Life,” he repeats slowly. “In which you hide with strangers, live in this…” he glances around the kitchen, wincing, “kennel, walk around half-dead from exhaustion, and hate me as if I were the one torturing you. Is this your great choice, Varya?”
“Yes,” I stubbornly raise my chin.
He exhales loudly, as if he’s holding back from yelling obscenities.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he blurts out unexpectedly. “For months. I thought something had happened to you, that you were sick, that you needed help. I…”
“I know. Mom told me,” I say dryly. “How you were darting back and forth. And then suddenly… like a whisper. You stopped. So you found something more interesting to do.”
“I understand that you don’t want to be found,” he corrects harshly. “Your Seryoga convinced me of that very clearly.”
“Convinced?” I smile.
“Seeing a man in the same apartment as you was enough for me,” his tone becomes low, dangerous. “And your shoes in the hallway next to his. I didn’t mean to start a fight on someone else’s doorstep. If you chose someone else, then that’s the way it should be.”
“What did you think?” I can’t help but ask. “That you could simultaneously call my child unwanted, hide another woman with a baby from me, and still expect me to wait faithfully by the window? Forever?”
“I thought you wouldn’t act so rashly,” he retorts harshly. “That you wouldn’t go into a hysterical abortion. That you’d have enough sense and…” he grits his teeth, “respect for me to at least give me a chance to explain myself.”
The word “abortion” seems to hiss between us like acid.
Everything inside me is twisted into a tight ball. Tears burn my eyes. I can’t tell him the truth.
If I tell him, Lyova will no longer be mine alone. In a fit of resentment and anger, Gordey can get on my nerves, not just mine, but our child’s as well. He didn’t need it then, so why would my ex be so worried about my son’s mental state now?
“It was too late to explain,” I exhale wearily. “It’s so convenient to remember those conversations when you’re already standing there holding someone else’s child and lying to your wife about being at work.”
He closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, anger and fatigue are coiled tightly in them.
“I’m no saint,” Gordey says, surprisingly evenly. “I’ve never pretended to be. Yeah, I did a lot of stupid things back then. Yeah, I didn’t tell you the truth about Nika and the baby. Because I didn’t think you were capable of taking it well in that state.”
He looks straight into my eyes.
“But can you at least once in your life admit that you, too, did something stupid? That your note wasn’t an act of great freedom, but cowardice and stupidity?”
It takes my breath away.
– No. If I stayed, I would have betrayed myself.
I take a step back, leaning against the doorframe because my legs are shaking.
– And now at least I know that I did everything I could. Unlike you.
Gordey chuckled irritably.
“All I could do was abandon everything and everyone, leave one note, and disappear. That’s all your heroism.”
He glances at the clock above the door, as if putting a period.
“Okay,” his tone becomes dry and businesslike. “Noted. Your theory remains the same: I’m the dog, you’re the victim.”
