“Because you’re not in Russia?” he asked after a moment.
Vera sighed.
If only it was that easy ...
“Because I’m not in Russia,” she agreed, then adding just as quickly, “or because my husband calls once a week, and tells me exactly nothing. I mentioned earlier how my villa was ruined by a bomb, didn’t I? Years of life just ... gone.”
Every photo.
The plants.
Vera still felt like the bomb had happened so quickly, and because she had not yet been back to Noble Row, it was still surreal in her mind. Not entirely real. She couldn’t picture it; couldn’t wrap her mind around what she was told would now be her reality. How was this big part of her history just gone?
She knew it was.
Maybe she just had to see it.
But that was only one problem.
Bigger ones awaited.
“Or it could be because my best friend is still in a coma, and her mother’s been actively working to abort her fetus but there’s not a thing I can do,” Vera added, gesturing broadly in front of herself.
Well, she couldn’t do much but the circumstances and a few phone calls by Vaslav might have helped to move some things along. The only thing her husband would entertain with conversation when pressed by Vera beyond the weather in his part of the world, but she gave Vaslav credit. He had made every effort he could to help.
It did.
Hannah’s circumstance worked to her favor, too. Significant brain activity and a letter from Hannah’s physician who had privately confirmed the pregnancy with her initially had put a momentary halt in her mother’s plans. Hannah had wanted her child, and her body was capable of carrying the baby to term. Or damn close to it.
Marlena Malone wouldn’t get her way.
Vera was working just as hard as the bitch to make sure of it.
“Life’s a little messy,” Roman muttered.
Vera scoffed. “Nice way to put it.”
“Yeah, well ...”
He didn’t even bother to finish his sentence, what good would it do? As it was, Vera had already figured out her brother’s reason for seeking their parents home out on the outskirts of the city while the sky burned brightly with the colors of the sunset.
“What, are you worried about me, too?”
Roman snorted, and folded his tattooed arms over his broad, muscular chest. His gaze remained fixated on the edge of the blue tile along the edge of the pool instead of her as he replied, “Get real—I’m not patting your head and telling you everything’s gonna be okay. That’s Ma’s job, Vera.”
“Doesn’t matter, anyway. Wouldn’t help if you did.”
He met her gaze then.
Vera offered him a sad smile, muttering, “Nothing’s okay, so.”
Roman exhaled the breath he’d been holding, replying dully, “Yeah. I hate when shit feels like that. Makes everything else worse.”
A human condition. Or that’s how her husband would have explained it away.
The quiet stillness between Vera and her brother at least felt comforting to her, but she wouldn’t bother to tell Roman as much. He wasn’t the type for deep feelings and introspective conversations that dug beyond surface level things. A lot like their father, in that way, he found it easier to deal with the tougher shit when he wasn’t breaking to pieces over it.
She still loved her brother, though.
Adored him for sitting quietly with her while the sun sat around them, and the early May evening air crept in with a chilliness that made her grateful she had pulled on a thick hoodie.
“She doesn’t know, either,” Vera said under her breath. “So all Ma’s got to go on about me is what she sees and does know. Which isn’t much.”
The top of the edge at her brother’s back became the focal point for her attention as she kept her tone level and her thoughts blank. It was easier that way because then she didn’t fall into a puddle of her own tears.
“Know what?” Roman asked.
Right.
She hadn’t explained that bit.
“The day the bomb went off in front of my villa, I found out I was pregnant that morning,” Vera said, shrugging one shoulder like it wouldn’t make that news a big deal. She didn’t want it to be something that her brother made a spectacle out of, even if it was just to apologize to her when she delivered the next part of the story. “And then I woke up three days later in the hospital with no baby inside me.”
Vera laughed a bleak sound, but nothing about this was very funny. It just made everything easier to swallow. “I passed everything before I could even take a second to love what was there before it wasn’t. It’s kind of weird. I’m not sure how you grieve something you didn’t have. So all I want is to go back to the place I was before this happened. Happy with my new husband. Do you know what I mean?”
Roman had turned into stone across the pool. “No, I can’t say that I do, but I’m a dude without a uterus. The only thing I think about when babies come to my mind is stabbing myself in the eye.”
“Nice, Rome.”
Another man in her life who didn’t sugarcoat shit. It really was no big shocker why Vera gravitated toward a husband like the one she now had when someone took a good look at the rest of the men she loved in one way or another.
Her brother grunted something unintelligible under his breath. It might have been an apology, or something else, but Vera wasn’t looking for that sort of sympathy.
He waved a hand while his other stroked his chin and down his jaw. “My point was—okay—that no, I can’t imagine how you feel, and it sucks you gotta feel that way at all right now.”
Raking her fingers through her hair—left loose and cut into an angular bob yet again—as she leaned back on the lawn chair, she continued using her fingertips to massage her scalp, across her cheekbones, and then at her temples. She wished it would help with the way even her face felt exhausted.
As if that was a real thing.
Except it seemed to be.
For her. Every part of her was tired. Of everything. Even moving and being. Something else about depression that nobody talked about—it wasn’t just being sad. There was so much more to the empty loneliness, a constantly growing hole, someone felt even when standing in a room full of people they loved. Or how getting out of bed every day was a chore, and only to be done when needed.
Cleaning?
What the fuck was that?
So had been Vera’s life in a nutshell for the past months that she’d been staying with her parents in New York. Day after day. Night after night. The same thing, it never changed. Yes, she was absolutely sad, but it was so much more than that, too.
No wonder her ma noticed. Claire probably knew she also couldn’t fix it, but making others around Vera aware of her situation at least offered her kindness, love, and support. For that, she was grateful.
Eventually, Roman decided to restart the conversation when he popped his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “So, I have a question. If you don’t mind.”
“Since when did my little brother ever care if I minded about something?”
His chest heaved with a gusty breath. “Dad told me after he came home from Russia that you seemed less prone to bullshit. I kind of took it as a fair warning.”
Huh.