Well.
He wasn’t wrong.
Vera didn’t entirely understand the situation at hand, but the teenager with the apparent answers had moved to other business. Like her luggage.
Kiril pulled the rolling pieces behind him as he climbed the steps. “Oh, and fair warning ... the smell of the roses are only a little overwhelming at first. I promise it gets better.”
She stared at the back of his retreating head, more confused than ever.
“What roses?”
“The house,” he told her, correcting quickly with, “well, the foyer—it’s full of them.”
That comment had Vera sprinting forward beyond Kiril on the steps to reach the door first.
What else did Vaslav do?
She soon found out.
Kiril hadn’t lied.
The house opened to white roses everywhere.
20.
The roses weren’t the only thing waiting to surprise Vera inside the house. Not once in their many phone conversations had her husband mentioned the fact that he had allowed the contractor who she’d met with before and after the wedding to go ahead with their renovation plans on the first and second floors. She noticed the difference downstairs first because the doors across from Vaslav’s den no longer existed and instead, the hallway opened wider into the studio space that now connected to the set of suites upstairs.
She only briefly stopped at the various art easels and stacked, unused canvases, turning a wide circle to take in the tables full of supplies she had mentioned in passing would be nice, and then she headed for the winding metal stars in the very middle of the room.
Every step seemed to chime under her footsteps on the way up. Alone to discover the changes—as Kiril had taken her bags upstairs and Mira yelled her greeting from the kitchen and promised food would be ready soon—Vera tried not to feel guilty about the excitement swelling in her heart as she entered the upstairs suites.
Unlike the open concept studio-like space below, some of the walls that sectioned off the suites upstairs remained standing. Except she hadn’t wanted to keep any doors between the different rooms, and the contractor had assured he could condense the many spaces into two larger ones without compromising the integrity of the rest of the house. The stairwell led up to a small alcove where it opened to both rooms with tall windows where the light spilled in to cover nearly every inch. Morning and afternoon light that wouldn’t be too harsh for the indoor plants but would keep them growing and thriving all year long.
She didn’t expect to find any plants already waiting, some with nursery tags still attached and others in different sized terracotta pots, but it stopped Vera in her tracks. The bigger pots sat on the floor while a couple of small growing vines had been placed on the windowsill with room to hang. A table made of glossy oak sat in the middle of the larger room covered in tools, hangers, pots, and even a high pile of soil that had managed to stay on the table instead of the freshly waxed hardwood floors.
She hadn’t even taken the time to look at the other side, with the smaller room, but already Vera could tell ... it was perfect.
Every bit of it.
Yes, it still needed some work. She had planned for shelves but wanted Vaslav to build them once she picked out the perfect stain to match the floors. They would need to attach hooks into the bare beams stretching overhead for the hanging plants she wanted, but those things gave her something to still look forward to.
It gave them something to do.
Together.
Some items on the table had tags attached. Others looked like they had been used. Vera suspected someone—probably Vaslav—had been playing in the dirt as a few pots were filled but nothing else.
Did he feel like he needed to wait?
She’d wanted this for him, too.
“He put your lilac thing—the one at your place in the city?—in the back, I guess,” came the familiar voice of Kiril from behind Vera.
She didn’t turn around to face Kiril, not wanting him to see her watery gaze while it took an inventory of everything around her. Maybe her tears came from the sudden swell of happiness at seeing one of her dreams come true, or it could have been the fact that the person she wanted to share it with was not there.
“Lucky I grabbed that for you the week before, huh?” Kiril asked.
Vera let out a slow breath that helped with the shakiness in her voice when she replied, “I hadn’t really thought about the fact that it survived.”
She didn’t tell anyone, really, but Vera had needed to stop thinking about the bomb and her lost villa. Never mind the damage to her neighbors’ homes on either side of hers, or the trauma to an otherwise quiet and safe community. She had to stop obsessing over an event she couldn’t even remember that didn’t entirely feel real.
Maybe once she saw the flattened space where her villa had once stood, that mindset of hers could change. For now, not thinking about it protected Vera in a way she couldn’t explain to the rest of the world, but she wouldn’t apologize for it, either. She had to do what she had to do to get from one day to the next.
“Oh, and the bench came in yesterday for it,” Kiril added.
Vera spun around fast. “What bench?”
Leaning against the wall, Kiril shrugged. “The bench for the lilac in the back. Vas said he ordered it. I don’t know.”
Right.
Kiril only knew what he had been told, and Vera couldn’t expect more from the kid. She didn’t bother to explain her sudden desire to leave as she passed him by to head back down the stairs. Never mind that the bench he mentioned shouldn’t even exist.
Technically.
Vera was supposed to pick one out. Yet another thing her husband had forgotten to mention in her time away that he apparently took control of and handled. Except with this, Vera wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about it.
She’d yet to even see the bench.
Kiril followed behind Vera in silence, but he veered off downstairs to head for the kitchen when Mira called out his name. That was fine. Vera could find the bench all on her own know it was somewhere in the back of the house. She used Vaslav’s den to exit onto the rear porch, and there it sat. Next to Irina’s lilacs in bloom.
Backless and curved, the seat of the bench was carved from a single piece of wood. Where it sat on the ground only a few feet away from the porch’s steps, Vera had a great view of the glossy wood and every grain and color that stretched from one side to the other. It was the cherub, chubby-cheeked with a head of curls and angel wings, branded into the middle of the seat that took her breath away.
Vera took the steps slowly, but she couldn’t look away from the wings of the cherub that wrapped around the infant like it was holding the baby in a cradle. Depicted with closed eyes; eternally sleeping.
Once she was close enough, Vera traced the burned lines in the wood grain that were protected by the glossy finish on top. She asked Vaslav time and time again to let her come home, and his refusals always felt cold and hollow. A part of her thought it was because he didn’t care that she wanted to be home with him, but now Vera wasn’t sure if that was actually the case.
He went on like she was still here.
Never stopped thinking of her.
Like she didn’t even leave.
“Mira said the food’s ready. Did you want to eat out here?”