by Nicole Fox
The day after we’d moved in here, Artem had brought a selection of clothes for me.
I knew it was probably superficial of me, but I was thrilled. I’d spent so many months living in the same two items that it felt amazing to be able to swap out my old clothes for new, stylish ones.
I choose dark jeans that fit me perfectly and I pair them with a teal silk blouse and a beige cashmere sweater that’s so soft I could sleep in it. I leave my hair loose around my shoulders and then I change Phoenix. Artem brough in a selection of clothes for him too, but only a few.
He’d understood that I might want to do most of his shopping on my own.
And that’s precisely what I planned on doing today.
I put a fresh diaper on Phoenix and then I help him into light blue overalls and white booties with little sailboats on the sides.
He looks so gorgeous that I can’t help myself—I take a bunch of pictures on my phone and send them to Artem.
Then I grab Phoenix’s diaper bag and head downstairs with the little one in tow.
The moment I enter the building’s entryway, I spy my bodyguards. Alik has ash-blonde hair, dark eyes, and the palest skin I’ve ever seen.
Gennadi is dark-haired, with light blue eyes and a grisly beard that hides how pretty his face is underneath.
I wave to them and they both approach me immediately.
They’re dressed in plainclothes just like Artem told me they would be, but nothing but about says “civilian.” They look like military men going home for the summer.
“Madam Kovalyov,” Gennadi greets me.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Call me that one more time and we’re gonna have problems,” I warn. “My name is Esme.”
“Would you prefer Ms. Esme?” Alik asks respectfully.
“No, I wouldn’t,” I reply, before steering towards the exit. “Come on, boys.”
There’s a dark blue jeep parked in one of the designated resident parking spots outside the building. Alik gets into the driver’s seat, Gennadi takes the passenger seat, and I get into the back with Phoenix to buckle him into his car seat.
“Where to?” Gennadi asks, purposefully avoiding addressing me.
I suppress a smile at his decorum. “Um, how about Citadel Outlets?” I suggest. “They’ll have lots of different stores for you, right, cielito?”
It’s an easy drive there. I alternate between gazing out at the azure California sky and tickling Phoenix just so I can hear his musical laugh.
When we get to the Citadel, I get out the moment the car is parked.
“Which one of you boys are gonna carry Phoenix’s diaper bag for me?” I ask cheerfully, waggling the pink-and-purple duffle between them.
Alik and Gennadi exchange a look, but they both offer their arms out to me. I hand it to Gennadi. Lucky man.
Alik helps me load Phoenix into the stroller. Then, with everybody situated, we walk into the nearest store, a huge Osh Kosh, while the two of them stay constantly roving around me, scanning for threats.
An hour and three bulging shopping bags later, we exit. Thankfully, the car is parked close enough that the boys are able to drop off my bags before moving on down the street.
Phoenix makes a gurgling noise, and I stop to stoop over and check on him.
“Are you hungry?” I murmur. “Should we stop for lunch?”
Standing again, I’m doing a slow pirouette, trying to decide which café to choose, when I see something bizarrely familiar. Or someone, rather.
Our gazes lock.
And I damn near scream.
Oh my God.
It’s Tamara.
37
Esme
It’s definitely my cousin, even though she’s taken pains to change up her look a lot since I last saw her.
Her hair is now a platinum blonde that clashes slightly with her darker complexion. Her makeup is heavier, too, and I realize it’s been daubed on to make her nose appear thinner and her lips appear fuller.
She’s wearing a tiny yellow mini skirt, with black knee highs and a faux fur jacket. She looks like a girl I’d walk across to the other side of the street to avoid.
Which is exactly what I plan on doing.
“Esme!” she exclaims, then claps a hand over her mouth like she shouldn’t be saying my name at all.
We maintain eye contact for maybe three full seconds before I spin around on my heel and try and march away from her.
“No,” she calls after me. “Wait! Esme, please!”
And the pleading tone is what makes me stop short. I turn hesitantly, and Tamara runs towards me, her eyes filled with regret.
“Esme,” she says again. “I thought you were… I thought you were dead.”
I’m burning up with anger, but I choke that down for now. “Almost. But not quite.”
She flinches back as though I’d slapped her. “I’m sorry,” she says in a quiet voice. “Please forgive me.”
I clench my jaw. This is the last thing I expected or wanted today, but now that I’m confronted with Tamara, it’s hard to turn my back on her.
Despite how she betrayed me.
“You—”
“I haven’t had any contact with Budimir since that day in my apartment,” she interrupts, putting her hand over her heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“You will die if you ever lie to me again,” I snap.
I surprise everyone with those words. Alik, Gennadi, Tamara—and most of all, myself.
Who do I sound like?
The wife of a mafia don.
I don’t have time to worry about that, though, not as both my bodyguards step up behind me. I hold up my hand and they stop reluctantly.
Tamara’s eyes go wide as she realizes that I’ve got muscle at my back.
“So Artem’s alive then?” she says, glancing back to me.
“Why? Are you going run and make a call to his uncle?” I demand.
I see the hurt and defeat pass across her eyes. She shakes her head slowly.
“You have every right to believe I would do that,” she says. “But I wasn’t lying when I said I’ve had no contact with him. I served my purpose and he had no further use for me.”
“He’s not a man who rewards the people who’ve helped him,” I tell her. “You chose the wrong man.”
“I didn’t choose anything,” Tamara retorts, her tone sparking alive for the first time. “He threatened my life. He threatened the lives of all the people I loved. What was I supposed to do?”
I stare at her, at the desperation in her eyes. She wants me to absolve her of her guilt.
I truly believe she hated betraying me to Budimir.
But I don’t know if I have the capacity to let that go.
I sigh. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know what you should have done. I wouldn’t have known what to do, either.”
“Can we talk?” Tamara begs. “I just want to know that you’re okay.”
I take a moment and glance back at Alik and Gennadi. They don’t look happy with this little run-in, but they don’t interrupt either.
“Okay,” I concede. “I was just gonna go get something to eat. Why don’t you join me?”
A relieved smile spreads across Tamara’s face. “That sounds good.”
We find our way to a Parisian-style café and sit at a table in the middle of the restaurant that faces the windows overlooking the street. Alik and Gennadi seat themselves at the table opposite us.
Only once Tamara and I have ordered, does she glance towards the stroller that I’ve propped pulled up next to me. Phoenix is gazing around happily.
“He looks like Artem,” she observes.
“Yes.”
“But he’s got your eyes.”
I smile. “That’s the only thing he’s got from me,” I say. “But otherwise, he’s the spitting image of his father.”
“Were you pregnant? When you came to me that day?”
I nod, unable to speak.
/> Tamara closes her eyes for a moment like she’s holding back tears. “You didn’t tell me,” she says finally. Her voice is strained, hoarse.
“I was processing everything at the time,” I say. “I was alone and scared and I came to you because you were the only family I had left.”
I don’t mean to make her feel guilty—though she certainly deserves it—but I can see by the flush on her cheeks that that’s exactly how I’ve made her feel.
And my hard heart unclenches just a little more.
She’s Tam-Tam. She’s family. The only family I have left.
I’ve learned the hard way in the last few months how important it is to keep my loved ones close.
“Tamara,” I say, reaching out and putting my hand on hers, “it’s okay. I’m not angry about it anymore.”
“You’re not?”
“Well… I’m trying not to be,” I admit. “It hurt like hell to know you outed me to Budimir. But I guess I can appreciate the situation you were in. You were just trying to survive.”
“I hated myself for doing it all the same,” Tamara says to me.
And honestly, I believe her.
That’s enough—for now. Enough to figure out what happens next with our friendship.
“You changed your hair,” I point out, trying to turn the conversation in a lighter direction.
She smiles, but there’s a sigh in her tone when she speaks. “I was trying to re-invent myself after what happened. I got a new apartment. Even got myself a new job.”
“And did that help?” I ask. She’s not as bubbly as I remember. Not as carefree.
She got a taste of what my life was like, and it changed her forever.
“Not really,” she confesses. “I think I needed closure for that to happen.”
“You mean you needed to talk to me.”
Tamara nods. “I know I’ve probably given up my right to ask, Esme,” she says sadly. “But how have you been? Like, really?”
I chuckle at the thought of catching her up on everything. I don’t even know where to start with that story. Nor do I want to.
“It’s been a wild ride,” I say in the end. That’ll have to suffice for now.
I do believe that Tamara is sorry. I do believe she no longer has contact with Budimir.
But I have a son to look out for. I don’t want to take any chances.
Our relationship can survive in some form, maybe.
But it cannot be what is was.
Neither one of us are naïve enough to hope for that.
“Apparently,” Tamara agrees. “It gave you a baby.”
I smile. “That’s a long story…”
“Do you wanna tell me about it?” she asks cautiously.
“Maybe one day.”
She nods, but doesn’t press me. “He is beautiful, Esme,” she sighs. I can hear the sincerity in her voice. “The cutest baby I’ve seen in a long time.”
“I think so too. But then, I’m biased.”
“You’re not,” Tamara assures me. “Not in this case, anyway. What’s his name?”
“Phoenix,” I say.
“Phoenix,” she echoes with a dreamy lilt to her voice. “I like it.” She glances back up at me. “You look happy.”
I play with the cutlery on the table. “I am. I really am. As happy as it’s possible to be.”
“So he’s good to you?” Tamara asks.
“He is,” I say. “Better than I could have imagined, given how we got married. Given why we got married.”
Tamara smiles. It seems genuine, as far as I can tell. Though I’m still suspicious of all of this.
“I’m so glad,” she tells me. “You have no idea how happy it makes me to see you like this, Esme. It suits you.”
“Happiness?” I laugh.
“Motherhood,” she clarifies.
“Ah,” I smile, looking towards Phoenix’s downy black mop. “Motherhood surprised me too. In more ways than one.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I shrug. “I never thought about kids ever,” I say. “And when I did, it was only as this vague, faraway concept. It never felt like it applied to me.”
“That’s definitely how I feel about kids,” Tamara agrees. “It’s probably how I’ll feel even in ten years.”
“You don’t know that.”
Tamara sighs. “I can’t see myself as a mother,” she says. “I can’t see myself as anything, really.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…”
She sighs again, deeper, and it makes me feel strangely sad somehow. She looks lost. Just like I was a few weeks ago.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I just don’t see myself in traditional roles. A wife, a mother. But you make it all look so easy.”
“I’ve barely begun being a wife and a mother,” I point out. “I might suck at it.”
“You won’t,” Tamara says, with so much confidence that it makes me curious.
“How can you be so sure?”
Tamara looks at me with a measured expression. “You just have that maternal vibe,” she tells me. “You used to look after me a lot. Every time I freaked about something—mostly boys— you used to talk me down off the ledge. You were always so calm and comforting. It made me feel better.”
“That was Cesar, not me.”
She shakes her head. “No, it was you, Esme. You helped me. And you helped him, too. He leaned on you.”
I frown at that. “He never leaned on me,” I tell her. “I was always the one running to him. The one leaning on him.”
Tamara shrugs like I don’t know what I’m talking about. “I dunno. There was just an air about the two of you,” she says. “It’s like he used to come to you when he was most broken, and you’d just fix him right up again. Even if you didn’t know that’s what you were doing at the time.”
I try and think back to old memories, something that might ring true with what Tamara is telling me.
But I don’t seem to come up with anything.
“I think you’re wrong.”
“I’m not,” she says, shaking her head. “He told me so himself.”
That jolts me. “Um… what?” I ask, wondering if I’d misheard her.
I can’t ever remember the two of them talking. Cesar tended to avoid the house when Tamara was visiting. He’d never been a huge fan. She was too loud and too excitable for him—at least, that’s what he used to tell me.
“Yeah,” she says. “I was spending the weekend one time and I ran into him in the garden.”
“Where was I?”
“If memory serves, you were sleeping off a hangover,” she chuckles. “I’d convinced you to get drunk the night before.”
Plausible enough. That had happened a few times, so it wasn’t like I could pinpoint when exactly this memory occurred. I could have been anywhere between fourteen and sixteen.
Close to the end of Cesar’s life.
“Anyway, I always bounced back much quicker than you did and I got bored in the room,” she continues. “So I went down to explore the gardens and I ran into Cesar.”
“And he… he talked to you?”
“Trust me: he tried hard to avoid me,” she laughs. “Broke my heart, too. I always had a little crush on him.”
“Ew, Tamara!” I say. “He was your cousin, too.”
“I know, I know,” she giggles. “But I was a stupid teenager and it wasn’t like he and I were ever very close.”
I shake my head in dismay. “So…”
“So, he asked me where you were and I told him you were sleeping,” Tamara continues. I find myself clinging to every word. “It was small talk for the first few minutes and then I noticed how—I dunno, how sad he looked.”
“Sad.”
“Very sad,” she confirms. “So I asked him what was wrong and he told me he’d had a rough couple of days. I asked him what he did to cope and he said—and I quote—‘I talk to Esme.’”
I talk to Esme.
Those words do something to my heart that I can’t quite explain.
“He really said that?” I ask quietly
Tamara nods with a small smile. “He really said that,” she repeats.
“Did he… did he say anything else?” I ask. I’m greedy for more information. For the brother I loved. For any scrap of him I can cling to and feel like he’s still with me—some way, somehow.
Tamara gives me a sad smile and I feel my heart drop with disappointment.
“Sorry, hon,” she says gently. “He wasn’t in a very chatty mood. At least, not with me.”
I nod as an image of Cesar floats across my eyes. I see him, not as the man he turned out to be, but the boy he was. All easy smiles and silly anecdotes that he made up just to amuse me.
I used to think he was larger than life. But I realize now that that probably wasn’t very fair to him.
He already had so much pressure from Papa.
He didn’t need more from me.
“You still miss him, don’t you?” Tamara asks, reading my expression.
“Of course,” I say in a choked voice. “I miss him every day. Even…”
I trail off, leaving my sentence unfinished. Thankfully, Tamara doesn’t press me to continue. I sigh and fuss with Phoenix’s little overalls for a few seconds.
“I always envied your connection with him,” Tamara says.
“Because you had a crush on him?” I tease.
She laughs. “No, I mean, just the sibling connection the two of you had. It must have been nice to have someone to rely on no matter what.”
No matter what.
The phrase falls dully against my chest and it makes me feel lonely for a moment.
And then something else hits me suddenly, a realization that I might never have come to if it hadn’t been for Tamara.
He used to come to you when he was most broken, and you’d just fix him right up again.
Maybe subconsciously, those were the moments I lived for, because it made me feel like Cesar needed me.
It made me feel strong, important… special.
And when he died, I felt like I’d failed him.
Because a part of me had always known he was suffering.