Page 113 of Secret Husband
“We found him in the park. I didn’t lock up properly last night.”
Maya smiled at me, all sympathy. “It happens. And the park is one of his favorite places.”
“He wanted to play chess.” I whispered to her. “He played with his friends in the park back in Seattle.”
“Ah, that makes sense. People often return to the places that hold a semblance of familiarity. Sasha, you must be starving.”
He didn’t respond, just waited for Maya to guide him. She spoke over her shoulder. “Do you play chess, Alexei?”
“The stereotypes are not all true.”
“Oh, pardon me!” Grinning, she led my father into the house.
As I watched him trudge away, Lauren came around the other side of the car to stand by me. I rubbed my mouth, conscious of how close to disaster we had come. “Thank you for remaining so calm.”
“I feel like I’m partly to blame. I distracted you last night and you didn’t go through your usual routine.”
“This is true. You wiped my brain, but then you always do, zhena.”
She placed a hand on my chest. “What does that mean? Or maybe I don’t want to know.”
“It is ‘wife’ and I think you do want to know.”
She patted my chest. “Not sure I’m interested in a Russian husband who can’t even play chess.”
Words failed me. Not because of my inability to know a knight from a rook, but because I suspected I was losing the battle here. My job was to keep him safe. It was why I had insisted he come with me to Chicago, but now I wondered if I had made a huge mistake taking him away from the world he knew.
Not only that, but I had resolved to keep Lauren insulated from all of this. That had been my goal all those years ago. Protect her from the drama and danger surrounding my family. Now a different sort of drama created new burdens. New threats to my end game. To expect her to take a relationship with me seriously when my attention was so divided was surely too much.
“I like to keep you on your toes, but this …” I gestured toward the house. “This is not something you should be concerned with.”
“We’re friends, Alexei. And one of the benefits is helping each other out. Keeping all this inside, not calling on people you know to be there for you, is not good for anyone. For you or your dad.”
I knew in my heart she was right. “He is slipping away a little more each day. Did you hear him earlier? He thinks my mother is alive and trying to get my lazy ass out of bed.”
She placed a hand on my chest and rubbed in soothing circles. “So his memories are mixed up. This is a typical prognosis, at least according to Gunnar. He went through it with his mom.”
“If he doesn’t remember my mother past a certain point, he won’t forget that he lost her.” A cold comfort, perhaps. “Eventually he won’t even remember who I am. Or who he is.”
Before he became truly ill, he had told me, I don’t want to forget you. Or your mother.
I had told him he wouldn’t. That everything he loved would stay inside him. In his heart.
What I didn’t know was that it would be trapped there, in a place neither of us could find.
That the pain of forgetting might be a blessing, but that the pain of being forgotten might be even worse.
Chapter Forty-Three
Lauren
* * *
“Getting to be a habit.”
I dropped my bag in the hall and made a face at Gunnar who had thrown out that shady comment.
“I had no water, information you decided not to share, so I had to shower at a friend’s.”
