Page 186 of Sexting the Pakhan

My heart begins to pound so hard I feel sick.

The woman pats my arm, still smiling. “Lovely family.”

I make some sound that might be a laugh if heard through three walls.

She moves on with her basket.

I stand there in my ridiculous hat, one hand still on the cart, while my daughters continue debating cereal as if their whole existence has not just been placed under fluorescent grocery lighting and named out loud by a stranger.

Ruslan says my name. Just that.

“Zoya.”

It’s low. Careful.

I turn to him because I have to.

There’s nothing soft in his expression. Nothing confused either.

He understands. He finally understands.

Mila tugs at my sleeve. “Mama, can we get the tiger cereal if we also get boring flakes?”

Nadia says, “They are not boring. You’re just a weirdo whose teeth will all fall out by the time you’re seven.”

Mila sticks her tongue out in response.

I stare at them for one stupid second, because they are still just children in a grocery store. They are not revelations. They are not plot twists. They are my girls arguing about cereal.

And yet everything has changed.

I look back at Ruslan. He’s still watching me. The weight of what he knows now sits between us, huge and silent and impossible to move in public.

So I do the only thing I can. I reach for the cereal. “One box each,” I tell the girls. They both cheer together.

Ruslan is still looking at me when I put both boxes into the cart.

He says nothing else. He doesn’t need to.

Now he knows.

I make it to checkout without saying anything stupid. That, under the circumstances, feels like a miracle.

Mila is still talking about cereal. Nadia is still objecting to the tiger on nutritional grounds. Ruslan says nothing at all, which is worse than if he had asked me directly, because now every second of silence feels like a question.

At the register, Mila insists on helping unload the cart.

The cashier smiles at her and says, “Big helper.”

Mila nods. “I’m carrying the snacks emotionally.”

Nadia says, “That doesn’t reduce physical labor.”

The cashier laughs.

I force a smile.

Ruslan stands beside the cart, one hand on the handle, watching me in that still way of his. He isn’t angry yet. Not openly. He’s thinking. Putting things together. Reordering the last six years in his head.