Page 189 of Sexting the Pakhan

Mila narrows her eyes. “You have fighting faces.”

Nadia appears behind her, already suspicious. “You’re both speaking in your careful voices.”

Ruslan says, “Your mother and I are discussing timing.”

Nadia thinks about that. “That sounds like fighting.”

“It often is,” I say.

Mila hugs the cereal box to her chest. “Can we still have lunch?”

I stare at her for one long second. Then I laugh because if I don’t, I will either cry or scream. “Yes,” I say. “You can still have lunch.”

The girls disappear again.

Ruslan looks at me. “You should have let me know.”

I feel the anger come back cleanly this time. “And you should have not been the sort of man I had to protect children from.”

He flinches.

Actually flinches.

Good. Because I’m tired of being the only one cut open by memory.

He says, “I was trying to protect you from my world.”

“And I was trying to protect them from you.”

The words sit there. Ugly. True enough to wound.

He looks away first.

The silence after that is worse than the argument.

I start putting groceries away because I need my hands to do something. Milk in the cooler box. Bread on the counter. Fruit in the bowl by the window.

Behind me, he says, “I would have come.”

I stop. I don’t turn around.

“You don’t know that,” I say.

“I do.”

“No,” I say, still not looking at him. “You know the version of yourself you want to be in this conversation.”

When I finally turn, his face is closed.

Not cold. Not indifferent.

Controlled.

That’s almost harder to fight.

He picks up the painkillers from the grocery bag and sets them on the counter like he’s doing something useful because if he reaches for me, we will start again.

“Fine,” he says.