Page 21

I rise slowly, following her toward the swings where the twins are already scrambling to claim their favorite seats.

Igor watches our procession across the lawn, then heaves himself up from his chair.

He follows at a distance, positioning himself under a tree where he can observe the entire play area.

“Push me, Mama!” Anya demands, while Mila is already pumping her legs, determined to swing independently.

Rebecca obliges, stepping behind Anya’s swing. She gives a gentle push, then another, establishing a rhythm. “Fallon, would you like to help Mila?” she asks, her voice deliberately casual.

I hesitate, then move to the other swing. Mila gazes up at me with curious eyes—Emma’s eyes, almost—and my chest tightens. I place my hands on the chains, giving a tentative push. The little girl giggles, delighted by the extra height.

“Higher!” she requests, and I comply automatically, falling into the familiar motion of push and release.

Rebecca watches me interact with Mila, something complicated happening behind her eyes. “Look at the valley below,” she says quietly, nodding toward the forest beyond the property.

I follow her gaze, noticing for the first time that from this elevation, we can see over the treeline to a small town nestled in the valley.

Houses are scattered throughout the forest, tiny squares of civilization in the wilderness.

Not as isolated as I’d thought, then. The realization sends a jolt of something like hope through me, quickly tempered by the reality of our situation.

“It’s about three miles,” Rebecca says conversationally, as if discussing the weather. “Down the mountain road, you’ll recognize your surroundings once you reach the road.”

I push Mila’s swing again, processing this information. Is she actually suggesting an escape route? After telling me she’s contacted Dad? It seems too convenient, too hopeful.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral as I push the swing again.

Rebecca’s eyes meet mine over the swings, over the heads of the daughters she didn’t abandon. “I know,” she says simply. “I’m trying to make sure you don’t die here. You need to get to the road.”

The twins laugh, oblivious to the weight of our conversation, to the years of pain suspended between their mother and me. Their joy feels alien, from another universe where mothers are reliable and safety is a given.

I push Mila’s swing again, watching her soar against the backdrop of mountains and sky, wondering if Rebecca’s words are just another false promise or if, somehow, there might be a path out of this nightmare that doesn’t end with all of us in graves.

“Where are we exactly,” I ask when I catch movement.

Igor wanders closer, Rebecca also noticing him.

“The fireflies out here are amazing,” Rebecca says, her voice soft as she glances toward the tree line where shadows are beginning to lengthen.

The casual observation hangs in the air between us, so mundane it feels absurd.

Fireflies. As if we’re on some family vacation instead of being held captive by a Russian mobster.

I turn my head slowly to look at my mother, really look at her, and see the careful way she’s watching Igor from the corner of her eye while maintaining her easy smile.

“I never left you,” she continues in that same conversational tone, still pushing Anya’s swing. “I was taken.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. I falter in my rhythm pushing Mila’s swing, earning a small sound of protest from the child. I quickly resume the motion.

“What?” The question comes out sharper than I intended.

Rebecca keeps her eyes on the twins, her face arranged in the pleasant expression of a mother enjoying an afternoon with her children. Only someone watching closely would notice the tension in her jaw, the careful control in her movements.

“Do you think I wanted to leave you?” she asks, her voice still pitched for Igor’s ears while carrying an undercurrent of intensity meant only for me. “I was trying to help Emma. We needed money.”

I swallow hard, memories surfacing with painful clarity. Emma’s medical bills piling up on the kitchen table. Dad working himself to exhaustion with three jobs. The electricity getting shut off because we couldn’t pay. The constant, grinding poverty that shaped my childhood.

“You never tried to come back,” I say, the words bitter on my tongue. “You could have tried.”

“Oh, I couldn’t have,” Rebecca says, shaking her head slightly. Her voice remains light, while her eyes meet mine with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “He would have killed you all.”

I miss a beat in pushing the swing again, my hands suddenly cold despite the warm afternoon. He would have killed you all. The matter-of-fact way she says it, like she’s commenting on the weather, sends a chill down my spine.

“I tried to warn your grandmother,” she continues, helping Anya pump her legs to maintain momentum.

“When Mikhail bought this place, he brought me here. We traveled a lot, and when I realized where we were…” She pauses, watching Igor shift his position under the tree.

“I escaped once. Stole a bag of cash from his basement. I dropped it to your grandmother.”

“You came back?”

Rebecca nods almost imperceptibly. “She was supposed to give it to your father. I knew I couldn’t stay because Mikhail would come for you. Igor found me in town and dragged me back; you were catching fireflies with your father in the backyard.”

I look toward Igor instinctively. He’s leaning against a closer tree trunk, scrolling through his phone, appearing disinterested while undoubtedly aware of our every move.

“Why didn’t she tell us?” I ask, more to myself than to Rebecca.

“Because I begged her not to. I told her it would put you all in danger.” Rebecca’s eyes follow Anya’s swing, while her attention remains on our conversation.

“Mikhail broke my arm in three places for stealing from him,” Rebecca continues, her voice still measured and calm despite the horror of her words.

“I told him I lost his money in the river trying to outrun Igor. After that, he kept me in his room, chained to the bed.”

The image hits me with visceral force, Rebecca chained like an animal, at the mercy of a man capable of such casual violence. I look at her wrists again, at the faded marks I noticed the other day. Suddenly they make terrible sense.

“I finally gained his trust,” she says. “We left for Russia for a while. I got pregnant.” Her eyes flick to the twins, then back to me. “I tried to flee again, found myself locked back up, chained to the bed. He wouldn’t even let me hold them unless I was nursing them.”

The twins, oblivious to the horror story being recounted over their heads, continue to swing and laugh. Their innocent joy is a bizarre counterpoint to the nightmare Rebecca describes.

“Then we came back here,” she says, her voice dropping even lower. “This is the most freedom I’ve had, Fallon.”

My head twists to look at her fully, unable to mask my shock.

This relative freedom being watched constantly, living under Igor’s control, having every movement monitored, is the best it’s been for her?

The realization makes me dizzy. I’ve been imagining her living some glamorous new life while we struggled.

The reality she’s describing is a prison more concrete than my bitterest fantasies.

“Grandma never gave dad the money” I tell her.

Rebecca’s laugh is soft and humorless. “Of course the bitch didn’t, she hated me.” She pauses, watching Igor carefully.

“Why didn’t you run to the police when you did escape, why go to grandma’s?”

“Mikhail has people everywhere. Cops. Judges. The kind of connections that make problems disappear.”

I try to reconcile this version of events with the narrative I’ve carried for years, the story of a selfish mother who chose drugs over her children, who walked away and never looked back. If what Rebecca is saying is true, is it better and worse than I imagined.

“Why would he take you?” I ask, the question that’s been lingering since her first revelation. “Why you?”

Something flickers across Rebecca’s face—a shadow of old pain. “I made a mistake,” she says simply. “I robbed the wrong man.”

The twins have started to slow their swinging, their energy finally beginning to wane after an afternoon of play. Anya calls out, “I’m tired, Mama!”

Rebecca responds immediately, slipping back into her mother role with practiced ease. “Let’s take a little break then, solnyshko.” She helps Anya bring the swing to a stop, lifting her down with gentle hands.

Mila reaches for me expectantly, and I find myself automatically helping her stop and lifting her from the swing. Her small body is warm against mine, trusting in a way that makes my chest ache. I set her down quickly, uncomfortable with the sudden intimacy.

“Who wants a snack?” Rebecca asks the twins; both respond with predictable enthusiasm.

As we walk toward the house, Rebecca falls into step beside me, the twins running ahead. Igor pushes himself away from the tree, following at a distance that gives the illusion of privacy while maintaining his surveillance.

“If something happens,” Rebecca says suddenly, her voice barely audible, “take the girls. Go to the cabin.”

“What?” I ask, equally quiet.

“Where the fireflies are,” she whispers now that Igor has moved closer.

“Down the mountain. About a mile east of the road.” Her eyes meet mine, fierce and determined. “Promise me, Fallon. If things go bad, you’ll take them and run.”

I search her face, looking for deception, for manipulation, for the mother who lied, disappointed, and abandoned me. All I see is fear and a desperate kind of hope.

“Okay,” I say finally, the agreement falling from my lips before I’ve fully decided to give it.

Rebecca nods once, then quickens her pace to catch up with the twins. I watch her go, my mind reeling with revelations that rewrite the story of my life, my understanding of who my mother is and what happened to her.