Page 150 of Nine Months to Bear

“Easy.” Elena’s hand covers mine, steadying the blade. “Like this. Gentle but firm.”

The words make me think of Stefan’s hands on mine at the shooting range. He was “gentle but firm,” wasn’t he? And I barely knew him then. But it’s like his hands knew me. They felt my shakes, my attempts to suppress them, and they knew everything about me that’s ever been worth knowing.

“You’re blushing,” observes Elena.

I blush harder. “Am not.”

“Are so.” She pries the knife away and takes over for me with the mushrooms, dicing in a blur without so much as a downward glance. “When I first cooked for Stefan’s grandfather, I burned everything. I was so nervous, I forgot to add water to the pot. Nearly set the kitchen on fire.”

“What did he do?”

“Ate every last bite.” Her eyes go soft with memory. “He said it was delicious, even though he was lying through his teeth. Then he took me to a restaurant and ordered us real food.”

I laugh despite myself. “That’s sweet.”

“That’slove.” She hands the knife back. “The kind that sees past the burned edges to what you’re trying to say.”

“I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

“Don’t you?”

The mushrooms blur. My hands won’t stop shaking. “I’m scared,” I admit.

“Good.” Elena squeezes my shoulder. “That means it matters.”

We’re quiet for a while, working side by side. She looks over at my mushrooms and gives me an approving nod that in no way matches the horrific job I’m doing.

“When I was young—younger than you—there was a boy. Yakob.” Elena’s hands never pause as she stirs something boiling in a large pot. “Sweet boy. He brought me flowers every Sunday. Terrible flowers, half-dead, stolen from the cemetery, but still.”

“That’s… romantic?” I try with a teary giggle.

She laughs. “We were all so poor then. But Yakob, he had ambition. Big dreams. He wanted to be somebody important, make something of himself.”

“What happened?”

“I married Stefan’s grandfather instead.” She scrapes a cutting board full of onions into a bowl. “It was a practical choice. Good man, steady work. Yakob was no good for what I needed.”

“Did you love him? Your husband?”

She bobs her head from side to side, neither a yes nor a no. “I grew to. That’s how it worked back then. You picked someone solid and built from there.” She starts on the garlic. “But Yakob…”

“You loved him first.”

“Maybe. Probably.” She shrugs again, but there’s weight in it. “He became avoreventually. Very powerful. Very rich. Everything he said he’d be.”

I start to ask if she regrets not staying with him, but she waves a hand to ward off the question.

“He died in a shootout. Alone. No wife, no children. Just money and enemies.” She sets down the knife and fixes me with a hard stare. “You know what haunts me? Not the choosing. I made a practical choice, a good choice. What haunts me is the not-knowing.”

“Not knowing what?”

“What would have happened if I’d been brave enough to say yes to the dangerous boy with the cemetery flowers.” She holds my eyes. “If I’d shared his ambition instead of running from it.”

My throat tightens. “That’s not… Stefan and I aren’t…”

Her mouth is twisted in two directions, like she can’t decide whether to laugh at me or cry with me. “If you say so,” is all she says.

But as we continue cooking, I can’t stop thinking about her words.What would have happened if I’d been brave enough to say yes to the dangerous boy with the cemetery flowers?