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VADKA

Grief is strange. I swear to god, it rots you from the inside, so you still carry the shape of who you were, but inside, you’re just… hollow.

At least that’s how it feels.

The house is too quiet, even when Luka’s awake and pushing his trucks into walls, complete with sound effects.

I sit in the living room, slouched in my armchair.

This was one of my favorite new purchases when I first got a job with the Kopolovs—a large, well-constructed, luxury leather armchair.

My family never could’ve afforded anything nice like this when I was a kid, and it was the first thing my mother pointed out when she came here, her nose in the air, with a sniff. “Nice chair.”

It’s a good chair. Sturdy. Broken in just enough to feel like mine. I’ve moved it from place to place every time we packed up and started over .

I used to sit here with my laptop, doing work while Mariah lingered nearby.

We had a running joke about my chair. She knew damn well it was my space, which is why she’d plant herself in it—cross-legged, staring at me with that mock-defiant glint in her eyes if I worked too late and she missed me.

A challenge. A dare.

This is the chair where I’d nurse my drinks after the latest news from Rafail and where I rocked my newborn son to sleep so Mariah could get some rest when I could cajole her into giving him up for a little while.

I have a lot of memories in this chair.

But tonight, I can barely remember one.

I stare at the empty glass I left last night on the little table between my chair and the couch. It’s almost cliché. Wife dies. Drown grief and sorrow in liquor. Become dead to the world.

I’m a fucking cliché.

But there’s a reason. It does feel better when everything’s numb for a little while. It helps me ignore every single fucking reminder of my wife.

Some nights, I swear I can still hear her putzing around the kitchen, banging pots and pans and singing off-key.

But we’re alone here, Luka and me.

It’s why I hired a damn nanny. I had to do something.

My failures tighten around my chest .

I’m failing as a father.

Failing as a man.

Failing as the backbone of the family.

I failed my wife.

I had just closed my eyes when the doorbell rings. I glance at the time on my phone. The nanny isn’t due for another hour. I like punctual, and a little bit early is okay, but this feels borderline intrusive. Unwelcome.

I push myself to my feet and try to school the inevitable scowl on my face. I can’t have the new hire running this early. If my reputation precedes me, I’ll have to at least pretend to be friendly.

But the second I crack open the door, I realize I’ve made a mistake. It’s not the new nanny. It’s Ruthie.

And she looks pissed.

She doesn’t even wait to be invited inside, just shoves past me, a firestorm in human form.

Goddamn it. Her eyes look like Mariah’s when they’re flashing at me like that—the same wide, almost innocent look flecked with danger.

I want to grab her by her sturdy shoulders and throw her the fuck out.

“Hey. What the hell are you doing here?” I snap. This is my house. “Didn’t you work last night?”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I can subsist on very little sleep. And anyway, I couldn’t sleep because of what I heard was going on with Luka. ”

I blink in surprise. What the fuck is she talking about? “Something going on with Luka that I need to know about?”

She crosses her arms. “You really don’t know? God, Vadka, my sister would’ve lost her mind. ”

When Mariah was here, I rarely saw it—hardly ever thought that Ruthie and Mariah looked alike.

Mariah was taller and thinner, put together, and organized.

Ruthie is smaller but curvier, chaotic, and impulsive.

But now that she’s standing in front of me spouting off about god-knows-what, I can see it—the same flash in her eyes, the same little upturned nose, the same defiant chin.

She even has a little cowlick where Mariah did, right above her right eye.

I look away. I can’t fucking think like this.

“What did you hear?” I snap, my voice sharp but low and even. That’s how you keep control. Stay calm. Stay cold. Stay detached.

“You have no idea? How can you not know?” She takes a step toward me. My eyes zone in on her lips, full and glossy and nothing like Mariah’s. Thank fuck. I look away again.

There’s something in her tone—tight, brittle—that makes me straighten. My first instinct is to snap back, but I don’t.

She exhales sharply, pacing a few feet into the living room before turning on me again. “That some stupid fuck tried to follow Luka’s nanny home from the park last night. She panicked and quit.”

I stare at her.

“What? What the fuck? She quit and didn’t tell me?”

“No one told me ,” she repeats, her throat catching .

“Tell you what?” I shake my head. “Obviously, you knew since you just?—”

“That you hired a nanny, a stranger , to watch my sister’s kid! Zoya knew about the nanny. Apparently, she ran to the Kopolovs. Rafail didn’t tell you?”

I run a hand through my hair and shake my head.

Ruthie plants her hands on her hips.“Where’s your phone, Vadka?”

I check my pockets. Not there. Run a hand through my hair again and look around the living room. Jesus, it looks like shit in here. I walk over to the couch and move a basket of laundry, tripping over a pair of Luka’s shoes.

“No one said anything to me. I would’ve handled it,” I grit out.

“Would you?” Ruthie asks, moving aside papers and unopened mail, empty water bottles and paper plates. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you don’t really have shit handled. ”

I stand up and straighten my shoulders. No fucking way does this little spitfire get to march in here and tell me off in my own fucking house.

“You’re in my house,” I remind her, my voice quiet but full of warning. “You don’t get to march your ass in here and speak to me like that. Get out, Ruthie.”

Her jaw tightens. “ No. I want to see my nephew.”

“Then fucking stop telling me off.” I shake my head. “Jesus. A man loses his wife and can’t fucking fall apart a little? ”

“When you have a kid? No. ”

Heat flares across my chest as we continue to throw shit around, looking for my phone. “Luka is fine. I’m taking care of my son.”

She looks over at me— really looks at me, and something shifts. The fury doesn’t vanish but flickers into something else. Something sadder.

“I know you’re drowning, Vadka.” Her voice lowers. “I know how that feels. But Luka isn’t. And he needs us.”

That lands like a fist to my ribs. My eyes burn, and my throat’s too tight.

I open my mouth to speak but can’t. If I do, I’m gonna sob like a goddamn baby.

Ruthie softens. “Here’s your phone,” she says, handing it to me.

Sure enough, it’s dead and powered off. “Dead,” I say with a sigh. I cringe as soon as the words hit my lips. “I’ll charge it.”

She nods and wraps her arms around herself as if she’s cold. As if she’s trying to hold herself together.

I know that feeling too.

“Where is he?” she whispers.

“Still sleeping if your temper tantrum didn’t wake him up.”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, I’ll stay until he wakes up. Unless you’re planning on calling in sick to work and telling Rafail you won’t make it in today? When it’s the end of the quarter, and someone threatened your damn nanny last night? ”

I should tell her to leave. She has no right. This is my mess.

But Luka is her nephew, and I do have to see Rafail.

“Alright. I need to grab a shower.” I look toward Luka’s room on instinct. I haven’t had a shower without worrying about where he was or what he needed from me in so damn long. It feels good to have another adult here, even if she’s spitting venom at me.

I’ve known Ruthie for almost as long as I knew Mariah. And I know for a fact that she burns hot but fizzles out, and her heart’s as big as they come. She’ll calm down. Hell, probably did her good to tell me off.

I turn to go, and something in me tells me to stop. To turn around and ask her how she’s doing. To maybe hug her or something, something… a brother would do. What if she needs that right now?

But when I turn back, she’s halfway to the kitchen, broom in hand. I look after her, open my mouth to speak, then shake my head and walk to the bathroom.

I tiptoe into my room. Luka came in at some point in the middle of the night, sprawled out on his belly, all messy hair and tangled sheets.

At four years old, I can already tell he’ll be tall like me but wiry like his mama.

I’m glad he’s asleep. I love him so much it makes me ache, but right now, I don’t want him to look up at me with his mother’s eyes.

I leave the door to the bathroom partly open so I can still see him and keep an eye on him as I strip out of my clothes.

God, I need a shower badly. I smell like I used to when I played sports in college.

Mariah used to wrinkle her nose and tell me to hit the shower, so naturally, I’d tackle her and kiss her all sweaty, just so she’d fight me, and I could overpower her and kiss her.

I smile to myself as I throw the clothes onto the floor and turn the shower on.

I look through the crack in the doorway to see Luka’s still sleeping soundly. I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. God, my baby boy. So young to lose his mama.

I step into the shower, grateful for the hot, steamy water.

Shampoo bottle’s empty, so I squirt some weird purple toddler stuff onto my palm and make do.

I clean fast, wanting to get back to my boy and get out of here so I can get to work.

Ruthie isn’t kidding. Rafail doesn’t fuck around at the end of the quarter, and my cover job as owner and general manager of Black Line Security means I have reports to give him.

I mentally scold myself for losing it. Ruthie is right. My house is in shambles, I don’t remember the last time I shopped for groceries, and Rafail will kick my ass for letting my phone die. I don’t like feeling this out of control. I’m never like this.