Page 55 of Ivory Oath

I make myself take a deep, deep, very deep breath. I wouldn’t have let Dante go into the woods with him if I didn’t trust that he would be safe. If he pulled the trigger, Mikhail must have thought he was ready.

I trust Mikhail. I trust Mikhail.

I repeat this to myself all the way through the house and out the front door. Then I see an ATV appear between two trees, a dead deer tied to the back of it.

The animal is at least three times the size of Dante and, suddenly, I can’t believe I ever let my baby boy walk into those woods alone.

But I swallow all of that down when Dante jumps and cheers as Mikhail pulls to a stop, both of them wearing the exact same grin.

“Did he tell you the good news?” Mikhail hops out of the driver’s seat. His pants stretch over his muscular thighs and there is something deep-seated and instinctual going on with the way my stomach flutters as he undoes knots and hauls the deer across the gravel towards the detached garage. I’m horrified, but I also can’t stop thinking about how easily he is handling this massive animal and what it means for how easily he can handle me.

“That he killed the deer, you mean?” I ask.

Mikhail smiles wider and holds out his hand to Dante for a high-five. Dante jumps and their blood- and dirt-crusted hands slap together.

“Yeah, he told me.” I consider holding my hand out for a high-five, too, but I’m not really in that kind of mood. I’d rather wrap my arms around Dante and hold him there, safe and sound, for the rest of time.

Maybe my pregnancy anxiety isn’t as absent as I thought it was.

“How did this happen?” The question sounds like an accusation, so I try to reverse and try again. “Why did Dante have the gun?”

Somehow worse. Oops.

Mikhail drops the deer on the cement floor and Dante circles it, examining his catch from every angle. While he’s busy admiring the dead animal, Mikhail eases over to me.

He takes in my wet hair and robe and his eyes darken retroactively. “Were you in the bath?”

“I was trying to relax.” A feat that would have been impossible if I’d known my six-year-old was handling a weapon in the middle of nowhere. “You let Dante hold the gun?”

“He was ready.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I wouldn’t put him in danger,” Mikhail says confidently. He strokes a calloused knuckle over my cheek. He smells like sweat and fresh air. “And because he needs to learn how to protect himself.”

“From deer?!”

“From everything.”

I hate that soft resignation in his voice. Like we have no choice.

“That’s what we’re for,” I argue. “We are supposed to keep him safe. He doesn’t need to know how to use a gun.”

Dante is behind Mikhail, toeing his boot at the deer. He’s not strong enough to shake the animal, let alone roll it over.

Mikhail lowers his voice. “No, but he needs to trust himself. He needs to have confidence that he can take care of himself. It’s the same thing I’m trying to teach him in the boxing ring.”

My eyes snap to his. “Boxing? Since when does he box?”

“Since a couple weeks ago.” Mikhail shrugs. “He had some frustration to burn. It’ll be good for him to know how to use his body.”

He does know how to use his body, I want to argue. Dante just learned how to skip a couple months ago. When he thinks really hard, he can roll his tongue into a burrito.

Those are good, useful skills. They’re all his body needs to know, as far as I’m concerned.

But it isn’t just up to me. Not anymore. Mikhail and I have to make these kinds of decisions together.

Before I can even pretend to reach a compromise, Mikhail curls his hand around my cheek. “I’ll tell him this is more than enough meat and we don’t need to go hunting anymore.”

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