Page 80 of Sinful Blaze

“Woohoo!” I hold my sealed, if a bit lumpy and misshapen, pierogi up in triumph. “I did it!”

“Wonderful!” Asya slides the bowls of dough and meat in front of me. “Now, we do it ten more times. You, maybe fifteen or twenty. Practice makes perfect, yes?”

“You’re right.” I tear off a fresh ball of dough to roll out and grab the rolling pin. “So, you said these are Pasha’s favorite?”

She nods, moving to the other side of the island to work on chopping vegetables for a crunchy side salad. “It’s a comfort food, back in Russia. I used to make them for him when he had a bad day, not that he’d ever tell me if that was the case.”

“That does sound like him.”

“But a mother can always tell. You will learn this soon enough with your own little one. So I would let him think I didn’t know, and I’d make pierogies for dinner to cheer him up.”

“Did it work?”

Asya grins at me. “Every time. The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and both of Pasha’s are huge.”

I bite my tongue before I voice my concerns about just how true that is. She seems to sense my hesitation, because she rests her hand on mine and gives it a gentle squeeze. “He is a stubborn man, but a good one. Be patient with him.”

“I tend to think I’m the one who needs all the patience,” I half-heartedly joke.

“Pshk. Keep him on his toes. Make him earn your love. Men like him are used to getting exactly what they want, when they want it, so you’ll be doing him a favor. He has the Bratva to serve his demands. He needs his family to keep him humble and human.”

In a weird sort of way, I think I know what she means. “It seems like Mak and Sofi have that on lock.”

Asya laughs and nods. “My little troublemakers. All three of them, really, and Pasha was always the worst offender. So watch out,” she warns with a wave of her spoon at my baby bump. “That very well might be genetic.”

“Pasha? A troublemaker?” I’m laughing at the mere idea of a little Pasha running around making a ruckus. “Why do I believe that?”

“You should! He was my little prankster, always pulling the wool over someone else’s eyes for a good laugh. He once trapped Makari in his bed with plastic wrap.”

Oh my God. I literally snort when I laugh and have to step away from the raw pierogies. “Seriously?”

“Waited for him to be dead asleep before he got to work. Just wrapped and wrapped his little brother to his bed. Tight enough we had to cut him loose.”

“Did Pasha get in trouble?”

“Of course!” She furrows her brows like just remembering the moment brings up some residual anger. “I had to make sure he was being nice to his little brother. But between you and me? One of his funniest pranks by far. I had to laugh myself clear in the bathroom before dealing out the motherly justice.” Her voice pitches into a mimicry of what must have been Little Pasha and Little Mak. “‘He stole my Walkman! He took my bike! He won’t play with me! He won’t leave me alone!’ Bozhe moy, could they go at it! But when things got dark, Pasha was right there for his siblings. And for me.”

I notice the way her eyes mist up and her voice softens. It’s not my place to pry, so I don’t ask about what she means by “dark.” I can only imagine that a life supported by organized crime has its fair share of shadows.

“Alright, docha, it looks like you’re ready for the next step.” Asya wipes her hands clean and comes around the kitchen island to usher me to the stovetop. She grabs a pot, has me fetch a stick of butter from the fridge, and walks me through the actual cooking process. “You’re going to melt the butter—salted is always tastier. And once it’s nice and hot, plop!”

She makes a pierogi with what remains in the bowls while I watch the butter melt. If ever I doubted her skills as a chef, the impeccable timing she has erases all such doubts. Without hesitation, she turns from the island to the stovetop, plops the pierogi into the pot, and shows me how to turn it with a wooden spoon.

“See? Plop! Flip a few times until it’s golden, then serve it up.”

I grab a serving platter for her to put the pierogies in, thinking she’s going to fry the rest of them up. But she shakes her head with that signature grin and hands me the spoon.

“Nyet, you need to do this. I can tell you how, but you won’t learn until you do it yourself.”

“Know any good Russian takeouts?” I joke as I accept the spoon. She playfully whips a kitchen towel at my butt and goes back to assembling the salad.

I have to admit, I’m really enjoying this. All of this. The cooking, the learning how to actually cook, but most of all… Asya herself. She’s the perfect example of everything I’ve never had with my own mother: loving, compassionate, with a great sense of humor and the patience of a saint.

And the way she treats me? I can’t dwell too much on it without feeling my eyes start to sting with unshed tears. I always knew I was missing something in my relationship with my mother; I just never had a good basis of comparison to identify what.

Now, I do.

And as nice as it is to feel it now, it’s heartbreaking to think of year after year when I needed it so badly and got none.

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