Page 111 of Deceitful Vows

When my call is connected, I don’t wait for Mikhail to issue a greeting. I go into full meltdown mode. “You need to tell your father to back off. I haven’t done anything wrong.” I pace my living room while shouting. “I’ve tried to stay away from Andrik, but you continually force us back together. Your father doesn’t know that, though. He thinks it’s all me. I am getting blamed for everything. It isn’t fair, Mikhail. He’s a fucking moron who?—”

“That isn’t very nice.” The voice interrupting is nowhere near as deep as it should be, and nowhere near as mature. “You shouldn’t call people names, no matter how bad they are. My mommy said…”

As the childlike voice continues reprimanding me, I pull my phone away from my ear to check that Mikhail’s name is flashing across the screen. It is.

After squashing my phone back to my ear, I ask, “Who is this?”

“I’m Zakhar,” answers a boy I assume is around five or six. “Who are you?”

“I’m Zoya. I am a friend of your…” I’ve never sounded so unconfident. “Is this your phone, Zakhar?”

Even though I can’t see him, I’m confident in declaring that he laughs with his whole belly. That’s how boisterous his chuckles are. “No, silly. Daddy went?—”

“This is your dad’s phone?” I ask, too shocked to wait for him to finalize his question.

“No.” For one short word, it takes him almost three seconds to deliver it. “This is????Mikhail’s phone.”

My Russian is decent, but it takes me longer than I care to admit to remember that????is uncle in Russian.

The knowledge that Mikhail isn’t hiding a secret child from me should weaken the churns of my stomach, not triple them. It doesn’t. I feel as uneased now as I did in the seconds leading to Mikhail announcing that Andrik is married.

“Is your dad with you, Zakhar?”

“He was, but he went to speak with Anoushka. I think I got him in trouble. I’m not meant to stay up so late, but Daddy said it would be okay. Don’t tell my mommy, though. She says bedtimes are important because sleep helps your brain grow.” His tone dips as if he is confused. “But sleeping around makes you stupid.” My heart beats at an unnatural rhythm when he asks, “What is sleeping around? Is that like a sleepover?”

“Um. Yeah. Kinda.” This is not a conversation I want to have with an adult, much less a child, so I strive to end it. “I should probably go. I have a plane to catch.”

Zakhar’s voice jumps as high as my brow when he squeals, “Daddy! You came back!”

It feels like the sun circles the planet a million times when his wheezy squeals are overtaken by the breaths of a man aware he’s about to be caught in a lie. “Who is this?”

I freeze while recalling the last time I heard that clipped, stern rumble.

Its commanding aura usually dots goose bumps across my skin.

Tonight, it cakes it with dread.

I suck in a sharp breath when my caller identifies my gasp as readily as I did his voice. “Zoya.”

Just the way Andrik says my name breaks my heart further.

And it makes me angry—furiously, undisputedly angry.

He made me become the one thing I swore I’d never be.

He turned me into my mother.

Andrik must hear the devastation in my breaths. “Zoya, don’t?—”

“Goodbye, Andrik,” I murmur, my tone, for once, full of honesty.

I am done with this game once and for all.

“Zo—”

I throw my phone to the ground hard enough to shatter the screen and pop out the battery before I race into my room to pack the last of my things.

In an ashamedly quick three minutes, all my most valuable possessions are stored in a ripped duffle bag. There are only three items missing from my bag.

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