Page 39 of Frozen Heart

I inched open the door and started up the stairs, quiet as a cat burglar. I couldn’t hear my dad snoring...were they already up? But the kitchen was quiet, and the lounge was dark. I crept higher and peeked around the landing. Their door was ajar.

I was on the last stair when a floorboard creaked. I froze, wincing...but the bedroom stayed silent. I opened the door a little wider and slipped inside, and now I could see the mountain of my dad’s body under the covers and the smaller, slimmer hill of my mum, nestled alongside him. I grinned and slunk sideways, planning my attack. This had to beperfect.A jump onto the bed, then a second jump right on top of my dad, and as he came awake, I’d ride him like a whale.

One. Two.Three!

I jumped up onto the bed and then launched myself forward, starfishing myself atop my dad.“It’s morning!”I yelled and then clung on tight, waiting for the grumpy earthquake.

But he didn’t move. At all. Neither of them did.They knew,I realized. They’d heard me creeping up the stairs and they were pretending to still be asleep.

There was only one thing for it:tickles!I snaked my hands under the covers and found the backs of their necks, tickling madly?—

But they didn’t move. And they were cold. There was a lurch in my chest as it clicked that something was very wrong.

“Wake up.” I took a shuddering breath. “Wake up!” My voice went brittle as I shook them. “Wake up! Wake up!Wake up!”

I surfaced in a blind panic, soaked in sweat. I scrambled out of bed and crawled across the room, trying to get as far away from the memory as possible. I made it to a corner andpressed myself against the wall, hyperventilating. And then, as I came fully awake and remembered for the millionth time thatit wasn’t just a dream, they’re dead,I started to cry.

The bed creaked as Radimir got up. He moved cautiously around the bed, trying to find me in the dark, then slowly padded over to me. “Bronwyn?” He switched on a lamp and stared at the tears flooding down my cheeks. “What is it?”

I wanted to saynothing, a nightmare.But I was still eight, still feeling their cold skin under my chubby little hands. And at the same time, I was twenty-seven and they were gone and never coming back and Baba had left too, and Nathan had left, and I was all alone and now I was locked in this marriage forever and—I looked up at him through a haze of tears and shook my head helplessly.

He slipped his arms around me and hugged me to his chest. And I threw my arms around him and clung onhard,like he was a six-foot teddy bear. He smoothed my hair. “ShhKrasavitsa,” he breathed. “I’m with you.”

It made no sense: he was a monster, he’d killed a man right in front of me, and he was the reason I was never going to be able to fall in love and marry someone for real... But I clutched him and sobbed into his shoulder, my tears rolling down his back, and gradually, my sobs started to slow. I unwound myself, sniffing and embarrassed.

“What was it?” he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.

I shook my head.

He turned around and awkwardly sat down next to me so that we were side-by-side against the wall. His shoulder snugged up against mine, huge and warm. “Tell me,” he said, his voice gentle but firm.

I gaped at him. Tellhim?I barely told anyone.I’m an adult, I should be over it by now.But he stared back at me, those frozen-sky eyes infinitely patient.

And, haltingly, I told him the whole thing. “It was carbon monoxide poisoning,” I said when I’d finished. “A seal had gone. A two-dollar piece of rubber.” I closed my eyes and rested my chin on my knees, all talked out. After a few seconds, I felt his arm wrap around me and his hand gently squeeze my shoulder, and we stayed like that until his phone alarm went off, telling us it was morning.

“Thank you,” I said awkwardly, as he strode across the room and silenced his phone. I felt better for telling someone, even if he was the last person I ever thought I’d tell.

“You needed someone,” he said simply.

I looked at my toes, embarrassed. “It was just a nightmare.”

He shook his head. “They’re notjustnightmares.” He looked away...and then his jaw set, and he seemed to make a decision. “I know,” he admitted. And then he turned and walked out, headed for the bathroom.

He has them too.I stared at his retreating back, stunned. What could give a man likehimnightmares?

The next day, I borrowed Jen’s car so that I could move my stuff into Radimir’s penthouse. I was hoping that having my things there would make it feel a little more like home. Jen’s car is a twenty-year-old station wagon that droops on its suspension like it’s permanently depressed, and it still has butterfly stickers along its sides from when it was a rolling advertisement for Jen’s failed home-visit nail salon business a few years ago. But it’s still six thousand times better than my car because I don’thavea car.

The elevator at my place still wasn’t working so packing my stuff into boxes and getting them all down the stairs took ten journeys up and down four flights and by the end of it my kneesand ankles were so tight with pain that I could barely push the car’s pedals. With hindsight, I probably should have waited a few more days to let the immunosuppressants kick in. But I was here now, and I wasn’t giving up.

I grimly drove to Radimir’s penthouse, parked in the underground parking lot and started taking boxes up in the elevator, then carrying them along the short hallway to his place. By my third trip, my legs wereshot.I kept staggering sideways like I was on the deck of a rolling ship. I was slumped against the wall, trying to gather up the strength to carry on, when I heard a stern Russian voice behind me. “What are you doing?”

“Moving,” I grunted, not looking around. I tottered another few steps. I wouldn’t let him see me being weak.

“I can see that.” Radimir sounded testy. “But do you have to kill yourself to do it?” He stalked over and plucked the box from my arms like it weighed nothing. I glared. “There are people who do this sort of thing,” he told me.

“I can’t afford a moving company,” I kept my eyes on the door of his penthouse and stumbled another step.

“I would have paid for one,” he snapped. Why washein a bad mood? Was he worried I’d drip sweat on the carpets? Which, to be fair, I was. He marched off into the penthouse and put the box down. I tried to hobble after him, but the first step made my left ankle light up cherry red with pain and I had to grab the wall to keep from falling.

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