Page 57 of Vasily the Nail

“And it worked?”

“For a while. But then the voice kept coming back, so I kept trying new things, until that was my life, but at least she only ever says the one thing to me now.”

“What’s that?”

“That I’m going to die in Flagstaff.”

Analiese

I don’t knowwhat to say. It’s an unbelievable story, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he believes he’s hearing the voice of his mother telling him he’s going to die. The fact that we both lost our mothers at a young age — although mine simply ran off when I was baby — and that we’ve lost our fathers more recently should be something that binds us, but I can’t fathom this.

I don’t remember my mother’s voice. My father made sure nothing remained of her when he gave up on her return. And when he died, I was devastated, but it was cancer. It moved quickly — he died on the six-month anniversary of the diagnosis — but we knew. And my whole world was still with me, helping me through my grief. Tony even put me in therapy.

I can’t imagine surviving what Vasily went through. I question the voices, but I don’t know anything about schizophrenia. Does trauma cause it? I don’t know.

I do know that all those thoughts I had about his drug use and about whether he’s a viable solution I have for my problems is irrelevant now. Vasily needs help. I don’t know if I’m the person who can do it, but I have to do something. I feel like everyone else around him is more concerned about damage control.

We’re silent for a long time after Vasily says the voice tells him he’s going to die in Flagstaff. Thoughts like that are toxic. He’s going to make it happen simply because he thinks it’s going to. Which makes a new challenge for me.

We’re silent, but I don’t let go of his hand.

I’m going to figure this out, somehow.

Niko’s advice this morning drifts back to me. It was such a strange experience, sitting there face to face, knee to knee, confessing to a man who was having a casual conversation with me. In my church, the priests know who I am, but there’s still a sense of anonymity. There’s a comfort in believing that what they tell me is the same thing that they would tell anyone else and that what I tell them they won’t judge me for outside the confessional. With Nico, everything was right between us; at the same time, he was talking tome, tellingmeto do what was right forme.

Right for us.

For Nico, it wasn’t about obeying a book written two thousand years ago and rewritten over the generations, it was about what’s right for my soul.

And what’s right for Vasily’s. Nico was firm in his conviction that Vasily can be saved too, and not because of any rules about confession or communion. What Vasily’s just told me makes me believe it, too.

I reset my grip on his hand, just to make sure he knows that I’m still solidly here and wanting to hold him when I say, “The stuff I marked in those books, I didn’t want you to do any of that stuff, I just wanted—”

“Oh, fuck.”

“No, no, no. Let me finish. I highlighted them because—”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize!” I talk quickly, squeezing his hand like I’m about to fall off a cliff and he’s my only hope of staying on solid ground. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I told you to do it, and you did exactly what I told you to do.”

“That’s why you pushed me away afterward,” he says morosely, and God love him because he actually attempts to curl up on his seat, bringing his feet up and doing his best to take his hand away from me so he can hold his knees. When his incredible size makes the position impossible, he gives up and scrubs at his forehead roughly enough I’m worried he’ll hurt himself.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey. Look at me. Absolutely not. You did everything just right. If you don’t look at me, I will pull this car over again.” I can’t look at him, not now that I understand why he’s uncomfortable with driving, but I need his attention on me. “I enjoyed it way more than I ever could have expected. I just feel like I need to tell you why I wanted that. It wasn’t any sort of kink I was into.” Or I didn’t think it was, but he definitely changed my mind. “I thought I was going to hate every second of it, but it wouldn’t matter because it would get me what I needed.”

“What’s that?”

A baby. But I can’t give him that level of honesty. I feel guiltier about it now, even if I refuse to waste the opportunity. “I wanted you to ruin me.”

When he’s silent for more than a second, I allow myself to glance at him.

He’s stricken. He looks every bit as devastated as he did that night when I insisted I shower by myself. I get the feeling that heworried that he’d ruined me in some way — orus, whatever that is — then, and I’ve just confirmed that he did.

“I have spent my entire life being perfect, absolutely unimpeachable, because I knew that when it came down to it, I had no control over who I would spend my life with. You understand that, right?”

My eyes are back on the winding road cutting through the mountains ahead of us, but in my peripheral, I can see Vasily’s jaw tightening, the vein in his neck ticking. “Tony’s going to sell you to the highest bidder,” he grinds out.

“And the better my reputation is, the better I’ll do. I don’t want to say it’s about money, but—”

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