Page 146 of 10 Days to Surrender

Across the table, Leo squirms in Jasmine’s arms, making grabby hands at the dumplings on her plate. My sister deftly redirects his attention with a spoonful of pureed carrots. “There we go,agapi mou,” she coos, her voice gentle in a way I never thought I’d hear again. “Just like that.”

Belle appears at my shoulder, ladling more soup into Sasha’s bowl. “Eat,” she orders him. “You’re skin and bones again.”

Zoya comes in and thunks down a carafe of kvass. “Skin, bones, and bad decisions.”

“But my bad decisions match my tie.” Sasha flicks the silk monstrosity that Lora gifted him for his birthday—neon pink with dancing tacos that are saying,Guac Out with your Tac’ Out. Leo grabs for it, shouting with glee.

“It’s such a beautiful tie,” Lora sighs. I’m pretty sure she missed the joke, but that’s okay.

Pavel, holding her hand dutifully, just shakes his head. He knows better than to intervene.

The empty chair at the end of the table looms large. It’s for Kosti, though no one says his name out loud. There’s a rule at Sunday night family dinners: No talking about ghosts. We set places for them instead. Let them linger in the clink of spoons against porcelain, in the way Feliks still pours two shots of vodka—one vanished, one consumed.

My uncle made bad choices. But he did it out of love. If that’s an unforgivable crime, then I’d never be able to live with the man who gave me his name and his children. Because he made bad choices, too. But he loved us all hard enough to make up for them.

Kosti didn’t get the chance to leave his sins in the past. Sasha did, though—and he tells me every single day how grateful he is that the world showed him mercy that he never showed the world.

Gina leans into Feliks’ shoulder, her voice carrying. “We’re thinking of a Halloween wedding. With costumes! I’ll dress as Medusa; he’ll go as the idiot who looked at her.”

“Romantic,” I deadpan.

“You’re one to talk.”

I laugh and rest my head against Sasha’s shoulder in a silenttouché.Natalie bangs her spoon in agreement, splattering beetroot across his taco tie.

Suddenly, her little face screws up and she starts to wail. Sasha looks down and sees that she slammed her fist into a fork tine and opened up a tiny little cut.

“Ah, poormalysh,” he croons as he rocks her until her sobs calm down. Zoya hands him a Band-Aid from the cabinet and he puts it on our daughter’s hand. “Better? There, there, that’s so much better.”

He glances at me and winks. “Like mother, like daughter,” he murmurs, and suddenly, I’m back in that Met bathroom, watching him tend to my injured hand with such unexpected gentleness.

Who was that woman, so determined to resist him?

Who was that man, so certain he could never love?

Who are we now?

That answer remains unclear. But I do know where we are and what we’re doing. We are in a warm kitchen filled with food and laughter, surrounded by love. We are watching our children grow, building something neither of us thought possible.

We are healing. We are hoping. We are happy. We arehere.

Sasha’s hand finds mine under the table, his thumb tracing the scar on my palm where it all began. “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks softly.

I squeeze his fingers, watching as a miraculously healed Natalie tries to grab his nose. “Just thinking about the beginning.”

His laugh is quiet but real. “It was a touch-and-go start.”

“Nothing about us has ever been straightforward,” I reply, leaning into him as Belle starts passing around more bread.

Babushka’s Lap glows golden in the setting sun, filled with the sounds of our cobbled-together family—Feliks’s barking laugh, Gina’s snort of derision, Jasmine humming as she coaxes another spoonful into Leo’s mouth. Even the empty chair feels less like a wound and more like a reminder that love persists, complicated and messy as it may be.

I rest my head on Sasha’s shoulder. It’s mint. Cedar. Home.

I tried to fight all this, once upon a time. I fought it tooth and nail, kicking and screaming. I’m not fighting anymore. I surrendered.

That’s how I know it’s real.

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