Page 140 of Shâhzâdeh

“Words to me are like a palette of oils to an artist. You wouldn’t want him to paint in only primary colors, correct? You would want every spectrum of the colors to be used in order to invoke feeling, to show zhe emotion of the work. Zhat is how I am wiz words. I would not say you have red hair. It does your crown no justice. But saying zhat your hair is like zhe molten rock zhat is expelled from a volcano as it erupts? It is as bright as zhe same smoldering golden lava down to the burnished and deep reds of zhe purest flame. It’s like a sunset, pure heat and fire melding into one another but each pigment capturing and reflecting its own unique beauty.” I fingered one coil of her hair tugging it and watching it spring back toward her face.

“So not just red.” She was blushing, a habit I found incredibly adorable and somehow tempting. A visual notice of how my words brought her pleasure.

“No. Your hair is like a dancing flame. Commanding and consuming and enchanting everyzing around it. I’ve been mesmerized by it since the moment I saw you.”

“It’s just hair.”

The last thing I would do was allow my wife to self-deprecate especially when it was one of my favorite features. “It is a symbol of strengz. So many before you were not allowed to live because of the color of zhat hair. But your hair is defiance in zhe face of death. Some ancestor or ancestors of yours defied the odds to pass that gene down to you. We cannot take it for granted. Inshallah it will be passed down to children we make. Alzough we will fall into bed wiz grateful hearts but nerves shot over zheir antics. But you had somezing to speak to me about. Come, let us not sully the air in here wiz it. Let us go for a walk.”

“A walk?” She glanced out at the French doors then back at me.

I nodded wanting to get out in the elements so that she didn’t have to worry about feeling trapped in the walls of the house. No matter how big it was, being outside where she was free to move was probably better for her to talk.

“I’ve always found zhat zhe use of my brain and my body when I’m feeling heightened emotions has always allowed me to process them better. Zhe energy that is generated by the emotions released can be trapped in your limbs. Instead, if you’re moving it, you use it before it has time to settle. So, would you mind walking wiz me? We can look and see if zhere are any changes to the property you might want in the future and the air will allow your stress to be carried away.”

Vanya smiled softly before she nodded her hand. “I’d like that.”

Hand in hand, we walked through the house and I tried to appear far more relaxed than I was. I knew this conversation was going to shift something between the two of us, I just wasn’t sure what. And if it would be something that drew us closer together or further apart. I barely registered the brand new kitchen that had only been used a few times but had been meticulously updated with side-by-side ovens and a large range. The cabinets were the same turquoise as the sea and the kitchen had soft pink accents to match the sand.

There was a large mudroom that led to the outside and I led her through the doors and stopped at the expansive green of the backyard, taking in the sound of the waves in the distance.

“Where vould you like to go?”

She glanced around but I could tell by how she tried to avoid it what her heart really desired. “Would the beach be okay?”

“Of course.” I whistled to signal to Sho and Quentin, whichever one was on duty right now, that we were heading off the confines of the yard and down to the beach. She smiled at me in a silent appreciation of how I was ensuring we were still protected despite how remote the property was.

Despite the house being so far away from others, I knew firsthand that things and people were always waiting on you to strike. There would never be a moment that I didn’t have someone that would be a second set of eyes on her.

We walked carefully down the steps, which were now lit by solar lights and I could tell she didn’t relax until she saw the water, heard it hitting the shore and felt the softness of the sand beneath her feet.

Had I been thinking I would’ve grabbed a shirt for myself and a robe for her, but the beach was secluded and Sho and Quentin were trained to assist but to also keep private moments private.

Vanya’s eyes were on the sunset, its colors more the subdued hues of pink, gold and purple than the colors of her hair. She took a deep breath before she turned to me. I took that as my cue to ask her the question that lingered.

“Where do you want to start?”

Vanya smiled faintly her eyes looking momentarily lost before she sighed. “I’m not sure. My earliest memories that are clear are of them. But I have one memory of humming that I can’t get out of my head a tune to a song I don’t know the words to, but the melody, the cadence is ingrained in my mind. The Kennedys were just sort of there one day. Nice people that I would see and then they were just sort of there all the time in my mind. It was almost insidious with the ease in which they just became my life.”

“And zhe boy, your ex?”

She fake gagged, which caused me to chuckle at how she could make light within memories so dark. “He was apparently one of the first children that they found or adopted or rescued. There was some stereotypical sob story about most of us in order to make themselves look like bigger heroes.”

“White saviors.”

Just like the missionaries who traveled to Africa or the ones who stole indigenous children in Canada, religion was often used as a justification for harm. The harm of conformity and diversity being villainized.

“Yes. That’s how they wanted the world to see them. And most people did. They never said too much about me, but I was still supposed to see it as a gratitude that I was there. No one saw us as being a light to them since they didn’t have kids, it was always us who should’ve been happy no matter how they treated us.” Vanya’s head was down, her pretty freckled feet making circles in the sand.

“And how was zhat?” I was pressing her, not to rush her, but so that she could unburden this grief of her childhood.

Vanya started to toy with her hair the fading light making it look like flaming gold. Her shape was highlighted with the rays of light shining through the gossamer like fabric. “Like there was no love there. It was indoctrination. I have nothing against religion as you can see when you feel the need to pray but with them they wanted us to be grateful to have found the God as they presented it to us. You know Mormonism didn’t allow Black people for so long because our skin color made us dirty and was supposed to be a display of our sin outwardly. But they only wanted to adopt children of color.”

“Seems like they wanted to be viewed as having saved you all from sin, but your skin color isn’t one. Just a racist, twisted way of zhinking about zhe world and excluding people in a way zhat didn’t make zhem seem terrible.”

“That sounds about right. They were extremely strict with me. Parentified me so that I had to help with everyone else. It wasn’t until I hit puberty that shit got weird.”

I frowned because the tone of her voice and the nervousness on her face put me on edge. “Weird how? Wiz your ex?” Her hesitation had my heart racing as she avoided looking at me for several seconds.

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