Page 141 of Shâhzâdeh

“My adoptive father—”

I lowered my head and closed my eyes so that I could get ahold of my anger. When it was simmering instead of boiling I looked back up at her so I could gain clarity. “Vanya, I will swim back to Norz Carolina and strangle zhat man to death if you say what I zhink you’re about to.”

Her hands were on my arms as though she could stop me from diving into the ocean. She turned my face to hers and I could see the panic there. “No, not like that. Not exactly. He used to pay a lot of attention to me.”

“I am sorry for interrupting but you are giving my mind time to wander. And zhat allows for me to plan out zhe deazs of the people who have harmed you in meticulous detail. I need you to ease my mind zhat you do not mean in zhat way. Zhe attention.”

Vanya held her breath before releasing it. “I can’t.”

I had to snap my jaw shut so that I didn’t curse in front of her and make her feel like she’d caused my frustration. I’m sure she understood why I felt this way, but a cooler head needed to rule. For now.

I took a deep breath and released it incrementally to give my body a chance to calm. “Slowly and wiz precision, zhen. Got it.” She wrapped my arm around her shoulder and nuzzled into my side. A move she knew would force me to relax. And it worked. My breathing slowed allowing my thoughts to reorganize so that I could be there for my wife.

“I would tell you to ask questions but I feel you don’t want to.”

I pulled Vanya closer into my side so I could provide her comfort and ground myself. “I want you to talk. To get whatever weighs you down off. Zhis is a place of renewal. People zhink of Bermuda as a place of loss. I always zhink zhat maybe zhe people lost in zhe infamous triangle made it to shore and could survive in some ways. To carve out a life in zhis paradise even for a short while. Being here, even wiz its commercialization is peaceful to me. It’s not populated year round and zhe ability to find rest is important.”

“Does the house in Charlotte not give you that?” I knew she was worried that she hadn’t done her job and provided me an oasis and I pulled her closer to extract some of the stiffness in her body.

“It does. Zhis is extra. I zhink zhis house will be yours. Zhe place you can come where you can get away from me when I am on your nerves. Where you can host our lady friends when all of us are getting on your collective nerves. We have zhe compound in Destin, but I can already see zhat will quickly become a family and kid gathering type of place.”

“Not so bad.” She wore a wistful look on her face and I knew family was a sensitive subject for her.

“Not at all. But finish,ziba, I want to know whatever you want to tell me.” In my arms, I wanted her to find the comfort and strength she needed to battle the past in the form of her memories.

“My ex found his purpose in trying to do whatever our father said. He didn’t have to ask Johnathan to jump before he was volunteering to all but break his neck to do it. I was never one for that type of blind obedience. They didn’t bode well for people who wanted to show the world they could take these children with skin the color of sin and make them perfect.”

“My love had a plan.”

She grinned, and I could see the pride come over her face. “I did. I was going to get a job, get my GED and get away from them as soon as I turned 18. I did odd jobs in their real estate office so I had a little money. I was naïve to a lot, but I figured I could get on the bus and get out of the Huntersville area. Even if it was just to go to Charlotte. I could get lost in the city and I wouldn’t have to answer to them.”

“You didn’t feel any connection at all?”

“They wanted to change so much about me that I knew this couldn’t be what love was. Not the type of love they swore that family had for one another. My mother would try to change my hair by straightening it. And my skin by using harsh scrubs with lemon juice.”

My anger rose again because anyone who wanted to change a child to fit their ideal was a monster. “Who would do zhis to a child?”

“My adoptive mother. I had to sit in bleach water when the freckling on my body intensified. Or stay inside so they wouldn’t get darker. All it did was mess up my skin barrier that has taken me years to correct with a dermatologist.”

“Zhese people really attempted to change every part of you. Zhankfully, you saw everyzing zhey hated as your unique gifts from God. And your husband adores every feature zhey didn’t.”

She rest her head on my chest as she wrapped her arms around my waist. “After a while, she stopped messing with my hair. I think it was because he liked it. Which of course made me hate it. But he was adamant that I keep it. I thought I’d be able to get away from them when I was eighteen but that didn’t work out.”

“What happened?”

“Johnathan came to me right after my seventeenth birthday and told me that we were getting married.”

“Told?”

“Our parents said that we were the perfect match and the elders had discussed our fate and said we were to be married. And that was it.” She humped her shoulders like she felt the defeat of that day all over again.

“At seventeen.” I was speaking through clenched teeth again completely on the verge of losing my shit. Vanya turned her body, wrapping her arms around me as she faced the water.

“I’ve seen girls get married far younger than that. There had been some talk of me marrying some older man but Mr. Kennedy put a stop to it. He decided that my ex was better. Johnathan was pissed about it too.”

“What do you mean?”

I was hoping it was because he felt this shit was wrong too, but how their marriage went I could tell that wasn’t what she meant at all.

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