Page 96 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

I turned.

My father had his face in his hands, and his shoulders were shaking.

I froze.Not because I didn’t know what to do—though I didn’t—but because I had never, in my entire life, seen my father cry.

Not when his brother died.

Not when Mama had gotten so sick that winter she couldn’t leave bed.

Not even when our neighbor’s little boy drowned in the Neva and everyone on the block had stood at their windows in mourning.

Never.Not once.

But here he was, hands over his face, his shoulders hunched in on themselves like the weight of the world had finally crushed him down.

“Papa…” my voice cracked.

He didn’t move.

I reached out, gently, like I might spook him.“It’s okay.I’m okay…”

“Don’t,” he snapped, lifting his head.His voice was raw, not angry.More like something scraped across broken glass.

I recoiled on instinct, heart pounding, already preparing to be yelled at, struck, thrown out…

But the next second, he was kneeling again in front of me, picking up the cotton and the bottle like nothing had happened.Like the moment had never existed.

“Sit still,” he muttered, not looking at me.“I’m not done.”

So I sat.

The rubbing alcohol stung worse this time—he’d gotten close to a deep cut under my collarbone—but I bit down and kept quiet.

The silence buzzed like radio static between us.I didn’t know what to say.I was still waiting for the explosion.Still bracing for the actual reaction I’d expected: the shouting, the disgust, the accusation.That word spat again in my face, like it had been at the station.

Faggot.

Pervert.

Criminal.

Instead, he kept going.Swapping out bloody gauze, checking my arm, lifting my chin like he was inspecting a piece of glass for fractures.

And all I could do was sit there and try to make sense of this man.

The same man who’d barked at me for slouching, who had once broken the neighbor’s nose for calling our family weak.Now dabbing my skin like I might fall apart if he pressed too hard.

I let out a shaky breath and looked down at my lap.“How the hell am I supposed to show up to work like this?”

It came out more like a joke than I meant it to, half-laugh, half-cry.A bitter little thing, barely alive.

Papa stopped and put the bandage down.Then, without warning, his hands were on my shoulders.Not rough.Firm.He turned me so I was facing him, and his eyes locked onto mine.For the first time all night, I saw something in them I recognized.

Resolve.

“You’re never going back to that place,” he said.

I stared at him.“What?”

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