Page 62 of Vasily the Hammer

I’m not a bad mom. A terrible thing happened to me, and we’re both doing the best we can in the aftermath. If we have to go at our own pace while we figure out what life is going to be, that’s okay. We’ll love each other enough to get through it together.

His head drops to the side, and by the time he’s fully facing me, his eyes are wide open, staring at me. I should apologize for waking him, but the smile he gives me dashes any apology away. “Good morning, Mommy!” he sings way too loudly for someone who woke up half a second ago.

“It’s still night, baby,” I whisper.

“I know that,” he says, but he doesn’t even look miffed about it. He shuffles over to my side of the bed and throws his arms around me as best as he can. “But I just woke up, and that’s what you say when you first wake up.”

I laugh softly as I hug him too. “Yeah, that’s true. Good morning, baby.” After a beat, I add, “Is it weird that I call you ‘baby’? Did I used to call you something else?”

I feel him shrug in my arms, a quick up and down like he’s not thinking too hard about it. Like the answers all just come immediately for him. “Sometimes you call me ‘baby,’ butI’m not a baby. And sometimes you call me ‘honey’ or ‘sweetheart,’ but I’m not either of those either.”

“Do you like when I call you those things? Would you rather I just call you Artom? Or something else?”

He lifts his head up to look me in the eye in that way-too-close way of his. In the darkness, I can still see the mop of pale hair and the bright blue eyes he got from his father.

“You can call me anything, Mommy! I’m just happy you’re back.”

It must have been such a jolt for Vasily to see him. That whole late-night conversation makes so much sense now. What a way to learn you have a son. And for him to figure out how to calm me down? To come up with a way to soothe me after accidentally telling me Artom had died because he thought I was talking about his brother? He must have been so overwhelmed—

No. He’s the enemy. In fact, Tony said he knew about Artom. God, it’s so crazy to think about that. It’s impossible to imagine Vasily’s that much of a monster.

I must be wearing my thoughts on my face because Artom frowns and says, “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

I consider making something up. Telling him everything’s fine. Cracking a joke. Deflecting to something else entirely. Dragging him out of bed to make him hot chocolate in the middle of the night just to pretend like everything isn’t such a mess and I’m not falling apart and expecting a five-year-old, my child, the one person in this world who’s supposed to be relying on me for everything and not the other way around, to be my anchor.

But it’s been him and me his entire life. No one needs to tell me that to know it’s true. Tony may have helped me start a new life, but he wasn’t there. Camilla may still be my friend,but her world is here. Artom was staying with a neighbor when I was nabbed, and it was an uncle he’s never met before who was his next of kin. Artom has always been my anchor, and he knows it.

“I’m sad, baby.”

“Was it something I did?”

“No, of course not! I’m so happy I have you back. I just... I’m really confused, that’s all, and I’m not sure what to do with all these thoughts I’ve got.”

He nods sagely, like that makes any sense to him at all. After thinking about it, he says, “Well, when I have thoughts I don’t know what to do with, I tell you, and you always know what I should do because you know so much. But now, I know more than you, so if you tell me, I can tell you what to do.”

I’m not sure if that’s how things are going to work, but Artom’s already mentioned Vasily to me, so I suppose he might know more about him than I do. Camilla hates Vasily. She didn’t give me any doubt about that. So does Tony. As they should. He’s a horrible person. But I wouldn’t have told Artom about all of the terrible things about Vasily. I would have painted him in the best possible light.

I am weak. I am indulgent. I want that right now.

“Do I talk about your father a lot?”

“Mmm, not a lot. You get sad. But sometimes I ask anyway, and you tell me some stuff.”

“What stuff have I told you?”

He flops down next to me, but he holds my hand as he does it so he lands on my arm, making sure I don’t let go of him. “That he saved you.”

“From what?”

“From bad men. And he liked it when you sang. And you learned to cook because he told you to— but in a good way. I’mnot allowed to tell my girlfriends to learn how to cook. And he saved grandpa’s cross for you. And we can’t be with him because his life is real dangerous, and he just wants us to be safe and happy. So we need to be extra happy to make up for how sad he is that we’re not with him. But you’re sad anyway.”

My life is connecting dots, and there are a lot of dots that connected there with things Vasily has said to me. I want to believe that the reason they connect is I’m wrong about the situation. The feeling in my gut tells me I’m wrong. But I know better than to trust myself when the actual evidence is right there.

“I’m sad too, sometimes,” Artom confesses. “I’m sad because you’re sad and because Daddy’s sad too. And you found the happy church because of him.”

“What’s the happy church?”

“The Russian church.”

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