Page 79 of Vasily the Hammer

But my first actual memory of Vasily isn’t of his face. It’s of his voice, his accent thick.To settle debt. $150,000. Fifteen days sounds right.And then there’s light, and when everything balances, it’s my brother he’s talking to.

Who sold my virginity to Vasily’s brother for $150,000.

We’re interrupted by the ding of the elevator door. The same orderly from before walks out, giving me a nod as he passes by with a stretcher. A human shape is hidden under a white cloth. One of the wheels squeaks as he turns the corner into the morgue.

Vasily and Dima both make the sign of the cross. It’s different from how I do it. They hold three fingers together with their ring and pinky fingers curled down, and they go right to left across their chests.

I wonder if I’ve noticed that before or if I’ve crossed myself hundreds of times in their churches and never paid enough attention to mimic everyone around me.

“We’re going to need this room,” the orderly says meaningfully, and we nod and gather what little we have.

“Where do we go from here?” Dima asks Vasily.

Vasily pauses, the slides he’s pulled from Dima’s Target bag hitting the ground in dual thuds. He may know every decision he’s ever made, but he’s as shell-shocked as I am.

I reach out to him, intent on telling him it’s okay if he doesn’t know, that we just have to get ourselves to safety before he figures out what’s next. Before I can touch him, he shakes his head and shoves his big feet into the flimsy, casual, warm-weather shoes. He gropes his pants, I know subconsciously hunting for his pills, and I’m secretly glad he can’t find them when he says, “I need to see my sister. Dima, give Ana your jacket. It’s cold outside.”

The hour-long drive to Sedona is quiet. Everything that’s happened today must catch up with Vasily because he’s sound asleep by the time Dima tells us it’s safe for us to come out.

We had to fold down the back seats and lay with our bodies half in the trunk, covering ourselves with a blanket pilfered from the hospital. Vasily took advantage of the situation and curled himself around me. I want to be mad enough to push him away, but his arm is a nice pillow. His body is warm. I feel safe.

And the quiet is exactly what I need. I need it to think.

So many memories have just rushed back, but adding the minutes up, they’re an hour of an entire lifetime. Few are meaningful. I remember the chocolate cake I vomited up after Dad told me his cancer was terminal, but I don’t remember his death. I remember kissing a boy in a play rehearsal but not my first real kiss or the play itself. I remember a classmate helping me turn off an alarm because my baby bump made it hard to reach across the stove but not holding newborn Artom for the first time.

The fifteen days I spent with Vasily are a blink. Him removing my blindfold, a perfectly flipped pancake, andya tebya lyublyu.

Oh, and feeling like my heart had been ripped out on a sun-bleached rooftop in Sedona, which makes me wonder if that’s where we’re going. A tear leaks from my eye, slides over the bridge of my nose, and drips into my hair.

Memories of Dima are more plentiful. Easier. Few are any more substantial, but if there’s anyone I can trust right now, it’s Dima.

And not Tony. I’ve spent my entire life praying that, just once, my brother would prove himself worthy of my love, and he’s failed at every single pass. That he’s trying to kidnap my son is on par for him.

I’m somewhere between Flagstaff and Sedona while he, my son, and my cousin are in Phoenix.

“Hey Dima?” I whisper.

“Yeah, Lace?”

“Do you know Maria Benedetti?”

Silence. But if he’s trying to place the name, he’d make some sound. A thoughtful hum. A follow-up question. Cold silence is as good as an affirmative.

“I don’t care that she and Vasily had sex.” And I don’t care if I’m lying. Everyone else is lying to me; it’s my turn now.

“Okay, yeah. I know Maria. Not well, but... hell, I was going to say you can ask Kostya about her, but I guess not. I can’t believe how fucked this got.”

I count to three, tell myself to talk in a normal cadence. Vasily’s breathing heavily enough I don’t think I’ll wake him, but I don’t want to sound an alarm until I have to. But if Kostya and Maria are in cahoots, I may have to sound that alarm. “So I shouldn’t trust her?”

Dima gives me that thoughtful hum. “Mmm, I guess that depends on what you’re trusting her with.”

“Because she’s undercover ATF?”

“Yep.”

“I left Artom in her care so I could fly up here.”

“Oh.Oh.Okay yeah, she hates your brother. She’ll do her best with Artom.”

---