Page 88 of Vasily the Hammer

“Did you know Kseniya is your aunt, and she loves you, too?”

He lights up at that. “She has a baby that’s my cousin! I’ve never had a baby cousin before.”

“Yeah, well, your cousin Maribel and your Uncle Miguel love you, too.”

From the kitchen, where Dima and Alex are on a call with Janson, figuring out what’s going on in Flagstaff, Dima coughs and grumbles, “Uncle D loves you too, buddy.”

Artom giggles. “I know that!”

“Good. Great.”

Artom runs his car over the chopsticks with some serious focus, so I’m surprised when he says, “Hey, Daddy?”

“Yeah,Artom?”

“I’m, umm, I’m sorry I told you Mommy’s name was Lacey. Auntie Cami told me she goes by Ana too, and she told me it’s not my fault for saying she’s Lacey, not Ana, but I’m sorry.”

Oof. Just... oof. I scrub my chest, thump it a couple times to work the pain out. I don’t want him blaming himself over that, but Ana’s already pulled me aside and given me a pep talk that included a gentle but firm warning that I can’t just let him have everything he wants and I shouldn’t automatically assume he’s done nothing wrong and I need to let him work through his feelings. It was all a lot, and the way she said it made me think she was regurgitating a bunch of stuff that had blipped into existence in her brain without context, but I’m trying my best to work through all of that.

And I nearly messed up with the dog, I guess.

“Thank you, Artom,” I say, hoping that accepting his apology is the right route. A lead-by-example thing. “I appreciate that. Sometimes I call Mommyzvyozdochka,too.”

“Little star?”

He really does understand Russian. I won’t talk to him in Russian now. I don’t want Ana to feel excluded when everyone else here is fluent. But damn.

“Wait,that’swhat that means?” Ana pipes up.

Artom spins around and gives Ana the most exasperated sigh, so dramatic I have to assume he’s learned by mimicking adults and hasn’t trulyfeltthat sigh in his soul yet.“Mommy.Your Russian is terrible.”

There are a lot of laughs, but Ana’s eyes hold mine. “You started calling me that—”

“When you told me you were majoring intheatre.”

Her face tightens as she holds back emotions. “And before that?”

“Ovechka?”

“Baby lamb!” Artom sing-songs. “They say that in church a lot.”

“Yep, because that’s what they call the devout. Like your mama.”

“Mommy prays a lot,” Artom says conspiratorially.

I lean down close to Artom and say, “She was praying to God right before you got here.”

A second ticks past.

Then Camilla’s jaw drops. Kseniya throws a pillow at me. Ana hisses, “Vasily!” like she’s going to spank me.

If she wants to do that later, I’ll let her.

Chapter 27

Ana

Artom stays the nightwith us before Camilla takes him home. I guess she concocted a lie about it all being too much for her to handle, my death coupled with Vasily’s, knowing Artom would be an orphan. We already knew she wouldn’t be able to stay long before it was going to look too suspicious— unsurprisingly, Tony wants my body in the grave as soon as possible— but Tony’s already calling her trying to figure out where Artom is before we even get into bed.

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