Page 4

“Is it?” Zhenya asks, her voice dripping with snark.

“It’s what I want too.” He glances at the sofa, at Arina’s folded arms and Zhenya’s open laptop and Milana practically hanging off the window seat. Then back to me. “I don’t think either of us is going to get it here.”

“Excuse me?” Arina says.

He ignores her. He leans forward, forearms resting on his knees, and he lowers his voice like it’s just the two of us in the room.

“Get your coat,” he says. “Come somewhere with me. Somewhere your sisters can’t answer for you, or interrupt you.”

CALEB

Her sisters follow us to the door.

All four of them. The eldest has her arms folded, like she’s deciding where she’d bury me. The one with the laptop has taken a photograph of my license plate through the front window and isn’t pretending she hasn’t. The youngest calls “Have fun, use protection!” from the stairs and gets a cushion thrown at her head.

Galana goes red to the roots of her hair.

I open the passenger door for her. She hesitates on the step, one hand on the frame, and looks back at the house. At the lamp in the upstairs window. At the four faces crowded behind the glass.

“They mean well,” she says.

“I know. But they talk over you.”

She blinks up at me. Then she gets in the car without answering, and I close the door very gently behind her.

The car is a gray Volvo, five years old, with nothing in it. Nobody looks twice at a gray Volvo. That’s the point.

I take her to a Polish bakery on a side street off Chicago Avenue. It has six tables, steamed-up windows, and an old woman behind the counter who’s never once asked me my name. It’s nearly empty at this hour. I take the table at the back, against the wall, facing the door. Galana takes the chair opposite without being told, which puts her back to the room and me between her and anyone who walks in.

“What would you like?” I ask.

“Oh, anything. Whatever you’re having.”

“I’m having black coffee.”

She wrinkles her nose before she can stop herself.

“What would you like?” I ask again.

She looks at the counter. At the glass case with its paczki and poppyseed rolls and slabs of cheesecake. She looks for a long time, and I watch her talk herself out of three different things.

“Tea,” she says finally. “And the apple pastry. If that’s okay.”

I order. The old woman brings it over on a chipped plate with two forks. I push the plate across to Galana and leave my fork where it is.

She shrugs off her coat. The dress underneath is green, soft, long-sleeved. It’s a good color on her. She looks smaller here than she did in her father’s house, without her sisters filling up every corner of the room. Small and neat and nervous, her hands wrapped around her teacup like it’s keeping her warm.

There’s still a little flour in the crease of her thumb. I noticed it when she poured my tea. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

“I’m sorry about them,” she says.

“Don’t be,” I offer with what I hope is a small smile. The feel of it is foreign on my face and I can’t see my reflection anywhere to know for certain.

“Arina isn’t usually...” She stops. “Actually, she is. She’s always like that.”

“She’s protecting you.”

“She’s protecting all of us. It’s her job. She thinks it is, anyway.” She slides two fingers through the handle of the cup. “I’m sorry. You said you’d tell me who you are, and I’m talking about my sister.”