Page 47

I hear the car on the gravel and the front door, and his footsteps, and Pelmen skidding across the hall to meet him. I hear him wipe his feet on the mat. Very carefully. Every single time, still.

He comes into the kitchen.

He stops in the doorway.

I’m at the stove with my back to him, stirring nothing in particular, because I don’t trust my face yet. I can feel him behind me. The way he goes still. The way the air in the room changes when he starts paying attention.

“Hi,” I say, without turning around.

“Hi.”

“Dinner’s ready. It’s in the dining room. Go and sit down.”

He doesn’t move.

I can feel him looking. At the tulips through the doorway, at the candles. At the plate of eggs and dill on the counter, and the apple cake cooling beside it. At me.

“Galana,” he says.

“Go and sit down, Caleb.”

“You haven’t had coffee in nine days.”

My spoon stops.

“You fell asleep on the sofa on Tuesday. And Thursday. You never fall asleep in the day. You went out to the garden when I made eggs on Sunday, and you said it was to check on the swing. You haven’t had a glass of wine since the dinner at Arina’s.” His voice is very quiet. “And you’re humming a lullaby.”

I turn around.

He’s still in the doorway. His coat’s still on. And he’s looking at me with an expression I’ve never seen on him before, in all these months. Not even in the chapel. Not even in the car that morning, with his hands shaking on the wheel.

He looks frightened. Frightened to hope.

I should have known. I should have known I could never keep anything from him. He’s been watching me notice things for six months. Of course he’s learned how.

“Sit down,” I say again, softer. “Please. I’ve got something for you.”

He sits.

He doesn’t take off his coat. He doesn’t look at the food. He just sits at the table in the yellow dining room with the tulips and the candles, and he watches me come in from the kitchen with my hands behind my back.

I sit down beside him.

I put the little package on the table in front of him.

It’s wrapped in wax paper, folded neatly at both ends, exactly the way I wrapped twelve sandwiches every night for the men at Papa’s gate. And on the top, in black marker, in my best handwriting, I’ve written a name.

Baby Reznikov.

He stares at it.

For a long time, he doesn’t move at all. Then he reaches out and picks it up. His hands are steady. But when he unfolds the wax paper, very slowly, one end and then the other, I see his fingers start to tremble.

Inside, there’s a pair of socks.

Tiny ones. White and impossibly fluffy, smaller than my palm. I bought them in Wilmette this morning, after the pharmacy, and stood in the shop holding them for ten minutes before I could make myself go to the till.

Caleb looks down at them in his big, scarred hands.