The fall of his slightly long hair had been swept back from his forehead, his nose proud and jawline determined, clenched, as if warding back some great bank of emotions. It had been the same way he’d looked as she had snuck glances at him through the ballet that evening.
She heard him sigh, an exhalation of something more than just oxygen, an acknowledgement of her presence. Without a word, she stepped forward from the soft springy grass that had been merely damp with dew onto the solid frigid stone, sending shivers through her feet and legs all the way up her spine. Ignoring it, she took a seat beside him, leaving the smallest space between their bodies.
For a moment they stayed like that, the silence vibrating with unspoken words, a conversation of bodies, adjusting to the presence of another.
‘So, do you come here often?’ she ventured, regretting the crass joke almost the moment the words had come out of her mouth.
‘Yes,’ he replied after a breath, surprising her with his honesty.
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ he said, smiling gently into the night.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘I… I’ve always found it slightly difficult to sleep, but…’
‘It’s been worse here?’
He nodded. Ella opened her mouth to ask why, but Roman pressed on.
‘When I was younger—before my mother…’ He stopped, seeming to begin again in a different time and place. ‘After Vladimir cut off my mother, and she could no longer dance because she was pregnant with me, she was hired as a cleaner by a rich family in Voskresensk. They were a decent enough family, from what I could tell. But they had this garden that bordered the river there. And sometimes—more often after she became ill—she would wake me in the middle of the night, and bring me out under the stars to dance.’
* * *
As if he had conjured her from his memories, Roman could have sworn that he saw her that night. Dressed in a white cotton shift, moving beneath the stars, twirling pirouettes, the gentle sweep of her arms as they reached, yearning, probing the night air, dancing to music that only she could hear, the gentle footfalls and sweeps creating their own rhythm. He had sat there for hours, over hundreds of nights, and it was not enough, would never be enough. He would swap his soul to be sitting there, shivering in the cold and not minding it one bit, because it was the only time he’d ever seen his mother truly happy. Truly free.
‘She was an incredible dancer. She had been the principal at the Utonchennyy Ballet Company. And the last performance she had with them before Vladimir cut her from his life was Giselle.’
From the corner of his eye he saw Ella raise her hand to her mouth as if to stifle some expression he wasn’t sure either one of them wanted to acknowledge.
‘What was she like?’ Ella ventured after a while using hushed tones as if not wanting to break the gossamer-thin web around them.
‘Sad,’ Roman admitted. ‘She was sad a lot of the time. It was hard for her, the life of a cleaner so different from the luxury that she had grown up in. I could see, even as a child, the wrench that she felt at not being able to give me more. The struggles she had, working and raising a child on her own. But the nights when she would bring me out were…they were enough for me.’
‘I’m sorry. So sorry. If I’d known, I would never have asked you to come with me.’
Roman didn’t do her the injustice of dismissing her apology. ‘I know.’
‘I wish I could have seen her dance.’
He smiled. Somehow, no matter how their wedding had come about, he knew that his mother would have liked Ella. The kindness in her, the goodness. All the things that he was not. That he had forced out of his breast the moment he had laid his mother to rest. And, for the first time ever, he feared that while his mother might have liked Ella, she might not have liked what her son had become.
‘She would have been proud of what you have achieved,’ Ella said as if she had somehow sensed his inner thoughts.
‘But would she have been proud of me?’ he said, finally giving voice to his fear.
For a moment he thought she might not answer, might not be able to find any redeeming quality within her husband.
Then he felt her small hand slip beneath his arm, winding him towards her, and her head lay on his shoulder as she leaned into him.
‘She would have been proud of the man determined to raise his child with its mother. Proud of the man determined to give his wife the home she’d always wanted. She would have been proud of the man who comforted his wife when she felt lost.’
‘Even if that man was the cause of his wife’s insecurity?’
Ella nestled her head deeper into his shoulder. ‘And proud of the man who would change his ways to try to be better for his wife and child. Because that’s all we can do. Try.’ She paused, as if working up towards something Roman feared might hurt. Might cause an even greater ache in his chest. ‘Earlier I said I was sorry for asking you to come to the ballet tonight. But I’m not,’ she said, pulling back so that she could look at him, so that he could see the sincerity in her eyes. ‘I’m not, because it brought us here. Because I now see a little of your mother.’
‘I haven’t thought about her dancing in years,’ Roman admitted roughly.
‘That is a shame. Because I want you to have those memories. I want you to talk about her, so that our child can know their grandmother. I don’t have any real memories of my parents, only what Vladimir
