She’s there now, working at her laptop. She’s irritatingly relaxed. Her eyes scan the screen. Her arm moves every few seconds to move the mouse or click on something. She picks up her cup of instant soup, blowing on a spoonful before taking a bite. Even when I want to hate her for destroying everything and for the guilt roiling inside me, I’m enraptured by her. Her dark hair flows over her shoulder as she leans forward, her face scrunching up in concentration. When she gets lost in thought, she lets the spoon linger in her mouth for a second before tapping it against her bottom lip.
She finishes the soup, taking the cup over to her trash can and throwing it out. When she sits down in front of her laptop again, she and I notice the grilled cheese near her elbow at the same time. She must have made it, but she looks at it like it’s perplexing and undesirable.
She abruptly stands up, picking up the plate, and she throws it against her kitchen counter. I can’t hear anything, but the sight of the dish shattering is enough for me to hear it in my head. She sits back down, closing the laptop, and stares at the mess she made for several seconds. She rests her head against the top of the laptop. As her shoulders start to shake, I know she’s crying.
It’s hard to watch, but I keep my eyes on the screen until my own vision starts to blur and I have to leave.
18
Cassandra
“I’ve never been to this place,” Lily says, picking up the menu. I wasn’t sure if Lily was too young to go to a more sophisticated restaurant or too old to go to one of those diners with the thick plastic covering the tables to deal with the consistent spills and the tears of toddlers’ parents. I compromised with a bakery café that served paninis. When I don’t say anything, she looks up at me over the menu. It’s so eerie seeing someone who looks so much like me, yet so much more beautiful and innocent. “Why doesn’t your husband come with you anymore? You guys always used to come together.”
It’s been over a month since she’s seen him. I almost thought I’d lucked out and she’d forgotten about him. As I observe her face, I realize she’s been holding onto this question.
I glance over her head, where a hanging flat-screen TV is showing the news. They’re covering another murder, which is the new normal, along with reports about an increase in gang wars, rapes, assaults, the destruction of various stores and houses, and a spike in dirty heroin deaths.
“He’s been busy,” I say, the lie and the truth of it colliding in my head.
“He was fun,” she says, picking up her ham and cheese panini. “Remember when we ate at his restaurant after my soccer game? I loved that cake.”
Maksim had the pastry chef make a mini fudge cake with frosting that made it look like a soccer ball caught in the soccer net. Lily was over the moon about it, hesitating several times before sticking her fork in it to take a bite because she didn’t want to ruin it. Maksim assured her that he could have more baked for her.
Now, that’s never going to happen.
“I remember,” I say, tearing at the edges of my panini. “He’s just super busy right now though. Maybe we can find out who the pastry chef was. Lily … have you seen the news at all in the last month?”
She shakes her head. “Mrs. Neal likes to watch that talk show, Wyatt & Richardson, and those shows where people fix up their house. Mr. Neal watches football and shows about Alaska. They might watch the news after we all go to bed. Has Mr. Maksim been on the news?”
I’ve been wary of Maksim retaliating against Lily since I can’t constantly keep an eye on her, but somewhere deep in my bones, I know he wouldn’t hurt her. I know he was being honest when he said he wouldn’t hurt her, that he doesn’t hurt innocent people. But I can’t shake the fact that he was willing to sell Lily and me out for territory that he only wanted because he knew it would hurt my father. If he was willing to do all of this to get at my father, how could I trust him with my daughter? What would happen if he decided that my daughter was what my father cared about more than anything?
Nothing. He wouldn’t hurt her. But I need to believe there’s a risk, so I won’t keep remembering how good it felt to be intertwined with him and how he knows me better than anyone else ever will.
“Not exactly,” I tell Lily. “Just his businesses are in some trouble. That’s why he’s been so busy.”
She frowns, focusing on her panini. I look away from her, desperate to avoid this conversation. The TV catches my attention again as a newscaster stands in front of one of the apartment complexes near the Akimov Suites.
The newscaster nervously glances over her shoulder. “Several residents of Jones’ apartment complex are talking about leaving, despite their lease agreements. After the double murder from three days ago, this arson and murder have them on edge. In the Murray murders, the police suspect that it was related to an attempt to extort Cameron Murray, who owned Cameron Murray Boutique, but no one has been arrested. This second murder of Michelle Knapp is under investigation, but many residents are losing confidence in the police’s ability to quell the violence and they’re looking into other living arrangements.”
Michelle Knapp. The employee at the Akimov Suites that Maksim introduced me to. The one who Maksim said wasn’t involved in the ugly underbelly of the city.
An innocent.
I cover my mouth with my hand,
