*
“But I want Bianca to come, too.”
I put down the box with the spices I’m organizing and look at Lena. She is standing at the door with Mikhail crouching in front of her and zipping up her jacket.
“Bianca, Bianca, come with us. If you are good, Daddy will buy you a donut. He always buys me a donut if I’m good in the park.”
Mikhail watches me for a few seconds, and when I don’t make a move, he turns to Lena.
“Some other time, Lenochka. Bianca is busy.”
Yeah, Bianca is busy with tidying an already impeccable kitchen, trying to distract herself from mulling over all possible explanations for her husband’s strange behavior. I sigh, take my phone out and send a message to Mikhail.
17:13 Bianca: I don’t have a jacket. Most of my clothes for cold weather are still at my father’s house.
I didn’t expect the temperature to drop so much. Most of the boxes which Denis brought from my home had dresses, summer clothes, and my stage outfits that I didn’t want to leave behind. I only have my elegant coat here with me, and I planned on asking Milene to pack the rest of my wardrobe.
Mikhail’s phone pings. He takes it from his jeans pocket, looks at the screen, then starts typing. My phone vibrates a second later. Really? I snort. We are less than ten feet apart and he messages me back?
17:14 Mikhail: You can borrow one of my hoodies.
I look up and I nod. While he goes to his bedroom, I put the spices back in the drawer and head toward the door to put on my sneakers. Lena is jumping around me, babbling about donuts, when I feel Mikhail’s hand on the small of my back and turn. He’s holding a folded gray hoodie in his other hand. It looks like he does own something other than black clothes.
I put on the hoodie, then look down at myself. The hem almost reaches my knees. The sleeves are at least another hand’s length beyond the tips of my fingers. I look up and find Mikhail watching me. He is trying really hard to keep his expression serious, but his lips are tightly pressed together. He crosses his arms, places his fist over his mouth, shakes his head, and then bursts out laughing. It’s rich and throaty, and I can’t take my eyes off him. He is so beautiful when he laughs.
“Hold out your arms,” he says.
I raise them, and he rolls up the sleeves for me, the left one first and then the right. He is still smiling, and I want to kiss him again.
“Bianca, Bianca, you look funny in Daddy’s clothes.” Lena giggles next to me.
There is a mirror on the left of the door, so I take a few steps and glance at my reflection. I look even more comical with the sleeves rolled three times. Mikhail stands behind me, and our eyes lock in the mirror. He is not smiling anymore, only watches our reflections for a few seconds before abruptly turning away.
“Do you want us to drop by a store first? To buy you something in your size?” he asks without looking at me and opens the door.
I think about it for a moment. Do I look like an idiot? Probably. Do I care? Nope. I turn, take Lena’s hand, and start toward the elevator. Hopefully, it’s not his favorite hoodie, because I am keeping it.
I fucked something up, and I’m not sure what. Bianca has been mad at me since this morning for reasons I can’t understand. I’ve spent the whole day trying to figure out what I did wrong, and still have no clue. Although, it looks like the worst has passed, because when I took her hand as we were leaving the building, she didn’t pull away. She did, however, gift me a pointed look through narrowed eyes.
Sitting on the bench at the edge of the playground, I watch Bianca as she chases Lena around the sandbox. They have been fooling around for an hour. First at the slide, and then in the small children’s house, where Lena prepared a make-believe lunch out of leaves and rocks she collected. Bianca pretended to eat them. My wife looks even younger in my several-sizes-too-big hoodie, and for a moment, I feel a pang of guilt. What if Roman was right? Maybe I should have let Kostya have her. He is closer to her in age, so she would probably have more things to talk about with him than with me. I don’t talk much anyway. The two of them would have been much more suited as a couple.
I can’t stop thinking about the moment before we left my place, when I stood behind her and saw our layered reflections in the mirror. Bianca, even wearing that ridiculously large hoodie, appeared so beautiful and sophisticated. And then there was me, looming over her like a hideous monster. I knew we were a bad match, but up until that moment, I didn’t grasp how much.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Lena shouts and motions with her hand at me. “Come, Daddy!”