A mother nine months later.
I sent Slavka to hang up my coat at the back of the room, then turned back to Alexei. “You missed the appointment.” Fighting to keep my voice even. I was not going to sound shrill; it would just amuse him. “I waited nearly three hours.”
He shrugged. “It slipped my mind. I’m a busy man, kroshka.”
“You know they require us both to be there in order to finalize the divorce. You don’t want to be married to me, Alexei, so why won’t you show up?”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said, breezy, and one of his friends farther down the line chuckled, seeing my face.
“She doesn’t want you to make it up to her!” Laughter rippled behind me, and someone muttering, I’ll let her make it up to me! Alexei grinned over my head.
“I’ll set another appointment to finalize the divorce,” I said as coolly as I could manage. “If you can just be there, it will all be over in a matter of minutes.” I didn’t like the mess I’d made of my own life, a mother at fifteen, estranged within months, and potentially divorced at twenty-one—but better to be divorced than to be stranded in this limbo of the last six years, neither married nor unmarried.
“Ah, don’t get all prune-faced, Mila. You know I like to tease.” Alexei gave me a playful dig in the ribs. Only it was a dig that hurt through my wool blouse. “You’re looking well, you know. Glowing, almost . . . Maybe there’s a reason you want this divorce? A man?”
He was still teasing, still playful, but there was an edge behind the words. He didn’t really want me anymore, but he didn’t like the idea of anyone else wanting me, either. Much less having me.
“There’s no one,” I said. Even if there had been someone else, I wouldn’t have told him—but there wasn’t. Between university classes and studies, Komsomol meetings and caring for Slavka, I was getting by on about five hours of sleep a night. Where was there the time for a new man in my life?
Alexei turned the rifle over between his hands, still looking at me. “You’re in your third year of studies now?”
“My second.” The history department at Kiev University, and my student card had been hard-won after a year of studying at night while working shifts as a turner lathe operator at the arsenal factory. Back then I’d been operating on about four hours of sleep a night, but it was all worth it. All for Slavka, for his future and mine. “Alexei, if I can get another appointment—”
“Alexei!” someone called further down the firing line, looking me over. “This the little wife?”
My husband brought me under his arm with a quick squeeze. “Tell her what a good shot I am, Seryozha. She’s not impressed with me anymore. Just like a wife, eh?” Alexei saw the look on my face and leaned down to nuzzle my ear. “Just teasing, kroshka, don’t bristle.”
“Your man’s good, watch him with the TOZ-8!”
“Just a simple single-shot rifle,” Alexei told me as I wriggled out from under his arm. “We call it the Melkashka.”
“I know what it’s called.” I was no expert, but I’d been to the range before with the factory shooting club; I knew something about firearms. “TOZ-8, good 120 through 180 meters—”
“TOZ-8, muzzle velocity 320 meters a second, good from 120 to 180 meters,” Alexei said, not listening. “Sliding bolt here—”
“I know. I’ve handled—”
He raised the rifle, took careful aim, and the crack of the shot sounded. “See? Nearly dead center.”
I bit my tongue hard enough to hurt. I wanted to turn my back, gather up my son, and storm out of here, but Slavka was dawdling by the coat hooks listening to two men having some loud political discussion—and I didn’t want to depart without some kind of guarantee. A guarantee that the next appointment I set to finalize our divorce, Alexei would be there.