Chapter 31

I was grateful that he didn’t come in after me to look for his son; I don’t know what would have happened if he had. I think I myself would have yelled at him angrily, that it was his fault. That he had caused, through his own inaction, terrible emotional damage to Mirko. And I would have spit it in his face in perhaps the most brutal way I could think of, defending those two little ones as if they were my own. Oh good. Yes, I was already a little convinced by then that a large part of me was taking on some responsibilities that did not belong to it (and that, in the long run, were going to cost me dearly), but… didn’t I have a little bit of reason? Ivan kept his son in suspense for fifteen days; the little boy lived in fear, waiting for the worst to happen to his mother, and the worst had happened. His mother was dead.

And I’ve said it before, but of course Mirko was old enough to understand what death is, and what happens when it comes.

In my room, the nightstand lamp