All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(18)

She looked up from fixing the stack of magazines that had gone askew when she hit them with the remote. “I lost my job at the hospital when they were bought out by another larger one and merged. They moved all the day-surgery patients to the other location. I didn’t want to work that far away. I would have needed a car.”

“Mom . . . what happened to your car?” Nikolai studied her, but her expression gave away nothing.

Galina stacked the magazines precisely, tapping the top of the pile before sitting back on the couch with a satisfied smile. “I didn’t need a car when I could walk to work. And I didn’t have my license anymore. So why have a car? It’s just an expense I don’t need. Upkeep, gas, the insurance. Too much.”

“Why did you lose your license?” This had all the telltale signs of a typical Galina misadventure.

She gave him a long, steady look. “I didn’t lose it. I just forgot to renew it, so it lapsed, and by the time I realized it, I didn’t feel like going through all the hoops to get it back, when I didn’t need it.”

“But . . . you drove here,” he pointed out.

Galina shrugged. “Borrowed the car from a friend.”

His mother had always had her share of “friends.” Nikolai didn’t ask any more questions. The less he knew, the better.

“Well . . . thanks for breakfast.”

She got up to ruffle his hair exactly as she’d done when he was a kid. “Too skinny. You don’t eat enough. Too much time spent in the desert. Not enough time spent with a woman. Unless there is a girl? Oh, is there a nice Jewish girl, ready to make you a dozen babies?”

“Mom. Please.” Nikolai made a face. It wasn’t any more fun to have his mother quizzing him about his love life now than it had been when he was a teenager. There’d been women, of course. Nobody for a while. Nobody permanent.

“At least your brother, he got married. No babies.” She frowned. “I’d be a wonderful grandmother, you know. If either of you gave me the chance. And your Babulya, she would love to have more babies to love. You should think about it, before she’s gone.”

This, coming from the woman who’d told both her sons that if they knocked up any girls, they’d better run away from home, because she wasn’t going to take care of any bastards. Maybe the fact Niko had actually run away from home without getting anyone pregnant had changed her mind. Maybe time had mellowed her. Maybe she was just being Galina.

“Sorry, but I don’t plan on having kids anytime soon. Maybe never.”

Galina put a hand over her heart and shook her head, closing her eyes with a frown. She didn’t say anything out loud. She didn’t have to.

“Morning.”

Both Galina and Niko turned to see Theresa, tousle-haired and wearing a pair of sleep pants emblazoned with cartoon characters that Nikolai didn’t recognize. She yawned and gave Galina a small wave with her fingers half-curled. Galina let out a small, surprised laugh.

“Theresa? My God, it’s you! Look at you. You’re a woman.”

The women embraced—Galina wholeheartedly. Theresa hung back, throwing Niko a look over his mother’s shoulder. He understood her hesitance—there was history there, for sure. He had a bunch of his own.

“What are you doing here?” Galina asked.

“I came when I heard Babulya wasn’t doing well.” Theresa sat.

Galina waved a hand. “Of course you did. Everyone loved my mother, didn’t they? Even the ones who barely knew her.”

“I wouldn’t say I barely knew her,” Theresa replied evenly.

Galina laughed and put a delicate hand to her forehead. “Oh. Foolish of me. I’m sorry. Of course you did. I just had a moment.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Theresa gave Niko a shrug and crossed her arms over her belly.

“I’m going outside for a smoke,” Galina said abruptly and left the living room.

Theresa waited until the sound of the back door had clicked shut before she spoke. “Okay, then.”

“Did you sleep all right?” Niko asked.

She laughed softly. “Yeah. But I woke up in the night to use the bathroom and forgot I wasn’t in my old room, so I miscounted the doors and almost peed in the linen closet. How weird is that?”

“Not the weirdest thing that ever happened in the linen closet, probably,” Niko said dryly.

“What’s going on? Who’s peeing in weird places? Did I miss the party?” Ilya padded into the living room in a pair of faded plaid boxers and nothing else. Saggy boxers, at that.

Niko grimaced. “Dude. Cover that shit up. Nobody needs to see your balls hanging out this early in the morning.”

Theresa snorted laughter behind her hand. She covered her eyes with the other. “Agreed. Get a robe or something!”

Ilya turned, wiggling his ass at the pair of them, much the way he’d done when they were younger. “What? This? What’s wrong with this? You got a problem?”

“Gross,” Theresa said matter-of-factly.

For a moment, it was so much the way it had been during that brief year and a half when they’d all been a family that nostalgia washed over Niko in a rush, almost making him dizzy. If he closed his eyes, he could be sixteen again, just learning how to shave and figure out girls. Before everything had started to change.