All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(74)

Niko laughed as he sorted through the mishmash of tools in the box, looking for a wrench and some plumber’s tape. He’d been trying to sort the plethora of junk from the basement workbench, pulling out what he needed.

“I can’t possibly even make a dent in that.”

“Fine. You don’t want this? I’ll donate it to the home.”

He glanced up at the flat tone of her voice. “Do they let the residents eat stuff like that?”

“The nurses and the staff will eat it. They’ll appreciate it, if you won’t.” Galina waved her fingers in front of her face. “Where are you off to, Kolya, with all of those tools?”

“I’m going over to Alicia’s to fix her kitchen faucet.” He held up the wrench.

Galina snorted lightly. “How nice of you. Will she pay you?”

“Sure, the same rate I’ve been charging you.” He meant to tease her, but his mother didn’t smile.

“I’m your mother. I feed you. Give you a roof over your head. What I ask of you shouldn’t be anything to complain about, especially since it’s all going to benefit you in the end.”

Niko turned his attention back to the toolbox, feeling his shoulders hunch and forcing himself to straighten. Here it came. The sour comments. Maybe the rage, if he couldn’t defuse it.

“Not complaining, Mom. I’m happy to help out around the house.”

She muttered a reply that he didn’t catch, then said, louder, “Where is your brother?”

“He’s in Jamaica.” Niko shut the lid of the toolbox with a click. “Remember? He’ll be back at the end of the week. He’s leading a dive trip.”

Galina frowned. “I like it when you boys are home, where I can keep an eye on you. So I don’t have to worry about you.”

“You don’t have to worry about us. We’re grown men.”

She hacked out one of her standard harsh cackles. “You think that means I don’t have to worry about you? Mothers never stop worrying. Where you are, what you’re doing, if you’re happy, if you’re going to ever be happy . . .”

With an inward sigh, Niko went to her and took her by the shoulders. “I’m just going across the street to fix a faucet. Ilya will be back in a few days, after his trip. We’re okay, Mom.”

Galina frowned. “You and your brother are not very okay, I don’t think. What did I do wrong, Kolya? Was I really so bad of a mother?”

The words, barbed, hooked him in a tender spot and stung. He knew there’d be no sufficient answer for her. Nothing he could say would be good enough.

“Of course not,” he said.

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, head tilted. In the past, Galina had often played the martyr. There was something different in her expression this time. A kind of blankness that unsettled him.

“We all make mistakes. If you ever had children, you’d know. It’s not too late.”

Niko shook his head. “I already told you that I don’t plan on having kids, Mom.”

“Well,” Galina said briskly, “I didn’t plan on having any, either, and look what happened.”

She was also fond of rewriting history, so he shouldn’t be too surprised, but this was the first time he’d ever heard her mention anything like that. Galina’s story about meeting her first husband and starting a family had been mostly consistent through the years. She’d met Steven Stern at the hospital where she’d been working as a registered nurse. He’d been an orderly. They’d fallen in love. Gotten pregnant.

“Children take so much out of you,” she continued. “You could ask your Babulya about that. What a trial I was as a child. How she told me all the time that she wished upon me the same tribulations I’d put her through.”

“If children are such a pain in the ass,” he said finally, not pointing out that he couldn’t ask Babulya anything, “why do you keep wishing Ilya and I would have some?”

Galina smiled. “So I can be the granny who wishes the tribulations you put me through to come back to you through your kids. Of course.”

He laughed, though it wasn’t that funny. “Well, I don’t think you need to worry about it.”

“No. Maybe not.” She looked oddly sad and gestured at the baked goods. “I learned to cook, finally. Your Babulya would be proud of that, at least.”

And then she was crying, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking in silent, racking sobs. Disturbed, Niko went to her. The way she clung to him, clutching at the front of his shirt, made him uncomfortable, but there was nothing to do but let her. She shook. Not for the first time since he’d been back, he noticed that Galina seemed thinner. Brittle. She’d never been a woman who held on to weight, but her shoulder blades were very prominent even beneath the thickness of her sweater.

“Mom . . . is there something going on with you? Are you all right?”

“I’m grieving.” She pushed away from him to go to the sink to splash water on her face. She kept herself turned away from him, her fingers gripping the sink’s edges as her shoulders hunched. “More than you will, I’m sure, when it’s my turn to die.”

“Stop that,” he said sharply. “That bullshit worked when I was a kid, but it doesn’t anymore.”