Part 31 (2/2)
”I know.” Zorana rolled her tired shoulders, then kissed the girls, one after the other. ”He is like my boys. Too tall for his age, st.u.r.dy and strong. And stubborn. When Firebird is in Seattle he doesnat sleep well.”
”Mamaas boy,” Ann murmured to the sleeping child.
No one said the obviousa”he had no choice but to be a mamaas boy. His father was a mystery. Firebird had returned pregnant from college, and to her brothersa fury she had refused to name her lover. In the two and a half years since, shead never wavered; she would not allow the man, whoever he was, to know about Aleksandr.
Firebird was like her brothers. Like her father. Stubborn. Too stubborn.
”Where is Firebird?” Tasya lingered by the window, looking out.
”Sheas in Seattle, having those tests done.” Bitterly, Zorana said, ”You know which ones. The doctors are trying to discover what is wrong with Konstantine by checking his children. They think itas genetics. They would be better asking Satan what evil heas worked.”
”I donat think the doctors are that well connected. ” Tasyaas cheek quirked.
”Only some of them,” Zorana snapped.
”How is Konstantine?” Ann asked.
”It would be easier if I could carry him around as I do Aleksandr. His feet would drag on the ground, but at least then he could sleep when the pain gets too much. . . .” Zorana studied the girls, the way they looked everywhere but at her, the way they glanced out the window. ”Whatas wrong?”
”Mama.” Tasya came forward and put her arm around Zorana. ”We have found the third icon.”
Zorana froze. The pain that was never far away swamped her. ”Adrikas icon?”
”Yes.” Ann came to join them.
”He had a . . . love?” Without thinking, Zorana stroked Aleksandras soft cheek. Aleksandr, who, with his bright, sparkling laughter and his angry tantrums, reminded her so much of her third son. . . .
”We have Adrikas woman,” Tasya said.
”Actually, his wife,” Ann said.
”He married?” Zorana clutched her fist against her chest. ”Where is she?”
”Jasha and Rurik are getting her out of the car.” Tasya grimaced. ”She was hurt.”
”She was hurt caring for the icon?” Zorana headed out the door, out onto the porch, down the stairs.
They had a saying here: As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen. So true. The yard and Zoranaas garden looked sad, waiting for spring, and Zorana wished briefly for a coat.
Then she forgot the winter and the cold.
Jasha and Rurik had driven a strange van with dark windows, and Zorana quickly saw why. They had pulled a stretcher out of the back, and were now maneuvering a woman into a wheelchair.
She was a tiny thing, only a little taller than Zorana herself. She was gaunt. She was bruised. She had tubes running into her arm. And Zorana knew she had been Adrikas love.
She walked out to meet them.
”Mamaa”” Jasha began.
”Sh.” Absently Zorana cupped his cheek. Cupped Rurikas. Then, carefully, she enfolded the girl in her arms. ”Welcome. Welcome.”
Tears sprang to the girlas amazing blue-green eyes.
Answering tears sprang to Zoranaas. She knelt before the woman. ”Iam Zorana. Whatas your name?”
”Iam Karen.” She had a pretty voice, husky and warm.
”And you knew my Adrik. He loved you.”
”And I love him.”
Zoranaas heart squeezed. The pain of loss, the knowledge that he had died so far away, those things were always there. But Karen would tell them about Adrik, fill in the gaps from so many lost years, and that would help Zoranaas anguish. She really hoped it would help.
Karen looked so fragile, as if she could blow away in the brisk winter breeze.
Zorana rose. ”What are you boys doing, letting her linger in the cold? Take her inside. Your papa will want to meet her at once. Go on. Scoot!”
Rather than pus.h.i.+ng the wheelchair across the gra.s.s, they picked it up and headed toward the porch. A handicapped ramp had been installed, a necessity as Konstantine grew ever weaker.
An older man, a man of steel gray hair and steel blue eyes, followed them. He stopped beside her. ”Iam Jackson Sonnet. Iam Karenas father. I hope itas all right, but Iam going to impose.”
He looked so uneasy and sounded so gruff, as if he half expected her to kick him into the vines. So she hugged him, because, as Firebird always said, Zorana had no respect for personal s.p.a.ce. ”Please go in, Mr. Sonnet. A guest is a blessing for my soul, and the father of Adrikas woman . . . that is a double blessing.”
Another man, young, tall, handsome, stepped out of the van.
She glanced at him and smiled welcomingly, thinking he must be Karenas brother. Except that he didnat look like Karenas brother.
Instead he was tall, like her sons. His hair was dark. He had a cast on one arm. He was thin, wiry, with a tanned, scarred face that had seen dissipation and suffering. His green-and-gold eyes were a peculiar shade shead seen only once before in her life . . . in a baby shead held in her arms.
Her heart stopped beating.
”Mama?” The man raised his eyebrows. He spoke hesitantly, as if unsure of her response.
”Adrik? Adrik?” She heard her own voice. It was loud, louder than she ever was, and Konstantine had the keen hearing of a gray wolf. She clapped her hands over her mouth, then slowly peeled them away. She whispered, ”Adrik?”
”Itas me, Mama.” He smiled, the most beautiful smile shead ever seen. ”Iave come home.”
The last time she had seen him, head been a gangly boy. Now he was a man, lashed by experiences that had molded him, lifted him, broken him, and remade him. She didnat know him now, and at the same time . . . he was her boy, her little boy.
She flew toward him, arms outstretched.
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