Chapter Forty-Seven
This ephemeral version of my father looks a little better than his real-world self. His eyes and face are still swollen, but his posture is less defeated.
“What have you done?” he asks in rapid-fire Russian. “Why would you come to this deadly place?” He floats down. “You’re as stubborn as your mother—and you can’t even understand me. All my fault. If I left you with a Russian family, you wouldn’t have forgotten how to speak our mother tongue. Maybe if—”
“I’ve re-learned Russian since we last spoke,” I reply, my words halting and slow as I pull on all the knowledge I’ve drilled into my brain. “I came to save you. I had to.”
He stares at me in shock, then starts speaking again, this time slower and enunciating every word. “It was a grave error to come here. I don’t ha
