My mother looked back at him, her face was very still like someone who has been waiting for a long time for something they weren't sure would come.
"Yes," Andrei said without warmth of patience. "Yes, I loved her. I left because staying would have made her a target. What I was, what I intended to build, it would have consumed her if I'd let it." He swallowed. "That's not an excuse, and it's not an apology, it's just the true thing, since you're asking for the true thing."
"And your daughters," Imogen said. "Both of them."
"Yes," Andrei said again, quieter.
"Then stop doing things to people you love," Imogen said, "as if love is compatible with using someone as a piece. Stop proving you love us by building things around us without asking if we want to be built around." Her voice had gon
