“I didn’t dread it, though,” he adds with a twitch of his lips. “Because she was there. My mother.”
Unconsciously, I put a hand on my belly. Matvey doesn’t miss the motion. “What was she like?” I ask.
He doesn’t say it, but I try to picture it: Matvey and his mom, huddled up in front of a flickering fireplace. Finding strength in each other to get through the night.
I wonder if that’s why night’s easier for him. If the memories are good enough to sweeten it, even now.
“It sounds like she truly cared about you.”
“She did.” Then his face darkens. “She was the only one.”
Here we are, I tell myself. “So your father…?”
“My father was a scumbag,” he growls. “Always disappearing to God knows where. For days on end, he wouldn’t show. My mother used to wait up for him all night. It was freez
