Page 134 of Sexting the Pakhan

Good.

I keep my hands steady because if I let them tremble, I might not stop. “Karina, call Dr. Mehra.”

Karina blinks. “Your pediatrician?”

“She does home visits. She also treated your brother when he sliced his hand open making those terrible shelves.”

Karina says, “They were rustic.”

“They were unsafe.”

Ruslan says, “A pediatrician is not treating a bullet wound.”

I look at him. “A pediatrician is a doctor, and right now you are sitting in my kitchen bleeding on a towel with cartoon ducks on it, so maybe lower your standards.”

Mila looks down at the towel. “That’s my bath towel.”

Ruslan says, “I apologize.”

Mila considers him. “It’s okay. You needed it.”

Nadia says, “Blood may not come out.”

Ruslan says, “I’ll replace it.”

“No,” I say sharply.

Everyone looks at me.

I force myself to breathe. “No gifts. No money. No replacing things. Just sit there and bleed less.”

Ruslan’s face closes a little.

I hate that I notice.

Karina quietly takes out her phone and moves toward the hallway. “I’m calling Dr. Mehra.”

The girls stay near me as I work, both of them too quiet now. The adrenaline is wearing off, and what’s left underneath is fear.Mila leans against my shoulder. Nadia stands with one hand on my back.

I want them in bed. I want them safe. I want tonight to rewind to cupcakes and paper crowns and Nadia correcting Mila’s singing.

Instead, Ruslan is in my kitchen. Blood is on my floor. The past is sitting in a chair, watching my daughters like he’s afraid to blink.

I wrap the bandage tighter around his thigh. Ruslan’s hand grips the edge of the table.

“Too tight?” I ask.

“No.”

“Good,” I say.

His eyes stay on my face.

I feel the weight of everything he is not saying.

I feel Karina’s silence from the hallway.

I feel the unknown number burning in my bag, still unanswered, still impossible.