Page 212 of Sexting the Pakhan

At first, that’s all I understand.

Empty.

No Ruslan. No one else either.

Then the details come into focus one by one, and each one is worse than the last. The mud is torn up with footprints. Gravel is scattered everywhere. A strip of cloth is caught on a branch. There are drag marks near the edge, broken roots, dark smears on the stone.

Blood. So much blood that the ground seems to have remembered violence even after the men are gone.

Mila pulls me closer, but I stop before we get too near the drop.

“Stay behind me,” I say, and my voice sounds strange, too calm for what is happening. “Both of you stay behind me.”

Nadia obeys immediately, gripping the back of my sweater. Mila stands pressed against my side, shaking so hard I can feel it through my clothes.

“He went there,” she whispers, pointing toward the ledge.

It has begun to rain, slow at first, then steadier, cold drops darkening the dirt and thinning the blood on the stone. I move forward on my knees because standing feels impossible, and because I’m afraid if I walk, my legs will carry me too close to the drop.

Below, the quarry wall disappears into shadow and broken rock. I can see scraped stone where something heavy went down. I can see blood on a lower ridge.

I can’t see him.

My hand goes to my mouth. The sound I make frightens both girls.

Mila starts crying harder. Nadia presses her face into my back and says, “Mama, don’t.”

But I can’t stop it.

For six years, I carried Ruslan like a wound I refused to treat. I told myself anger was enough. I told myself distance was safety. I told myself I had done the right thing, and maybe I had, but none of that matters now, because he came for our daughter in the dark and walked into a trap he knew was waiting.

He came because Mila was there.

I lower my hand and look at the blood on the ledge.

“I loved you, Ruslan,” I weep. The words come out broken and helpless, dragged from a place I kept locked for too long. “I loved you then, and I loved you after, and I loved you even when I was furious with you. I loved you every time I hated you for leavingme alone. I should have told you. I should have told you before this.”

The rain runs into my eyes. I wipe it away, but more falls, mixing with tears until I can’t tell the difference.

Mila sobs beside me. “Mama.”

I pull her into my arms, and Nadia comes too, both of them clinging to me while I kneel in the wet grass at the edge of the place where their father fell.

Then Mila suddenly lifts her head. “Mama,” she whispers.

I close my eyes. “Baby, please don’t look down.”

“No,” she says, her voice changing. “I heard something.”

My heart starts pounding again, sharp and wild. “Mila, move back from there.”

She turns toward the side of the ledge, where the ground dips lower around a knot of exposed roots. “Mama, come help me.”

“Mila, I said move back.”

“But I heard him.”

The words stop me. For a moment, there’s only rain and my own breathing and Nadia crying softly into my sleeve.