Page 223 of Sexting the Pakhan

I flip it open. The photo is me, but not me. Hair shorter. Beard trimmed differently. The face of a man who exists just enough to pass and not enough to remember.

“There’s a bank account tied to it,” Stepan says. “A rental history. A tax number. Two years of paper movement in case anyone looks. Not perfect, but good enough.”

I close the passport and rest it on my chest for a second. “So that’s it,” I say.

Stepan reads enough of that off my face to say, “You can still stop.”

“No.”

He nods.

He knew the answer before he offered it.

I look toward the door where the girls left a few minutes ago, where I can still hear them in my head, Mila whispering too loudly, Nadia correcting her, Zoya trying to sound calm even when she’s furious.

“I started making this choice six years ago,” I say.

Stepan says nothing. That’s one of the reasons he’s still here.

I go on, because he was there for that too, though not the worst of it. “The night I sent her away, I told myself I was saving her from me. That if I cut her loose hard enough, she would get clear and stay clear.”

“And?”

“And all I did was leave her to carry the part I should have carried with her.”

He looks down once, then back at me. “You didn’t know about the girls.”

“No,” I say. “But I knew enough.”

The room is quiet again.

I look at him. “And you?”

“I stay long enough to seal it.”

“Then?”

“Then I go.”

I know better than to ask where. Men like us don’t survive by sharing final destinations.

At the door, he pauses. “You’re no longer Ruslan Karelin,” he says.

This time I don’t look at the passport. I look at the closed door and think of Zoya outside it, probably trying not to cry in front of the girls, probably already planning which clothes they’ll need,what lies she’ll tell the school, how to get through the next hour before she lets herself think about the next year.

I think of Mila on the quarry path, running because I told her to.

I think of Nadia at my bedside, wanting a promise.

I think of the woman I loved six years ago and the woman who still came back for me in the rain.

Then I look at Stepan. “No,” I say. “I’m just finally done pretending that name is worth more than they are.”

Something moves across his face. Not surprise. Not approval. Something smaller and sadder.

Then he nods once and leaves through the bathroom, the way he came.

A minute later, the door opens.