Chapter 2
For a moment, no one in the orchid house moved.
Then Clarissa laughed — a small, bright sound, carefully placed. She stepped between Nadia and the door, and the movement was so smooth it might have been choreographed.
“Mr. Kovac,” she said again. “Theodore didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“He didn’t tell me he had hired a barber.”
Clarissa’s smile stayed where it was. “Nadia asked me to trim it. The ends were split. You know how these girls are about their hair.”
Dragan looked past her, at Nadia. “She was on her knees.”
“She was gathering what I cut. She’s very thorough.”
“Two women were holding her shoulders.”
“They were helping her sit still. She fidgets.”
Nadia’s hands had gone numb around the hair. She could feel the lie settling over the room like a coat of paint, smooth and even, covering everything beneath it.
She had seen this man only once before, four weeks ago, at a dinner Theodore had called a business matter. She had carried the wine tray. Her shoe had caught the edge of the rug, and the glass had shattered on the marble, and the room had gone silent in that particular way rooms go silent when a servant has made a mistake. She had knelt to gather the pieces, waiting for the shout. Instead, a hand had come down beside hers — large, scarred across the knuckles — and picked up a shard of glass and set it on the tray. She had looked up and met gray eyes that held no pity and no contempt, only a strange, steady attention, as if he were seeing something other people had stopped bothering to see. Then he had stood and returned to his dinner, and no one had mentioned it.
Now he was here, and he was looking at her the same way.
“Nadia.” Theodore’s voice came from the door to the garden. He was crossing the gravel, tall and slightly out of breath, his tie loosened. “Dragan. I’m sorry — I was on the phone with the harbor office. I didn’t hear the car.”
He stopped when he saw them. His gaze moved from Clarissa to Nadia to the hair on the tile, and his forehead creased.
“What happened?”
“Nadia asked me to trim her hair,” Clarissa said. “Didn’t you, Nadia?”
The room waited.
Nadia thought of the clinic. She thought of the envelope with the household account number printed in the corner, the one that paid for Mila’s follow-up appointments, the one that had paid for the surgery three years ago when Theodore had simply written a check and said a child deserved to hear the sound of her own laughter. She thought of the apartment, the rent, the small life she had built brick by brick.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I asked.”
Theodore’s shoulders eased. “Well. All right, then.” He gave a small, uncomfortable laugh. “You might have gone to a salon, Nadia. But all right.”
“Salons are expensive,” Clarissa said sweetly. “And I’m very good with my hands.”
Dragan had not moved. He was watching Nadia with an expression she could not read, and she understood, with a cold drop in her stomach, that he had heard the lie and knew exactly what it was.
“You asked,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“With two women holding your shoulders.”
“I don’t like scissors. They were helping.”
The silence stretched. Clarissa put her hand on Theodore’s arm.
“Darling, Mr. Kovac came to talk about the port division, not the staff. Shall we go inside?”
Theodore looked relieved to be given a direction. “Yes. Yes, of course. Dragan?”
Dragan’s eyes stayed on Nadia for one more breath. Then he turned, and the two men walked toward the house, and Clarissa followed, her heels clicking on the gravel like a metronome.
Nadia stayed on her knees until the sound faded. Then she gathered the rest of the hair, and she swept the tile, and she wiped it until the greenhouse looked as though nothing had happened, because that was what this house always asked of her: to clean away the traces of her own pain.
That night, after the dinner dishes were done and the house had gone quiet, Clarissa found her in the scullery.
She set a folder on the counter. Nadia saw the clinic’s letterhead before Clarissa turned it face down.
“You did well today,” Clarissa said. “You’re learning.”
Nadia kept her eyes on the sink.
“Dr. Reyes’s office called this afternoon. Mila’s follow-up is in three weeks.” Clarissa’s fingernail tapped the folder. “The household account pays for it. I sign for the household account now. Every grocery, every wage, every appointment.” She tilted her head. “If you ever make me look small in front of a guest again, I won’t cut your hair. I’ll take something that doesn’t grow back.”
May you like
She left the folder on the counter and walked out.
Nadia stood at the sink with her hands in the hot water. The scar on her left wrist flushed pink, and the old smell of smoke rose in her memory, and she did not move for a long time.
