Page 82 of Maksim

“Hello.” He holds the door open. “Can I help you?”

I blink at him, and in the silence, recognition registers on his face, twisting his familiar features from friendly to horrified.

The girl, his daughter, my half-sister, is back carrying a futbol as she slips past him out the door with a younger boy behind her. A woman scoots out the door next, pulling a purse onto her shoulder. She looks like she’s in a hurry, but when she spots me, she strains a smile. “Hi there.”

My father turns to her, his face instantly cooling. “Honey, do you have a twenty? One of the schools has a boy whose mother has ALS, and they’re doing a fundraiser.”

I die inside. I can feel it happening, feel the cells in my heart giving out one by one. He isn’t breaking me, he’s just slowly suffocating me, starving each cell of the love I’ve needed all these years. Love that he’s had but given to these people instead.

He isn’t on a no-fly list.

He hasn’t suffered financial strain.

He just … doesn’t want us anymore. He wants to stay in this big house, drive nice cars, and let his unwanted children in Albania struggle.

I whored myself to come to this country. To work for money to send back home.

And he just … bought fucking plants. And a convertible. And a big fucking house for a stupid fucking wife.

She digs in her purse. “Uhh.”

“Oh, never mind, I’ve got it,” he says, pulling out his wallet. “I’ll be right there, honey.”

“Okay, hurry. Bentley’s soccer game is at six.”

She smiles at me like it’s obligatory but then hurries off toward the family car. The kids are already inside as she starts it up and waits on her husband to get rid of his bastard child she doesn’t know exists.

“Here,” he says, yanking all the cash from his wallet. He shoves it at me. I don’t even look at it. “Take it,” he urges.

My eyes stinging, I take the bills.

He nods, looks frantically at the car, then sighs. “Look, kid, I’m sorry you came all the way here, but that’s all you’re getting out of me. Your mom is in Albania. She isn’t legally entitled to child support, and for all I know, I’m not even your biological father. So … don’t come around here again, all right? If you do, I’ll have to call the police and report you for trespassing.”

More of my heart dies.

And more.

And more.

Who knew I had so much left?

He looks between me and the car, opens his mouth like he’ll say something else, then gives it up and walks away.

I don’t move. Just stay rooted in place while he gets in his family car and goes to his daughter’s soccer game.

The daughter who, all her life, has mattered.

Not me. Not the Albanian girl with the toothy grin and dirty nails.

I am filth.

I am shlyukha.

Minutes pass after the car is gone. Eventually, Maksim comes up behind me without me hearing him, and he gently guides me to the car.

“Come on,” he says. “I’m already sick of this city.”

He mercifully doesn’t ask me what was said or what I’m feeling, and I don’t ask him if he knew all along this would happen. He probably did. He probably knew I was a fool for this the same way he knew I was a fool for believing my engagement to James/Daniel was real.