Chapter 1

He always seemed indecisive. A soft, spineless man for whom every decision felt like emotional torment, like losing the ground beneath his feet. I was an echo of his past life, a harsh brushstroke that had once marred a finished still life, and for a long time he preferred not to remember me.

Firstborn. Only child. A daughter born of a marriage cut short by a nighttime car crash, back when he still knew how to love. That's what Grandma said, and I believed it; as for what really happened, I don't think I'll ever know. He ran from me like I carried the plague, remembering his daughter only during brief visits to his mother, and I always knew I was unloved and unwanted. A blank form for human relationships, filled out with attention from time to time. Something brief, like checking a box or clicking “OK!” A click on “OK!” in response to a cautious “Dad?” and nothing more.

After that, my father had plenty of women, cozy homes, and warm company—somewhere far away from me, in big cities—but he didn't start a family until much later. By the time I learned they existed, he'd just celebrated three years with her.

“Meet Nastia. This is Galina Yuryevna Frolova. Officially, she runs my business; at home, she's my wife. She's heard all about you.”

“Hello, Nastia.”

“Hello.”

“And this is Galina Yuryevna's son, Stas, your stepbrother. You're almost the same age—Stas is only a little older—so Galya and I are really hoping you two will become friends.”

The only response was cold silence, followed by my own timid reply:

“Hello…”

That fall, rain poured without letup. In our northern town, there was no escaping the cold, clammy dampness. It seeped through walls and windows, crawled under the skin, and coursed through my blood with the melancholy of an overcast day. First I got sick, and then Grandma was bedridden with pneumonia when the weather turned truly wild, with icy winds and sprays of snow greeting passersby. In my father's city, the two of us ended up alone: she in the hospital, and me in his family's new, beautiful house. Big, spacious, and unwelcoming—nothing like our old, tiny apartment back home. I knew the moment I crossed the threshold that this house would never be mine.

They were standing in the foyer—mother and son—when my father let me out of the car, flung open the door, and brought his daughter into the house. He gave a guilty shrug, unwound the scarf from his neck, and set my bag down by my feet.

“Well, Galya, we made it. My Nastia.”

My Nastia. This was the first time I'd spent almost two days beside my father—not with love, but with something resembling care from him—and now, under the gaze of an unfamiliar woman, I felt him pulling away again, smiling at her much more readily than at me. His own fifteen-year-old daughter, the one he didn't love.

Grandma and I had always wondered: did her son's new wife look like my mother? Like me? I thought she did. For some reason, I wanted to believe it, looking at photographs of my parents from when they were still young and happy. But no. Reality quickly dashed those hopes. Galina Yuryevna turned out to be a tall, broad, even somewhat heavyset woman with a teased mass of blond hair. With a strong chin and a valkyrie's stare. When that stare settled on me—gray, unblinking, taking in my worn coat, the hat I'd knitted myself from one of Grandma's old sweaters, and the scuffed boots worn down by the icy slush of our town—I wanted to shrink into a ball beneath it and cry from the loneliness and alienation I felt in that house, among those people.

Instead, I broke into a coughing fit, nearly fainting from embarrassment and worry over my cold, which had chosen the worst possible moment to flare up.

“Stas, bring Nastia some water. And help your sister get undressed already—how long are you going to stand there like a statue?”

I remember that line, spoken by the lady of the house, very clearly, because it was the first time I'd dared to look up at my stepbrother. Not out of courage, but out of fear that he might actually decide to help me. This grown, dark-haired boy, whose icy stare had cut deepest the moment I entered. And who, I could feel, saw straight through me.

He was standing barefoot at the bottom of the stairs, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants, staring at me with cold, unfriendly eyes.

“Sister?” His dark brows shot up in genuine surprise. “Mom, are you kidding? Don't say stuff like that in front of my friends. Pop, where did you dig her up? What, were you hiding her in a refugee camp? She's got the eyes of a beaten puppy!”

Pop. He called my father Pop, while I was afraid to address him at all. Yes, my father was a quiet man, so he said nothing, merely pressing his lips together in displeasure. His mother gave my stepbrother a hard, ringing slap. But I still burst into tears, because at that moment I understood how far away my home was. And that I had absolutely nowhere to go.

He did help me undress, reluctantly pulling the coat from my thin shoulders while the parents exchanged tense whispers off to the side. I think my father felt as uncomfortable as I did, but he chose to offer words of comfort to his wife.

“Take off the boots yourself; I didn't sign up to wait on you. And those old rags you put on—those too. My mother doesn't skimp on the heat, and we have guests tonight. I don't know why Pop didn't think of it.”

I was wearing Grandma's cardigan—practical, warm, and hopelessly out of fashion. It made me look especially skinny, considering I'd always been short and slight. But I wouldn't have agreed to part with it for anything now, so I only pulled the thick collar more tightly across my chest, took off my boots, and once again fixed my eyes on my stepbrother's athletic chest beneath his T-shirt, unable to bring myself to do anything else.

“And quit crying already, Skeleton. No one's going to feel sorry for you here anyway,” he muttered viciously in my ear, reaching for my head. He yanked off my hat… and fell silent when a thick, unruly mass of dark-blond hair spilled over my shoulders and I looked up at him.

“Stas, show Nastia where the bathroom is, then join us and your father in the kitchen—the food's getting cold!”

“Thank you.”

“Come on…”

There were four guests—a married couple and their two teenage children, a boy and a fair-haired girl about my age. Yes, the evening's ordeal wasn't over yet, and when Galina Yuryevna saw me at the kitchen doorway behind her son, she tried to explain my presence a little nervously and authoritatively, as though someone might contradict her:

“Nastia. My Grisha's daughter from his first marriage. She'll stay with us until her grandmother recovers. We have plenty of room, and these days it's dangerous to leave a child alone in town—who knows what could happen. I know my own Staska: he can really make a mess of things or get himself mixed up in something. At that age, you have to keep an eye on kids—watch them, control them!”

“What, Galya, her mother doesn't mind?” asked the unfamiliar woman, and everyone at the table fell silent at once.

“She doesn't have a mother, Vera. Just Grisha and her grandmother.”