Page 12 of Skate the Line

“Is Ellie okay?” I stand up from my kitchen island. I begin looking for my keys because from the sound of Principal Kelley’s voice, I know something is up.

“Ellie is fine, but we are having a behavioral issue today.”

Fucking fantastic.I lift up the pile of construction paper on the kitchen table, sending glitter flying into the air and all over my shirt.

“Okay?”

Where the fuck are my keys?

In the middle of searching for my keys and holding the phone up to my ear, I rip my shirt off and throw it toward the living room. Glitter is everywhere. Ellie’s markers roll onto the floor. I bend down to pick them up and quickly swipe my keys that are somehow under the table.

“She won’t stop speaking in Russian.”

God damnit, Ellie.

It’s not funny. It really isn’t.

But it’s never, “Wow, your daughter is bilingual!”It’s always, “Can you please tell her to stop speaking in a foreign language?”

“Put her on the phone,” I say.

The principal sighs. “Yes, sir.”

Ellie’s childish voice hits my year. “Privet?”

“Ellie.”

“Chto?” she says innocently.

This is what we’re doing now?

“Tebe skuchno?” I ask her if she’s bored in Russian, and I like to state the fact that my voice is nowhere near as playful as hers.

My Russian isn’t the smoothest now that I rarely speak it. My father was the one who mostly spoke the language, but after his quick departure from my and my mother’s life, I abruptly stopped. When I turned eighteen, I added an A to Volkov, just for one more finalfuck youto him.

However, my clever daughterlovesto use the language ever since my mother sent her old Russian translating tapes, hoping that Ellie will at least speak the language.

I’m still cursing her.

Ellie doesn’t answer me, and I smirk.

“Not so clever now, are you?” I ask. “Why are you speaking Russian when you know very well that neither your teacher nor any of your classmates know the language? Are you that bored, Printsessa?”

That is theonlyterm I use in Russian. The first time I laid eyes on her, some hidden part of me emerged, and I whispered the word under my breath. It’s stayed ever since.

“Da.”

I roll my eyes at her response.

“If you don’t stop, you won’t be going to my game this weekend.”

I swear I can hear her pout through the phone.

“Fine. I’ll stop, Daddy,” she relents.

Ellie has me wrapped around her finger, but she knows when I’m serious and when she’s able to push my buttons a little further. Right now, I’m fully fed up, and it has a lot to do with my nanny situation and less about her behavior.

“And I want you to apologize to your teacher”—my tone deepens—“in English.”

---