Page 31 of Double Apex

My gut boiling with rage, I flip over to Romanian in a burst of profanity.Fuck his mother’s Easter, that worthless shit-shoveler!

“Cosmin!” Viorica scolds, aghast.

“No. Absolutely not. We don’t take five bani from that dog.”

“Listen,please.”

“It’s out of the question. Unacceptable. I’m making good money already, and if all goes well, I could have a substantially bigger offer in two years when my contract is up.”

“You’re getting two million. Even though you live modestly and send most of it to Vlasia House, and will surely command more soon, it could take a decade to amass the sum Grigore would give us immediately.”

“Rica,no. We—”

“Think of our dream,” she cuts in. “Twelve adjoining houses in the villa, each with a housemother and six children in residence. Raised likefamilies, not like forgotten, lost children.”

“Why does this villain wish to give us the money? What does he want?”

Her sigh crackles over the line. “He wants to make amends.”

“Some things, Rica, cannot be forgiven. You should know this better than anyone.”

She emits a bark of laughter. “A quarter-billion leu to forgive. You would withhold this money from the children because you won’t pardon someone for a wrong done tome?”She pauses, and her next words are cold as iron. “It’s not your place.”

“I apologize,” I mutter.

“He is in his seventies now and feels remorse.”

“Bullshit.” I scrub my face with one hand.

“Cosmin.” Her tone is hard. “You must trust me.”

“Many of the associates of Uncle Andrei weren’t honest businessmen. If we entangle ourselves with this man, it could end up defying the purpose of having used our inheritance to start the foundation.”

“Donotlecture me—”

“We’re protecting children who’ve lost their parents as we lost ours. Sparing young girls the horrors you suffered. You’d take a payoff from the monster who victimized you?”

She huffs out a sharp sigh. “I don’t wish to discuss this anymore. Are you coming home before the Spanish Grand Prix?”

My sister tends to change the subject when she knows I’m right, so I don’t press further. The money would have been useful, but I’m relieved she’s letting it go. As the emotional turmoil catches up to me, I sag like a puppet whose strings have been cut, draping a hand over my eyes.

“On Wednesday.” There’s silence on the line for a moment. “I apologize for being so adamant about this donor,” I say. “Thank you for your patience with my temper.”

“Yes. We needn’t say more.”

Once we hang up, I turn out the light and stare at the shifting parallel lines of city glow on the ceiling as the ACagitates the vertical blinds. Putting in my headphones and listening to soothing music doesn’t help me to calm.

I reach for my laptop and type out another of the emails to Phaedra I’ve been writing and saving to my draft folder, unsent.

I tell myself it’s not possible to miss something I’ve never had, but I do. I miss the win that slipped through my fingers today. I miss the childhood denied me.

I miss you.

You make me feel poetic, which is why I will never send these letters.

“Your eyes are like the green vines nodding in the shadows on the patio in Santorini. Do you recall the split tree on the hillside, how I pointed out your hair was the same color as the heartwood, when we were overtaken by that rainstorm?”

Only a fool speaks like that.

---