Page 96 of Porcelain Vows

Liar.

You want her to join you in this weakness.

To make it easier.

She turns her face into my chest, her body shaking with silent sobs. I hold her as she once held me, clinging together in the dark, whispering promises that someday things would be different.

From the bed, our father watches this exchange, his breathing becoming more labored. Each inhale a wet, sucking sound, each exhale a wheeze.

“Diana,” he says, his voice surprisingly tender. “My sweet girl… I’m sorry I was not the father you deserved.”

She doesn’t respond, but her sobbing quiets slightly. I keep my arm around her, protective even now when the threat can no longer harm us.

“The doctors,” Father continues, each word now separated by gasping breaths, “say it won’t be long. I wanted… to see my children… one last time.”

The monitors beside his bed show his declining vitals— heart rate slowing, oxygen levels dropping. The green line jumps less frequently, the numbers falling. The nurse was right. It won’t be long now.

“Tell your mother,” he whispers, “I’m sorry. For everything.”

His eyes close, the effort of speaking now leaving him completely sapped. Diana and I stand in silence, watching therise and fall of his chest become shallower, less regular. The monitors beep more slowly. The space between breaths grows longer.

Then… nothing.

The final exhale comes without drama— just a soft release of air, followed by stillness. The monitors flatline, their alarms silenced in advance by the nurse who knew this moment was coming.

Rodion Tarasov is dead.

Vsyo.

It’s done.

The smell in the room changes subtly. Something releases— bowels, gases, the last grip of life. The hairs on my arms rise.

Diana’s tears have stopped, replaced by a hollow-eyed shock that I recognize all too well. I keep my arm around her, anchoring us both in this strange new reality where our abuser no longer exists.

“It’s over,” I say quietly, the words inadequate for the complexity of this moment.

She nods, her gaze still fixed on our father’s body. “Is it wrong that I feel… nothing?”

“No.” I squeeze her shoulder gently. “There’s no right way to feel about this.”

Liar.

You should feel triumph.

Victory.

Instead, you feel… what?

Empty?

Fucking pathetic.

We stand together for several more minutes, bearing witness to this ending that feels less like closure than a door opening to something unknown. The monster of our childhood is gone, leaving behind only a frail old man who died seeking forgiveness he didn’t deserve.

Yet in offering that forgiveness, I’ve freed something within myself— not for him, but for the children who will never know him. For Bobik, who will someday walk because of medical advances his grandfather would never see. For Polina, who will grow up without the shadow of violence that shaped her father’s childhood.

For myself, finally stepping out of the darkness my father created into the light my children deserve.

---