She managed to choke out a single word. You can’t hear it on the tape. It’s too soft and too strangled. But I remember the word I heard that forced me to back off.
Baby.
I released her in horror and took a few labored steps back. My face isn’t visible, but I remember being frozen with shock.
She supported herself on her elbows, pushing herself upright. Her fingers were shivering hard. “You want to kill me?” she croaked, the words soft but audible. “Then know you’ll be killing your unborn child, too.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m six weeks pregnant. Don’t you remember that drunken night about six weeks ago? We had a fight and it turned… ugly. Violent. And then… Do you remember?”
Her voice was croaky and labored, but she forced the words out as though her life depended on it. I suppose they did.
“What are you doing?”
This voice doesn’t come from the television or the past, but from behind me in the here and now. I turn and see Lev standing just inside the doorway.
I turn back to the screen and switch it off. “Nothing.”
“Jesus,” Lev says, moving in front of me and taking the small green armchair adjacent. “I thought you’d stopped torturing yourself with this shit. What do you get from watching it?”
“Closure.”
“If that were true, one watch would have been enough.”
I shake my head. “I just… needed to see it again.”
“You keep tapes of important meetings. This is not one of those. Let me destroy it.”
“No.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I’m not ready to destroy it yet.”
“But why?” He sounds almost desperate.
“That’s my business, Lev.”
He gives me a long-suffering sigh. “You know why I got on board with your strange fascination with the pretty chef? Because she distracted you from this self-inflicted torture. It seemed like you were moving on.”
“Maybe I am.”
Lev glances at the now-black screen. I can see both of our shadowy reflections staring back at me.
“Anton—”
“You want the truth, Lev?”
He nods. “That would be great.”
“Before Marina, I’d never experienced guilt. I haven’t felt it since, either. But when I think about her… I feel it. I feel guilty for—”
“Don’t,” Lev says, cutting me off. “We don’t need to go there, brother. It’s in the past now.”
“I should feel sorry,” I say, letting my innermost thoughts get the better of me. “I should feel terrible that she’s dead. But I don’t, Lev. All I feel is relieved.”
“I know, brother,” he sighs.
He speaks with the kind of understanding that can only come from someone who has stood in the eye of the storm. Who endured the chaos and the carnage and knows what it’s like.
“The problem is… I think other people know that, too.”