“I don’t owe you an explanation for every step of my personal life,” I said. “But I owe you the truth because you are my children. And the truth is that I wasn’t deceived. I wasn’t forced. I wasn’t confused. I made this decision after months of medical consultations, conversations with Todor, lawyers, and specialists.”
“You’re seventy-nine!” Mikhail shouted.
“Yes.”
“She’ll be twenty when you’re almost a hundred!”
“And you’ll be fifty-three when she’s twenty. That doesn’t make you incapable of being her brother.”
He stared at me.
“I’m not her brother.”
“By blood, you are.”
“That means nothing.”
Tears ran down my face.
Not because his words surprised me.
But because they confirmed what I had understood the day I told them about the pregnancy.
They weren’t afraid for me.
They were afraid for themselves.
Six months earlier, I had invited Silvia and Mikhail to lunch.
