“Hot chocolate would be lovely, thank you,” she agreed.
“Coming right up,” he said and winked before closing the door.
She liked him. She liked Zinoviy. There were a couple of others she was getting to know. Kiriil and Matvei. Miron. They seemed part of Mitya’s family. Now she didn’t know what she was going to do. If she decided she had to leave, it would break her heart, but if she stayed, she knew she would grow resentful and angry. She wouldn’t do well in the environment Mitya wanted her to live in.
What did she want out of their relationship? Respect. She wanted him to respect the fact that she had certain skills. She wasn’t a shrinking violet. She also was intelligent. She would go to a safe room if there was immediate need; otherwise, she wanted to be able to help as much as possible. She was an excellent shot. She could drive better than any of them. Mitya had at least acknowledged that, but she was no longer certain he’d meant what he’d said about her being able to drive for him.
Very slowly she opened her grandfather’s journal, almost reverently. She had things her family members had left to her, but it was the little things she found she treasured. Everything in the journal was in her grandfather’s handwriting. Every drawing, every cartoon and doodle was done by him. He had entries that went back years. Loving things to her grandmother. Memories of her mother. He’d written specific passages to Ania. She treasured her memories of her father sharing those entries with her.
She ran her finger down the last page, where her grandfather had several entries. Each one was sloppier than the one before it. That was one unusual thing. Her grandfather never hurried, and he was proud of his handwriting, and most of the notes were written with a flourish. The last three appeared to have been scribbled. At first she entertained the idea that someone else had written the last few logs, but she knew every swirl of her grandfather’s writing, and these had all been written by him.
He’d been agitated, or his writing wouldn’t be such a mess. She put her head back to look at the stars. They were desperately trying to peek out through the swirling clouds. “Think, Ania. Put the pieces together. Who called to hire a driver?”
She tapped the pages in the journal while she considered. Ordinarily, whoever had the package called and paid to have it delivered. She sat up straight. Her grandfather had come into the kitchen to taste the spaghetti sauce his wife was making. She had laughed and playfully slapped at his fingers. He’d told them—her mother, grandmother and her—how Bartolo Anwar had asked him to go pick up a package in New Orleans for him. He hadn’t wanted to go because he was getting older and he didn’t like the distance he would have to drive. Bartolo had promised him double his normal fee. That wasn’t unusual, but the fact that the caller sending out the package hadn’t been the one to ask for a driver was.
For the first time a little frisson of excitement slid down her spine. Bartolo had to have had a name and address where her grandfather would go to pick up the package. Someone had to have that information. Her grandfather couldn’t have stood on a street corner and called out that he was there to drive for someone. She could ask Bartolo.
She pulled out her phone and hit the light to better see the entries in her grandfather’s journal, specifically the one written to her the day before his death.
I love your smile, my angel, so sweet. Do you remember the day I found your bed frame? We lay on the mattress together laughing in that old secondhand store when they told us we couldn’t be on the furniture. Your laughter warmed my heart then as it does now. I am blessed to have you for my granddaughter.
She loved that entry and she would always treasure it. A part of her wanted to frame it and hang it on the wall of her bedroom. She remembered that day they’d shopped together. Her grandfather had been the king of looking for old furniture. No one had found better pieces or better bargains. He’d promised her a “magnificent” bed, one she would want to keep her entire life. The frame he’d found was unique, one of a kind, and she’d fallen in