by Deja Voss
“I can’t afford that, Serafin. Nobody is going to give me a loan. I’ve only been employed for a few days. Even if I sell all of these off, there’s not enough for even a downpayment. I like that you’re encouraging me, but I need to keep my feet on the ground.”
“You need to dream big, misui. You’re gifted. I always knew it, and so will the world. Besides, while I was out liberating your paintings yesterday, I also had a visit with my father’s lawyer to make sure any contract you signed with my parents was nullified. Turns out, my parents put some of that stay away money in a trust fund for you when you turned twenty nine. They were smart enough to know your parents weren’t going to put any of it away for your future. You’ve got at least an art gallery and a new car in cash.”
“Nope,” I say. “No way. I’m done with that, Serafin. I’m not here for your money or your parents money. I thought we established that.”
“Oh, come on,” he says with a devious smile, pulling me in. “If you don’t spend that money, it just disappears. Besides, I think it would bring me great joy if my mother had to live the rest of her life watching you do exactly what you love.”
“You mean exactly who I love,” I say, licking my lips.
He pecks me on the lips. “You’re free, babe. No more contracts from my parents. No more Bartek. No more hiding.”
“I feel like something bad’s about to happen,” I say with a nervous laugh. “Shit doesn’t just fall together for people like me.”
“Get used to it,” he says, picking me up in his arms and twirling me around.
“And how am I ever going to repay you?” I ask, batting my eyelashes.
“Maybe you could sign a contract with me,” he says, raising his eyebrows. His chiseled jaw tightens as he stares into my eyes.
“Like a sex slave thing?” I ask, laughing nervously.
“Like a marriage thing, you big weirdo,” he says, setting me back on the ground. He slaps my ass with his hand. “The sex slave stuff is included in that.”
“You want me to be your wife?” I stammer. If it was anyone else in the whole wide world, it would sound ridiculous, but I know in my heart he’s dead serious. I know in my heart
“I’ve always wanted you to be my wife. I never thought we’d end up any other way.”
He runs his fingers down my face, and I smile and nod. There are no words for how I feel right now. There’s no reason why I should say no. There’s nothing I want anything more in the world than to spend the rest of my days with him.
“I feel like a teenager again,” I say. “The whole world is at our fingertips.”
“It’s not being a teenager, Mia. It’s being with your soul mate. It’s being whole.”
“I would love to marry you,” I say. “Right now, today, but I have to go to work.”
He laughs and shakes his head, and I wrap him in a hug. He’s my best friend. My calm in the storm. My home. I feel so giddy, the room spins around me and I struggle to catch my breath.
“The ring will be ready later today. I couldn’t wait, though. I’m sorry. I can never wait with you, Mia. I want everything right now. I want to make up for all the lost time.”
“Me too,” I say. I can’t believe I doubted him for running off, even for a second. I can’t believe my mind even went to that dark place. He was off erasing our past so we could start all over again. He’s always been the best thing that ever happened to me.
“Now get your sweet ass to work. I’ll call Jakub and put in your two weeks notice for you this afternoon.”
“Serafin, you will do no such thing!” I shake my head and press my lips to his. “You’re going to be my husband. Not my keeper.”
And I’m going to be his wife. Not his mother. Not his pawn.
Maybe his sex slave.
I don’t hate the sound of that. He gave me everything I need to be his equal, he gave me a leg to stand on on my own, and for the first time, I feel worthy of all these gifts he’s showering me in.
“Make me list today,” he says. “Paints, brushes, those scrapey things you use… whatever. I want to make sure you have the best of the best.”
“Scrapey things,” I giggle. “You don’t need a whole lot to make a good painting. Shot of vodka, pack of smokes, pinch of existential dread.”
He raises his eyebrows and presses his forehead to mine.
“Past experiences count,” I say with a laugh. “I’m sure there’s enough collective trauma between the two of us for a lifetime of paintings.”
“You’re a little twisted, Mia.”
I just shrug and peck him on the nose as I strut down the hallway. Being with Serafin has always been like getting run over by a train. Everything moves so fast, everything is so high, then so low, then high again before you have a chance to catch your breath, but I make a little vow to myself as I throw open the giant oak front doors and walk out onto the stone patio, a driver waiting for me at the door of the black BMW, that from here on out, my only goal is homeostasis. No more highs and lows. No more push and pull. Whatever storm might come, he’ll be the peace in my heart, and I’ll be the calm place to land.
It doesn’t stop me from screaming at the top of my lungs like a little school girl when the driver shuts the car door behind me. I’m gonna get fucking married to the love of my life, and this time, it’s going to be forever.
16
Serafin:
“You need to fire that jackass before I have to come down there and take care of things myself,” I say to Jakub, pacing around my office. Mia is going to pissed if she finds out I called him on her behalf, but I don’t want Philip the freak thinking he can breeze in there and steal what’s mine.
“Well maybe if you were keeping an eye on him like I told you to, you’d be able to relay him yourself,” he says, laughing on the other line. “She scared him right off. You have nothing to worry about. Your girlfriend really is one in a million, Serafin. Everyone here loves her. She’s a huge asset to this place. Doesn’t hurt that she knows CPR in case I happen to keel over again.”
“Sorry, her mouth is mine now, Jakub. Maybe you need to stay off the blow and boner pills,” I chuckle.
Her mouth is mine. Her body is mine. Her heart is mine. It’s happening so fast, but I’ve lived a whole lifetime waiting for this day. I thumb the elegant princess cut diamond ring in the red velvet box. I had my great grandmother’s ring reset in platinum and studded with two little rubies on either side. Mia’s always brought color into my world of darkness, and my love burns for her red hot. I know she’s going to love it.
I wish I would’ve waited and got down on one knee proper, but she was so happy this morning when I showed her the paintings. She was so thrilled when I suggested she open up her own gallery. Seeing her so happy makes me just want to keep doing more and more. I want to give her everything in the world, everything she deserves.
“I gotta go,” I say, when an unfamiliar number pops up on the screen of my phone. I never know who might be calling, but anybody who has this number had to really go out of their way to get it.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Mr. Mazur, this is the Oakmont County hospital. Your mother has you listed as her emergency contact?”
Dear Lord, my mother has always been a drama queen, but if our conversation yesterday made her have an episode, she’s probably going to keel over and die when she finds out what I did to grandma’s ring.
“Yes, is everything alright?”
“She’s in surgery right now. She had an accident on the tennis court. It appears she fractured her hip. I wanted to notify you.”
“I’ll be over as soon as I can,” I say. I get the details I need and hang up the phone. It doesn’t sound super serious, but I want to be there when she wakes up. At the end of the day, no matter what shitty things happened in our past, she’ll always be my mother, and I’m the only last living relative she has.
I shoot Mia a quick text, just in case I don’t get service at the hospital, and h
op in my Jaguar, heading down the highway to the hospital.
I have to laugh over the fact that on one of the biggest, most important days of my life, my mom would have to find a way to get attention. I’m sure she’s fine, she probably just had a few too many martinis and tripped over her shoelaces.
When I get to the hospital, they have her in a holding room, waiting for her to wake up from the anesthesia. This place gives me a bad feeling, reminders of the year I spent here staring at the floral wallpaper, wondering why I didn’t just die that night. I blow out a thankful breath, knowing it was all worth it as long as it lead me to today.
The doctor finally walks me back into her room, and I immediately get this feeling everything isn’t going to be alright. She looks so frail and tiny, tubes and wires coming out of her body. Her hands are gray and her face looks twenty years older than I’m used to seeing. I try to shrug it off, thinking maybe it’s just that I’m not used to seeing her without all the makeup on her face.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mazur, I wish I had better news for you, but she’s got a long road to recovery ahead.”
“What?” I stammer. “She broke a bone. Can’t you just set it and move along?”
“There’s a lot of complications that can occur when elderly people break bones. Your mother may appear healthy on the outside, but even anesthetizing someone of her age comes with serious risks. She’s going to need a long time to heal and rest, and she’ll need a lot of physical therapy to get back on track. She may need to stay in a long term care facility for awhile until she’s functional again.”
I guess just because half her body parts are barely legal, doesn’t mean everything under the hood is young and healthy. I ball my hands into fists and throw my head back, wishing the last time I talked to her, I was a little bit kinder.
“I can hear you doctor,” she says, her voice weak. “I can stay with my son. We can afford it.”
My house may be big, but I don’t know if she’ll want to stay there once she finds out Mia isn’t going anywhere. I would never turn my back on my mother, but she’s going to have to learn to play nice if she really wants to stay at my place.
“Of course,” the doctor says, nodding and smiling. He looks at me out of the corner of his eye like he’s reading my mind. “It’s going to be quite some time before we can even entertain that discussion, though. You need your rest, Mrs. Mazur. You had a big day.”
“Would’ve been an even bigger day if that heifer Luiza didn’t have such clumsy feet. We were about to win our doubles tournament and she tripped me. That suka tripped me!”
I chuckle and hang my head. “You’ll have to excuse her, doctor. She has the mouth of a sailor when she has a couple pain pills in her.”
A nurse steps into the room, smiling nervously when she sees me. It’s not like everyone in this hospital doesn’t know the Mazur family name. If they don’t, I’m sure my mother has made them well aware. “I’m sorry, but visiting hours are ending in five minutes. I can fill out the paperwork if you’d like to request you be allowed to stay later.”
My mother waves her hand. “That won’t be necessary. My son is a very busy man, and my programs are about to come on.”
The nurse and the doctor leave the room, and I walk over to the bed and stroke my mother’s hair. I know I probably shouldn’t pile on to her stress, but at least if she passes out, there’s an oxygen tank handy.
“Mom, I need to talk to you about something, and I feel really bad doing it here, but I feel like there’s something you need to know before you make plans to move into my house with me.”
“Did you get a dog?” she asks, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, Jesus, did you start adopting cats again?”
I pull the ring box out of my pocket and flip it open. “Mia and I are getting married. We’re starting our lives over together.”
She pulls the box closer to her face, examining the ring my grandmother passed down for me to one day give to my bride. “If it were anyone else in the world, I’d tell you to wait, son.” She snaps the box shut. “I thought a lot about our last conversation, and I realized I should’ve trusted your judgement. You’ve always known exactly what you wanted, Serafin, and you did whatever you had to to get it. It was wrong of us to stand in your way.”
“Are you just saying that because you like her paintings?”
“I never disliked Mia,” she says, placing her cold wrinkled hand on my wrist.
I laugh and so does she.
“I am happy you’re starting your life over together. I hope that maybe she can find it in her heart to forgive me and maybe I can be a part of it in some way?”
“I don’t think she has it in her heart to hate you, mom. I don’t think she’s capable of holding a grudge. Besides, you and dad bought her an art gallery today.”
“Did we?” she asks with a big bright smile. This is going a lot better than I expected. “I really don’t need to move in with you two, Serafin. I don’t want to get in the way of your honeymoon phase. I’m not going to be around forever, and I’d like to at least meet my grandchildren.”
Those words hit me right in the heart. Mia is going to be such a good mother. I can’t wait to have a houseful of kids and laughter. I can’t wait to be a father.
Everything I thought I’d never have is suddenly falling into place.
“We’ll figure it out when the time comes. Doctor said you’ll have to be here for awhile.”
She begins coughing, and I start getting nervous when she doesn’t stop. The nurse rushes in the room, and soon I’m being pushed out of the way.
The doctor is waiting outside the door in the hallway, and he doesn’t look as chipper as he did when we were talking in the room just moments ago.
“I didn’t want to say this in the room, Serafin, but your mother’s condition is a lot worse than it appears. While we were operating on her, we discovered a tumor in her stomach.”
“Can you just take it out?” I ask.
“We need to run some tests. How she was even functioning, let alone playing tennis is beyond me. You can tell she’s a fighter. We have to do whatever we can to keep that spirit high because at the end of the day, that’s half the battle. You know that as well as anyone.”
I peek through the window in the doorway, where it appears my mother is back to her normal self, waving her hands as she tells the maid some wild story, probably about how she’s going to to be a grandmother soon.
“There’s not much more we can do today. Her body’s been through a lot of trauma. We should have more answers for you in the morning.”
“Thank you, doctor,” I say. “I’ll be back in the morning. Please keep me updated if anything changes tonight.” I open the door and blow my mother a kiss, but she just waves me off. It doesn’t feel right leaving her here, but I remember back when I was in the hospital, all I wanted to do was sleep and be left alone. Visitors just reminded me what brought me there to begin with.
I walk outside, the afternoon sun warming my face. I slide my sunglasses down and shoot Mia a quick text. I hop in my Jaguar and head down to Jakub’s office.
17
Mia:
“Hello, gorgeous,” I say as Serafin walks in the door. He’s got on this tight black leather jacket, and his jeans are tattered in all the right places. He plants a kiss on my lips. “What are you doing here?”
“You about done for the day?”
“Just have to punch out.”
“Good, I want to take you out on a date.”
“Our first real date,” I tease. “How romantic.”
Sure, we’re engaged. We’ve had mind blowing sex. We’ve said our “I love you’s” and planned the rest of our lives together, but nothing Serafin and I have done has ever been linear.
“I’ve taken you on dates before,” he says, wrapping his arm around my waist.
“Mostly to dark places where you thought you could slip your hand up my shirt,” I say with a laugh.
“We’re grown now, Mia.
I can slip my hand up your shirt anywhere you want.”
I laugh, resting my head on his shoulder. Dyta makes a gagging sound and I flick her off as we walk out the door. “Where are you taking me?”
“What are you in the mood for? Steaks? Lobster?”
I can’t imagine there’s any restaurant in all of Krakow that can rival the kind of stuff Chef Tymon cooks. “How about burgers and milkshakes?”
He opens the car door for me and I slide in, the buttery black leather warm from the sun. “Anything you want.”
He rests his hand on my thigh as we ride down the road, and it makes my heart flutter. Every time he touches me, I get flooded with this overwhelming urge to sing, to scream, to tell the whole world I’m in love. The simple way he rests his hand on my thigh like he owns my body, it’s enough to make me feel all stupid and giddy.
He pushes the speed and I squeal. Wind whips through the car, my hair blowing all over the place, and even though I should probably be afraid, I trust him with my life, and honestly, it’s kind of fun being risky.
“My mother is in the hospital,” he says, finally, breaking the silence.
“Oh shit, did you tell her you proposed to me?” I slap my hand over my mouth realizing that’s not a funny joke at all. “I’m sorry. Is she alright?”
“They don’t really know.”
“I’d like to go see her, that is, if it would be okay with her,” I say. I take his hand in mine, and he squeezes back gently. “If we’re going to be together, I don’t want any bad blood between me and your family or friends.” I know Mrs. Mazur isn’t exactly my biggest fan, and I probably haven’t given her any reason to believe I’m anything but a country bumpkin peasant. I want her to know that I am and always have been madly in love with her son, though. I want her to know he’s in good hands. I want to be able to love her, and for her to love me like mother in laws should. I want to make everything right.
