“I knew Andrei wanted to kill his father, even before the roof cratered and the house collapsed. I saw him with my own eyes. I saw him pick up a rock big enough to crush through his drunken father’s skull. But the thug saw what his son was up to. He smashed a bottle in his hand against the fence; then he turned toward the crowd. One of the neighbors yelled at him to drop the bottle. Instead he shouted back a squall of curses and took a few wobbly steps. That was when he lost his balance and fell.” Her grandfather pauses, takes a breath, stares into space in front of him. “It would’ve been so easy if he’d died right then. The son rushed forward and squatted over him, to see what he was hoping to see. The drunk’s face was bloodied from the fall, but he opened one eye and looked up as if waiting for the verdict. His hand was still holding the bottle, a bloody circle on his shirt, but it was only a minor wound. Not deep enough to kill him. I could see that from where I stood, and his son could, too.”

Sasha draws a deep breath and runs her palm over her cheeks as if to sweep away the words her grandfather is pressing upon her, rubbing into her face.

“There was still a rock in Andrei’s hand, and I saw him linger. Maybe he imagined what should’ve been that miscreant’s death. Maybe he imagined yanking his father to his feet so that he would tumble straight into the flames. It would be like flinging him directly into hell. But that didn’t happen. What happened was that with his back to the crowd, Andrei closed his fingers around his father’s hand with the broken bottle and drove the jagged glass deep under his ribs. The father gasped, but the two of us were the only ones to hear it.”