As I walked to the L stop, I alternated between taking bites of the spun sugar and drags of a cigarette. Though I rarely found balance, I often sought it and figured, at the very least, I could keep my vices in harmony.

While I’d known my family hadn’t planned to partake in public Fourth of July festivities, I hadn’t expected to find them sitting on our apartment’s terrace in their nainsook union suits, pissed on whiskey. It wasn’t uncommon for my uncle Grygoriy and Maks to be at our place; it was, however, out of the ordinary for them to be at our apartment in their underwear.

“I’m overdressed,” I noted, resting my back against the bricks of the building as I regarded the four men skeptically.

“And ugly,” Grygoriy added with a smirk.

“Not quite,” I tsked, quite aware that I had a catalogue of shitty qualities, my looks not being one of them.

“You’ve got to give it to the kid. He has confidence,” my father laughed.

“You would, too, if you looked like him, Uncle Taros,” Maks said, giving me a wink. “He’s a regular Gary Cooper.”

“Viktor does look like me,” my dad insisted, swigging his drink as he assessed me, double-checking. “More than Igor does, anyway.”

“Viktor is all Anastasia,” my aunt Yekaterina stated, sliding the glass door closed behind her before placing her delicate hand on my cheek and patting it gently. “Every beautiful bit is his mother.”

I watched my father’s face fall as he traced his finger along the rim of the glass. It seemed he had lost a fight with his conscience when he uttered: “You did not have any complaints about my looks when we were lovesick teenagers, Katya.”

The statement hung in the air like a foreboding fog enveloping all of us. In my attempt to remain stoic, I didn’t glance at the faces of my family, but I could feel the thick tension between the older Mikhailov men and from my father to my aunt, who unbeknownst to me, may have spent time between the brothers before. Though I was aware that aunt Kat had grown up with my father and uncle in the small village of Myshkin, Russia, I’d never thought there was a romance, save the relationship my aunt and uncle had eventually shared with one another. With his lips loosened by libations, my father had indicated otherwise, thus rendering all of us speechless. At least for a beat.

“The best thing about the past is that we can leave it there, right, brother? For the present is the most beautiful gift,” Grygoriy said, holding his cup out toward my father, who reluctantly raised his as well. “Na Zdorovie.”

“Na Zdorovie,” my father sighed, venturing to peek at Yekaterina, who quickly looked away and excused herself from the terrace.

“So, wait,” Igor began. “Dad and Aunt Kat?”