The phone rang just as my father-in-law was scraping the last of the grease from his plate. The sound cut through the heavy, cabbage-scented air of the kitchen like a warning shot.
We were all there, crowded around the chipped laminate table: me, my husband Denis, his parents, and his younger sister, Angela. It was the same tableau we enacted every night. The television blared in the corner, the radiator hissed, and the tension was thick enough to choke on.
“Don’t answer,” Victor, my father-in-law, grunted, not looking up from his food. A piece of potato clung to his mustache. “It’s rude to be on the phone at the table. Who raised you?”
The phone rang again. Urgent. Persistent.
I gave Elena, my mother-in-law, an apologetic look—which she ignored—and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Good evening. This is Romanov & Partners, a law firm. Am I speaking with Ekaterina Vladimirovna?”
The voice was smooth, baritone, and reeked of an office that cost more per hour than my husband earned in a month.
