Love Is Not Nothing by Lee Winter

Author:Lee Winter [Winter, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
Published: 2017-08-16T22:00:00+00:00

Part Two: Bare

Natalya

“Hey, you’re early!” Alison’s voice echoed down the hall as Natalya arrived home at their two-bedroom penthouse apartment. “How come?”

“My masseuse became unwell,” Natalya called back. She filed her keys on a hook behind the door and leaned down to give their slumbering, ancient red heeler, Charlotte, a scratch behind her greying ears. “We cut the session short. What’s that interesting smell?”

“Come and find out.”

Natalya crossed the parquetry floors, glancing at the white walls and precisely placed modern art, musical trinkets, and framed photos of Alison’s family.

Pride of place in the hall was a photo of Alison, her sister, Susan, and niece, Hailey, laughing on the couch in their lounge room. It had felt so strange when they’d come to visit. At the time, Natalya had still been adjusting to having more than one voice in her life. And then suddenly there had been wall-to-wall Ryans. Adding to the surrealness, neither of them called Alison by the name she knew her. It was a dead name from a past that she and Alison didn’t speak about.

Natalya had taken to hiding out on the roof of their apartment building for the solitude. “A breath of fresh air,” she’d told them, as she’d made her daily escape. She’d sat up there, arms around her bent legs, watching over the city like an avenging angel.

She had even caught a burglar one day while she was there. Natalya smirked at the memory of dangling him over the edge while he’d pissed his pants and swore in three different languages to never trouble her building again. She did miss that—showing vermin the light.

Not that she’d shared that with Alison. Her lover didn’t need to know the darkness was still there. What if it frightened her? What if it frightened her off?

That didn’t bear thinking about.

She headed further along the hall. There was nothing of Natalya here, beyond one photo of her father that gave her pause each time she saw it. It was from before Vadim had migrated to Australia, still wearing his Russian Army uniform. So proud and straight, his eyes direct and cool. She had another photo of him, secreted on the top shelf of her closet, of his wedding day to Lola. But she couldn’t bring herself to hang it. The way her former stepmother had died…the way she’d lived…it was all so wrong. Twisted.

Natalya studied her father’s bushy brows and lean, long face in this photo. His medals shone. She missed him. He had raised her alone for most of her life, and he had been her only connection with her past. She had been on her tour of Europe just seven months when the nursing home had called her. It had rocked her to her core, hearing of his death, even though it wasn’t unexpected.

His funeral had not felt safe enough to attend. The reason lay only a few steps away. Natalya and Alison didn’t discuss it, then or now. They didn’t discuss a lot of things. What was the point of scraping over the past? It wasn’t necessary.

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