Unforgiven - Complete

Chapter Three

"Did you have a good day?" Olena asked hopefully as her only son came through the door after school. He hadn't been himself since before New Years, and it didn't escape her attention that Rose had only called once since she'd been back from Scotland. She'd pressed and pressed Dimka for information, but he'd refused to say anything other than he and Rose had fought. After days of him moping around, she'd finally done something she usually tried to avoid; she'd asked her daughter Sonya what was going on.

Sonya was a sophomore at St Vlad's and knew exactly what was being said. But she wasn't stupid enough to tell her mother that Dimitri had been drinking or that he'd apparently had sex with a girl that wasn't Rose! So she'd just told her Dimitri and Rose had broken up, and it looked like it might be final.

Olena looked to Sonya as she followed her brother in, sighing when she shook her head slightly. She'd hoped Rose and Dimitri seeing each other at school might be enough for them to reconcile, but apparently not.

"Dimka – Mrs. Dodov needs some help in her apartment. Can you give her a hand before you start your homework? There's a plate of pryanik on the counter – take that down with you."

Dimitri nodded, washing his hands, changing into home clothes and grabbing his tool belt. The Belikovs lived on the third floor of a three-story walk-up. Separate units with a shared staircase, the widowed landlady Mrs. Dodov lived on the first floor, the other flat on that level occupied by elderly Mr. Smirnoff. There were two apartments on the second floor that were rented out to students, and the Belikovs shared the third floor.

As accommodations in the city went, their apartment was huge. Two flats side by side, Mrs. Dodov had allowed them to make an arch in the adjoining wall to turn it into one huge apartment, which is just as well given there were seven of them living there; Dimitri, his three sisters, mother, grandmother, and nephew.

The block itself was falling apart. The plumbing was shot, the wiring suspect, the heating unreliable and just about every window leaked. But Mrs. Dodov knew Olena and Yeva from church and understood the family's financial situation was dire, so she rented them the two apartments for less than half the rate she could get for just one. She was a kindhearted lady, and his grandmother's only real friend here in America, so every morning Dimitri or Sonya would help their Babushka down the stairs to Mrs. Dodov's apartment when they left for school, and every afternoon Olena would help her back upstairs. In addition, Olena made sure a serve of dinner found its way downstairs every evening for the widow, and a portion of anything else she baked, too. Plus every Saturday Olena and her younger daughters Sonya and Viktoria would endure taking the two Russian widows to the market.

"Did she say what's wrong?" Dimitri asked, wondering what other tools he should take downstairs with him.

"I think it's the plumbing again," his mother said, giving him a sympathetic look as he grabbed a wire coat hanger, some plumbing tape, a wrench and the plate of biscuits, and headed downstairs.

Just eighteen, he was already twice the man his father was, Olena reflected. Like all her children, he'd been born in Russia in a small town a couple of hours outside Omsk. He'd spent his first eleven years living in his grandmother's large home, attending the local school. Randall, his father, had been educated, handsome, charming and a dreamer. God's gift to eighteen-year-old Olena when they'd met. Even then he'd always been onto the 'next big thing,' yet somehow whatever scheme he was embroiled in never seemed to eventuate.

He'd been loving, ebullient and great fun to be around when things were going well, but violent, abusive and a drunkard when they didn't. America had been his idea. Olena had been reticent to sell everything they owned and move countries with their four, nine, eleven and thirteen-year-olds, but Randall had been so insistent. No one could make a living in Russia, he'd argued. America was the land of opportunity, and he had a good solid job lined up. So they'd set off to their new life, saying goodbye to her family and all the friends she'd ever known.