Lately, he’d been thinking about his ex-father-in-law. Not the ex-wife - calm down. That road had enough potholes already. No, this was about Kolya. They had never been especially close. Between the language barrier, the cultural divide, and the lingering fog of the recently ended Cold War, “warm relationship” was never really on the menu. Still, Kolya had made an impression. Men like that tended to. He was somewhere in his mid-to-late sixties when they met. Picture the farmer from American Gothic if he’d been drafted by the Soviet Union, fed boiled cabbage, and taught to glare professionally. Bald as a cannonball, which somehow made his head seem even larger. Thick square plastic eyeglasses magnified his eyes until they looked like a permanent accusation. He dressed sharply, but in a way that suggested the tailor’s motto had been adequate for the State . Then there were his teeth. No expert on the subject, he could only assume cosmetic dentistry had been dismissed by the Soviets a...
For three days, Grace Holloway was herself again. Or the version she preferred to call herself. No headaches. No lost time. No strange notes. No waking with dirt beneath her nails or blood she could not explain. She slept eight hours each night. She attended a luncheon, chaired a committee meeting, sent flowers to a widow she barely knew, and was told twice she looked radiant. Grace almost laughed. Perhaps it had been stress. Hormones. Some temporary neurological storm. Perhaps Dr. Julian Vale had frightened her with his expensive calm and ominous questions. Perhaps all of it was passing. By the fourth evening, she was nearly certain. --- The package arrived at 6:40. No return address. Inside was a single cream card. Same time next week. The others adore you. Nothing else. Grace stood in her foyer for a long time. Then, despite every rational instinct, she dressed. Not elegantly. Automatically. As if following remembered instructions her conscious mind had never learned. --- The t...