“This wasn’t a way of getting over a passing crush on your older sister’s swain. This was the moon of Jupiter and the sun of Venus aligning in the sky over her head.”

“Well, at least someone around here is getting pregnant,” Alexander said through clenched teeth, bending in his own stricken fury. “And it didn’t take fifteen fucking years.”“Like I’d keep any baby that was yours!” cried Tatiana. “I’d take a coat hanger to it before I kept one of your babies!”Alexander hit her so hard across the face that she reeled sideways and fell to the ground. Blinded he stood over her. Guttural sounds were coming from his throat. Her arms covered her head. “You have stepped out of all bounds, all decency,” he said, yanking her up. “I can’t believe how much you hate me.”

“Come on,” he said quietly, bending to her and lifting her whole into his arms. He carried her inside. After setting her down next to the sink, he crushed five trays of ice into it and filled it with cold water. Tatiana thought he was going to tell her to put her face into it, and was about to meekly impotently protest—when Alexander submerged his own head into the ice.”

“Up on the roof Tatiana thought about the evening minute, the minute she used to walk out the factory doors, turn her head to the left even before her body turned, and look for his face. The evening minute as she hurried down the street, her happiness curling her mouth upward to the white sky, the red wings speeding her to him, to look up at him and smile.”

“He came over in long pur­pose­ful strides, sat at the edge of her bed, and in a ten­der, pos­ses­sive ges­ture wiped the lip­stick off her lips. “What is that?” he asked.“All the other girls wear it,” Ta­tiana said, quickly wip­ing her mouth, breath­less at the sight of him. “In­clud­ing Dasha.”“Well, I don’t want you to have any­thing on your lovely face,” he said, stroking her cheeks. “God knows, you don’t need it.”

“Harry nearly prayed it wasn’t one of her friends who smelled like the beach and books and brine. He inhaled when they stopped for the light, and was simultaneously relieved and agitated to realize, no, it was her.”

“Alexander speaks. “Anthony, I’m going to tell you something. In 1941, when I met your mother, she had turned seventeen and was working at the Kirov factory, the largest weapons production facility in the Soviet Union. Do you know what she wore? A ratty brown cardigan that belonged to her grandmother. It was tattered and patched and two sizes too big for her. Even though it was June, she wore her much larger sister’s black skirt that was scratchy wool. The skirt came down to her shins. Her too-big thick black cotton stockings bunched up around her brown work boots. Her hands were covered in black grime she couldn’t scrub off. She smelled of gasoline and nitrocellulose because she had been making bombs and flamethrowers all day. And still I came every day to walk her home.”