She looked through the spyglass to see who could possibly be at the door at this hour of the night. She was certainly wary of guests who came in this late in the night; this was not a very safe neighborhood, especially with Andre no longer around.
She was ready to berate anybody she saw on the other side of the door, and she shook her head when she finally was able to see a white, blonde, Caucasian male, barely able to hang on to the doorknob on the other end.
He knocked again; a little bit more insistent this time. She thought she heard him mumble something like “anytime now…”, but she could not be sure what had been conjured up off that drunken brain on the other end. She hesitated but for a moment, and on hind sight, she was not sure whether it was because of her recent bouts of loneliness or because of the fact that similar scenes had been acted out by her own father, who had been an inveterate drunk, which aroused feelings of empathy, but she opened the door and stood aside.
A very drunk, very disheveled and very grateful Leander Kolarov stumbled through the doorway, and fell into an untidy heap on the floor.
****
Leander had been a late entry into the family, and had been quite a surprise for his parents who had not been expecting him at all. By the time he was born, he already had two older siblings, Angelina, who was sixteen at the time, and a novice trying to enter a cloistered convent, and Vitaliy, who was fourteen. Six years later, a bump on a slippery road led to a car crash that orphaned them all.
Vitaliy, in his senior year at the University had had to drop out to take care of his six-year old younger brother. His older sister, who was already a cloistered nun, would not be a problem. He had taken over the family business which by then consisted of a convenience store and had dug deep to keep things afloat. Leander could remember that during his elementary school years his afternoons had been spent reading comics in the family store where Vitaliy could keep an eye on him, and at the same time run the shop. Leander was aware that Vitaliy had carved out a nice middle class existence for himself and his own and of that he was proud. He was also ashamed, for he had barely kept in touch in the past few years.
Leander had thought about all this when he had heard of Vitaliy’s imminent arrival and had decided to reach out. The phone call had bordered on disaster from the get-go: Firstly, Leander realized, with dismay, but not much surprise that his Russian was faltering. His good-natured brother, who was excited by the call after such a long hiatus kept leaving him behind in dialogue, much to his amusement and Leander’s embarrassment. On top of that, Leander did not even know young Vitaliy’s age; he could have sworn that it was ten, but it turned out the boy was fourteen. Further along, he had hoped to make up for all these shortcomings using the only method he could possibly think of-he had offered his brother money. Vitaliy sr. had not been offended before, but he was offended now; he had not asked for a handout. Leander had apologized, cursing himself for forgetting how much self-esteem his brother had for himself. He apologized again as his brother reminded him of how comfortable he was business wise. Leander would not be put off in his fool hardy pursuit to show how much of a family man he could be, so before he could stop himself, he offered to take young Vitaliy for a year, and not just the holidays. This obviously pleased Vitaliy sr. and the phone call had ended on a high note, despite the sinking feeling in Leander’s belly.
The call had gone better than he had hoped and he was not going to let the fact he had no experience with kids spoil his joy. Throughout the week however, the feeling of apprehension slowly won over that of elation: who are you trying to kid he asked himself-you’re terrified of children!
“Come on how had can it be to house a fourteen year old?” the beautiful Layla, had asked him teasingly two days later.
“Kids need stability, and structure, and discipline and also time.” Leander had said, martini in hand, “All the things I can’t give!”
Layla had laughed at this “The house looking like fashion week as model after model sidles in and out ah-a teenager’s heaven; you better not mess this up! Or Vitaliy sr. is going to be mad at you!”
He had taken another swig of his martini as she had laughed in the background, “I can do this-I mean I run a 9 billion dollar empire how hard can a fourteen year old kid be to handle?”