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on the door. Vera opened it, and smiled. «Did you come to buy a picture?»

      Surprised, Lana nodded. «Phew, I don’t have to explain my visit.» She silently went in.

      Lana did not understand art. So she just pointed to two pictures, and Vera started packing them. Lana glanced around. «What should I ask?»

      «Strange,» she said surprisingly. «Why didn’t you paint your husband?»

      «I draw only things that impress me,» Vera answered calmly.

      «I thought if you loved someone it means he impresses you.»

      «Girl,» Vera shrugged her shoulders. «It’s very difficult to love a man who doesn’t care about the family budget.»

      «Money doesn’t make happiness,» Lana said with irritation in her voice. «When dad passes away I’ll give all his money to some charity organization.»

      «I’m sorry, Miss…?» Vera looked questionably at Lana.

      «Limpson.»

      «I’m sorry, Miss Limpson, but you’re too young for such discourses. Your father spent all his life to make this money, and you want to waste it? It would be a stupid and dishonest act.»

      «Oleg is right,» Lana thought, feeling angry. «She’s just a miser.»

      «As I know,» she addressed Vera. «Your husband is making good money in Russia. You have to love him very much, don’t you?»

      «I think it’s too personal to discuss.» Vera looked at Lana with surprise, but she thought the girl needed some advice, and she relented. «Life is not as easy as we wish,» she tried to explain.

      It was the same phrase that Oleg had said to Lana when she had asked him why he did not divorce Vera if they did not love each other. «Life is not so easy.» He sighed, and a tender compassion for this Russian man rising in her heart.

      «Once Oleg came home with his coat so dirty that I was amazed,» Vera continued. «I’m sure he got plastered and fell into some puddle. Like a pig. And I have to love such a man?»

      Lana recalled the episode with the wolf-skin coat, and her feelings for Oleg became much stronger. But this phrase made her worry.

      «Does he drink a lot?» she asked, trying not to show her concern.

      «Honestly, I’ve never seen Oleg drunk,» Vera confessed, sighing. «But that evening he was so strange, I have no other explanation.»

      «Oleg loves me!» thought Lana, melting with that feeling. «He loves me! He surely loves me! Stupid woman, how could she not appreciate him?»

      Lana took the pictures and gave the money to Vera.

      «If you don’t love him,» asked Lana carefully, «why don’t you rent another apartment?»

      «It’s okay with me,» Vera answered calmly. «But to rent a separate apartment would be a pointless waste of money.»

      Lana shuddered and left without saying goodbye.

      Chapter 7: In Love with A Married Person

      Lana did not have school today, so she drove home. Not to the house that she rented on campus, but to the Limpsons’ mansion. It was a rare day that her father was home, and she planned to show him those pictures and ask him about an idea that had come to her.

      At home she told a servant to call her father, and, while waiting for him, she placed the pictures in a special hall, where she usually kept her new things before she decided which place was best for them.

      Lana heard her father come in, and, smiling, she turned toward him. Stubby, but imposing and dignified, he was in great shape for a man in his mid-fifties, and Lana looked at her father with delight and pride.

      «How do you like them?» she pointed to the pictures.

      Her father went close and gazed at the paintings.

      «Where did you get them?» he asked, surprised. «I’m not an expert, but they seem to have been made by a gifted person.»

      «Really?» She was obviously ashamed, and her father became immediately worried.

      «Honey?» he said tenderly. «What’s on your mind? Why did you buy them? Last time, as I remember, you bought a picture when you were a teenager, and it was some stupid hero from some stupid cartoon. But those works are masterpieces. Where did you get them?»

      Suddenly Lana cried and hugged her father.

      «It is a student here, Dad. She’s Russian. As her husband…» She did not know how to explain, and could only weep, but her father guessed what was going on, and a storm of feelings raged into his soul.

      «Just be careful, my heart,» he whispered, kissing her hair, and Lana felt unlimited gratitude to her father who understood and supported her.

      She looked at his face. «You were in the same situation, weren’t you?»

      «Yes, honey.» He did not shift his eyes at all. «It’s awful to love a married person. Your mother will never leave her husband. This is why I’m pretending that I am a widower. I don’t want to be a laughing stock.» He sighed. «She doesn’t love me, and she never did.»

      «I hate her,» Lana said sniffing.

      «You shouldn’t,» retorted her father. «She gave life to you. She gave you to me. After her ’affair’ with me, she could have had an abortion, or she could have pretended you were her husband’s. But, risking her reputation, she gave you to me. Well, a quarter of a century ago it was much easier than it is now. But anyway, I have you. I love you, kitten, and I’ll do anything to make you happy. So, what do you want to ask?»

      «Can you organize a party… Darn, Thanksgiving would be better. Okay, Christmas is coming. Can you? I want all the Russians to be invited, and all who work with them. Could you do it?»

      «I’m not sure,» he replied, hesitating. «I have a tight schedule. Ah, I know. I’ll do it, sweetheart. I’ll rent a hall downtown and ask the VanSteins to be the hosts. Anything else?»

      «Yes.» She timidly smiled. «Don’t be angry at me.»

      «I’m not angry,» he answered sadly. «But I’m worried sick about you, and I can do nothing about this feeling.»

      «Oh, Daddy.» She embraced him again, and for a long time they just stood there hugging each other, enjoying their closeness and mutual understanding.

***

      The Lapins and Ruslan Grafinsky were the first persons to arrive at the Christmas party, and they were confused seeing the empty hall.

      «I told you it was too early,» whispered Vlad to Nina.

      However, Hannah was glad to see Larisa, and the girls started playing together.

      «I thought Mr. Limpson, as the organizer, would be here,» Ruslan said to the VanSteins.

      «He’s very busy, but he promised to come later.» Megan smiled. «Looking for a sponsor, eh?» She winked, but the face of Ruslan was so clouded that the woman felt herself uncomfortable, and she started talking with Nina.

      More and more people arrived. Children ran around and were so noisy that Megan sent them to play in another, smaller hall prepared with some toys and games especially for the younger set.

      «I’ll watch the kids,» Nina offered.

      «Oh, don’t worry.» Megan explained, «There are nannies here to watch them, but thanks anyway.»

      Oleg Merkulov came later. He nodded to his wife, yet did not come close.

      He gazed at Ruslan Grafinsky and sat next to him.

      «Nice evening,» Oleg dropped casually. The young man did not answer.

      «I’m warning you, buddy,»

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