I looked at Alexander again, and he twisted his mouth on the side with the scar, impatiently.
“I’ll have to ask Richie to teach me about that too,” he commented instead of giving me a more substantial answer.
“Good way to evade the subject, Alexander Valinchenko,” I told him with an ironic smile.
“My father is a very dominant man, Johanna. And he exercises dominance without hesitation over everything he believes belongs to him, starting with my mother. Yes, perhaps I do not doubt that he loves her, because he is not the kind of man who would keep by his side a person who despises him—I’ve seen it. His patience has very precise limits.” He fell silent, and for a while neither of us said anything. I even forgot about the tea the moment Alexander seemed to remember something and took my ha
