67. April

67

APRIL

What is it with me and cabs? I swear, every time I've needed one in the past few weeks, it's been with my hair unkempt, dress soiled to high heaven, and a life-or-death situation on my hands.

At least this time there's no handcuffs.

For now.

Next to me, Grisha's as pale as a sheet. What with being stationed at my door and all, he was the one who found me wailing with pain on the floor.

Not my finest moment.

"You're sure you don't have a spare car?" I joke, gritting my teeth against the throb in my belly.

"Afraid they're all elsewhere occupied today," he replies, scanning the street for our taxi. Then he goes back to tapping frantically away at his phone, like he's been doing for the past five minutes. "You're sure you don't want an ambulance?"

It's uncanny, seeing Grisha like this. So ruffled. If anything, it's a good distraction. Though not quite good enough to drown out the pain.

I shake my head. "They would just take me to the closest hospital."

"That might be wise."

"My doctor isn't there," I insist. "I'm not doing this without her. I'm not doing this without…"

I don't finish my sentence.

But apparently, I don't have to—Grisha's always been quick on the uptake. He curses quietly under his breath in Russian and tries his phone again. His face growing darker by the second, I watch him make call after call after call.

But no one ever picks up.

I don't have to ask who he's calling. I don't have to ask who isn't picking up. I may not be that smart, but even I am not that slow. Or at least, not anymore.

"Bad reception at the wedding of the year?" I try to joke.

He spares me a quick, sad smile. "I'm sure that's all it is."

Then my cab finally arrives.

Grisha goes to exchange a few words with the driver. I see him pull out a fat wad of cash and what looks like a particularly nasty threat, at least going by the way his eyes narrow. I swear, mobsters can't do anything normally.

After that, he helps me into the cab.

"I will get Matvey," he assures me.

This time, I'm the one who gives him a sympathetic smile. "Right."

As the cab speeds away with sweaty old me in the backseat, a weak part of my heart keeps holding on to hope. Hope that Matvey will drop his blushing bride and come running, that he will be there for me. For us.

Because, despite it all, my heart still hasn't stopped clinging to "happily ever after."

By the time I get out of the cab, I'm barely standing. The pain has gotten unbearable—with every step, I'm terrified I'll fall over. I don't know if the cabbie was paid to walk me in, but he only gets me as far as the front gate before absconding with Grisha's wad of cash. The rest of the way, I'm on my own.

I keep reaching out for someone to hold on to, but no one's there.

The second Dr. Allan lays eyes on me, I'm rushed to the E.R. The hospital hive comes alive around me, a flurry of activity that I can't keep track of. It's all too fast, too soon.

Is this how my mom felt? With Charlie?

That's when it finally sinks in: I'm about to give birth.

I'm about to become a mother.

"It's going to be okay, April," Dr. Allan soothes me. It's somewhat undermined by the way she whirls around right after, yelling at some poor resident, "Where's the epidural?!"

I still appreciate the attempt.

"Breathe," she coaches. "In through your nose, out through your mouth."

I try to follow her instructions and calm down; I really, really do. But there's no mistaking the panic in her voice, or the urgent way she rushes off with the rest of her team.

Then I'm left alone.

I'm assaulted by a wave of regret. I should've called June on the ride over—I should've called someone . I still could. My phone is right here, just a few inches away.

But I refuse.

I don't want June right now. I don't want someone else.

I want Matvey.

I want my baby's father .

And if I can't have him…

If I can't have him, I won't have anyone.

It's a fruitless thought. Stubborn and bitter and every other ugly thing I've got locked up inside of me. It's pathetic, all of it.

But right now, I don't have the strength to be anything else.

How ironic. I always believed self-inflicted misery was Matvey's poison, but clearly, we aren't so different. God save our baby if that's the case.

Our baby. "Couldn't wait to meet me, could you?" I joke through the waves of pain. "Hold tight, Nugget. Mommy can't wait to meet you, either."

In a sea of bitterness, that's the one sweet drop that keeps me going.

As the doctors rush me to the birthing room, I cling to that thought like a lifeline. I cling to it as they tell me all sorts of things: that the labor is progressing too quickly, that it's already too late for an epidural. That I'm gonna have to push, ma'am, push.

As I call Matvey's name, and no one answers.

As the agony of bringing a new life into the world tears through me, I cling to that one thought with all I have.

I'm going to meet my baby.

And then…

I do.

It's everything I've ever dreamed of.

I'm spent, stitched up, bloodied from head to toe— that part's nothing like my childhood dreams. No one ever tells you about that in bedtime stories: how bloody the whole affair is.

But there's one thing they got right.

In the end, it's all worth it.

The second they put my child into my arms, I know. "You're perfect," I whisper to the bundle. "God, you're so perfect."

That's when I know something else, too: I won't let history repeat itself.

"You deserve better," I murmur, lips pressed to my baby's head. "You deserve so much better than what I've had."

All my life, I've been living with one foot out the door, ready to bolt. Not because I didn't want to be there—but because I never knew when the people around me would be finally done with me.

I've grown up unwanted. But I won't let my child suffer the same fate. Walking on eggshells, stomach in knots, the constant feeling of not being good enough always in the room with you.

A divided family.

A divided life.

A divided father.

My child deserves better than that.

So, with my sleeping baby wrapped up in my arms, I pick up my phone and make a call to give my baby what I never had.

Even if it breaks my heart to do it.