Epilogue Viviana
I'm convinced this can't be happening until Dante screams.
"You peed on the floor!" He flings across the narrow kitchen and attaches himself to the wall like it's Velcro. His arms are spread flat like if he moves even an inch closer to me, he'll touch the puddle at my feet.
"I didn't pee!" I stare down at the floor and my own cloudy reflection in the water pooled between my legs. "I just…."
My water broke.
It's not shocking. It shouldn't be shocking. I'm four days away from my due date. The weekly doctor's appointments and countless strangers in public who smile at me and say, "You look like you're about to pop" are proof of that. I am about to pop.
But I still didn't expect to pop here. Now.
"I have to take you to school," I say, trying to organize the suddenly wild thoughts in my head. "It's my turn to take you to school."
I could still make it. The private school Mikhail and I chose is only five minutes from the house. It's why we moved into this quiet neighborhood in the first place. We wanted to be close enough to walk him to school on nice days. Though my swollen ankles haven't felt up to walking in four months, at least.
The car drop-off line is fast. I could swing through the line, drop him off at the front doors, and then?—
"But you peed!" Dante shrieks again, wrinkling his nose. "Do you need a diaper now?"
"I didn't pee!" I grit out. "And no more potty talk."
Usually, that rule is for all of the poop jokes that Dante and his band of six-year-old school friends think are the absolute height of comedy. If I wasn't frantically trying to reorganize the day's plans—driving Dante to school, one last waxing appointment before the baby comes in four days, a trip to the grocery store to stock up on freezer meals—I'd probably let it slide. I mean, it does look like I peed my pants.
"But you pottied!" He sticks out his tongue and closes his eyes. "It's so yucky. This is the yuckiest thing I've ever seen."
I snatch a roll of paper towels from the counter and throw the whole roll into the puddle. "Go get your dad. Now!"
"To tell him you peed?"
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Yes. Tell him I peed."
Dante slides down the wall and then darts down the hallway. I hear his frantic footsteps pounding up the stairs.
Maybe I did pee.Lord knows this little girl likes to headbutt my bladder. It's her favorite place to hang out. If she isn't curling her feet under my ribs until I'm crying in pain, she's bashing her head against my bladder like it's downright hilarious.
"What's the verdict?" he asks as he sweeps into the room.
I stand up to see he has my hospital bag slung over his shoulder. I've been calling it my "go bag" and storing it under our bed for old time's sake, but Mikhail never found the joke especially funny.
I nod my head, ignoring the sudden shakiness in other parts of my body. "It's real."
Mikhail walks towards me and Dante yelps behind him. "Watch out for the pee!"
But Mikhail doesn't worry about it. He grabs my face and forces me to look at him. "You're ready for this, Viviana."
Instantly, the knot of panic in my chest eases. I take my first deep breath since I heard the splash. "We need to get Dante to school."
Before Mikhail can say anything, the garage door flies open and Anatoly is standing there in head-to-toe leather, a child-sized motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. "One just-barely-over-the-speed-limit motorcycle ride for a Dante Novikov. Is Dante Novikov here?"
"Uncle Nat!" Dante careens around the island and snatches the helmet out of Anatoly's hands. He has it on his head and is tearing into the garage before he can even say goodbye.
Anatoly grins. "Good luck having a baby, Viv. While you're gone, I'll take care of this one."
The garage door closes and I spin towards Mikhail. "How did Anatoly get here so fast? I thought he was on a motorcycle trip to Alaska."
Anatoly has used his time away from the Bratva to take up every dangerous hobby he can imagine. Skydiving and backcountry skiing came and went quickly, but he has a motorcycle now and he spends most weekends racing on dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere. It's a good thing he still keeps in touch with the Bratva doctor, because his medical bills would be astronomical by this point.
"He got back two nights ago. I asked him to sleep in the pool house just in case the baby came early."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I snap.
Mikhail arches a brow. "Because every time I tried to make plans for the delivery, you waved me off. You always said we had plenty of time to prepare."
"We do!" I frown. "Well, we did. She wasn't supposed to get here for four more days. She was supposed to arrive on her due date when I was fully prepared."
I chew on my lower lip. I'm not sure what "fully prepared" feels like, but I kept expecting it to just snap into place. At some point, I'd be ready for this.
"We Novikovs aren't big fans of doing what we're supposed to do. You pointed that out to me once. I took some precautions. You're welcome." He curls a hand over my cheek. "Now, I'm going to drive you to the hospital so we can have our baby."
"I can't do this," I whimper.
"Don't be ridiculous, Viviana." Mikhail loops an arm around my lower back and leads me towards the garage. "You can do anything."
"You're a liar!" I narrow my eyes at my husband as I simultaneously squeeze his calloused hand with every ounce of strength in my body. "You're a dirty, no-good, filthy liar."
He winces as my contraction peaks and my grip on his hand gets crushing. My hold loosens as the pain wanes. "I've been called worse. What did I lie about this time?"
My top lip curls back in a snarl. "You told me I could do this, but I can't. I can't do this." I tip my head back and scream it to the ceiling in case the nursing staff can't hear me. "I can't do this!"
Mikhail brushes my sweaty hair away from my face. "You absolutely can do this, Viviana. I still believe that."
"Says the man not having contractions every sixty seconds. Says the man who isn't going to push a whole human out of his body in—Fuck! Probably never," I grit as another contraction tears across my stomach. "This is going to last forever. I'm probably dead and this is my punishment."
Mikhail offers me his hand. His fingers are bright red from using them as a stress ball, but my capacity to feel bad for him is nonexistent. I latch on again and squeeze like this is all his fault.
Which it is!
How many times did he say he wanted to "fuck a baby into me"? Well, we never discussed the other side of that. When the baby has to come out!
"All your fault," I groan before my ability to speak is lost in a scream.
Mikhail wipes my forehead with a cool cloth and slips his other hand behind my back to knead the knotted muscles with his thumb. "What exactly do you think you need to be punished for?"
"For stabbing your brother. For lying to you about Dante. For selling my heart and soul to the devil for love." I throw my hands up. "Or for all the times I broke the pay-it-forward chain in the drive-thru. I've gotten a lot of free coffees over the years and I never paid them back."
Mikhail laughs and it's a beautiful sound, but I also want to squeeze his lungs until he's in as much pain as me—yet another reason I deserve to be punished.
"Free coffee isn't a reason to be punished. Plus, I'm not sure if you've heard, but I'm an honorable man now." His lips press against the shell of my ear. "I met a woman and she dragged me into the light."
For half a second, my moon-sized bump isn't demanding all of my attention.
For one fractured moment, I'm focused on Mikhail's lips on my ear. On his warm breath against my skin.
Then another contraction rips through me and my back bows as I scream. "Fine! Then I deserve to be punished for rambling on and on to everyone who would listen about how much I wanted a natural childbirth."
"Studies show the recovery is easier with a natural birth," Mikhail says flatly. "You taught me that."
Mikhail didn't read any of my pregnancy books, but he might as well have. I read massive sections of them out loud to him every night in bed for months.
"That may be true, but the birth is torture. I want drugs!" I slap my hand over the nurse's call button repeatedly. The middle-aged nurse, who I forgot has been standing between my legs for the last ten minutes, gives me a wave. "You asked for drugs twenty minutes ago and it was too late then. It's definitely too late now. The doctor is on his way."
"Dr. Rossi," I growl. "This is his fault, too! He recommended that book on natural childbirth."
"After you asked him for a book on natural childbirth," Mikhail chuckles. He kisses my sweaty forehead. "How about we wait until the baby is out? If you still feel like wreaking vengeance once our baby girl is here, I'll help."
I fist the front of his shirt and drag him closer. "No takebacks. You have to keep your word."
"With you? Always."
Again, I'm almost free of the pain. Looking into Mikhail's eyes, I can almost forget where we are. What's about to happen.
Then a strangled curse tears out of my throat as Dr. Rossi rushes in the door.
"Let's have a baby!" He grins, pulling on a pair of gloves.
And thirty minutes later, we do.
The second Dr. Rossi holds my wrinkled, slimy, perfect baby girl in the air, the pain disappears. I'm still exhausted. Still coated in sweat and blood and plenty of other fluids I don't ever need to know about.
But none of that matters.
"She's here." I grab Mikhail's hand, but I don't squeeze. I bring his knuckles to my cheek and nuzzle my face against his warmth. "Our baby is here."
"You did so good." He kisses my temple, whispering in my ear again and again. "You did so, so good."
The nurses clean her off and lay her on my chest. I remember this moment with Dante. I was shaking and terrified, realizing all at once how much the tiny, helpless baby in my arms needed me. I was all he had in the world. He was all I had.
That isn't true anymore.
"You're so perfect," I whisper, sliding my finger into her chubby palm. "Your brother is going to love you."
"What about me?" Mikhail teases. "She hasn't met me yet."
The baby turns toward Mikhail instantly, searching. Tears well in my eyes. "She recognizes your voice."
"Good. I didn't spend all those months talking to your bump for nothing." Mikhail lays his large hand over her small body. His eyes are wide with genuine wonder. It's the first time I've ever seen Mikhail look terrified.
"Do you want to hold her?"
He starts to shake his head, but I hold her out before he can. He has no choice but to take her in his arms. He's clumsy at first. His shoulders are raised practically to his ears and he stares down at her like she might suddenly backflip out of his arms. After a few seconds, he relaxes into it. And it's the most natural thing in the world.
A father holding his baby.
My husband holding our child.
I wasn't sure I'd ever see it.
Suddenly, Mikhail catches my eye. "Thank you."
"For giving birth? Believe me, if I could have passed the buck, I would have."
He shakes his head. "Thanks for not giving up on me. Thanks for… Thanks for not letting me give up on this."
You'd think I'd be all out of spare fluids, but you'd be wrong. Tears pour down my face as I grab Mikhail by the belt loop and pull him into my bed. He holds our daughter and I rest my head on his shoulder, breathing in this new life we created.
Our daughter, yes. But everything else, too.
"This is how it's always going to be, isn't it?" I whisper.
He turns and kisses my forehead. "I think that's how it usually works with happily-ever-afters."