I wasn’t here for Elena’s first two trimesters, but from everything I’ve been told, those six months were the hardest this home has ever weathered. Her health was declining day by day, and it didn’t help that Misha kept urging her to reconsider carrying the baby to term. When the doctors finally warned him that ending the pregnancy so late would be just as dangerous, given her condition, he lost what little hope he had left.
Then something miraculous happened.
Elena entered her final trimester, and with it came a surge of optimism that spread throughout the entire house. Her face grew fuller, her energy returned, and she began to glow in that way all expectant mothers do when the finish line is near. Not once have I heard her complain about anything pertaining to her pregnancy. Not about her morning sickness, or about how swollen her feet had become. Nothing. Whatever this pregnancy throws at her, she seems to treat it as a blessing.
And for the past couple of months that I’ve been here, I’ve watched Misha begin to treat it like one too. His worries have slowly dissolved, replaced by something I never thought my brother would have again—faith. A genuine faith that everything was going to work out in his favor. For someone like Misha to relinquish his control and let himself believe that some invisible higher power was watching over his wife and unborn child was a miracle in itself.
Maybe my brother will get lucky.
Maybe he’ll get to keep both his wife and his child.
Maybe these are the thoughts running wild in his head now that Elena is starting to look like the woman he fell in love with again, rather than the fragile shadow she became in the wake of her cancer.
Even in my own depressive haze, I cling to the hope that at least one of us Petrovs gets everything they’ve ever dreamed of. Misha has sacrificed so much. If anyone deserves happiness, it’s him.
Me, on the other hand…well. I don’t have much left to hope for. Not without Stella.
And with that thought weighing on me, I head to the fridge, pull out another bottle of vodka, and step outside toward the pool, where my family is laughing, living, and pretending, for a moment, that this magnificent summer might actually last forever.
If I had it my way, I would take this bottle of vodka and a few of her brothers and sisters and hide away in my bedroom. But to my bitter chagrin, I was ordered by myPakhanto fix my reclusive attitude because it had cast a dark cloud over this home’s newfound happiness. And if I didn’t want my summer vacation to be cut short and be sent back to Chicago, I needed to make an effort and take part in family time.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I’m participating in all this family bonding by getting shitfaced on a lounge chair, poolside.
Misha ordered me to be more present. He didn’t say anything about having to do it sober.
“Here I come!” Darius shouts, sprinting toward the pool before launching himself into a cannonball.
Kira’s and Elena’s laughter echoes across the yard, light and bright, the contagious melody wrapping itself around us. Mybrothers take it all in with wide smiles, their faces softened by joy.
I force a smile of my own. I have to. I don’t want Misha biting my head off again.
But even surrounded by all this happiness, I still feel hollow.
I wonder if that feeling will ever go away… or if this is the man I’m destined to be now.
Fuck it.
As long as there’s a bottle of vodka in my hand and a cigarette in the other, then I’m content. Or close enough to content I’ll ever be.
“I thought I told you no smoking in the house,” Misha says accusingly in Russian, glancing at me over his shoulder instead of paying attention to the T-bone steaks on the grill.
“You did,” I answer back in our native tongue. “And as you can see, I’m not inside the house. I’m outside.”
“Just don’t smoke around Elena. It’s bad for the baby.” He levels me with a look before turning back to the grill, only to start chuckling when Elena sings out that the cook looks even better than the steaks he’s preparing.
My lips instantly dip into a frown.
Fuck Misha and his stupid happiness.
And fuck him for rubbing it in our faces.
Does he realize that what he has is something the rest of us can only dream of?
Yeah. Fuck Misha.
I sink further back onto the lounge chair and slip on my Oakleys since the sun is stabbing at my eyes and I’m still nursing the hangover from last night.
