The sweetwhoohshoo-whooshoo-whooshoofilled the air.
I choked, tears streaming down my cheeks. Happy, so damn deliriously happy, tears ran freely.
Daniil, on the other hand, took the news and sound of our third child’s heartbeat differently. He jumped away from me, straight into the air, shouting, “Fuck yes! Those are my damn babies!”
I jumped. The doctor jumped. Hell, I even heard a thump outside in the hallway at his victorious holler.
He pumped his fists in the air, grinning like a fool, whooping pretty damn loudly. Again.
The doctor paused with his hands over me, just staring, but I laughed after my initial startle and stated, “Hush, Daniil, or the bodyguards are going to come in.”
He blinked and his chest rose. And all that went through my mind was,oh, shit. And suddenly, he was yanking the door open, shouting at the guards to get in the room and hear his “fucking babies’ heartbeats!” Christ. I seriously had to open my mouth.
He surveyed me, quickly pulling the blanket up over any exposed areas so the doctor’s hand was under the blanket…yeah…right before nine damn bodyguards squeezed into the small room. That wasn’t awkward or anything.
But Daniil motioned for Dr. Wisser—who was shocked silly—to continue, and then started talking a mile a minute in Russian to the guards whom I barely saw him ever speak with. Dr. Wisser blinked—kind of like me—and turned back to the screen and found a heartbeat. And a round of cheers went up in the room pretty much scaring both the doctor and me. There were just too much scary ugly and guns in the room for me, and I glanced at Daniil.
On a positive note, it only took one look from me before he shooed them back out into the hallway.
After shutting the door, Daniil started dialing on his phone and stated, “Grigori, are you around your brothers and sister?” Daniil nodded. “Put your cell on speaker phone.” He waited, and said, “Sorry to interrupt your work, children, but you’ve got to hear this.” He put his own phone on speaker phone and I could hear them talking quietly to each other, asking one another what the hell was going on. Daniil jerked the phone to the doc. “Put this by the speaker and do it again.”
Dr. Wisser’s eyes looked like they were going to cross, but he sucked it up, placing the phone by the speaker, and Daniil barked loudly, “Be quiet and listen.” And amazingly, I heard all his kids shut up. The doc’s eyebrows rose, but he placed the contraption back on my belly, and within thirty seconds, thewhooshoo-whooshoo-whooshoowas heard again.
“What the hell’s that?” I heard Eva state.
“The baby’s heartbeat,” Grigori mumbled, “Shut up!”
“What’s going on in here?” I heard Ember’s voice from far away, and then a very un-Ember-like squeal. “Is that the baby’s heartbeat?”
“Hush!” Artur piped up. And then…silence.
Daniil pointed at my belly, commanding, “Find all of them again. I want them to hear.” I bit my lip as the doctor took a deep breath in and started moving thething—I was going to call it thethingfrom now on—around my belly again, and Daniil stated loudly and clearly into the silence, “That was brother number one. Dr. Wisser will find brother number two in a moment.”
My jaw gaped. “We have no damn clue if it’s a boy or a girl!”
Daniil leaned over me, stating solemnly, “We know their healthy and alive. And that was most definitely a boy.”
“What are you? A damn Native American medicine man?” I griped. “You. Have. No. Clue.” I glanced at the doctor, stating sternly, “And we don’t want to know. When the babies come out, then we’ll know.”
“Oh! Oh! We want to know as soon as we can,” Daniil countered quickly, pulling out his wallet.
“Put your fucking wallet away,” I griped harshly. Shit, I couldn’t compete with that.
“Be still,” he told me quietly and then asked the doctor bluntly, starting to count his wad-o-cash, “How much to know for certain they’re all boys?”
“Daniil!” I stated,hmm, a little shrilly. “I don’t want to know!”
He glared at me and started counting again.
Pissed, I grabbed the cash from his wallet and tossed it across the room. In retrospect, that probably would have been a great time to implore my mother’s neat trick. But, I do remember her stating it didn’t work all the time. And this was one of those times for me.
The doctor’s hands paused over me as we all watched the green bills flutter throughout the room, silhouetted against the sunshine coming in through the window. Daniil growled, “I cannot believe you just threw forty thousand dollars across the fucking room. Do you know how long that will take to pick up?”
The doctor’s jaw gaped at the still falling money, but I sputtered, “What type of person carries around that much cash?”
“The kind that can afford to,” Daniil griped, moving across the room to pick up his money. But, he stopped and pointed at the floor, stating bluntly to Dr. Wisser, “The monies all yours if you pick it up and promise to tell me their sexes as soon as possible.”
I heard a whistle over the line that I had forgotten about and heard Anna state, “Man, she can’t compete with that.” I hadn’t even realized she was there. Honestly, the whole fucking work was probably listening in. And sadly, I couldn’t agree with her more…except…
