I know she is talking about Nik. It’s enough to bring tears to the backs of my eyes. But I hold them there. If my mother can survive the death of her son and can see her grandson like this, I can hold back tears.
“You will be a good father,” she tells me. I swallow again.
“I feel like I already fucked up,” I say.
“You hear that?” she asks. “That’s his heart. It’s strong. He’s alive. You are already a good father. Is Amara alive?”
“Barely,” I say. “But yes.”
“Then you are a good husband too.”
I almost smile. “We aren’t married yet.”
“Emphasis on the last word,” she says with a smirk.
“You know, I don’t think Dad agrees with what you’re saying,” I tell her. “His knuckles were white when he handed his power over to me.”
“Your father never saw you aspakhanbecause you were all heart. And that heart is what’s going to get you through all this. It’s what’s going to help you lead our family the way we should be led.”
“I worry that that part of me might already be dead,” I say. “That it died with Nik.”
But my mom shakes her head. “It got stronger when he died, son. Whether you feel it or not, you got stronger when he died.”
I don’t like that one bit. And yet, it’s true. Losing Nik hardened me. It gave me edges in places I never knew I could grow them. Turned me sharp in ways I would have dreaded when I was younger.
But I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a man now. And while nothing will ever fill the gaping hole that opened up in my heart the daymy brother died, I owe it all to him. Everything I am today is because of him.
And someone else.
I stand up. “Would you?—”
“I’ll stay with the baby,” Mom says, as if reading my thoughts. “You go see Amara.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I plant a kiss on the top of her head and walk out.
Amara looks exactly as she did before when I arrived. Even though there’s a couch against the wall that I’m sure many an expecting father have slept on, I pull up a chair next to the bed. Then I take her limp hand in my own hands, careful not to jostle the IV.
“You can’t leave me,” I whisper after a long moment. “I used to think I’d never get rid of you. But now…” My voice softens a little, and I realize I can’t hide behind sarcasm. Not now. “You have to hold on,dorogoya.I can’t do this without you. You are a Rozanov now. Even without a ring or papers or anything else. You are Rozanov and you are mine. I…” I swallow hard. “I need you. He needs you. So you have to hang on.”
I stay next to her for a while, but eventually, my eyes burn, not just with tears but with the need for sleep.
“The couch in the corner is supposedly comfier than it looks,” the nurse says, because somehow they can always read minds.
As much as curling up on a hard, factory-produced sofa is not in my persona, I am too tired to care. So I take her up on it.
Within moments of laying down, my eyes close.
And what feels like moments later, but is probably hours, my eyes flutter open again.
I hear the cooing of a baby.
Soft noises and an even softer voice.
I shove myself up, wincing at the crook in my neck, and squint my eyes into focus.
It feels like a dream, but it’s not.
