I wanted to rage at my parents.
But I signed my name.
I sold myself to the devil.
And the devil’s child was growing inside me whether I was ready or not.
I immediately touched my belly in regret. The baby was innocent in all of this.
“Prosti, malyshka,” I murmured, apologising to my tiny bump before opening the door.
Tau stood in the corridor with the faintest hint of a smile when he noticed me cradling it. He said nothing, but the smile was there.
Spartak had been reassigned and I was left with Radovan and Tau. I was certain that was Vadim’s doing. A needle, delivered without a word.
He had been irritable for weeks. I could usually hear him when he came back from work—the certain quality of his footsteps, the doors that closed with slightly more force than necessary. The house had its own language and I had learned to read it.
As I moved into my second trimester I had thought I might make some kind of peace with everything. I hadn’t.
“He is going to meet you there,” Tau said as I closed the door behind me.
“It makes little difference to me,” I said quietly, and began walking down the corridor.
Even as the words left my mouth my eyes drifted toward his hallway. The closed door at the end of it. The east wing that I had learned to navigate around rather than through.
Everything came back to the contract. It always did.
With a sigh I placed my hand on the banister and started downstairs.
Today was about the baby.
Not its dysfunctional parents.
??????
I pretended he wasn’t in the room. It was easier than the alternative.
I asked the nurse about the baby’s position, about whether the nausea would ease, and about feeling low. She talked me through each question patiently until the last one, where her eyes flicked briefly to Vadim before returning to me — a look that lasted less than a second and said everything about what she had assessed of the room.
“This could be due to hormonal changes,” she said carefully.“Or it could be antenatal depression.”
I felt him shift behind me.
“We can offer therapy to help you recognise and regulate your emotions. There are support groups, and depending on how you continue to feel, there is the medication route.” She patted my hand gently, her touch deliberate and kind.“It isn’t uncommon. I’ll place a referral with the doctor.”
I nodded. Grateful that she didn’t look at me with pity. Grateful that she didn’t make me feel like a failure for not managing to be happy about this.
She moved to the equipment and the screen and instructed me to lie on the padded bed with my stomach bare. I had come prepared. I settled back, rolled my top up, and felt the cool air find my bump.
There it was.
Small. Real. Mine in the only way that mattered and not mine in every way that did.
I lay back while she talked me through the preparation, her voice steady and professional, and tried to slow my breathing.
It was time to meet whoever was growing inside me.
When the baby appeared on the screen, time stopped.
