Epilogue
Catherine
Anechka.” Sashulya’s voice comes from over my left shoulder. I’m drowsing in the sun, lying out on a beach chair. It’s summer. The ocean breeze wafts over my skin. “Don’t wander too far, zaychik.”
Little hare. It’s a nickname that sounds strange in English, but so sweet in Russian.
Anna—our four-year-old daughter—plunks her fists on her tiny hips.
“Papa, I want to catch sand crabs!” Her pink ruffled swimsuit is covered in the sand Sashulya buried her in just a half an hour ago at her own insistence.
She’s got this attitude that is just plain his.
A domineering little tyrant of a child. Bossy. Opinionated. Demanding.
All things Sashulya shamelessly encourages.
Sashulya’s shadow briefly blocks out the sun as he takes a seat beside me. “No crabs,” he calls back. “It’s almost time for lunch.”
“Papa.”
“Anechka.”
Without even looking, I know she’s got that little pout she likes to employ. Usually it works. But today Sashulya wins out, and Anna comes hurrying back, where she positions herself at my side.
“Mama,” she says, and she blinks those green eyes up at me, so like her father’s. “I’m not hungry. Can I catch sand crabs?”
Sashulya muffles a laugh in his palm. She’s learning too quickly how to pit her parents against each other.
“After lunch, baby.” I smooth her tangled hair away from her face and tap her nose, which she wrinkles at me. I gave birth to such a daddy’s girl.
“Go change, zaychik,” Sashulya says. “Eat your sandwich. Then we can catch sand crabs.”
Appeased, Anna saunters inside the house to change. She stopped letting me dress her when she was only two; a fiercely independent child. Sashulya says she gets that from me. I want to believe he’s right, because the rest of her is all his.
She likes to dig for sand crabs on the beach.
They’re strange little grey creatures that burrow beneath the sand.
When the water rushes over their dens, little bubbles form and streaks in the sand point an arrow to where they nestle.
Anna likes to catch them in a bucket and watch them swim around—until she and Sashulya free them together.
“Turn over, koshechka. You are going to bake in this sun.”
“You’re insane if you think I can turn over.”
He snickers, and his hand curves over the swell of my stomach, over our next daughter, who we will call Mila when she’s born early next month.
I thought maybe he would be disappointed not to have a son, but no—he likes the tea parties and the Disney princess movies.
He’s got a sticker on the rear window of his Range Rover that says Girl Dad, and he likes taking Anna to and from her preschool playgroup.
He’s learned terms like toxic masculinity, and complains about the weakness of those fathers who are threatened by things like hair bows and glitter.
When I asked him if he was disappointed not to have a son yet, he was genuinely confused. “Why, koshechka?” he asked. “I love women. And these ones belong to me.”
He’s a devoted father. A devoted husband. And after the summer break, when my maternity leave ends and Anna begins kindergarten at the small, private school where I teach third grade, he will stay home and care for Mila just like he does with Anna.
Anna is still upstairs getting dressed. Sashulya trails his fingers up the inside of my thigh. “I hear vigorous sex can make babies come faster,” he says.
“An old wives’ tale.” My ears are pricked, listening for little feet even as I let him slip his fingers beneath the elastic of my swimsuit.
“Mmm, that may be so. But we could test it.” He dips his head, and his lips rub across mine. “Aren’t you ready to meet Mila?”
“God, yes.” Though mostly at this stage of pregnancy, I’m just ready to be done. I feel like I’m wider than I am tall, and my hips are so misaligned that I ache constantly. My feet are swollen, my hands are swollen. My whole body is swollen.
Two fingers push inside me. It’s an effort not to writhe. “Later,” I gasp. “When Anna goes down for her nap.”
“Nyet,” he says. “I need to see you come now. I’ll make it quick, koshechka.” There’s an unmistakable heat in his eyes, and he knows just how to touch me, exactly what I need. It doesn’t help that my hormones are out of control, even at this stage of pregnancy.
He likes my duck-like waddle, the habit I have of laying my hand over my stomach. He likes rubbing my sore feet and feeding me ice cream and he even like holding my hair back when I had morning sickness. He likes that he made me like this.
He smothers the sound I make as he works me to completion, and then he laughs as he sucks my juices off of his fingers. “There,” he says. “That will help. Until Anechka’s nap.”
“You’re insatiable,” I accuse, fumbling in the picnic basket beside me for wet wipes and napkins. I toss some at him and clean myself up.
“Always, koshechka. You signed yourself up for this when you married me.” He readjusts the umbrella overhead to block out the sun so I don’t burn, and we’re pulling lunch out from the basket just as Anna thunders back down the stairs.
When she comes outside, she’s leading Boris—our rescued Bengal cat—on his harness and leash.
He loves the water, loves to pounce around in the surf with Anna.
Sashulya doesn’t care for cats, but he makes an exception for Boris, who he calls our ‘house panther.’ A compromise on the tiger he once offered to get for me.
Sashulya settles Anna on his thigh, handing over half a sandwich. “It’s ham and swiss,” he tells her. “Eat, zaychik. And don’t feed too much to Boris.”
Anna speaks through a mouthful of food. “Mama, can I say hi to Mila?”
“Of course, baby.” I pat my chair, and she hops off of Sashulya’s lap and scrambles over to press her cheek against my stomach. I think it’s because of Sashulya that Anna is so excited to be a big sister. I wonder how long that excitement will last when she learns how loud babies are.
“Oh, I hear her! She’s awake!” Her little mouth rounds in surprise. “Papa, do you hear?”
Sashulya abandons his sandwich and drops to his knees in the sand beside my chair, and Anna cuddles closer to my side.
I’ve got two ears pressed to my stomach.
And they look at each other like they share a secret, my husband and our daughter.
Inside me, Mila shuffles and turns, already annoyed at the constraints of her ever-shrinking home.
I feel a tiny foot drag along my stomach.
“She kicked me!” Anna shoves away with a giggle.
“She’s getting ready to be born,” Sashulya says. “Very soon, zaychik. Mama and Papa will have to go away to the hospital for a few days, but when we come back, we’ll bring you your baby sister.” He strokes Anna’s hair. “Uncle Tolya is going to come visit and watch over you.”
“Uncle Tolya!” Anna enthuses. She’s largely excited because every time Anatoli visits, he brings her some ridiculous gift. It’ll be a pony eventually. I just know it.
Anna chomps through the rest of her sandwich in four rapid bites, and then she seizes her little play bucket and grabs Sashulya’s hand and begins to drag him toward the shore to catch the sand crabs he promised they would.
Boris jumps up on my chair and curls up beside me, resting his chin on my knee.
And I watch them—my husband, my daughter—kneeling there by the surf, digging in the sand together, enjoying a perfect, peaceful summer afternoon.
It’s just another ordinary day in the hundreds that have come before, the thousands that will come after.
Life is sweet.