26. Nataliya
TWENTY-SIX
Six Months Later
Hospital antiseptic was surely eating a hole in my nose. I squirmed in the uncomfortable waiting room chair and rubbed my face for the hundredth time. “Sweetheart,” Adrian said from beside me, leaning into me, “you’re too pretty to wear a hole in your cheek.”
“I hate waiting.”
“I know,” he soothed.
“What if it’s bad news? They’ve been back there a long time.”
Sam had come to DC to check on Elias’s progress. She had gotten hospital privileges and commandeered a part of the lab so she could personally see to his lab results. Out of all of the participants who were testing her vaccine, she kept a special eye on Elias, and for that, Sam would always be a friend of mine.
“Sam just wants to be certain,” Owen, who had come up with Sam, said kindly. I appreciated that he came with her, and I’d said as much when they arrived the night before, but Owen and Sam both shrugged it off. They were going to do some sightseeing in DC while they were in, and Myles’s paternal grandparents were relishing in getting to spoil the little boy rotten for a few days back home in Birmingham.
“I know,” I said. “I’m just?—”
“Anxious,” Owen offered.
“Freaking the hell out,” Adrian added.
“Both.” I wanted to curl up into a ball to cry, but I settled for Adrian slinging his arm over my shoulders and pulling me into the comforting warmth of his body.
“How do you like DC?” Owen asked, doing his level best to distract me. Bless him.
“It’s different from living in Louisiana,” I said. Elias and I moved up to be with Adrian shortly after Elias’s last dose of the Loorer’s vaccine. By then, Adrian had already been back in DC for a while, having to return to work when his leave ran out. That time apart had only confirmed for the both of us what we already knew: that we wanted to be together from now on. “I mean, the summer was still humid, but it wasn’t completely awful.”
Adrian snorted. “Winters are a touch colder than Louisiana though.”
That made me smile, and I poked him in his abs, making him flinch. “Did you forget where I grew up? Winter in the RoW was brutal and?—”
“I know,” Adrian cut off my growing rant with a teasing eye roll. “My girl’s a badass like that.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek.
“Will you have time to get her used to it before you have to go on assignment again?” Owen asked, and while he didn’t mean to bring up a sore spot between Adrian and me, his words made me cringe.
It wasn’t that we were fighting because of his job. I knew what I was getting into when I chose to move across the country for him. But the few times Adrian had to leave us for an assignment, it always put him into the worst mood. Angry, but not at anyone but himself.
“Actually, no,” Adrian said. “I won’t be going out on assignment anymore.”
I glanced at him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, please.” Adrian wasn’t in the habit of saying something that he didn’t mean, but I found it hard to believe that with his job, he’d never have to go out of town again.
“I’m not,” he assured me. “I put in for a transfer.”
“A transfer? To where?” Anger flared in my gut, hot for a second. “Elias just got settled! How could you do this to us? He shouldn’t be forced to?—”
“Whoa! Hey, Nataliya, no,” Adrian rushed to calm me down. “That’s not what I meant, sweetheart, I swear.”
I forced myself to take a breath. Don’t jump to conclusions. “What did you mean?”
Adrian looked nervous for a moment. “I…uh…I asked to be transferred to a desk job. In-house only—no fieldwork. My request was accepted.”
I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d grown wings and took flight. “You…you would do that for me?”
Adrian cupped my cheek. “I would do that for our family, sweetheart.”
“But…but you love going on assignments. I know you do.”
He shrugged, trying for casual, but the tension was all over him. “I like being at home more,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I believed it, but Owen grinned. “It’s about time,” he said. “We were all waiting to see if you’d wise up and stop running into alligators for once. I’m glad you finally found your reason.” He winked my way. “The rest of us fell in line months ago, but he seemed to be waiting for you.”
I flushed. I felt exactly the same way, like I had been on hold for Adrian all of this time. I threw so much of myself into keeping Elias safe and healthy and making sure he was okay, but in doing that, I completely ignored everything that didn’t fall under the role of “mother.”
But Adrian had blown into my life and changed everything. Woke up a part of me that had been lying dormant for so long.
“If you’re sure that’s what you want,” I said.
Adrian nodded. “I’m sure, sweetheart. I’ve never been more sure of anything. Well, except maybe?—”
“Excuse me.” We all turned; there was a nursing assistant standing at the door that led back to the lab. “Are you the family of Elias Koza?”
I stood up. “I’m his mother.”
She smiled, kind. “He wants to see you…and Adrian?”
Adrian stood. “That’s me.” He looked at Owen. “Do you want to come?”
Owen waved us on. “I’ll go get some coffee in the cafeteria. Let Sam know where I am? She and I are going to dinner tonight.”
They want to give us time, I thought, and dread pooled, unbidden, in my stomach. It could be good news, but…what if it wasn’t? What if he knew it was going to be bad, and they wanted to give us time to grieve?
“I’ll let her know,” Adrian said. He took my hand as we followed after the nursing assistant. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured to me as we wound through far too many hallways that all looked the same. I hated how hospitals were like mazes once you got past where visitors were generally allowed to go. How anyone found their way around, I would never understand. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it head on.”
His optimism, bullheaded as it was, made me smile. I squeezed his hand. “I know we will. I just want?—”
“I know. Me too.”
We went through another door, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Elias. Since starting on the vaccine, Elias had put on weight. He had an appetite again, and he was able to run and play without worrying overly much about getting a spasm attack. They all seemed like good signs…but were they?
He smiled when he saw us and bounded out of his chair to me, throwing his arms around his middle. “Mama.” He rubbed his face against me, and I petted his hair.
“Are you okay, sakharok?”
He nodded. “Dr. Sam only needed one needle today, Mama.” Only one needle was a good day for Elias whenever he had to come to the hospital.
“That’s wonderful.” I looked around. “Where’s Sam?”
“Waiting on results,” Elias said. “She wanted to tell us together.”
Sometimes, Sam would tell Elias his test results first so he had time to process before she went on to explain things to me. I appreciated her for that: she wanted Elias to have as much agency as he could, and that meant telling him things, even if they were sometimes hard to understand. Even when I didn’t think he could handle it.
The fact that she wanted us together made that pool of bad feelings from before widen into a lake, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep the panic off of my face. “It’ll be okay, Mama,” Elias said, reading me anyway.
“I hope so, sakharok,” I said.
He hummed. “How badly was she freaking out in the waiting room?” he asked Adrian.
“Don’t tell him,” I warned, and Adrian laughed.
Elias snorted. “So, pretty bad, right?”
I flicked his ear, not hard, just enough to make him jump and run for Adrian. “Behave,” I said, and then met Adrian’s smiling eyes. “Both of you.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” Adrian said.
It only took a few more minutes for Sam to bustle into the tiny vestibule we were hovering in. She was holding papers and looked…shaken. That did very little to calm the storm raging inside of me. “Sam? What’s going on?” Sam’s eyes darted to the papers in her hands and back up to us. Tears welled in her eyes. Bile churned in my stomach. “Just say it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid.”
Sam nodded, and I watched a tear drip down her cheek. Adrian, Elias, and I stood, huddled, as she took a deep breath. “He’s in remission,” she said. Her voice came out in a squeak.
“What?” Adrian asked hoarsely. “Say that again?”
A smile cracked and spread across her face. “He’s in full remission,” she repeated. “The vaccine worked.”
I heard the words, but it was like my body and mind weren’t in agreement about what to do about it. I started crying immediately, and my lungs seized, knees weakened. If it hadn’t been for Adrian, I would have hit the ground, for sure.
“Mama?” Elias’s voice was small, and I somehow convinced neck muscles to look down at him. “Does being in remission mean that I’m cured?”
Despite the tears and the wobbly feeling in my gut, I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, sakharok,” I breathed out. “That’s…that’s what that means.”
I bent, and he leapt, and I had my boy in my arms. I covered his face with kisses, and his giggles rang out in my ears. He was going to live. Not just until a disease ravaged his body and it gave up. Not barely being strung along by medication. But well and truly, Elias would live. I had never cried and laughed so loudly and for so long before.
Adrian was hugging us too, I realized, and it warmed me to see the tears on his cheeks. He was just as happy as we were with the results. Gently, I transferred Elias into his arms and turned to pull Sam in for a hug. She was shaking; I couldn’t blame her. “You did it,” I whispered. “You really did it.”
“I did it.” She sounded shell-shocked.
I hugged her harder and let her go. “Owen’s in the cafeteria getting coffee,” I said. “If you want to go and tell him.”
She nodded, absently. “Thank you for allowing me to?—”
I shook my head. “Thank you for working so hard to make this possible. Thank you from all of the mothers who worry like I did.”
We hugged again, both of us sobbing, but eventually, she extracted herself so she could go to find Owen. She’d want to share her success with her person, just like I wanted to share this with mine.
Adrian drew me back into his arms, and we squeezed Elias between us. “Adrian,” he wheezed.
“Yeah, bud?”
“Now’s the time.”
I had no idea what they were saying. It was honestly hard to focus over my own jubilation. “Time for what, sakharok?”
But Adrian seemed to understand perfectly. He set Elias down and squatted down so they were on the same level. “You’re sure?” he asked.
Elias nodded. “Right now.” He glanced up at me. “It’s perfect.”
They shared a look, and then Adrian drew him in for a tight hug. “Thanks, buddy.” I expected Adrian to stand, but he simply shifted so that he was kneeling on the floor in front of me.
“Adrian, what are you?—?”
“You’re the love of my life,” he cut me off. “You and Elias are the family that I never dared to dream about.” A lump formed in my throat. Is he doing what I think he’s doing? “Of course, this is the one day I don’t have the ring box with me.” He gestured to Elias. “But we’ve been waiting for the right time, and I’ve got to listen to my best man here.” He took my hand and rubbed his thumb over my ring finger. “As soon as we get home, I swear I’ll do this again, but for now, Nataliya Koza, will you marry me?”
I was nodding before he even got the question out. “Of course,” I breathed, tugging him off the floor and into my arms. Our lips met. “Of course, I will marry you.”