Chapter 20
NORA
Grandma cries for eleven seconds, denies crying for another thirty and then demands to know whether Konstantin has bought the baby a house.
"He has proposed removing a wall."
"So yes."
Above a blue robe buttoned to her chin, Grandma's face fills my phone screen.
Morning light reaches through her kitchen window and touches the faint water mark near the ceiling that she insists hasn't changed in ten years.
Between that stubborn mark, the yellow curtain, and her chipped mug, I want to stand inside the small room so badly that my throat aches.
"The doctor says nothing is concerning so far," I tell her. "It's too early for much more than dates and bloodwork. We have another appointment next week."
"Are you happy?"
Grandma's question forces me to stop reciting medical facts and say how I feel. "I am. I'm scared too, but I want the baby."
"Then both feelings can live there."
When she asks when I can visit, I promise soon without giving a day, since security hasn't cleared her neighborhood after the latest message.
During my interview with Konstantin's security, I should have admitted that Grandma and I speak constantly.
Instead, with maps spread between us and men deciding how much of my old life could remain, I made our relationship sound occasional because distant family seemed less likely to be dragged into his war.
Grandma studies me through the screen. "Don't disappear into that house," she says. "A beautiful room can still make it hard to hear your own thoughts."
"You sound like you've met his family."
"I watched the wedding coverage. There were four women behind you who looked prepared to conquer a country with tailoring."
I laugh, then promise to call tonight. She makes me turn the camera toward the breakfast tray before she'll hang up.
Three hours later, the four women from the wedding occupy the residence salon with the ease of an invading government.
Near the fire, Galina sits in dark green wool with her cane resting against one knee.
Across a velvet sofa, Larissa reclines in cream cashmere with one gold heel suspended from her toes.
Irina reads a page from the medical office while Dasha's daughter sleeps against her chest beneath a pink blanket.
Before the closed doors, Konstantin stands beside me with one hand warm against the back of my waist. For three days, he has told nobody. I may never witness greater restraint.
Mikhail arrived five minutes ago in a navy suit with snow across one shoulder. Anton came with Irina and remains near the tea table, pouring her cup without asking how she takes it.
Galina looks from my face to Konstantin's hand.
"Somebody is ill," she says.
"Why would you assume that?" I ask.
"My nephew has watched you breathe nine times since I entered."
Konstantin's thumb moves once against my back.
"Nora is pregnant," he says.
Dasha's gasp breaks the silence.
Then everyone moves, and the baby becomes beloved before it is much larger than a seed.
Galina reaches me first, pressing both palms to my cheeks before she searches my face and kisses my forehead.
Behind her, Dasha begins crying while laughing at herself, and Mikhail embraces Konstantin hard enough to earn a protest he ignores.
Only after the first rush has passed does Larissa take both my hands. "Are we pleased?"
"Very."
"Then I'm delighted. If we weren't pleased, I'd be holding a different conversation."
Irina folds the medical page and comes to me. Her embrace is quiet, one arm firm around my back.
"Tell us what you want before they decide for you," she murmurs.
Irina's warning is late. My husband has already tried to redesign a wing.
Already, Galina has ordered soup from a Russian restaurant across the city.
Beside that order, Dasha adds a handwritten list of crackers that don't taste like packing material, and Larissa contributes the name of a maternity designer who once built an evening gown around twins without making their mother resemble furniture.
Not to be outdone, Mikhail offers an aircraft kept exclusively for medical travel until Konstantin reminds him that I don't need one to cross the city.
Mikhail considers city traffic a medical condition. Anton offers two clinic approaches with only four visible vehicles, keeping the others outside the block. He looks toward Konstantin and waits, but makes my choice part of the plan before anyone can ignore it.
"Build both options," Konstantin tells him. "Nora chooses between them."
Anton nods before returning to Irina. He has placed lemon beside her cup, not in it. She reaches for his wrist as he passes, squeezing once in thanks.
Watching them produces an unexpected pang.
Their marriage appears settled in ways mine can't yet claim, built from repetitions so small neither needs to mention them.
Anton notices when Irina's tea has steeped too long.
She shifts her papers so he can set down the saucer without moving them.
Whatever tenderness exists between them has had years to learn its shape.
An hour later, four members of the household staff enter with a silver rattle older than Konstantin, a cashmere blanket, greenhouse quince blossoms, and a rack of clothing lavish enough to welcome a royal child who currently requires nothing but my body.
"No maternity clothes yet," I say when I find silk pajamas and an evening dress cut for a stomach I won't possess for months.
Being fussed over feels embarrassingly good. I grew up learning that love meant noticing what other people needed first, and everyone in this room has spent the morning thinking about my comfort. Enjoying that does not require surrendering every decision.
"I want advice when I ask for it. Soup and the blanket can stay, but nobody makes appointments in my name, chooses clothes without me, or discusses my body as family property."
Larissa removes the evening dress with theatrical grief. Irina destroys every spare copy of the medical information, and Galina secures permission to keep the heirloom rattle. Konstantin offers his office as the safest place for a family weapon.
Dasha's daughter wakes in the laughter. When Galina reaches for her and proposes a bottle, Dasha says she intends to nurse upstairs.
Concern begins hardening into instruction until I remind the room that the rule protecting decisions about my pregnancy also protects Dasha's decisions about her child.
"I want you to hold her when I offer," Dasha tells Galina. "If I leave early, nobody needs to solve it."
Galina studies her, then asks permission to carry the bag and bring food upstairs. Dasha agrees. At the door, she gives me a grateful nod before following her.
Anton proposes a household gift list that reveals none of my medical locations. Irina agrees to manage it only when I do not want to, then watches him tear the rejected pages through every address line before a guard takes them for secure disposal.
Mikhail's phone vibrates against the tea table.
After reading the screen twice, he sets the phone flat against the tea table.
"I need Konstantin."
Every guard in the room straightens.
"Say it here," Konstantin replies.
Before turning the phone around, Mikhail looks at me. Onscreen, a mechanic's lamp illuminates an open aircraft panel where one silver connector sits partly exposed beneath a bundle of lines and wires.
"The inspection team opened the elevator actuator housing on the second long-range jet," Mikhail says.
"Someone loosened the primary connector, cut the safety wire and replaced the panel with matching fasteners.
It passed the exterior check. Vibration in flight would have worked the connection free. "
The photograph stops looking like machinery. I see a sealed cabin over the black lake, Konstantin beside me, and the silver connection shaking loose where no hand could reach it. My palm covers my stomach before I know I have moved.
Konstantin feels the motion at my waist and draws me closer. Across the salon, Larissa's suspended heel drops to the carpet. Irina folds one arm around Dasha's sleeping daughter while Mikhail continues.
According to Mikhail, no authorized maintenance opening appears after the last service. Fresh tool marks distinguish this damage from the charter jet's defective seal, which matched the manufacturer's bad batch. Until his crews can open the matching systems by hand, every aircraft remains grounded.
Konstantin takes the phone. His grip tightens around it while his fingers spread wider against my back.
Before anyone answers, a security officer enters with a floor plan of the residence service level glowing on his tablet. Across it, red marks identify the staff entrance, medical-delivery checkpoint, and two shifts changed after the miniature-golf message.
"This was recovered from traffic linked to the local cell," he says.
"The plan includes yesterday's service schedule.
Road teams also found watchers at the eastern and southern approaches.
The lake road is closing under the storm warning, and the north bridge has been blocked by a jackknifed freight truck. "
Konstantin orders another residence cleared.
The security officer identifies the hardened family stronghold, but both road approaches are watched or expected to close.
Mikhail refuses to recommend an outside charter when there is no time to vet its ground crew or open the aircraft before weather reaches the airport.
All around me, the people who filled the room with baby clothes begin removing them.
Irina seals the physician list in her folder while Larissa takes the garment rack toward the inner storage room.
Soon, tiny coats and silk pajamas disappear into tissue as Anton steps beside the security officer and brings up a regional transport map.
On the map, a rail line runs west from Konstantin's private terminal before turning north through forest toward the family property.
Anton identifies the secured sleeper set inside the terminal perimeter.
Its crew was cleared for a cargo inspection route tomorrow, allowing family personnel to replace them before the line closes to public traffic.
Rail access records remain internal, while the arrival plan can stay within six people.
The security officer enlarges the residence plan.
"We can seal the service level, clear every worker, and keep the household inside the upper residential core while the train is prepared.
Nobody enters without an escort. The sleeper set can move on the fourth night, after three nights inside, when the freight schedule clears. "
"Three nights in a house whose schedule has been sold," Konstantin says.
"Three nights inside one isolated wing," Anton replies. "We bring the vetted train crew here, sweep the cars twice and then issue the route only after departure. Moving sooner creates more unknown access than staying behind the inner doors."
Only after studying every marked entrance does Konstantin accept the distinction.
Orders begin at once. Below us, the doors will be sealed, staff sent home, and meals prepared by six people already living inside the security line.
I concede my clinic appointments through the end of the week because the map shows the exact hall used for medical deliveries.
Snow taps harder against the salon windows. The quince blossoms tremble each time the outer doors open, bright petals above boxes meant for a future we announced barely two hours ago, fragile color inside a house being sealed against danger.
Aircraft, roads, and the house around us have all become unsafe at once.
Konstantin studies the rail line, then looks at me.
The train is the only vetted route left.