Chapter 29
MARGOT
His mother insists on a gathering before the hospital. It’s a baby shower even if Polina isn’t calling it that. With it being co-ed, she’s probably too traditional to use those words, but that’s what it is.
I’m thirty-two weeks pregnant with quadruplets, and my body has become something I don’t fully recognize.
Anya’s strict plan calls for hospital admission tomorrow morning, monitoring for the next one to two weeks, and a scheduled cesarean at thirty-four weeks if all four heartbeats stay strong.
It’s unlikely we’ll make it that long, but we’re hoping.
Thirty-two weeks is standard for quads, but they’re doing well, and every day inside the womb shaves off time needed in the NICU.
The two boys are positioned head-down. The two girls are stacked sideways, which Anya calls transverse and I call uncomfortable.
I’ve stopped sleeping in any position that doesn’t involve four pillows, a body pillow, and Valentin’s arm underneath my neck, which he offers without being asked and I accept without pretending I don’t need it.
The gathering happens at the residence, not the safe house that we abandoned months ago. The residence belongs to the family once more now that Kolya’s security system has been replaced and Nathan has cleared every room of the unauthorized cameras Kolya installed.
Kimberly arrives first. She walks through the front door carrying a pie from Drea’s diner, the mashed-potato-and-chicken pie she made me on bad weeks at the motel, except this time, she also brings a cherry pie because she says a woman who’s about to give birth to four children deserves options.
“You look enormous.”
I roll my eyes. “Thank you, Kimberly.”
“You look enormously beautiful.” She sets the pies on the kitchen counter and hugs me carefully, avoiding the thirty-two-week belly between us.
Mom arrives ten minutes later with Dad and a bag of folded baby clothes she’s been collecting since Anya confirmed quadruplets. She opens the bag on the living room couch and unfolds each piece with a tenderness that makes her cry before she’s finished with the second onesie.
“I bought four of everything.” She holds up a yellow cotton sleeper. “I didn’t know the genders when I started buying, so everything is yellow or green or white.” She pulls out a stash of pink and blue next. “I had to buy more when I found out we’re having two boys and two girls.”
There are more onesies than I imagine we can use, but I’ve heard babies go through a lot of diapers and laundry, so maybe not.
Julia presses a pink sleep sack against her chest and closes her eyes.
She stands in the living room of a residence that used to belong to a criminal organization and holds baby clothes for grandchildren while missing Mara, who should be here.
She’d be the best aunt ever. Mom’s grief and joy are so tangled that she can’t separate them and doesn’t try.
Neither do I. I just let tears flow for a moment, and everyone politely ignores them at my stage of pregnancy.
Dad helped Valentin assemble the cribs in the corner bedroom/nursery on their last visit.
He assembled the first one wrong the first time, assembled it wrong a second time, and stood looking at the pieces, defeated.
He built engine transmissions for thirty years, and a Swedish instruction manual with an Allen wrench beat him.
He finally got it assembled about the time Valentin and Nathan finished the other three.
Nathan arrives next, bringing a huge stack of diapers. “I’m horrible at wrapping.” He somehow manages not to knock over anyone but collides with Anya. They stare at each other for a moment before he blinks and maneuvers them to a folding table set up for the afternoon to hold gifts.
Zavid arrives last, quietly, with a document he places on the kitchen table between the pies without ceremony.
“Mara’s homicide file has been corrected.
The original evidence has been restored, and the state’s attorney has formally named Grant as the responsible suspect and closed the case by exceptional clearance.
The evidence suppression has been folded into the federal prosecution of Kirill’s network.
Grant is dead, so there can be no trial, but the record now reflects what happened to your sister instead of what Mabel was paid to make it look like.
” He slides the document toward me. “This is the confirmation.”
I pick up the page. Mara’s name is printed at the top, in the same font they use for every case file, except this time the file is unsealed, the finding is correct, and the evidence is intact.
I press the page against my chest for a moment.
I don’t speak. Mom puts her hand on my shoulder, and Kimberly stands beside me, but nobody says anything because the words that exist for this moment are smaller than what’s happening inside it.
The afternoon passes in warmth I’ve stopped expecting. Nathan and Dad argue about regional pizza, which I’ve heard before but which Dad hasn’t, and Nathan lets my father win the argument because Nathan is generous in ways he never advertises.
Kimberly and Polina sit together for twenty minutes, which surprises everyone because Kimberly is a motel manager from the Midwest and Mama is the matriarch of a criminal family.
I walk past them once and hear Kimberly telling Mama about the women who checked into Room 214 at the motel, the ones who arrived at two a.m. with bruises and stayed three nights before moving to the next safe space, and Mama listens closely, because protecting women in dangerous circumstances is work she understands regardless of the building. She’s lived both sides of it.
“You kept her alive.” Polina looks at Kimberly with approval. “Before my son found her, before the operation, before any of this. You gave her a room and a contingency plan and help. Bless you.”
“I gave her a room near the back exit.” Kimberly shrugs. “She chose to ask for help.”
Polina almost smiles. She passes over her card. “Call me. I’d like to assist you financially with these women who come through, lost and broken. Maybe we can help them have more than three nights of safety before moving on.”
I blink back tears at that and move on, not wanting to keep crying all day.
Anya monitors my blood pressure twice during the afternoon and reports both readings to Valentin with the professional shorthand of a doctor who knows her patient’s partner will ask within thirty seconds if she doesn’t volunteer the information.
Valentin moves through the room always within arm’s reach.
Not controlling me but checking that I’m steady.
The difference between those two things used to be invisible to me.
Grant’s hand on my back meant steering. Valentin’s hand on my back means I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.
I’ve learned to read the difference by what the hand does when I move.
Grant’s hand tightened. Valentin’s hand follows.
Zavid sits at the kitchen table the entire afternoon, pretending to work on his tablet while actually watching Nathan try to explain soccer to Dad, who only watches American football. He catches my gaze once and lifts his coffee in a small toast that says more than any speech would.
Anya checks on me several times. The second time, she brings a glass of water and a look that says she knows I skipped the last round of fluids. I drink the water because arguing with Anya about hydration is a battle I can’t win.
As we’re finishing pie, Valentin approaches me. He takes the empty plate from my hand, passes it to Mom, and looks at me for a beat. Then he kneels.
Everyone stops talking as I gasp softly. Mom puts her hand over her mouth. Kimberly sets down her pie fork. Nathan leans against the doorframe with his arms folded and his coffee balanced on his forearm. He clearly knew this was coming and chose the right angle to watch it from.
“Margot.” Valentin holds my stare from one knee.
“I took your freedom. I built a cage. I lied about the reasons. I fell in love with you inside a world I should have torn down sooner, and you survived it because you’re braver than I deserve.
” He pauses. “I’m asking you to marry me, and I’m asking in front of both families because the promise means more when the people who watched me fail are the same people watching me try to earn you. ”
“Yes.”
I say one word, which is all I can manage, but it says everything. I once spent months building conditions around every decision I made, but this one doesn’t need conditions because the man on his knees in front of me already met them. I’m done with conditions.
He removes a ring from his pocket. It has a large diamond surrounded by ruby chips. “Your mom thought you would like this style.”
Mom gasps. “You said you were asking what style to buy for a push present. I thought you meant a bracelet.” She laughs.
He grins, unrepentant, and slides the ring onto my finger. It’s a perfect fit, though it might need to be resized if I manage to return to my pre-birth weight some decade from now.
He stands, cups my face with both hands, and looks at me for a beat without speaking.
His expression is openly vulnerable and full of love.
Then he kisses me, Mom cries, Dad shakes Valentin’s hand when we pull apart, and Kimberly announces the pie is going cold.
Nobody hears that because Nathan is already opening champagne he can’t share with me because I’m thirty-two weeks pregnant, and Anya is giving him a look.
Two hours later, some of the partygoers have left when the first contraction hits. I grip Valentin’s wrist across the kitchen table where we’re sitting with the last of the cherry pie. “Don’t panic, but…”
He panics immediately. He’s on his feet before the contraction finishes, calling for Anya in a voice that trembles with fear or excitement before scrambling for the hospital bag. Kimberly is already holding the bag for him.
Anya checks me in the living room. “Contractions are eight minutes apart. Thirty-two weeks is typical for quadruplets. We’d hoped for longer, but the NICU team is ready and their odds are good. We go to the hospital now.”
The drive takes twenty minutes. Nathan is at the wheel while Valentin holds my hand the entire time and counts the contractions by his watch.
Anya rides with us, though she’s not my obstetrician.
Kimberly follows in her car after calling my parents, who had already gone home.
Someone calls Polina too, but I lose track, because the pain is worse than I expected.
At the hospital, the delivery turns urgent when Baby B’s heart rate dips during the prep for the cesarean. Anya, acting as my doula, stays calm. She adjusts the monitoring, repositions the external sensor, and translates the obstetric team’s updates into language I can process through the fear.
“The heart rate is recovering. Dr. Obi is moving up the timeline. You’re going into surgery in four minutes.” Anya looks at the lead obstetrician in blue scrubs, who has managed high-risk multiple births for fifteen years. “All four NICU bays are prepped and warmed.”
Valentin stays beside me. He holds my hand through the surgical drape and talks to me about the lake house we’re going to visit again soon, the cribs they all assembled, and the pie Kimberly brought.
I listen to his voice because his voice is the one thing in this room that doesn’t beep or buzz or belong to a machine.
The cesarean takes thirty-eight minutes. The OB and her surgical team work with a precision I can feel as pressure and movement. Anya stays at my side, watching the monitors and narrating what matters. Valentin watches over the drape and describes what he sees. Small. Loud. Moving. Alive.
Four babies arrive breathing, small and furious, two boys and two girls.
Each one is brought close enough for me to touch, a tiny hand against my fingers, before the NICU team carries them to the warmed bays for assessment.
Baby B is crying, and Anya tells me crying is encouraging at thirty-two weeks.
The smallest weighs two pounds and fourteen ounces.
The largest weighs three pounds eleven ounces.
All four are premature, and all four will need NICU time, but all four are alive.
The nurse asks for the first name for Baby C, a girl.
I look at Valentin. He looks at me. The room is quiet except for the machines, the babies, and the breathing of two people who’ve been through enough that naming a child shouldn’t feel like the hardest thing they’ve ever done.
We had a list and planned to pick from it when meeting each baby, but I’ve forgotten every name on it. It seems like he might have too.
The name comes spontaneously. “Mara.”
Nobody speaks for a long beat. Then Valentin puts his hand on mine and nods.
“Sergei.” He names the first boy.
I look at him, confused for a second.
“For what could have been and should be.”
I nod in agreement, understanding now he’s naming his son after the man Sergei should have been.
“Evelina,” I add for the second girl as our list of names returns to my brain. He inclines his head in agreement.
“Timofei,” Valentin selects for the second boy, and it’s perfect for Baby A.
Mara is doing well enough to delay entry into an incubator, so I get to hold her against my chest for a couple of minutes. She’s three pounds-eleven ounces, her fists are clenched, and she’s breathing on her own.
She’s a miracle. They all are. I want to protest when the nurse takes her to her incubator but don’t. I have to do what’s best for her. That’s my job now.
The NICU team monitors all four babies through the night. Valentin stays in the chair beside my bed with his hand on the railing and his phone showing the hospital’s secure NICU camera feed, which Anya arranged access to. Seeing my babies is the next best thing to being right there with them.
He watches four monitors simultaneously, and I watch them between moments of dozing and times when the nurse comes in with a breast pump so I can start producing milk. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll get to nurse one or more directly, if they stay stable, but that could be a while yet.
Mom arrives at six a.m. with Dad. They stand at the NICU window outside the private NICU suite the babies share, looking at their grandchildren, and Mom cries again as Dad puts his arm around her shoulders.
I watch them from my wheelchair and think about Mara saying I have your guarantee, so I’m safe.
We’re safe. All six of us. She should be here with us, but we’ll make sure she’s never forgotten. My children will know all about their Aunt Mara even though they’ll never know her. That’s heartbreaking but reassuring at the same time.