“She is tiny,” I agreed.
“You were tiny, too.” Elena ruffled his hair. He darted away.
“Noo, I was big.”
She smiled. “Nope. Tiny.” To me, she asked, “What’s her name?”
“Grand Duchess Olga. But she’s already been nicknamed Duchess,” I said.
Niko mumbled out the name before saying more clearly, “Duchess.” He grinned. “Hi, Duchess!”
“Quiet voices, baby. We don’t want to frighten her.”
Elena watched the mare and foal with a strange look on her face. Nostalgia and understanding seemed to hold her captive.
I leaned down to her ear. “Are you okay?”
She smiled, eyes faraway. Instead of answering, she laid her head on my shoulder.
I had my son in my arms, the woman I loved by my side. I felt a sudden tide of overwhelming emotion that I couldn’t name. I just knew that I wanted to reach back in time and say to my fifteen-year-old self: Don’t worry, boy. You’ll be blessed with treasures greater than anything you could imagine.
We watched the pair as they went about their night. Eventually, Duchess grew more comfortable with us, and came to satisfy her curiosity. I felt Niko practically shaking with excitement in my arms as she got closer.
She sniffed, went back to her mother, then returned for another look.
“Hi Duchess,” Niko whispered. “I’m Niko.”
Duchess got a little closer.
“Can I pet?” he asked Elena.
She glanced at me. I shook my head. “When she’s a little older.”
Niko tucked his hands against his chest like he was trying to remove the temptation. He was surprisingly calm and patient, not the chaotic little boy he usually was. When she got closer, he would look at Elena and I with excitement but did a good job at staying quiet and respecting Duchess’s space.
Eventually, she curled up beneath her mother and went to sleep.
“Let’s go home, now, baby. We can visit her again in the morning.”
Niko shook his head. “Noo. I wanna stay.”
“How about we give Baz and Hilarion some carrots? They’re feeling a little left out.” He sat up at my offer. “Then straight to bed.”
He was happy with the compromise and shot out of my arms as soon as his feet met the ground. He already knew where the treats were, grabbing a handful of carrots and passing them to his mother to hold. Elena took them but handed a few to me.
The horses had grown used to Niko and he to them. When he approached with carrots, both of them hurried closer and waited patiently as he held out two carrots, one in each hand for each horse.
Elena laughed. “He’s got a system.”
I stood by her side, close enough to grab Niko if the horses suddenly got rough. They were animals after all, and Niko was not even three. “Where was your mind before?” I asked. “You looked like you had left Planet Earth.”
Her smile was ironic. “Maybe I did.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Delighted glittered in her eyes but she sobered quickly. “I was thinking about the past.”
My curiosity spiked. “Any particular part?”
“When Niko was born.” She sounded briefly amused. “I was looking at Odessa and realized that I understood exactly how she was feeling. It brought me back to Niko’s birth.”
Elena had shared a few brief mentions of Niko’s birth. I knew she’d a caesarean and that he’d been born in the early hours of the morning. Other than that, how my son came into the world was a mystery to me.
I was silent, urging her to go on.
“Don’t be so interested,” she told me. “It wasn’t as mysterious as you think.” Despite her words, affection clung to every pore on her face as she watched Nikolai. “I went through most my labor at home. It was…hell. It was horrible. Once I got the hospital, I was admitted immediately. A few hours later, I started pushing…but there was complication. His heartrate dropped so they delivered him via emergency c-section.”
Elena spoke about the birth efficiently and quickly, like she was reading off a list instead of explaining her son’s birthday. She might be able to detach herself from the event, but I knew how frightened she would’ve been in that moment, how alone and afraid. There had been no one to comfort her, except a stranger.
Anger rose up in me, cruel and twisted.
“Don’t get angry,” she said before I said anything.
I rubbed my jaw, trying to restrain myself. I wasn’t afraid of Elena seeing my temper, but Niko deserved a few more years of innocence. “You were alone.”
“I could do it alone.”
“You shouldn't have had to. I should've driven you to your appointments, held your hair back during your morning sickness and held your hand in the delivery room. Roksana should've taken you shopping for baby clothes and Roman should've thrown you a widly inappropriate baby shower.”
Elena’s eyes assessed me. I could see sadness in the mossy depths.
“When he was first born, he was so small. So delicate, so breakable. He was your twin from day one, except for his eyes, which turned green within the first few months. Those moments after his birth…when I was holding him to my chest, thinking of his name and future, I was thinking of you. The entire time I was thinking of you.” She didn’t tear her gaze away from mine. “I’m sorry I took those moments from you. Next time, I’ll let Roman throw me a baby shower and it’ll be so horrifying none of us will ever recover.”
I tried to stop my smile from cracking, but Elena had won. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she wrapped her arms around me. We held each other in the cold night, watching our son discover the large and exciting world. There would be others, siblings for Nikolai to play and grow up with.
“Next time will be different,” I heard Elena say. I didn’t think she meant for me to hear. They were words meant only for herself, a reassurance and a promise.
Niko ran out of carrots and went to grab some more.
“It’s time for bed, young man. It’s 3 a.m. and you have a big day tomorrow.”
His head snapped to me, a tantrum waiting behind his expression. He looked to Elena for an opposing opinion. “Mama, I don’t wanna go to bed. Baz is still hungry.”
“Basil is full, baby.”
Niko looked at me like I was the last person in the world he wanted to be taking directions from. I would’ve been more offended if that wasn’t how my son looked at every authority figure. “I don’t wanna go to bed.”
“You can see the horses tomorrow.”
He looked to Elena.
“Listen to your father.”
The statement sat in the air before Niko sighed dramatically and stomped over to us. I was more surprised by Elena’s words than my son. Instead, he made a show of saying goodbye to the horses and making it very clear he wasn’t happy to be leaving.
I took them home, the car filled with Niko’s jubilant voice. He insisted he wasn’t tired until his head hit the pillow and he was asleep within a few seconds. Babushka had left Anton’s side and was asleep on Elena’s vanity, almost like she knew we had left and had been waiting for our return.
Elena surprised me by crawling into my bed during the night.