Vera had heard the sliding doors of Vaslav’s den open, but the sleeping angel took all of her attention for the moment.
“I’ll come inside,” Vera called back.
Kiril didn’t reply, but the door didn’t slide shut, either.
“Where is he? When is he coming home?” she asked.
“He was here last night,” Kiril said.
As if he had nothing else to offer—or he knew nothing else to tell her. Knowing Vaslav the way she did, and his strange relationships with the people around him, it wouldn’t even surprise Vera for that to be the case.
Like normal.
Nothing had changed.
Oh, but it had.
“By the way,” Kiril added while Vera buried her shaking hands into the front pocket of her oversized hoodie, “the Hummer’s filled and your keys are by the door. If you want, we could visit Hannah.”
The kid knew the right thing to say.
Vera spun on her heels like a toy top. “Can we?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but after dinner. Vas said I gotta follow the rules, or I can’t stay in the house.”
“What rules?”
“Mira’s.”
Mira had rules now?
Like the kid could read Vera’s sarcastic thoughts in her expression, he explained, “Just for me—and I’m not allowed to miss a meal.”
Ah.
Well ...
Not all change was a bad thing.
“So, dinner first,” Kiril said.
Vera smiled. “That sounds fair.”
*
The hospital made an exception for Vera when she arrived terribly close to the end of visiting hours. As it were, the head nurse recognized Kiril, and even used his first name, so she seemed to understand that Vera being there was a big deal.
Maybe for the woman in the bed, too.
No matter how much Vera had wanted to be in Moscow just to be by Hannah’s bedside over the past months, nothing really prepared her to see her friend unconscious and unmoving in a bed. A shell of herself, really.
Not entirely there.
It was all so strange.
Hannah didn’t look physically injured which made the situation harder to wrap Vera’s mind around when the nurse had urged her to talk before leaving. As if Hannah and Vera had so much to catch up on, and a lack of response shouldn’t stop her from speaking.
Yeah, strange.
After taking the seat next to Hannah’s bed, Vera decided to at least give the nurse’s suggestion a shot. What could it hurt?
“Hey, Hannah,” Vera whispered to her friend.
She didn’t mean to speak so softly, but the second she was alone in her friend’s private hospital room and the doors slid closed, there was no one to see her overwhelmed. It was a lot. From the prone redhead with her eyes taped shut in the bed to the many machines and monitors displaying numbers, graphs, and more things Vera couldn’t understand.
Every shade on all the windows had been drawn. She responds better when the room is dim, explained the midsestra before she left Vera and Hannah alone.
Vera tried to shake off her nerves, and even cleared her throat to make sure whatever came out of her mouth next was louder and clearer for her friend.
Vera had slipped one of her hands alongside Hannah’s, grabbing tightly around her fingers just in case her friend squeezed back. Hannah’s other hand, attached to an IV line on the other side of the bed remained still and propped on the top of her midsection’s swell.
“You’re about twenty-four weeks today,” Vera informed the quiet room.
Or it felt like it.
Despite the laundry list of information the nurse had gone over with Vera about comas and Hannah’s current predicament—including all the possibilities and likelihoods—she wasn’t sure that her friend could hear her. Besides, even if Hannah could hear her, it wasn’t as if anything Vera had to say would make up for how they found themselves.
Especially not Hannah.
“Did they tell you yet that you’re having a girl?” Vera asked.
Hannah gave no response.
More than anything, Vera wished that they had taken a few more minutes to discuss the future. Even a brief second to get out all of their what ifs. Did her friend have any names in mind? Did she want the baby to be Christened like she had been? What do we do if you don’t wake up?
That question screamed at Vera, and the fact she didn’t have any answer except the ones that felt selfish left her with guilt chewing on every last shred of her broken heart. What right did she have to want to promise Hannah she’d do anything and everything for her friend’s child when Vera had barely wanted the baby that should have been her own?
The truth didn’t just hurt.
It was bitter, too.
Like broken glass, unforgiving.
While she had been careful about the way she held Hannah’s hand so that it remained touching her belly, Vera still felt the unborn baby shift and move inside her mother. Like a wave shifting from one side of the swollen sheet tucked around Hannah to the other; it was both amazing and sort of terrifying.
The hiss of air as the door seal broke and the panels slid open echoed in the quiet room. The midsestra from earlier—the one who had known Kiril by name and smiled wide at Vera’s introduction—stepped into the room with a folded white blanket and pillow tucked around her arms.
“I brought these for you to have if you’re staying. It’s only me and another girl on the ward tonight, so we’ll be quite busy,” the woman informed.
“I don’t think Kiril will want to hang around that lo—”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that boy slept in the parking lot of this hospital. Trust me.”
Vera gave the blanket and pillow a second look, considering.
The nurse shrugged, adding, “And the blanket was even in the warmer. Your chair lays flat like a small bed, by the way. There’s a lever on the side to do it.”
Her attention shifted back to Hannah.
Then, to the nurse again.
What reason did she have to go home?
No one would be there waiting.
“I’ll stay,” Vera told the woman.
21.
At night, Moscow was most beautiful—it really came alive, vibrant and practically breathing. In Vaslav’s humble opinion, anyway. He’d never been very fond of the city to begin with, preferring the solitude and privacy his rural beginnings offered, so in one way or another, he always made his way back home to Dubna.
Or the general area.
When he did have to spend his days and evenings in Moscow, however, he enjoyed it most at night. So much so, that he’d been known as a brigadier—and later, boss—who didn’t do business until the sun was down. Truthfully, he didn’t really think men of his sort were meant to be out in the daylight and public like the rest of polite society.
Then, no one had to pretend.
They were all exactly what they were meant to be. He liked that.
“You’re quiet,” Igor said beside Vaslav.
Both men glanced upward in sync as the elevator they’d been riding in for the last three minutes finally chimed to announce they’d reached their floor. The mirrored panel doors, dirty and streaked with something, slid open to reveal the long hallway waiting for the men on the other side. Worn carpet and tattered wallpaper decorated the hall of doors all the way to the far end where a steel exit door had been propped open with a brick.