The Life (26 page)

Convincing the nurses that he would be fine to walk from one end of the hospital to the other with his father and grandmother was a whole different matter altogether. Anton hadn’t let that argument go on for long. His son was perfectly healthy, a nine on the Apgar scale.
Daniil wasn’t suffering from any virus, so there wasn’t a valid medical excuse for the baby not to be in the same room as his grandfather.

The nurses still tried to refuse.

The doctor on call in the maternity ward hadn’t had an effective reason to decline the visit, but it was clear he wasn’t all too comfortable agreeing with it, either.

Anton simply walked on by and let their rebuttals fade into the background.

Demyan was his son, so it was his choice. Well, his and Viviana’s. She didn’t mind, but she did voice her sadness about not being able to come along. Having just given birth to her first child only a few hours before, Viviana was still bleeding a little too heavily and it was a cause for concern. The doctor wanted her lying down more than sitting upright, let alone walking and standing for any great length of time.

Standing outside of
Daniil’s hospital room, Anton went through the usual checklist of questions for the safety of his father’s health. Had he been sick recently? Was he feeling feverish? Had he spent time with anyone who was sick or feverish? The answers were all the same: no. Finally, the doctor gave the okay.

Sasha’s hands fluttered over the baby. Already, she was devoted to spoiling
Demyan as often and as much as she could possibly get away with. Anton’s mother made the perfect grandmother as far as he was concerned.

“Look at my grandbaby.” Sasha cooed over the wrapped up baby boy. “He’s so perfect and pretty.”

Anton rolled his eyes. “Pretty, Ma?”

Sasha tossed him a baleful look. “He’s a baby. He can be pretty for a little while. Let him be a baby, not a little boy already. Besides, look at him.”

“You spent half of the morning with him.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t let me hold him very much.”

Oddly, that was true. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust anyone, he did. Anton just … Damn, he didn’t want to put his son down. Viviana had him for nine months so now it was his turn. People would have to deal with it. Even so, he knew his mother didn’t fall into that category of people.

“Can I?” Sasha asked, holding out her arms.

Anton hesitated. “I wanted to take him in.”

“Anton, stop being a helicopter.”

What in the hell did that even mean?

“You can do it, Ma. I just haven’t really been far from him since he was born this morning. I didn’t know if you wanted me to wait for a minute, but I was hoping to see
Daniil when he met him.”

Carefully, he allowed his mother to take the sleeping, happy, freshly fed
Demyan. With the fluffy blue blanket pulled back from his face, his head of black hair stood out against his light features. All over again, Anton was stunned at how thunderstruck simply looking at his child made him.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Sasha asked.

He didn’t even have to ask what she meant. “Yeah. I used to just correlate love to Vine, or you, or Dad, or the things in life that made me feel good. Those were the kinds of loves I felt.”

“It’s not even the same.” Sasha pushed back a few tendrils of the baby’s hair from his forehead. “This is a whole other ballgame, Anton. They don’t just change your circumstance, they change who you are. It’s instant, and it gets bigger and better with every new thing.”

“Something like that,” he agreed.

Sasha smirked, reaching out with one hand to smack her son lightly.
“Something. Act like you don’t want to admit it, then. He reminds me so much of you, it’s out of this world.”

“I thought he looked like Viviana.”

“Sure, but he’s got a whole lot of his Papa, too. Your mouth, for sure. Especially when he’s squawking.”

“Thanks,” Anton said with a short laugh.

“He’s got her almond shaped eyes, though.”

“But
blue
eyes.”

“Lucky,” Sasha said. “I thought those would be lost for sure.”

Anton didn’t want to admit how proud that made him. A boy tended to take after their mother, so to know his son had an equal amount of both parents in his features was a pretty cool thing.

For a short time, he was lost watching his mother standing there just holding
Demyan. Anton knew there was a period in his life where she worried about him, worried that he may never get to this particular point in his life. She had wished so badly for him to find peace and happiness in the situation he was forced upon. Anton wanted her to know that he had. Demyan would do that, in one way.

The birth of something new would help to heal the loss of something loved.

But that didn’t mean they wanted to say goodbye, either.

“You ready?” he asked softly. “I’m sure Dad is going crazy in there without you. This is probably the longest you’ve been away from him for months.”

Sasha sniffed but hid the water in her eyes with a quick blink and a slow smile. “I love your father.”

Confusion settled in his heart. “I know.”

“So, no, Anton, I’m not ready.”

Grief ripped apart Anton’s soul. The harsh reality of his father’s situation was one they couldn’t ignore. While he had seemed to turn a new leaf during the beginning of the pregnancy,
Daniil had only gone slowly downhill since then. Just last week they had inserted a feeding tube as his appetite was all but lost and his weight had dramatically lessened over the last month. The slightest cold or cough would send his father to the grave.

Cancer was a horrible, murderous disease, no matter which kind it was.

Daniil had fought his battle hard, and Anton was proud of his father despite the odds he had been given. He was even proud when his father chose to stop fighting because that in itself was a decision that had to have been a war. And when it would have been so easy to just let go, Daniil had held on for the one thing in life he had yet to meet: Demyan.

It wasn’t just them saying goodbye,
Daniil was saying it, too.

“Okay,” Sasha said, wiping away the one tear that had escaped. “Let’s meet your grandfather, sweet child.”

Anton pushed open the door to Daniil’s private room, holding it open for his mother to walk in with the baby safely cradled in her capable hands. Instantly, his eyes were drawn to his father’s across the room.

Frail and weak,
Daniil didn’t look like he once had. Sickness had greyed his once healthy tone, turning him gaunt and older than he truly was. Shadowed bruises dotted his small arms and blue veins were visible on his translucent, thin skin. Tiredness and fatigue wrote heavy lines on his features and sickness left hallows where muscle had once filled him out. A portacath was inserted into his upper chest, providing all the fluids and medication he needed without doing damage to his weakened veins. The feeding tube was inserted through his left nostril.

But above his sickness and state,
Daniil only looked back to his son with a smile. One that was filled with love, pride, and hope. There was no sadness in his gaze, no grief in his happiness.

“Finally,”
Daniil said with a wave. The remote in his hand was tossed to the side, forgotten. “Bring that boy to me. I’ve been waiting for hours!”

“Sorry.” Anton let the door shut behind him before turning back to his father. “I wanted to make sure Vine was settled.”

Sasha walked across the room as Daniil asked, “And how is she? Good, yeah?”

“Great. She did awesome, but she’s tired. It was fucking amazing, honestly.”

“My God. That mouth of yours.” Sasha’s narrowed gaze flashed with a warning. “Little ears here, Anton.”

Daniil
rolled his eyes at his wife, arms outstretched to take the tiny bundle of blue from her grasp. With his one hand supporting Demyan’s head and the other holding his back, Daniil pulled up his legs and rested the baby down to look at him. Once more, Anton watched as someone else fell in love with his son at first glance.

“Oh, he’s a
sokrovishche
.” Daniil professed his adoration over his grandson again, his face lighting up with a little more life. Yes, Demyan was a treasure indeed. “Look at this
malysh
of yours. My God, he’s like a little you, Anton.”

“He really is, huh?” Sasha smiled. “Just like our baby.
Black as night and light like cream. He’s even got those eyes, too. So beautiful. He’s precious. Big, too.”

“Nine pounds, ten ounces,” Anton informed quietly. “He’s going to be tall.
Twenty-three inches long.”

“Healthy?”
Daniil asked, glancing up from the baby.

“Like a horse. Eats like nothing else.
Sleeps a couple of hours at a time so far. He’s great.”

Sasha crawled up on the bed beside her husband, settling in at his side before gently pushing open the blanket around
Demyan a little more. They shared a secret smile and then Sasha laid her cheek to Daniil’s shoulder. Strangely, the sight of his parents so close together, delighted, ecstatic, and whispering over his new son seemed like a private moment he was intruding on. Anton hadn’t expected to feel like that at all.

Anton briefly wondered if he was taking a leap into the past staring at them. Was that how they sat together and fawned over his birth, too? Had they been so enamoured staring down at their first child like he did for
Demyan?

“How does it feel?” he heard
Daniil ask.

Anton cleared his throat, willing the thickness rising there to leave.
“Like falling in love.”

“Yeah, don’t I know that,”
Daniil said in a whisper. “I remember looking down at you and thinking I couldn’t have possibly created something so innocent and beautiful. How you ever came from me, I didn’t know. I thought Sasha was the most amazing thing to ever walk the earth just for giving you to me.”

“And
Nicoli sat in the corner with him for hours, fussing and cooing over him like he was the new father,” Sasha added. “Rocked you to sleep that first night and the nurses had to come in and tell him visiting hours were over.”

Anton laughed. He couldn’t imagine his step-grandfather being so smitten over a baby, never mind him. But, it wasn’t too hard to believe. They’d always shared a different kind of bond than Anton had with others.

“Oh, your grandpapa Nicoli would have adored you, my little man,” Daniil said, his gaze back down on Demyan. “Yes, I bet he would have.”

“Are you going to do a bris?” Sasha asked.

Anton didn’t miss how his mother avoided his look when she asked. His and Viviana’s choice to forgo a stricter religious life and live theirs how they pleased was sometimes a hot button with his mother. Daniil never cared, but Sasha had always followed her Jewish beliefs and customs.

A
bris, or Brit Milah, was the ceremony at which a Jewish baby boy was circumcised on the eighth day of his life on earth. The child was held by his sandek, or godfather, during the ceremony, presented with his Hebrew name, and blessed. Usually a meal would follow to celebrate the tradition and child.

“We talked about it,” Anton said.

“And?”

“Sasha,”
Daniil chided quietly. “Let them be. She’s not even Jewish.”

“I’m just curious,
Daniil. Mind your manners.”

Anton sighed. “We’re going to do it, Ma. It’d be customary for me to ask you or Dad to be his
sandek but Vine thought it’d be nice if it was Ivan instead.”

“That’d be fine.” Sasha was pleased, clearly. “I’m sure he’ll be happy.”

“So …” Daniil said, tilting his head down to the baby. “What’s this boy’s name, hmm?”

Oddly, Anton didn’t blurt out the name like he assumed he would. They’d kept it so private and now that it was time to share, he was suddenly nervous. Would the name fit his boy as well as he thought it did? Would his parents approve of the different style and American ring?

“Anton?” Daniil asked again with a raised brow. “My grandson’s name?”

“
Demyan,” he answered, surprised to hear the quaver in his own voice. “His name is Demyan Anton Nicoli Avdonin.”

Sasha beamed up at her son. “I like that. It’s new. My money was on the namesake, though.”

“Mine wasn’t,” Daniil said with a conspiring grin at the baby.

“Why’s that?” Anton asked, honestly curious.

“It’s obvious. You two have never been traditional so there wasn’t any way either of you were going to give this child a simple name.” Lifting Demyan up from his resting spot, Daniil held him high and stared up at the sleeping child with pure adoration and affection. “It’s a good name, Anton. I have no doubt he will own and carry it well.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. He has you for a papa, after all,” Daniil replied, not taking his attention away from the baby. “Welcome to this world, Demyan. I’m so happy I was able to meet you on your journey. I hope you find all that you need and want from this life, beautiful boy, and so much more.”