Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Anton flinched as a younger nurse removed the tape around the portacath that had fed Daniil with nutrients, drugs, and fluids for so long. A small bit of clear fluid stained with a reddish tint spilled as the cath was removed. The nurse, instinctually, grabbed a cloth to wipe the tiny mess away.
“Don’t,” Anton said, his voice hard with a rasp. “Leave it.”
The woman stared at him, confused. It was the first thing he told of three women working around his father’s body.
“You don’t want me to clean him?”
Anton didn’t need to explain, as an older nurse did for him. “Unless absolutely necessary, Jewish belief states the body shouldn’t be cleaned after death.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Anton shook his head, but said nothing else.
He couldn’t. His heart hurt too much.
And he wasn’t sure he could remember how to breathe through the pain.
*
Anton couldn’t convince his hands to release the steering wheel of his Mercedes. His knuckles were white, his fingers numb. On his palm, his fingernails bit into the skin, making it tender and raw.
There were people in house. So many people. Too many. Condolences were not something he was ready for. Hugs and tears? He’d already had enough from his mother.
Once Daniil had been transferred to the funeral home, a new watchman who would overlook Daniil’s care and burial had taken over at his mother’s demand. Anton needed rest. There was a lot yet to happen. The burial, most importantly.
Anton needed to be ready for that.
As he sat there, watching the movement of the people behind the curtains in the windows, Anton thought about his son. Little Demyan with his black hair and blue eyes. Once—he’d met his grandpapa only once.
Anton had decades with his father and Demyan had only minutes with the same man.
It hurt right along with the grief.
So tender.
Would this be him and his son decades from now?
Something cracked hard and heavy in his chest, splitting open his heart and ripping through the strings all over again.
He needed his son. So badly.
Before he fully understood what he was doing, Anton was out of the vehicle and making his way into the house. He didn’t bother to take off his shoes or coat, and he didn’t think he had even turned his Mercedes off.
Faces and voices met him in the hallway, but Anton didn’t recognize the people—he should have, but he just couldn’t. His mind was on one thing only.
“Boss ...”
“Hey, Anton.”
“I’m so so—”
“Where is my son?” Anton demanded, his voice shaking.
Viviana stepped between the people, her brown gaze surveying her husband with wariness and sadness. “He’s sleeping.”
“Where?”
“In our room.”
Anton was gone from the hall and the people in a blink. He took the stairs two at a time, hearing soft footsteps and clattering claws trailing close behind. The door to the master bedroom slammed open under his trembling palm.
He found his son swaddled in that blue blanket he loved so much. Demyan wasn’t sleeping, though. One fist had worked its way out from the blanket, as it usually did, and the baby was suckling on the side of his clenched fist.
Grief swirled a harsh cold around Anton as he picked his boy up from the circular shaped crib. He held the baby tight to his chest, feeling the warmth and taking in the scent of his child. It was a balm to his tattered soul.
Anton’s knees hit the carpeted floor while he held the back of Demyan’s tiny head in his palm, still holding the baby close to his body. He thought he was out of tears. God knew he shed enough.
He wasn’t.
All over again, the wet lines fell over his cheeks. All over again his heart broke.
Anton felt the small, tender hands of his wife press to the spot between his shoulder blades. It was only a brief touch before she was bending down behind him, her arms wrapping snug around his waist. The wet nose of Rocco sniffed and huffed along Anton’s arm.
Viviana said nothing, simply held him.
And Anton cried.
Stir Crazy
Foreword: Stir Crazy is a future-take that was done out of request—someone wanted to see a particular scene, so I wrote it for them. It takes place about 6 months after Ana was born.
Viviana’s house was clean.
Sure, it might not seem like much, but it was one thing that was going right in her life. With two kids under five, managing the bookstore, her husband being gone twelve hours or more out of the day, and Viviana refusing to allow Anton to hire them a nanny to help with the kids, it was an achievement.
One she was happy and grateful for.
The floors weren’t sticky with juice and there were no trails of crumbs leading to all different spots in the home. All the tiny fingerprints had been cleaned from the windows and walls, what ones could be found, anyway. The beds were made, or at least until Demyan decided to act like the little tornado he was when his father wasn’t around.