Yarik takes the seat by Katrina’s incubator and calls for a nurse to help hold her. She has more monitoring, wires, and an extra IV, since she’s our smallest at three-pounds-two-ounces, and is showing some difficulty her siblings aren’t. I worry about her, but she settles comfortably against him and seems content.
After an hour, the nurse returns with the reminder the babies need rest, and I need to pump, since they can’t nurse yet. Valentin pales at that and hastily departs, having returned Elena to Nina a while ago. Elena follows him a bit later, and the nurse wheels in a hospital pump for me so I can remain with the babies while pumping. “Just don’t overdo it,” she says kindly to me. “You’re recovering too, Mama.”
When the nurse leave, we’re alone with our children. The pump whooshes rhythmically in the background, along with the quiet symphony of the machines monitoring and supporting our babies. “I can’t believe they’re really here,” I whisper, afraid to speak too loudly and wake them. “After everything we’ve been through, after all the fear and uncertainty, we actually made it.”
“We made it.” Yarik leans over to kiss me gently, careful not to disturb the babies. “We have everything we could possibly want.”
“I love you,” I say, meaning it with every fiber of my being.
“I love you too. All of you.” He looks around at our children in their incubators, his expression full of wonder. “This is just the beginning.”
As if on cue, Mikhail opens his eyes and looks directly at his father with the serious expression he’s maintained since birth. Yarik smiles, and for just a moment, our son’s face relaxes into what might be the beginning of a smile behind the plastic separating him from us.
“He knows you,” I say, watching the connection form between father and son.
“We all know each other because we’re family.”
The word fills me with warmth and contentment I’ve never experienced before. Family. After years of running and hiding, after months of uncertainty and fear, I finally have the thing I’ve wanted most, which is a home built on love rather than obligation, children who will grow up safe and cherished, and a man who chose us over everything else he could have had.
EPILOGUE
Yarik
Eighteen months later, I stand on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, watching Sarah walk toward me across the sand. She wears a simple white dress that moves with the ocean breeze, with her hair loose around her shoulders and a fascinator instead of a vail. She’s never looked more beautiful.
There is no cathedral, hundreds of guests, or political alliances disguised as celebration. We have just the five people who matter most to us, gathered on a beach in Maine, where the only witnesses are seagulls and the endless rhythm of waves against stone.
Nina walks beside Sarah, carrying Elena and Katrina in her arms. Both girls wear matching white dresses with tiny flower crowns they keep trying to pull off their heads. Elena, true to her calm nature, tolerates the attention with patient dignity. Katrina, who inherited my stubborn streak, has already managed to grab a handful of flowers and is attempting to eat them.
Valentin stands beside me as my best man, holding Mikhail with the careful precision he once reserved for handling explosives. Our son wears a miniature linen suit that matches mine and has been fascinated by Valentin’s tie for the past ten minutes, gripping it with both tiny fists like he’s afraid his uncle might disappear.
The officiant, a retired minister Nina found through her catering connections, stands between us with a kind smile and a weathered Bible. He’s performed hundreds of weddings over forty years, but he seems genuinely moved by the intimacy of this moment.
Sarah reaches me just as a gust of wind carries the salt-sweet scent of the ocean across the beach. I take her hand, brushing my thumb across the solitaire she’s already wearing on her left hand that I gave her three months ago when I asked her to marry me properly.
“Ready?” she asks, her eyes bright with happiness and unshed tears.
I nod. “I’ve been ready since maybe the moment I first saw you.”
The ceremony is brief and perfect. We exchange vows we wrote ourselves, speaking truths about love and partnership and the family we’ve built together. We don’t mention the past or acknowledge the violence that brought us together. We just make promises to build forward, to choose each other every day, and to give our children all the love they’ll need and more.
When the minister pronounces us husband and wife, the kiss tastes like sea air. Our children provide commentary in the form of baby babbles and the occasional shriek from Katrina, who has decided she’s hungry and wants everyone to know about it.
“I love you, Mrs. Barinov,” I murmur against Sarah’s lips.
“I love you too, husband.”
After the ceremony, we walk along the shoreline while Nina takes pictures with an old camera she found at an antique shop. The photos will be imperfect, slightly blurred by wind and motion, but they’ll capture something real that no professional photographer could replicate.
Valentin has relaxed enough to let Mikhail grab his sunglasses, though he draws the line at letting our son put them in his mouth. “These cost more than your college fund,” he tells Mikhail seriously, as if a one-year-old could possibly understand the economics of designer eyewear.
Sarah lifts Katrina from Nina’s arms and immediately begins the complex dance of soothing our most dramatic daughter. “She’s hungry, but she’s also tired, which means she can’t decide whether to eat or sleep.”
“She gets that from you,” I say Sarah, taking Elena so Nina can focus on her photography.
She huffs at me. “I do not get cranky when I’m tired.”
“You threw a pillow at me last week because I asked if you wanted coffee.” I can’t stop grinning at the memory.
