“I’m sorry,” she says, and the raw anguish in her voice shocks me.
I came in expecting fire, anger, shouting, even seething hatred. I didn’t expect Eva to crumble.
“I’m sorry.” Her sobbing apology is muffled by the thin hospital blanket she pulls over her face to hide her tears. “I’m so sorry.”
It breaks my heart to hear the pain in her voice, to see her in this bed, to see the fire gone from her eyes. She must think I hate her, that I’m angry and that I blame her.
But everything I was feeling has disappeared in the face of the revelations in this room today.
The mattress dips as I sit as close to her as I dare, and for a time the only sounds are the patter of rain on the window, the beep of the heart monitor, and Eva’s quiet crying.
“Eva.” I say her name quietly, gently, and lay my hand on her shoulder. This is one of the few times I have no idea how to fix a situation, though I so badly want to. All I can do is hope my presence and touch let her know I’m here for her.
Except her sobs only get louder, and I almost take my hand away when words start pouring from under the blanket.
“Everything is so wrong. I messed everything up. Jordan is dead because of me. My father won’t even acknowledge I exist. Katie and Marco miss you.Imiss you. I didn’t tell you about the twins. I’ve lost everything?—”
I can’t stand it any longer and pull the blanket from her face so I can draw her into my arms. As gently as I can, I hold her tight while she curls into me, her tears wetting my shirt.
“Hush,” I tell her, the word my mother used to whisper to me at night. “Hush, Eva. It’ll be okay.”
The only thing I want is to make things okay for her again, no matter what it takes.
She fists her good hand in my shirt and curls her legs under her body until she’s fully turned into my chest. And wonder of wonders, I can feel the swell of her stomach against me.
“I swear, I’ll make it okay,” I tell her. I tell the babies in there, holding her even more tightly. It’s not just words, not just a wish, it’s a promise. An oath as sacred as the one I took to becomepakhan. “Everything will be okay, Eva. I’m here.”
I hold her until her sobs quiet to occasional hiccups, and she wipes at her face with her palm. I reach over for tissues.
“Damn it, I’m such a mess,” she mutters, scrubbing at the tear tracks and mascara until her skin is red. Then she rakes her fingers through her hair, catching on knots still stuck together with dried blood.
“You’re beautiful, Eva.”
When her eyes meet mine, confusion flickers there, and I chuckle again, cupping her cheek. With my thumb, I wipe away the last tear at the corner of her eye and lean forward to press a kiss to the unbruised side of her forehead.
“You will never be anything but beautiful to me, Eva.”
She sinks her top teeth into her bottom lip, a faint flush of shame coloring her cheeks. “You’re not mad I didn’t tell you about my pregnancy?”
“I’m not mad. Disappointed, I suppose, but not angry. Shock is another word I could use.” My wry smile doesn’t earn one in return.
Instead, Eva bites her lip harder, and I see another shimmer of tears. “I’m so sorry, Evgeny. I just… my life is such a wreck.I’msuch a wreck, and I?—”
“You thought I had something to do with your brother’s death.”
A tear slips down Eva’s cheek, and she nods as her gaze drops to the blanket. She works her fingers in and out of the stiff weave.
“Don’t look away from me, Eva. We both have important things to say to each other. Never look away.” Hooking my finger under her chin, I bring her back so she meets my gaze.
“I know you aren’t the reason he’s dead.” Her voice is small, miserable, and she tears at the tissues balled up in her hand. “I’m sorry I ever believed you were. I was so lost in my grief and my anger at myself?—”
“Eva.” At the frost in my voice, her gaze snaps back to me.
“I want you to remember this, and I mean it, you did not kill your brother. It was not your fault. Someone out there, and I’m looking for the asshole, pulled the trigger. He was on a bad path, Eva, and you did everything you could to get him out.”
“I told him that morning I was done with him.” The words spill out in a teary rush. “I told him I was done if he wasn’t going to help himself. I’d just found out I was pregnant, and I was so overwhelmed and feeling sick, and he wouldn’t listen to me. And the last thing he heard me say was that I was giving up on him.”
Eva claps a hand to her mouth, choking on another sob. When I pull her back into me, my fingers knotted in her hair, she shakes against me.
