Page 393 of Wicked Brutal

“She can.”

He leans closer. “Privet, malysh.” My eyes fill. He smiles at her. “I’m Uncle Tobias. I told you already.” A laugh breaks through the tears in my throat. “Can I hold her?”

“Absolutely.” Ryan gets the chair, Cassandra brings pillows, and Tobias climbs up and sits very straight while Ryan kneels beside him. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Ryan settles Piper carefully into his arms. “Keep this arm right there. And I’ve got her too.”

“I know,” Tobias says.

“I know you know.” T

hen Piper is in Tobias’s arms, and he goes completely still, his eyes widening. “She’s warm. She isn't heavy.”

“Seven pounds, eight ounces.”

“That’s little.” He looks down at her again, and Piper moves one tiny fist, and he gasps. “She moved. Does she know me?”

“Not yet.”

He considers that. “She will.”

My throat closes. “She will.”

He touches one finger to her hand, and Piper’s tiny fingers curl around it, and his mouth opens.

“Oh.” Ryan’s hand finds mine. Tobias stares at her fingers wrapped around his. “I’ll teach you frogs. And fishing. And French.” I laugh softly. “She has to learn Russian too. Becca can help.”

Then something beyond her catches his attention, and his forehead wrinkles. I follow his eyes. The pelenashka, resting with Piper’s things beside the bassinet. “That’s Mommy’s,” he says. The room goes quiet.

“Yeah.”

“She wore that. At the lake.”

My eyes fill. “Yeah, buddy.”

He looks back at Piper, his little face going serious. “So Piper gets Mommy too.”

I can’t answer. Ryan does, his voice wrecked. “Yeah, dude.”

Tobias nods, like that’s settled. Then he looks down at his niece. “That’s our mommy. Her name was Jane.”

I break, my hand flying to my mouth, a sob tearing through me. Ryan’s arm comes around me. Behind Tobias, Cassandra starts crying and Walter turns his face away and Katya makes a tiny broken sound. Tobias doesn’t notice.

He’s looking at Piper. “She liked the lake.”

“And she knew how to make grilled cheese,” I manage, a laugh breaking through the sob.

“But Ally makes it better.” He looks up at me. “You do.” Then he looks back down at Piper. “Mommy loved Ally a lot. And me.”

“More than anything,” I whisper.

Piper’s tiny fingers are still wrapped around one of his. He watches them, then leans a little closer to her. “She would’ve loved you too.”

The sob that leaves me hurts, and I fold into Ryan, and he catches me.

Not because Tobias fixed it. He didn’t. Nobody can. Mom should be here. She should know Piper is a girl. She should have heard us say her name. She should be holding her. She should be crying with Cassandra and Katya. She should get to watch Tobias become an uncle. She should get to be Piper’s grandmother. She should be here. And she isn’t.