Page 58 of Marrying the Pakhan

“I practiced it a little.” She says this with no embarrassment at all, as if rehearsing speeches for an unborn sibling were a perfectly reasonable use of her time. “Does it know Viktor’s voice too? Or just yours?”

“Probably both, actually. He talks to it sometimes.”

“He does?”

“When he thinks I’m not paying attention. He’ll put his hand on my stomach and just talk, like it’s already listening.”

Ginger considers this information with visible delight, filing it away for later use, no doubt. “What does he say?”

“I don’t always hear all of it. Mostly that he can’t wait to meet them, and that they’re already loved, whoever they turn out to be.”

Her face does something soft and pleased at that, and she doesn’t ask another question for a full thirty seconds, which for Ginger might be a personal record.

I laugh, helpless, and pull her back up before she inhales bathwater mid-introduction, and she lets herself be pulled with the easy trust that’s taken months to build between us, unbothered by the interruption to her speech.

That night, once she’s in pajamas and stalling bedtime with the usual determination, she corners Viktor in the hallway with a fresh round of questions that apparently didn’t get fully resolved during bath time.

“Does the baby have a name yet?”

“Not yet,” Viktor says, crouching down to her level without being asked, the way he’s done since practically the first week. “We’re still deciding.”

“Can I pick it?”

“You can suggest names. We’ll consider all serious submissions.”

“What if I want to name it Dragon?”

“That would be considered, and then almost certainly declined, but you’re welcome to submit it formally.”

Ginger seems satisfied by the process itself more than the likely outcome and moves on without missing a beat. “Will the baby like me?”

Viktor’s expression softens at that, like the question landed somewhere more tender than the ones before it.

“The baby’s going to love you,” he says, steady, certain. “You’re going to be the first person it really knows outside me and your aunt Harper. Big sisters are important. Some of the most important people a baby ever has.”

“More important than parents?”

“Differently important. Parents keep you safe and fed and make you do homework. Big sisters teach you the actually interesting stuff. How to have fun. What’s worth being scared of and what isn’t.”

“Like the dark isn’t actually scary, but the crawl space under the porch definitely is.”

“Exactly like that.”

Ginger nods, clearly filing this new job description away with real seriousness, already recalibrating her sense of self around the upcoming promotion. “Will you still read to me every night? Even with the baby here?”

“Every night,” Viktor says, without hesitation, without needing a second to consider it. “That doesn’t change because someone new joins the family. If anything, you’ll probably end up reading to the baby yourself eventually, once it’s old enough to sit still for a story.”

“I’m a good reader.”

“You are. I’ve heard you practicing on your stuffed animals.”

Ginger looks briefly betrayed at being caught, then decides to let it go, and finally allows herself to be steered toward her actual bedroom instead of the hallway, chattering the entire way about names she’s already rejecting for being, in her words, boring.

I watch the whole exchange from the top of the stairs, unnoticed, and my chest goes tight and warm at once, watching a man who once told me plainly he never expected to want children answer every single one of a six-year-old’s questions like each answer actually mattered to him.

He doesn’t perform patience. He isn’t managing her the way some adults manage children, waiting them out until the questions stop.

He’s actually present for every single one, treating the crawl space under the porch and the baby’s potential name with equal weight, equal care.