Page 58 of The Breath Before Forever

“When you can’t keep the doors unlocked because I’ll forget my way outside, and I barely even remember the halls inside this house anymore, do you want a child then? When can they ever be loud? Stampede over the floors? Don’t they cry for the first few years of their godforsaken lives? Do you want a child to manage between my fits and pain and—”

“It’s not really about a baby,” she told him, stopping his rant in its tracks.

He couldn’t deny it.

He didn’t even try.

Vaslav’s Adam’s apple bobbed with his next swallow, and he rubbed at the pinch between his brows with the heel of his palm. “Say you’re right, yes? Let us say that this way I feel isn’t really about a child that doesn’t even exist. Vera, love ... my kisska, I barely like the person staring back at me in the mirror. You’re asking a lot of me to think I’ll muster more for another living, breathing part of me.”

He laughed, and the sound cut her deep. There was something about the way he seemed to honestly believe that even his own child would represent pain for him.

“And who’s to say that they would even like me?” he asked quietly.

Only he could determine that, but she didn’t think Vaslav needed her to point it out. Nor would he appreciate it if she compared his many overarching contradictions or inconsistencies. Her husband was far from a stupid man. Before anything he said ever left his lips, he’d already repeated them to himself silently at least ten times.

Hearing something—whether it was ridiculous or nonsensical—didn’t actually change how Vaslav felt about it, or the way he perceived his beliefs about a topic.

“Where’s Hannah?” Vaslav asked.

“Saying goodbye to Igor.”

She didn’t glance up from the test on her lap to see how Vaslav reacted to the news, but his noise of interest told her more than enough.

“He’s not once mentioned to me that Hannah is pregnant.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I’m not really the type,” her husband replied.

Vera wished she could muster up some quip to make Vaslav laugh about his surly personality, but her gaze remained down on the pregnancy test she’d balanced on her bare thigh.

“It’s been two minutes, no?” Vaslav asked.

Like he knew.

Time was up.

“It started blinking before the timer on the screen finished counting down,” Vera informed.

“You’re pregnant.”

“I already called the car service. I’ll be home by noon.”

“Vera, just say it—you’re pregnant.”

That’s what he wanted? For her to say it? It wouldn’t make anything better. It wouldn’t change a thing about what he’d said to her.

Fine.

She’d say it.

“Yeah, Vas, I’m pregnant.”

Vera couldn’t say what she expected to follow the news. Her husband, prone to a variety of reactions, remained frozen on the screen in that moment. A second before the loudest boom she’d ever heard practically knocked her off the toilet seat and into the cabinetry in front of her.

She thought she blacked out.

The dust following a sudden unexplainable heat and a chill from icy wind as Vera blinked up at the bright sky overhead proved her consciousness, but knowledge of the state did little to help Vera roll over from her back, or explain where the walls and roof had gone.