today?” I asked my son once his babysitter had left.
Nikolai nodded, eyes bright. He went into a tirade of tales about going on a walk, playing cars and making cookies. His little words fumbled over each other, but his speech was good and clear.
He had turned two the past August, seeming to grow up overnight. I still remembered him as an infant, so small and reliant on me. Even as a baby, he had been restless, but as his motor skills developed, so did my ability to keep him safe and on the ground.
The number of falls he had already in his short life was infinite.
“And then…” His eyes wandered off as he tried to finish the end of his story. “And then…then Baba ate cookie.”
“Babushka ate some cookie, did she? Did she enjoy it?”
Nikolai shook his head, “Nooo.”
Like she heard her name, the fat tabby leapt from the top of the cabinets and onto the kitchen bench. She hadn’t changed in the past 3 years. She was still the same fluffy Siberian with a bad attitude.
However, she did like Nikolai. If not for my son, Babushka would’ve left me years ago.
“Baba!”
Babushka trotted over to him, purring deeply.
“Careful,” I warned him. “We pet Baba gently.”
“Gently,” he mouthed as he stroked her fur with his little hand. “Gently, Baba.”
I smiled at the two of them, my blonde boy and mean-ass cat. The days and nights had been lonely, mournful, but I had always been able to wake up to these two, always been able to come home to them.
Even when I was pregnant with Nikolai and still fragile with a broken heart, it was Babushka who carried me through my days. She slept beside me, ate beside me. When I was slow and grieving, she had nestled herself in my arms or kept watch as I slept.
But Babushka wasn’t the one who reminded me of my…Nikolai was a spitting image of his father; other than my green eyes he had inherited. If not for his eyes or personality, I would’ve chalked him up to be a clone. They shared the same blonde hair, warm pale skin and nose.
And sometimes he would smile, or doing something and I would be struck paralyzed. The Tarkhanov genetics were strong, and they were prevalent in my son.
“Mama,” Nikolai’s little voice called me from my thoughts—as it so often did. “I’m hungry.”
“Oh? Well, I had better feed you then.”
His cheeks dimpled as he grinned.
After running around after a toddler for the afternoon and night, I was looking forward to settling down onto the couch with a book and wine. Nikolai hated bedtime. He hated the idea that I was doing something without him, that he was being excluded, so he got up seven more times—under the guise of toilet, glass of water, needed Teddy—before finally falling asleep.
By the seventh time, I sat beside his bed, rubbing his back. Babushka was asleep at the end of his bed, most likely used to his constant movement.
Nikolai yawned, fighting to stay awake.
“Go to sleep, baby,” I murmured.
“Mama,” he said tiredly. “Not…tired…”
I smiled. “Oh, yeah?” I laid my head next to his, tucking his teddy into his Peter Pan-patterned blanket. “I’m tired so I’m going to sleep.”
He patted my cheek. “Go to sleep, Mama,” he copied my words.
It was hard not to break my trick by opening my eyes and smiling. Eventually, Nikolai’s breathing slowed and little snores began to pore out from him.
My bones cracked as I rose to my feet, my body having never fully recovered from pregnancy and childbirth, and I quietly left the room. As I went, I switched off lights and kicked things out of the way, clearing a path.
I cracked my back as I entered the kitchen. God, I was tired. The last few nights, sleep had been [S13]elusive, especially as I grew anxious for Christmas. It was never fun explaining to your child why the other kids in his playgroup had so many more toys than him under the tree.
There was a new documentary on botany I had recorded…
There was a vase of flowers on my table.
For a second, I didn’t even notice the new piece of decoration. It sat in the center of the small wooden dining table I had gotten from a garage sale, now covered with Nikolai’s scrawls and food leftovers.
A clear vase, with a beautiful vibrant bouquet of foxglove. The flowers were strangely ripe for a plant not in season, the lilac petals a startling warning of the poison