Chapter Text
Anya didn't worry often. Even during her darkest and loneliest days at the orphanage, she learned over the years to lean on hope, the hope that this life of hers was only temporary, that no matter what she faced, she had a family somewhere, waiting for her. A family that loved her.
Family.
The word meant something different to her again. When she looked into Dimitri's eyes over a year ago as she held the crown she didn't want, family had suddenly felt new. It felt exciting. Today, family felt heavy, a terrible weight that pulled at her chest and made her stomach lurch.
She had been cleaning the bathroom sink to make the feeling go away, busy hands being another method she learned to lean on. But when she wiped down the mirror with a rag, she barely recognized the girl looking back at her. Bleary eyes a darker shade of blue than usual, skin pale with tinges of green, and a strained pout on her thinned lips.
Worry didn't look very good on her.
Anya sighed and looked away from the reflection, tossing the rag in the sink in resignation and drying her hands on her blouse. The excessive cleaning of their cramped marital home wasn't distracting her anymore, and there was no sense pretending that she didn't know exactly how this happened to her.
They were barely adults, their apartment was small, and they got on each other's every last nerve.
While not every intimate occurrence was ignited by an argument, nearly every argument eventually led to their bed- or another flat surface. Sometimes it felt like they were still fighting during the act, each determined to get the last word. Other times, it felt softer, every kiss and caress a sweet and wordless apology.
The most consistent break they took occurred a few days a month, and those days had become more frequent and predictable after a year of regular meals. Aching, bleeding, too tired to argue, and with a shorter fuse than usual, Anya wouldn't have it. To his credit, her husband didn't complain. He gave her plenty of space, made her hot cocoa she never asked for, and took her verbal abuse with that wry smile of his that often pissed her off even more.
But those days hadn't come for a while. Anya was unpracticed with tracking, so she wasn't positive how long it had been, but it was getting harder to deny that this was a coincidence, that the dizziness and nausea weren't just from the fear that it might be true.
She had decided to tell Dimitri that night when she was sent home early to get herself well after being found sitting in the back corner of the cafe, resting her clammy forehead on the cool wall. It was just as well, she thought to herself on the brisk walk home. She had nearly dropped an entire tray of coffee cups earlier that morning, and the smell of quiche now made her want to vomit. Even the swirl of autumn leaves nearly sent her off-balance.
Pooka followed uncomfortably close at her heels the moment she returned to the apartment. After nearly tripping over him twice, she shouted at him to leave her alone, and he retreated under their shabby, second-hand couch. Anya was on her own.
She couldn't be still, so she cleaned their apartment, scrubbing until she got dizzy and dusting until she had to sit down, all the while running what she might say that evening through her mind.
Of course the subject had come up once or twice between them, but not enough was discussed to give a clear prediction of how her husband would react to such news. Anya had dreamed of a big family as a child when she thought she may have no family at all, but a child never considers the practicalities of such a family. Dimitri once joked that the two of them would be doomed from the start with a kid who took after either of them, but he hadn't discussed the matter more seriously than that. All the while, the word "careful" was tossed about loosely between them, their methods inconsistent or an after-thought.
Anya sunk into the creaking couch. She suddenly felt very small, now acutely aware of what silly children they were. The same silly children who traded barbs and made faces at each other in a train car. Silly children who ran, hand-in-hand, to elope on the Seine without bothering to change their tattered clothes. Silly children who were about to have a child.
With no example to follow- he never mentioned his parents, and she barely remembered her own- Anya didn't know where to begin. Laying her head back, she mulled over endless questions with no answers.
Pooka sniffed cautiously at her bare toes before joining her on the couch. Anya kissed an apology on top of his shaggy crown and scratched his ears until her head stopped swimming. She soon felt very heavy, the weight of the day catching up with her, and she allowed herself to lay down and sleep.
The windows were getting darker when Pooka woke her with a few licks on her nose, and she knew Dimitri would be home soon. Feeling a little better and more like herself, Anya changed out of her work clothes and into her blue dress, noting the increased notch in her belt since the very first time she wore it. She almost smiled at the thought that she soon wouldn't need the belt at all. Next, she put the yellow bow in her hair, then changed her mind and switched to the blue one. She pulled up half of her hair at first so some flowed down behind her, then she pulled it all back, then she changed to half-up again.
As she alternated the position of her hair over her shoulders, she was determined to tell him the moment he walked through the door. Blurt it out. Catch him off guard. What could he do then? It was a solid plan until he arrived home later than she expected, and when he dared to greet her with a kiss after she had to pace their apartment longer than she should have, Anya noticed his hair hung in his eyes in that annoying way and had grown a little too far over his ears. She told him he needed a haircut instead.
So they argued about that.
And maybe she kissed him first because the hair in his eyes wasn't that annoying, or he smelled like sweat and flour, or she still wasn't brave enough to say what she had been practicing all afternoon. Maybe she wanted him to carry her to bed before her legs gave out.
Dimitri's voice softened the moment he lifted her feet off the floor, and Anya couldn't recall a time since the night they eloped when he had handled her with so much care.
"Do you suppose this is normal?" she wondered aloud after, staring up at the bedroom ceiling while combing through his hair with her fingers.
"Hmm?"
Dimitri's head rested on her bare stomach, his voice muffled against her.
"This thing we do," Anya answered. "We fight about something stupid . . . and then we end up like this."
"It's not a bad system," he murmured, his voice dangerously close to her secret.
"Do you think regular married people do this?"
Dimitri's breath was warm when he puffed a stifled laugh against her skin. "I don't think we're regular married people, Anya."
She considered his statement, knowing he meant it as a joke, but she felt a new weight of expectations and started to think of all the ways she came up short.
"I didn't make dinner tonight," she admitted softly.
Dimitri only shifted to nuzzle deeper into her belly as she continued to toy with his hair.
"There should still be bread and cheese in the icebox," he mumbled, in no rush to leave their bed. "A few apples, too. I'll just eat what's left when you're done."
"I haven't been very hungry today."
"Really?" He lifted his head and gave her a quizzical glance.
"What?" she replied, daring him to comment on her typically voracious appetite.
Dimitri's eyebrows knit together curiously, but he quickly shook whatever thought he had from his mind. "Nothing," he decided, returning his head to its desired position.
Anya could have pressed him further, but she didn't want to start another fight. She was enjoying the soft tangle of hair between her fingers anyway.
"You don't really need a haircut," she assured him.
This made him chuckle, and he turned his head to look up at her again. "No, I do. You were right."
She met his gaze before pushing his bangs back. "Maybe I'll cut it for you tomorrow."
Rather than answer, Dimitri smiled with his deep cinnamon eyes, and they were so warm looking into her that Anya knew right now was as good a moment as any to tell him. She opened her mouth half-a-second too late.
"Hey, since we're both being nice to each other now," Dimitri unknowingly interrupted, pushing himself up on his elbows, "I got something for you today."
He leaned awkwardly over the side of the bed and rummaged for his vest in the pile of clothes on the floor. He produced a small box from the pocket and handed it to her with an expectant smile. Anya had seen that smile before and thought of her pretty blue circus tent now lying somewhere in their bedroom in an unceremonious heap. There was no question what was in the box when he placed it in her hand.
Dimitri couldn't get her a ring when they married- not legitimately, anyway- and even though she insisted she didn't need one, he promised he would find one for her once he had saved enough money, real money from honest work.
"I know it's months too late for an anniversary present, but . . ."
Anya swallowed hard before she opened the box and saw a simple gold band with a tiny green gem inlaid in the center.
"I was waiting until I had enough for the little emerald, to match the ones in your necklace, you know? Of course, it's a lot smaller than those ones . . ."
He trailed off when Anya dropped the box beside her on the bed. The back of her neck went hot and cold at the same time, and tears she didn't realize she had been holding back finally spilled over. She shoved Dimitri out of the way and stumbled out of the room, tripping over their clothes, choking back sobs until she found herself over the bathroom sink, clutching the sides to hold herself upright, shaking from her shoulders to her knees.
She felt him at her side immediately, and he might have been saying something, but she couldn't hear. She did see the sink running but didn't remember turning on the tap, she felt a cold rag on the back of her neck but didn't know where it came from, and when she saw his hand take hers, she thought of the ring again, the dainty golden halo with a twinkle of green, the boy who gave it to her, and the promises he made.
She cried with her entire body.
She cried when he pulled her into his arms. She cried as he stroked her hair. She cried until she could finally feel him talking through the vibrations in his chest. Amidst tender hushes and whispered pet names, he begged her to tell him what was wrong.
Please, kroshka . . .
His arms felt like they were trembling, but it easily could have been her. Sobbing and choking against his collarbone, Anya struggled to catch her breath so she could tell Dimitri that nothing was wrong, that everything was wrong, that her family was changing again and she wasn't ready.
"Is it me? Did I do something wrong?"
Anya shook her head, still breathing shakily.
"Are you sure?" he pressed, forcing a jocular tone. "It's usually me."
She managed to croak out a "no," sinking deeper into his bare chest while he rubbed her back.
She knew she had to tell him now. There would be no coming back from this embarrassing outburst. Still, Anya put it off just one minute more, just to slow her breathing, to feel his warmth a little bit longer, to be completely safe in his arms before she spoke.
She didn't know she would be too late again when the muscles in Dimitri's arms tensed up around her, and she thought she could feel him wincing against her ear as he drew in a short breath, bracing himself.
"Is it the baby?"
Her eyes grew wide, heat rising in her cheeks as her heart dropped into her stomach.
"Zhopa!" she shouted, breaking free of his arms and shoving the breath he was holding from out of his chest. "How did you know?!"
"I didn't! I . . ." Dimitri steadied himself against the door. "I guessed?"
"You guessed?!"
"I . . . well . . ." he managed to stammer, knowing the danger he was in. He gestured to Pooka who had reappeared at Anya's feet again.
"Well the dog's been acting stranger than usual around you," he attempted. "Not to mention you've been exhausted and miserable all the time and . . ." He'd just stepped in a minefield as he considered the list of signs he'd chosen to ignore for weeks. "If I say anything else, you'll take my head off."
Anya ripped the wet rag off her neck and punctuated her words with a few slaps at his shoulder. "Why- didn't you- say anything?!"
"Anya- " Dimitri coughed back a laugh while he held his arms up in defense. "It's not like I had any way of knowing for sure. And right up until the . . . crying . . . I guess it was sort of fun waiting to see what you'd tell me."
Fun.
"Get the hell away from me!" Anya snapped, shoving him with both hands the rest of the way through the door frame. "I hate you! I ha-"
The hot and cold sweat returned, and in an instant, she clumsily whirled herself around, stumbling into her own ankles, and heaved into the sink. Eyes stinging with hot tears as she coughed, she heard the floorboards groan softly behind her.
"I'll kill you, Dimitri!" she spit.
"Got it," he conceded, raising his hands and leaving her to herself. Even Pooka followed him as the creaking of the floor faded away.
Anya took a few minutes to be alone, to catch her breath before rinsing her mouth and splashing away snot and tears from her searing face. Cleaning the sink once again, she had no need to cry anymore. She was propped up by anger. Anger over how perceptive he was, at how well he could read her now. Anger over how she couldn't hide anything from him, that she couldn't be the one to tell him.
After she started breathing normally and her cheeks had time to cool, Anya crossed the narrow hall to their bedroom and found herself angry again that he had picked her dress up off the floor and set it on the sloppily straightened bed next to her nightgown. As if she couldn't have done that herself.
Anya stomped past the bed and flung open one of his dresser drawers, pulling out a shirt of his that she liked and sharply wrapping it around her. As she buttoned it up, missing a few along the way, she caught the ring box out of the corner of her eye resting lopsided where she dropped it.
She wasn't sure how long she had been sitting on the bed watching the dim light glinting off the edges of the little green stone before upstairs footsteps shook her from her thoughts. Somehow the ring found its way on her finger during that time, but she didn't take it off. With a sigh, she supposed she should face her idiot husband sooner rather than later and rose from the bed, taking a moment to straighten the covers properly before leaving the seclusion of their bedroom.
Anya trudged down the short hallway, stretching the usual three steps into six. She turned the corner and found Dimitri in his pajamas on their little couch, practicing his French as he routinely did before bed, as if nothing unusual had happened that night. He was reading the copy of Le Chien des Baskerville she had given him months ago, slowly mouthing the words to himself while Pooka dozed on his lap. A lonely mug of hot cocoa sat steaming on the scuffed end table.
Anya walked briskly past the peace offering and plopped down on the couch next to him, folding her arms pointedly across her chest. Pooka lifted his head, but Dimitri gave no indication that she was there, not even a comment on the shirt she had stolen. Lately, Anya noticed, he had been growing more difficult to provoke. She didn't like it.
"So the next time you just know everything," she huffed, sinking down further into the couch, "can you keep it to yourself?"
A small smile crept up the side of Dimitri's face, the side facing her.
"Shut up, I'm mad at you."
"I didn't say anything."
"Shut up!"
"Alright . . ."
The next few minutes of silence were broken only once when Dimitri leaned toward Anya briefly to point out a word he didn't recognize.
"Handkerchief."
"Thank you."
He leaned back to his side of the couch, and they sat for a few more silent moments before Anya sighed.
"So you're not going to say anything?"
"You told me to shut up."
With a groan he knew all too well, his wife pulled her arms tighter around herself and turned her head away from him.
"I wanted to tell you tonight," she grumbled. "But you ruined it."
Dimitri started to turn a page, then stopped.
"I'm sorry." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but she didn't move. "I really wasn't going to say anything, but . . ." He shifted a little in his seat, and Pooka moved from his lap to hers. "You've never cried like that before. At least not in front of me."
Anya crinkled her nose a bit, still keeping her head turned from him. Maybe those had been his arms trembling earlier.
"Do you still hate me?"
As if to answer his question, she reached for the cocoa he left her without a word. Pooka nestled into her elbow as she took a careful sip. The steam soothed her puffy eyes and the lingering stuffiness in her nose, and a dainty clink sounded against the ceramic as she lowered the mug and pulled her feet up on the couch.
"I really do like my ring," she said softly, almost bashfully, holding her hand out to show him.
Dimitri sat his book on his lap and took her hand to inspect the ring in the lamplight. "Didn't quite get the reaction I expected," he teased.
"I mean it," she insisted, squeezing his fingers lightly. "I'll probably yell at you again soon, and before I do, I want to make sure you know how much I appreciate this."
More memories of her childhood had returned to her sporadically in the last year, and within them she recalled jewels twenty times this size or more. Dazzling and vibrant as they were, she didn't know where they came from. They simply existed in her old world, customary and commonplace, and without the dear promises of a humble kitchen boy.
"Of course," she continued wistfully, "what if we have to pawn it later to feed this kid?"
Dimitri, who had been running his thumb along her knuckles, brought her hand to his lips.
"Won't happen." He smiled into the kiss he left on the back of her hand. "We'll sell this awful couch first and sit on the floor."
Anya gently pulled her hand back to the mug resting in her lap. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his attempt to sidestep any practical discussion of money. Instead, she glanced around their humble living space. Their scant pieces of furniture were mismatched with scratches and dents, the rug in the center of their sitting room was frayed at the edges, and the kitchen window was warped with a pair of socks stuffed into the sides to keep the outside air away. It was more than either of them ever thought they would have to their names, but she wondered if all they had would ever be enough.
Anya's thumb found a small chip along the lip of her mug, and she started picking at it with her nail.
"Are you happy?"
Her voice shrank as she asked. Dimitri was quiet for a moment, too long of a moment for Anya's comfort, before he carefully tilted her chin toward him.
"Are you?"
She only allowed her gaze to meet his for a second before pulling away again. Maybe he wasn't intentionally avoiding her question, but Anya was unable to help rolling her eyes this time as her attention returned to the mug in her hands.
"I don't know." She went back to digging at the chip with her thumb. "I mean . . . I'm not unhappy, I guess. But . . ." She ran through the growing list of worries in her mind and picked one at the forefront. "I just feel like I can barely keep the two of us fed as it is, you know?"
"Why?" Dimitri smirked dismissively. "Just because you don't cook dinner sometimes? We used to eat out of trash cans, Anya."
Something about his remark unsettled her, although it was nothing he hadn't joked about before. Early in their marriage, they had found a way to bond through sharing childhood stories that would have turned the stomachs of anyone who overheard. They were the forgotten children, besprizornye- a label Anya felt identified her far more accurately than Grand Duchess. They traded tales of eating garbage and spoiled kasha while strolling arm-in-arm through town. They spoke of rats and typhus across clean sheets they never used to have. It was a strange yet comfortable intimacy, but Anya had been growing frustrated with allowing herself such vulnerability while her husband hid the worst of his memories behind dark humor and sarcasm as she suspected he was doing now.
She set her mug down on the end table, a little harder than she meant to, and Pooka hopped off of her lap.
"Our baby won't eat out of trash cans," she declared.
Anya wouldn't look at him, but she could feel the force of her words when Dimitri took in a breath and exhaled.
"Of course not."
"Of course not," she echoed.
"Anya, it was just-"
"A joke, I know." Anya kept her eyes on the floor, following the crooked woodgrain to the loose threads on the edge of the rug.
"Are you mad at me again?"
She shot him a sharp look. "Not yet," she warned, rising to her feet. The effort made her lightheaded, but she crossed her arms over herself again and shook it off. "I just don't understand how you can make jokes right now- how you can be so calm about all of this."
Dimitri's eyes flickered wide. "You think I'm calm?" Against his better judgment, he almost laughed as he leaned back on an elbow and casually crossed one leg over the other. "Good to know I haven't lost my touch."
Anya swiped the mug off the end table, sloshing a bit of cocoa over the side. "I will throw this right at your head, I swear."
"Alright, I'm sorry!" He raised his hands and straightened. She'd never thrown dishes at him before, primarily because they couldn't afford replacements, but he wasn't about to underestimate her. "I'm sorry. I'm . . . not good at this."
She set the mug back down and a bit more cocoa spilled over the lip. "Well you need to be better."
Dimitri lowered his arms. "What do you want me to say?"
In truth, Anya wanted him to tell her that everything would be fine. She knew he had that way about him and would have her fully convinced with a soft smirk, a few hushed words, and a warm hand in hers.
But then they would go about their routine the next morning and nothing would have changed. They would still have a baby on the way they were nowhere near prepared for, Dimitri would continue evading sincere conversation with sarcastic remarks, and Anya would still see that sick look when she glanced at the mirror.
Whatever Dimitri read on her face drew him out of his seat, and his hands began to slip into hers. Anya promptly dropped her hands away.
"I want you to stop being an ass for a minute. Stop making jokes, and help me figure this out because I'm-"
She wouldn't say the word. She couldn't allow herself to admit it. Her body had already betrayed her tonight, and she was determined to not let it overtake her again. With little room to turn and run before he could see what was behind her eyes, she took the three-and-a-half steps to the kitchen, Pooka close behind.
"I'm scared, too."
Anya stopped short and turned around, but Dimitri hadn't closed the gap between them. Mere feet away while still in separate rooms, they stood silently until Anya replied.
"Tell me what you're scared of."
Dimitri's eyes drifted to the floor.
"Gavno," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Everything." He sheepishly met her gaze again before he continued. "I could list it all out for you if you want, but we already fought with each other today."
"What is that supposed to mean?
"It means we already had one good, stupid fight today, and I'm not ready to fight about this."
"We're just talking. What makes you think we'll fight again?"
Dimitri shook his head. "Anya, we're always fighting."
Her hands reflexively met her hips. "We are not always fighting!"
He groaned, running his hands down his face. "Now we're fighting over how much we fight."
"Ugh!" A stomp of her foot startled her little guard dog and sent him skittering back from her a few steps. Dimitri winced.
"Anya, look . . ." He tried to steady his voice as he shuffled about a step-and-a-half closer to her. "I can argue with you anytime about my hair, or how the bed is supposed to be made, or where the damn spoons should go. But this is different. It's money, and work, and . . ."
His eyes fell away from hers again.
"It's everything we fought about the last time."
Anya looked down at her feet. The last time. When words like "ungrateful" and "useless" were carelessly thrown around. When they shouted until they couldn't speak to each other for days, and when they starved themselves of the other's touch. They had realized in the time it took to patch the hole in the wall that they fought out of fear, and they had forgiven each other before they finished gluing the lamp back together, but it wasn't a place either of them wanted to be again.
"I don't want to fight like the last time, either." The sentiment rang especially true as Anya was suddenly overcome by the heaviness she felt that afternoon. She lifted her chin and forced down the fatigue. "But maybe we need to. Maybe a little."
Her husband looked back at her with dark eyes. His tousled hair, wrinkled pajamas, and bare feet made him look like a frightened little boy.
"Do we have to right now?"
He made a fair point, or at least that's what the weight of her eyelids wanted her to think. They hadn't really had a mature, productive conversation the whole evening, and neither of them was in a condition to have one now.
"I guess not," she said, blinking the drowsiness away. "But a baby won't wait forever. We need to talk about something."
She hadn't realized she'd been wringing the cuffs of her sleeves- his sleeves- until she saw Dimitri looking at her hands. He nodded as a new resolve suddenly softened his features.
"Okay. You're right," he agreed. "I guess I could at least answer the question I dodged earlier."
Anya rolled her eyes. "Which one?" she scoffed.
"When you asked if I was happy."
It pulled on her again, that awful weight on her chest. She hoped it didn't show on her face as she gulped down the lump in her throat.
"Well?"
It should have been an easy enough question to answer: happy or not happy. So when her husband didn't answer right away, when he flexed his fingers before running a hand through his hair, the weight on her chest tugged at her even harder. She would've hit him again if she hadn't felt so drained.
"I'm . . . I'm sorry I've been saying all the wrong things tonight," he finally stammered. "I just . . . ever since I . . . suspected . . . I've had the same feeling I had in Le Havre."
Anya remembered. Their first week as husband and wife, and his irritating notion that he wasn't enough. As if she cared back then what he could provide. As if getting married hours after he dove off a bridge for her hadn't been her idea in the first place.
"I'm just not ready for it."
Although Anya couldn't deny she felt the same way, Dimitri's admission still made her chin droop to her chest.
"Wait-" He caught himself, swiftly closing the gap between them. Anya didn't look up from the sleeves she still twisted in her hands.
"I'm not ready," he continued, and Anya saw him flex his hands again, still hesitant to touch her. "But I wasn't ready for you, either."
Anya fidgeted with the ring on her finger. It felt like a lifetime ago, back when they first locked eyes in a dead ballroom and every moment that came after. She felt a familiar flutter in her stomach and thought of a sunset and sea spray and her favorite dress.
"I always said the wrong thing back then, too. Remember?"
Anya fought the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"Not always," she said, keeping her head down. "Just most of the time."
She heard something like a laugh and a sigh of relief as his hands, more relaxed now, slipped back into hers. She didn't pull away.
"But I must have done something right along the way because I'm here. I'm home." His hands squeezed hers gently. "And I'm happy."
Anya cautiously peered up at him from under her lashes in a silent question.
Dimitri smiled broadly in reply. "I mean, I'd be a lot less terrified hanging off a speeding train with you again instead." Fingers brushed against her chin and gently tilted her gaze up to his. "But I'm happy."
His hand drifted from her chin to the back of her neck, and his fingers tangled in her hair the same way they did when he first came home that night. Instinctively, she took in a breath and parted her lips, but his kiss landed tenderly on her forehead instead. Heavy lids easing closed, her shoulders loosened as a warmth bloomed in her chest and spread all the way to her toes.
Part of her hated this, the way she leaned into him to keep herself upright, as if she weren't strong enough anymore to stand on her own. It had never occurred to her until right now, when his lips grazed her forehead again and his fingertips tightened a bit against her scalp, that perhaps he leaned into her, too.
Pooka yipped impatiently beside them, stirring soft chuckles from the pair as the moment was broken.
"Go away, Mutt," Dimitri groused, playfully pushing the dog to the side with his foot. Ignoring the nip at his pant leg and the light shove from his wife, he wrapped his arms around Anya's shoulders, and she didn't fight it when he pulled her into his chest for the second time that night. Other than a restless snort from Pooka, the air hung silently as they swayed together like a tree in the eve of a storm.
"You know everything's gonna be fine, right?" he whispered into her hair.
Anya only hummed in response. She could tell he wasn't the least bit convinced of his own words, and neither was she. Still, she curled her arms around his middle and pulled him tighter, realizing it wasn't his words that she needed.
It was the way he held his arm out to her when she was perfectly capable of walking without assistance. It was how he straightened the bed, even though he never did it right. It was insisting she ate first and washing the dishes before she could get to them, even if he always put the ladle in the wrong drawer. It was strong hands at her back, surprise cocoa, and kisses on her knuckles. It was the space he gave her when she fell apart and his warmth when he held the pieces of her together.
They both climbed into bed that night no more prepared than before, snacking on the tiny spread Dimitri brought with them when Anya said she was too tired to eat. He munched on the other half of an apple she couldn't finish while they discussed doctors and squabbled over who had to tell Vlad. Once they settled into the pillows, carefully avoiding the topics they agreed to face later, she drowsily listed her favorite lullabies until she drifted off to a light touch on her cheek and a whisper that he hoped it had her eyes.
The weight of family hadn't lifted, but Anya let her worry go for the night knowing she didn't carry it alone.
Glossary of Russian words I hope I used correctly:
kroshka - literally translates to "chit" or "crumb," used as a term of endearment for women equivalent to "baby"
zhopa - ass/asshole
besprizornye - literally translates to "homeless" or "neglected," a label referring to orphans and street children in post-revolutionary Russia
gavno - shit
Bonus French: Le Chien des Baskerville is The Hound of the Baskervilles. I could see Dimitri getting into Holmes stories, and I thought the novel would realistically be translated and accessible in French by the late 1920s.