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The morning sickness might be behind her since a while back, but now the pregnancy has sunk the claws of other sufferings into her and it is not liquid fighting its way up her throat, but rather down her cheeks that wakes her in the middle of the night with a choking gasp. Her hormones seem bound and determined to dig into the deepest recesses of her mind and bring the worst moments of her life up to the surface and haunt her sleep with them.
Vasya, always attuned to her, and even more than usual since they found out she is expecting, wakes mere moments later and does not hesitate to pull her to him, her back to his chest, grounding her in reality the way only his embrace and voice can.
“Sch. Sch, lyubimaya” he whispers before pressing his lips to her sweaty shoulder. “I’ve got you. I’m here. I love you.”
All she can do is cry, the wounds from her past never before having hurt as much as they do now. And amidst all of the emotional turbulence swirls the fear that she might be going crazy. That maybe she is her birthmother’s daughter in the end after all.
Close your eyes.
“Beth.”
His voice brings her back.
“Beth, listen to me. Let the dream pass and come back to me.”
The worry that bleeds through in his tone is enough for her to find the strength to pull herself together, for now. Focusing on her breathing, she manages to slow it and once that is done the tears do likewise. His hold does not lessen, however, because he knows it takes time to moor her properly in his harbour, and she moves one hand from its tight hold on her pillow to place it over his, where it rests on her rounded belly.
It is not the first time this has happened by any metric and he is much calmer about it now, whereas the fist time he had come as close to panic as she had ever seen him, afraid she might be having a miscarriage and then stayed awake the rest of the night to watch over her.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asks, a vulnerability in his tone she knows she is the only one privileged enough to hear.
He had asked, that first time once he realised it was nightmares and not her body rejecting their child which had woken them both, but she had been too caught up in alarm and memories to do more than deny him, unable to deal with the paralysing fear. After that, he has still asked, but never demanded even a negative reply, forever patient and giving her whatever time she needs. But if she does not talk now, there is a risk she might take forever.
“It… it was about my birthmother. When she died” she whispers, the poison that is the memory of that day clawing the inside of her throat and trying to keep her silent.
Close your eyes.
Never trust a man.
Someday, you’re gonna be all alone.
Enough! This has to stop. Alice Harmon has been dead for over a decade and a half by now, her time to fill her daughter’s head with false words of wisdom, fears and deteriorating sanity is long over and it is time to share her secrets. Especially the last and darkest of all.
“She intended for me to die with her in that car.”
With him already so close to her she can hear his sharp intake of breath along with feeling the reaction his body has by pressing her even closer to his chest, but the hand over their future remains gentle. She has shared the last part of her past with him and now she can only anxiously wait to see how he will handle it. If he can accept the terrible legacy of her birthmother.
“Then I am happy she ended her life with yet another failure after all the others she put you through” he says after too much silence. “I have no idea how you, lyubimaya, could come from such a woman, but I know for sure she did not deserve you.”
“But what if I am her?” she retorts, the second half of her dream still a tight rope around her chest, making it hard to breathe again.
“Why would you ever think so?”
“In the dream… in the dream I was suddenly in her place, driving towards that bridge and the truck, longing for the blackness of oblivion. And when I… when I looked in the mirror and asked the girl sitting there in the back, still trusting that I would never do anything to hurt her, and tell her to close your eyes, she…“ the tears are back, along with sobs and heavy gulps of air as the scene from her worst nightmare replays over and over and over in her mind.
When he lets her go and quickly crawls out of bed she actually cries out in pain, convinced this is the moment he will leave her, like so many before him. Even he cannot survive her terrible confession of what lurks in her subconscious, surely. But he only walks around the bed and falls down on his knees in front of her so he can take her hands in his and looks her in the eyes.
“Beth, my heart and soul. Tell me, please, tell me so I can help you end this suffering.”
In the light of the lamp over on the chest of drawers they have kept on every night since the third time she woke up she can make out the blue of his eyes, but in this one instance they cannot sooth her, because she has seen a replica of them that haunts her.
“She wasn’t me” she forces herself to continue, wanting to meet his devotion with more trust than she has ever shown anyone. “She looked like me, but she had dark hair and the most beautiful blue eyes in the world. She was our daughter, and I wanted to kill her.”
“No” he protests. “No, you did not. Your birthmother wanted to kill her through you. Because if she had succeeded, if she had snatched you from this world, we would never have found each other, our love never taken root and blossomed into this.”
He pulls her hands to him and kisses each knuckle before he releases them with one of his own, only to move it to cradle her belly. Like so often, helping her support their future while never letting her go or feel forgotten. Her ever steady rock in the ups and downs life insists on throwing her way, giving her something to stand on when the tide rushes in or swim back to when the waves rise high enough to knock her over.
“I will never leave you, Beth, unless you physically kick me out and I think we both know you are not strong enough to manage such a feat.”
That pulls a smile from her, just like he knew it would, and they both relax enough to try to go back to sleep. He returns to his position behind her, letting her back rest against his chest and lays an arm over her waist, careful to not make her feel crushed. Then, he starts to softly sing a Russian lullaby to her. It is the only one he can remember his own mother singing to him when he was little and she was still alive, but despite having heard it beyond count now, it never fails to sooth her. When she falls back asleep it is with the picture of him singing it to their child, a baby with dark hair and blue eyes, in her mind’s eye.
Like every morning after their night has been plagued with terrors, he lets her sleep in, knowing how important every minute of rest is for her, and brings her breakfast in bed once she does eventually wake.
Beth knows Russian men do not tend to be as affectionate with their wives as he is with her. At least that is what Vasya himself has told her and even confessed he was not with his first. But then, that was not a marriage out of love so much as of convenience. It is one of the hurts he carries with him and has shared with her, and she loves him all the more for his trust and his strength in trying again with her.
“Good morning” he says when he enters the already open doorway, which he never closes behind him now if he leaves her sleeping when he rises early. Always making sure she knows she is not alone and only has to call for him for him to be there. He does not ask her how she slept. Such questions are reserved for mornings where a positive answer is possible.
“Good morning” she replies and eagerly inspects the tray he has placed on the chest of drawers so he can help her sit up and fluff the pillows he places behind her back before he moves it to her lap. It contains all her favourite parts of a decadent French breakfast with the all-important croissant on a small plate to one side and the smell of hot chocolate in the air. “You spoil me.”
“Only because you smile so prettily when I do” he returns, following his teasing up with a quick peck on her lips before he leaves her to her meal. “I’ll be in the study if you need me.”
Time in the study usually means chess. While he never has trouble separating the game they both love and breathe and their feelings for each other, unlike Benny, he still likes to shut himself away with it for a few hours every other week or so. When she asked him about it the second time it happened, he had explained that he has simply remembered or read about a game from the past he wants to explore in that meticulous way of his she finds so tedious.
While he is in there, she usually cooks or bakes something special, making use of that course on French cuisine he made her take a while back and promptly joined her in, because they were equal, and he would never demand anything of her he was not willing to do himself. It is rare to find a man who can cook without most of the ingredients starting out in a tin. And he is surprisingly good too.
But even more importantly, for that reasoning about equality, he has not had a single drop of alcohol since the day she agreed to be his wife. No cigarettes either since he made them both quit the moment her pregnancy became known to them. Finding such a man is even rarer.
The shadow of the nightmare still looms over her and she can feel it hovering just out of sight once she is done with the distractions of breakfast and getting dressed. She takes the tray to the kitchen where she washes the dishes and puts them away after using a tea towel to dry them by hand. It is hard to reach even the second shelf in the cupboards above the countertop now that she has a huge thing on her front preventing her form getting as close as she is used to. But eventually she manages to get the cup up there without dropping it and when she is once more without something to occupy her mind she looks around, hoping to find something new to do. Anything.
Vasya knows how restless she tends to get the day after a night terror and that nothing can calm her like he can, so why has he decided to shut himself away today of all days?
The shadow looms closer and starts whispering, in a voice that sounds suspiciously like her birthmother’s, that he has lied to her. Lied and betrayed her, just waiting for the right moment to abandon her, like all men do. Like all mothers do too.
Finding herself standing in the doorway to the kitchen and staring at the closed door to the study a little further down the hallway, Beth tries to convince herself that Vasya loves her and their unborn child and would never leave them. But another confession he once made to her makes itself reminded.
I have never loved my son. Not truly. He is simply a part of the price I had to pay for the government’s investment in my talents, just like my wife and other little and not so little things too numerous to count. A debt incurred before I was old enough to understand it and growing astronomically every year they could still get payment. I can never see him as my son, only the son of the state, in whose creation I was merely a tool to be used. I tried to, I truly did, but in the end, it was never enough. His mother loves him, though. He will be happy with her. In fact, he told me in his latest letter that they are both happy.
It was a chilling thought that it might be the same now. They had not planned for her to get pregnant, it had simply happened, despite precautions, but he had given her his word that he was happy. Because this was their child and since he had chosen her that meant he had also chosen this addition to their shared future.
Then why is it that a single closed door is enough to shake her belief in his assurances? How could nothing more than a simple piece of wood undo her like this? Maybe she was going crazy.
Just then the door opens and her husband stands there, halted with his hand still on the handle since he has spotted her and the smile he gives her, bright and uncomplicated and so loving, is enough to make the shadow retreat so far away that she cannot hear it any longer.
“Come. I’ve prepared something for you” he says and holds out a hand in invitation.
Beth thinks he might have set up a board for them, perhaps hoping to distract her with one of the many games they have played with the whole world watching. They have faced each other over a chess board so many times since that first in Mexico City and the score is eerily equal – like everything else between them. Living and loving together has afforded them a unique understanding of each other and it makes for fascinating games. Especially when there are stakes involved. At home, they have a much easier time setting their competitiveness aside and only play for the joy and beauty of it.
Despite how she can predict most of his moves on the board, she sometimes needs to remind herself that he is still capable of surprising her. It is not a chess set that awaits her, but a record player. A vinyl already waiting to be played and she guesses it is one of the operas he is so fond of. She can admit that they are hauntingly beautiful and even goes with him to see one every now and then, even if she ends up watching him more than the stage, the display of emotions on his face a much dearer thing for her to admire, but hardly what she needs right now.
“Wait here” he says when he has pulled her to the centre of the room.
She notes that he has pushed the two armchairs and small side table that usually occupy that space to the wall while he goes and starts the music before he hurries back to her and takes one of her hands in his and places the other at her waist. It is a dance pose and as soon as the first piano notes starts to carry out into the empty space around them, she realises it is not one of his operas after all.
With carful pulls and pushes he starts to move them to the soft and slow rhythm, barely doing more than sway on the spot – because she cannot do much more right now - but it is not the movement that matters.
“When you’re weary” he sings along with a song she had forgotten she bought a few years ago when it was released. It was a lovely melody and even more beautiful lyrics, but ever since they had found happiness together, she had never been in the mood to listen to it. Until now.
“When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all” he continues and leans in and presses a kiss each over her now closed and tearful eyes.
His voice, while deeper than Garfunkel’s – or is it Simon’s? She can never remember – is still able to carry the tune in a lower octave. She finds his part in the unexpected duet the most beautiful, but there is admittedly a small chance she is utterly biased.
The words, while atmospheric in the past, now cuts right trough every single shadow and dark corner in both her mind and her heart. Vasya might be borrowing someone else’s words, but no one else could ever give them more meaning.
“Like a bridge over trouble water, I will lay me down”.
She can feel the uproarious water beneath her, frothing against her ancles and wanting to pull her down and under. Close your eyes it calls out to her, close your eyes and come to me. But he is there, holding her tight, never letting her go and seeing her safely to the other side.
“When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you.”
And he already does. Every night that she wakes in a cold sweat and breath lodged in her throat, keeping her scream from escaping, he is there, ready to hold her, assure her of his love and devotion and sing her back to sleep.
“Sail on my queen” he continues, and she smiles so much her cheeks hurt at the small change in lyrics. “Your time has come to shine, all our dreams are on their way.”
He lets go of her waist long enough to caress her belly and now she starts to cry in earnest, because this man, who she thought was more machine than human the first time they met, has proven himself to be the warmest and most loving person in her life. She feels ashamed of her earlier doubt, but knows he will never blame her from it, simply hold her closer and promise her his eternal love once more.
“Like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind” he finishes off with and she can feel the truth of it reverberate in her soul.
He stops their movement when the last note has died out, but the silence is no longer deafening and no shadows or doubt remain.
“Beth, lyubimaya” he begins, but simply bends down to kiss her tears away before gently pressing his soft and salty lips to hers. She sights against his mouth, but he does not try to go deeper, instead pulling back.
“You are not your birthmother” he says, looking her straight in the eyes. “And I am not your birthfather or adoptive father. I would never ever give up on you or any child of ours. I don’t care how far you try to run, so long as I know you need me, I will follow, even if it means I will have to do so for the rest of my life. I have fought too hard to be able to choose you, my heart, to ever risk losing you. Can you trust that?”
“Yes.”
The dreams do not go away fully, but they trouble her far less often and much less intensely from that day onward. The ghost of her birthmother will be with her all of her life, because how could she not when she tried to pull her daughter with her into death and the phantom pain of those hooks return on vulnerable, but thankfully rare, occasions. But unlike most of the years since that tragic day, she now has a love in her life that is stronger than any she has ever experience before. A love strong enough to not only protect her, but to nurture her so she can grow mightier too.
And two months later, that love is doubled, though in a new form. With Jolene on the other side of the Atlantic and none of her new French friends yet close enough for such a monumental task, it is Vasya who keeps his promise of never leaving her and follows her into the harrowing birth chamber at the hospital. The nurses look at him funny, but after the first one tries to make him leave and he responds that hell would freeze over before he ever allowed his wife to go through labour alone, in a voice strong enough even Beth believes him, they had simply made the sign of the cross in front of themselves and got on with their tasks.
It is a gesture they make repeatedly during the coming hours, proving that they know a curiously large number of curses and swearwords in English as she hurtles them his way in a steady stream. Both French and Russian eludes her at the moment. Only the oldest of them, and the young doctor who comes by to check on her at regular intervals, seem unaffected by it. The former probably because she has assisted at enough of these affairs to not risk twisting her hands off or have them cramp up before the actual birth has started, and the latter probably just young enough to not care about such nonsense. He allows Vasya to stay without comment, after all.
When all is said and done, Beth forgives her husband for inflicting this pain on her, just as easily as he forgives her weaknesses and doubts at any given day in their lives. Instead, she assures him of her love and gratitude while their squalling baby is being cleaned, measured, and looked over. She also makes sure she has not crushed the hand he unfailingly and without complaint has offered her to take out as much of her suffering on a possible.
The moment her world changes forever in a more profound way than even the day she became Mme Borgov Harmon arrives in the form of their daughter. She is a deep pink, wrinkly like a raisin and nearly bald with only a few tufts of dark hair dotting her head. By the sound of her, she is not best pleased with the whole ‘welcome-to-the-world’ deal life and nine months have forced upon her, but soon quiets down when she is placed in her mother’s arms and is cooed at by both her parents.
If the nurses and doctor only knew who they have the privilege of witnessing compromising his usual abhorrence of too strong public displays of affection they might have prepared a camera and made some good extra money on the side. But even if they had been dubbed the love story of the century – as if their first battle over the title of World Champion being named the match of the century is not enough – by the French press when they had both arrived in the country and been able to go public, it was long enough ago that they are rarely recognised these days. Which is perfectly fine with them.
“So beautiful” Vasya says from beside her and reaches out to take a tiny hand in his own, the difference in size near ridiculous but also clenching her heart in the best of ways. She only needs to glance up at him to know that this is not a repeat of his son, who still lives with his mother in the Soviet Union and sends the occasional letter. Her husband is alight with his love for the perfect little being they have created.
Little Edmée Ekaterina Alma blinks up at her father, surprised to see him – or perhaps to see anyone really with how brand new everything is to her - but is just as calmed by his voice as her mother. They had agreed on names for both a boy and a girl at the start of the pregnancy and had found the process surprisingly easy. Neither of them had wanted to call for a person of the past when they said their child’s name.
Whoever he or she would be, they were of the future and as such should not be saddled with expectations that belongs to someone who is no longer there to fulfil them. No, the first name has to be in honour of what is to come, and all of that lay in the country that has enabled their union without tying them down with politics or taint their love with moral uproar. So, Edmée for their new home and Ekaterina and Alma for their mothers.
Maybe Lucien William Dmitry would come along in a few years, to help honour the future even more, along with the two men who had saved their lives and permanently attached them to the world of chess, where they found each other. Well, maybe Dmitry Luchenko, unlike the other three, is still alive and no doubt desirous to meet the new child of his friend and protégé. But his intervention in Vasya’s life in his youth, at a time when it had been at its darkest, is more than enough to earn him the honour if there indeed is a son waiting for them.
Beth knows that all babies are born with blue eyes and that her daughter’s might change into her own brown before her first birthday, but somehow, she knows they will not. The girl sitting in the back of the car in her most terrifying dreams is real and now lies in her arms, being adored by both her parents. But she no longer fears that the scene will come true. Vasya will never leave her or let her turn into her birthmother. His presence in her life and love for her are constants she can count on. She knows that now. The past is still there, but its power forever broken now that the future is no longer a series of what-ifs, but a tiny person, half her and half him, whom she can hold in her arms and smile and smile and smile at.