Page 171 of Mile High Ex's Dad
“I’m going to check the incision, ask you some mildly annoying questions, and then, if you behave, I’ll see about getting you to the NICU.”
That gets my attention immediately. “I can see her?”
“Possibly,” he says. “Are you feeling any better?”
I nod.
Maksim goes to work. Blood pressure. Temperature. Questions about pain, dizziness, nausea. He checks the dressing, says something to the nurse that sounds reassuring enough for me not to panic, and then finally says the words I’ve been waiting for.
“You can be wheeled down for a short visit. Short means short. Got it?”
I nod again.
He continues to ask me other questions, and I answer as best I can, still half-aware of Viktor’s presence at my side, still aware of the unfinished thing sitting between us like a held breath.
Then his phone rings. He takes it out, glances at the screen, and his face changes.
I see the name before he turns it slightly away.
Yuri.
Viktor answers at once, listens for only a few seconds, and then says, “I’m coming.”
He looks at me after he ends the call.
Not long. Just enough.
“I have to go.”
I nod, though the words make something inside me sink. “Is it bad?”
“Yes,” he says, and then, because he seems to know that answer is too bare to leave with me, he adds, “I’ll come back.”
Before I can say anything more, he leans down and presses a kiss to my forehead. It’s brief and careful and somehow more intimate than anything else we’ve done.
Then he’s gone.
The room feels different the second the door closes behind him.
Maksim pretends not to notice. He checks the dressing again, asks one of the nurses for something, then looks back at me and says, “You can go see the baby for a few minutes, but only if you promise me you’re not about to start behaving like someone who didn’t just have emergency surgery.”
“I’ll be good.”
He gives me a look. “That was not convincing.”
Still, half an hour later, a nurse helps me into a chair and wheels me down the corridor.
The NICU is warm and bright in a way that makes my throat tighten before I even see her. There’s a hush to the room, but not silence. Machines hum softly. Nurses move in practiced lines. Everything feels fragile and watchful.
Then we stop beside her incubator.
For a moment I can only stare.
She’s so small.
That’s the first thing. Smaller than I imagined, smaller than anything in me knew how to picture. Her little cap sits low over her head, her skin looks almost too soft to belong to the world yet, and her chest rises and falls in quick tiny breaths that make me want to put my whole body around her and never let anything come near her again.
“She’s doing well,” the nurse says quietly. “Strong heart rate. Breathing support just for now. She’s telling us what she needs.”
