Stephanie wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Really.”
“But what if it…” He emitted a soft, defeated uh and stared at his feet. He could not bear the guilt of it suffering as he had and because of something he had passed on, of witnessing what he loved most in the world coming to self-harm or harming those it loved.
“We love it. And we make sure it knows that every single day.”
Alex rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Oh my God. I’m going to be a papa.” He laid his palm over her belly. A sacred space now. “When do we know…?”
“We can find out the sex in a few months.”
Overwhelmed with the naïve terror and anticipation of first-time fatherhood, the self-doubt and the blinding potential, the obligation to be the very best man he could be, he succumbed to tears. She had given him so much. She had given him everything.
She curled her fingers around his. “Baby,” she whispered, “you’re going to be the best papa ever.”
***
Stephanie, catching her breath, lay on her back. Alex stretched out beside her and kissed her shoulder. Armed with knowledge, he could now distinguish the subtle symptoms that in mere hours had become as obvious as freeway signage. The lovely fullness of her breasts and the darkening of her nipples, the plumping of her hips and thighs. All the wondrous little ways her body was reshaping itself to create the ideal home for their baby.
He kissed each of those parts, her supple skin, then rested his head on her stomach and curled an arm around her hips. He would have loved her without end if they’d never had children; hers was the love, above the din of so many strangers declaring their affection over the years, that had saved him. That something so beautiful had formed from it, the tiny life growing inside her, was a gift for which he would strive each day to be worthy. A chance to rewrite his legacy on a future as unspoiled as a new morning.
Please stay with us this time. He crooned a song he remembered from a popular Russian children’s show he’d watched growing up. Though their little bean could not hear him, he liked to think the vibrations of his voice might somehow transmit to it his immeasurable love.
“Alex, I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to marry you as soon as we can.”
Her words knocked the wind out of him. “Don’t you want a big wedding? The dress and the cake…” He’d attended teammates’ weddings before. He assumed everyone wanted that, because each wedding had been the same.
“I’ve planned a big wedding before. It’s horrible. Besides, by the time we planned it, the baby would already be here.”
She had a point.
“We’ll have a party or something later, after the baby is born. But what I want is right here.”
Alex propped up on one elbow. “Okay. Let’s do it.” A big wedding gave him months to overcome his terror of being a husband. But it, like becoming a father, was inevitable either way. Why not plunge in headfirst? He embraced spontaneity, and he was about to embark on the greatest adventure of his life.
“You’re really okay with it? Weren’t you raised Eastern Orthodox?”
“You think American weddings are big? Ours last at least two days, sometimes a week. Two ceremonies. Lots of ritual. And for me? The whole fucking city would show up.”
Stephanie, smiling, caressed his hair. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too.” He closed his eyes and laid his head on her shoulder, his palm on her belly. “Both of you.”
***
With a towel around his waist, Alex shaved, his face that of a frightened child. He felt as though he had borrowed this body she loved so much.
They hadn’t wanted to see each other before the wedding, so he’d spent the night in a Niagara Falls hotel. He envisioned every conceivable way the day could turn out to be the greatest fiasco of his life. Runaway bride. Left at the altar, wondering why she hadn’t appeared, why she had changed her mind. What he’d done to make her leave again.
She wouldn’t now, would she? They were going to have a baby.
Something went wrong in his stomach, which had begun a wretched gurgling that forced bile into his throat. He dashed to the toilet as quickly as he could with a bad foot and, huddling over it, threw up everything. Shivering, he sank against the cool tile wall. He took several long, deep breaths. Played in front of thousands of people a night, gets stage fright at his own wedding.
The nausea faded. He hoisted himself up, then splashed some cold water on his face, brushed his teeth and rinsed with mouthwash, and dressed in the black Hickey Freeman suit he’d purchased two days ago. They’d shopped separately for their outfits after applying for the license and buying the rings, and somehow the store had finished the necessary tailoring in a day and a half. Stephanie had found a chapel in Niagara Falls willing to do a private ceremony.
He spent at least twenty minutes on his hair, which he’d gotten cut yesterday. He toweled it, then with a brush and blow-dryer dried the hair on top up and toward the back to give it some height. Once dry, he worked pomade through it, tweaking until he’d achieved the perfect height and shape. He set it with a light coating of hairspray.
Hairspray. Stephanie would laugh if she knew the extent of his styling routine. He consoled himself with the knowledge that, being European, he cared more about his appearance than American men did about theirs. Besides, it was his wedding day.
Alex straightened his tie in the mirror, then rearranged a few strands of hair. He was pale, waxy, someone who had clearly just puked his guts out.
You don’t have to be the tough guy today. Today, all you have to do is marry the love of your life.
His lips twitched into a grin. “I’m marrying her,” he whispered. The place where they had once ended now the beginning, the circle unbroken at last.
***
Stephanie
Stephanie twirled in her evening-blue, floor-length chiffon gown. A matching belt cinched a waist already inflated enough to make most of her pants too tight. She’d styled her bob with a center part, coiled it with a curling iron, and blasted it with a blow-dryer to loosen it into romantic waves. She dotted the curls with baby’s breath, then dabbed English rose lipstick onto her otherwise natural face.
She swallowed a B6 vitamin to quell the tenacious morning sickness and drew a deep breath before inspecting herself in the mirror one more time. She laid her hands on her stomach. We did it. Everything we promised. We finally did it.
Stephanie hoisted an overnight bag onto her shoulder. A limo was waiting downstairs, ready to whisk her away to the Great Lakes Gardens, to her one love.
To the greatest adventure of her life.
***
Aleksandr
Beyond the garden, the American Falls roared the way crowds had once roared for him. Now, though, only one person’s adoration mattered, and Alex awaited her with the officiant who would join them together.
His stomach had hatched a clutch of spiders. He stared at the garden entrance, his palms sweating. To the officiant’s right, the chapel’s musician played Pachelbel’s Canon in D on an acoustic guitar.
She glided along the cobblestone path, under an azure sky in which a few scraps of clouds strayed. Little white flowers adorned her wavy hair. She was wearing a sleeveless blue gown—she’d worn blue for him—that swept the pathway as she walked, like Cinderella’s gown. But nothing compared to her smile, her lips a sweet shade of rose, which the sun must have envied for its radiance. His firebird. He cleared his throat. He had to glance away for a moment, get his bearings. Once a dead leaf fallen from her tree, he had grown into something new, something stronger for all they had endured.
This is what love is. It’s irrational and extraordinary; it’s pain and sorrow, and joy and laughter. It’s us. It’s always been us.
“Stop crying,” she said with a sweet, trembling smile, “and marry me.”
***
Stephanie
There would be photos, of course, but Stephanie
committed each detail of her gorgeous groom to memory while in the moment. The sunlight shining on his raven hair, his eyes glinting like polished diopside. His tailored herringbone suit and how he’d look when she peeled it off him.
Alex was making a valiant attempt not to lose it. His chin and bottom lip wobbled. Purple half-moons smeared the skin beneath his eyes, red around the edges, and his face bore the pallid cast of someone ill. I wonder if he’s having a sympathetic pregnancy. She giggled at the thought of her gentle giant, her big Russian bear, gaining weight and suffering morning sickness.
“Stephanie Grace Hartwell and Aleksandr Dmitryevich Volynsky,” the officiant said, “love is the reason we are here. In marriage we not only say, ‘I love you today’ but also, ‘I promise to love you for all of our tomorrows.’”
Alex hadn’t stopped staring at her since she’d walked down the path. Every so often, he flashed his dazzling, dimpled smile. Listing to one side, he’d left his cane on a nearby bench so he could hold both her hands.
The officiant turned to Alex. “Will you, Aleksandr, take this woman to be your wedded wife?”
He tilted his head a little and gazed at her with such love that, for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. “I will.”
“Will you, Stephanie, take this man to be your wedded husband?”
“Of course I will.” She gave his hand another squeeze.
“We’ve come to the point of your ceremony where you’re going to say your vows. Please now read the vows you have written for each other.”
A team of gymnasts tumbled in her stomach. Having nowhere else to keep it, Stephanie extracted a folded slip of paper from her bra.
Alex raised his eyebrows and snickered.
“I, Stephanie, take you, Aleksandr, to be my husband, my best friend and partner, and my love. I vow to honor and respect you for all you are and will become, taking pride in who we are, both separately and together. Above all, I will give you my love freely and unconditionally, just as you’ve done all these years. I pledge this from the bottom of my heart, for all the days of our lives.” She looked up at him. Exultant tears filled her eyes. “I love you so much.”
His Adam’s apple bobbled. Alex retrieved his glasses and his vows from his pocket and unfolded the paper with shaking hands. “I, Aleksandr, take you, Stephanie, to be my wife, my best friend and partner, and my love.” He huffed out a breath. “I vow to honor and respect you for all you are and will become, taking pride in who we are, both separately and together. You made me a better man by loving me, and I will give you my love freely and unconditionally. I pledge this from the bottom of my heart, for all the days of our lives.”
His words took root inside her heart, blossomed, and instilled in her the kind of joy she’d once stopped believing in.
“May I have the rings, please?”
She’d tasked Alex with the rings’ safekeeping. He retrieved them from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them to the officiant.
“Please repeat after me: I give you this ring as a daily reminder of my love for you.”
Alex slid the simple platinum band over her finger as he repeated the officiant’s words. When Stephanie had put the matching ring on him, he stared at it as if in wonder, then at her, and smiled with enough wattage to illuminate the darkest corners of the universe.
“Alex and Stephanie, you have consented together in marriage, have pledged your vows to each other, and have exchanged rings as tokens of your love and commitment to each other. In accordance with the laws of the state of New York, and with great joy, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may seal your vows with a kiss.”
Alex caressed her cheek, his watery gaze probing hers as they spoke without words. “Ya lyublyu tebya bol′she, chem chto-libo v mire,” he said at last. He translated it into a smoldering kiss both sweet and sinful, his tongue tantalizing hers, a preview of the night ahead.
I’ll invent a phrase, because “I love you” is so deficient. She said it anyway. It was all he had ever asked of her. Three simple words that illumined the world, that had sustained them in all their time apart.
They looked out over the falls crashing into the river, arms around each other. Mist swirled from its depths, and a rainbow arced over the Gorge. “I’ll love you until that river runs dry,” he said. “And for all the days after.” He bowed his forehead to hers and offered that luminous smile again. “My wife. My beautiful, incredible wife.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
January
Stephanie, attending for moral support, scanned the roomful of sports journalists and fiddled with her rings. Shawn was sulking in a corner and glowering at her. Her skin crawled. Bad enough another migraine niggled in the right side of her skull, the curve in her spine thanks to her beach-ball stomach was making her back muscles scream, and she couldn’t have a bowel movement to save her life without drinking enough water to drown a camel.
Alex sat between Pat Mason—his general manager—and his coach. Mason pulled the microphone to him.
“We’re here today to talk about Aleksandr’s prognosis and his future as a Seattle Earthquake. His decisions are with the full support of this organization. So with that in mind, I’ll turn this over to Sasha, and he can fill you in on the details.” He slid the mic to Alex, who adjusted it before speaking. He’d recounted with enthusiasm, in the hours after news of their marriage had leaked, the tale of how love had tamed hockey’s reigning bad boy, but today’s presser was no cause for celebration.
“Hi, guys. Outside of my segment on E:60, it’s been a while since I’ve addressed the media. A lot has happened in the past year that, honestly, I didn’t want to talk about. You all know by now I’ve been struggling with bipolar disorder on top of trying to recover from my injury. It’s been just over a year, and I’ve been evaluated both by my own doctor and the Earthquakes’ medical staff. My tendons have healed, but the nerve damage is unfortunately permanent, resulting in total loss of sensation in my first two toes. The ongoing pain makes playing, with all the stopping and starting involved, impossible. So the only realistic option for me is to retire from playing professional hockey.”
Whispers rustled through the crowd. Hearing him say it to the world, though they’d talked about it often, choked her up.
“Hockey has been good to me both at the amateur and pro levels. I played eight seasons in Russian juniors, seven seasons in the NHL, won a World Juniors Championship and a Stanley Cup, and played for Team Russia in the Olympics. It’s given me a lot, and I want to give back. Rochester offered me their head coaching position, but my wife’s career is in Buffalo, so I’ve accepted an assistant coaching position with the Gladiators. I’ll be starting my new job on opening day of next season.”
“Aleksandr,” someone said, “what about the cap recapture penalty to the Earthquakes?”
“I’m glad you brought that up.” He sipped from a plastic water bottle. “I’ve got plenty of money coming in from various sources. So if the Players’ Association is willing to work with me, I want to give the Earthquakes the percentage of the penalty my recapture causes, until that percentage is zero.”
Stephanie’s eyes bulged. Pat, gobsmacked, sat in slack-jawed silence as the rest of the room erupted. Then he jerked Alex away from the microphone and said, loud enough for Stephanie to hear from the front row, “Sasha, are you nuts? The Players’ Association won’t stand for it! That’s the whole point of collective bargaining, so players don’t get screwed out of their salaries.”
“And no team should get screwed because of a bad business decision. That’s what I am now. That’s all I will ever be to the Earthquakes, and it’s not how I want to be remembered. Besides, I’m offering the money. It’s not fair for the Earthquakes to be crippled by someone who can’t play anymore. I’m giving them—you—a chance.” Alex cleared his throat with maximum drama. “Article Eleven, Section Eleven-point-seven to Eleven-point-nine, part c of the CBA: ‘Nothing in this Agreement shall prevent individual negotiations
between a Player and his Club with respect to compensation.’ Pretty vague, da? So we hammer this out and take it to the Players’ Association.”
Pat pulled the mic over long enough to say, “Thanks, folks, that’s all for now,” before dragging Alex into a corner to continue their argument. Stephanie pretended to comb through her bag, though from the corner of her eye she could see the hand gestures indicating a heated conversation. He hadn’t mentioned a damned thing to her about the salary forfeit.
“Congratulations.”
Startled, Stephanie looked up. Shawn was standing over her, studying her swollen belly.
“Is that sarcasm, or…?”
“Guy’s a world-class asshole, but…” Shawn shifted his gaze away. “He defends your honor, real knight-in-shining-armor shit. Didn’t think he had it in him.”
“That ‘world-class asshole,’ as you so eloquently put it, is my husband. And most people have no idea who he really is.”
“Guess you lucked out, then.”
She caught Alex staring down the back of Shawn’s head despite the words streaming at him from Pat’s mouth and stifled a laugh.
“Anyway, look, it’s been a year. So I’m sorry, and I wish you guys the best. Really.” He stuck out his hand.
“Thanks.” Stephanie shook it. His palm was moist. After he left, she wiped her hand on her pants. She stood when she saw Alex approaching regardless of Pat’s insistence he stay right where he was.
“Come on, baby. Let’s go.”
“The reporters aren’t going to let you out of here, and neither is Pat.”
“I’ll deal with him later. What did that prick say to you?”
“He apologized, actually.”
Alex made a disbelieving pfft sound as a crush of reporters swallowed them. “Sorry, guys, I’ve said all I’m going to say until I talk to the Earthquakes’ president and owners.”
Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) Page 32
