Viviana brings my hand to her lips. She kisses my knuckle and presses her cheek to my curled fingers. “It’s okay if you have mixed feelings, Mikhail.”
I clench my teeth. “We’re having a baby. This is what we wanted. We’re supposed to be overjoyed.”
“You and I have never done what we’re supposed to do. Why start now?” She shrugs. “I mean, I’m happy, but I’m scared, too. I’m worried I don’t know how to have a family in the traditional sense. Not after the way I grew up.”
“Are you scared I’ll be a bad parent? That I’ll turn into a man like our fathers?”
She palms both sides of my face and forces me to meet her eyes. “Listen to me: that is the one thing I have never, ever been scared of, Mikhail. You’ve suffered so much in your life, but instead of letting it make you cold and cruel, you’v
