Yuri wheeled Erica back to her hospital room, and as soon as she was alone with her husband, she began to cry her heart out. Yuri held her and cried with her.
"What are we gonna tell Toni and Sonya?" she asked. "They know that there were supposed to be two baby brothers."
"We will tell them that hospital made mistake, that there is only one baby, after all."
"No!" Erica almost shouted. "I won't pretend he never existed at all. We'll tell them the truth, that there were two babies but that God took one of them to heaven to be with Him."
Yuri's face hardened. "You know that I do not believe in your God," he said coldly. "But if that is what you want to tell them, I will not object."
"Did you make the...arrangements?" Erica asked.
"Funeral will be day after you get out of hospital. I knew that you would want to go."
"Thank you." Emotionally drained, Erica lay back in bed and closed her eyes. A moment later, she felt Yuri gently brushing the hair back from her forehead.
"Get some rest, malenkaya. It has been very bad day for you."
"Don't leave me, Yuri."
"Of course I will stay."
After awhile, a woman brought in a tray with Erica's dinner on it. Although Yuri gently urged her to eat, she was only able to take a few bites.
"I need to go home for girls," Yuri said several hours later. "They are with neighbor. I will come back tomorrow as soon as I can. You will be all right, yes?"
"I'll be all right," Erica said weakly. "Good-bye, Yuri. I love you."
"I love you too, Erica." He kissed her lips, then was gone.
Erica fell asleep almost immediately and slept until a different women from the night before brought her breakfast the following morning. When she awakened, her thoughts immediately went to her tiny son.
"Is he all right?" she asked.
"I wouldn't know," the woman replied. "I only deliver the meals, but I'll be happy to check for you."
A short time later, the pediatrician, Dr. Kelly, arrived. "He's still holding his own," he told Erica. "He's not out of the woods yet by any means, but he's a real fighter. I think he's going to be all right."
"Thank you." Erica was immensely relieved.
A little while after Dr. Kelly left, Yuri appeared.
"Toni and Sonya..."
"They are fine," he assured her. "They are with neighbor again. What about you, Erica? Did you sleep all right?"
Erica nodded. "You?" She noticed that he looked as if he'd been crying again.
He nodded. "It is just so hard, Erica. I never know anything could be this hard."
"I know."
He went to her, and they embraced. "How is little one?" he asked. Erica told him what Dr. Kelly had said.
"That is good," he replied.
After awhile, a clerk arrived with the form to be filled out for the birth certificate.
"I want to name him Mason," Erica told her. "It was my maiden name."
"Is there a middle name?"
"Yuryevich," said Yuri.
"And did you want to name..." The woman looked awkward.
"Yes," Erica said. "He deserves a name." She thought for a minute. "Matthew."
"Same middle name," Yuri added.
"Very well." The woman looked relieved. Even though she realized that it must be a routine and not terribly infrequent part of her job, Erica still felt a little bit sorry for her.
She was able to eat most of her lunch, and later, pushing a pole with her IV suspended from it and leaning heavily on Yuri, she slowly and painfully walked to the nursery. To her it seemed like a couple of miles instead of just down the hall.
At last she reached little Mason's incubator and looked in at his sleeping form. He looked much the same as he had the previous day. Erica gazed at his tiny balled fist, at the miniscule fingers with the almost-not-even-there fingernails. They were ever so tiny and yet the most perfect thing she'd ever seen. In her heart she felt a deep ache.
She gently placed both hands palm down on the side of the incubator. "Mommy loves you, Mason, and Daddy does, too."
Before Erica left the hospital, she was finally allowed to hold her son. She sat in the wheelchair as a nurse gently unhooked all the wires, lifted the tiny baby, and gently placed him into his mother's arms.
"Mason," Erica whispered. Tears fell from her eyes and dripped onto the soft baby blue blanket as she lightly touched his paper-thin skin. He opened his eyes and looked up at her with clear dark blue orbs. Her heart melted. She lifted his face to hers and softly kissed his cheek, then handed him to Yuri.