Under This Unbroken Sky (26 page)

Then she feels it. Lightly on her hip. A light fluttering. There it is again. His fingers on the blanket, barely touching. He’s reaching over Petro. She feels the goose bumps rise on her leg. His fingers travel down her leg, tracing her outline. They slide slowly across, inch toward her inner thigh. They stop. Pull back. She can sense his hand hovering over her body.

She wishes that he had never come back. That Teodor and Maria were right next door. That her cousins were calling her to come out and play. That it is summer and she is working in the garden, the taste of a sun-warmed pea in her mouth, Happiness perched on her foot, bobbing its head for a song, and she is completely unafraid. She hears his breathing, deep and shaky.

She stretches in her sleep, groans, and rolls over on her belly, wrapping herself tighter in the blanket. Her eyes clenched tight, her face to the wall. She forces herself to breathe, as if she is in a deep sleep. She thinks of Happiness, the smell of the chicken coop, the warmth of the straw. She puts herself back inside a hard white
shell. Happiness is smothering her with her warmth. Her muffled heart echoes through the shell. It thumps,
I’ll protect you
.

She hears him step back, his breath catching in his throat. Choking for air. He bumps into the table. Stops. He breathes short, shallow breaths, like he is afraid. He stumbles to the other side of the room. She hears him pull his coat down from the hook. She hears the door crack open, then quickly shut. He is still inside. He is at the door. She hears him gulping for breath. Maybe he’s afraid to go outside because of the coyotes. Because of Kozma. Something thuds against the door. His hand? His head? He catches his breath. She hears him step forward.

Lesya braces herself. Her shell cracks. She tells herself,
Don’t scream, don’t cry, don’t let him know you’re here.

She hears the clink of the tin flask, scraping across the table. He’s at the cupboards. She hears the tinkle of coins. Fifty-eight cents she earned selling vegetables. She hears the hollow clunk of the canister. Now he’s near the washstand, picking up something. Searching. He moves to the middle of the room and stops again. Mama is talking in her sleep.
Don’t wake up
, Lesya prays.

The bed groans under her mama’s weight. She must be rolling to the other side. Lesya can’t make out what she is saying.
Go back to sleep
, she wills her. Outside, Kozma wails. His howl is going to wake everyone. Petro stirs and curls his knees up to his chest. Is she standing? What is she doing?
Go back to bed, Mama. Go back to playing dead.

Lesya has opened her eyes, but all she can see is the grain of the log and a crumbling chink of cracked mud and dry straw. Kozma rages, howls his anguish in one long wail. He doesn’t call again.

Lesya forces herself not to hold her breath. She listens for the smallest noise. She hears her mother’s breathing, the creak of her knees, and her settling heavily back onto the bed. She whimpers
as if she is already asleep. Her breathing quiets, soft and regular. Lesya listens for her father. She hears him exhale. Hears one boot scuff the ground. He walks lightly to the door. The latch lifts, the hinge creaks open. Cold rushes in. The door shuts quietly. Lesya hears the squeak of his boots receding.

MAMA!

Maria bolts awake. The house is dark. She throws back the quilt, her feet hit the floor; Teodor grumbles in his sleep. She pauses, suddenly unsure whether she has dreamed her child’s voice.

Katya shrieks again, “Mama!” Followed immediately by Dania’s sharp “Hush.” And Sofia’s protesting groan. Teodor sits up, groggy but alert to danger.

“It’s Katya,” Maria reassures him, “she’s dreaming again.” Teodor falls heavily back to his pillow. Maria hurries to her daughter, whose sobs now threaten to wake the boys.

“Shhhhh,” Maria calms as she enters the room. Katya, her hair a tousled mess, her cheeks flushed, leaps out of the bed, pulling the covers off her sisters, and throws herself in her mother’s arms.

Sofia wrenches the quilt back up. “It’s cold!” she whines.

“Shhh, don’t wake your brothers.”

“I saw the coyote,” Katya whimpers. “It was at the foot of the bed.”

“There’s no coyote here.” Maria scans the room for Katya’s benefit. “See, just coats and dresses.” She sits on the bed and loosens Katya’s stranglehold around her neck. “The coyotes are all outside where they belong.”

Katya doesn’t believe her. “I saw it.” She looks around the dark room to see where it is hiding.

“I came right in,” Maria reassures. “I didn’t see anything.”

Katya has been having nightmares ever since Teodor couldn’t
find that piece of paper. Usually she dreams of fires chasing her. It’s no wonder, how he scared them. Ranting like a madman, pulling jars off the shelves. He broke two jars of beets. He shouldn’t have left it on a shelf if it was so important.

“Maybe it’s under the bed?” Katya lifts her toes up higher.

“You crawl back in bed. I’ll check.” Katya hesitates, assessing the distance from her mother’s arms to her sisters. “Quick, like a bunny,” Maria taps her bottom. “Nothing will hurt you. I won’t let it,” she promises.

Katya scurries under the quilt’s safety, jostling Sofia, who shoves her back toward Dania. “It was here, I heard it.” Katya senses everyone’s disbelief.

“The coyotes were crying earlier, you must have heard them in your sleep,” Dania explains. Dania, who tried to help find the paper, only to have Teodor push her aside.

“I saw it,” Katya insists. “It was looking for something.”

Sofia grouches, “Too bad it didn’t take you.”

“It would’ve ate you first.” Katya elbows her. Sofia retaliates with a kick.

“That’s enough,” Maria commands. “All of you, back to sleep.”

“What about under the bed?” Katya reminds her.

Maria checks. “No coyote. Coyotes won’t come into our house, they have their own place to live.”

“Maybe this one doesn’t,” Katya considers, unwilling to believe that it was just a dream. She could smell the coyote. She heard it panting.

“Don’t you remember the story about the mitten?” Katya shakes her head no. She doesn’t want Mama to leave just yet.

Maria plays into her game. “One story and then to sleep.” Sofia quickly makes room for her mother, an automatic response from when she was little. She knows she’s too old for these stories, but she still feels a tingle of excitement.

Maria snuggles in next to Sofia, who inches over more to make room for her mother’s round belly. It’s been a long time since she’s crawled into bed with her children. They smell sweet, like freshbaked bread. When they were small, she used to love bedtimes—they would tumble around her, their limbs tangled, their bodies pressed against hers, willing to follow her voice into dreams. Ivan appears at the doorway.

“I heard them too,” he sheepishly explains, wanting permission to enter.

“Come.” Maria waves him in. He bounces onto the foot of the bed and squishes between Dania and Katya. It’s a wonder he’s not having nightmares too. Teodor slapped him across the face.
What did it say?
Ivan could barely stutter the words through the snot and tears
. You gave money and it’s your land.
And Teodor hugged him
. That’s right, that’s right
. Myron pulled Ivan away and stood between him and his father. She thought Myron was going to hit him. The girls tousle for space, clinging to one another so as not to fall off.

They all know this story; it has been passed down for hundreds of years all the way from Ukraïna. Mother to child. Dania memorizes her mother’s cadence, knowing that someday she too will be telling it.

“Once, a child was walking through the woods and he lost his mitten.” Sofia points an accusing finger at Ivan, who responds by touching his freezing toes to her shin.

Maria continues with her best folktale voice: “When along came a little mouse. It climbed into the mitten. The mitten was large and warm and soft. And the little mouse announced, ‘This is where I’m going to live.’ He’d just settled in when along came a frog, who asked, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse, who are you?’ replied the mouse.

“‘Croaky Frog, can I come in?’

“Squeaky mouse says, ‘No, there’s no room, this is where I live.’ But Croaky Frog pushed his way in anyway. Now there were two of them, when along came a rabbit, who asked, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse and Croaky Frog. Who are you?’?”

“‘Hoppity Rabbit,’?” Sofia interjects. “‘Can I come in?’?”

Maria nods her approval. “Squeaky Mouse and Croaky Frog say, ‘No, no, there’s no room.’ But Hoppity Rabbit squishes in.” The children nestle closer. “When along comes…” Maria waits for the next storyteller.

“Sister Fox,” Dania adds. “And she said, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’?”

Maria continues, “‘Squeaky Mouse, Croaky Frog, and Hoppity Rabbit and there’s no room for anyone else.’ But Sister Fox decides to live there too and climbs over Hoppity Rabbit. The mitten stretches. And along comes…”

“Brother Wolf.” Katya betrays her knowledge of the story. “And Brother Wolf asks, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse,’?” says Maria.

“‘Croaky Frog,’?” says Dania

“‘Hoppity Rabbit,’?” says Sofia.

“‘And Sister Fox,’?” proclaims Katya.

“And there’s no more room!” Maria whispers, their voices getting too loud. “But Brother Wolf squishes in and the mitten stretches more. And along comes…”

“Growly Bear,” pipes up Ivan.

“And Growly Bear asks”—Maria drops her voice low and rumbly—“‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse, Croaky Frog, Hoppity Rabbit, Sister Fox, and Brother Wolf. And there’s no more room.’ But Growly Bear crawls in and the mitten stretches.”

Maria pushes against the children, who squeeze in tighter. When she was a child, the story had a wild boar, but he has no place in Canada. The children giggle and yawn, forgetting what woke them in the first place. “Then along comes Tiny Grasshopper. He asks, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’

“‘Squeaky Mouse, Croaky Frog, Hoppity Rabbit, Sister Fox, Brother Wolf, and Growly Bear. And there’s no more room.’ But the tiny grasshopper wiggles his way in under the bear’s paw. But this time the mitten doesn’t stretch: the seams split and the mitten bursts open.”

The children listen intently, knowing the story is almost over.

“All the animals go flying in every direction, they tumble and roll through the dirt. Bumping their heads and tails. One by one they get up and dust themselves off and decide to find their own homes elsewhere.”

Maria’s never been satisfied with that ending; she suspects it’s been changed. She used to ask her mother how come the fox didn’t eat the rabbit and the wolf didn’t kill the bear, and the frog didn’t eat the grasshopper, and the boy didn’t come back with a gun and kill them all. Her mother would shake her head and sigh, “That’s the story.” Her own children have never questioned the fable’s impossibilities. They want to believe. How long can she keep them believing? They bask in the afterglow of the story; their eyes are heavy again. Sleep is calling them back.

“What happened to the boy who lost his mitten?” Ivan murmurs.

“His mother made him a new one and told him to be more careful next time.” She can tell by Sofia’s breathing that she has fallen asleep. She reaches across her nest of children, absorbing their warmth.

“So the coyote won’t come into our house?” Katya ponders, half-asleep. “Because it has its own place to live?”

“That’s right.” Maria yawns. “It lives in the woods. Now go to sleep.” She knows she should get up and return to her own bed, but she wants to savor this moment. She has managed to keep them safe. Now that the letters have stopped, things will go back to the way they should be. The mitten has split open.

Katya is thinking about a frog, a mouse, a rabbit, a wolf, a fox, and a bear stuffed inside a mitten. Maybe the mouse is stuffed in the mitten’s thumb and its long tail is tickling the belly of the frog, whose webbed toes are stepping on the rabbit’s ears. Maybe the wolf and the fox are hugging each other to make more room for the bear, whose big bum is poking out the end.

Katya squirms for more room in the crowded bed. She knows there was a coyote in her room. But now that her bed is full, she knows that it won’t be able to crawl in: Mama wouldn’t let it.

MYRON KNOWS THE MITTEN STORY. HE MOUTHS THE WORDS
I’m Growly Bear
on cue. That was always his part. He was awake long before Katya, the hair on his arms bristling with each howl. He could tell one of them was by the stone wall, racing back and forth. Maybe it could smell the blood.

Myron hasn’t been able to check the snares for two weeks. He’s been running a fever and has a cold in his chest. Maria won’t let him outside. She has garlic bulbs under his pillow. Each night she rubs a mustard poultice on his chest and forces him to drink a tablespoon of wheat wine steeped with honey, fever root, and a raw egg. Twice she has heated the small glass domes and placed them on his body to draw out the sickness. Circular welts dot his chest and legs.

The first few days of his illness, he thought the coyotes were chasing him. He was lost in the snow and being hunted. No matter how fast he ran, he could hear the pack keeping pace behind him.

The coyotes started coming closer to the homesteads right after
Myron’s last trip to the snares with Ivan. Teodor says it’s because the snow is too deep in the woods and the lake is frozen. They’re running the trails looking for easy prey. But Myron knows that’s not the reason.

He feels guilty that his father had to take on his chores. He’s tried to force himself outside in the predawn. But each time he takes down the rifle, his hands shake and he feels like he’s going to throw up. It’s the same feeling he had when he stepped between Teodor and Ivan. And when he held the gun on his uncle. And when he wished his father would die in the fire. And when he shot the rabbit. And when he doubted that there ever was a piece of paper. It’s the same feeling he gets when he looks out the window, expecting to see a three-footed coyote. Everything that’s happening is his fault. He took the coyote’s paw.