Lesya like she is a cripple, she never gives her chores that are easier. She knows Lesya will figure out a way to do the work. They look at her like she is normal.
Lesya and Petro eat lunch and supper at their aunt’s house, even though they can barely all fit into what used to be the storage shed; it feels more like a house than their own. Crammed around the table, elbows and knees touching, laughing at Sofia’s performances and Ivan’s knock-knock jokes, it feels like a family. They bathe with their cousins and sometimes Maria washes their clothes. They listen attentively to her stories from the old country. Sometimes while they work, Maria asks Lesya to sing. She starts shyly, the notes growing stronger, lifting skyward as she forgets her audience and sings for the dirt, the sun, the spider, and the curious magpie. At the end of each song, Maria thanks her. Diakuiu, she says in the same low voice that she says Amin’.
After lunch and supper, Lesya carries covert offerings of food from Maria to Anna. Her mother is still in bed in the middle of the day, staring at the wall. Lesya can hear the murmur of life seeping through the wall from the other side. She clears a space on the table, gathers up yesterday’s dirty dishes to take back to Maria, swats away the flies, sets the plate of food on the table, and covers it with a clean cloth. Then just as quietly as she entered, she leaves, hoping her mother won’t ask her to stay.
Anna wants to starve, but the longer she resists the food, the stronger the urge to eat grows. She finds herself seated in front of the plate. Her fingers inching toward the cold pyrohy, she tears off a mouse-sized piece and nibbles reluctantly. Then her hands grab the food, ignoring the utensils, and she stuffs it into her mouth, gorging down the last crumb. As if waking, she tries to understand where the food has gone, punching herself in the stomach, before crawling back into bed.
In bed, she tries to imagine being dead. Would it feel any different than being alive? Could she still see? Would she know who she was, would she remember anything, would she be free? She has held a knife to her wrist. But she couldn’t. She can’t. That’s when the coyotes first started to cry for her. They cried all through the night, and they’ve come back every night since. She tells them everything and they howl her pain. She wants to grow teeth and run wild.
Lesya’s singing wakes her. The sound is all around her, floating from the rafters, spilling through the chinks in the wall. Anna recognizes the fall and rise of the notes. It is a sad song. She follows its sweet sorrow outside, around the corner of the shack, to the garden.
Dania, Sofia, and Katya are watering the rows. Petro and Ivan are raising a panel of fencing. Maria is on her knees, squirreling away seeds. Lesya sits cross-legged beside her aunt, passing her the seeds and singing about another land, a lost love, and a woman left behind. Lesya’s soprano gives the song yearning tempered with hope. When she reaches the chorus, a call to return home, Anna joins in.
Her pure, smooth alto slips in under the high notes and wraps around them. Lesya stops singing and turns to her mother standingat the edge of the garden dressed in her nightgown, her hair bedraggled, her eyes fixed on the sky, singing as if hearing an entire choir, unaware that life around her has stopped. The last note sustains and flies into the wind. In the silence, not even a bird answers.
“Anna,” Maria says softly. Anna looks to her sister-in-law, suddenly aware of the staring eyes, her soiled nightgown hanging loose around her body, her bare feet rooted to the ground.
“Come help me plant.” Maria slowly rises and approaches her as she would a frightened animal. “I’m planting peas.” She reaches into her apron pocket and extracts a handful of seeds, takes Anna’s hand, and pours them into her open palm. They stand there a moment, searching each other’s eyes.
Lesya and Petro eat lunch and supper at their aunt’s house, even though they can barely all fit into what used to be the storage shed; it feels more like a house than their own. Crammed around the table, elbows and knees touching, laughing at Sofia’s performances and Ivan’s knock-knock jokes, it feels like a family. They bathe with their cousins and sometimes Maria washes their clothes. They listen attentively to her stories from the old country. Sometimes while they work, Maria asks Lesya to sing. She starts shyly, the notes growing stronger, lifting skyward as she forgets her audience and sings for the dirt, the sun, the spider, and the curious magpie. At the end of each song, Maria thanks her. Diakuiu, she says in the same low voice that she says Amin’.
After lunch and supper, Lesya carries covert offerings of food from Maria to Anna. Her mother is still in bed in the middle of the day, staring at the wall. Lesya can hear the murmur of life seeping through the wall from the other side. She clears a space on the table, gathers up yesterday’s dirty dishes to take back to Maria, swats away the flies, sets the plate of food on the table, and covers it with a clean cloth. Then just as quietly as she entered, she leaves, hoping her mother won’t ask her to stay.
Anna wants to starve, but the longer she resists the food, the stronger the urge to eat grows. She finds herself seated in front of the plate. Her fingers inching toward the cold pyrohy, she tears off a mouse-sized piece and nibbles reluctantly. Then her hands grab the food, ignoring the utensils, and she stuffs it into her mouth, gorging down the last crumb. As if waking, she tries to understand where the food has gone, punching herself in the stomach, before crawling back into bed.
In bed, she tries to imagine being dead. Would it feel any different than being alive? Could she still see? Would she know who she was, would she remember anything, would she be free? She has held a knife to her wrist. But she couldn’t. She can’t. That’s when the coyotes first started to cry for her. They cried all through the night, and they’ve come back every night since. She tells them everything and they howl her pain. She wants to grow teeth and run wild.
Lesya’s singing wakes her. The sound is all around her, floating from the rafters, spilling through the chinks in the wall. Anna recognizes the fall and rise of the notes. It is a sad song. She follows its sweet sorrow outside, around the corner of the shack, to the garden.
Dania, Sofia, and Katya are watering the rows. Petro and Ivan are raising a panel of fencing. Maria is on her knees, squirreling away seeds. Lesya sits cross-legged beside her aunt, passing her the seeds and singing about another land, a lost love, and a woman left behind. Lesya’s soprano gives the song yearning tempered with hope. When she reaches the chorus, a call to return home, Anna joins in.
Her pure, smooth alto slips in under the high notes and wraps around them. Lesya stops singing and turns to her mother standingat the edge of the garden dressed in her nightgown, her hair bedraggled, her eyes fixed on the sky, singing as if hearing an entire choir, unaware that life around her has stopped. The last note sustains and flies into the wind. In the silence, not even a bird answers.
“Anna,” Maria says softly. Anna looks to her sister-in-law, suddenly aware of the staring eyes, her soiled nightgown hanging loose around her body, her bare feet rooted to the ground.
“Come help me plant.” Maria slowly rises and approaches her as she would a frightened animal. “I’m planting peas.” She reaches into her apron pocket and extracts a handful of seeds, takes Anna’s hand, and pours them into her open palm. They stand there a moment, searching each other’s eyes.
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