“She’s fine.” Helena immediately recognized the lack of truth in her response. “Fine” would have meant Mama recognizing her own daughter or chewing a mouthful of bread. Helena didn’t like to lie.
But Ruth tended to view the world as she wanted to see it. “When Mama comes back...” she would often say. At first Helena had wanted to correct her—how could she possibly believe that would ever happen? Denial was Ruth’s means of survival, though, and there was no harm in pretending as long as she didn’t rely on it. So Helena sometimes spared her from the worst.
“Me!” Karolina squawked, grabbing the spoon. As the child tried to feed herself, Helena considered telling Ruth about the soldier she had found. Ruth was better with salves and bandages and such, and she might have some other ways they could help the man. But something stopped her.
“Her doctor wasn’t there last time and I wanted to ask him about her medicine,” Helena added instead, stretching the story. She had never gone to see Mama more than once a week before. Surely Ruth would see through the lie. But Ruth just yanked the skirt over Dorie’s head, then sat the child in the chair to braid her hair, which had more than a hint of red to it, without reaction.
Helena took the spoon back from Karolina and scraped a last spoonful of cereal for her. “Drink your milk,” she said, more sternly than she intended. Waste could not be tolerated, even by the children.
“Mook,” Karolina offered. She had been a quiet baby for so long they had fretted something might be wrong, a deficit caused perhaps by the trauma of her parents’ disappearance. But she had begun speaking a few months earlier, gathering new words each day and trying them on for size. She took a sip from her cup, then smiled brightly, searching her sister’s face for praise. She was, like Ruth, too dependent on the approval of others—approval that seldom came anymore for any of them.
Helena looked across the crude wooden table at Michal, who had finished eating and now rested his chin on his hands, staring into the space. None of the children played during meals as she and Ruth had in happier times, giggling and whispering until their parents would scold them. Rather, they sat and ate gravely, as though they realized the scarcity of food and were unwilling to take it for granted.
The wind blew more strongly today than it had in months, howling around the house like a wolf looking for an entry point. Helena’s thoughts shifted to the soldier, alone in the cold, damp chapel. She had helped him without thinking, the same instinct that had prompted her to bring home a wounded squirrel she’d found as a child. Though his ripped uniform had not born any markings, she suspected that he was American, or perhaps British. Her heart skipped as she remembered the bit of pale flesh that she had glimpsed through the fabric. Enough, she admonished herself. This was not a schoolgirl’s crush, like Ruth always seemed to have on various boys when they were younger—this was about the soldier’s survival. Was he in pain? Was he even still alive? Helena had wanted to get away sooner to check on him. But Karolina had come down with a brief, soaring fever the night she’d returned, and Ruth couldn’t handle the three children alone when one was sick.
What if she didn’t go back to the chapel? She had brought the soldier to safety, and surely that was as much as anyone could expect from her. Anything else would put their family in danger. But he was already dependent on her, and without her help he would die of cold or starvation or something worse.
Across the table, Michal’s hazel eyes met hers. He had been born with wisdom beyond his years and had never gone through a childish phase. Though she did not believe in such things, it sometimes seemed as though he was an old soul who had seen all of this a thousand times before, and his understanding of the world made him somber. The day she’d almost taken the leaving path, Michal had peered at her deeply when she returned, as if aware of her near-transgression. He was staring at Helena now in a way that made her wonder if he had read her mind and knew about the soldier at the church. But of course, that was impossible.
She reached across the table and put her hand on his. He looked up, surprised at her rare display of affection. Perhaps more so than the girls, it was Michal to whom she was closest and had tried to shield. It had not always been that way—at first, she’d hated him. “A boy,” Tata had announced the day Michal was born, his face beaming with pride. Then six, Helena looked at the tiny infant with a mix of resentment and love. He would grow into the son who would take her place as their father’s favorite. Over the years, she had fought to stay stronger and more useful, always a step ahead, even as Michal grew taller.
One morning when she was twelve, she’d awakened to a squawk of dismay as Tata pulled her six-year-old brother from his bed for his first hunting trip. Jealousy nagged at her—before Michal, it had been she who had accompanied Tata on his dark forays into the cold woods to set traps and shoot deer. Now he had his son. But Michal sat on the floor, skin white and eyes wide as their father tugged at his collar, trying to force him to his feet. Michal looked up at her imploringly. He had always loved animals, had all but stopped eating meat as a child once he’d realized where it came from. Tata loomed over him, unwilling to be dissuaded. “Come,” she said, helping Michal to dress. Tata did not object when she tagged along, holding her brother’s hand as they trudged wordlessly through the dark, still woods.
There was nothing to be caught that day. When they had returned home, Tata stomped into the barn and emerged holding a flailing chicken by the neck. “Kill it,” he instructed Michal, unwilling to be placated until the lesson was complete. The boy stood back, trembling. Several seconds passed. “Do it.” Tears streamed down Michal’s cheeks.
Helena stepped forward and grabbed the chicken from her father, snapping its neck beneath the warm feathers with one swift movement. Her eyes met Tata’s defiantly and for a moment she feared he was going to return to the barn to get another chicken, their last, for Michal to kill. But he had simply walked away. “Come,” she’d said again to her brother. Together they went to clean the bird, Helena gently but persistently showing him how to remove the feathers and separate the bones.
It was perhaps hardest on him now, Helena reflected as the memory cleared. Michal was old enough to remember faint glimpses of the happiness that had once been theirs, not like Dorie and Karolina, who didn’t know what they had missed. But he had been too young to understand why it had all gone away, leaving him alone in a house full of girls.
“Here.” Helena pushed the rest of her bread toward him, trying to ignore her stomach, which grumbled in protest. As she did, she noticed a stain on her sleeve left by spilled milk and cereal.
Michal hesitated, then devoured the bread in two bites, hardly bothering to chew. “May I be excused?”
“No,” said Ruth.
“Yes,” said Helena in near-unison, their voices clashing against each other. They looked at each other uneasily. It was a tacit understanding that, despite their differences, they would not disagree in front of the children. For all of the hard times, she could not recall her parents quarreling, at least not when they thought the children could hear, and she and Ruth had tried to maintain that unified front. But the sisters seemed to differ more of late, their opposition laid bare for the children to see.
“Yes,” Ruth relented quickly. “Check on the animals, will you?”
“Come on, Dorie,” Michal said, holding out his hand.
Dorie followed him, her gait stilted. Her right leg had grown more slowly and was now an inch shorter than her left, causing her to her limp. “It will even out,” Mama had predicted optimistically when Dorie had started walking and the problem first became apparent. But the difference had become more pronounced with time.
Last
