Cold Determination

by Jennifer Lyons

  Rosie coughed all day the next morning, and Peter was angry with her. Mama would not allow the front door open with Rosie sick, denying us our freedom. Instead, we sat inside listening to our friends shout and laugh. It was terribly lonely, and Peter said he didn’t feel like dancing. Rosie’s cheeks were red and her nose runny. I helped Mama keep her face clean, but I could tell Rosie didn’t like it. She would turn her head this way and that way more often, making more of a mess than getting clean. She coughed and coughed.

  Peter and I were no longer so tired at night, and Rosie coughed all the time. We couldn’t sleep and we sat up with Mama as she comforted Rosie. The next day, our Aunt Anya came to help. I never liked her. She was loud, bossy, and nothing like our own soft mama even though they were sisters. Her hair was dark and there was a lot of it. Her eyes were big and slightly bulged. She hardly looked like an angel and she wasn’t soft. Mama was always happy to see her and told Peter and I to be good. This time, she came with something for Rosie’s cough, so I forgave her a little for being so loud.

  Rosie cried and cried that day. Her cheeks grew redder and her eyes glassed over with fever. She slept, but we could all hear a rumble in her lungs. Mama was scared, I could tell, like she had been the night we heard the wolves. Her lips were tight, and she hardly put Rosie down at all. When Papa came home, the sauerkraut was still cold, but he didn’t even complain; his lips were tight too.

  Peter tried dancing that night for Rosie. He told her he was sorry he stopped and sorry he was mad at her for being sick. Rosie didn’t see, and I didn’t laugh. Nothing, not even Peter’s dancing, was funny that night. Nothing was funny the next day either as Rosie mostly slept, oblivious to Mama holding her or Peter and I whispering over her head. Four more days passed that way, and Mama didn’t even notice when Peter and I went out of doors.

  Our house was so quiet, and even our Aunt Anya was quiet when she came over the next morning. She held our mama as Mama cried into her shoulder. Peter and I were afraid—there were no wolves, but we knew something bad was happening to our Rosie. I had a terrible pinching feeling deep in my stomach. She hadn’t woken for four days and her breathing was so quiet, we had to hold our hands to her mouth to feel it. She even stopped the incessant coughing. I saw Aunt Anya wipe her eyes when Mama lay down next to Rosie.

  And that was all. Rosie was bundled up and taken away the next day. She didn’t look like a potato now. She looked like our Rosie, and I was frightened. Mama could hardly talk and even Papa had tears on his cheeks. Aunt Anya stayed and stayed.

  After that, we went to a cold place that I didn’t like it. It was lonely, windy, and sad. I noticed a box near us, resting on the ground near a deep hole. A man stood off a bit and was holding a shovel. Mama went to the box. She laid over that box and wailed like I had never heard before. Aunt Anya and Papa had to force her to move. The priest was there; he was talking and talking but I didn’t listen. He called Peter and I over to and told us to say goodbye. That was when I realized our Rosie, our potato baby, was in that box. There was no blanket, no warm clothes, and she had no shoes.

  I severely objected, “It was too cold for her! Papa! Mama always keeps her warm!” No one said anything at all to me; I had that pinching feeling in my stomach. Peter was wiping tears off his face and he took my hand in his.

  The priest said something we couldn’t hear over the wind; and they took the little box a bit further from us. My heart was in my throat and my stomach was pinching so much, I was afraid I might be sick. I wanted to yell and ask where our Rosie was going but I couldn’t even talk. Mama was just wailing and wailing. Papa was holding her, and Aunt Anya was stroking her hair. No one was stopping them from taking Rosie. Then, that little box was lowered into the ground.

  I hated them all for this. They left Rosie in the cold—they left her with no blankets and no warmth. Rosie, our soft potato baby, was too little to climb out from that deep, dark hole. I hated it and I feared it. I never wanted to end up cold in the ground and left behind in the cold.

  Papa

  After Rosie’s funeral, life was different. Peter and I played quietly, and Mama did everything slowly without talking very often. My papa, who had always been loud and boisterous, was quieter.

  I admired my papa more than anything. His entire being filled our house. He was loud, he was handsome, he was everything a papa should be. Hard work and hard living never diminished his dreams and his bigger than life character. After Rosie died, a shadow fell over our home and even over Papa. He was quieter, and I suspected it was for our mama.

  “Kiedy’s, my Katarzyna, I will make enough to give you what you deserve. You are my beautiful aniol sent from heaven,” he spoke softly to our mother, treating her as if she were made of glass.

  He was a miner and looked the part with his broad shoulders. He loved the mountains and fresh air on his face. It was only when I was much older, I realized the great sacrifice he made to chase his dreams. His days were spent beneath ground, with no wind in his face and no trees. It was dark, confined, and dangerous. I never heard him complain.

  Instead, he entertained our family with stories of his youth. He too had grown up in the mountains and loved fishing. I thought him invincible. He could fix things and pick my brother and me up at the same time. He could make our mama smile even on the coldest, darkest nights. We all believed him, everyone believed him, when he promised us a good future. We dreamed alongside him. His desires and dreams were infectious like a fungus; once they took hold, we never got rid of them.

  That is why Mama followed him, leaving most of her family behind. She never complained about our small house or the cold winters. She simply tidied up our small house every day and cooked our simple meals as if she were preparing for a king’s homecoming. Mama and Papa never placed any demands on each other but they lived for the other. They lived as if there was no doubt all their dreams would come true.

  Our house was a happy, safe place. Our family was not so unlike that of everyone else we knew. Everyone was poor in our town, hoping their hard work would pay off big. We never knew we were poor or how little we had because we were the same as everyone else; it was all I knew. Life was fine until Rosie died, until reality dug its cruel claws deep into our home.

  Reality was a terrifying force and laid waste to those it found in its path. It brought cold and hunger. It stole hope. Sometimes, we saw it in one of our neighbors.

  Neighbors always shared on our street. We shared food and stories from home. Reality would visit a home, and then sharing was stopped. Those victims retreated inside their homes, inside themselves. Not long after, they would leave, and we would never hear from them again.

  Even after Rosie and the terrible reality of leaving our baby potato in the cold ground, my papa refused to give up. He refused to allow reality too strong a grip on our home. He worked harder than ever, and I noticed he held our mother more. No matter how hard he worked or how brightly he dreamed, we found that even Papa could not keep reality away forever.

  Not long after burying Rosie, we heard Papa coughing one night. He coughed deep, and it scared all of us.

  He coughed and gagged all night long. I could hear him. Peter was awake all night right alongside me, but we never spoke. We were too afraid. We heard Mama bustling around, arranging cold cloths on our papa’s face. She boiled the kettle and whispered all night. I am not sure how, but I knew this was bad. Mama couldn’t hide her fear; she prayed and begged our papa to “hold on” all through the night. Peter and I heard it all.

  When the sun came up, Peter and I left our bed. Tiptoeing to our parents’ bed, I grew afraid of a silence that hadn’t been present all night. Mama was no longer whispering her prayers and Papa was no longer coughing. Complete silence.

  A terrible sight befell our eyes. We knew he was dead. Death has a look. We watched Rosie lose her pinkness and slowly turn cold and blue. I could tell our papa was gone. He was cold and blue. His shirt was covered in the blood he had coughed up all night
. Mama was covered in his blood, too. It was splashed on her apron and through her hair. It was dried in specks on her face. There was blood on the blankets on their bed.

  Mama was awake. She sat looking at our papa. She didn’t notice us and didn’t seem to see all the blood. She just stared at him as if she was trying to remember him forever. His face was relaxed and unshaven. His eyes and mouth were horribly opened, unmoving and unblinking. His mouth was circled in blood and each nostril had dried blood over it. As Peter and I looked and looked, that horrible pinching feeling in my stomach stole over my body.

  Without Papa, what would happen to us? Where would we go? If Papa was not working in the mines, we could not keep this house. We would have to leave and go somewhere. Peter grasped my hand and whispered, “Mama?”

  The word seemed to wake her. She stretched her thin arms wide and we rushed in, all of us crying together. Mama’s thin body shook with her sobbing, there was nothing any of us could do. Papa—our worker, our storyteller, our dreamer—was lying dead in his own blood and would never be up again. Mama finally let us go. She reached over and gently closed Papa’s eyes with her thin fingers. She wiped all the blood from his face. Every few seconds, his left eye would open again. It refused to stay shut. I wished it would.

  She moved the blankets away from our papa and undressed him. I could tell what a hard time she had when she redressed him. When she finally got the shirt on him, she folded his arms across his chest. She closed the one eye again, but it still wouldn’t stay shut. Finally, she combed his curly hair.

  We watched, in silence, as she changed her own clothes and washed her own face. She never said anything to us the whole while she worked. Then, she left. There was no breakfast and no reminders to dress ourselves. Peter emptied the chamber pot, and I sat on our chair watching. Fear never left me, our new reality whispering in my ear.

  We were left with our dead father, but we were not afraid. We never went to the bedside but we also did not try to look away. Instead, we studied his death. We were quiet and hungry and hardly spoke to each other. We watched Papa with his one eye staring, without seeing, at the ceiling and waited for our mother to return.

  A knock at our door startled us both. Never had we been home alone when a visitor approached. We didn’t know what to do, so the pounding continued. Peter and I were very frightened of whomever knocked on our door. We hid beneath the table, hoping they would just go away. They finally did. As we crawled out of our hiding place, I checked on Papa. There were no changes there.

  Peter took the chair, and I climbed onto our bed. I was really getting hungry when the front door burst open. There stood our Aunt Anya. I had never been so happy to see her. She was loud, she was crying, bossing us around, and I loved her for it.

  She went to our father’s bed and prayed, too loudly, much louder than our mama had prayed. She tried to close his eye. It opened again. Then, she went to our stove and began heating water. She made us thick porridge, not quite as good as our mother’s and told us to sit and eat.

  “You can have all of it. I already had my breakfast, and your father doesn’t need it. Your mother is too busy to eat, so just eat, eat all of it. Death makes the living hungry.”

  She was right. Peter and I were hungry. It was hot porridge that seemed to feed more than only empty bellies. As we ate, the pinching feeling of reality left me a little. For a little while, all was well in our home. We were just eating in our own home with our aunt and papa. I didn’t know it was my last meal in our home or our last meal with Papa. Like most nearly five-year-old boys, I ate to eat and didn’t know much about anything else. When I finished, I checked on Papa. He was still there, his one eye opened.

  Aunt Anya was busy again. She was doing the dishes and folding our blankets. She opened our one suitcase on our bed. “Gather your things, all of them,” she told us firmly. We didn’t think to question her. We simply gathered our things. Each of us had the following each: one nightshirt, two pairs of socks, a pair of long underwear, a pair of regular underwear, an extra shirt, and an extra pair of short pants each. They all matched, but Peter’s were larger. She finished folding and was putting Mama’s few possessions into the case.

  All of a sudden, I realized what was happening and the pinching feeling came back deep in my stomach again. I could tell Peter understood as well—his eyes were furrowed and he was quiet. We handed her everything we could reach. The two pots, three bowls, two cups, and three spoons all went in. There was a knife and wooden spoon, a plate, a hot pad, and finally, the kettle. The kettle wouldn’t fit, so Aunt Anya asked me to carry it. As Peter and I finished, we looked around. I wished we could say goodbye to the boys next door, but Aunt Anya bundled us into our coats. She bundled our blankets into our arms, and we left. We didn’t even say goodbye to our papa, but I glanced back. He was there, unchanged, his one eye stuck open. Aunt Anya had taken his blanket. He looked cold and stiff. Reality was back with me, extending long fingers towards my soul. I was grateful for the cold air against my face as I followed Aunt Anya away from our home.

  It seemed like we walked forever. My arms soon ached with carrying my load. Aunt Anya was not unkind but she was in a hurry. She had her own family to look after and had been away long enough.

  We hurried after her, splashing through muddied streets, wondering where Mama was. The world hadn’t stopped like our papa had. The sky was blue and clear. Horses pulled their wagons. People went about their usual daily business. I saw a group of kids playing and I wished I was with them. I wished Papa was working in the mine.

  About halfway to Aunt Anya’s home, I noticed a large, white cat following us. Her fur was full and dirty. She had big blue eyes that reminded me of Rosie’s. One ear was scarred. Something had taken a bite out of it. Her tail stood up straight, but the end bent at a ninety-degree angle. The cat never left me the whole way to Aunt Anya’s.

  My arms felt as if they would fall off. I was sure my legs were going to crumble before we stopped walking. We finally reached our aunt’s house, legs and arms intact. It was nearly identical to ours. Inside here were two beds, a chair, a stove, and a table with a bench. There were even two children, though they were younger than Peter and I.

  We went inside. Aunt Anya piled our things into a corner and gathered all four of us children to her. “Your father has died. There is nothing for you here, so now, your mother has gone to look for work. You have no money. You cannot stay in that house. I cannot afford to feed you for long because, you see, we also have no money. I want to help but I can only do a little. Peter and Jurak, you will stay with us for a few days while Katarzyna looks for her work, then you will go with her.” She crossed herself while she told us this. Peter and I only nodded. We understood our new reality.

  Papa was dead. We were on our own.

  The Flop House

  After a few days, I realized it was not so nice to be at Aunt Anya’s house. Peter complained we were treated like babies. Plus, we had to share a bed with our cousins. They kicked all night. Aunt Anya looked at us and cried so often, I began to wonder if Peter and I were sick like Rosie and Papa. I didn’t feel sick and I never heard Peter cough, but that pinching feeling in my stomach was a constant companion.

  Every night, I dreamt of cold holes in the ground that were full of blank staring eyes. I wondered if Peter dreamt like me but I was too afraid and never asked him. I never told anyone about those dreams either. I never told how much they frightened me. I felt Aunt Anya was too busy, and there was no one else to tell.

  We stayed and stayed, never knowing where Mama was or how she was doing. Knowing where our papa was didn’t ease our fears. Aunt Anya did her best to make us feel better. She cooked a lot and bossed us around all day. We obeyed her every command. We washed our hands and behind our ears. We cleaned our plates. She loved us the best way she knew. She kept us safe and clean. I guessed she didn’t think to explain where Mama went.

  We lived in a mining camp nestled into the foothills of the Big Hor
n Mountains. The houses were all the same, neatly lined up in neat rows along straight but muddy roads. It was at once both minimal and overcrowded. Every type of person in the world seemed to reside in our little corner of the world. We heard Chinese, Irish, Scotch, Polish, German, and Russian daily. There was one general store that sold everything from fabric to dried goods. Everyone called it a camp but Papa had promised it would become a real town. I never thought we would leave; it had everything we ever wanted.

  Just south of the camp was a real wild-west boomtown called Sheridan, Wyoming. The trolley that connected all the camps initiated there. The main street was lined with luxurious shops selling the latest fashions seen in New York City. Humble general stores dotted the side streets. It was ten times bigger than any other town fifty miles in every direction. Horses and noise filled the streets. Peter and I loved the trolley car best of all.

  Our mama had gone to Sheridan in search of work. Despite having no education or savings, she found work in one of the four flophouses. We found out, much later, that Mama was hired on the spot for housekeeping. She had started immediately, and it was a good job. It gave her a small wage, plus room and board. It took her nearly a month to save enough to come collect Peter and me. We never heard from her during that entire time.

  When she finally appeared in Aunt Anya’s doorway, I was so happy to see her. That pinching in my stomach stopped pinching quite as hard with one hug. She was beautiful as ever even though she looked a little tired. Aunt Anya fussed around, taking up too much space. It was hard to get to Mama but finally, Mama pushed past Anya. She sat on one of the chairs. Peter wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and I was pulled into her lap. The three of us sat for a long while, happily holding on to one another. It was just us now. No Papa and no Rosie. Just us three, alone, unwanted by the rest of the world.