Shandi Mitchell

by Under This Unbroken Sky (v5)

  Anna remains standing at the table, her fingernails digging into the wood, until Teodor is well past the stone wall.

  Then she tells Lesya her water has broken.

  IT IS FADING to night and it is only five in the afternoon. The wind has quelled to a low whisper. Water boils on the stove. The kerosene light flickers. Lesya dampens her mother’s dry lips with a wet cloth. Anna is propped up in bed in a semi-sitting position, her knees bent, her thighs open. The contractions have been increasing steadily over the last twenty minutes. They are now no more than three or four minutes apart.

  Lesya pleads again: “Let me get help. Let me get Aunt Maria.” Her hand pressed on her mother’s belly, she can feel that the baby has dropped low. “I won’t know what to do if something goes wrong. Please, Mama.”

  Anna squeezes her daughter’s hand as another contraction swells. “No,” she blurts as her body writhes in pain. She pushes down on the bed, trying to get away from the spasm splitting her apart; her moan gives way to a scream. Petro covers his ears.

  At first, he thinks it is a coyote howling. He wakes bathed in sweat, pinned under the weight of two quilts. He wrestles himself free, dazed by the darkness. It takes him a moment to realize that he is back in his own bed. He doesn’t know if it is early night or deep morning. He doesn’t know if he has dreamed the wind and his father leaving. He doesn’t know if he is dreaming still.

  He is naked, except for his mittens. He is holding two smooth stones. He wonders if the heart has split in two, but then he sees the heart stone on the floor. His father’s coat isn’t on the coat hook, and the flask is gone. Lesya looks at him as she runs to the stove for more hot water and he can see a bruise on her cheek. “There’s stew on the stove.” Then Petro knows he is awake, because his stomach growls.

  He pulls on his long underwear and new socks that are bathed in the heat of the stove. He climbs down from bed and picks up the heart stone. Ice cold. Clutching it in his hand, he wanders to the roaring fire and looks inside the bubbling pot. The steaming smell of potatoes, onions, and salted beef obliterates any sounds his mother is making. He fills a bowl half full and carries it to the table. The broth slops at the sides. He sets down the stone, picks up a spoon, and shovels it in. Cramming his cheeks full, slurping it back, barely chewing. He burns his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He licks the bowl clean and wants more.

  The next bowl he fills to the brim. He gorges until his belly grows round and soft. He watches his mother’s face contort and twist, her mouth stretched wide. The muscles in her thighs shudder from the strain. He fetches the pot and scrapes it clean. He forces down the spoonfuls even though he is no longer hungry. He focuses on the sound of metal on metal, scratching away his mama’s sobs.

  He licks the spoon clean as she screams again. The pot is empty. Petro crawls back in bed and covers himself with the quilts. He peers through a tented peephole.

  “Can you see it?” Anna pants, her face glistening with sweat. Her pelvis hinging apart.

  Lesya has seen cows give birth, and cats. She saw her own brother spill out onto the dirt. She’s never been queasy at the sight of blood. In a crisis, that’s when Lesya is the calmest. Everything empties out of her. Her heart slows, her breathing shallows, her voice becomes flat and reassuring in its neutrality. Her eyes betray nothing. Her hands don’t shake. Her body becomes a vessel for the wounded. Give me your fear.

  Lesya looks between her mother’s legs. The skin is pulled open wide, the top of a dome pushes against the crowning flesh like a perfect egg. She wipes away the mucus and blood. A raw yolk.

  “I see it.” And then she realizes that soon she will have to catch the baby, bring it safely into this world, and that seems too much to expect from a ten-year-old girl.

  “I see its head.” She sees her mother’s back muscle twitch. “Breathe now, Mama. Breathe. Here it comes.” The contraction hits.

  “Now push.” Anna strains with all her might. “Push.” A wave of pain slams into her. She is being cleaved in two. The head crests, the contraction subsides. Anna falls back.

  “You’re doing good, Mama. It’s almost here. Just a little bit more.” Anna’s body stiffens. “Don’t push yet. It’s coming. It’s coming.” Anna clings to her daughter’s voice. “Now.” The tide rips her away again.

  “There’s the shoulders.” Lesya cradles the head. She sees a fluff of wet, brown hair, small pink ears. She holds its shape in her hands, a perfect egg without the shell. “You’re almost done, Mama.”

  Anna’s eyes roll back in her head. White light explodes in the back of her mind. Her body disappears, electric. The baby’s torso drops into Lesya’s hands. Its soft head and loose neck flop back. Lesya grabs to support it with one hand, as the other grapples the slippery body sliding through her fingers.

  “Now, Mama, now you have to push!” She can feel the baby’s heart pounding against her hand through its thin, translucent skin. It flutters like a baby sparrow. Its arms are out, tiny fingers. She’s never seen a baby so small; it fits in her two hands. It weighs nothing at all. The skin is blue tinged. The baby is still.

  “Now, Mama, push!” The legs slip out. Two perfect legs and two perfect feet. Straight and perfect. The baby slides into her hands. “It’s a girl!”

  She rolls it over; it lies limp in her hands. Its eyes closed. Its lips blue. She wipes the mucus from its face, unplugs its nose. It’s going to die like the bird. She taps it on the back, massages its tiny ribs. She slaps it harder. Wake up! The baby chokes and coughs. A gasping inhale. Her lungs fill. Her skin flushes pink. Her mouth gulps, her face turns red, she exhales a squawking bawl.

  Lesya wipes her baby sister clean and swaddles her in a clean blanket, leaving her perfect feet protruding. She bundles her in the rabbit-fur blanket. She’s as small as a mouse, but as loud as a crow. “It’s a girl, Mama.”

  “I don’t want to see it.” Anna presses her eyes shut tight.

  “You have to hold her, Mama.” She pushes aside her mother’s protesting hands. She lays the baby on her mother’s chest.

  “Look at her, Mama.”

  The baby squeals and fights its restraints.

  “There’s nothing wrong with this one, Mama.” She guides Anna’s hand to the baby’s head, leads her fingers over the face, down the chest wrapped in soft rabbit fur, to the exposed legs, then she lets go. She watches her mother’s fingers hesitantly brush the skin, glide down the shins, barely touching, to the ankles, over the feet. Her hand embraces the toes.

  Anna opens her eyes. The baby’s face is scrunched up in protest, her eyes squeezed tight. She is so tiny. Yet she is fierce. Her mouth gulps silent wails. Anna is overwhelmed by a flood of familiarity, as if she has known this child forever. She knows her face, her smell. She knows everything about her. She is her. Anna’s skin is splitting open, her heart cracking. She feels all people, all suffering, all hope, all loss, all rapture. She has never felt such exquisite pain. The baby is crying and she can taste the salt.

  Her mother’s face is radiant, almost beautiful, her hand cradling tiny feet. Lesya stands by, wondering when she should cut the umbilical cord.

  Neither notices that Petro has gone outside. He is at the back of the house, rubbing his chest and arms with snow, numbing himself inside out, trying to get back to the place of whiteness—where he wasn’t afraid.

  ANNA AND THE BABY are asleep. Lesya has washed the linens, burned the bloody rags and afterbirth, tended the fire, and has just finished tearing a sheet into diapers. She checks the baby again. The only crib she could find was a soapbox, MRS. LEIDERMANN’S BLUEING SOLUTION. The baby is so small, she takes up half the length of the box and is lost in the folds of the rabbit-fur blanket. Her breathing seems shallow and congested, but she suckled ferociously before sobbing herself to sleep with her lips and tongue smacking for more. Lesya pulls the soft fur up under the baby’s chin.

  Petro is asleep too. He wouldn’t tell her where he went and Lesya didn’t push. She didn’t want to know.
They stood over the box together, looking in at the sleeping newborn. Lesya slid her little finger into the baby’s hand. The baby gripped it tight, pulling it toward her mouth. Lesya pulled her hand away, not yet ready to give herself.

  Petro didn’t touch the baby. He didn’t see a baby. He saw a blind, bald, wrinkled, tail-less mouse gasping for air. “It’s not going to live.” He didn’t say it to be cruel. It was just something he knew deep down inside himself; not to get attached. Lesya didn’t contradict him. He wasn’t sure if she had even heard him. She didn’t speak to him at all. Even when he crawled back in bed, his muscles heavy with fatigue, his eyes already shutting—and called her name, she didn’t come. He fell asleep clutching the heart stone for comfort, willing his tato to come home.

  It’s not that Lesya didn’t hear her brother, or that she is angry, she just can’t summon up the energy to care. She watches herself tidy up the house, plan tomorrow’s meal, and assess what supplies need to be restocked. She watches her hands perform the tasks, efficient and assured, and is surprised by how small they are: a child’s hands. Someone else’s hands. She can’t feel herself at all.

  She puts on her coat and boots. Her twisted foot aches as she pulls the leather over her ankle. Lesya wrenches the boot on hard, jamming the deformed limb into the straight, rigid shape. She pulls her mittens on and limps outside to do her chores.

  The night is blue and still. Drifts cling to the house, a new landscape sketched by the wind. The tops of the fence posts peek from shallow hollows. Barbed wire holds back walls of sheered snow. As she drags her foot over the uneven terrain, her thigh begins to quiver. It shudders down to her knee, gaining strength as it tremors into her foot. She stops and places her hand on her knee to quell the shake. As soon as she touches the leg, it quiets. Lesya steps forward and the quivering starts again, surging upward from her toes, rippling under her skin, flushing her heart with panic. She breathes deep, trying to remain calm.

  Stop it, she orders. She steps down hard on her twisted foot, and a jab of pain mixes with the vibrating nerves. She runs to the coop, pulls aside the log pole, and ducks inside. She is greeted by the sweet smell of hay and feathers, tainted by the pungent stench of shit. Her foot rustles the straw. She crouches down, wraps her arms around her legs, but then the rest of her body begins to tremble.

  The hens look at her quizzically, unaccustomed to night visits. Only Happiness bobs and coos, overjoyed by Lesya’s surprise arrival. Its feet high-step, up and down, it bows its head and lifts its wings, dancing to music only it can hear. It is roosting in one of the other hen’s nests. The displaced brood hen is perched nearby, clucking its indignation.

  “What are you doing up there? Get down.” She swats Happiness off the nest. It jumps to the ground in a tornado of wings. It tries to hop on her. Lesya kicks it off. “No.”

  She wants to get the eggs and get out of there. She is so tired. She reaches into the nest; her fingers ooze into a thick, hot slime. Both eggs are broken. Happiness jumps up on the roost balancing on one foot, the other twisted backward. It softly pecks at Lesya’s hand.

  “Look what you’ve done.” The bird cocks its head at the finger waving in front of its beak. “Bad bird. Bad!”

  Lesya scoops out the mire of yolk, shell, and straw and throws it on the floor. Happiness steps into the clean nest. Lesya shoves it aside.

  “This isn’t your nest. These aren’t your eggs.” Happiness rubs its head against her arm and tries to worm its way back onto the roost.

  “No! You think this is funny? You think it’s funny if we starve?” The bird rubs against Lesya’s arm. “You think this is a game? You do nothing. You get fed, get taken care of …”

  The chicken lifts its lame foot to Lesya, an offering. She grabs its claw, the bird tries to pull away, but Lesya holds on tight. “Look how fat you are, eating all their food, stealing their eggs—you’re supposed to make your own eggs! You’re not even any good to breed. Look at you.” She holds its foot up. “Look how ugly you are. Useless.”

  The bird squawks, frightened by her intensity and her grip on its bad leg. Its wings flap in distress, its coos alarm into squawks.

  “You think I’m always going to take care of you?” She shakes the bird, her own leg jittering uncontrollably. “That you’re always going to be safe?” The bird pecks her hand, drawing blood. “You think you’d survive out there alone?”

  She wrenches the bird upside down, gripping it by its crippled leg. She carries it outside. “This is what it’s like out here.” She swings it through the darkness. The bird flails and claws her arm; beats her with its wings. “There’s nowhere to hide. Nothing to protect you!” The bird cackles hysterically, its neck and head dangling inches from the ground.

  Lesya marches to the woodpile. “You have a job.” Her entire body quakes. “You have a duty.” She grabs the axe. “You don’t get to live for free.” She holds the screeching hen down on the block and swings.

  The headless bird teeters around in circles, falling onto its side, its wings flapping, its body tripping over its crooked foot.

  Anna wakes to a small whimper. Lesya and Petro are fast asleep. A fire blazes in the stove. She hears the sound again. A soft cooing, like the wings of a bird trapped in the rafters. She looks around the room, sees the soapbox on the floor beside her bed. A nest. She wonders if Lesya has brought her chickens inside. She peers into the box and sees a rabbit squirming.

  “Are you hurt?” Anna strokes its fur. Soft, white down.

  “Poor little thing.” The rabbit calms to her touch.

  “Don’t be afraid.” She picks it up. Cradles it in her arms. “Are you lost?” The rabbit has a child’s face. Wide grey-blue eyes look up at her.

  “You shouldn’t have come here. It’s not safe.” The little mouth sucks. Anna offers her a finger and the lips nurse strong and hard.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks the rabbit-child. She opens the front of her blouse and lets the creature suckle her nipple. She looks at its feet. Its paws are hairless, the skin soft.

  “How will you survive?” she asks the strange, magical creature. And she knows that something this beautiful cannot survive.

  Its tiny fingers knead her breast. Anna pulls the fur skin over the top of its head. The baby squirms and mews.

  “Shhh,” Anna coos. “I’ll take you home.”

  MARIA STARES out the window into the night. She can’t sleep again and this time it isn’t the baby. The baby is quiet. She rocks slightly on the stiff-backed chair, massaging her stomach. Someday, she’ll ask Teodor to build her a real rocker, so she can pull it outside on the stoop when the long summer nights return. She’ll sit with her baby draped over her shoulder, pressed against her chest. Heart on heart. Rocking in rhythm with the frogs and crickets.

  The chair creaks and Maria looks over her shoulder to see if she has woken Teodor. He doesn’t stir. He returned home exhausted. Silent. He ate, rolled a cigarette, and crawled into bed, not even bothering to get undressed. When she prodded him as to where he’d been, he didn’t answer. He told her: Tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. He was asleep before the children.

  Ever since this morning, she has had a bad feeling. It began when she saw two crows facing the house, their feathers ruffling in the gusts. They stood there so long she thought their feet had frozen to the ground, and when she opened the door they didn’t fly away. They stared at her with black, glassy eyes. Not until Myron clapped his hands did they slowly lift and glide away, swooped up by the wind.

  Then Teodor didn’t come home. She tried to convince herself that he was waiting for the storm to blow out, or perhaps he and Anna were finally talking. When she knelt to pray for his safe return, a surging gust shook the house and the picture of the Virgin Mary knocked against the wall, decrying its sacrilegious use. When Teodor finally emerged from the windswept land, she didn’t feel relief. If anything, her fear increased. Maybe it was just the storm setting her on edge.

  Maria shivers, even
though the fire is still burning strong. Her fingers worry against her wooden cross. And there weren’t any rabbits today either. Myron checked this morning and at dusk. There haven’t been any rabbits all week; perhaps the coyotes have driven them away. She’ll have to start rationing the food better. It’s been difficult to estimate how much they need to conserve to allow for Anna’s needs. She worries that she hasn’t been sending enough to her sister-in-law. She worries that she’s been overcompensating and sending too much.

  The bacon is already gone. They’ve used a pound of sausage and two pounds of roast. There’s only enough flour to make three more batches of pyrohy, and there’s three months of winter left. Self-pity wells in her throat; Maria prays it away, attributes her rawness to her pregnancy.

  Anna’s baby is due in two weeks. She’s had no word from her. If something happens to the baby, she’ll blame herself. She should have gone to Anna, disobeyed Teodor’s decree. She needs someone with her. It’s his brother-in-law that Teodor’s at war with. Wars are always with men. The men fight and the women mourn. Tomorrow, she’s going to see Anna and end this war. They’ll talk as mothers, daughters, sisters. They’ll make peace for their families. This land is too big to be alone in.

  It is well after midnight, the day is over, but still the bad feeling nags her. Everyone is asleep. They have food for tomorrow. The fire is burning. They have a house and a barn, and come next summer, she’ll buy more chickens and hopefully a pig. She’ll put the garden out front, facing south, so she can see it from her window. She’ll get the boys to put up a fence to keep out the rabbits and deer … and the pig. She’ll sit in her rocker and watch it grow. There will be a new child. Teodor will break another six acres, maybe eight, and with the harvest money they’ll get a wagon and another horse. Next year everyone will have a new coat.