Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

Petro stops him: “I’ll hold it.”

Ivan leans forward and bites.

They chew slowly. Matching bite for bite until the red is gone, and then the white, until all that is left are three seeds and a stem. It’s too awful to contemplate that it’s all gone. That they’ll never get it back. That they ate it and in doing so they destroyed it.

“We should plant them,” Ivan offers. Petro nods in agreement, knowing that if he speaks, he will cry.

“We need to plant facing south so it gets lots of sun.” Ivan clambers over the wall. “It has to be someplace we’ll remember.”

Petro follows him, mitts clasped together carrying the precious seeds.

“Here, where the two white rocks touch.”

Ivan gets down on his knees and scratches at the snow with his bare hands until his fingers claw the frozen ground. He finds a stick and gouges a shallow hole.

“Deeper,” Petro whispers.

Ivan scrapes the dirt with his fingernails. His hands flush red from the cold. His fingertips blanch white. The nerves scream cold. He shoves his hands under his armpits.

“Enough?”

Petro nods his approval and crouches over the hole. He opens his hands. The seeds cling to the woolen mittens. Ivan scrapes them free. Together they cover them with the frozen dirt and pack them in. They kick at the snow with their boots, tramping down the spot. They stand back and half expect a green shoot to pop out of the ground.

“How long?”

Ivan shrugs. “Maybe when you’re nine and I’m seven.” They ponder that eternity as their tongues search the inside of their mouths for one last taste.

“They should be watered,” Ivan says, like a seasoned farmer.

They look up from the wall that divides their properties. They’re just as far from the well as they are from the lake. They’ll need a bucket. If they go to the well, Lesya will catch them and they’ll have to share their secret. If they go to the lake, by the time they break through the ice and haul it back, they’ll be late for dinner; besides, they’re not allowed at the lake by themselves.

Ivan’s numb fingers fumble to unbutton his pants. “It’ll be hot. Apples like hot.”

Petro removes his newly acquired mittens and unfastens his trousers.

With careful aim they melt away the snow and imagine the seeds already sprouting.

TEODOR NOTICES THAT THE WOOD HASN’T BEEN SPLIT and the cow hasn’t been milked yet. Even the smoke coming from the chimney is weak and thin. He heads to the chicken coop, following his niece’s irregular boot prints, and pulls aside the NO-SAG-GATE palette propped against the entrance. Two squawking hens explode from their roosts. He squints into the darkness and sees Lesya jumping up, brushing straw from her dress. The lame hen flaps its wings, keeping balance on her boot.

“I was just getting the eggs,” she stammers.

Teodor glances at the bed of straw betraying her indentation. It reminds him of an oversized nest. “The cow needs milking.”

Embarrassed, Lesya grabs the two eggs left by the laying hens and rushes past him with a feather stuck in her hair.

Odd child, he thinks. The crippled bird stares at him accusingly. He makes a mental note to build a proper door for the coop. He heads to the shack to check the grain.

From under the house, the skittish black female cat slinks alongside. Two of her grown litter, a calico and a blond, rush ahead to the granary door.

As he passes the chopping block, he glances at the log waiting to be split. Small boot prints circle around. He shakes his head at the poor attempt. A boy doing a man’s job. He looks for the ax and sees the head four feet away. He digs it out of the snow and brushes the blade clean. The handle is severed at the neck.

He considers dragging Stefan’s lazy ass to the woodpile, but the son of a bitch would probably take it out on the boy later. He’s only been home for a day and already the cow isn’t milked, the wood’s not split, and the ax is broken. What’s it going to be like in a week? In a month? In the middle of February? He’s prepared to help his sister and her children, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to feed that poor excuse for a man. He pockets the ax head and adds another seventy-five cents to the things he needs to buy.

He finds the broken handle a few feet from the granary. He shakes the snow from the ragged end. A crack runs down its spine. Maybe if he wraps it with wire he can salvage it. The cats weave excitedly at his feet, mewing insistently. They rub against the door frame, with their backs arched, their tails high and eyes sharp. He boots them aside and unlatches the door.

In that first instant, in the dim light, he thinks the mound of wheat is moving. Then he sees the mice. Dozens of them. Their cheeks stuffed full, their pink tails dragging, their eyes alert—danger, danger. They run from the light. Their nails skitter across the wood, creating an avalanche of seed. They scurry under floorboards, race for corners, burrow into the hill of seed.

The cats spring, talons knifing the air. In the chaos, a small mouse careens blindly for the door. Teodor crushes it with one stomp. He wipes its smeared remains from his heel.

“WE HAVE TO GET THE GRAIN OUT.”

Myron pauses mid-strike with the ax high, a pile of split wood at his feet.

“Now!” Teodor barks. “Get the shovels and whatever bags you can find.”

He doesn’t stop to stomp the snow from his boots as he barges into the house, startling the women in the midst of dinner preparations.

Katya beams. “Look, Tato, I made a pyrih.” She holds up her lopsided creation.

“What’s wrong?” Maria’s heart tightens.

“We need blankets and sheets. We’re taking the grain in.”

“But it’s almost lunch.” She looks up from rolling her fiftieth pyrohy. Her hands are covered in flour; a pot of mashed potatoes and onions steams on the table. Dania, sweating over the stove, hesitates boiling the next batch.

“It’ll be dark before you get back,” but she is already moving toward the chest. “Pack some food for your father.”

Sofia gratefully pulls her hands out of the sticky dough glomming her fingers.

“And for Myron.” Teodor retrieves the newspaper, a hand-me-down from Josyp Petrenko, and searches the pages for last week’s market prices. He tears the column from the page and folds it into his pocket.

“Can I come?” Katya pipes up hopefully.

“No.” Maria slaps flour from her hands. “You have work to do.” She opens the chest and is repulsed by the rank, mildewy smell.

“Anything will do, I just need something to cover it.” He is already impatient to leave. Maria grabs a cotton sheet, gray with age and torn at the hems, and a faded wool blanket.

“Wait.” She hands him an extra sweater and two dry pairs of socks. He grumbles about having too much to carry. “Take them,” she says. The discussion is over.

THE HORSE NEIGHS, TOSSING ITS HEAD UP AND DOWN, as Myron harnesses him to the cart. “Not yet,” Myron soothes.

He has jury-rigged a harness by knotting together braided binder twine to the remains of the leather hitches damaged in the fire. Despite having dried, rubbed, and oiled the tack, the leather has shrunk and hardened. All the hours that he spent caring for it have been lost. He consoles himself that soon they’ll buy a new harness.

“Next time we go to town, you’ll be the finest-dressed horse they’ve ever seen.” Myron rubs its forelock. The horse whinnies appreciatively.

“Myron!”

“Coming!” He grabs the halter and leads the horse out of the barn. The cart shimmies and groans as the wheels plow through the snow.

“Back him up.” Teodor guides them to within inches of the shack’s narrow door.