Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

And then along came Stefan. He was an officer, rumored to be a friend of the tsar. People feared him. He brought presents. Pears and oranges. Once, a silver mirror and hairbrush. Another time, a sapphire necklace. He brought her father vodka, and her mother silk. He was handsome in his uniform, all the girls said so. Anna didn’t know that Stefan’s job was to chase down traitors and punish them. She didn’t know that the silver mirror had come from a house where he had shot the owner in the head. She didn’t know that the sapphire necklace was torn from the neck of a girl not much older than herself. She only knew that when Stefan danced with her, everybody watched. And so they married.

She should have known when he passed out at his own wedding. She should have known when she wiped the vomit from his shirt. She should have known when he tried to kiss her, reeking of alcohol. By the time he threw her onto the bed and held her down, she did know. But by then it was too late.

Another war came, and this time Stefan was the traitor. He survived an assassination attempt, escaping with a bullet lodged in his thigh. He bought his way out of the country with the sapphire necklace. He sold all the spoils of his years in the service, except for the silver mirror and hairbrush. Anna refused to let them go. They were hers, the only things of beauty she still believed were given in love. Stefan loved her long chestnut hair that spiraled in curls to the small of her back. When they were courting, he would run his fingers through her tresses, brush the back of his hand against her cheek and neck, and breathe in its sweet lavender scent. The day after their wedding night, Stefan brushed her hair as he begged forgiveness. Tears streaming down his cheeks, he promised, promised as the brush twisted and pulled at her locks.

Stefan promised her that everything would be different in Canada. They would be treated with the respect and honor they deserved. They would be aristocracy. They would be rich. People would bow to them in the street.

Anna remembers her first night on the prairies. Stefan built a huge fire. He kept the pistol and rifle at his side. He said he was going to keep watch; she knew he was afraid. But Anna loved the darkness and the vastness. It made her feel like she belonged. Something woke her in the middle of the night. She looked to Stefan, who had fallen asleep wrapped tight in a blanket. Even his head was covered. Anna turned to the sound. Short, panting snorts. Feet padding back and forth. Then she saw the eyes, reflected yellow in the firelight.

A young coyote circled the edge of their fire. Head down, nose rising, sucking back their scent. Anna had never seen anything so beautiful, so wild. Slowly, she stood up. The animal retreated a few feet. Anna took another step away from the fire into the darkness. She spoke quietly in a singsong voice. She crouched down. The thin female, its tail between its legs, slouched warily toward her. Anna held out her hand. The animal sniffed the air.

Fingers outstretched, Anna sat still and quiet, her breathing even. She bowed her head and looked sideways into the animal’s eyes. The coyote nudged its nose forward, inches from her hand. Anna could feel its hot breath condensing into moisture in the cool night air. She inched her fingers closer. The animal’s lip curled, revealing an incisor. Anna stopped and lowered her head more. The coyote leaned forward and touched its cold nose to her warm fingers.

Off in the darkness, another coyote wailed. Startling the night, long and urgent. The female turned to its cry. A shot thundered and the female’s side ripped open. Another explosion, and the left side of its head erupted in blood and bone, spraying Anna’s face. She stumbled to her feet and saw Stefan running toward her screaming, but Anna couldn’t hear him. She could only hear the gun shot ricocheting in her head. She could only see the coyote’s body convulsing at her feet.

That was the first night.

There were other nights. Night was when Anna braided Lesya’s hair. Her baby girl had the same color hair as she did. The same blue eyes. Lesya was ten now. When Anna looked into Lesya’s eyes, she could almost see herself. But when she looked down at the child’s thin body, to the deformed foot, she knew the child was nothing like her.

It was night when Lesya was born. Anna had been in labor since the morning, with the midwife chattering unrelentingly through it all. Soothing her, encouraging her, admonishing her to be quiet. Stefan had left the cabin when Anna first started to scream. He didn’t return despite her pleas, even though she knew he was just on the other side of the door. When the baby slipped out, the midwife fell silent. She cut the umbilical cord, swaddled the newborn, and left her lying at the foot of the bed. The baby didn’t make a sound. The midwife took Anna’s hand, and Anna was sure that she was going to tell her that the baby was stillborn. But instead she cautiously said, Sometimes babies aren’t meant for this world. Sometimes it’s better to let them return to God. She said that she could help. The newborn began to wail, its tiny lungs exploding with air, and Anna knew it wanted to live.

As soon as Anna wrapped her arms around the baby, its perfect face relaxed—a beautiful baby girl. Stefan was ushered back in, looking contrite. Their baby. She knew that she could love her. Love him. They could start again.

Her heart nearly broke when the child wrapped her tiny hand around Anna’s finger. She unwrapped the sheet that was wound too tight around the child, freeing her fragile chest, the heart pounding visibly through the almost translucent skin. She freed the legs from the cloth binding and saw the left foot grotesquely twisted sideways, almost back onto itself. It looked blue, dead. Anna pushed the child away. The infant rolled over and lay splayed in the middle of the bed. Her deformed foot jutted out, pointing at Anna, accusingly.

Hysterical, Anna tried to get up from the bed; blood poured between her legs. Stefan and the midwife pushed her back down. She tried to beat them away. She bit their arms, clawed at their clothes. They tied her wrists and legs to the bed, forced her to drink Stefan’s bitter moonshine. Its heat seared her throat, as she choked on the salt of her own tears. She remembers Stefan stroking her forehead, his breath hot on her cheek, promising her everything would be all right.

When she woke, the baby was beside her, watching her. Not whimpering. Not crying to be fed. Just watching. She never gave her breast to that child. She milked herself like a cow and fed the baby like an orphaned calf. As Lesya got older, she followed her mother everywhere. Trailing a few feet behind. Watching, always watching her. Mimicking her mother’s movements. Sometimes Anna wondered if Lesya was mute too. But the child could talk. She just knew when to keep quiet.

One day, when Lesya was two, Anna was making pyrohy, and as she rolled the dough and cut out the circle shapes, she absently sang the songs she remembered her own mother singing back home. Songs of soldiers going off to war, peasants wooing young girls, hymns for good harvests, songs of mothers teaching their girls to be good wives. When Lesya started to sing, she followed her mother’s every note. That night, Anna let the child sit on her lap. She ran the silver brush through the girl’s tangled hair and braided it. Stefan came home in high spirits and danced for them. They laughed. That was when the night was good.

Then she had Petro. Stefan was away on one of his trips to town again. Business. A day here and a day there. Returning home with expensive gifts they couldn’t afford. Smelling of booze and faint, sweet soap. Anna was in the garden when her water broke. She took a few steps, and a contraction forced her to her knees. She tried to stand, but was driven down again. Lesya was only three. She stood watching her mother crawling on all fours, writhing and wailing in pain. Petro was born right there in the August dust. It was Lesya who cleared the dirt from her newborn brother’s mouth as Anna tried to crawl away, tethered to the umbilical cord.