Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

“Neither do I.”

Stefan nods regally, one gentleman to another, and stands to leave.

Anna panics as the familiar sense of him leaving rears in her stomach. “Whatever you say to me, you say to him. He’s my husband.”

“It’s okay.” Stefan pats her on the behind. “I’ll go see how the boy’s doing. Maybe split some wood.” He takes the ax. “You wouldn’t have another cigarette?”

“No.”

Stefan hides his disappointment poorly.

“Can you send Ivan back in?”

Stefan suppresses a pang of servitude. “Of course.” He smiles graciously. “Ivan, your father wants you.” He leans on the door frame and smiles thinly. “Back home, I would think you were planning a rebellion.”

Teodor doesn’t blink. “I’m just talking to my sister.”

Ivan rushes in with twigs in hand. His cheeks glow, he smells of cold and snow and spruce. Stefan nods his best officer’s nod and shuts the door.

“Petro and I are having a contest, to see who can get the most wood fastest.” Ivan wipes his nose with his mittens. He has to get back or he’s going to lose again and he likes his hat.

“Come here,” Teodor orders abruptly. “You too,” he addresses Lesya. They gather around the table. “You two are witnesses.” Ivan doesn’t know what the word means but hopes it means he can leave soon.

“I want to settle between us.” Teodor retrieves the ten dollars from his pocket.

“You don’t have to do that now.”

“Yes, I do.” He unfolds each bill and lays it flat on the table. “I’m paying for the land tomorrow.” He counts it out. “Ten dollars. The full amount.”

Anna touches the flimsy paper. “It’s not due until the spring.”

“I need to pay now. I need us to settle.”

“Stefan should be here.” She’s worried that he’ll walk in and see the money. Last time there was money in the house, two dollars she had hidden in the flour tin, he took it and didn’t come home for three weeks.

“He’s got nothing to do with it. You took the claim out for me.”

Ivan shuffles through the bills. He’s never seen paper money before.

“Pay attention,” his father warns. The adults keep talking above his head. He can see the bag of candy from here. He thinks his favorite will be the white ones with the red stripes, like an apple.

“I need it in writing, that you received ten dollars from me to purchase this land. It’s my land, Anna.”

“I know it is.” She looks hard at her baby brother and wonders when he became so old.

He sets a pencil nub on the table and smooths out a piece of brown wrapping paper saved from the sausage. “Write it, so everybody knows.”

Anna picks up the pencil.

“Watch this,” he orders Ivan and Lesya. Anna scrawls the words in a cryptic, flowery script : Teodor Mykolayenko has payed me ten dollars for the land. She signs her name. Teodor picks up the paper.

“What does it say?” he asks Anna.

“It says it’s your land.”

He nods. He looks to Lesya. He knows she is listening.

“Did you hear that?” he asks Ivan.

“Yes, Tato.”

“What did she say?”

“She said it’s your land.”

“Why?”

“It’s on the paper.”

“Why?”

Ivan hesitates. It feels like a test, but he doesn’t know what will happen if he gets the answer wrong.

“Why?” Teodor asks gruffly.

“Because of the money.”

“So tell me why it’s my land.”

“Because you gave her money and the paper says so.” He looks to his father, hoping he’s done good.

“That’s right.”

Ivan grins. Teodor slaps him hard across the face. “Don’t ever forget this.”

ON THE WAY HOME, IVAN DOESN’T HOLD HIS FATHER’S hand. He lags ten feet behind. The sting of his handprint still on his cheek… he tries to forget about the land, the money, and the paper… but he can’t.

He wishes there was never any land. He wishes his father never came back. He wishes he still had his hat, so his ears wouldn’t be freezing right now. He wishes he hadn’t got the answer right.

STEFAN LAUGHS WHEN ANNA TELLS HIM WHAT SHE HAD to sign. He tells her that doesn’t mean a thing, the land is registered in her name and that’s all that will ever matter. He basks in the aroma of the roast and wishes he had a glass of whiskey to wash it down, and a big cigar. Anna fights waves of nausea from the smell of the cooking meat. When she tells him he didn’t give her the money, that he paid the office himself, Stefan hurls the tin cup across the room.

THE NEXT DAY, IT SNOWS LARGE, FLUFFY FLAKES. THEIR heavy wetness quilts the land a foot deep. To the children’s delight, Maria has kept them home. It is the perfect snow for making snowballs and snowmen. Katya and Ivan throw themselves into its softness, chase each other through the drifts. They let themselves fall backward to be caught by the earth. They stick their tongues out. The flurry of flakes misses their mouths, hits their cheeks, and clings to their eyelashes. They spread their arms and legs wide and fly. They roll away, leaving a chain of snow angels strung across the field. The snow falls so thick and straight, with not a breath of wind, that it curtains the prairies and they can’t see fifty feet ahead.

Teodor went to town early this morning, despite Maria’s protestations that he could lose his way. The snow would obliterate his prints, landmarks would be hidden, the road would be covered… he told her he would be back soon. He slipped his hand in his pocket to check again that the money was still there, and left.

Maria knits compulsively. She has finished one mitten and is already adding the red band to its mate. He should have been back by now. Another couple of hours and it will be dark, and no sign of the snow letting up. What if he’s not home by dinner? Is she supposed to wait until dark? If she waits until dark, how will they find him then?

Her anger mounts. She knits faster. She’ll have to go to Stefan. How is she supposed to wade through this snow four months pregnant? What if she falls? She could send Myron, but then she’s left waiting and wondering. They’ll need a search party. They’ll probably go to Josyp Petrenko’s and get his dog, try to retrace Teodor’s steps, so long as he hasn’t wandered too far off trail or went too far east and crossed one of the ponds. If he broke through the ice…

She drops a stitch. He doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions. What would happen to her and the children if he… she stops herself from thinking the word, afraid that she will conjure the reality.

He could have waited until next week to pay. He could have waited until the spring. He could have waited until next season, after the next crop. They could have used that money this year. Sometimes she wants to scream at him: Think of us! Forget your pride, forget being right. Being right sent you to jail. Being right forced us to leave everything we knew. Being right brought us here. Being right sends you out in the middle of a snowstorm and gets you lost and we find your body next spring in a gully or under a spruce tree curled up like you went to sleep!

She gasps, terrified that she might have just conjured a curse. She spits over her left shoulder three times. She clutches her cross and gets down on her knees. She prays with all her might that Teodor is a good man, a good husband, a good father, and that she’s the one who should be punished for her sinful thoughts. She prays to the Blessed Virgin to keep her family safe, she opens her heart so that God can see how much love she has inside her and not to listen to her momentary weakness. She prays to bring him home safe.

She stays on her knees, even though the baby in her belly digs against her ribs and presses against her bladder. She stays on her knees when Dania kneels beside her and prays that her mama will tell her what’s wrong. She stays on her knees when Sofia pulls on Lesya’s hand-me-down long underwear, with the bulging worn-out ankle, dons her winter coat with the burlap patches, and clomps outside in her cracked boots to sit in the snow, refusing to pray. She stays on her knees as a pot full of snow turns to water and boils on the stove. She is still on her knees when she hears Katya and Ivan screeching with delight and Teodor’s laugh as he hammers them with snowballs.