Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

She wishes that he had never come back. That Teodor and Maria were right next door. That her cousins were calling her to come out and play. That it is summer and she is working in the garden, the taste of a sun-warmed pea in her mouth, Happiness perched on her foot, bobbing its head for a song, and she is completely unafraid. She hears his breathing, deep and shaky.

She stretches in her sleep, groans, and rolls over on her belly, wrapping herself tighter in the blanket. Her eyes clenched tight, her face to the wall. She forces herself to breathe, as if she is in a deep sleep. She thinks of Happiness, the smell of the chicken coop, the warmth of the straw. She puts herself back inside a hard white shell. Happiness is smothering her with her warmth. Her muffled heart echoes through the shell. It thumps, I’ll protect you .

She hears him step back, his breath catching in his throat. Choking for air. He bumps into the table. Stops. He breathes short, shallow breaths, like he is afraid. He stumbles to the other side of the room. She hears him pull his coat down from the hook. She hears the door crack open, then quickly shut. He is still inside. He is at the door. She hears him gulping for breath. Maybe he’s afraid to go outside because of the coyotes. Because of Kozma. Something thuds against the door. His hand? His head? He catches his breath. She hears him step forward.

Lesya braces herself. Her shell cracks. She tells herself, Don’t scream, don’t cry, don’t let him know you’re here.

She hears the clink of the tin flask, scraping across the table. He’s at the cupboards. She hears the tinkle of coins. Fifty-eight cents she earned selling vegetables. She hears the hollow clunk of the canister. Now he’s near the washstand, picking up something. Searching. He moves to the middle of the room and stops again. Mama is talking in her sleep. Don’t wake up , Lesya prays.

The bed groans under her mama’s weight. She must be rolling to the other side. Lesya can’t make out what she is saying. Go back to sleep , she wills her. Outside, Kozma wails. His howl is going to wake everyone. Petro stirs and curls his knees up to his chest. Is she standing? What is she doing? Go back to bed, Mama. Go back to playing dead.

Lesya has opened her eyes, but all she can see is the grain of the log and a crumbling chink of cracked mud and dry straw. Kozma rages, howls his anguish in one long wail. He doesn’t call again.

Lesya forces herself not to hold her breath. She listens for the smallest noise. She hears her mother’s breathing, the creak of her knees, and her settling heavily back onto the bed. She whimpers as if she is already asleep. Her breathing quiets, soft and regular. Lesya listens for her father. She hears him exhale. Hears one boot scuff the ground. He walks lightly to the door. The latch lifts, the hinge creaks open. Cold rushes in. The door shuts quietly. Lesya hears the squeak of his boots receding.

MAMA!

Maria bolts awake. The house is dark. She throws back the quilt, her feet hit the floor; Teodor grumbles in his sleep. She pauses, suddenly unsure whether she has dreamed her child’s voice.

Katya shrieks again, “Mama!” Followed immediately by Dania’s sharp “Hush.” And Sofia’s protesting groan. Teodor sits up, groggy but alert to danger.

“It’s Katya,” Maria reassures him, “she’s dreaming again.” Teodor falls heavily back to his pillow. Maria hurries to her daughter, whose sobs now threaten to wake the boys.

“Shhhhh,” Maria calms as she enters the room. Katya, her hair a tousled mess, her cheeks flushed, leaps out of the bed, pulling the covers off her sisters, and throws herself in her mother’s arms.

Sofia wrenches the quilt back up. “It’s cold!” she whines.

“Shhh, don’t wake your brothers.”

“I saw the coyote,” Katya whimpers. “It was at the foot of the bed.”

“There’s no coyote here.” Maria scans the room for Katya’s benefit. “See, just coats and dresses.” She sits on the bed and loosens Katya’s stranglehold around her neck. “The coyotes are all outside where they belong.”

Katya doesn’t believe her. “I saw it.” She looks around the dark room to see where it is hiding.

“I came right in,” Maria reassures. “I didn’t see anything.”

Katya has been having nightmares ever since Teodor couldn’t find that piece of paper. Usually she dreams of fires chasing her. It’s no wonder, how he scared them. Ranting like a madman, pulling jars off the shelves. He broke two jars of beets. He shouldn’t have left it on a shelf if it was so important.

“Maybe it’s under the bed?” Katya lifts her toes up higher.

“You crawl back in bed. I’ll check.” Katya hesitates, assessing the distance from her mother’s arms to her sisters. “Quick, like a bunny,” Maria taps her bottom. “Nothing will hurt you. I won’t let it,” she promises.

Katya scurries under the quilt’s safety, jostling Sofia, who shoves her back toward Dania. “It was here, I heard it.” Katya senses everyone’s disbelief.

“The coyotes were crying earlier, you must have heard them in your sleep,” Dania explains. Dania, who tried to help find the paper, only to have Teodor push her aside.

“I saw it,” Katya insists. “It was looking for something.”

Sofia grouches, “Too bad it didn’t take you.”

“It would’ve ate you first.” Katya elbows her. Sofia retaliates with a kick.

“That’s enough,” Maria commands. “All of you, back to sleep.”

“What about under the bed?” Katya reminds her.

Maria checks. “No coyote. Coyotes won’t come into our house, they have their own place to live.”

“Maybe this one doesn’t,” Katya considers, unwilling to believe that it was just a dream. She could smell the coyote. She heard it panting.

“Don’t you remember the story about the mitten?” Katya shakes her head no. She doesn’t want Mama to leave just yet.

Maria plays into her game. “One story and then to sleep.” Sofia quickly makes room for her mother, an automatic response from when she was little. She knows she’s too old for these stories, but she still feels a tingle of excitement.

Maria snuggles in next to Sofia, who inches over more to make room for her mother’s round belly. It’s been a long time since she’s crawled into bed with her children. They smell sweet, like freshbaked bread. When they were small, she used to love bedtimes—they would tumble around her, their limbs tangled, their bodies pressed against hers, willing to follow her voice into dreams. Ivan appears at the doorway.

“I heard them too,” he sheepishly explains, wanting permission to enter.

“Come.” Maria waves him in. He bounces onto the foot of the bed and squishes between Dania and Katya. It’s a wonder he’s not having nightmares too. Teodor slapped him across the face. What did it say? Ivan could barely stutter the words through the snot and tears . You gave money and it’s your land. And Teodor hugged him . That’s right, that’s right . Myron pulled Ivan away and stood between him and his father. She thought Myron was going to hit him. The girls tousle for space, clinging to one another so as not to fall off.

They all know this story; it has been passed down for hundreds of years all the way from Ukraïna. Mother to child. Dania memorizes her mother’s cadence, knowing that someday she too will be telling it.

“Once, a child was walking through the woods and he lost his mitten.” Sofia points an accusing finger at Ivan, who responds by touching his freezing toes to her shin.

Maria continues with her best folktale voice: “When along came a little mouse. It climbed into the mitten. The mitten was large and warm and soft. And the little mouse announced, ‘This is where I’m going to live.’ He’d just settled in when along came a frog, who asked, ‘Who lives in this mitten?’