Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

IT IS ALMOST SUPPER WHEN MARIA RETURNS HOME. The family enters the house in the order that has become customary over the last three days. Maria gives the children a harsh signal to be quiet and they line up, smallest to biggest, to file into the shack, then move stealthily to their bed on the other side of the room. But this time, when she slowly pushes open the door, she sees a flickering oil lamp and smoke drifting from a cigarette burning low in a man’s hand. She sees a bare foot and cuffed pant and Teodor sitting at the table. He looks up and she sees the boy she married. He smiles. And she smiles back.

Ivan, who is first in line, pushes past his mother’s skirt and sees the man who used to carry him on his shoulders and toss him in the air and never dropped him.

The three girls see him next. Dania sees how nice the clothes look on her father. How crisp the collar is and how straight the crease in his pants.

Sofia sees a man so handsome he could be a movie star: Clark Gable, a banker, a tycoon—a hero.

Katya sees her daddy’s face and remembers how she used to run her hands over his whiskers and he would rub his scratchy cheek against the nape of her neck and she would laugh so hard she thought she would throw up.

Myron sees that his father has shrunk. His shoulders are stooped, his muscles withered. He can’t imagine him working in the fields or swinging the pickax or moving boulders twice as heavy as himself. He can’t imagine this man knocking him to the ground for forgetting to water the horse because if anything happened to the horse then they would all die. Myron knows he can take this man with hardly any effort.

Teodor remains seated. They face one another, waiting. Him inside the room, them frozen in the doorway. It is Ivan who takes the first step forward. This small five-year-old boy, with his tousle of sun-bleached hair, missing tooth, chewed fingernails, walks up to his father and stands bravely before him. He takes the man’s face in his hands and brings it close to his own. He stands on tiptoe and squints as he peers into the man’s eyes. He looks past the bloodshot white, past the blue and gray flecks, and looks directly into the black center.

“It’s him,” he decrees and throws his arms around his father’s neck as he climbs onto his lap and babbles about Petro, and the frog they found, and the cat that died, and the ice storm last year, and going to town, and Mama buying toffee, and still having some in his pocket, and his pants being too short, and the nail he stepped on, and the bird that got in the house, and can they get another dog… until Maria tells him hush.

Teodor holds out his hand to Katya, whom Dania gently pushes forward. Katya, now six—all skin and bones, knock-kneed with too-big shoes and hair that sticks out everywhere, who bruises at the slightest touch—trips over her feet and catches herself against Teodor’s leg. She looks up at his face, disappointed that she can’t see any whiskers. She touches his cheek for confirmation. Smooth. As she contemplates this, she frowns and chews her lower lip. Teodor bites at her hand and she pulls it back, shocked, before bursting into laughter.

He looks to Sofia next, her hair curled in tight ringlets held with a red ribbon. She wears a Sunday blouse the seams of which she has altered to give a better fit. Her skirt is hemmed just below the knee. She looks older than her eleven years. “You’ve become a young lady,” he says, which makes Sofia very happy.

Dania, his eldest, lost in an oversized bland dress, her hair braided and coiled, loaded down with packages, stands beside her mother, hoping to be noticed. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” he asks. She sets down her bundle and approaches with her head down. She covers her chapped, lye-burned hands. “You’re all grown up.” He takes her hand even though she tries to pull it away. She breathes in his clean soap smell and notices how her arms now reach completely around him.

Maria places a bundle on the table in front of Teodor. “This is for you.” She hopes that she hasn’t changed that much. That she is still the woman he remembers. No more beautiful, no more common. The woman he wanted to come home to. The children huddle around for the big surprise.

“Open it,” they urge. And Ivan and Katya, who can’t bear the suspense, tug on the strings, while Teodor looks at his wife. She is everything that he remembers: the small childhood scar under her left eyebrow, the lines that crinkle when she smiles, her lips—the top one twitches when she’s angry, the bottom one pouts if she’s sad—her nose that sneezes whenever she smells dill weed, and her eyes. Brown eyes that he would give his life never to see cry again. Teodor unfolds the paper, revealing a brand-new pair of black leather boots with brown shoelaces.

“How?” He breathes, not daring to touch them.

“Mama sold her fancy sheets,” blurts Ivan. Dania cuffs the back of his head.

Teodor stands and his children see that he is still tall. He kisses his wife. Hesitant. Their lips brush. An act of thanks. She wants to hold him and not let go, but instead she looks away. She knows the children are watching with eyes wide, mouths slightly open, imagining what such a kiss must feel like.

“I have to get supper ready.” She brusquely reaches for her apron. “Go wash up.” She claps her hands together for emphasis. “Get some wood,” she directs Myron, who is still standing in the doorway. “Tonight we’re having meat.”

MYRON SPLITS THE FEW PRECIOUS BLOCKS OF WOOD they’ve been saving. He takes one, halves it, quarters it, and tosses it onto the pile. He has enough chopped for several days, but still he lifts the ax high over his head and slams it into the eye of the wood. One clean crack and it cleaves open.

“You have a good swing.”

Myron looks to Teodor and sets another log on the chopping block. He lifts the ax again, stretches to show his father how tall and strong he has become. How he spreads his feet and allows the energy of his muscles to unleash through the handle into the blade like his father taught him and that the hardwood log is the size a man would split.

Teodor goes into the barn. It is cool and musty. The mud chink has dried and separated from the slats. The wind whistles through. It smells of urine, manure, and sweet decaying hay. He lays his hand on the cow’s forelock and strokes the bridge of its nose.

“Hello,” he whispers. The cow greets his hand with a long, sandpapery lick. Teodor checks the tack. The bits shine, the leather reins and harnesses are supple, the tools have been oiled and scoured clean. He looks over the plow, runs his thumb along the freshly sharpened blade. The cow absently chews its cud, keeping an eye on Teodor. The stalls have been mucked out. There is fresh water in the buckets. The hay is dry. Rotten boards have been replaced and the walls shored up. There is nothing for him to do here.

Myron listens as his father inspects the barn, expecting his name to be called. He’ll put down his ax and join him, maybe share a cigarette, talk about the weather and when the best time to seed might be. If they sit long enough and silent enough, maybe they’ll talk about other things. About that night he helped fill the wagon. When he hid in the high stalks because it’s what his father told him to do. His father, facedown, a boot on the back of his head, his arms behind his back. They called him a thieving, filthy bohunk. Myron will nod and keep his eyes on the dirt floor as he listens. Listens to what can’t be said anywhere else except between men.

But Teodor doesn’t call his name. He shuts the barn door behind him and heads to the house. His boots squeak with their new stiffness. He nods to Myron as he passes.

“Good.”