Shandi Mitchell - Under This Unbroken Sky

He is naked, except for his mittens. He is holding two smooth stones. He wonders if the heart has split in two, but then he sees the heart stone on the floor. His father’s coat isn’t on the coat hook, and the flask is gone. Lesya looks at him as she runs to the stove for more hot water and he can see a bruise on her cheek. “There’s stew on the stove.” Then Petro knows he is awake, because his stomach growls.

He pulls on his long underwear and new socks that are bathed in the heat of the stove. He climbs down from bed and picks up the heart stone. Ice-cold. Clutching it in his hand, he wanders to the roaring fire and looks inside the bubbling pot. The steaming smell of potatoes, onions, and salted beef obliterates any sounds his mother is making. He fills a bowl half-full and carries it to the table. The broth slops at the sides. He sets down the stone, picks up a spoon, and shovels it in. Cramming his cheeks full, slurping it back, barely chewing. He burns his tongue and the roof of his mouth. He licks the bowl clean and wants more.

The next bowl he fills to the brim. He gorges until his belly grows round and soft. He watches his mother’s face contort and twist, her mouth stretched wide. The muscles in her thighs shudder from the strain. He fetches the pot and scrapes it clean. He forces down the spoonfuls even though he is no longer hungry. He focuses on the sound of metal on metal, scratching away his mama’s sobs.

He licks the spoon clean as she screams again. The pot is empty. Petro crawls back into bed and covers himself with the quilts. He peers through a tented peephole.

“Can you see it?” Anna pants, her face glistening with sweat. Her pelvis hinging apart.

Lesya has seen cows giving birth, and cats. She saw her own brother spill out onto the dirt. She’s never been queasy with the sight of blood. In a crisis, that’s when Lesya is the calmest. Everything empties out of her. Her heart slows, her breathing shallows, her voice becomes flat and reassuring in its neutrality. Her eyes betray nothing. Her hands don’t shake. Her body becomes a vessel for the wounded. Give me your fear.

Lesya looks between her mother’s legs. The skin is pulled open wide, the top of a dome pushes against the crowning flesh like a perfect egg. She wipes away the mucus and blood. A raw yolk.

“I see it.” And then she realizes that soon she will have to catch the baby, bring it safely into this world, and that seems too much to expect from a ten-year-old girl.

“I see its head.” She sees her mother’s back muscle twitch. “Breathe now, Mama. Breathe. Here it comes.” The contraction hits.

“Now push.” Anna strains with all her might. “Push.” A wave of pain slams into her. She is being cleaved in two. The head crests, the contraction subsides. Anna falls back.

“You’re doing good, Mama. It’s almost here. Just a little bit more.” Anna’s body stiffens. “Don’t push yet. It’s coming. It’s coming.” Anna clings to her daughter’s voice. “Now.” The tide rips her away again.

“There’s the shoulders.” Lesya cradles the head. She sees a fluff of wet, brown hair, small pink ears. She holds its shape in her hands, a perfect egg without the shell. “You’re almost done, Mama.”

Anna’s eyes roll back in her head. White light explodes in the back of her mind. Her body disappears, electric. The baby’s torso drops into Lesya’s hands. Its soft head and loose neck flop back. Lesya grabs to support it with one hand, as the other grapples the slippery body sliding through her fingers.

“Now, Mama, now you have to push!” She can feel the baby’s heart pounding against her hand through its thin, translucent skin. It flutters like a baby sparrow. Its arms are out, tiny fingers. She’s never seen a baby so small; it fits in her two hands. It weighs nothing at all. The skin is blue-tinged. The baby is still.

“Now, Mama, push!” The legs slip out. Two perfect legs and two perfect feet. Straight and perfect. The baby slides into her hands. “It’s a girl!”

She rolls it over, it lays limp in her hands. Its eyes closed. Its lips blue. She wipes the mucus from its face, unplugs its nose. It’s going to die like the bird. She taps it on the back, massages its tiny ribs. She slaps it harder. Wake up! The baby chokes and coughs. A gasping inhale. Her lungs fill. Her skin flushes pink. Her mouth gulps, her face turns red, she exhales a squawking bawl.

Lesya wipes her baby sister clean and swaddles her in a clean blanket, leaving her perfect feet protruding. She bundles her in the rabbit-fur blanket. She’s as small as a mouse, but as loud as a crow. “It’s a girl, Mama.”

“I don’t want to see it.” Anna presses her eyes shut tight.

“You have to hold her, Mama.” She pushes aside her mother’s protesting hands. She lays the baby on her mother’s chest.

“Look at her, Mama.”

The baby squeals and fights its restraints.

“There’s nothing wrong with this one, Mama.” She guides Anna’s hand to the baby’s head, leads her fingers over the face, down the chest wrapped in soft rabbit fur, to the exposed legs, then she lets go. She watches her mother’s fingers hesitantly brush the skin, glide down the shins, barely touching, to the ankles, over the feet. Her hand embraces the toes.

Anna opens her eyes. The baby’s face is scrunched up in protest. Her eyes squeezed tight. She is so tiny. Yet she is fierce. Her mouth gulps silent wails. Anna is overwhelmed by a flood of familiarity, as if she has known this child forever. She knows her face, her smell. She knows everything about her. She is her. Anna’s skin is splitting open, her heart cracking. She feels all people, all suffering, all hope, all loss, all rapture. She has never felt such exquisite pain. The baby is crying and she can taste the salt.

Her mother’s face is radiant, almost beautiful. Her hand cradling tiny feet. Lesya stands by, wondering when she should cut the umbilical cord.

Neither notices that Petro has gone outside. He is at the back of the house, rubbing his chest and arms with snow, numbing himself inside out, trying to get back to the place of whiteness—where he wasn’t afraid.

ANNA AND THE BABY ARE ASLEEP. LESYA HAS WASHED the linens, burned the bloody rags and afterbirth, tended the fire, and has just finished tearing a sheet into diapers. She checks the baby again. The only crib she could find was a soapbox, MRS. LEIDERMANN’S BLUEING SOLUTION. The baby is so small, it takes up half the length of the box and is lost in the folds of the rabbit-fur blanket. Her breathing seems shallow and congested, but she suckled ferociously before sobbing herself to sleep with her lips and tongue smacking for more. Lesya pulls the soft fur up under the baby’s chin.

Petro is asleep too. He wouldn’t tell her where he went and Lesya didn’t push. She didn’t want to know. They stood over the box together, looking in at the sleeping newborn. Lesya slid her little finger into the baby’s hand. The baby gripped it tight, pulling it toward her mouth. Lesya pulled her hand away, not yet ready to give herself.

Petro didn’t touch the baby. He didn’t see a baby. He saw a blind, bald, wrinkled, tailless mouse gasping for air. “It’s not going to live.” He didn’t say it to be cruel. It was just something he knew deep down inside himself: not to get attached. Lesya didn’t contradict him. He wasn’t sure if she had even heard him. She didn’t speak to him at all. Even when he crawled back in bed, his muscles heavy with fatigue, his eyes already shutting—and called her name, she didn’t come. He fell asleep clutching the heart stone for comfort, willing his tato to come home.

It’s not that Lesya didn’t hear her brother, or that she is angry, she just can’t summon up the energy to care. She watches herself tidy up the house, plan tomorrow’s meal, and assess what supplies need to be restocked. She watches her hands perform the tasks, efficient and assured, and is surprised by how small they are: a child’s hands. Someone else’s hands. She can’t feel herself at all.