Aimie Runyan - Daughters of the Night Sky

I took a step back as I realized my own mother-in-law, Natalia Soloneva, sat on my mother’s sofa. Grigory excused himself to the kitchen, as did Mama once she’d placed two cups of tea on the small parlor table. Mother Soloneva patted the cushion next to her, and I took my seat next to her. I felt myself shake, knowing she would not have come all this way merely to take tea with me. She had news of Vanya. I tried to sip Mama’s good tea, but my shaking hands made the task impossible.

A delay. Some sort of bureaucratic hassle. Anything but the worst.

“I’m so glad you’ve returned safely, my dear,” she said, her tone flat as she stared past the cups of tea toward some nonexistent fascination on the parlor rug.

“Thank you, Mother Soloneva. And I’m glad to see you’re well. I hope Father Solonev is just the same.”

“He’s as well as one can expect in such hard times.”

I nodded in agreement. “Do you have word when Vanya will be released from the front? I wasn’t able to find his regiment near Berlin.”

“His regiment didn’t get quite that far. They ended service farther east.”

“Ah,” I said, comprehending. “Then I am surprised he didn’t make it home before I did. Is he on some sort of patrol assignment?”

“Darling.” Her thin resolve cracked, and she dissolved into a pool of tears. “He… he was killed in the final push for Seelow Heights.”

Air expelled from me in a torrent as I tried to make sense of her words. My brain seemed unwilling to process why this woman was breaking down before me. All I was able to do was hold out my arms to her and allow her grief to escape into great pools on my uniform jacket. I embraced her, still trying to understand that Vanya would never again do this for me. No more midnight embraces. No stolen kisses between practical lessons. No more tender words. Had we escaped, we might be already planning our return home.

“We received word just a few weeks ago,” Natalia explained. “We didn’t know if it would get to you before you came home. We expected it would be easier for you to hear in person, so we didn’t try to get word to you.”

Easier. The word thudded around in my brain, but no meaning registered.

He had survived so much of the war, only to be taken in the last weeks.

I had survived, only to be abandoned.

Mama served a dinner unlike anything I’d seen since before the war. Roasted-chicken stew with roasted potatoes and a sturdy, dry white wine to pair with it. Restorative, nourishing. A meal a mother would prepare for a child in need of feeding, but nothing to suggest a celebration. It was a meal prepared with grief in mind. I moved to the table with everyone else. They’d had weeks to process their grief, and mine was not yet real. From the outside we might have appeared like a normal family.

“Where is the vodka, Mama?” I asked, taking a small glass from the cupboard.

“I hope you haven’t developed that habit, Katinka,” Mama said.

“It’s not for me,” I said. Grigory, taking my meaning, fetched a good bottle from his small stash, presenting it to me without ceremony. I poured a small measure into the glass and handed the bottle back to Grigory, then placed the glass by my side at the small table and set a slice of bread on top. The portion for the dead.

Vanya’s mother swallowed hard at the gesture and caressed my elbow. “My dear girl, I know we didn’t get off to the best of starts. My husband is of the old sort, you understand. He had great plans for Vanya, and he didn’t understand that as a father he must put his vision aside and let Vanya make his own life. Antonin loved him very much, though he wasn’t much at showing it.” Natalia looked as out of place at my mother’s kitchen table as a crystal vase in a trench. She held my hand, her body turned completely in my direction.

“I’m not the sort of girl he would have chosen for his son. I understand.”

“He knows Vanya loved you—loves you, I like to think. Antonin has said as much. He’s embarrassed for the way he acted when we met.”

“Why did Comrade Solonev not come with you?” Grigory asked. “It’s not a good time for women to travel alone.”

I stifled a growl at my new stepfather’s assertion that a woman needed caring for. It was merely gallantry, I reminded myself. I would have to adjust to the notion again. What was more, Natalia was the kind of woman who was very much used to male protection.

“He would not want me to say this,” Natalia replied, “but he is far too heartbroken by his grief to be seen. I trust you won’t speak of such things outside the family, but he blames himself for Vanya enlisting.”

“Vanya wanted to fight,” I assured her, seething at the idea of Antonin Solonev cheapening my husband’s sacrifice by insinuating he had been anything less than willing to do his part. “He was proud to do his duty to his country.”

“Of course, my dear. Antonin just feels like his own military service may have compelled Vanya to take more risks than he might otherwise have done.”

“I flew as your son’s navigator for months. I can assure you there was not a more conscientious pilot in the whole of the Red Army. He had a crew to think about, and he would never have risked their lives, no matter the glory of your husband’s reputation.” I sat ramrod straight in my chair, picking halfheartedly at the perfectly golden-brown crust on the potatoes. I did not look up, for my mother-in-law had done nothing to deserve the glare I knew would lance her if lifted from the safety of my plate.

“Come home with me, and tell my Antonin this,” Natalia implored me. “It would ease his breaking heart to hear these words.”

I took a bite of the potato to give myself an excuse not to speak. I immediately regretted it. The food was unpalatable, but I could not insult my mother’s good cooking or my upbringing to spit it out. I labored to swallow, my throat as raw as the day when I was six years old and the doctor had pulled my tonsils in his shining white office.

“He asked me to bring you home,” she continued. “We have no children of our own now. He would like to do for you what we can no longer do for our Vanya. We would welcome you in our home as our own daughter.”

I looked up, my skin tingling at the suggestion. Shouldn’t you already consider me this?

“She has a family,” my mother interjected, viciously piercing a piece of chicken with her fork. Grigory placed a hand on her shoulder, and I could see her breathing even out.

My hand involuntarily lighted over my heart, massaging as though the ache that loomed there were physical. “I appreciate your offer, Natalia. I really do. But I am only just back home.”

“Naturally. You need some time with your mother and new stepfather.” I blanched at the title but forced a tight smile for Grigory. It would take some getting used to. “But know that you will always have a home with us.”

“You are unspeakably generous, Natalia. Please pass my thanks on to Father Solonev as well.”

“Say nothing of it, my dear. It’s our pleasure. I’m only sorry it’s under such circumstances. And far too late in coming.”

I nodded, pushing my food aside, a momentary pang of guilt piercing my stomach at the sight of the uneaten food, but I could no more bring myself to finish the meal than move the Ural Mountains to the sea.

The apartment was small, and it was clear which room was intended for me. There was a single bed with a starched white sheet and a welcoming quilt. There was little in the way of furnishings, but my mother had done her best to make the room cheerful. Grigory had placed my duffel against the wall, but I didn’t want to see any of the clothes I’d been wearing for the past four years. I’d save most of them for the wood stove on the first frosty morning that fall.