Free Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell

table. Lesya clutches it to her chest as if holding her own beating heart and tries to walk tall and gracefully with hardly a limp, so her mother will see there is nothing wrong with her after all.
    Petro hides his excitement, plays the game, knowing the surprise. He knows what great event is upon them. He knows his father must be coming home.
     
    MARIA HAS PLANNED THE MENU: WHITE BORSHCH, THE last jar of jellied chicken, three potatoes per person, a pickled cabbage salad, and, for dessert, halushky with wild strawberries and syrup. By noon, the temperature outside is seventy-three degrees; inside the shack is at least ten degrees warmer.
    The morning is set aside for making the dumplings. The flour is sifted with the last few precious grains of salt. Dania stirs as Maria adds milk and water to create a light dough. Maria forms the soft elastic mixture into a ball and covers it to rise. Sofia returns with a pail of wild strawberries. Taking her mother’s warning seriously, she has guiltily only eaten half a dozen in the field. When she finishes hulling them, Maria sprinkles them with sugar. Sofia covertly dips her finger into the bowl, stealing a taste of the precious sweetness. The risen dough is placed on the floured table, cut in half and rolled into a rectangle. Then, using a small Mason jar as a cookie cutter, Maria carefully punches out round disks.
    Dania heats the sugared strawberries on the stove, her fingertips light on the wooden spoon: to sense the thickening sauce. Mariasupervises the final consistency and pulls them just as they begin to boil. Once cooled, she drops dollops of fruit in the center of the cutouts and shapes them into balls. The girls plop the halushky into rolling water, ten at a time, and wait for them to float back to the top, perfectly cooked. Maria sets them on her best plate. She sacrifices one halushka to be sampled between the three, then sets the plate on the highest shelf to prevent temptation.
    By midday, Maria is in the garden selecting vegetables. Sofia and Dania follow behind, ready to carry the prized bounty. Each vegetable has its own distinctive greenery, still pert and fresh from the early summer rains, vibrant from the rich feed, not yet battered and bruised by summer storms. The rows contain successive generations, each a few weeks older than the next. Small plants, just learning to stand, look up to the larger ones whose stems and leaves are already maturing. Some burst with blossoms, others fan luxuriantly, others climb trellises twisting and spiraling around themselves, some sprawl lazily, basking in the sun.
    Maria pulls the carrot first. She feels along the base of the tops, gauging the thickness of the root below. Finding the right one, she wraps her fingers around the greens and gently tugs. The earth loosens its hold and out comes a straight, vivid orange root startling against the brown earth. Still young, it barely spans her palm. Not a single insect mark tarnishes its beauty. She brings the carrot to her nose and inhales the newborn scent. She fights the urge to take a bite, swallows down the saliva that fills her mouth. She hands the carrot to Dania and proceeds down the row. She checks the ingredients off in her head. As she plucks each one from the earth, she whispers, “Diakuiu.”
    Back in the kitchen, the girls are restricted to peeling and shredding duties. Maria is in charge of the borshch. She adds the vegetables to the simmering chicken stock, monitors them so they won’tbecome too soft, lifts them from the heat if the fire is too hot. She fries the mushrooms Dania gathered down by the well, adds just enough flour to create a paste but not so much that it would mask their delicate taste. She spoons the mushrooms into the borshch. The most crucial part is adding the buttermilk and sour cream. The girls gather around as Maria drops in thick dollops. The fire, now a low glow, emits a gentle heat. The cream smooths and blends beautifully into the