Free Under This Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell Page A

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    Maria adds another clove of garlic and a last pinch of salt. Only then does she feel the wetness of her dress clinging to her body, her hair limp around her face, the crick in her back and the ache in her legs. She wonders if her face is as flushed as her daughters’ faces. She fills the spoon with the rich broth, blows on it, and holds it out to Dania, who takes a sip, then to Sofia, who does the same, and then Maria brings it to her own lips. She holds the broth in her mouth, assessing the complexity of the flavors before swallowing. Her tongue runs across her lips. She looks to her girls and nods, and they nod back.
     
    JUST BEFORE HER GUESTS ARRIVE, ANNA DRESSES. LESYA tightens Anna’s corset. “Tighter,” she says. Lesya pulls the strings more but can see they are already cutting into her mother’s flesh. “Tighter.” Lesya wraps the strings around her fists and pulls. Anna exhales as the corset constricts around her belly and cuts into her ribs. “Tighter,” she gasps and Lesya pulls harder. Anna presses her hand to her flattened belly. “Enough.”
     
    ANNA MEETS HER GUESTS AT THE DOOR, LIKE A LADY. She ushers the family to the table. Maria is relieved to see the room tidy and clean. Even the window has been washed. She notices that every trace of Stefan has been removed. Anna looks radiant as shecaters to her brother, insisting that he sit at the head of the table. She keeps up a constant chatter, making everyone laugh, until they have eased into the comfortable role of guests.
    The two families sit around Anna’s table dressed in their best clothes, hair combed, fingernails scrubbed, blooming wolf willow in a Mason jar vase, the delicate porcelain pitcher glistening with condensation, and the table laden with glorious food—they could be mistaken for a well-to-do English family. Anna squeezes Teodor’s hand: “This is for you.”
    Maria bows her head. The children follow, placing their hands together in prayer. “Dorohyi Bozhe …” Maria gives thanks and asks that her family, both her families, be watched over and protected, and given the strength and courage needed to build this new life. She asks for this food to be blessed, and for the garden to be blessed, and the cow and the horse and the fields and this house.
    Teodor and Anna do not bow their heads. Teodor stares at the heaping bowl of steaming potatoes. Anna watches a fat housefly traverse the lip of her mother’s pitcher. She leans into the corset rib digging into her side. Petro squeezes his eyes tight, expecting his father to be there when he opens them. The others give themselves to the intoxicating aromas. Maria says, “Amin’.” The children echo, “Amen.”
    She looks at the faces hungrily turned to her and says, “Ïzhte.” A swarm of hands descend on the offerings. She notices that Petro’s eyes are still closed.

T HE FAMILY WAKES AT SIX TO READY THEMSELVES for their Sunday church pilgrimage. Freshly laundered clothes, laid out the night before, are donned. Shoes are polished and hair is washed. The youngest are given baths. The oldest sponge themselves behind the privacy of the burlap screen. A tentative knock at six-thirty announces the arrival of Lesya and Petro. Myron helps the smaller boys grease back their cowlicks. Katya’s unruly curls are braided and coiled. Sofia covertly dabs wild rose petal water, a concoction she brewed in a liniment bottle, behind her ears.
    Myron squeezes into his only dress shirt. It binds across his chest and shoulders, broadened from weeks of fieldwork. His fingers fumble with the tiny collar button and he grimaces as it tightens around his throat. If it wasn’t for Irene, who sits in the second pew to the right of the altar, whose bare ankle Myron glimpsed when she knelt to pray six Sundays past, he would have found an excuse to stay home with his father. He squeezes the button through the hole and it snaps off. The curse that spits past his lips is greeted by a swipe across the