“You knew,” Vera says, not bothering to wipe her eyes, although her tears are freezing instantly, sticking her eyelashes together until she can hardly see.
Mother nods.
“When they took him away?”
She nods again.
“You let me go every Friday,” Vera says. “If I had known—”
“You had to learn in your way,” her mother says. “And I hoped . . . of course . . . ”
“I do not know what to do now,” Vera says. She feels disconnected from herself, from her own life.
“I have been waiting for you to ask me this,” Mama says. “You both have been waiting. Hoping. Now you know: this is our life. Our Petya will not come back. This is who we are now. ”
“What does that mean?” asks Olga.
“Live,” Mama says quietly.
And Vera understands. It is time for her to quit marking time and start doing something with it.
“I do not know what to dream about,” Vera says. “It all seems so impossible. ”
“Dreams are for men like your father. They are the reason we mourn him now, in private and secretly, as if we are criminals. He planted in your head all kinds of fantasies. Let that go. Quit being his children and become women of this kingdom. There are things to do out there; I promise you this. ”
Their mother pulls them into a fierce hug and kisses both their cheeks. When they are close, she whispers, “He loved you two more than his words, more than his own breath. That will never die. ”
“I miss him,” Olga says, starting to cry again.
“Yes,” Mama says in a throaty voice. “Forever. That’s how long we’ll have an empty place at the table. ” She draws back at last. “But we will not speak of him again. Not ever. Not even to each other. ”
“But . . . you cannot just stop your feelings,” Vera says.
“Perhaps,” her mother says, “ but you can refuse to express them, and that is what we will do. ” She puts her hand into the big pocket of her wool coat and pulls out a cloissoné butterfly.
Vera has never seen anything so beautiful. This is not the kind of piece their family can own—it is something from the kings or the wizards at least.
“Petyr’s father made this,” her mother says, revealing a family history they knew nothing about. “It was to be for the little princess, but the king thought it shoddy work, so your grandfather was fired and learned to make bricks of clay instead of pieces of art. He gave it to your father on our wedding day. And now it is what we have to remember someone in our family who is lost to us. Sometimes, if I close my eyes when I hold it, I can hear our Petya’s laugh. ”
“It’s just a butterfly,” Vera says, thinking it is not so lovely as she’d thought; certainly it is not a substitute for her papa’s laughter.
“It is all we have,” her mother says gently.
Vera wraps herself in grief as only a teenage girl can, but as the winter wanes and spring blooms across the kingdom, she begins to feel burdened by her melancholy.
“It is not fair that I cannot go to university,” she whines to her mother one warm summer day, many months after their makeshift funeral at the park. They are kneeling in the black earth weeding their small garden. Both have already worked a full day in the city; this is their summertime routine. A day’s labor in the kingdom and then a two-hour cart ride beyond the walled city to the countryside, where they rent a small patch of ground.
“You are too old to be whining about fairness, and obviously you know better,” her mother says.
“I want to study the great writers and artists. ”
Her mother sits back on her heels and looks at Vera. In the syrupy golden light that falls at ten o’clock at night, she looks almost pretty again. Only her brown eyes remain stubbornly old. “You live in the Snow Kingdom,” she says.
“I think I know this. ”
“Do you? You work in the greatest library in the world—there are three million books at your fingertips each day. The royal museum is on your way home. And your sister works there. Anytime you wish you can see the masters’ paintings. Galina Ulanova is dancing this season, and do not forget the opera. ” She makes a tsking sound. “Do not tell me that a young woman of this kingdom needs to go to university to learn. If you believe such a thing, you are not”—her voice lowers—“ his daughter. ” It is the first time her mother has mentioned Father and it has the intended effect.
Vera slides sideways off her own heels and sits in the warm dirt, looking down at the fragile green rosette of a baby cabbage beside her.