Winter Garden

Lucky for me, I work in the library. Books tell me that pine needles have vitamin C, so I break off branches and drag them home on my sled. The tea I make from them is bitter, but Leo complains no more.

I wish he would.

Dark. Cold.

I can hear my babies breathing in the bed beside me. Leo’s every breath is phlegmy. I feel his brow. He is not hot, thank God.

I know what has wakened me. The fire has gone out.

I want to do nothing about it.

The thought hits before I can guard against it. I could do nothing, just lie there, holding my children, and go to sleep forever.

There are worse ways to die.

Then I feel Anya’s tiny legs brush up against mine. In her sleep, she murmurs, “Papa,” and I remember my promise.

I take forever to get up. Everything hurts. There is a ringing in my ears and my balance is off. Halfway to the stove, I feel myself falling.

When I wake from my faint, I am disoriented. For a second, I hear my father at his desk, writing. His pen tip scratches words across the bumpy linen paper.

No.

I go to the bookcase. Only the last of the treasure is left: my father’s own poetry.

I cannot burn them.

Tomorrow, perhaps, but not today. Instead, I take the ax—it is so heavy—and crack off a piece of the side of the bookcase. It is thick, old wood, hard as iron, and it burns hot.

I stand by the bed, in front of the fire, and I can feel how I am swaying.

I know suddenly that if I lie down, I will die. Did my mother tell me this? My sister? I don’t know. I just remember knowing the truth of it.

“I won’t die in my bed,” I say to no one. So I go to the only other piece of furniture left in the room. My father’s writing desk. Wrapping myself in a blanket, I sit down.

Can I smell him, or am I hallucinating again? I don’t know. I pick up his pen and find that the ink in the well is frozen solid. The little metal inkwell is as cold as ice, but I carry it to the stove, where we both warm quickly. Making a cup of hot water to drink, I go back to the desk.

I light the lamp beside me. It is silly, I know. I should conserve this oil, but I can’t just sit here in the icy black. I have to do something to keep alive.

So I will write.

It is not too late. I’m not dead yet.

I am Vera Petrovna and I am a nobody. . . .

I write and write, on paper that I know I will soon have to burn, with a hand that trembles so violently my letters look like antelopes leaping across the sheet. Still, I write and the night fades.

Some hours later, a pale gray light bleeds through the newsprint, and I know I have made it.

I am just about to put the pen down when there is a knock at the door. I force my legs to work, my feet to move.

I open the door to a stranger. A man in a big black woolen coat and a military cap.

“Vera Petrovna Marchenko?”

I hear his voice and it is familiar, but I cannot focus on his face. My vision is giving me problems.

“It is me. Dima Newsky from down the hall. ” He hands me a bottle of red wine, a bag of candy, and a sack of potatoes. “My mama is too ill to eat. She won’t make it through the day. She asked me to give this to you. For the babies, she said. ”