Winter Garden

Vera strokes her mother’s brow. “I’ll make you some sweet tea. And you will eat some ham. ”

Mama nods and closes her eyes again.

Vera sits there a moment longer, listening to the strange mix of Mama’s troubled breathing and her children’s laughter and her husband’s voice. It all leaves her feeling vaguely out of place. Still she covers her mother’s frail body and stands up.

“He is so proud of you,” Mama says on a sigh.

“Sasha?”

“Your papa. ”

Vera feels an unexpected tightness in her throat. Saying nothing, she walks forward, and Leo’s laughter warms her more than the burning legs of any old desk ever could. She gets out her cast-iron frying pan and fries up some of the ham in a tiny spot of sunflower oil and adds sliced onions at the last minute.

A feast.

The whole room smells of rich, sizzling ham and sweet, caramelized onions. She even adds extra honey to their tea, and when they all sit on the old mattress to eat (there are no chairs anymore), no one says anything. Even Mama is lost in the unfamiliar sensation of eating.

“Can I have more, Mama?” Leo says, wiping his finger in the empty cup, looking for any trace of honey.

“No more,” Vera says quietly, knowing that as kingly as this breakfast is, it is not enough for any of them.

“I say we go to the park,” Sasha says.

“It’s all boarded up,” Anya tells him. “Like a prison. No one plays there anymore. ”

“We do,” Sasha says, smiling as if this is an ordinary day.

Outside, the snow is falling. A veil of white obscures the city, softens it. The dragon’s teeth and trenches are just mounds of snow and hollowed-out white valleys, respectively. Every now and then a white hillock sits on a park bench or lies by the side of the road, but it is easy to miss. Vera hopes her children do not know what is beneath the cover of snow.

In the park, everything is sparkling and white. The sandbagged Bronze Horseman is only visible in pieces. The trees are frosted white and strung with icicles. It amazes Vera that not a tree has been cut down here. There are no wooden fences or benches or railings left in the city, but no tree has been cut down for firewood.

The children immediately rush forward and drop onto their backs, making snow angels and giggling.

Vera sits by Sasha on a black iron bench. A tree shivers beside them, dropping ice and snow. She takes his hand, and although she cannot feel his flesh beneath her glove, the solid feel of him is more than enough.

“They are making an ice road across Ladoga,” he says at last, and she knows it is what he has come to tell her.

“I hear trucks keep falling through the ice. ”

“For now. But it will work. They will get food into the city. And people out of it. ”

“Will they?”

“It’s the only evacuation route. ”

“Is it?” She glances sideways, deciding not to tell him about their other evacuation, how she almost lost their children.

“I will get all of you passes as soon as it’s safe. ”

She does not want to talk about any of this. It doesn’t matter. Only food matters now, and heat. She wishes he would just hold her and kiss her.

Maybe they will make love tonight, she thinks, closing her eyes. But how could she? She is too weak to sit up sometimes. . . .

“Vera,” he says, making her look at him.

She blinks. It is hard sometimes to stay concentrated, even now. “What?” She stares into his bright green eyes, sharp with both fear and worry, and suddenly she is remembering the first time they met. The poetry. He said something to her, a line about roses. And later, in the library, he said he’d waited for her to grow up.

“You stay alive,” he says.