The Memory Keeper of Kyiv (92)

“She’s going to wake up. Alina told me!” Birdie’s voice took on a frantic note.

Cassie gritted her teeth. She couldn’t deal with this, on top of everything else, tonight. “Birdie, you’ve got to stop with this Alina business. I know Bobby told you stories about Alina, but she’s not here. It’s too late for visitors, but I promise, I’ll bring you up first thing in the morning. Now try to get some rest.”

“But, Mommy, I have to go! Alina needs me to!”

“No!” The unfamiliar sharp edge in Cassie’s voice stilled Birdie’s fussing. Cassie massaged her temples and sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to yell at you. I’m very tired, and I’m sure you are, too. Let’s get some sleep and talk tomorrow, all right?”

Cassie pulled the covers up around her daughter, but Birdie pulled away and faced the wall. “I love you, Birdie.”

“I love you, too.” The muffled response lacked its usual gusto.

Cassie closed the door and pressed her head against it—the cool wood a temporary relief from the heat of her many failures.

“Is she okay?”

She jumped and whirled around. Nick stood at the edge of the hallway, looking down at her.

“She’s overtired. She thinks Bobby’s awake, and she wants me to take her there right now. She said Alina has to tell Bobby something.”

“Maybe she does,” Nick said.

Cassie rubbed her hands over her face as she walked into the living room. “I don’t know what to think about anything anymore.”

“I shouldn’t have said that, either. I’m really on a roll tonight.” Nick ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry about earlier. You have enough on your plate now. I didn’t mean to add to it by dumping my feelings on you.”

Cassie collapsed onto the couch. “I’m so confused and exhausted right now I can barely function. I can’t give you any answers, Nick.”

Nick nodded. “I understand. I don’t ever want to pressure you, Cassie. I’ll leave.”

“Wait.” Cassie’s voice trembled as the weight of everything that had happened pressed down on her. She didn’t know what she wanted forever, but she knew she felt better when he was near. And right now, she needed all the help she could get. “I shouldn’t ask this, but will you stay with me? Just for a little bit? I’m going to wait up to make sure Birdie settles down.”

“Always.” He sat down on the couch next to her and she curled into him. Guilt spliced through her as conflicted emotions flickered over his expressive face, but when he pulled her close, she sighed with relief. His heart, steady and strong, counted time against her ear, soothing her bruised soul.

“You make everything feel better,” she murmured.

“I’m glad.” His husky voice vibrated his chest and tickled her.

Cassie fought to keep her drooping eyelids open, but the weight of the day tugged at her. The last thing she remembered was Nick tucking a blanket around her.





30





KATYA





Ukraine, March 1933





Denys wasn’t her child; she shouldn’t have cared so much. Katya told herself that over and over, but it didn’t help her get out of bed. Losing Denys ripped open all the scars from Viktor’s death she’d buried and ignored in her struggle to survive.

Nothing but being close to Halya seemed to matter anymore. Without her, Katya would have given up and died. Halya was all she had left, and Katya couldn’t fail her like she had everyone else.

“Why don’t you come with me to get wood from my parents’ house? We can dismantle what’s left of the furniture for firewood.” Kolya’s voice broke through the shroud of her sadness. “It might be good to get out of the house.”

She looked up at him, at the dark shadows smudged under his eyes and shoulders heavy with exhaustion, and forced herself to nod. Relief flashed across his weary face before he turned away.

She thought about the moment they’d shared while he’d dug Denys’s grave, and a strange feeling constricted her chest. A knot of uncertainty, twisting and pulling her mind in different directions. For one terrifying moment, she couldn’t recall Pavlo’s face. Only Kolya’s. A strangled cry escaped her mouth before she choked down her grief, making it hard to breathe.

Stop this, Katya admonished herself. Just do what needs to be done.

She dragged herself out of bed and dressed, then fashioned a cloth into a sling around her shoulders and tucked Halya into the warm pocket where she could rest snug against Katya’s body. She pulled her coat over the bundled baby and made sure Halya could breathe before going outside. The little girl, warm and secure, rested her tiny hand against Katya’s chest and sighed.

Her legs ached as they moved. Thick and swollen, they stung like dozens of needles were stabbing into her with each step. Odd that they swelled while the rest of her dwindled away. They hadn’t begun to crack or ooze with fluid like her mother’s or the lady she’d met at the Torgsin, so she supposed she was lucky. Being lucky had taken on much lower standards of late.

The moonlit snow brightened the world, the stars twinkled, and for a moment, as she stood suspended in that beautiful night, a tiny glimmer of a feeling she barely recognized squeezed into a crack in her broken soul. Wonder. Under the illuminated sky, Katya could almost forget the horror they lived in. She could almost imagine life as it was before Stalin sent his men to break them.