His eyes met hers across the dim room and he threw off his blankets and stood. “This is ridiculous. Let’s share our warmth, Katya.” He always said her name when he spoke to her, as though to remind himself that she wasn’t and would never be his Alina.
He stalked across the floor, carrying his blankets, and Katya trembled from more than just the cold. Only a few hours ago, he’d been repelled by her touch. Now he wanted to come to bed with her? Uncertainty coiled inside of her, constricting her lungs. “What are you doing?”
Kolya stood in front of her, wearing only his threadbare undergarments, and for the first time, she saw how much weight he had lost. All jutting bones, he reminded her of the stick men Tato used to draw in the dirt to make her laugh.
“Surviving. Take off your clothes, Katya, and we’ll share our warmth. It’s no different than how you keep Halya tucked against you, and it may be the only way we will live through the cold nights to come with so little firewood.”
Katya remained motionless, uncertain what to do. Yes, he was her husband, but they had never lain together, had never seen each other unclothed. She thought he’d wanted it that way. Now, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe he wanted a more traditional union and all that it entailed. And what did she want? Suddenly, Katya wasn’t sure about that either.
He climbed in and set his blankets on the bed. “Come on, now,” he said more sternly. “Do you want to freeze to death after all of the work we have put into staying alive?”
Deep down, the words made sense. They would be warmer this way. It might be the only way they could survive, but she couldn’t deny how wrong it felt.
Katya drew quick, shallow gasps of air as she began to undress under her set of blankets, pushing her clothes out from under the covers with wobbly hands.
Kolya turned away, his chest heaving. When she finished and lay shivering in only her shift, he leaned forward to tuck both sets of blankets around them, then spread out their clothes over the top of that. Katya tensed, her skin tingling, when he settled in and spooned his sharp body around hers as she was curved around Halya.
“You’re still shaking,” he said, his voice close to her ear. She couldn’t tell now if she shook from the cold or the overwhelming sensation of his body pressed so intimately against hers. His warm breath danced across her cheek and the tang of his musky sweat filled her nose. The sheer power of his touch, of the physical connection of another human who understood exactly what she was going through, unexpectedly moved her to tears. She thought of the loss of her husband, her sister, her mother, and her father. All of the people who loved her and would have held her up now, at her lowest point, were gone. The two people in the bed with her at this very moment were the only people left in her cold, dark world.
It didn’t take long for the warmth of his body to overtake her, and she finally relaxed against him and fell asleep. A few hours later, she woke to the feel of his body shuddering against hers.
“What wrong? Is it Halya?” Katya placed her hand on Halya’s back, waiting for the rise and fall to tell her the child still lived, and when she’d confirmed Halya was fine, she twisted around to face him. “Are you sick?”
Kolya shook his head. “I’m fine,” he rasped.
“You don’t look fine.” Moonlight spilled in through the window and cast the room in shades of gray, and she could see his expression, drawn and weary.
“I’m just… I don’t know.”
Katya reached up and touched his tear-stained face. Her pulse quickened, and she flushed with shame at her body’s involuntary response to him.
Kolya pressed her hand to his cheek. “Could you hold me? Please?”
Her lips parted in a small sigh as she pulled him close. The embrace came easily, and it surprised her how natural, how good, it felt to hold Kolya against her. Entwined together, his face nuzzled into her neck, she gently stroked his hair until his tears slowed and he fell asleep.
The words Pavlo had said to her before he left to join the rebellion played through her head. You have nothing to worry about. If anything happens to me, Kolya promised he will take care of you.
I don’t want Kolya to take care of me! I want you! she’d replied.
What did she want now? Guilt-stricken and confused, she remained awake, her mind filled with traitorous thoughts about the man she held in her arms. Her brother-in-law. Her husband.
31
CASSIE
Illinois, June 2004
“Mommy?”
A little hand patted Cassie’s cheek, and her eyes fluttered open. Darkness shrouded the room, and her neck ached from its awkward position on the couch. She reached over and flicked on the lamp. Nick was sprawled out on the loveseat, his lanky frame hanging halfway off the cushions.