“Please, Mom? Pretty please!” she begged.
“Oh, come on, just this once, Cass! It’s not every day a girl learns how to ride a bike without training wheels!” Henry gave his daughter a high five.
“How can I argue with that logic?” she laughed.
Henry took her hand. “Come on, you should join us!”
“I can’t,” she said. “I have to get this article sent off to the editor tonight. You guys go. Bring me home something good.”
“All right, we’ll get you some to go. Come on, Birdie! Race you to the car!” Henry circled around Birdie and then took off toward their sedan.
Birdie squealed in delight. “Bye, Mom!”
Cassie watched as Henry tucked Birdie into her seat and fastened the buckles. Always safety conscious, he’d insisted on the very best car seat on the market when Birdie came along.
They backed out of the driveway and headed down the street to their favorite ice cream place two miles away. If Cassie hurried, she could get the article proofed and sent off before they got home.
But they never came home. Instead, a police officer knocked on her door, and her whole world changed.
Cassie tried to choke back the tears, but a sob escaped her. Henry had died on impact when the semi-truck blew through a red light. Birdie, buckled in on the other side of the car, had survived. Doctors put her into a medically induced coma so her brain swelling would go down and hopefully prevent brain damage. For five days, Cassie put mourning the loss of her husband off while holding her unconscious daughter’s hand in the hospital and funneling all her thoughts and energy into willing Birdie to wake up.
Birdie woke up on day six and impressed doctors with her recovery, but she wouldn’t talk. After a battery of tests, they all agreed it was a psychological issue and she would talk when she was ready.
Fourteen months later, she still wasn’t ready.
“Cassie?” Bobby’s voice and a knock broke through Cassie’s grief.
She blew her nose and put on her fake happy voice. “Come in.”
Bobby pushed open the bedroom door and made her way to the bed. Cassie slid over as Bobby sat next to her and pulled her close. “Come here, my sweet girl.”
Cassie pressed her cheek into the soft flannel of Bobby’s nightgown as Bobby rubbed her back. A wave of nostalgia washed over her and suddenly, she was nine years old again and Bobby could fix anything for her. A fresh flood of tears poured down her face as she wished that were really true, but nobody could make this better.
“There, now. It’s good to cry. Let the pain out.”
She clung to her grandmother, and Bobby smoothed her hair. As her tears slowed, she sat up and wiped her face with a tissue. “I miss him so much.”
“Of course you do,” Bobby said. “And you always will. But you have to find a way to go on without him.”
Cassie nodded. It was the same sentiment her mother had expressed, but for some reason, it felt less abrasive coming from Bobby. “I don’t know how.”
“It takes time. Do you ever talk to him?”
“What do you mean?”
Bobby gave a nonchalant shrug. “In the old world, we asked loved ones to come to us. Give us advice. Watch over us. You could ask Henry. Maybe a message from him will give you closure.”
Cassie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Did that ever work for you?”
Bobby stiffened as she pulled away from Cassie. “Maybe long ago. Not anymore.” She stood, her shoulders drooping with weariness. “We should get some rest. Good night, Cassie.” She shuffled out of the room, mumbling in Ukrainian.
“What are you saying?” Cassie called after her.
Bobby paused in the doorway and gripped the frame. “It’s something my father used to say to me when I was young.”
“What is it?”
Bobby turned to face Cassie and closed her eyes, as if retreating into herself. Her voice broke as she translated the words into English. “Just make it through today, and hope tomorrow will be better.”
8
KATYA
Ukraine, May 1930
“Here, Katya. You’re old enough now, and we may as well enjoy it while we can. Who knows when the activists will come take it?” Lavro poured a generous amount of horilka into a small cup for the next toast and handed it to her. Lavro made the best horilka around, and his brew never went out of demand.
For the first time during a gathering of neighbors like this, she was being treated as an adult. She glanced over at her parents and noted her father’s slight nod. Her mother, however, frowned, so Katya pretended not to see her.