“Thank you.” Pavlo pressed his cool lips against her cheek and she forced herself not to hold him there with her, where she could keep him safe. He winced when his heavy coat fell on his wound, and Katya cringed with him as if his pain were her own.
Mucking stalls, scooping feed, milking the cow, then trudging back across the field to do the same at Pavlo’s farm kept Katya busy, though her mind kept wandering to her gentle father, locked up in a cold cell. She shivered as she tried to remember how warmly he’d dressed yesterday. Surely they would let him go soon, she told herself. He’d done nothing wrong. Then again, neither had anyone else. Nothing made sense anymore.
Vasyl was the only other person besides them who came to say goodbye to their loved ones. Of course, everyone in their small village had heard what had happened, but nobody asked about the funeral or offered to help. The risk was too great.
Vasyl read prayers over their bodies, then helped them carry out the coffins. They stopped and tapped the end of each coffin on the doorjamb three times to allow the deceased to part with their home, then made their way to the cemetery. Mama walked at the head of the procession, holding in a rushnyk the remnants of a holy icon picture Prokyp had smashed. Kolya, with Pavlo beside him, drove the wagon with the bodies, and Vasyl, Alina, and Katya followed behind on foot. Despite the cloak of darkness, fear of discovery amplified every creak of the wagon and kept everyone silent and on their guard.
Vasyl said a few words, then they lowered the coffins into the ground. Pavlo used his good arm, but still leaned heavily on Katya afterward, so she braced her strong legs, wrapped her arms around Pavlo’s waist, and held him up while silent sobs for his parents racked his body. The short service ended moments after it began; even the ability to truly mourn their loved ones had been taken from them.
A cold gust of air followed Mama into the house as she dropped into the chair by the pich. Her blank face gave Katya no clues as to what she’d learned on her trip to the village that morning to coerce the guards to let Tato go. She’d insisted on going alone in case they got angry and arrested her, too.
“What did you find out?” Katya asked, trying to ignore Mama’s puffy, tear-stained face and the sinking feeling in her belly. “A few more days and then they’ll let him go? Right?”
“He’s not there.” Mama tried to control her emotions, but it was a futile effort. A low sob slipped past her lips and she fell to the floor. “They deported him last night. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
“No, Mama.” Katya shook her head. “Not Tato. That can’t be right. Maybe they are lying to you.”
Alina dropped to her knees and embraced their wailing mother. Katya knew she should go to them, to mourn together the absence of their father, but she couldn’t make her feet move. Instead, she squeezed her hands into fists so tight her fingernails cut into her skin as she contemplated a life without Tato’s gentle smiles and wise guidance.
“We will go tell Vasyl to wait,” Alina said, after Mama’s wails had subsided. “We cannot marry on the heels of Tato’s deportation.”
Mama’s head snapped up. “Do you want to marry this man?” She wiped her eyes with one hand and jerked the other toward Kolya.
“Of course,” Alina said. She glanced over at Kolya, and her eyes softened.
“And you, Katya?” Mama turned her steely, tear-filled gaze on her younger daughter. “You want to marry Pavlo, right?”
Mama’s voice shook Katya out of her daze, and she looked up at Pavlo. Her pulse quickened. She did want to marry him, with all of her heart. But to marry without Tato here? To celebrate her love for Pavlo while her father moved further away from them by the minute? This wasn’t the plan. “Yes, Mama, but—”
“Then you have to marry today.” Mama held up a hand to silence Katya. “I pray you can have a small piece of the happiness I shared with your father, and if you want that, then you must take it now. You saw what happened to the church. It’s nothing but a building for Party meetings. No, you must marry now while we still have a priest in the village to do it, because God knows how long it will be before they take him from us, too.” She crossed herself and said a prayer under her breath.
So, only a few days after the funeral, and the day after Tato had been deported, Kolya and Alina and Pavlo and Katya married in their house. For those brief few minutes, as the priest bound their hands together with the rushnyk Mama had made for them, Katya stared into Pavlo’s face and felt whole. Love welled up in her for the man she was now connected to for life, but when her eyes fell on her mother, standing alone, wringing her hands and biting back tears, reality came crashing back down and tainted any joy she’d felt.