Crooked fingers of thick grey fog moan over the birch forest. The sky looks heavy. My nose is pressed up against the window, breath hot on the frosty pane.

“Come away from there,” Mama says to me in Russian, “you’ll freeze.”

“Mama,” I turn to her. She’s dark and bundled in the cold light. “Can me and Kolya go out and play?”
 She draws in a sharp breath, and eyes the edge of the forest. “Why do you want to play? It will rain later, look. Better to stay inside. Talk to your family you haven’t seen.”

“Please?”

She looks down her long, thin nose at me. Hands on hips, heart beating. I’ve been trapped inside the dacha, summer cottage, for days as Karelia pours bucket after bucket of rain down on us. We don’t usually come in the autumn, but my grandmother wanted to spirit us away from the city before my mother and I go back to New Jersey. My heart is pounding against my chest, itching to breathe the open air.

“Maybe,” Mama acquiesces. “After you eat your lunch.” Continue reading