Get Cozy, Josey!

by Susan May Warren

  I hate that I enlisted backup for the man I most believe in. Or at least, want most to believe in. He does deserve my trust, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he?

  Oh, God, please help me to trust Chase!

  The picture finishes loading and I shut down the computer. Five more orders today. The post office is sending them out as fast as we can package them, but it’s not like they offer delivery confirmation. At least I know H is sending them on to the right locations.

  All I can do is pray.

  Which I seem to be doing a lot these days, especially since Chase decided to take a jaunt into the nether hills. The good news is that Nathan brought along Secrets of Siberia’s first paycheck, wired to a Khabarovsk bank from our online account. I sell on consignment, taking only enough to cover the eBay and mailing expenses. The rest I pay out to the ladies.

  I have to admit, I’ve never seen a woman cry when she got paid before. But when Olya counted her rubles, she put her head into her hands and began to sob. “Spaceeba,” she said, over and over.

  I’m thinking that it was a good cry.

  I decided that it might be good if I cried, too. See, this is why I could be a pastor’s wife, if, say, Chase was a pastor. Because I can empathize. This is also why, last week, I had a packed house for my study of the first chapter of John.

  It just takes time to win hearts and minds.

  I pass Anton in the hall as I leave the government office. I’m sure he recognizes me, despite the fact that I’m dressed in three thousand layers with only my eyes showing between my knit cap and scarf. Still, when I lift my hand in greeting, he ignores it.

  Okay, so I’m not winning all the hearts and minds of Bursk.

  The wind picks up trash it has culled from corner Dumpsters, and an empty bottle rolls across my path. The late-January winds have pushed snow into drifts against the swaying fences that line footpaths to homes. The street is a sheet of thick ice, scarred here and there by hoof prints or sledge furrows. Every house I pass has a trickle of gray smoke curling into the sky, evidence of life in the otherwise darkened abode, shuttered closed for winter. We elected to put plastic over our windows, and every day a hazy sun shines in.

  The detski-sod yard is well used, even in winter. The teachers bundle up the children for the Ice Age so they can spend the requisite hour outside, playing. To my surprise, Justin and Chloe haven’t been ill once this winter.

  We might all need to play outside for an hour a day, get some sunshine, learn how to get along with the other kids despite the snow. I think there are some metaphors for life there.

  Justin and Chloe are the only ones on the swing set when I arrive. Maya is in the yard, wrapped in a wool coat, looking her Milan-model best. She gives me a small, disapproving shake of her head as I retrieve my children.

  “Izvenetya,” I say. “Thank you for watching them. I appreciate your time.”

  She gives me one of those eerie Maya looks and shrugs.

  I swing by the corner market, perusing the items on my way home. Olya isn’t there today—thanks to her recent payday, I hope—but I spot a vendor with what looks like chocolate chips. I look closer, pulling Chloe to a stop. My daughter is thrilled to begin our daily tug-of-war.

  Sure enough, Nestlé’s Toll House chocolate chips! I can’t believe it. My supply has long run out, and the ladies have been begging for another batch.

  I am reaching into my pocket for rubles when I see Ulia down the street, standing beside an abandoned bread kiosk. I recognize her by her shopka, which is a sort of swirled, whipped-cream shape made of leather and mink.

  And standing very close to her is a man I don’t recognize. He leans down and whispers in her ear. She laughs.

  She doesn’t see me, despite the fuss Chloe is making, and I quickly turn away, feeling as if I’ve just seen an episode of Santa Barbara Goes to Siberia.

  Oh.

  “Mommy, me seeds!” Justin is pointing to a woman selling sunflower seeds in a little bag.

  “No, Justin. You don’t know how to eat them.” I’m pulling him away as fast as I can. Chloe’s decided that she is a turtle and wants to try sliding along the icy path on her back.

  “Get up, Chloe,” I hiss through my teeth. Please, don’t let Ulia see me. I feel suddenly dirty. I haul Chloe up by the back of her fur coat. “Please walk with Mommy.”

  “Nyet! Nyet!”

  Okay, that’s about enough of Russian culture for one day. I hike Chloe up by her belt and carry her down the street like a suitcase.

  Justin is sliding beside me. “Mommy, where’s Daddy?”

  He’s in the bush, where it’s safe. Where people don’t see things they ought not to. My stomach burns as we arrive at our house. I let the kids free. Justin runs through the yard, pretending to shoot imaginary wildebeests.

  The house is cold. Chase has brought in enough coal to last us while he’s away, so I put on my gloves and load a couple of coal chunks into the still-burning furnace and push them around with the poker.

  It’s a skill I’ll bet my mother never learned. But more than likely, one I share with my grandmother.

  “Soup!” Justin says, climbing onto his chair. His cheeks are still rosy from the walk home and his blond curly hair sticks out in odd places. Those blue eyes look at me, sparkling with hope, and I’d give him the world.

  “Coming right up.”

  Nathan, bless him, has left his room-and-board pot of borscht in the fridge, and I serve it up hot with smytena and bread.

  We read a book, the kids have a warm bath, and then I put them to bed.

  The house is quiet and dark as I stare out at the stars. Chase is out there, under them. I imagine him in his sleeping bag, wool hat on, laughing with Nathan. Chase spent much of his high-school years sleeping out under the stars.

  I don’t need to worry.

  I don’t need to worry.

  Once upon a time, back in Gull Lake, I was the one who caused the worry. I was the one who sometimes forgot her boundaries. I’ll never forget the night I went joyriding with Lew and the gang, shortly after we took home the state football title. I’m horrified to admit that I don’t remember how, exactly, I got home.

  Except to say that it had to do with Chase and his attention to detail. He noticed that I wasn’t in the parking lot waiting for him after the team bus arrived home and all the other football players had showered and moved on to victory events.

  Chase spent half the night looking for me and finally found me, apparently, on Lew’s porch furniture.

  I woke up on the beach of Berglund Acres, wrapped in a stadium blanket. Chase was sitting beside me.

  He said nothing.

  I said nothing.

  And he covered for me when my father found us. He said we’d come out to watch the sunrise.

  I can trust Chase.

  I turn off the light, climb into our cold bed and shiver.

  Don’t you think there should be some warning, especially from God, when you are going to have to pull out your spiritual arsenal? I know that the Bible says, “Be ready in all seasons,” but really, just like a race or a boxing match, there should be a designated warm-up period.

  It’s somewhere around two in the morning. I’ve been asleep for at least four hours—long enough to have bad breath and matted hair. And it’s greasy hair, too, because Chase has been away for three days, and Chloe and Justin aren’t tall enough to pour water over my head to rinse out the suds.

  I realize too late that I’m still half-asleep—a girl with all her faculties wouldn’t open the door to crazed pounding in the middle of the night.

  I don’t recognize the snowy person wrapped in layers and a scarf, only eyes showing, who stumbles into my foyer, bringing in the frigid night air. I gasp as the air climbs up my nightgown, despite the coat I’ve wrapped around me.

  “Hello?”

  I know those eyes, but it takes a moment for me to place them. And when I do, I’m speechless. Frozen in place.

  Why would Maya be at m
y door in the middle of the night?

  “Can I stay here?” she asks, and as I nod, I see that her mascara has run and her face is blotched from the chill. I close the door behind her as she sheds her scarf, turning her back to me.

  “Yes. Are you okay?”

  She is trying to nod, but it’s not working and she puts a hand over her face, probably to hide the fact that she’s crying, but I’m pretty savvy—I can spot sobbing with the best of them. Even in the wee hours. I ease off her jacket and hang it on a hook over mine. I open the inner door and take her elbow to move her inside.

  When I spot her swollen and bloody mouth, the slightest trickle of blood from her upper lip, I pull in a cry of horror, not wanting to scare her. I motion to a chair. “Would you like some tea?”

  She nods and moves somewhat stiffly to the chair, taking out a handkerchief and pressing it to her eyes and her mouth. She looks down at the blood on it.

  “Are you okay?” I ask again. “Do you need some ice?”

  She shakes her head, but her hand is trembling. The furnace needs stoking so I open it and push around some blocks. The coal supply is dwindling, but Chase will be back tomorrow, in plenty of time to bring in more coal from the pile outside. I put the teapot on the stove and sit down opposite her, taking her hand. It’s ice cold. “What happened?”

  She glances up at me, and now I see, truly see what is behind those beautiful, deadened eyes.

  Pain. Brokenness.

  “What is it, Maya?” I ask softly.

  She sighs. “I can stay here tonight?”

  “Of course. Are you afraid to go home?” It occurs to me that I don’t even know where Maya lives. Which is odd, because now I know where nearly everyone in town lives.

  She looks again at the blood on her handkerchief and nods.

  “Who hurt you, Maya?”

  She closes her eyes and takes a long, deep breath. And then she says, “I was born in this village. My father was an elder.”

  The teapot’s lid starts to jiggle against the steam, but I ignore it.

  “He committed suicide when I was thirteen.” She stares at her fingernails. Her nail polish is a deep red. “My mother couldn’t take care of me, and she didn’t have money to send me back to boarding school, so,” she says, shrugging, “she gave me to a man in the village to marry.”

  Oh.

  Maya glances up at me with a flicker of a sad smile. “He might have loved me. But mostly he drank, and I kept his house.” She shakes her head. “He wasn’t always mean.”

  I imagine her, a young girl, afraid, trying to keep everything in order. No wonder she runs a tight ship over at the kindergarten.

  I get up, turn off the stove and bring the pot of water to the table. I’m reaching for the cups when she puts her hand on my arm. “He would have killed us both that night.”

  I sit back down.

  “I know it. He was drunk, and he barricaded my door. I woke up and smelled the smoke. I knew he’d fallen asleep with his cigarette. I tried to get into the room, I tried to save him, but by the time I got out the window, the house was engulfed.” She shakes her head as if to erase the memory. “The council called it an accident. They gave me a room at the community center, in the back, behind the stage.”

  So that’s where she lives. Right next door to the detski-sod. No wonder she’s always there.

  I retrieve the cups and set them in front of her. “You’re safe here, Maya. Whatever happened tonight, you’re safe here. And when Chase gets back, he’ll find out—”

  “Nyet!” Her eyes widen. “No, it’s not…I can’t…”

  “Calm down. I just want to help—”

  “He will kill me if anyone finds out.”

  The clock on the wall ticks behind me as I let her words sink in. Who will kill her? If anyone finds out what?

  I take her hand. “You’re safe here, Maya. I promise. And we don’t have to know anything. Except, if my children are in danger…” I raise an eyebrow, and she shakes her head.

  “He wouldn’t come here.”

  I get up and bolt the inside door just the same.

  Maya fixes herself a cup of tea. Her hand shakes a little as she sips it.

  “Thank you,” she says softly.

  I nod. “Maya, why did you come to me?”

  She takes another sip, measuring me with her eyes. “Because I’ve been watching you, and I think I want to believe you.”

  Believe me? Is anyone else lost?

  “He loves me, you said. And I want to believe that. But I’m not sure I can.”

  Oh. He. As in God, He.

  “Why not?”

  She shakes her head and looks away. And I recognize a look I’ve seen way too many times on my own face. Guilt. Shame. The morning-after dread on the shores of Gull Lake.

  I touch her trembling hand. “I learned long ago that God doesn’t keep score. It’s all one big lump of sin to Him. And His one big remedy is forgiveness. Just like that. He doesn’t promise to make all our problems go away. But He does promise to forgive us and to walk with us here on earth, give us wisdom and hope, and give us life after we die. One of my favorite verses says that God knows the plans He has for us, and they’re good plans. But we need to seek Him to find those plans.”

  Her dark eyes examine mine as if testing my words, my resolve. And then, just like that, as if the sunshine has found Siberia, she smiles. It’s small. But enough. “I think, maybe, I can do that.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Hot and Cold

  I think my marrow has frozen. For sure, every cell in my body is turning to ice. I move like a ninety-year-old woman, and it hurts. I’ve lost all feeling in my fingers, and I’ve taken to holding my hands over the steam off the potato soup, hoping to thaw them.

  Outside, the wind has turned into a snarl, and a blizzard white-outs the yard. I can’t even see the street. My coal supply is buried under the snow—I keep praying over the furnace, but if Chase doesn’t get home soon, I’m going to have to get out there and dig.

  Chase is out there. A day late, already.

  Maya left early yesterday morning before the kids woke up, and I cleaned the house and waited for Chase, nearly bursting with the need to tell him about what happened to Maya.

  I waited and waited…

  I’m not going to worry. I’m not.

  I stand at the window, staring at a swirl of snow, and everything inside me is tight.

  “This is not what I signed up for, Lord.” My voice sounds thin against the wind rattling the windowpanes. Chloe and Justin are still asleep, bundled in layers of comforters and wool blankets. I pull my sleeves down over my fists and fold my arms across my chest for warmth. “I’m not ready to be a single mom.”

  I go over to the coal bucket and stare into its emptiness as if God might suddenly fill it. But it stays empty.

  It only takes a second for me to succumb to the temptation of the warm Cossack boots. I pull them on, along with a jacket, a hat and Chase’s work gloves, then grab the bucket.

  The wind nearly takes me down. My nose immediately hurts, and snow is in my eyes. The blizzard isn’t a peaceful drift of thick snowflakes, but a torrent of ice crystals hitting my face—the fury of Siberia, unleashed.

  I bend my head and trudge over to the pile, pick up a shovel and work out a few rocks. I’m not sure what coal in America looks like, but in Russia, coal is grimy and black and comes in boulders. A dirty chunk tumbles down from the pile, landing at my feet. I pick it up and drop it into the bucket.

  Coal is also heavy. I only fill the bucket halfway and trudge inside. No, this is not what I signed up for at all.

  Humble. Gentle. Patient. Peaceful.

  Be worthy of the calling.

  I was worthy yesterday. I just hope to survive today.

  I dump the bucket into the fire. A blaze of heat begins to fill the house.

  I stand back, pry off my layers. Warm my hands. Hmm. Wow, I did that. All by myself.

  We might
survive living in Siberia, after all. Perhaps we’ll even help people solve the problems that have plagued this village for years. And help Olya reunite her family. And show Maya the way to hope. And even help Nathan start a church. Maybe Siberia isn’t as difficult as I thought.

  I start a pot of hot water for cocoa and again stare out the window. It’s getting darker, even though it’s supposed to be early morning.

  We are in for a doozy of a storm.

  Please, God, keep Chase safe.

  I climb back into bed, warmed by the bodies of my two little Chase replicas.

  “Josey! Josey, wake up!”

  I am warm, so warm. I take a deep breath.

  And smell smoke. I sit up and whack something, hard.

  “Ow!”

  A Chase-like form pulls back, his hand on his forehead. “Chase!” I reach up to put my arms around him, but I can barely see him through the fog of gray smoke.

  “Grab Chloe!” He scoops up Justin, along with a blanket. Panic ignites me as I throw off the covers and drag my daughter from the bed. I follow Chase through the house, putting my hand over my mouth, clutching Chloe to my chest. “Are we on fire?”

  Chase grabs a jacket and throws it over me, and I slip on my boots as we dash out into the snow. “What’s happening?”

  Justin is awake now, blinking at Chase. Chloe is just starting to stir. The snow hits my face with a bite.

  “What did you do?” Chase rounds on me now that we’re outside. The blizzard roars in my ears, and he looks a little wild with all that snow caked on his shopka and his four-day beard growth.

  “We’re all clear,” Nathan says coming out of the house, holding the plastic sheeting that used to cover our windows. “It was just the coal furnace smoldering.”

  Chase’s eyes are red-rimmed, and he closes them as he turns away from me. I see him pull Justin tight against him and lean his face into his son’s neck.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  Nathan pulls off his jacket and puts it around Chloe. “Your coal fire was smothered. The entire house is filled with smoke.”