Chapter Text
Pyotr stares out the window helplessly. His saucer-like eyes are shiny and hard. He whimpers wordlessly.
She’ll come back. Mama said she’d come back. She’ll come back. They were just going to see the doctor for Oksana’s cough. She’ll come back.
Right?
Earlier that day, a figure emerged in the distance walking down the dirt path. Mama and Sister .
Pyotr ran as fast as his tiny legs could carry him.
“Oksana! Oksana! Oksana!” he shouted down the road.
But Sister wasn’t there. She wasn't hiding behind Mama’s dress waiting to jump out and yell and chase him around the house. She wasn't in Mama's arms being carried through her fitful sleep.
“Mama? Where is Oksana?” asked Pyotr.
Mama only shook her head and shed a few tears.
But Pyotr sits in the windowsill in their bedroom, bathed in moonlight.
“I know you are not dead, Oksana. I know it as surely as the moon sits in the sky. I know you are out there, and I will find you. I promise.”
Pyotr slid off the windowsill and tugged the heavy blanket off atop Sister’s bed. Wrapping himself into a cocoon with her scent, he crawled into his own bed and silently wept.