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    I sat at the table, waiting for Bresza to come home. Between two fingers I held a cigarette that was burning very low.

    The children played in the living room, wrestling each other, pulling at hair, elbows waving around everywhere. Dravja gave a great noisy yell and jumped on Nicola and Alexander, forgetting about my constant warnings to be quiet.

    “Hush!” I hissed from the kitchen. “You can play, but do not make so much noise, or my mother will wake up.” I had given her a strong cup of nighttime tea, but I was never sure when she might wake up and scream at me again. The cigarette burned even lower, singeing my fingers, and I cursed under my breath, biting my lip and stubbing the cigarette out underneath the table’s edge.

    “Angei,” Dravja whispered, reproved. “Sorry.” He jumped again on the two, giggling softly and kicking his feet on their backs. They dumped him over, and darted down to tickle him, before I raised a hand.

    “If you tickle him,” I admonished, “he will make even louder noise. Please, come and have some tea. I am sorry you cannot play outside, but it is snowy and I would not like you to catch cold.” I motioned to the cups of tea sitting on the table. “Come have tea,” I repeated and rose, the cigarette falling to the floor with flutters of ash.

    The children crowded around the table and clutched at the cups, drinking deeply of the comfortably hot tea. Dravja ran forward to me and nestled his head into my side, murmuring in Russian, and accepted his own cup. I lifted and snuggled him close to my chest, taking my chair and setting it next to the stove to keep the little one warm. “So,” I whispered to them, “how have you been today? What have you been doing while I was away?”

    “We went to garden,” Anya replied, “and we quiet when we picked vegetables.” He held a finger up to his lips.

    “Good, good,” I praised. “I am proud of you. Did she wake up and call for me?”

    “No, Angei, she been sleeping.” Nicola looked up from his tea, stirring it with his finger.

    The door opened, and Bresza bustled himself in, covered in paint and shivering from the cold as he removed his coat. “I get Bresza a blanket,” Nicola responded and ran on quiet feet to the hallway closet.

    “Hello, little Breszya,” I said welcomingly, setting Dravja down, and rose to my feet to pour him a cup of tea. “How was your day?”

    “It was good.” Bresza nodded and blew on his hands. “Is the stove heating? It is so cold tonight.”

    “A window broke,” Anya sighed apologetically. “We had cover it with cloth.”

    “No wonder it is so cold,” I muttered and set Bresza’s tea on the table, striding to the living room window, and pulled back the cloth. “Yes, it is broken,” I groaned and peered at the tiny shards, balling my fist in the cloth and knocking the slivers of glass out of the window.

    “You must be hungry.” I rushed to the stove, where vegetables and brown rice were boiling in a pot together, and lifted a spoon to stir the food. I wish I had a bit of meat to give to the children tonight.

    “Angei,” Bresza implored, “let me do it. You rest.”

    “I will be fine,” I sighed. “You children need your own rest.” I exhaled and stretched back, my vertebrae popping like dry wood in a fire. “Nhfm,” I expressed softly and rubbed my aching lower back; after digging for hours it hurt me deeply.

    Bresza rose from his seat at the table and stepped to my side, nestling against me and kneading my back with hands conditioned by delicate work. “Angei,” he whispered sympathetically, “you work too hard.”

    I turned. The children were watching Bresza jealously, their dark eyes flickering. I opened my mouth to say something, but Bresza shook his head.

    “Do not give me such looks,” he said reproachfully to his fellows. “I have done nothing you would not have done yourselves if you had been quicker.”

    The boys looked guiltily at each other.

    “Now, children,” I said, “he is stronger than you. He is only working out the kinks in my back.” I turned back to the soup, and did not look at Bresza. I am thinking terrible things. He may be an adult, but he is not mine to touch and love. He will find himself a young, pretty woman, perhaps from Europe, and they will have many children together. An envious flower bloomed inside my heart, spreading its many jealous petals over me and enclosing me in hurt. Though, I admitted, it would be so good to have someone to hold me at night...I would cherish the touch of closeness that love could bring. There is no escaping my loneliness—not now, not ever. I refused to meet eyes with Bresza, guilty over my own thoughts.

    “You are thinking of something,” Bresza correctly assumed.

    “Nothing that should concern you,” I dismissed. “I do not mean to be rude. It is just that some thoughts have to be kept silent.”

    “Only if you are afraid what others will think of them,” Bresza amended. His hands lowered further, massaging and squeezing the tense ring of muscle around my lower waist. “You can tell me anything, Angei...I do not know about the rest of them, but you can tell me anything.” This he said in Romanian.

    “Where,” I asked, “did you learn my language?” I’d forgotten that Bresza knew it.

    “I used to live in Bucharest,” Bresza replied softly. “My parents took me to many places.” He nuzzled me and breathed out quietly, his breath steaming against my back. “Is the soup done?”

    “Almost,” I whispered. “It will be done soon.” I stirred the soup and lifted the spoon to taste it. “Ah, it could use some spice, but all I have now is wild herbs I gathered on the way home.” Opening the cabinet, I removed a small bowl of dried, powdery leaves, sprinkling a pinch of them into the soup as it bubbled. Thinking of it, I sprinkled another pinch in.

    “You do with what you can,” Bresza said softly and leaned into my shoulder. “Will you be all right?”

    “Yes...." I leaned back, my spine popping again, and groaned. “I will be fine. Do not worry for me, little Breszya.” I wondered just what made him worry for me, I was not so important. If I died they would mourn me for a little while, and then they would go on with their lives, and be free to live the way they dreamed of. But it is good that Breszya worries for me. I would expect no less from him, he does not think of himself as much as he thinks of me. I sighed as Bresza’s fluffy head nestled against my neck and his slender fingers lifted to rub it.

    “Angei, you are tense everywhere,” he murmured.

    “Yes,” I agreed. “But it is not so important.” I stirred the soup one last time, then leaned down to open the stove door and poured a dipper of water onto the coals inside. They protested with small hisses and sputters, but then steamed and died away. “It is good that I can still cook, I have forgotten much of it. Go sit down,” I said to Bresza.

    “Yes, Angei.”

    I moved from the stove with the pot of soup and carefully ladled it into the nine waiting bowls on the table. I would make sure there was enough for them to eat their fill, and then I would have my dinner. “There,” I sighed. “You children eat, and tell me if you want more. As for me I am going to lie down.” I stumbled into the living room and flopped down onto the large pallet, curling up and rubbing my back. It teemed with pain, as though a nest of bees stung me over and over, and I had a feeling one of my discs was about to slip. Aie, more money spent on going to hospital, having surgery...I could not afford that...I did not want the money I used to care for my children and my mother to be gone....

    “Poor Angei,” Bresza murmured to Petkov. “I wish there was something I could do for him...maybe I could help him in other ways, but I am sure I could do nothing more for his back. I will have to have another job.”

    “No, no,” Alexander piped. “I cut firewood!”

    “And we wash windows!” Bibi and Dmitry added.

    Dravja cried, “Ya payedoo s vamee!”

    “Nyet,” Anya discouraged.

    “A pachyemoo?” Dravja’s face crumpled.

    Bresza pointed to me from the table. Dravja gazed at me with mournful blue eyes.

    “What you look at?” I called to Dravja. “Come here and cuddle with me.” I beckoned with my hands, and he scampered over to me and buried his face into my neck. “Mmm.”

    “Angei,” he murmured. “Zhal, vi spyma.” He snuggled me and kissed my cheeks, his hands pressing to my face.

    My gaze caught Bresza’s, and we stared at each other for a few minutes before I hurriedly looked away, mumbling.

    As soon as Bresza’s attention fixed back on his dinner and he began to eat again, I again let my gaze drift to Bresza. I do not know what I am thinking, or why I am thinking it...but.... My heart stirred at the sleek, pale column of his neck, as his long, thin ponytail switched back and forth over it. No, I know what I am thinking of now....

    I was annoyed with myself for such thoughts. Bresza was not mine, and never would he belong to me. He was his own person; that much he had proven today when he was painting. I had stood there for at least twenty minutes before he had noticed me. And now, here I was, looking at Bresza again and wondering how much it would take.

    How much what would take, Angei?

    I had no idea.

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