I didn’t need to be sober to cry, hidden under my three blankets,unmoving, because then I could pretend I wasn’t there at all.
Maxim wasn’t getting his lessons, and he wasn’t doing homework anymore. I didn’t even notice.
It was a Tuesday when things got worse.
I woke up with my head pounding, like I had every day for weeks. The gray morning light pressed against the curtains, so it must have been after nine o’clock.
Despite my blankets, the cold had penetrated my bones and they ached no less than my temples. I shivered, and when I breathed, it came in clouds of thick vapor.
I prayed I wasn’t sick, pulling every sweater I owned over my head. What would happen to Mama… what would happen to Maxim? We had no one to call. Mama’s friends were trapped in their homes just like we were, Elena had her own problems, and our neighbors were no better off.
Three pairs of socks fit on my feet, and I shuffled out of my room. Maxim slept under a pile of winter coats pulled out of the hallway closet. My baby brother didn’t even try to wake me when he got cold.
I wiped away the tears (God, do not let him see me blubbering), and shook him awake.
“Go to my room,” I said. “Take the blankets.”
“I want to play the Sega…” he murmured sleepily, but with just enough pitch to his voice to let me know he would whine if I said no. If I had anything left inside me, I might have urged him to get dressed and brush his teeth. Instead, I brought the blankets out for him.
I’d wake Mama when I had breakfast ready.
Millet was all I had to make kasha, but we still had some butter, so it wouldn’t be completely bland.
Mentally taking inventory of the tea and coffee we still hadin the house, I held the kettle in the sink. I needed the coffee, and I could make Mama something mild in case she wanted to go back to sleep.
God save me, my head was pounding.
“It won’t turn on!” Maxim yelled from the other room, sending a ping of fury through me that he wasn’t mindful of Mama sleeping. But his words stirred a sudden awareness, and I stared dumbly at the kettle in my hands and the still-dry faucet I’d already turned on.
“No…” I whispered. “God… no.. no…”
“KATYA, it won’t turn on!” he bellowed, but I barely heard him.
I dashed to the stove and turned the knob, slapping my palm against the burner. Nothing.
“No!” I squeaked, the pressure behind my eyes nearly rendering me blind.
“KATYA!”
“SHUT UP!” I screamed.
I never screamed at Maxim. I neverscreamed.
The radiator was ice cold.
They’d turned off the electricity. The water pumps had stopped.
My knees buckled, and I grabbed for the stove to keep steady, but it only slowed my descent onto the linoleum hell where my spirit cracked, then broke.
It was over. It was all over, and no matter how hard I tried, the world was made for me to fail as a daughter. As a sister. Who had trusted me to provide when Papa’s heart failed? Who trusted me with anything at all?
They blacked out the district. It could be hours, days, or weeks. We were normally notified of the shutdowns, giving ustime to prepare, but if something at a plant had unexpectedly failed… People died in their apartments this way. They starved, or froze. We would starve.
I pawed for the phone, and then didn’t understand when the receiver was silent. I could only hear Maxim sniveling in the other room.
“Alright,” I told myself. “Alright. Alright—just—just alright.”
I calmly went to my room, calmly pulled the sad remains of a luxury brand vodka from my nightstand (thank God vodka didn’t freeze), and took a long swig (calmly) before I stripped my bed of anything that remained—pillows, sheets, blankets. Everything. I took it to Maxim, who was sitting on the couch, red-faced and squinty-eyed.
