“The piano, it needs tuning. I-I could tune it for you,” Edward desperately offered. He’d stood up, one hand remaining on the keyboard, unable to sever the connection.
And for just the tiniest, darkest, split second, Daria hated him. She hated her husband for still having something he loved so much, it could pull him out of this hell from which the rest of them received no reprieve. For believing, like he’d told Alyssa, that no one could take the music out of him, unless he let them. And Daria loved him for, even in hell, somehow managing to cling to a shred of the man he’d once been. While he’d played, he’d become the old Edward. Even as Daria knew she would never be able to resurrect the girl she’d been.
Adam, however, wasn’t looking at Edward. He was looking at Daria, both of them still breathing heavily from the exertion and the dizziness and . . . nothing else whatsoever.
“You want back to Odessa?” Adam growled.
Daria didn’t trust her voice. She nodded.
“I can arrange that.”
Daria gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. She turned to Edward, wondering if he’d heard, if he’d understood, if he realized what this meant?
“I can get him out,” Adam went on. “And the little girl. But you”—Adam was speaking to Daria now, no one else—“you stay. Here. With me.”
Chapter 10
Dazed, Daria turned to Edward. He hadn’t reacted. Not to Adam’s offer, not to his price. It was like that first day, when the guard ripped Daria’s brassiere strap, and Edward, not knowing what he should or could do, had done nothing; he’d just let the moment unfurl in slow motion, like the music he claimed you couldn’t force but had to allow to flow anywhere it wanted. He looked back at Daria, waiting for her to make the necessary decisions for both of them.
His hand was still on the piano. He was using it for balance. The wound on his thigh had opened again, either from Adam’s slamming the chair against Edward’s legs or from Daria barreling into him in her attempt to escape Adam’s dance hold. Blood seeped through the stopgap bandage, forcing Edward to shift more of his weight to the other foot. He was wobbling, staggering to remain upright. The spark Daria had seen while he’d played was burning so low now, one wrong breath risked extinguishing it forever.
Daria reached for Edward’s arm, draping it over her shoulder and propping him up so he could hobble his way to the exit. Edward allowed Daria to lead him, even as his gaze remained longingly pinned to the piano. At the door, she glanced back at Adam, looking him dead in the eye, the way she had all those times previously.
And offering a nearly imperceptible nod of her head.
“No!” Alyssa screamed, struggling against being hefted onto the first step of the train once she realized Daria meant what she’d said about staying behind. “No! Mama come, too,” the six-year-old regressed in language as she kicked her feet and flailed her arms, refusing to be lifted.
Daria first tried to soothe her with soft words and caresses. Then, frustrated and pressed for time, she resorted to pinning Alyssa’s elbows to her sides, holding her in a viselike grip until the child realized her wrestling was ineffective, and finally settled down.
Daria bent at the waist until she and Alyssa were face-to-face. She cupped her daughter’s cheeks between her palms and thought about how alike her girls had looked, and how, from now on, she would always use Alyssa as a guide for what Anya might have grown up to be. That is, if Daria ever saw Alyssa again.
But she had no time to waste on such idle speculation now.
“Allya.” Daria used the child’s nickname, unable to remember the last time she’d done so. “I’m counting on you to help me. You need to take care of Papa.”
“But why can’t you come, too?” Alyssa pleaded, her already red, swollen, frostbitten face becoming even more crimson from tears.
“I have to stay here.” Daria gave a reason she hoped would make sense; it was even somewhat true. “With Anya.”
Daria sensed the resistance drain out of Alyssa’s tiny body. She’d fretted as it was about her baby sister going into the cold ground so far away from the rest of them. Alyssa understood that leaving Anya alone would be unconscionable.
“Look after Papa for me,” Daria reiterated, picking Alyssa up off the ground and setting her down on the train steps, hugging her as tightly as she could, for as long as she could, until Daria feared snapping Alyssa’s fragile little bones in two.
“Here are your papers.” Daria had held on to them until the last moment, partially from anxiety that they might be rescinded, partially from concern that Edward would misplace them. But mostly because, as long as Daria still had their papers, she still had Edward and Alyssa.
She put them into Edward’s hands, then reconsidered and tucked them into the inside pocket of the coat she’d scrounged by bargaining away all their other possessions. When the woman she was trading with asked what Daria planned to do tomorrow, stripped of everything, Daria told her she didn’t give a damn.
“When you get to Odessa, try to find your father. If he’s still in the old apartment, you should have no problems. Otherwise, go to the Central Office, show these papers, and you’ll be assigned a new place to live. I don’t know where, but it has to be better than this, right?”
She attempted a hopeful smile. The smile Edward gave her in return was anything but hopeful.
She cradled his face in much the same way she had Alyssa’s earlier, and kissed him, more with affection than passion. His lackluster response confirmed her resolve not to go further.
“You’re going to be all right,” she promised. “And knowing that you and Alyssa are all right is what’s going to make me be all right.”
“He’ll . . . take care of you?”
“Yes. You know he can. These papers prove how much influence he holds.”
“I’m sorry,” Edward began. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—”
“Take care of Alyssa. Nothing else matters.”
“When will you come home?”
“As soon as I can,” she swore.
Was she supposed to go back to the barracks? Daria had wandered away from the train depot, where she’d stood watching Alyssa’s and Edward’s faces at the window until even the puffs from the smokestack were no longer visible. She had no idea what she was supposed to do next. Her last few days had been focused on making sure Adam kept his promise, and on getting Alyssa and Edward on board before anyone decided a mistake had been made. She’d given no thought to the moments—and the days and the weeks and the months and the years—after.
Daria began to trudge toward the fields. She stopped. She’d never missed a day of work before, and she had no idea what the consequences for that might be. She found herself wandering, passing guards and other authorities who had every right to demand to know what she thought she was doing, but something about Daria’s state inspired them to keep their distance. They thought she was one of the insane. It happened all the time. The woman whose baby died in the cattle car had lasted a few weeks before creeping out of the barracks and into the woods while her husband slept, then beating her head against a tree until she fell unconscious. They found her frozen to death the next morning. She was hardly the first. And now Daria looked like she might be joining them.