Between Shades of Gray

by Ruta Sepetys

Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.

How would her family ever know what happened to her? How would anyone know what was happening to us?

“Our sense of humor,” said Mother, her eyes pooled with laughing tears. “They can’t take that away from us, right?”

Our personal correspondence wasn’t personal. Privacy was but a memory. It wasn’t even rationed, like sleep or bread.

Sometimes kindness can be delivered in a clumsy way. But it’s far more sincere in its clumsiness than those distinguished men you read about in books.

But as the cold crept deeper into our shacks, it began to chill generosity.