The Memory Keeper of Kyiv

by Erin Litteken

For weeks, Katya had fallen asleep to the sound of her mother’s labored breathing. Wheezing and rattling, it punctuated the minutes like a clock marking the time as they fell further into the nightmarish reality of their lives. Three days after her marriage to Kolya, Katya blinked awake, her thoughts fuzzy and tangled, as unexplained trepidation made her shiver. She pushed herself out of bed and glanced around the room, searching for the source of her unease. Early morning light filtered in the window, landing on her mother’s pale, still face. She crept over, the empty silence of the room echoing all around her and touched her mother’s cold cheek. She’d expected to feel sad. To feel lost. Alone. And she did feel all those things, but in a detached way, as if her heart had grown so hardened that even sharp, intense feelings could no longer penetrate it. What she didn’t anticipate was the sudden surge of relief. Relief that this shell of her mother no longer suffered. Relief that she no longer had to agonize over the futility of trying to keep her alive. Relief that they didn’t have to go to sleep each night wondering if her mother would wake up the next day, because finally, she hadn’t. Now, Mama was just one more person she had failed to save.