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flames at one another and huffing. Aleksandr ignored them,
glancing at the sun again and again. Why wouldn’t the damn
thing move Finally, blessedly, the night came.
He stayed in front of the house until the moon was high
overhead and the cold made his bones feel heavy as oxen. The
dragons nipped at his feet and drove him inside. So he waited in
his chair by the fire. In his lap, Aleksandr cradled Minchka’s doll,
hands loosely closed over the little cloth chest. He had found the
tiny doll a week after Minchka left, wedged amid the rags the two
dragons used as a nest beneath the sleeping platform. One of the
dragons had sharpened its teeth on the carved wood of the doll’s
face, making deep gouges like the tracks of tears. It was a child’s
toy and his daughter was no longer a child. Seven years gone,
but he could not picture her as anything other than the little girl
he’d held that last night. The doll wasn’t even a proper present as
Minchka had already owned the thing. But she had loved the doll
so much. Would she still Would she still love him
The night trickled away with no sign of Minchka. She
had to come. She had to. His fingers tapped out the minutes on
the chair arm. The fire burned lower in the hearth but he didn’t
add more wood. His legs wouldn’t work anymore. If she didn’t
come....
When morning’s first pink touched the sky and Aleksandr’s
eyes had drifted shut, there was a knock on the door.
Aleksandr started awake. The knock came again. He was frozen.
Unable to open the door and see. If it wasn’t her he was afraid
something would break inside him that couldn’t ever be fixed.
“Papa” A soft voice called.
His breath caught and he clutched the doll tighter.
“Papa, are you there”
Aleksandr’s hands trembled as he rose and shuffled to
the door like an old man. The dragons snorted smoke rings in
disgust, racing to the door and back five times before he reached
it. The wood was cold and pitted beneath his palm.
“Minchka” Aleksandr whispered. His hands shook harder
but he fumbled the door open.
58 Writing Tomorrow Magazine