Half Life Jillian Cantor (trending books to read .txt) 📖

had done nothing but help Kaz, and by extension, me, and I should feel grateful. And so I pressed my lips tightly together, saying nothing at all.

Leokadia mistook my silence for worry about Papa, and as the train arrived in Warsaw, she patted my arm and said, “Marya, I’m sure everything is fine, and maybe he has just been busy?”

I nodded, but Papa was never too busy to write his daughters, and Bronia had mentioned in her latest letter to me that she hadn’t heard much from him either, that she was also beginning to worry. Besides, Papa loved to keep me updated on all the many good things happening with my sisters, bragging about them in a way they would not want to do about themselves. Hela was doing so well in her exams, at the top of her class in applied sciences, and she was dating a French scientist named Jacques—both very kind and very handsome. Bronia and her Kazimierz longed to return to Poland, but they wanted Hela to finish her schooling in Paris first, as no one wanted to leave her there all alone. I longed for them to return to Poland, too, to be closer to me again, but I also wanted them to stay in Paris. The idea of their return felt like the closing of a door, the final ending of my own dream of Paris.

LEOKADIA AND I WALKED THE FEW SHORT BLOCKS FROM THE train station, up the stairs to Papa’s front door. I knocked, once softly, then harder. “Papa, it’s Marya. I’ve come for a visit,” I called out. He didn’t respond, and then my heart shook against the walls of my chest, and I put my hand to my breast, an attempt to steady it.

“It’s still early in the morning,” Leokadia said. “Perhaps he’s still asleep?” Papa awoke each day with the sun, and went to bed early, soon after the sun set. It would not be like him to still be asleep.

I used my key and let us in. The apartment was dark, all the curtains drawn. I ran my finger across his credenza, his dining table—there was a fine layer of dust covering everything, coating my fingertip. What if he had been here all alone, died in his bed, and no one had known for weeks? “Papa,” I called out again, my voice breaking a little.

Leokadia reached for my hand, squeezed my fingers with her own, and in that moment I loved her for coming with me and loved Kaz for suggesting it.

We walked together back toward his bedroom. I knocked on the door. “Papa,” I called out. “It’s me, Marya.” For a moment, he did not respond, and I did not dare to open his door, and then I heard a noise, slow footsteps from the other side, and I exhaled. I realized tears were rolling down my cheeks, and I pulled away from Leokadia and wiped furiously at my face, not wanting Papa to see me cry.

He opened the door. “Marya? What are you doing here?” He looked older than when I’d seen him last, six months ago, and now he stood stooped, in his dressing gown.

“I got worried about you when I hadn’t gotten a letter in four weeks. Are you ill?” I asked him. He didn’t answer, just kept staring at me, and I kept talking. “Have you been eating? Remembering to drink water, Papa?”

He tilted his head to the side, like he was considering my questions, or he wasn’t sure. He put his hand on his stomach. “I haven’t been too hungry,” he finally said. He wobbled a little, then grabbed on to the door to steady himself.

“Why don’t you help him into bed?” Leokadia said softly. “I’ll find him some food to eat.”

I took his arm, and he leaned on me. Only then did I realize just how thin he’d gotten, how frail he was. “Papa,” I admonished him. “Why didn’t you write that you weren’t feeling well? I would’ve come sooner.”

“You have a husband to worry about, a life in Loksow. And your sisters are so busy in Paris. I didn’t want to be a bother to anyone.”

I remembered that morning, ten years ago, when Papa had come into my room, thrown the curtains open, and pulled me out of my darkness. He had offered me hope: money and Paris and an education, and then he had loved me all the same when I’d chosen a life with Kaz instead.

I got him back into bed, felt his forehead with the back of my hand. He felt hot; I worried he had a fever. “I’ll call the doctor,” I told him.

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “My sweet Marya,” he said, his lips turning into a slow smile. “The doctor just left. There is nothing more he can do for me, other than surgery, and I’m not going to have that.”

“Papa, don’t say that.”

“Just sit here with me,” he said.

I pulled the chair from the side of the room, pushed it toward his bed, my eyes welling with tears. I bit my lip to keep them at bay. I sat and took his hand in my own, running my fingers softly over his wrinkled flesh. Papa closed his eyes again, his breathing evened, and I thought he’d fallen back to sleep, but then he said, “Marya, my youngest, my dearest. I always thought you would . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Thought I would, what . . . Papa?”

But then he really was asleep. His chest rattled with a soft snore, and he didn’t answer.

I FOUND LEOKADIA KNITTING IN THE PARLOR A LITTLE WHILE later. Her fingers turned, twisting the long needles, moving the way they did when she played piano, swiftly, deftly. She looked up when she heard me walk in, but her fingers kept going—Leokadia’s fingers were always moving. “How is he?” she asked.

“Not well,” I said. From what I’d learned of biology in my classes, I guessed his liver wasn’t functioning fully: his