Maria loved to watch them together. The children were usually asleep when Peter got home from the factory, so this time was important. She wanted them to get to know their father’s easygoing temperament and to absorb his wisdom. While she was an anxious personality—she wasn’t sure if she had always been that way or if the execution of her family had caused it—Peter never panicked in the face of problems, but pondered calmly until he found a solution. He was less gregarious than her but he saw the best in everyone he met and was always willing to do a favor, so he was well liked by his neighbors and coworkers.

“Shall we catch some fish?” he asked, and sent the children scurrying in the bushes to find long, straight twigs with which to fashion fishing rods.

“What will you use for line and hooks?” Maria called, and he produced a roll of fishing line and some hooks from his jacket pocket with a wink. Trust him to think ahead.

The three of them sat on a rock, each dangling a rod over the water, waiting patiently. Maria got up to stroll along the water’s edge, soothing Katya to sleep with a gentle bouncing motion that came as second nature now. It seemed incredible that she had not known how to feed, change, or soothe a baby before Stepan came along, and she hoped he had not suffered from her early mistakes. He was still the serious one of her children. Olga, her eldest sister, had also been serious. Maybe it was the fate of the firstborn.

“Mama, look!” Stepan called. Dangling on the end of his line was a wriggling silver fish, not three inches in length. He was crestfallen when Peter explained that they must throw it back because it was too small to eat.

“We only kill what we can eat,” he explained. “If you respect nature, it will give you what you need.”

Is that true? Maria wondered, then she looked at the babe in her arms, who had drifted off to sleep so easily. What she had needed after her family was brutally murdered was the love of a good man and a new family to care for, and she had been given both. Whether you believed they had been the gift of nature or of God was a moot point.