“Come, now. He’ll find his way back.” Róża covers the basin with hay to mask the smell until Henryk can move it out to the animal pen.

“No, he won’t and it’s all my fault!” Tears stream down Shira’s cheeks. She drops to the loft floor and begins pounding on the boards.

Her mother grabs hold of Shira, pins her arms against her chest. “Nie! Quiet this instant.”

The notes in her mother’s voice are cold and harsh. Shira struggles against the hold.

In this moment, she doesn’t care that it isn’t completely dark, that it isn’t safe for her mother outside. At nightfall, her mother is going to shunt her off to the far wall, and Shira will have to shut her eyes and plug her ears even when it sounds like Henryk is hurting her mother. She can’t do that without her bird!

She begs in an urgent whisper, “Will you go get him? He can’t spend the night in the farmhouse.”

“Shh. Stop your silliness.”

“Please, Mama!”

Her mother makes a frustrated huffing sound, but she descends the ladder. She disappears beneath the loft, then reappears with one hand cupped and hoists herself single-handed back up.

How could she get him so quickly?

Shira inspects the bird, suspicious that it is another one, not hers. But she sees that it is hers, by the tiny white spot on his beak and by the single feather that is always ruffled, refusing to tuck in. Shira holds him to her chest. His heart beats fast like marching boots, like gunshots. When she tries to pat him, he ducks and flaps as if to say he won’t be so easily soothed.

Shira turns her back to her mother as she cuddles her bird close, murmuring, “I need you with me always.”

Something in the way Shira turns away, cooing to her bird, sends Róża into a spinning rage. In the face of all that Róża does—she gives Shira most of every meal (this, despite the eggs Krystyna gives to Shira and never to her!); she encourages Shira’s musical interest even when it reminds her painfully of Natan; she soothes her with lullabies, invents elaborate stories to entertain her and pass the time—yet still Shira pushes the limits, wishing for walks with Krystyna and fussing over her bird, risking the safety of both of them, all of them. Is she so nervy now as to be modeling “motherly care”?

Her chest draws tight, full of fury. But after an hour sitting in the stale, shadowy blackness—nowhere to go—inhaling the dank smells and watching Shira clutch the empty air, her anger gutters and guilt floods in.

They’ve lost every real thing except each other. Must her girl fear losing even what is imaginary?