75. Shh, Malenka
Shh, Malenka
The morning is bright. The kind that feels like a gift after a long winter. Coffee thick in the air, sunlight spilling across Mama’s table. I’m still in yesterday’s clothes, hair a tangle, mascara somewhere near my chin but I don’t care.
“I’m just glad I had a place to crash,” I say, laughing. “I had way too much to drink. I think Piotr won the medal for most shots, though.”
Tata chuckles, buttering bread. “He has a garage full of cars to work on today. I hope the hangover’s worth it.”
Mama waves him off. “He’ll survive. Aga looked so happy, didn’t she? Finally, some rest.”
We’re all smiling. Natalia wanders in next, hair wild, face pale, still wearing her beauty mask halfway over one eye so she can see out of the other.
“Coffee,” she croaks, pointing. “Before I murder.”
The kitchen erupts in laughter, it feels good, normal, light. Then the phone rings.
Mama picks it up mid-sentence, still laughing.
“Halo? Aga! How are you, kochanie—”
She stops. Her smile collapses.
“What?” she says, her voice suddenly thin, foreign.
Silence.
The mug slips from her hand, shattering on the floor. Then the phone. She drops with it, knees hitting tile.
“Mama?” Tata rushes from the stove, grabbing her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
She’s trying to speak, but the words come out broken, half-breaths, sobs, pieces of sound.
I’m already moving. “Mama, look at me. What is it? Talk to me.”
Her face is gray. Her hands shake so hard I catch them just to still them.
Tata snatches the phone from the floor. “Halo? What’s happening?”
And I hear it—Aga’s voice, high and ragged, not words, just sound.
Then his name, Piotr. Sobbing. One word.
“Gone.”
The room spins.
Tata keeps saying, “No. No, Aga. No.” Over and over, like the word might undo it.
I take the phone. The doctor in me shoves through the daughter or sister, even though my heart is pounding in my throat.
“Aga, listen to me. Tell me what happened. Does he need help? Are they still—”
She can’t answer. Someone else does. Dominik. His voice is uneven, breathless, like he’s been running, or breaking things.
“I came over to help him,” he says. “He wanted to get the work done early. The jack... it failed. It—” His breath catches. “It crushed him, Kasia. The paramedics came, they tried but he was gone before they got there. They said it was quick. He didn’t suffer.”
They always say that. Because what’s the alternative? Through the phone I hear Amelka start crying, the thin wail of a baby that doesn’t understand grief. Then Kacper too, a chorus of it.
I swallow hard. “Go help Aga,” I tell him. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “I’ll take care of Mama and Tata.”
He starts to say something, but I hang up. Mama and Tata are on the floor, clinging to each other, wailing like the walls themselves are breaking. Natalia’s standing by the door, frozen, her eyes wide. I go to her, pull her into my arms. She doesn’t move at first, just stares through me.
Then she whispers, “Why did he have to be so fucking hard-working? He could’ve taken a day off. Just one day off like a normal person.”
Her voice cracks, shatters into sobs. I press my hand to the back of her head, trying to steady her. A small laugh slips out, wet, unintentional and turns into a broken cry.
“That isn’t Piotr,” I say.
But isn’t catches in the air. A word that should be wasn’t now. A word I can’t bear to replace. It sits there in my throat, in the middle of my chest where his name used to live, and I can’t do anything. Except cry.
When I reach Piotr’s house, the street is lined with cars.
It’s eerily quiet. The kind of quiet that comes after chaos has its own weight, neighbors standing at the edges of driveways, police tape fluttering in the breeze.
The jack still lies on its side under the car, a dark stain blooming across the concrete.
Someone’s covered it with a tarp, but it doesn’t matter.
I can still see the shape of it. I can still feel it. Where Piotr used to be.
I park halfway down the block, hands gripping the wheel long after the engine dies.
The air is haunted by oil, metal and something else I refuse to name.
When I finally make myself move, my legs feel wrong, heavy and light at the same time.
Dominik meets me at the door. His shirt is torn near the collar, knuckles red and raw.
His face looks older, gray around the edges.
“She’s inside,” he whispers. “With the kids.”
“Are they—?”
“They’re fine. She’s not.”
He steps aside, and I go in. The house is filled with the kind of silence that feels loud, paralyzing.
Paramedics pack up equipment near the doorway, one murmuring something to the other, words I don’t want to hear.
The air still carries the echo of crying.
Aga sits on the floor, back against the couch, clutching Amelka to her chest. Her hair sticks to her face, her eyes red and wide.
A blanket hangs from her shoulders, but she’s shaking anyway.
I kneel beside her, knees hitting carpet. “Aga,” I whisper.
She looks up at me like she’s seeing a stranger, then just shakes her head. “He was right there,” she says. “I told him to wait. I said I’d bring him coffee. And then—”
Her voice breaks. I take Amelka before she drops her, holding the baby against my chest. She’s crying too, those desperate, hiccuping sounds of newborns who can’t understand why everything suddenly hurts.
“Shh, maleńka,” I whisper. “Shh, it’s okay.” But it’s not.
Dominik stands in the doorway, hand braced against the frame like he’s holding the house up by sheer will. His eyes meet mine for a second, full of apology, of fury at the universe, of love he doesn’t know where to put. The paramedics leave. The door closes. The sound of it is final.
Aga starts to rock, back and forth, whispering his name over and over. I want to tell her to stop, that hearing it makes it real but I can’t. I just sit there, the baby pressed against my chest, counting the beats of her tiny heart against mine, wishing I could trade mine for Piotr’s.
The blood, the tape, the words he didn’t suffer keep circling in my head like a broken refrain. I know they’re lies, the kind of mercy sentences people use when the truth is too harsh.
Dominik kneels beside me at last, resting a hand at the back of my neck. “They’re taking him,” he says. “Piotr’s… they have to.”
I nod, but I can’t make myself look up. I glance down instead at Amelka. Her eyes are open now, unfocused, like she’s looking somewhere beyond all of this. I press my lips to her forehead. “You won’t remember any of this,” I whisper. “You’ll only know how loved he was.”
But the words don’t feel real. They feel like paper in the rain, soft and useless, dissolving before they reach the air. Mama calls a few minutes later. I can’t answer. Dominik does. I only hear fragments:
“Yes, we’re here… Kasia’s with her… No, not yet…”
Aga starts to sob again. I hold her with one arm, the baby with the other, and stare at the wall because it’s the only thing that isn’t moving, isn’t breaking, isn’t gone.
By the afternoon, I’ve stopped crying. Not because it hurts less, but because my body’s run out of water to give it.
What’s left is a trembling stillness, like the air after an explosion.
Dominik stays with the children. Zosia has glued herself to his leg.
Kacper and Amelka won’t stop crying, as if they already know something’s wrong.
Mama, Tata, and Aga come with me to the funeral home.
No one speaks in the car. The road ahead blurs. Gray, endless. I keep my eyes on the lines, on keeping the wheel straight, because if I let my mind wander even for a second, I’ll see that stain of blood that used to be him in that garage again.
Inside, the director greets us with that practiced sympathy, gentle voice, soft hands, eyes that know too much.
Pamphlets line the counter: floral options, urns, memorial packages.
Words for things no one should ever have to choose.
Aga sits across from him, hair pulled back but still damp from tears, clutching a tissue she hasn’t used. He starts asking questions.
“Would you prefer burial or cremation?”
She blinks, silent. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes. Mama starts to answer, then stops. Tata’s staring at the floor, jaw locked, one hand gripping his knee like he’s holding himself together by force.
I take a breath. “Burial,” I say. “He would’ve wanted that.”
The director nods, makes notes. “Location?”
“St. Wojciech Cemetery. He was baptized there. Keep it close to home.”
He keeps going. “Casket style? Viewing?”
Aga flinches.
“No viewing,” I say quickly. “He—he wouldn’t have wanted that either.” My voice shakes, but I don’t stop. “Simple wood. Polish oak, if you have it.”
The man nods, writing everything down. The pen’s scratch is unbearable.
When he asks for a date, Mama finally speaks. Her voice cracks halfway through. “Sunday,” she whispers. “People need time to come.”
He nods again, kind but distant. The efficiency of it all makes my stomach turn. Aga’s still sitting perfectly still, eyes hollow, body elsewhere. I reach for her hand. It’s ice-cold.
“Hey,” I whisper. “We’re almost done.”
She just shakes her head, lips trembling. “I can’t—” Her voice splinters. “I can’t plan this, Kasia. He was changing the oil. He was singing.”
“I know,” I say softly. “I know.”
The words mean nothing. Nothing can help this. When it’s over, we sign the papers. I use my neatest handwriting because it feels like the only dignity left. The director hands me a stack of documents and a business card like it’s an act of mercy.
Outside, the January air is unkind, bitter. The sun’s still shining like it didn’t hear the news. Mama leans into Tata as they walk, both of them silent, faces gray.
Aga stops beside the car, looking lost. “I didn’t even pick what he’ll wear,” she says, dazed. “What do I put him in?”