The next morning, Karena awoke late, with the hot sun blaring through her window. She rushed to dress for family breakfast, the scattered crocheted rag rugs sliding beneath her thin-soled black slippers on the hardwood floor, her heart already racing over what the day might hold.
After returning to her room last night, she had lain awake for what seemed like hours, hoping to hear Sergei coming home. But finally she had drifted off sometime after one o’clock.
She poured water from a white enamel pitcher into a bowl and washed, then chose a pale blue blouse with puffed sleeves and ribbons at the wrists and a gathered full peasant skirt of the same blue with added weavings of red and black.
Her long, thick, naturally wavy hair was the color of pale gold. She pinned her braids around another section of her hair that she had brushed back into a fashionable, swirled knot at the back of her neck. She had learned the intricate design from Tatiana. Thinking of her cousin caused her mind to travel the well-worn path back to Kazan … and Colonel Kronstadt—Alex. For so brief a time in his company, she recalled him too well. Tatiana had hardly mentioned him in her last letter. Instead, she wrote of her spiritual growth—due, of course, to Rasputin.
Karena rebuked herself. How could she be thinking of Kazan when she was not even certain whether Sergei came home last night?
She came down the steps and entered the dining room. Its heavy wooden furniture was bright in the morning sun pouring through the pastel green curtains. Her family members sat around the large square table with a white cotton tablecloth that had been meticulously ironed by Aunt Marta. Relief flowed through her when she saw Sergei in his chair at the left hand of Papa Josef. As her gaze met Sergei’s, his brown eyes confirmed that no one suspected. They were safe.
Even so, neither he nor Papa Josef wore a pleasant expression. There must have been yet another dispute over Sergei’s return to the university.
It is enough for Papa that he is a schoolmaster at the college and a respected Russian who swears allegiance to the Romanov family, Karena thought. She was sure it grieved him that Sergei flirted openly with the Bolsheviks. If Papa learned about last night, it would surely make him ill. He adored Sergei more than any of his children and wanted the best education for him. Even so, Sergei did not appear to appreciate his father’s dedication to his success.
“Karena, you are late to take your chair this morning,” Madame Yeva stated, as precise as ever. Karena could hardly think of a time when she had seen her mother otherwise.
“Everyone is seated, as you can see,” Yeva continued. “You must not keep your papa waiting. You know what a busy man he is at the college.”
“Sorry, Papa. I slept so soundly this morning.” She took her seat.
Josef Peshkov was not muscled and tanned like his son but rather was of medium height with slightly hunched shoulders and a worried disposition. When troubled, he tended to pace and smoke cigarettes, to the dismay of his elder sister Marta. Surprisingly, Madame Yeva rarely complained of anything her husband did.
Even though her usual appetite was lacking, Karena accepted a heavy slice of brown bread. She didn’t want to draw a comment from Aunt Marta, who derived satisfaction based on the amount of food consumed by her family. Karena wondered how she and her mother could remain so slim when she could outeat her sister Natalia, who tended to be heavy.
Karena spooned eggs and cheese on her plate, along with fried red cabbage and onions. She remembered the time that Tatiana had put a hand to her stomach and turned pale when Natalia asked for fried red cabbage and onions for breakfast. This morning, Karena sympathized with her cousin.
Sergei wore a dark scowl and ate too fast, his fork scraping loudly against his plate.
“Sergei, please,” Madame Yeva said gently.
“Lenski visited London this summer,” Sergei told her, then looked at his father.
Why is he bringing up Lenski? Karena tried to catch his eye with a glower. Lenski is the last person he should be discussing now.
“England is not backward politically like Russia,” Sergei grumbled.
“Russia is not backward.” Josef held his cup toward his sister Marta to refill with coffee.
“Not backward?” Sergei leaned forward in his chair laughing. “Come, Papa! In England, the poor are no longer bound to the landowners. The people who used to be serfs now own land. Did you hear me, Papa? They can buy and own land. Peasants are free. They have rights. They are no longer chattel.”
“Peasants can own land in Russia ever since Czar Alexander gave them the right in 1860,” Josef countered.
“In America, they call that sort of ownership nothing but sharecropping. The peasants can’t do anything more than grow their food on the land. In America, there is liberty to buy, sell, and travel. And you know what? Lenski says that Jews do not have to carry cards to show to policemen. Jews are free in New York. Lenski says they can ride the train, and they need not walk off the sidewalk in the gutter.”
Karena looked over at him, her fork in midair. “Jews can live in the finest areas of St. Petersburg if they bribe the right officials. And if someone important throws his mantle around you, you’re safe enough.”
Madame Yeva looked across the table at her.
“Who told you about bribing them?” Papa Josef asked Karena uneasily.
“Uncle Matvey. Tatiana says the same. Her letter tells of life in St. Petersburg. She even wrote that the czar will change the official name of the city to Petrograd.”
“She ought to know,” Sergei said wryly, “about bribing people, I mean. Uncle Viktor bribes everyone. A wise general is he.”
Josef lifted a hand in his direction to stop the family slander. “America,” he went on, “is another world, Sergei. Forget America. Forget England. You are Russian. Once you become a lawyer, you can buy land in St. Petersburg. General Viktor knows a man who will sell to you. I wish you were marrying the man’s daughter, Sonja. She will be very rich one day.”
“As for Jews in Russia,” Sergei persisted, ignoring his father’s words, “the czar may deny it to the British government, but he has a deliberate policy of persecution. When his chief man, Stolypin, was assassinated, did not the czar silently approve the pogrom against the Jews, even though the hysterical cry that Jews were to blame proved a lie?”
Karena remembered because the assassination had taken place at the opera house in Kiev with the czar and his daughters in attendance.
Sergei frowned. “Come, Papa, you know what I am saying. Czar Nicholas treats Jews and peasants worse than animals. At least his horses eat oats, and a veterinarian treats their ills.” Sergei pointed his hunk of bread toward Karena. “Karena knows this as well. The czar’s horses are treated with better medicine than the Russian peasants on the streets of St. Petersburg.”
“Sergei, you forget your manners,” groaned Aunt Marta. “Your bread drips butter on my tablecloth. One would think we had never taught your son how to behave, Josef.”
No one paid Aunt Marta any attention, and Sergei took a big bite of his bread.
Karena, indignant, carried on. “In Moscow, they’ll bring a peasant woman to have her baby at the medical school, then discharge both mother and baby in the dead of winter. Their grave is the snow.”
Sergei waved his bread in Madame Yeva’s direction. “Mother could tell us what the czar thinks of peasant women—especially Jewish peasant women.”
Karena looked across the table at her mother. Yeva had told her these facts and many more, but again, Josef held up his hand.
“Do you think I am a schoolmaster for nothing, my son? I know of such matters. And your mother knew these things before I met her—” Josef stopped, color coming to his protruding cheekbones. He smiled gently. “Ah, those were the days, Yeva, when we were young, were they not?”
Karena looked at her mother. Yeva’s eyes were on her cup of tea. She stirred slowly, deliberately. Her mouth was tight. “Yes, so long ago, Josef. One hardly remembers.”
Josef cleared his throat. “Marta, is there more tea?”
“Of course, Josef, a full pot. Here, Natalia, pass this to your papa.”
Karena nibbled her bread and considered Sergei’s words. Karena had seen Jews and peasants treated like scavenging dogs by soldiers and the gendarmes. In certain instances, Jews were forced to ride in a train’s baggage car, along with the unwashed peasants and wanderers. She’d heard people were packed so tightly they sometimes suffocated. And when the train pulled into a station at short stops, they were forbidden to get out to buy food or relieve themselves. Sergei had told her the Jews could not get off in any of the towns because “the good gentry did not wish for their offensive presence.”
“Enough of this talk,” Josef said. “Things are not so bad as you say.”
“Not on our land,” Sergei countered. “But many landowners flog the peasants just as the Imperial Navy flogs their sailors.”
“They still do it, Papa. Little has changed since Czar Alexander’s reforms. You are one of the few landowners who treat your peasants as humans. What Mama does with her medical skills here in the village is unheard of elsewhere in Russia. Lenski says anyone can murder a Jew and it is called an accident!”
Yeva spilled her tea. Josef frowned. “You are upsetting your mother, Sergei.”
“I am sorry, Mother. But you know these things.”
“Yes, I know them, Sergei. But such talk does not make for a pleasant breakfast,” Madame Yeva said quietly.
“Murder is never a pleasant topic, whatever the time of day. And it doesn’t matter who commits it, either. Murder was committed by Policeman Grinevich. They hanged Professor Chertkov just three weeks ago.”
Karena tightened her fingers on her napkin. If Papa Josef asked him how he knew … To her relief, he merely scowled and shook his head.
“Professor Chertkov was a decent man.”
Aunt Marta winced. Karena looked at Natalia. She sat very still, her brown eyes large and watchful as she ate. She’d hardly spoken this morning. She’s most likely worried about her own Jewish roots and the persecution that might yet come.
Karena looked at her plate, setting her fork down. She would choke if she ate another bite.
“If you wish to keep speaking this way, you will bring us all down to the grave,” Josef stated.
Sergei leaned toward him, an affectionate hand on his shoulder. “Ah, come, Papa. You are a member of the local zemstvo. We have a right to discuss political matters with you. It is your duty to bring our complaints before Czar Nicholas.” He grinned.
As a land manager, Josef had been chosen by his community to deal with problems of local or provincial administration. Once a year, such men appeared in St. Petersburg, where the Duma was held, and they would send their complaints to the czar. “Our complaints might just as well have been ferried off on the wings of pigeons to who knows where,” members of the zemstvos bemoaned.
Czar Nicholas was an autocrat and refused to acknowledge complaints. Indeed, a complaint could be considered outright rebellion, deserving of imprisonment. Although the czar had in a time of revolution permitted a Duma to form, he’d done so with great reluctance and then ignored the body. The Duma could not make laws or change an injustice, and it became merely a platform to protest the czar and czarina. When members became too critical of the autocracy or of Rasputin, Czar Nicholas often closed it down and sent the delegates home, infuriating the Duma members even more.
“Seriously, Papa, I don’t agree with the Bolsheviks on many issues, and I don’t accept their tactics, but what are we to do when the czar is deaf and dumb to making reasonable changes in Russia? Who has answers to our problems, except the revolutionary leaders?”
“Uncle Matvey says the socialists have no real answers,” Karena spoke up. “Their changes are all merely external. It’s men’s hearts that need a revolution. Uncle Matvey’s beginning to think there really is a Messiah who will be born and save Israel.”
Sergei groaned. “He doesn’t believe that. I’ve talked with him. It’s all that study he’s doing on the ‘Zionist movement’ of Theodor Herzl. Uncle Matvey discusses the idea of a savior out of intellectual curiosity, that’s all. If we are to be saved, we must have a revolution.”
Josef’s fist came down on the table and rattled the glasses and plates. “Silence!”
There was silence.
A minute later, when Josef was calm again he said, “I will remind you, my son, that there is little I can do about all your complaints. While the czar has permitted the Duma and the zemstvo to exist, he has granted us no authority and will not meet with us.”
“You see?” Sergei crowed. “My very point, Papa. We’re nothing but his puppets.”
Karena watched her father with sympathy. Sergei constantly argued politics, but Papa Josef remained a stalwart defender of the royal family. She admired her father for having tried early on to make social changes. He’d joined with the other zemstvo members outside the Winter Palace when Nicholas Romanov became czar after the end of the repressive regime of his father. The zemstvo representatives were mostly from cultivated families, members of the nobility, landlords, and those who had made money as speculators and entrepreneurs.
The zemstvos had carried a petition asking Czar Nicholas to grant Russia a constitution. Nicholas utterly refused. But while disappointed, the zemstvos, unlike the Bolsheviks and other radical parties, did not desire to end the House of Romanov, nor did they want war with the autocracy. They preferred a peaceful path to freedom, in stages.
Papa Josef sighed and looked at his son. “You lack patience, Sergei. Eventually the zemstvo will tackle more general problems, like taxation, the infrastructure, and so on, and will engage in politics. Now it is not possible. Czar Nicholas considers such reforms detrimental to the cause he believes has been entrusted to him.”
“Yes, Papa, safeguarding the supreme right of autocratic rule,” Sergei said sarcastically. “To preserve sovereignty for his son. Patience, you say. Patience for what? to await the autocratic reign of his young son!”
Debate didn’t flourish just in the Peshkov home, it was everywhere and growing, though reserved for the inner rooms of Russian homes. It was plain to see the nation was divided. Perhaps they were already in civil war—a war of ideas, a cultural war that was as real as any battle, yet without bullets.
“Already my head is aching, and the day, how long and hot it will be,” Aunt Marta said. “Can we not eat in peace at least?”
“Peace, peace,” Sergei teased, “when there is no peace.” He looked at Karena. “Another verse from Uncle Matvey. He’s becoming quite a reader of the Scriptures. There can be no such peace, my sweet aunt. Not as long as the despot keeps us in chains.” He looked at Josef. “Papa, you think that ignoring Russia’s condition will make it better?” He shook his head slowly, with marked determination. “Remember when we were children, Karena? Natalia?” He looked at his sisters. “Both of you would cover your heads with a blanket when you were afraid a ghost might come into the room at night.”
Karena smiled at Natalia.
“You thought you were safe under the blanket. A true ghost would rip the blanket from your hiding place and get you.” He cracked his knuckles. Natalia jumped, Sergei grinned, and she picked up a piece of bread as if to throw it at him. A warning look from Madame Yeva stayed her hand.
Aunt Marta moaned, shaking her head. “There are no manners in this house, none. Tatiana puts you all to shame.”
Sergei began to mock Tatiana, picking up a glass with his little finger extended, dabbing his napkin against his pursed lips, and twittering.
Natalia laughed at her brother. “Ah, but what beautiful gowns she wears to the opera,” she said with a sigh. “And what a dashing colonel is committed to her in Aleksandr Kronstadt.”
“Colonel Kronstadt is not committed to her,” Karena said flatly. “He’s becoming engaged to her to please Uncle Viktor.”
“Oh, don’t even suggest such a thing, dear,” Aunt Marta said.
“Yes, Karena,” Madame Yeva said quietly. “You don’t want to start a chain of gossip. Words can sometimes do more evil than an outright attack.”
“Gowns,” Sergei said loftily, hand at heart, “will turn to ashes, my charming ladies, but politics is the mother’s milk of change! We may think we can go on living our lives without becoming involved, without making a decision about whose side we are on for Russia’s future, but we are wrong. More bloodshed will come.”
“I forbid you to keep company with Lenski,” Josef said.
Karena knew that Josef had forbidden this many times over.
“Papa, be logical. Whether you want a revolution or not, it will come. Even if I never see Lenski again, it must come. The time is ripe. The autocratic rule of the czar is coming to an end. His actions against the people of Russia must face the sword of ideas.”
“Talk of peace, Sergei, dear,” Aunt Marta said. “The more we speak words of peace, the more we reinforce the good that is all around us until, eventually, good will prevail.”
“Pardon my saying so, and I love you dearly, Aunt Marta, but I have never heard such rot. Try speaking good words to the stinkweeds in your herb garden and see if they’re choked out by your sage and peppermint. The stinkweeds will take over if you don’t attack them—tear them out by the roots.”
Aunt Marta shrugged in surrender and turned to Natalia to discuss her day at the college. When no one responded to Sergei’s words, he smiled triumphantly and returned to his food.
Karena caught her father’s gaze upon her. He leaned toward her across the table. It was his way to come close when he wished to speak seriously, as though by leaning forward he could hold her attention.
“Daughter Karena, you must be very strong this morning.”
The table became silent. She gripped her fork.
“I seem to disappoint Sergei with my lack of boldness. Now I must also deliver news that will disappoint you.”
Karena felt the gaze of those at the table. Papa Josef took an envelope from his black frock coat pocket and held it for a moment before setting it on the table with a tap of his finger.
She caught several of the words on the envelope: “St. Petersburg … Medicine and Midwifery …” Her heart turned to mush.
He cleared his throat. “Daughter, you will not be attending the Imperial College of Medicine this year. I know you have been hoping all summer to do so.”
Silence tightened around the table. Sergei stopped eating and looked quickly in her direction. Aunt Marta plucked at her collar. Natalia took an oversized bite of cheese, and Madame Yeva looked down at her plate.
Karena did not move. None of them yet knew that Dr. Zinnovy had agreed to come to her aid. She managed a smile.
“Something wonderful has happened, however,” she said. “I met Dr. Dmitri Zinnovy yesterday in town, and he’s assured me that he’ll work with Dr. Lenski to make my enrollment possible.”
Madame Yeva dropped her spoon with a clatter and stared at her. “What is this, Karena?”
She began describing Dr. Zinnovy’s visit to check on Anna’s condition, avoiding mention of the fact that Karena had ridden home in his carriage, as well as the reason Anna had ridden a horse. “… and when he finished with Anna, he wrote about a doctor he recommends for her.” She reached into her skirt pocket for the folded paper and passed it to her mother.
Madame Yeva was tense and silent. Karena took her alertness for concern for her patient Anna.
Sergei stared into his coffee cup.
Papa Josef cleared his throat. He smoothed his mustache with one finger, looking troubled. “That is all very fine, Karena. If Dr. Zinnovy can use his influence to help your admission to the medical school, that is good news. However,” he said and glanced at Madame Yeva who sat stiff and silent, “I’m afraid there are serious things happening now. War is breaking out between Russia and Germany, and Czar Nicholas has promised military help to France. These are dangerous days, and we cannot have you in St. Petersburg.”
Sergei started to argue, but Josef laid a hand on his arm for silence.
“But, Papa,” Karena protested, “St. Petersburg will be safe. And I shall be staying part of the time with Uncle Matvey. Cousin Tatiana also wrote last month that Aunt Zofia and General Viktor will spend the coming year in St. Petersburg. I can visit them and shall have all the care I need. If anything, I shall have too much care and not enough independence.”
“Independence?” Madame Yeva raised her golden brows, concern in her eyes.
“Mama, you know what I mean,” Karena hastened. “War or no war, I shall fare well enough.”
“War with Germany—a stupid mistake,” Sergei said, anger in his voice.
“Papa, I am not afraid of war,” Karena interrupted her brother.
“Not afraid of war! Then you have much to learn, Daughter.”
“I mean, it does not make me afraid to go to St. Petersburg.”
Professor Josef held up a palm and looked at her sternly. Karena knew that look and stilled her tongue. Even Sergei’s fork stopped, and Natalia held her glass of milk midway to her lips, looking at Karena with sympathy.
“There is always next year, Karena,” Josef said.
Next year. If I hear “next year” one more time, I think I shall scream. For three years now, I have been told next year, next year—
“And there are, well, other reasons.” Josef cleared his throat. “Our financial situation has not been the best this year. What money we can spare now for higher learning must go to Sergei, as firstborn son. He will be returning for his third year at the university.”
“Do not place the blame on me, Papa,” Sergei argued, lowering his fork. He shook his head. “I do not want to be a lawyer. I have said so many times.”
“Too many times,” Josef stated. “You talk so convincingly, my son, that you are well fitted to be the best of lawyers.”
Natalia gave a short laugh, then ceased as both Josef and Sergei fixed their gazes upon her.
“Let Karena go to the medical school if Zinnovy can arrange it—” Sergei began.
“Do not contradict your papa.”
Josef turned calmly again to Karena. She sat rigid in the hard-backed chair, sickened by disappointment.
Professor Josef removed his spectacles from his pocket. He breathed moisture on each round lens and polished them thoughtfully with a napkin, before pressing them in place. “Perhaps next year.” Then more confidently, “Next year, there will be money enough. Dr. Zinnovy may be able to reserve a place for you.” He smiled, but as he glanced about the table at the fallen faces, the smile faded. “We shall see … we shall see.” He picked up his cup of coffee and finished it.
Karena looked at her mother. Madame Yeva had been unusually silent all morning. She kept her eyes on her breakfast plate. Karena understood now why she had been so quiet. She must have known about the letter. Her mother, better than anyone else, understood and shared her crushing disappointment. And now! She’d come so close, with even Dr. Zinnovy on her side.
Next September, she was sure she would hear similar arguments once more. There seemed no options except to settle down and marry Ilya.
She felt a lump lodged in her throat. She reached for her glass of goat’s milk. Her stomach churned with nausea. She stood up, pushing her chair back, feeling her face grow warm. She exited the room quickly.
Karena rushed out the front door. Madame Yeva turned toward her husband. She reached over and laid her hand upon his black coat sleeve.
“Josef,” she urged, “is there nothing to be done?”
“There is nothing, my dear.”
Sergei pushed back his chair noisily and stood to his feet. “War or no war, I have to work in the fields today with Ilya.” He looked down at his father as if to say something more, but turned and left. A moment later, the back kitchen door gave a decided bang.
Josef sat in aggrieved silence. Yeva sighed.
Natalia stared at her fork as though she wondered what it was. Aunt Marta was looking at her brother Josef with sympathy. Yeva lifted her cup of tea and drank; it was now lukewarm. She would talk to Karena later. Her daughter already knew much about birthing, and she could teach her still more. There was no reason why Karena could not take over the medical work here on the land. There was certainly enough sickness to keep anyone busy these dreadful days!
Natalia slid from her chair. “I must go into town, Papa. I am to help Madame Olga with her shopping before classes. She wants to get it all done and be back home before it gets too hot. She’s promised to pay me today.”
Josef nodded. Natalia came over to him and bent to kiss his bearded face.
“You be a good girl today,” he said.
“Papa, Boris will be conscripted soon. If we can’t marry, at least let us seal our engagement!”
He patted her hand. “We’ll see, Daughter, we’ll discuss it with your mother later.”
Aunt Marta began to clear the table. “Don’t forget to bring Madame Olga the loaf of bread I baked for her,” she told Natalia. “It’s wrapped and sitting on the table by the door. She owes me for the other loaves too. Be sure you collect my kopecks. I want to order new yarn.”
“Yes, Aunt Marta.”
Madame Yeva spoke up. “And tell her I will call on her tomorrow morning if her new supply of cough medicine arrives by post. On second thought, tell her I will call on her regardless.”
“Yes, Mama, because if you don’t, she will complain you are neglecting her aches and pains. She is always complaining of something.”
“That is not for you to say. She is old and needs your sympathy. Go now, so you will not be late.”
Natalia kissed her cheek and hurried off. Madame Yeva remained at the table, troubled. She tried to concentrate on her own difficulties to mask the pain she felt for Karena’s.
Czar Nicholas II was soon expected to declare war with Germany and her allies, including Turkey, which bordered Russia. For now, life went on normally in the Peshkov household, but already she was concerned about her medical supplies. With war coming, would she still receive shipments? The breeze coming through the open window stirred the curtains. “It will be most warm today,” Yeva commented.
“The cabbage must be picked before it begins flowering,” Aunt Marta told Josef. “I will need to do preserving all week. Tell Sergei to help me clear out the storage room.”
“Sergei is busy in the fields, Marta. He’s also preparing for his return to the university. And, Sister, Sergei does not like to do women’s work. Ask one of the young peasant boys to help you.”
“Women’s work,” Marta snorted. “If you saw how I break my back from dawn to dusk, cooking and slaving for the family, you would have more respect for my work.”
“A job of great importance,” Yeva spoke up in a soothing voice. Sometimes her husband infuriated her. She looked at him. “Is that not so, Josef?”
“Yes, yes, by all means, Marta. The food this morning was most wholesome.” He pushed back his chair. “I must go, or I will be late to teach the summer class.”
After Josef left, Marta went off to her domain, the awesome kitchen and the great Peshkov vegetable garden. Yeva went her own way to organize her medical duties for the day. She would need to call on Anna this morning to see how she was feeling. She must write the recommended doctor in Kiev, though who would pay for his services? Anna Lavrushsky had little money.
Yeva frowned. Sergei must be the father, even though he denies it. Josef refused to believe it and would not hear of giving money to the family. I must do something. She walked to her medical supply closet. She would also need to stop by her brother Matvey’s bungalow to bring him his needed medication.
She located her last clean, ironed apron. The starched, striped linen felt good between her fingers. The very smell brought back memories of her youth in training at the medical college. She enjoyed wearing the professional-looking student apron. Odd how long these aprons lasted—twenty years—but she had treated them as precious relics, like her mother’s wedding dress, now two generations old and still functional, though out of fashion. She remembered packing this apron when she’d fled the Imperial College of Medicine and Midwifery in 1893 …
Oy, so be it. Disappointment dogged one’s footsteps from childhood to the grave. There was nothing to be done about it but to keep struggling and moving onward, hoping tomorrow would be better.
Vaguely, Yeva thought of Dr. Zinnovy … Dmitri. She had not kept up with his glowing career.
Perhaps it was an error to have allowed Karena to entertain plans to attend the same medical school. Becoming involved with her old friend Lenski, and now Zinnovy, invited trouble.
Josef wanted Karena to marry Ilya. He’d spoken to her just recently about such a marriage.
“Karena is now well past the age, Yeva.”
Yeva ran her fingers across her forehead, thinking. Yes, she must think. She must make no rash decisions. She would think long and hard about consequences; there were always consequences. She was glad her brother was here until next month. She would discuss the matter with him.