![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() She blew on her fingers and headed for the room she shared with her mother and grandmother Masha now had a room of her own, all the more reason for resentment and consequent weeping at her own monstrosity. She hoped she wouldn’t get into trouble again. Galina pretended that she was, too, and burned herself with matches when nobody was watching as a punishment for being so selfish. The impending arrival of the squalling pink thing that would steal the remnants of her sister’s affection away from her hurt more than she would dare to admit-their mother and grandmother were so excited about the baby. Masha’s pregnancy bothered her-not just because she was only eighteen and not because Masha’s husband-to-be was still in the army, serving the last of his two draft years. Masha, pink and sweating, bustled past her, brushing her enormous pregnant belly against Galina, already hiking up her housecoat. Galka, are you asleep in there? Masha asked. Napalm is never reassuring, and only reassuring things made for good lies-food, ironing, domesticity. She was already thinking of a lie to tell her coworkers to explain the blisters. Instead they turned red and blistered, and she withdrew carefully, watching the skin peel and stand in tiny transparent tents on her fingertips. Then she held them there longer, expecting them to drip and melt. She swiped them through the flame of a match carefully at first, feeling nothing. She had long pale fingers, tapered like candles at the church. ![]()
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