Read Online The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff - Free Book Online

like Dorie and Karolina, who didn’t know what they had missed. But he had been too young to understand why it had all gone away, leaving him alone in a house full of girls.
    “Here.” Helena pushed the rest of her bread toward him, trying to ignore her stomach, which grumbled in protest. As she did, she noticed a stain on her sleeve left by spilled milk and cereal.
    Michal hesitated, then devoured the bread in two bites, hardly bothering to chew. “May I be excused?”
    “No,” said Ruth.
    “Yes,” said Helena in near-unison, their voices clashing against each other. They looked at each other uneasily. It was a tacit understanding that, despite their differences, they would not disagree in front of the children. For all of the hard times, she could not recall her parents quarreling, at least not when they thought the children could hear, and she and Ruth had tried to maintain that unified front. But the sisters seemed to differ more of late, their opposition laid bare for the children to see.
    “Yes,” Ruth relented quickly. “Check on the animals, will you?”
    “Come on, Dorie,” Michal said, holding out his hand.
    Dorie followed him, her gait stilted. Her right leg had grown more slowly and was now an inch shorter than her left, causing her to her limp. “It will even out,” Mama had predicted optimistically when Dorie had started walking and the problem first became apparent. But the difference had become more pronounced with time.
    Last spring, Helena had cut down a block of wood and affixed it to Dorie’s right shoe to compensate. It worked, and the limp had been all but gone when she had worn it. But a day later, Dorie had pulled the wood from her shoe. “It just doesn’t feel right.” Around the house, her limp had become so much a part of things they scarcely noticed it. As Helena watched Dorie hobble now along Michal’s long, foal-like gait, she seemed so vulnerable.
    Michal and Dorie bounded through the door, spurred by the brisk morning air, their two heads bobbing auburn. Helena opened the shutters to let in the light. Ruth kept the children immaculate, Helena conceded inwardly. Their clothes were not torn or stained, the darned bits hidden so well they could scarcely be seen. She brushed their teeth with baking soda each night, insisted that their baths be thorough. Helena sometimes wondered why she bothered when they so seldom saw anyone but one another.
    Outside the children ran in circles, Michal pretending to exert himself but really going much slower than he might have, allowing Dorie to catch him and feel that she was doing well. They chased a chipmunk around the yard, nearly colliding into the dwindling woodpile as the animal ducked beneath. Watching them play together, Helena was flooded with pride—despite their thinness and simple clothing, there was a light about them, a kind of strength other children did not possess. And they had a way of instinctively protecting each other, always had, even before they could walk or speak.
    Was it different for them somehow because they weren’t twins? Helena wondered. With her and Ruth, it had always been a competition, who had spoken first (Ruth) and walked first (Helena), and later who was prettier, smarter, could sew or cook better. But it wasn’t any easier having older or younger siblings, she supposed, someone always ahead of you in the queue or behind in the scramble for food or attention. It was the plight of being one of many. Big families were the norm in these parts, even families like their own that could ill-afford them.
    As the children disappeared into the barn, she smiled at Michal’s awkwardness, the way he had not quite grown into the long legs and broad shoulders he’d inherited from their father. “I heard something at market the other day,” Ruth said in a hushed tone, even though only little Karolina was there to hear them. Helena’s breath caught. Had Ruth learned—or somehow guessed—about the soldier? Guilt