Stitched from the Heart

Sweet Threats

Maria:

“Thank you for walking us all the way to our house and for helping us carry all of these additional sweets home,” I tell the handsome young man holding the giant box of leftovers that podruha Anya, the head of the Chicago branch of Taras’s youth organization, had insisted we take.

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“Such a nice divchyna staying this late to look after her brother. You must be hungry.”

“No, dyakuyu, but we have so much food at home. We already bought some earlier,”

“I believe you!” she says in her heavily accented Ukrainian as she starts piling on a variety of cupcakes with green and red frosting, those sugary white cookies that have such sweet colorful frosting it makes me sick, brownies which I tried for the first time at Al’s Steak House where I work, Spartak, brown cookies that look like little men and women. So many sweets that I have to swat Taras’s hand from reaching out for a cookie and shifting my head to Druh Andriy’s direction near the stage where he’s folding and stacking chairs into a giant shelf that came out of the stage! None of the stages at my school had such a movable compartment. Chairs were just stacked in a backroom behind the stage and brought out for special occasions.

“If you have energy to grab a sweet, you have energy to go help your favorite counselor stack some chairs. You can have something AFTER,” I tell him, taking his shoulders and turning him around so he can run and help. Luckily, he nods his head and does so. I hope I’m not coming off as a tyrant in front of them. It’s just hard to always be happy and patient with my little brother all the time. Especially when he wants to go off schedule.

“Please, pani Anya, don’t give us anymore sweets. It’s enough.”

“Nonsense, what food did you have at home that’s better than this?” She smiles, as she places one bag filled with two boxes in my hands.

“Borscht, varenyky, the high quality dinner of our ancestors,” I retort back.

She sighs in return, “That is good stuff, I agree. But what about your parents? I’m sure they’ll want something sweet to have with their tea and coffee tomorrow morning before or after church.”

“I guess you’re right,” I respond as she piles on ANOTHER bag into my hands. She’s never set food on Ukrainian soil, but she’s definitely the spitting image of every Ukrainian Baba and Tsotsia pressing me to eat more whenever my plate is empty. She just needs a hustka and an apron, and I think she’ll be good.

I turn to look at the progress with the chairs as Andriy takes up 2 chairs at a time while my brother struggles to hold a single one in his arms. He places the chairs on the shelf and quickly turns to squat down, the muscles on his arms expanding as he folds them to grab the heavy item from my brother. I wonder if they did that when he pulled that man’s arms away from me on the bus a month ago. Almost as if he knows I’m staring at him, he lifts his face up to look at me, his grey eyes boring into mine and an easy smile growing on his face. My cheeks start to burn and my hands start shaking as I struggle to hold both bags in my arms.

I can’t believe the hero who saved me is the same man who has been teaching my little brother every Saturday these past couple of months. I guess the only place where you’d find a Ukrainian in Chicago is in Ukrainian Village.

I guess he noticed my discomfort because he goes up to Taras, looks in my direction, says something to him which immediately causes my brother to walk up to me and grab one of the bags from me.

“Druh Andriy told me to help you hold the stuff and wait for him while he finishes putting away the chairs,” he says in a soldierlike expression that you wouldn’t see on a little boy.

“Since when are you giving your older sister orders, Tarasyku?” I tease, finding his serious expression amusing.

“Since you have a lot of stuff to carry, including my new car,” he says, pointing to the present that is on the stage next to Andriy.

“Well, why don’t you get your present so that you don’t forget it here.” I respond, as he runs over to the stage to grab his present while Druh Andriy starts closing up the shelf, the auditorium now a gymnasium free of the chairs that had occupied the space moments prior.

He starts walking over to us and podruha Anya immediately plops a third bag of cookies into his arms.

“For mama and tato,” she smiles.

He turns to squint at the bags in my arms, replying, “I stack your chairs and you only give me ONE bag, while you gave Maria TWO?”

“One bag is for little Taras,” she smirks, folding her arms in victory.

“Well, little Taras got a present from Mykolay, where’s my present?”

“Maybe Mykolay already gave you a nice present this year,” she responds as she eyes me, causing my cheeks to heat up AGAIN. There’s no doubt about it, Ukrainian is in her blood.

“And maybe, Mykolay will give you a nice present, if you help this nice girl and her brother walk home since it is late at night and they’re carrying a lot of gifts.”

“And whose fault is that?” He responds with a wink.

“I don’t know, but this baba is ready for her beauty sleep,” she says as she stretches her arms out.

“I don’t see a grandma here, do you, Maria?” he questions as his grey eyes look into mine again, little laugh lines forming at the corners of his eyes.

“No, of course not. All I see is a young woman who can turn the head of any man she wants,” I respond, starting to smile.

“That’s it. No need to butter me up. I’ve already given you all the cookies I have. I might as well give you this box of hot chocolate while we’re at it,” she says as she takes two blue boxes and puts one in Andriy’s bag and then in mine, saying, “just pour hot water or milk into it and it’ll be a nice extra drink to have in the morning with those cookies,” she smiles at me before turning to the man next to me with mock anger and pushing him out the door.

“Now, off to do what you young people do at night while I do MY young people things.”

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“Of course, it’s hard to carry that sugar alone this late at night. You don’t know who would want to steal these cookies from you. I hear sugar is of high value in this neighborhood,” he teases.

“Well, I agree with you there,” I say as I start placing the key into the door while trying to balance my bag with the other. The weight quickly leaves my hand as I feel the light touch of his fingers taking the bag away from me.

“Careful. I’ll hold this for you while you open the door,” he responds.

“Thank you.” I respond. But I don’t want to leave him the way that I left him at the bus after he saved me with only a thank you.

“Would you like to stay for some borscht and varenyky?”

Glossary:

Divchyna - “girl” in Ukrainian.

Spartak - a traditional Ukrainian cake made of paper thin layers of chocolate cake and honey flavored buttercream.

Tsotsia - “aunt” in Ukrainian.

Hustka - traditional Ukrainian shawl, sometimes embroidered with flowers or created with printed fabric, that was traditionally used to cover a woman’s head when she gets married. Nowadays, it is mostly worn by older women and only worn by younger women at church or during holidays such as Christmas.