Jo reached the Market Square in town after the forty minute walk. She ventured over to the bread line, hoisting Katrine up onto her shoulder and rummaging her pocket for the stamps at the same time. She would make hot soup tonight, with the bone of their meat ration, some snowmelt and a few wilted canned vegetables.

Soldiers patrolled the streets, laughing and joking, their cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Jo smiled and Ivan Petrov, waving with the hand holding the stamps. He ventured over, grinning back. Katrine laughed and clapped her hands.

“Say hello to Uncle Ivan!” Jo pleaded, Katrine hadn’t spoken or burbled in days, not since their last trip into town. “Say hello, Katrine!”

Katrine roared with laughter as Ivan stuck out his tongue, holding his cigarette in a gloved hand. “Oh, Jo, where’d Mo go?” he chuckled to himself, just one of the rhyming name jokes he’d come up with for her and Mohammad.

“He’s South, visiting his family for the week.” Jo replied, blushing. Why?

She wondered…