The first impossible cabbage frightened her because she knew scarcity.
The final tradition survived because the family eventually learned the opposite lesson.
Enough did not mean never losing anything.
Enough meant people noticing when someone else was hungry.
Enough meant opening walls.
Enough meant asking before judging.
Enough meant keeping one more cabbage in the pantry.
Just in case.
Samuel did not sleep after the second cabbage appeared.
He tried.
He lay beside Clara beneath two heavy quilts while winter pressed itself against the cabin walls, listening to the wind slide along the logs and the occasional hiss of a dying ember in the hearth.
But every time his eyes closed, he saw the pantry shelf.
Empty after supper.
Occupied minutes later.
A perfect green cabbage where no cabbage could possibly have been.
Beside him, Clara shifted.
The mattress dipped beneath her enormous body.
Samuel knew she was awake too.
“You’re breathing too loudly,” she finally said.
His eyes opened.
“I’m lying still.”
“You can lie still loudly.”
“That sounds impossible.”
“So did the cabbage.”
Neither spoke after that.
The joke should have relaxed them.
It did not.
Near midnight, Samuel got up.
Clara pushed herself onto one elbow.
“Where are you going?”
“To check.”
“You checked ten minutes ago.”
“It has been twenty-three.”
“You counted?”
“Yes.”
“That is worse.”
Samuel took the candle from the bedside table.
Clara watched him cross the room.
He opened the pantry door.
Nothing new.
The shelves held exactly what they had left there.
Cornmeal.
Beans.
The heel of yesterday’s bread.
A jar of dried berries.
Two onions.
Salt pork wrapped in cloth.
No green miracle.
No vegetable ghost.
Samuel shut the door.
“Nothing.”
Clara pulled the quilt higher.
“Good.”
Samuel returned to bed.
Seven minutes later, something tapped inside the wall.
Once.
Then twice.
Both of them sat up.
Samuel reached for the rifle.
Clara reached for the heavy iron fireplace poker she kept beside her side of the bed.
The tapping stopped.
Samuel whispered, “Stay here.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
“No.”
“You weigh nearly four hundred kilograms and the floorboards complain when you cross the room. If there is someone hiding in the pantry, surprise is not available to us.”
She stared.
“That may be the rudest sensible thing you have ever said.”
“I’m frightened.”