The coin sits on the kitchen table between the pork hock and the rye bread. Jan turns it over with one finger, watching how the light catches the worn eagle on one side, the date on the other: 1863.
“Dziadek’s coin,” Maria says, setting down three bowls. Steam rises from the barszcz, beet-red and smelling of vinegar. “Why you got that out?”
Jan shrugs. His hands ache from the kill floor—eight hours with the boning knife, wrist to elbow in blood and fat. The coin is cool under his fingertip. “Stanisław asked about it yesterday. Wanted to know the story.”
Their son looks up from his bowl. Twenty-one, broad across the shoulders like Jan used to be, hands already scarred from the sausage line. “The uprising one, tak? From when Dziadek fought the Russians?”
“Fought, hid, starved, crossed.” Jan picks up the coin, feels its weight. Forty grams of silver, minted in Warsaw before the tsar’s troops burned half the city. His grandfather carried it sewn into his coat lining all the way to Hamburg, then across the Atlantic, then into the stockyards. Died of typhus in ’98 with the coin still in his pocket. “He used to say it was lucky. Said if you needed something bad enough, you could ask it.”
Maria makes a sound in her throat. “And what did it get him? Dead at fifty-two in a room with six other men, all of them coughing blood.”
“He made it here,” Jan says quietly. “That was something.”
Stanisław reaches across the table. Jan hands him the coin. The boy turns it over, squinting at the eagle. “How’s it work?”
“You rub it. Make your wish. Same like any luck charm.”
“You ever try?”
Jan shakes his head. “Your dziadek said it worked, but not the way you want. Said it found the cheapest way to get you what you asked for.” He tears off a piece of bread. “Like asking for rain and getting your roof to leak.”
Stanisław laughs. Sets the coin down. “So it’s worthless.”
“It’s silver,” Maria says. “Worth something to a pawn shop.”
“Worth more as a story.” Jan picks it up again, slides it into his shirt pocket. The metal is warm now from Stanisław’s hands.
Friday the shift boss posts the new quotas. Twelve hundred casings by end of week, up from nine hundred. The sausage line groans—not enough men, not enough time, not enough anything except pressure. Stanisław works the stuffer, feeding ground pork into the machine that forces it through casings thin as gut.
The machine jams twice before lunch. The third time, Stanisław reaches in to clear it without hitting the shutoff. Jan knows this because he hears about it from Kowalski, who works the grinder next to his son. Kowalski tells him during the thirty-minute break, leaning against the brick wall outside where the air doesn’t smell like shit and copper.
“Boy’s gonna lose a hand,” Kowalski says, lighting a cigarette. “Going too fast. They all are.”
Jan says nothing. Takes the cigarette Kowalski offers, smokes it down to his fingers.
That night at dinner, he watches Stanisław’s hands. The right one has a bruise across the knuckles, purple spreading under the skin.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Caught it in the feed.”
“You shut the machine off first?”
Stanisław doesn’t look up from his plate. “Tak.”
Maria’s eyes meet Jan’s across the table. They both know he’s lying.
After dinner, after Stanisław leaves to meet Aldona at her parents’ flat, Maria washes the dishes in silence. Jan dries. The rhythm is old, comfortable. She hands him a bowl. He takes it.
“You should talk to him,” she says.
“I did.”
“Not about the bruise. About the speed. About what happens when—”
“He knows what happens.”
“Does he?” She turns to face him, hands still in the dishwater. “Or does he think he’s young and fast and it won’t happen to him?”
Jan sets down the bowl. Through the window he can see the stockyards, the smoke rising from the rendering plants. Three blocks away, Bronisław Majewski is missing four fingers from his left hand. Two blocks the other direction, Piotr Nowak has a limp from when his leg got caught in a belt. Last month, Wójcik’s boy—eighteen, younger than Stanisław—went home in pieces after the bone saw kicked back.
“I’ll talk to him,” Jan says.
But he doesn’t. Because what is there to say? Work slower, make less, fall behind on the quotas, lose the job? They’re two months behind on rent as it is. The company store has them down for eighteen dollars on credit. Stanisław’s pay is the only reason they can eat meat twice a week instead of living on cabbage and bread.
Jan pulls the coin from his pocket that night before bed. Sits on the edge of the mattress, turning it over in his hands. Rubs his thumb across the eagle.
Let him be safe, he thinks. Then feels stupid for thinking it. It’s a piece of metal. It doesn’t do anything.
He puts it back in his pocket.
Saturday, the weather turns. Rain hammers the roof, finds the gaps in the tar paper, drips into the bucket Maria keeps in the corner. The stockyards smell worse when it rains—the blood and shit and offal running in streams down the gutters, mixing with the rainwater until the whole neighborhood stinks like an open wound.
Jan works the kill floor. The cattle come in wet, wild-eyed, and the men work faster to keep them moving. Slippery floors, slippery hands. Tomczyk goes down hard, catches himself before his head hits the concrete. The foreman doesn’t even slow the line.
After shift, Jan stops at the company cashier. Fourteen dollars for the week. He asks about the rent.
“You’re at forty-two owed,” the cashier says, not looking up from his ledger. “This brings you to twenty-eight.”
“When’s it due?”
“First of the month. Nine days.”
Twenty-eight dollars short. Jan’s stomach goes cold. “What happens if we can’t make it?”
The cashier looks at him then. “Same as always. You get notice. Thirty days to clear it or you’re out.”
Jan walks home in the rain. His coat is soaked through by the time he reaches Honore Street. Inside, Maria is cooking cabbage with the last of the bacon fat. Stanisław isn’t home yet.
“How much?” Maria asks.
“Twenty-eight short.”
She stops stirring. “Jezu Chryste.”
They eat in silence. The cabbage tastes like water and salt. Stanisław comes in after dark, soaked like Jan was, hands shaking from the cold. He sits down without taking off his coat.
“Aldona’s father says there’s work at the steel mill,” he says. “Pays better than the yards.”
“You have to know someone to get in,” Jan says.
“He knows someone.”
Maria sets down her spoon. “The mills are worse than the yards. The heat alone—”
“I’m not talking about me.” Stanisław looks at Jan. “He could get you in. You’re still strong enough.”
Jan almost laughs. Fifty-eight years old, hands that barely close all the way anymore, back that screams every time he bends to pick something up. Strong enough. “I work the yards.”
“The yards are killing you.”
“Everything kills you. At least I know how this kills me.”
Stanisław stands up. “Then we’re just going to wait? Wait until they kick us out? Wait until—” He stops. Looks at Maria. “I’m getting another shift. Double on Sunday.”
“You’re already working six days,” Maria says.
“Then I’ll work seven.”
He leaves without eating. The door rattles in its frame when he slams it.
Maria and Jan sit in the silence. The rain drums on the roof. The bucket in the corner is almost full.
“He’s going to hurt himself,” Maria says quietly.
Jan pulls the coin from his pocket. Looks at it. Worth more as a story, he’d said. But what’s a story worth when you’re twenty-eight dollars short and your son is running himself into the ground?
He rubs his thumb across the eagle. Once. Twice.
I need money, he thinks. Enough to clear the debt. Enough to stop this.
Then he puts the coin back in his pocket and goes to bed.
Sunday, Stanisław works a double. Jan sees him at dawn heading toward the yards, coat collar turned up against the cold. Doesn’t see him again until after dark, when Maria is already in bed and the flat is quiet except for the drip of water into the bucket.
Stanisław sits at the table. Doesn’t take off his coat. Jan pours him the last of the coffee, watches him drink it in silence.
“Your hands,” Jan says.
Stanisław looks down. Both hands are bandaged, white cloth wrapped tight around the palms. “Got careless. It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing, Ojcze.”
“Let me see.”
Stanisław unwraps his right hand. The palm is raw, skin torn where something hot touched it. Jan can smell the burn—meat and infection starting.
“Did you see the doctor?”
“The line doctor put salve on it. Said keep it wrapped.”
“And you kept working.”
“Had four more hours on the shift.”
Jan says nothing. Rewraps the hand himself, slower, gentler. Stanisław sits still, watching his father’s scarred fingers work the cloth.
“I’m getting married in June,” Stanisław says quietly. “Aldona and me. Her father’s going to help us find a place.”
“You told her mother?”
“Last week. They’re happy about it.”
Jan ties off the bandage. “You told yours?”
“I’m telling you now.”
They sit in the silence. Jan thinks about June. Four months away. Thinks about the rent they can’t pay, the debt at the company store, the way Stanisław’s hands shake when he holds the coffee cup.
“You’ll need money,” Jan says.
“I have some saved.”
“Not enough.”
“I’ll get more.”
Jan pulls the coin from his pocket. Sets it on the table between them. “Take this.”
Stanisław looks at it. “I don’t want your stories, Ojcze.”
“It’s silver. Pawn shop will give you something for it.”
“It’s Dziadek’s.”
“Dziadek’s dead. You’re getting married.”
Stanisław picks up the coin. Turns it over. Sets it back down. “Keep it. I’ll figure something out.”
He goes to bed. Jan sits at the table alone, looking at the coin. The eagle stares back. He rubs his thumb across it one more time.
Keep him safe, he thinks. Whatever it takes.
Monday morning, Jan is in the kill pen when the whistle blows wrong. Not the shift whistle. Not the lunch whistle. The accident whistle—three short blasts that mean stop everything, someone’s down.
The floor goes quiet. Men step back from their stations. The foreman is already running toward the sausage line, two buildings over. Jan’s hands go cold.
He follows. So does half the kill floor. They crowd at the door of the casing room, trying to see. The foreman is yelling at someone to get back, get the doctor, get something to stop the bleeding.
Jan pushes through. Sees Kowalski standing frozen at his grinder. Sees the machine operator hitting the shutoff. Sees the floor, slick and dark.
Sees Stanisław.
His son is on his back, eyes open, mouth moving but no sound coming out. His right arm is gone below the elbow. Not severed clean—torn, crushed, the bones showing white through the red. The stuffer machine is still running, grinding to a halt, something caught in its teeth.
Someone is screaming. Jan realizes it’s him.
He drops to his knees beside Stanisław. Tries to press his hands over the wound, but there’s too much blood, it keeps coming. Stanisław’s eyes find his. His mouth moves. Jan leans close.
“Przepraszam,” Stanisław whispers. I’m sorry.
“Nie, nie, nie—” Jan is pressing harder, but the blood just flows around his fingers, between them, everywhere. “Stay with me. Zostań ze mną.”
The doctor arrives. Pulls Jan back. Works fast—tourniquet, bandages, something from his bag that he presses over the wound. Stanisław’s eyes are still open. Still looking at Jan.
“We need to move him,” the doctor says. “Now.”
They carry him on a board. Through the casing room, past the other workers standing silent, out into the cold March air. The company car is already waiting. They load Stanisław in the back. The doctor climbs in after.
“You can’t come,” the foreman tells Jan. “No room.”
Jan watches the car pull away. Stanisław’s blood is all over his hands, his shirt, his face. He can taste it in his mouth.
Kowalski is beside him. “I saw it happen. He was clearing a jam. Didn’t shut it off. The feeder grabbed his sleeve and—” He stops. “I’m sorry, Jan.”
Jan walks home. Doesn’t remember the walk. Finds himself at the door, hands still red, and realizes he has to tell Maria.
She takes one look at him and knows.
“Where is he?”
“Hospital.”
“How bad?”
Jan opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “The arm.”
Maria’s face goes white. Then she’s moving, grabbing her coat, heading for the door. “Which hospital?”
“I don’t know. The company one.”
“Then we find it.”
They find it. A brick building on Halsted, third floor, smell of carbolic and rot. The nurse won’t let them past the desk. “Family only during surgery.”
“We are family,” Maria says. “I’m his mother.”
“You’ll have to wait.”
They wait. Hours pass. Jan sits on the bench, hands in his lap, staring at the blood dried under his fingernails. Maria paces. Sits. Paces again. The clock on the wall ticks.
Finally, a doctor comes out. Not the company doctor. Someone older, wearing a white coat stained brown at the cuffs.
“Białkowski family?”
They stand.
“Your son is stable. The amputation was clean, no infection so far. We’ll watch him overnight.”
“Amputation,” Maria repeats.
“Below the elbow. We couldn’t save it. I’m sorry.”
“Can we see him?”
“Tomorrow. He needs rest now.”
They go home. The flat is dark, cold. Maria lights the stove, but neither of them can stand to eat. They sit at the table in silence. After a long time, Maria speaks.
“The company will pay. For this. They have to.”
Jan says nothing. Pulls the coin from his pocket. Looks at it. The eagle looks back.
He’d asked for money. He’d rubbed the thing and asked for enough to clear the debt.
It finds the cheapest way to get you what you asked for.
His hands start shaking. He drops the coin. It rings against the table, spins, settles.
“Jan?” Maria is looking at him. “What is it?”
He can’t tell her. Can’t say: I did this. I asked a piece of metal for money and it gave me my son’s arm.
“Nothing,” he says. “I need air.”
He walks out into the night. Walks until his legs ache, until he’s past the stockyards, past the factories, past everything. Stands on a corner somewhere south of 47th and puts his hands over his face.
The coin is still in his pocket. He can feel its weight. Forty grams of silver and his son’s future.
He walks back. Maria is asleep in the chair, head on the table. He covers her with a blanket, sits down across from her. Picks up the coin.
Rubs it.
Take it back. Undo it. Make it not have happened.
Then he stops. Because even if it worked—even if the thing could undo what it had done—what would it cost? What would be the cheapest way to bring Stanisław’s arm back?
He puts the coin in his pocket. Goes to bed. Doesn’t sleep.
Morning. The company man comes at eight. Suit, clipboard, expression like he’s done this a thousand times.
“Mr. Białkowski. I’m here about yesterday’s incident.”
Maria lets him in. Jan stays at the table.
The man sits down, sets his clipboard between them. “First, let me express the company’s sympathy. These things are unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate,” Maria says.
“We want to make this right. The company is prepared to offer compensation.” He slides a paper across the table. “Two hundred dollars. In exchange, you sign a waiver of all claims against Armour & Company.”
Jan looks at the number. Two hundred dollars. More than enough to clear the rent. Enough to pay off the company store. Enough to give Stanisław something to start his marriage with.
“What about his job?” Maria asks.
“The company will find appropriate work. Light duty. Reduced hours, reduced pay, of course, but he’ll have a position.”
“He’s twenty-one. He was going to get married.”
The man’s face doesn’t change. “The offer is fair. You’re welcome to consult an attorney, but I should mention that the waiver is time-sensitive. If you don’t sign by Friday, the offer is withdrawn.”
He leaves the paper. Leaves the pen. Leaves.
Maria picks up the paper, reads it. Sets it down. Looks at Jan.
“We need the money,” she says quietly.
“I know.”
“Stanisław will need help. The wedding. Everything.”
“I know.”
She picks up the pen. Holds it. “This isn’t right. They take his arm and give us two hundred dollars like that makes it even.”
Jan takes the pen from her. Signs. His hand is steady. When he’s done, he slides the paper across the table.
“It’s not even,” he says. “But it’s what we get.”
They bring Stanisław home on Wednesday. He’s pale, weak, the stump wrapped in clean bandages that Maria will have to change twice a day. He doesn’t speak much. Sits in the chair by the window, staring out at the stockyards.
Aldona comes on Thursday. Sits with him, holds his left hand. Jan and Maria give them space, retreat to the kitchen. They can hear her voice through the wall, soft and steady.
When she leaves, Stanisław is crying.
“She still wants to marry you,” Maria says, sitting beside him.
“Why would she want a cripple?”
“Because she loves you.”
“She loves who I was. Not this.”
Maria takes his left hand. “This is still you.”
He pulls away. Goes to bed.
Friday, Jan takes the signed waiver to the company office. The man in the suit counts out two hundred dollars in bills, hands them over without comment. Jan signs the receipt. Leaves.
He pays the rent first. Twenty-eight dollars to clear the debt. Then the company store—eighteen dollars. The rest he brings home, gives to Maria.
“For Stanisław,” he says. “For the wedding.”
Maria counts it. One hundred and fifty-four dollars. “This won’t last.”
“It’ll help.”
That night, Jan pulls out the coin. Looks at it in the lamplight. The eagle is worn almost smooth from his grandfather’s hands, from his own hands, from Stanisław’s.
He rubs it.
Bring him back. Make him whole. I don’t care what it costs.
But even as he thinks it, he knows. Knows what the cheapest way would be. Knows what he’d find if the thing granted that wish.
He puts the coin back in his pocket.
Sunday. They go to Mass at St. Joseph’s. Stanisław comes with them, first time since the accident. People stare. Some nod. Some look away.
Father Kowalski gives the sermon in Polish. Something about suffering, about God’s plan, about finding meaning in loss. Jan doesn’t listen. Watches Stanisław instead, sees the way his son’s jaw is clenched, the way his left hand grips the pew.
After Mass, Mrs. Wójcik approaches. Her son’s funeral was last month—closed casket, after what the bone saw did.
“I’m sorry about Stanisław,” she says to Maria.
“Dziękuję.”
“At least he’s alive. At least you still have him.”
Maria’s face doesn’t change. “Tak. At least.”
Mrs. Wójcik pats her arm. Moves on.
“She means well,” Jan says.
“I know what she means.”
They walk home in silence. Stanisław walks behind them, not quite with them. When they reach the flat, he goes straight to his room. Closes the door.
Maria makes dinner. Jan sits at the table, turning the coin over in his hands.
“What are you doing with that?” Maria asks.
“Nothing. Thinking.”
“About what?”
How to say it? How to explain that he thinks—knows—the thing in his hands took their son’s arm in exchange for money they needed? That it twisted his wish into the cheapest possible answer? That every time he rubs it, he’s afraid of what it will do next?
“Just thinking,” he says.
Maria sets down the knife. Comes over, takes the coin from his hands. Looks at it. “Your dziadek’s stories. You think they were true?”
“I don’t know.”
“You rubbed it. Before the accident. I saw you.”
Jan’s throat goes tight. “Tak.”
“What did you ask for?”
He can’t answer. Can’t say the words.
Maria sets the coin on the table. “It’s just metal, Jan. It doesn’t do anything. What happened to Stanisław—that was the machine. That was him working too fast. That was this place.” She waves her hand at the window, at the stockyards beyond. “Not a coin.”
“Tak. You’re right.”
But he doesn’t believe her. And from the way she’s looking at him, she doesn’t believe herself.
That night, after Maria is asleep, Jan takes the coin outside. Stands in the alley behind the building, where the garbage bins smell like rot and the rats move in the shadows. He could throw it away. Could walk to the river and drop it in. Could take a hammer to it, pound it flat, destroy it.
Instead, he puts it back in his pocket.
Goes inside.
Lies in bed, listening to Maria breathe. Listening to Stanisław cough in the other room—the infection starting, the doctor said it might, keep the wound clean and pray.
Listening to the rain start again, hitting the roof, dripping into the bucket in the corner.
Two weeks pass. Stanisław’s stump heals badly. The bandages come off brown and wet. Maria boils water, rewraps it, but the smell doesn’t go away. The doctor comes, looks, shakes his head.
“Infection’s deep. I can try to clean it out, but—”
“But what?” Maria demands.
“But it might not be enough.”
They try anyway. The doctor cuts away the dead tissue, packs the wound with gauze soaked in carbolic. Stanisław screams. Jan holds him down. When it’s over, Stanisław passes out.
“Keep him still,” the doctor says. “Keep him clean. Pray.”
The infection spreads anyway. Up the arm, into his shoulder. Stanisław burns with fever, talking to people who aren’t there—Aldona, his grandfather, someone named Piotr who died on the kill floor ten years ago.
On the fourth day, he goes quiet. His breathing slows. Maria sits beside him, holding his left hand, crying without sound.
Jan stands at the window. The coin is in his pocket. He pulls it out. Rubs it.
Save him. Please. Whatever it costs. Just save him.
Behind him, Stanisław takes a breath. Then another. Then stops.
Maria makes a sound—not a scream, not a sob, something worse. Jan turns.
His son is still. Eyes closed. Mouth slightly open.
Gone.
The funeral is on Saturday. Closed casket—Maria insists, doesn’t want people to see what the infection did. Father Kowalski says the prayers. The church is half full. Company men in the back, taking notes.
They bury him in the Catholic cemetery on 111th Street. Jan and three other men carry the coffin. It’s lighter than Jan expected. Stanisław was always big, broad-shouldered, strong. But six weeks of fever burned him down to nothing.
They lower him into the ground. Father Kowalski sprinkles holy water. Says something about eternal rest. Jan doesn’t listen.
After, people come to the flat. Bring food, offer condolences, fill the silence with words that don’t mean anything. Jan sits in the corner, the coin in his pocket, and says nothing.
When everyone is gone, Maria sits beside him.
“The company sent another man,” she says quietly.
“When?”
“This morning. While you were at the church.”
“What did he want?”
“To discuss the settlement. Said since Stanisław died from the injury, the waiver might not cover everything. Wanted me to sign another paper.”
Jan looks at her. “Did you?”
“No. Told him to come back when you were here.”
They sit in silence. Through the window, the stockyards are lit up—night shift starting, smoke rising into the dark.
“I should have stopped him,” Jan says. “Should have made him work slower. Should have—”
“Jan.”
“I asked for money. I rubbed that fucking coin and asked for money and it gave me—”
“Stop.” Maria’s voice is sharp. “It’s a coin. It didn’t do anything. What happened to Stanisław was not your fault.”
“Then whose fault is it?”
She doesn’t answer. Because they both know. The machine. The quotas. The company. The way this place works—feeding men into the grinders and paying their families two hundred dollars to keep quiet.
The coin didn’t do it. But it didn’t stop it either.
Jan pulls it out. Looks at it. The eagle worn smooth. The date almost invisible.
Maria takes it from him. Studies it. Then stands, walks to the stove, lifts the lid. The fire inside is burning low, coals red in the dark.
“No,” Jan says.
“Why not?”
“It’s Dziadek’s. It’s all we have left.”
“It’s a curse.”
“It’s a story.”
“Then let it end.”
She holds it over the fire. Jan stands. Wants to stop her. Doesn’t.
Maria’s hand opens. The coin drops into the coals.
They watch it. The silver heats, glows, begins to melt. The eagle disappears first. Then the date. Then it’s just a puddle of metal at the bottom of the stove, cooling, hardening, becoming nothing.
Maria closes the lid. Sits back down.
“There,” she says. “It’s done.”
Jan sits beside her. Takes her hand. They stay like that until morning.
Spring comes. The stockyards smell worse—blood and shit and the rotting meat in the rendering plants. Jan goes back to work. The kill floor is the same. The men are the same. The cattle are the same.
Everything is the same except Stanisław isn’t there.
Jan works. Comes home. Eats. Sleeps. Repeats.
Maria takes in more laundry. Fourteen hours a day scrubbing other people’s clothes in the tub, hanging them to dry, pressing them flat. Her hands go red, then raw, then hard.
Aldona comes by once. Brings soup. Sits with Maria while Jan is at work. Doesn’t come again.
May. The company man comes back. Different man, same clipboard.
“About the settlement,” he says.
“We signed the waiver,” Jan says.
“For the injury. Not the death. The company needs to close the file. We’re prepared to offer an additional one hundred dollars.”
Jan looks at the paper. One hundred dollars. For Stanisław’s life. For the infection. For everything after.
“No,” he says.
The man blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“No. We’re not signing.”
“Mr. Białkowski, I understand you’re grieving, but—”
“Get out.”
“If you don’t sign, the company will have no choice but to pursue legal—”
Jan stands. “Get. Out.”
The man leaves. The paper stays on the table.
Maria picks it up. Reads it. “One hundred dollars would help.”
“I don’t want their money.”
“We need it.”
“I don’t care.”
She sets the paper down. Doesn’t push.
That night, Jan dreams of the coin. Sees it in the fire, melting, the eagle screaming as it liquifies. Wakes up sweating, hands clutching at nothing.
The coin is gone. Destroyed. It can’t hurt anyone anymore.
But Stanisław is still dead.
And Jan is still here.
And the stockyards are still running, the machines still grinding, the men still feeding themselves into the gears one day, one shift, one accident at a time.
The coin didn’t do it.
But it showed him the price.
June. The day Stanisław would have married Aldona.
Jan doesn’t go to work. Sits at the table instead, looking at the empty chair where his son used to sit. Maria is at the sink, hands in the dishwater, not moving.
“We should visit the grave,” she says finally.
“Tak.”
They walk to 111th Street. Stand at the headstone. Fresh flowers from someone—probably Aldona. Jan kneels, touches the stone. Feels nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. To Stanisław. To the stone. To himself.
Maria pulls him up. They walk home.
On Honore Street, Jan stops. Looks at the stockyards. At the smoke rising, the men going in for the evening shift. Thinks about going back. About forty more years of the kill floor, the blood, the ache in his hands.
Thinks about the coin in the fire.
Thinks about asking it to save Stanisław. About what that wish might have cost. About what might have come knocking at the door if Maria hadn’t thrown the thing away.
“Come on,” Maria says, taking his hand.
They go inside. She makes dinner. He eats it. They clean up together, the old rhythm returning—she washes, he dries.
That night, lying in bed, Jan realizes something.
The coin didn’t grant wishes. It showed you the price of getting what you wanted. Showed you what the world would take in exchange.
And the world always took more than you wanted to pay.
But you paid anyway. Because what choice did you have?
July. The company man comes back. Third time. Same offer. Jan tears up the paper.
August. Maria’s hands stop working right—too much scrubbing, too much lye. She keeps working anyway.
September. Jan finds out Aldona got married. To someone from the steel mills. Someone whole.
October. The rent comes due. They’re short again.
November. Winter is coming. The cold settles into the flat, into their bones.
December. Christmas. They go to Mass. Light a candle for Stanisław. Come home to an empty table.
January. New year. Same stockyards. Same kill floor. Same everything.
Jan works. Comes home. Eats. Sleeps.
Repeats.
The coin is gone.
Stanisław is gone.
But the price keeps coming due.
Every day.
Every shift.
Every moment he keeps living in this place that takes and takes and never gives anything back.
And he pays it.
Because what else is there to do?
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