Andriy, last week I dreamed that you were lost and couldn’t find your way home but last night you found me. You found me. You had made your way through the shadowlands. You looked slightly older than when I watched you walk away without looking round, your knapsack on your back, turning to the left at the fork in the road, the way that leads to the city. You hadn’t turned to the right to take the fork that leads to the woods where we shared our first kiss, where we would go throughout our long courtship and where we would take the children.
There you were; your head on the pillow, breathing gently, looking at me with such sadness. I could feel your soft ginger hair as I stroked it, feel the warmth of your body next to mine, the roughness of your beard.
In the morning, you were gone. How bitter the coffee that you could not share.
How I long to keep the marmalade you made forever but we will eat the three jars we have remaining. You liked to cut the strips of peel so thick and we used to share the fruity chunks.
I tried not to think of all those times we took the car and had coffee with whipped cream on a Sunday morning in the café in the square.
Volodimir came by last week to offer his condolences but you don’t need to feel any jealousy because he was killed by a sniper near the border on Sunday. Perhaps you will find each other. How long will this go on? Until they have killed us all?
Uncle, Yuri, gave me a little money to get shoes for Maksym. He’s growing so fast, the ones we bought in the autumn are too small. We were going to visit them on Sunday but then Yuri was killed when a drone struck his block of flats.
Our old neighbour, Anna, was living without one wall of her house but, because she is blind, she had not realised and kept asking me to shut the door. She’s living with mother now. She wakes in the night and says she wants to go out and look for her son.
I’ve thought about moving further west or even leaving the country. There’s mother to think about, of course, perhaps she and Anna could come too, but I have this crazy idea that if I leave, it will make it harder for you to find me. It took Olga two weeks to get to England.
Then, there is the need to stay and help. I could do like other women and drive a tram or a lorry or a tractor. Can you imagine that? How would I cope without you and with so much on my plate already?
Oh the pain of not being able to tell you all this, not to discuss these things and get your advice.
Come again, come again tonight.
