Kislyak Andrey

It was six in the morning. The gray, chilly sky was just beginning to brighten outside the window, but Andrei was already awake. He lay on his side of the huge bed, staring at the ceiling, and every cell in his body felt the chill emanating from the empty pillow beside him.

He still couldn't understand why Yana had taken off so suddenly. Some distant relative he'd never heard of before... A stroke or a heart attack—the details were lost in the anxious phone conversations. Andrey didn't argue, understanding that it was important to his wife, but a deep, deep misunderstanding grew within him: why travel so far for someone you only see once every decade?

The house felt strange without her. Kislyak always considered himself self-sufficient, but this week alone had been unusually difficult. They called each other five or six times a day, discussing breakfast, the weather, the patient's condition, but as soon as he hit the end call button, the silence in the apartment would ring. Andrey rolled over, touching the edge of her blanket with his hand. It was cold. The loneliness was too unfamiliar to his taste—bitter and unlike the freedom he had once cherished so much.