CHAPTER 5: My Love, my Home

Spring came like a promise. The snow melted, leaving the city smelling of wet earth and new life. Elaine’s art teacher had entered her work in a city-wide competition—her painting of the pine tree in our courtyard, with two figures sitting under it, holding hands.

“I want to call it Home,” she told me, sitting on my bed while I wrote in my journal. “Because that’s what you are to me, Kei. Home.”

I put down my pen and pulled her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her. “You’re home to me too,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

I do, I thought. I know exactly what I’d do. And I never want to go back to that life again.

She traced the letters on my journal with her finger—Keith Aleksandr Volkov, Elaine’s Kei. “You still write me letters,” she said softly. “Even though you can just tell me everything now.”

“I like writing them,” I said, closing the journal and setting it aside. “I like knowing that even if I can’t say the words, you’ll always have them to read.”

That weekend, we took the train to St. Petersburg. Elaine had never been, and she spent the whole ride pressed against the window, drawing pictures of the countryside flying by. We visited the Hermitage, and she spent hours in front of the Greek artifacts, her eyes shining with tears.

“I miss it sometimes,” she said, taking my hand as we walked through the halls. “Greece. My grandmother’s olive groves, the smell of the sea…”

“I know,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Maybe one day we can go back. Live there for a while. Have a house with an olive tree in the yard.”

She stopped walking, turning to look at me. “You’d do that? Leave Russia to live in Greece with me?”

“I’d go anywhere with you,” I said simply. “You’re my home, remember?”

She threw her arms around my neck, kissing me right there in the middle of the museum. People stared, but I didn’t care. In that moment, nothing else mattered but her lips on mine and the feeling of her heart beating against mine.

That night, we sat on the roof of our hotel, looking out at the city lights reflecting in the Neva River. Elaine pulled out the silver locket I’d given her—she never took it off—and opened it, looking at the tiny drawing inside.

“Kei,” she said, her voice quiet. “I had a dream once. A really strange dream. I was in Greece, at a cemetery, and I was crying over a grave. Your grave.”

My heart stopped. I pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. “It was just a dream,” I said, but my voice was tight.

“I know,” she said, leaning her head on my shoulder. “But in the dream, I didn’t tell you how I felt until it was too late. And I woke up crying because I thought I’d lost you.” She looked up at me, her eyes shining. “I’m never going to let that happen. I’m never going to let you think I don’t love you.”

“I know,” I said, holding her tighter. “I love you too, Elaine. More than words can say.”

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