Most of the letter is ordinary. Vladimir smiled, Vladimir won’t sleep unless he’s fed twice, the milk boiled over, and she nearly cried over a saucepan because, apparently, motherhood is glamorous. Then the letter edges into stranger ground.
She writes that the hall outside the flat sounds busy at odd hours, the baby startles in his sleep and sometimes looks over her shoulder when no one is there, she hates opening the curtains after dark, she knows it sounds stupid, and she’s probably just run down. I read it through once, then again. “Well?” Niko asks.
I fold it carefully and hand it back. “No, I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I,” he says, taking the paper back and shoving it into his pocket.
“Has anyone actually seen her lately?”
“I don't know. Cassie mentions the woman next door sometimes, but that's about it.”
“What about you writing to her directly?”
“She’ll think I’m panicking.”
“You are panicking. You look one bad sentence away from punching through a wall.”
“That’s not panic. That’s stress.”
“That is panic in a different outfit.”
He actually smiles at that, faintly. “You should put that on a poster.”
“I would, but literacy rates are not on our side.”
He shakes his head, then sobers again. “I don’t want to make it worse.”
“You’re worried that if you push too hard, people will start treating her like she’s mad?” I ask, leaning against the wall. He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to; his silence answers for him. “She needslooking after.”
“I know she does.”
“What if you move her here?”
“What?”
“Get her into military housing. The families’ block.”
“That’s not—” he starts.
“It is,” I cut in. “It’s not front-line barracks, it’s not her stuck in the middle of a yard full of idiots. It’s housing. Other families. Other women with kids. People in and out all day.”
He exhales slowly, thinking. “You think that’ll fix it?”
“I think it’ll mean she’s not alone in a flat, listening to every noise like it’s coming for her.”
He looks away, his jaw tight. “It’s not that simple.”
“No,” I agree. “But it’s simpler than worrying from miles away.”
He huffs out a breath in frustration. “I’d have to get it approved. They don’t just hand those flats out.”
“No, but they also don’t like problems. You’ve got a baby and a partner who isn’t coping. That’s a problem if it escalates.”
“She won’t want to leave,” he mutters.
“Probably not.”
“She hates feeling like she can’t handle things. How do I convince her?”
