streetlights

There is no easy way to say it. I was married to someone I hid from. Tucking E into a sling, I would disappear for hours saying I was going shopping for dinner, and if she fell asleep the excuse was that she needed fresh air as I sat on a park bench with her tiny hand grabbing my pinky until she eventually woke up. I would make my way along the side streets of Greenwich as the sun went down, leaning into store windows but not going in. Eventually I would go home, and as I turned the corner there was a security light that would switch on - obviously attached to some motion sensor. In those strange and lonely moments, I would talk to that light. Each time it clicked on, I felt somehow that the night ahead could be survived no matter what madness waited for us behind the front door.

That was twelve years ago.

Another life, another country.

Today, I turned a corner in Moscow with an all-too familiar bag of groceries swinging from my shoulder. A street light flickered on and all at once I was brought back to those terrifying days, days I carried in silence and secrecy, days no one knew about because I talked to no one but that light. Upstairs I will make soup, and E will wander around in her bare feet, a curl of mascara at the edges of her eyes. She has no memory of our time in Greenwich. The apartment smells of golden broth, lemon, shards of carrots bouncing in the pot. The door opens, N and V are back with cold cheeks and warm hats. I unravel V from her parka, and we wash her hands somehow acting like pirates.