“I’m on my way to a branch in Salem, and I thought I’d make a stop here for today. Can I come in?”
Driving to Salem, Oregon. That was strange.
But was I really going to stop and think about it more?
“You know you can. And the children?”
“In Bratsk, with my mother.”
He never said “at home.” He always mentioned the place where the children were or where his house was (this was in Krasnoyarsk, far to the north), but it was never “his home,” I realized. I had heard him mention Bratsk a couple of times. I supposed he no longer had a place he could truly call “home,” with genuine ownership.
I don’t know what part of that certainty made me sadder—believing Alexander was no longer okay anywhere, or believing he only behaved like himself when he was in my house. The man who spoke at press con
