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“I didn’t think you’d be coming this year,” you say, your back turned.
The red-haired woman stops a small distance, her shadow cascading over your head. The space between you is less than a meter, but a wider chasm settles somewhere that is too deep and too hurtful to replace.
“I always come every year,” she says quietly, and you flinch. You don’t know why. “Have you lost faith in me already?”
You look up at her, finally, putting your hands on your knees to lift yourself up from a crouched position. Your joints crack audibly, but neither of you address it. Such is the passage of time.
“Sylvia,” you say haltingly, and the name feels foreign on your tongue. “Is that still your–?”
“Yes,” she says. “That’s me. It’s still me.”
The syllables echo emptily in front of her. Yes, it’s still her. It always is, and somehow never was.
You stand there silently, holding vigil over a small grave, marked only with the name of your daughter and the years she was alive. It also signifies the time you spent together, and the bare polished marble is an apt metaphor for what is left between you and her.
Sylvia shifts finally, reaching into a pocket. For a wild moment, you think she’s going to pull out a gun–she’s in her work clothes, she always is, that woman never takes a break–but the small object in her hand crinkles, a candy wrapped in bright paper. She places it underneath the grave, where the shadow will protect it from the sun. Another one is for you.
“Thank you,” you say, and feel your throat grow a hard lump. This part was always the hardest to bear. “Do you ever think she gets tired of the same birthday present every year?”
“I’m sure she’ll find a way to tell us,” Sylvia responds, and it sounds like there’s something on her mind. She wants you to ask, because otherwise she wouldn’t have said anything at all.
“Have you been well?”
“As well as I can be. You?”
“I’m alright.”
The pleasantries exchanged are nothing but filler words. You both nod solemnly, although not really agreeing on anything. How well can you be, as someone who has outlived your child? There is not a word in your language that can describe such a loss. The sparrow cries upon returning to its nest to find all its eggs smashed. You can’t bear the silence of your home, the lack of laughter pressing on your eardrums. The marks on the wall feel like cutting wounds on your heart.
She was supposed to keep growing.
“Did the–um, did the peace summit in Berlint go well?” You ask haltingly, if only to keep talking.
“As much as I can tell you, yes.” Sylvia’s reply is carefully neutral.
“That’s good,” you murmur, and turn towards her. You do not step closer, but your feet are pointed towards each other. You think, she still looks as beautiful as the day you met her.
“I’m not so sure,” she says, but she’s not looking directly at you. “I think… I think I’m letting us happen again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t tell you,” Sylvia whispers, and you understand. The life of a spy is unforgiving work, and you know she cannot afford to put her love for her family above the needs of the world. It was a grave lesson she had to learn ten years prior, with you as collateral damage.
You, and the small stone beneath you.
“I can see it, happening again,” she says anyway, and you listen. “They have a dog now.”
Was that some kind of code? You’re just a civilian, but you pretend like you know what she means. “I see.”
Then, there are no words left to say. Several minutes tick past, and then she bends her knees, touching the stone lightly with her fingers. “Well, I have to go.”
It goes like this every time. Your daughter would have been nineteen this year. Even now, just a child. You can see in her eyes, she still blames herself for the fact that your little girl will always be little, while you keep getting older.
“Wait,” you say, at perhaps a desperate, last-ditch attempt to get her to stay for just a little longer. Anniversaries tend to make you nostalgic, and the longer you can delay going home, you will. “I–y’know, I know you don’t think this can happen, but I still want to be with you.” You lift your hands helplessly, gesturing to nothing. “We don’t have to start over. Maybe we can keep going, once all this war stuff is over? I miss you so much. I love you.”
You call her by the name you first knew her by, and her iron exterior cracks for a moment. Then she smiles, and you can tell it is her practiced one, that masterful, fake smile.
“It’ll pass,” she tells you softly. As all things do.