Chapter 1 #3
“Long night?” Anton asked Sasha with a smile, longing to kiss her, but he didn’t dare at the hospital.
It would have to wait until they got to her apartment.
She had no idea where the relationship was going, and never asked.
All she knew was that she admired and loved him, and that was enough for now.
It had to be. There was no other option, and she believed him when he said he didn’t love his wife.
He was passionate with Sasha and she was satisfied with the loving relationship they shared.
It had been unexpected. She’d never loved a married man before, and had been careful to avoid it.
It had always seemed too complicated to her, so she was hesitant at first, but had come to love him passionately in the year they’d been together.
There was so much she admired about him.
They left the hospital separately and met at her apartment.
Like Sasha, he came from a family of doctors, mostly surgeons.
They were a breed unto themselves, involved in the fine machinery of the damaged bodies they repaired without ever really knowing their patients.
Sasha’s practice was the reverse. In nine months of prenatal care, she came to know her patients well, and had a deep affection for them.
She knew all she could about them, and shared their happiest moments in life with them when their babies were born.
She tried to make the experience as easy and painless as possible.
She was greatly loved by her patients, and respected by her peers and medical partners, and by Anton.
She was the best person he had ever known, and an excellent physician.
They arrived at her apartment at almost exactly the same time, having gotten there by different routes, and within seconds, they were deeply engaged in their passion in her tiny bedroom. Exhausted afterward, they fell asleep with Sasha still in his arms.
—
They had only slept a few hours when they were awakened by the sound of an explosion. They woke up instantly. It was incredibly loud, and the windows rattled for a few seconds. Anton got up and looked out the window, and saw balls of fire lighting up the night sky.
“What was it?” Sasha asked him sleepily from the bed as Anton turned to look at her.
He hadn’t thought it possible. There had been rumors of an attack for months, but he had thought they were empty threats.
There were more explosions then, and he went back to the bed and slipped under the covers with her, and felt the warmth of her body next to him.
Her long blond hair had come loose from the braid she wore at work, and was fanned out on her pillow as she smiled at him. He wasn’t smiling.
“I think we’re under attack,” he said, and pulled her closer then and prayed he was wrong, as her eyes grew wide in her beautiful face.
“Are you serious?” she said, instantly wide awake. He nodded and held her tighter, fearing what was ahead of them, as she closed her eyes and clung tightly to him, wanting what he had just said to her not to be true.
—
Yulya and Symon woke up at the sound too. There were more explosions after the first ones. The children came into their bedroom a minute later, looking worried, and Yulya let them climb into their parents’ bed for comfort, and Pavlo brought the dog with him. The dog lay on the bed whimpering.
“Are we at war, Papa?” Pavlo asked him. He had overheard his parents talking in recent weeks, and his friends had heard their parents worried about an attack too.
“I don’t know. I hope not.” He and Yulya exchanged a look. There had been Russian troops gathering on their borders for months. But the Ukrainians had been told the soldiers were only there to protect them, not to invade them or attack them.
—
Petro was looking at Oxana when she woke up, and he knew the question in her eyes. She wasn’t frightened, but she was worried about Yulya and her family in the city.
“Are we being attacked?” she asked him in a whisper, as though afraid to say the words.
“I think so,” he said. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it.
” He could face anything with her at his side, and she felt the same.
She went to the kitchen to make them tea, and Petro got up and turned on the TV to hear the news, which confirmed it.
They were under attack. He had thought it would happen sooner or later.
The troops gathering on their borders had been an ominous hint of what could happen, and now it had.
—
Tatyanna and Yana were wide-awake in the dark, freezing cold dormitory at the ballet school, and Vlad was wide-awake in his bed in the men’s section, he was worried about the girls.
They all knew it was true. They were being invaded.
The country was under attack as the red fireballs continued to fall on the city.
They didn’t think it would happen. They hoped it wouldn’t.
But it had. And now the whole country had to face whatever lay ahead.
The prospect of war was a terrifying thought.
It was a reality now, whatever would come next.