“When does he leave?”

“April.”

“And when does he come back?”

“2008.”

We were sitting very close in the dark because of the cold and because the light switch was out of reach. She was about to start crying again like she does when the math adds up to 2008 and I was getting ready to hold her like I do when she starts crying.

We do this a lot now as April nears.

She looks up at me and asks the same question, “how do you do it?”

“It’s different,” I tell her. I think of you, in New York, writing me from Starbucks this morning while I was still asleep. I think of the email you wrote me yesterday and the day before and the day before that. I think of the text messages from the subway and even the flowers you sent me at work.

New York is not Iraq. New York is no noble thing.

“You are noble,” I tell her, cupping her tired face in my hands. “I will be here,” I tell her. “I’m not going anywhere before 2008.”

She sighs, again. You call and I let it go to voicemail. I remember the last time I saw you three weeks ago. Before I went to Chicago and before you went to New York we had dinner at the place in Westwood. We didn’t talk about work at all. In fact, for how much of our relationship is determined by work, we hardly ever talk about it.

We used to talk about work, at the beginning.

She cries again, her sobs flickering the hurricane candles.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s all I can say. I’m sorry that he will only have a phone every few days. That he will be gone for so damn long. That he might not come back the same. That I don’t ever have that fear.

I grab a book and start reading out loud to her. It’s MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind. She lays her head in my lap, her breathing becoming more even.

He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not by any means at the back of the north wind, as his mother very well knew. For one side of the room was built only of boards, and the boards were so old that you might run a penknife through into the north wind.

“Skip to the part with the horse,” she asks.

And when little Diamond---but stop: I must tell you that his father, who was a coachman, had named him after a favourite horse, and his mother had had no objection:---when little Diamond, then, lay there in bed, he could hear the horses under him munching away in the dark, or moving sleepily in their dreams. For Diamond's father had built him a bed in the loft with boards all round it, because they had so little room in their own end over the coach-house; and Diamond's father put old Diamond in the stall under the bed, because he was a quiet horse, and did not go to sleep standing, but lay down like a reasonable creature.

My phone beeps for voicemail.

“You can listen to it,” she says gesturing with her hand to my purse by the door. I tell her it’s not a big deal and go back to reading. I always listen to your voicemails alone.

She falls asleep, before Diamond even chooses to follow North Wind. I slide out from under her and off her bed and tuck her in. I blow out the hurricanes, put my shoes back on, lock the back door, stop the dripping sink, and send up a prayer for war time.

“Goodnight,” I hear her say as I leave.

I’m already writing to you in my head. Writing about tonight, writing about last night, writing about the night before that. I sit in my car for a few minutes waiting for the heat and listening to your voicemail. To your voice.

You’re coming home early. I check the clock; it’s earlier than I thought and I can still meet your flight. I turn left for the freeway instead of right. I catch myself speeding. I will see you in a few short minutes. And I start crying.

It’s not fair.

Letter to a Traveling Lover (part I)