The Bridge to Holy Cross

by Paullina Simons

‘A pest is a man you’d rather make love to than explain why you’d rather not.’

It sounded like a gasp torn from a lifetime of grief.

Have you been looking for me? she had once asked him, and he replied, All my life.

Alexander snorted mildly. “There are no floodlights and no watchtowers. I don’t think it can be called escaping, Commander,” he said, pointing out a hole five meters wide in the barbed wire fence. “I think it’s called leaving.”

“Pasha, you have a twisted Russian soul. Shut the fuck up.”

Every time you think his name, the air can’t get past it, every time you look at his son, the air can’t get past it. Every time it’s Christmas, your birthday, his birthday, March 13, you can’t breathe for a day, another day, another year.