I didn’t have much in the way of clothes, just the ones that I’d worn on the trip here and some hand me downs from a girl named Nonna who spent more time away than at the cottage. The rest of the things I considered mine could fit in my pockets: a small flat screw driver, the dried remains of the flower that I had pressed in between the pages of the Bible, and small leather bound journal that held a pen. It wasn’t much but it was mine.

I was still touching the brittle petals of the flower when I felt eyes on me. Yuliya stood in the doorway.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye were you?” she asked.

Answering honestly was hard but she deserved the truth. “I don’t know. I’ve never been very good at goodbyes. . . I am not even sure I know how.” Or if you all would just let me go, I added mentally.

Yuliya surprised me with a fierce embrace. “We all knew.”

“You knew what?”

“That you were ready to go.”

“Why didn’t anyone say anything?”

“Sofiya said you had to come to the decision yourself.”