Either way, I lose the right to decide what happens next.
I wake early, before the bakery downstairs opens and before the street fills with voices and delivery trucks. In the daylight, the apartment feels smaller. The ceilings press lower. There’s nowhere to step without brushing a wall. I shower and dress slowly, picking clothes that don’t cling, and drink water instead of coffee because my stomach won’t take the heat yet.
Dominik is already gone. A note in his careful block handwriting sits on the table.
Going out. Back soon. Stay inside.
I don’t argue when he tells me to stay in. My limbs feel heavy. My thoughts drift and don’t settle. I don’t go out for a walk. Instead, I sit at the kitchen table and force myself to eat a piece of bread, counting bites and keeping my breathing steady. I count to ten between each one and keep my hands flat on the wood until they stop shaking.
I’ll need a plan. Not later. Now, while I can still think straight. I’ll need another name, papers that don’t point back here, and a place that isn’t on anyone’s usual path. Far north would be better. I know the right people who can help. I’ll see them this afternoon.
When I finish mapping it out, I exhale. The room feels steady again.
By midmorning, the street slips into its usual rhythm. I hear the woman downstairs talking to someone. I hear mothers guiding their children back home from school, the steady pattern of footsteps on pavement, the scrape of chairs being pushed outfront, and a dog being dragged along by its owner. The street keeps moving, unaware of what’s being carried through it.
There’s a knock at the door. My body tightens before my mind catches up. It isn’t loud, just steady, measured, the kind that expects an answer.
I don’t rush when I go to the door. I look through the peephole first. A man in a dark coat and cap stands in the hallway, shoulders down, hands behind his back. He’s neither police nor a courier.
I open the door halfway.
“Madam,” he says, smiling like we know each other. He holds out an envelope between two fingers, heavy paper, no stamp, no return address.
“For you.”
I take it. His eyes flick past me once, quick, checking the space behind my shoulder. He tips his cap, polite as a neighbor, and turns away before I can say anything.
When I step into the hall and peek through the window, he’s gone.
I close the door and lock it, then slide the chain into place out of habit. If it’s who I think it is, the lock won’t matter. The council wouldn’t knock unless they wanted me to know they came. I carry the envelope to the table and stare at it for a long time. I don’t open it right away.
When I do, there’s no threat inside. No raised voice. No direct order. Just an invitation in formal language, clean phrasing, respectful tone. A request for my presence to observe tradition, to discuss arrangements, to honor continuity. The time is fixed.The place is exact. The names at the bottom carry enough weight that refusal would be noted, remembered, and corrected later.
The council didn’t guess. They didn’t wait. They acted because they already knew enough. I didn’t stay invisible as long as I hoped. My hand moves to my stomach before I can stop it. I press my palm flat on the table and hold it there until my breathing steadies.
I think of Dominik. How he plans ahead. How he counts exits, measures risk, doesn’t let emotion cloud the math. Something settles inside me. My pulse evens out. The noise in my head thins until there’s only one thought at a time. I don’t shake anymore.
That unsettles me. Panic still leaves room to turn back. This feels like the moment after the decision’s already been made, and the straight exit’s closed.
If I stay still, they’ll decide. If I wait, they’ll take what they want and call it order.
I fold the letter and slide it into my bag. I don’t tear it. I don’t hide it. There’s no point pretending this isn’t happening.
When Dominik comes back, I’ll let him think we still have time.
I stand, wash my hands, and look around the apartment one more time. The noise outside feels louder now, closer.
I won’t survive what comes next by standing still or waiting.
11
ANA
We’re at the small kitchen table. I keep moving food around my plate, pushing it from one side to the other, giving my hands something to do while I figure out how to start. I could tell him now. I could wait. Not about the baby. About the letter. I set my fork down.
Dominik cuts the loaf clean down the middle, then gathers the crumbs that scatter across the table, careful, methodical.
“You’re not eating?” he says.
