My love, Sarala…

I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll start with what’s true: I miss you. The days are long, the nights louder than any wind I’ve ever heard, and still nothing drowns out the quiet of your absence.

The ship smells of rot and men. The kind of stink that seeps into your bones. The sea has no mercy, not even for the innocent. The slaves below deck — you were right — they are not cargo. They are human. I see it every day in their eyes. Some no older than children. Some with eyes like yours: sharp, defiant, exhausted.

I do what I can, love. I bring them extra water when the others aren’t looking. I sneak bits of dried fish, bread and meat to the youngest. I speak to them — quietly. They don’t understand me, not always. But kindness needs no translation. And in their silence, I think they know I mean no harm.

But I cannot change what this ship is.

Some nights, I sit alone on the deck with your cloth in my hand — the one with the bird stitched in blue. I run my thumb over the threads until I forget where I am. I picture you at the machine, the baby pressing against your ribs. I wonder if the fire still crackles in the hearth. If you still sleep on my side of the bed. If you’ve told your father I left.

I see your face every time the wind turns cold.

And I remember what you said on the shore: that I must come back. That I must not leave you alone in this life.

I want to return to you. I want to hold our child in my arms, to smell the smoke in your hair, to sit by the fire and forget all of this.

I do not know if I will make it back. But if I do, know that it will be because of you. Because I made a promise — not with words, but with the choice to leave for you, for us. And now, I choose every day to survive for the same reason.

If this letter reaches you, then some part of me already has.

Yours, and no one else’s