Undercover by Maria Hammarblad

couple of days, and now even the fragile connection they had over the phone would break. Whatever it was they had would wither and die if it wasn’t nurtured.
    “Is this okay?” He asked the question softly, as if afraid she would be angry. She didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t much she could say. “Of course it’s okay. You do what you have to do. But you’ll take care of yourself, won’t you?”
    “I promise. You too.”
    It sounded like a lie. She nodded, and realized he couldn’t see it, so she mumbled, “I will. I really miss you, just so you know.”
    He paused for a second, and sounded hurried when he said, “I have to go now. I love you, Jenny.”
    He was gone before she had the chance to answer, but she still held the phone pressed against her ear a moment longer. These feelings of both longing and belonging were new. Throughout her life she took pride in independence, and now she was someone’s, much more than when she was married. The idea that she was his should be disturbing, but it wasn’t. Instead, it put a goofy smile on her face.
     
    *****
     
    Alex wrote to tell her everything was alright, but it was very cold. It was amazing how they could sit on opposite sides of the globe and communicate almost in real time. His next message read, “I have to go. Please write me… Is everyone okay? Have you practiced playing pool? I miss you.”
    He didn’t have to say that twice. She smiled inwardly, went to get a cup of tea, and sat down to compose a long letter, completely ignoring work piling up around her. A part of her brain said, “This is a really good way to get fired, you know,” but she ignored it. She gave the company so much of her life, worked so much unpaid overtime and lost sleep over deliveries gone wrong, it owed her a few minutes of fun.
    She wrote about the people he knew, about the cat, about her being ambiguous about keeping or selling her house, and about missing him.
    Maybe she should be a little more explicit? Wouldn’t an alone man stuck on a vessel in the arctic appreciate something a bit sexier than talk about the weather? Maybe even… a picture? The idea both excited and terrified her, and she locked it away in her mind.
    There was an answer in her inbox the very next morning. Alex said they had a really tough day with rough weather, they had problems with the ship because of the cold, and that he was so happy to find her letter when it was all over. He also wrote he looked forward to seeing the house, and that he was very good at fixing things, so maybe she shouldn’t worry too much about it.
    It helped make her mind up; she would keep the house for now. She was reluctant to go there, it was so big it made her afraid of darkness when she was there alone, and her mind painted out all sorts of dangers that might be lurking in the basement or up in the attic. She still decided to clean it up the best she could and make it look really pretty. It might be a vain and shallow thought, but maybe, just maybe, he’d like it enough to want to stay.
    That night she did write him a new e-mail, not about colleagues and other small talk, but about breasts and sex, and her hand hovered over the “send” button for a long time before she actually pressed it. Taking pictures of herself made her feel extremely silly and self-conscious, and sending it like this seemed dangerous. What if he didn’t like it? What if someone else got it? What if it ended up somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be, and she became either the laughing stock or the new calendar girl for the entire Russian fleet?
    Belinda jumped up on the table and nudged her so she accidentally clicked ‘send’. It was too late to change her mind. Her words and images disappeared into cyberspace.
    Jenny brooded over the e-mail the entire evening, and over a week passed without a word from her faraway lover. She must have offended him. Maybe he didn’t want photos of a naked American woman, and now he probably thought