Anatoly's Mother

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on UnsplashAnatoly's mother had her eyes lowered, beneath the table. "Why are you looking at your phone? The roast is getting cold!" She put the phone down with a quick, seemingly involuntary gesture. "I haven't heard from my son in two days. It happens, sometimes: at the front they have no signal, and until the mission is over, no one gets in touch. But this time... I don't know." We looked at each other for a second and reassured her. We all knew he was heading to the front, to replace a young man who had been seriously wounded. We all put on a mask of a smile and began to eat, talking about the usual trivialities people talk about over a meal: it was the 25th of March and spring was beginning to make itself felt. And Anatoly's mother, who has worked for our family for over ten years, had already started putting flowers on the balconies of the house. A way of adding colour to such a grey time. On International Women's Day, Anatoly's mother was smiling. Her…