Erica was awakened by someone shaking her arm and realized that, incredibly, it was Matt. "Get Toni and the baby," he whispered urgently. "There's no time to waste!"
Feeling as if she were sleepwalking, Erica collected Toni and Sonya and followed Matt outside to the waiting helicopter, where she saw Jed.
"Jed!" she exclaimed, rushing to hug him.
"Get yourself and the children settled," Jed told her. "Time is of the essence!"
Erica strapped Toni and Sonya in, and the helicopter took off. She was relieved to see that neither child had awakened. Realizing that until they were past the Bering Straits, they were in constant danger of being shot down, none of them said a word the entire time they were over Soviet territory. They breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Alaskan shoreline came into view.
"I don't know how to thank you guys," Erica began. "I know you were very angry at me for running off with Yuri like I did. I was afraid you'd never want to have anything to do with me again."
"We knew something like this was bound to happen sooner or later," Matt told her. "We were just waiting for the axe to fall."
"But you could have been killed trying to rescue us!"
"That's all right. We're pretty much used to taking life-or-death risks by now. Don't you want your daughters to grow up to be Americans?"
"Of course I do!"
"Well, all right, then."
Toni awakened after awhile. "Where are we, Mommy?"
"Uncle Jed and Uncle Matt are taking us back home."
"Where's Babushka? I want Babushka!"
Erica didn't know what to say. She knew how close the little girl had grown to Yuri's mother, how much she would miss her.
"Don't you want to go to the zoo and see all the animals? We'll be able to go there as soon as we get to San Diego."
"No! I want Babushka!" Toni began to weep profusely.
"Hey, Toni, want to learn a new song?" asked Matt.
Toni stopped crying and looked at him with curious eyes.
"Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain...for purple mountain's majesty above the fruited plain..." Matt began.
Erica herself began to cry, big tears rolling silently down her cheeks. But they weren't tears of sorrow.
Within a couple of weeks of arriving in San Diego, Erica had found a job as a bank teller and a small apartment near Jed and Matt's home. She enrolled Toni and Sonya in the childcare down the street from the bank. Slowly she became adjusted to her new life; yet she sometimes missed Yuri so badly that it was almost a physical pain. Memories of times they'd shared together came rushing back to her at the most unexpected times, and at night she was often so lonely that she cried herself to sleep. At last she decided to write to him at Felix and Sonya's address.
Dearest Yuri,
I have no idea whether or not you'll ever receive this letter, but I had to write it anyway. Regardless of everything that's happened, I still love you, and I miss you like crazy. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about you and wonder how you are.
Jed and Matt brought the girls and me back to San Diego after you disappeared. I'm working as a teller in a bank now, and the girls are in childcare. Toni misses you and your parents very badly. She asks about you all the time, and I don't know what to say to her.
I can't believe how big Sonya's grown! If you saw her today, you almost wouldn't even recognize her. I think she's going to start teething soon. Remember going through that with Toni? That seems like forever ago!
Wherever you are, Yuri, and whatever you're going through, please remember that I love you, and I'll never give up hope that we'll be together again someday.
All my love,
Erica