The war was over. Sergeant Dmitri Volkov drove his T-34 through the ruined countryside, his hands steady, his heart pounding. He had been gone for four years. He had seen terrible things. He had done terrible things. But now he was going home.
Home was a small village in Belarus, a wooden house, a garden, a woman named Irina.
He had married her three days before the war began. He had kissed her goodbye at the train station, promised to return, and then spent every day wondering if he would keep that promise.
Now, as he drove into the village, he saw the damage—burnt buildings, overgr