Split wood

It has been two weeks since Ally, Blake’s mom, told me that Christopher reached out to Dylan, and in that time he has apparently called them every single day, listening intently and taking in everything they say while offering nothing of himself in return. He stays present on the line, almost as if he is still part of their lives, yet leaves behind no trace of where he is or what he is thinking, and I have not been able to piece anything together from it.

Just three months ago, while he was in New Zealand, he called me and told me he wanted a divorce. There was no hesitation in his voice, no softness to ease the weight of what he was saying, only a calm, almost procedural tone as he explained that he had a few loose ends to deal with and that I would receive the paperwork soon. The conversation felt distant and strangely formal, as though I were speaking to someone who had already stepped out of our life. I remember trying to protest, searching for the right words to slow him down or make him reconsider, but his certainty left no space for it, and in the end all I managed to say was okay. After that, I tried calling him several times, hoping for some kind of explanation or even a moment of doubt, but it became clear very quickly that I was not going to reach him again.

Since Joce started running, I have been finding my footing again, slowly gathering the pieces of myself that felt scattered in the aftermath of that call.

Christopher was my dream in a way that felt both simple and complicated at the same time. He was not perfect, and neither of us ever pretended that he was, but he was real and deeply human, and I loved him through all of it. Our life together was shaped by the demands of his work, which often took him away for long stretches at a time, forcing us to make the most of the moments we did have. We learned to live within those fragments, to build something meaningful in between departures and returns, and I think that is why the children have not noticed anything has changed. They miss him, but they have always missed him, and his absence has long been woven into what they understand as normal.

Even so, I always imagined that one day things would settle, that we would eventually find ourselves standing still together, side by side, the way we had been at the very beginning when everything between us first took shape despite the differences that should have kept us apart.

Christopher was twenty eight when we met, nearly ten years ago, and I was just a young girl who had been given a scholarship for a bee programme and had already built my world around something most people overlooked. Bees had come into my life early, and from that point on I chased every opportunity I could find to learn more and be involved in any way my age allowed. I saved up until I could afford my own equipment and my first hive, and once I started, it did not take long before one became two and then three. I asked anyone who would listen to let me place hives on their land, whether it was a smallholding, a farm, or any open space I could make use of, and I even went as far as building hives on street lamp poles just to create more places for them to thrive. I took part in events that focused on protecting bees and promoting better farming practices, and over time it became less of an interest and more of a calling that shaped everything I did.

One day, a woman approached me and told me that she had noticed me and had been following what I was doing for some time. There was something deliberate in the way she spoke, as though she had already decided I was worth paying attention to long before that moment, and that conversation marked the beginning of one of the most meaningful friendships I still have today. Not long after, she asked me a question that changed the direction of my life in a way I could never have anticipated.

She asked if I would like to be part of a documentary, explaining that they wanted to share my story and the work I had been doing.

That was how I met my husband.

He was fifteen years older than me, and at the time he did not look at me in any particular way, not with the kind of awareness that I had of him. I was only thirteen, but from the moment I saw him something settled in me with a certainty I could not explain, and I fell in love with him from that very first day.

The documentary became more successful than any of us expected, and before long I found myself drawn into their world, learning about videography and traveling with the team in ways that felt both exciting and unreal. I stayed with them for the next three years, and throughout that time I found small, quiet ways to linger around Christopher, holding onto moments and hoping he might begin to see me differently. He never encouraged it, often brushing me off with a kind of detached honesty and telling me that I had too much potential to waste on someone like him, especially when he had no shortage of attention from other women.

Eventually, I began to accept that I might be holding onto something that was never going to become real, and by the time my last summer with them came around I had already decided that it would be the end of that chapter for me.

Then we were offered a documentary that felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity, complete with new equipment and fully covered expenses, the kind of project that could change everything for the people involved. Christopher was only able to take two people with him, and I wanted to be chosen with a quiet intensity that I tried not to show. When he did choose me, along with another apprentice named Jason who was a year older than me, it caught me completely off guard.

Jason had a presence that was easy to notice, with a kind of effortless confidence and a warmth that drew people in without trying too hard. He had light freckles scattered across his skin, ginger hair that caught the sunlight, and striking blue eyes that made it difficult not to look at him twice. He asked me out several times within his first month of joining the team, and although he was undeniably attractive, I turned him down each time because my attention was still fixed somewhere else.

The months leading up to the trip were filled with training, as Christopher pushed us to be prepared for anything we might encounter. We spent long stretches learning the equipment until it became second nature, building our strength and endurance, and adjusting to the level of discipline he expected from us. Jason thrived under that structure and looked up to Christopher in a way that naturally drew them closer together, and before long the two of them had formed a bond that seemed effortless and unshakable.

Somewhere within all of that, I remained close enough to both of them to be part of it, yet still aware of the quiet distance that had always existed between what I felt and what Christopher allowed himself to see.