A homeland this north, country dear fathers!

Part uno: Taakse jo jäänyt on syksyn lohduttomuus

"You still think it was a good idea to take Newton out on this weather?" Nina said to Gastón as he came through the door with Newton.

It had been raining hard the whole early October evening, but her husband still thought that it couldn't possibly be stopping him from going on his run with their dog.

"I turned around when the thunder started." Gastón said, as that would make it any less crazy.

"You're soaked to the skin," Nina walked into the downstairs bathroom and grabbed Newton's towel and handed it to Gastón. Newton was just sitting on the floor next to him wagging his tail and tongue out—also soaking wet, "He's gonna zoom around for an hour now."

"Then let's let him," Gastón just laughed, "Hey look, I turn 27 next week and be in my late twenties, so I gotta have the fun now."

"Getting poured on is fun?" Nina just shook her head again before her eyes focused on a pile of papers on the chest of drawers, "What's that?"

"I got the post," Gastón answered as he hung his, completely soaked through, jacked on a hanger.

"I don't know why we still have paper post delivered," Nina picked up the envelopes, "How has it not died yet? I'll look through them, you need to go shower and change before you catch a cold."

Nina put the envelopes on the coffee table as she sat down on the couch after Gastón had gone up. Newton curled next to her as she opened her phone. Her publishing agency had sent her couple of emails that she had left unread earlier in the day, so she opened them now. They were about the publishing announcement of her third book, which would finish her debut trilogy that she had started while in university.

Something that had started as a "stupid idea", although Gastón liked to differ on the topic, was now finished and had given her defining career, and she honestly was getting a weird feeling of sadness about it. One era in her life was kind of over and she needed to figure out what to do next.

"Was there anything interesting?" Gastón walked back down the stairs.

"Where?" Nina looked up as he sat on the other side of Newton, who was dead asleep in a bagel position.

"In the envelopes?" Gastón asked again amused, "We don't get much paper post. Who on earth is sending some?"

"I didn't look at them yet." Nina admitted, "I had a couple of emails from Mereilla that I needed to read. You know, about the press release and about quotes for it."

"They are sending you those now?" Gastón furrowed his brow, "They couldn't wait till tomorrow?"

"They came earlier today actually," Nina opened her phone again, "I just didn't look at them. You know how busy the end of the year is if the book comes out in January. But there is nothing I can do about these now. I'll be going over there for that meeting on Monday anyway." Nina put her phone away and reached for the post.

Most of the envelopes were either advertisements or some other insignificant stuff. Under all those on the other hand was a thicker envelope.

It was dusty rose-colored, and envelope was really textured. Her and Gastón's names were written with perfect cursive on the front with their address. The stamps indicated that the envelope had come all the way from France. It was even sealed with a wax seal that had the initials "O & F" on it.

"I think we know what this is," Nina handed it to Gastón, because she would never be able to break the seal. She didn't have the fine motor skills for that.

"I thought for sure they wouldn't send paper ones," Gastón remarked, "But here we are. Explains why it took so long. I was already starting to get worried."