I finally heard from Todd today. It's been a stressful week. I knew he was being moved, and in his emails he seemed tense, annoyed, angry. I try not to read into it, but damn it, I'm a girl. It's within my nature to question and analyse to death. Experience has taught me that bad things happen when people clam up.

I have to ground myself with remembering he's not living a life in the same way that I am. His reality, his days, his nights are not even in the same realm.

So this morning, the phone rang at the ungodly hour of 3:23am, the first phone call in 10 days. He's in his new location in Kuwait. For now, he has left Sandbox A for Sandbox B. He sounds ragged and edgy. Depressed. Said he would give anything for a big hug. What can I say? How can I tell him what he needs to hear?

I tried to be upbeat. I tried to make him smile. I told him he can now look forward to new adventures in his new home.

A buzzer sounds. If I was playing the Sims, it would have reacted in the little caption with the negative sign.

'I've had enough adventures for a lifetime', he growled.

I change the subject, sensing that anything else I say will just cause me to keep digging my imaginary hole.

I ask him what I can send. He replies more music. Soft stuff. 'I need something to calm me down', he says. I want to ask what's really going on, but I know any further questions will just shut him down more.

But the rest of the conversation was stilted, strained. I can't begin to understand what he's seeing, what he has seen. In the 10 minute calls, it's hard to get into anything more than surface. He's hesitant on all he says. I can hear him searching for what he can say and what he can't.

Last week's ER comes to mind. Neela commented that she was frustrated at how she had built a relationship with Gallant on a few calls, a few letters. I wish I could remember the exact words. Since that episode, I have been melancholy. I wonder what I'm doing. Am I living a fairy tale? I want so badly to believe this to be right, and usually I hear it in his voice too. But this morning was so different. So unsettling.

Patience is a virtue, they say. I repeat that in my head many times a day. What else can I do?