You gave birth to four? Take them and figure it out yourself—this is too much!” my husband declared the moment he stepped inside.
I stared at him without blinking. My mind was empty. Four tiny bodies in homemade cradles seemed unreal. Four breaths, as faint as a butterfly’s wings.
The labor lasted eighteen hours. The flickering light of the hospital lamps. The midwives’ cries. My scream, ripping the boundary between life and death.
When the first baby—Petya—finally arrived, I thought the ordeal was over and sank into oblivion, even though I knew there were three more to come. But then came Masha. Then Lena. And at last, Oleg.
Sergey stood by our front door, still wearing his coat. A bottle hung loosely in his hand, drops falling onto the worn floor, though I couldn’t have cared less.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” he continued, avoiding my gaze and the sight of the children. “I wanted a normal family. Not… this.”
“This” was our offspring—our flesh and blood, our eyes, noses, fingers.
In our village, two children are an event, three a topic of conversation for years, but four…
“How do you plan to feed them?” Sergey ran his hand through his hair. “Where will the money come from? Who will take care of them?”
I said nothing. The babies slept. The world had shrunk to a small room with four cradles my father had built in a single sleepless night.
“Tanya, are you listening?” he raised his voice.
“You knew and you agreed,” I whispered. “Now get out. Just disappear.”
Sergey froze, then shook his head.
“You’ve lost it. Four children—my God. I couldn’t even believe it until the end.”
He closed the door quietly, as if apologizing. But that soft click sounded like a gunshot. The world didn’t collapse—it simply transformed.
I stood at the window, watching his silhouette dissolve into the dusk. He walked quickly, back straight, never once looking back.
First came Galina, our neighbor. Without a word, she fetched a broom, swept the ashes from the stove, and kindled the fire. Then Nina Petrovna, the retired schoolteacher, arrived.
She sat by a cradle, humming softly. By evening, other women had gathered—someone brought soup, someone else diapers.
“You’ll manage, child,” said Baba Klava, the village’s eldest. “You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”
That night I was left alone. The children slept. The house was so silent I could hear my own blood pulsing in my temples. On the table lay four birth certificates—four names.
I didn’t cry. Tears had frozen somewhere deep inside. In their place, a resolve as solid as rock took hold.
I called my father. The line rang three times.
“Dad,” I said. “He’s gone.”
Silence. Then heavy breathing.
“I’ll come tomorrow,” he replied simply.
That night I made myself a promise. Looking at their tiny bodies, their clenched fists, their half-open sleep-soft mouths, I whispered:
“I will do this. For you. For that moment when I first heard your voices. You are worth every pain in the world.”
The next morning my father arrived—tall, silver-haired, with sky-colored eyes. He looked at his grandchildren, laid all the money he had on the table, and said:
“Tea?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “And then I’ll build another room. Winter with four will be cramped.”
And so our life began—without Sergey, without self-pity, with a love that blossomed like the apple tree outside the window: stubbornly, despite everything.
My four children’s childhood flowed like a river—sometimes rushing, sometimes calm, but always nourishing its banks with life.
My father’s house on the village’s edge became our refuge.
“Kids shouldn’t grow up without Grandma’s stories,” my mother declared, hugging each of them.
They grew like sunflowers: each leaning a different way, but all toward the same sun. Masha—tall and dreamy, with gray eyes—found beauty in everything. Petya—stocky and serious, like Grandpa—was already helping chop firewood at five. Lena—the quiet one—always carried a book and built ant shelters. Oleg—the restless dreamer—sporting perpetual scrapes on his knees.
Voices filled our yard from dawn till dusk. What had once seemed impossible became our everyday.
I learned to cook on the stove holding a baby. I mended clothes by dim lamp light after everyone was asleep. I stretched our finances like pie dough—thinly but so everyone had enough. Grandpa Ivan—quiet, steadfast, like an ancient oak—became their guide. He never babied them but was always there.
“Let’s go, eaglets,” he’d call on Saturdays, leading them into the woods to fish, to the fields—to teach them life’s wisdom. One day they returned covered in clay and branches.
“We’re roots, Mom,” Petya explained seriously. “Grandpa says strong roots are the best defense against any storm. So we covered ourselves in earth.”
Later, they planted a row of apple trees along the road—one for each child, symbols of promise.
Grandma Maria became our hearth’s guardian—warm, round, smelling of fresh bread. Every morning she’d ask:
“What’s today’s celebration?”
“Titmouse Day!” she’d answer, or “First Snow Day,” or “Nut Day”—and from that small invention sprang traditions, games, stories that the children believed in wholeheartedly.
Money was tight. When the children turned three, I took a half-day job at the post office while Grandma cared for them. Nights were for sewing bright patterns onto old sweaters so no one would guess they were hand-me-downs. Grandpa worked too, so food was never scarce.
We had a small garden, chickens, and two goats—Star and Daisy. We shared milk with neighbors. Questions about their father were unavoidable. When Lena turned five, she asked:
“Mom, where’s our dad?”
I paused, setting aside an unfinished sock. How to explain betrayal without breaking a child’s faith?
“He was too weak for this love,” I said. “He got scared. But we’re strong.”
“Like oaks?” Petya clarified.
“Like oaks,” I confirmed.
They accepted it with surprising maturity—no bitterness, just fact.
Our house became a tiny nation with its own laws—evening readings, Sunday pancakes, Thursday walks by the river. Everyone pitched in according to their abilities. Disputes were settled around the big kitchen table.
And above all—love. Real love: seen in callused hands, sleepless nights, and splitting the last slice five ways.
Once, we learned Sergey had remarried nearby. The children overheard the gossip.
“He has a family now?” Oleg asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Poor him,” Masha replied. “He has only one family—and we have… all of us.”
Twenty-five years passed in a breath. The children scattered to cities, but our home remained their heart. Masha became an interior designer—her clients said her work made homes warmer. Petya built bridges as an engineer. Lena entered medical school to heal others. Oleg became a literature teacher—“the best way to stay young,” he joked.
And I? I was simply their mother—for four, and later nine grandchildren. My father aged slowly—his eyes grew crow’s-feet, his hair silvered, his gait slowed, but his posture stayed proud. He passed away peacefully in his sleep the morning after we’d all gathered by chance.
“Well done, Tanya,” he said that day. “You did right.” I didn’t know then it was goodbye.
The whole village mourned him—men who’d known him for decades, women who wept for the help he’d given them. The four children stood shoulder to shoulder, planted a cedar sapling by his grave—300 years to grow, 300 to live, 300 to wither, the symbol of near-eternity.
They shared memories of catching crayfish, building rafts, stargazing, and a bear in the raspberry patch—a steady stream of stories celebrating Grandpa’s life.
After his funeral, life carried on. Grandma Maria died five years later, also in her sleep. Again, the family gathered to remember her stories and invented holidays. Though I was alone in the big house, it didn’t stay empty for long.
Oleg returned with his little daughter. Petya’s family sent their eldest to “get village strength” with us. Masha and her husband bought the neighboring house. Lena’s twins spent summers “at Grandma’s for fresh milk.”
Once more, the yard brimmed with voices—new generations roaming the berry bushes, climbing barns, hiding in tall grass, building forts. And sometimes, in quiet evenings, I’d think: “He left four small children thinking I’d fail. God, how we succeeded.”
The cedar by Grandpa’s grave thrived, reaching skyward. Our home felt ever more spacious, embracing new stories, new lives, new love.
One summer evening, we all gathered on the veranda—children, grandchildren, spouses. Glasses clinked, laughter rang out, guitars played. Neighbors peeked in. I looked at my beautiful, strong, happy family and realized: this is true wealth—not gold, not career, not fame, but a full house of people who know their roots and know how to love.
“Grandma,” the youngest grandchild asked, climbing into my lap, “is it true our family is the biggest in the village?”
“It is,” I answered, gazing at the first stars overhead. “And the strongest.”