I can’t take it anymore. I needed a son, and we have our third daughter. This is not how I imagined my life,” Sergei stood at the threshold with his worn sports bag, avoiding eye contact with his wife.
Irina froze with a spoon in her hand. The porridge on the stove continued to quietly bubble. Masha was crawling on the wooden floor, trying to catch the reflection of the sun.
“Sergei… please. What are you saying? Look at them,” her voice trembled.
He didn’t even turn around. The door slammed shut, and the sound cut through the morning silence. Masha whimpered, as if sensing something. The ginger cat Bublik arched its back and jumped off the windowsill. Anya, the eldest daughter, froze with the plates in her hands. Her eyes, too serious for an eight-year-old, filled with understanding.
“Mom, when will Dad come back?” Liza tugged at Irina’s robe, still not understanding what had just happened.
Irina ran her hand through her hair, hastily twisted in a towel. She looked at her three daughters — her happiness, her solace — and quietly said, “Girls, let’s have breakfast. The porridge will get cold.”
She hoped he would return. In a day. In two. A week passed. The neighbors looked away when they met her.
Nadia visited almost every evening — sometimes with a jar of raspberry jam, sometimes with a pie, or simply to keep an eye on the children while Irina took care of the house.
“How could he even have a conscience?” Nadia poured tea into cups when the girls were already fast asleep. There was real outrage in her voice. “He called himself a man and ran away from his own children like they were fire.”
Irina silently looked out the window. The maple by the fence began to turn yellow — autumn was quietly approaching. “You know, he changed in the last year. He turned away every time I was dealing with Masha. He’d say: enough daughters, I need a son.”
“What will happen now?”
“Now we’re alone,” Irina straightened up.
The days dragged on like thick honey.
At night, she cried into her pillow so the girls wouldn’t hear. During the day — she worked: washed, cooked, baked. The child support barely covered the necessities.
Her eyes stung from the stove smoke, flour got under her nails, her back ached, but every morning she rose again.
“Did Dad die?” Liza asked a month later, looking at the photo on the dresser.
“No, sweetheart. Dad just left.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes adults make strange decisions,” she wanted to tell the truth — that their father turned out to be a weak person, but the words got stuck in her throat. “Go help Anya with the dishes.”
October brought rain and cold to the old house.
The wind blew through the gaps in the windows. Irina sealed them, and the girls helped. Anya had grown up, often silent, but always close — picking up Masha when the little one was fussy, covering Liza with a blanket.
“We’ll manage, Mom,” she said one evening when they were peeling potatoes together.
“Of course, sweetheart,” Irina kissed her on the top of her head, which smelled of smoke and apples.
Masha was taking her first steps, holding onto stools and an old dresser.
No one expected that the little one, who muddled syllables and babbled at night, would suddenly, instead of the usual “ma-ma” or “pa-pa,” say clearly and loudly, “Anya.”
The eldest daughter froze with the plate in her hands, and Irina suddenly felt something thaw inside her — and she laughed as if she had just learned this simple miracle again. “We need to knead the dough,” she rolled up her sleeves. “I’ll bake some pastries in the morning and take them to the shop. They promised to take them for sale.”
Anya silently handed her a packet of flour. The black cat Timon rubbed against her legs, purring softly, as if cheering her on.
Another year passed. The first snow of the winter fell slowly outside. Sergei hadn’t contacted her — no calls, no messages. It was as if he had disappeared.
“Maybe he’ll come back for New Year?” Liza quietly asked before bed, holding her tattered rabbit toy to her chest.
Irina gently ran her hand through her hair:
“Sleep, little bunny. We have our own life now, our own path.”
She didn’t know if she would have enough strength. She didn’t know what lay ahead. But one thing she knew for sure — her girls should never feel abandoned.
Sergei never showed up. No call, no letter. But they had long stopped hoping for his return.
Now their house was filled with the aroma of fresh pastries and apples, echoing with the laughter of children. The three daughters had grown into bright, strong, and cheerful girls, with lively, shining eyes.
And Irina had transformed from a confused woman into a real support, from whom one could draw strength.
In the evening, she stepped out onto the porch. Masha and Liza were playing with a new kitten in the yard. A warm light glowed in the window. Irina deeply inhaled the air, saturated with the evening dew, and smiled.
Someone had left. But the light inside them remained.
And ahead — a whole life.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead, or you’ll be late for school,” Irina gently touched Anya’s shoulder. February was melting away outside — the second one without Sergei.
Anya jumped up, rubbing her eyes.
“Was there snow last night?”
“Yes. Snowdrifts higher than your knees.”
Two years had flown by, leaving wrinkles at the corners of Irina’s eyes and rough hands from work. She had learned to light the stove quickly with just one match, to mend clothes so it was invisible, and to believe in the future.
“Mom, Kolya has a new phone,” Liza ran into the kitchen, waving a spoon. “When will you buy me one?”
“We’ll definitely buy it. I’ll sell a batch of pies for the holiday.”
Irina smiled, stirring the porridge. The daughter didn’t know that the night before, she had baked until midnight to save enough money for felt boots for Masha. The room filled with the scent of fresh pastries. Timon, as usual, settled on the windowsill, and Bublik was chasing Masha.
“We’re strong!” Masha joyfully exclaimed, balancing a wooden cube in her palm.
This phrase, casually spoken by Irina one difficult evening, became their family chant. They repeated it before bed, holding hands.
“And we won’t break,” Irina nodded, looking at her daughter with quiet pride.
After Sergei’s departure, the village seemed to become closer.
Someone brought jam, someone gave old clothes for the girls. Nadia had become almost a member of the family — she visited every day, helped with the little one while Irina worked on big orders.
“You’re no longer that scared woman you were with your husband,” she said one day, watching as Irina skillfully handled the dough. “You’ve blossomed like a spring rose.”
“What rose?” Irina smirked. “More like a thistle.”
But in the evening, standing in front of the mirror, she suddenly noticed: straight posture, confident gaze. She really had changed. A message came from school. Anya had problems. Irina dropped everything and rushed.
“She fought with a boy,” the teacher said sternly. “He said her father left because they were worthless.”
Irina clenched her fists.
“And what did Anya do?”
“She broke his nose.”
At home, Irina hugged her daughter.
“You shouldn’t fight.”
“What should I do?” Anya’s eyes filled with tears. “Listen to how they whisper? How they pity us?”
“You have to rise above it,” Irina corrected her hair. “Let them talk. We know who we are.”
Spring came suddenly — the earth softened, and the air became damp.
The first tulips broke through by the porch — the very ones Sergei had planted, whistling a tune.
Irina twice wanted to take a shovel and dig up those flowers as a reminder of the past, but she couldn’t. The flowers were innocent — their owner simply turned out to be unworthy.
Now, in the room where the couple once lived, there was the aroma of fresh pastries. In the corner where his things had once been, there was now an old sewing machine, borrowed from neighbor Valya.
Here, she and the girls made gingerbread cookies — they had even been ordered from the district center.
“Mom, do I look like him?” Liza twirled in front of the cracked mirror, examining her button nose.
Irina froze, holding the unfinished curtain.
“Your eyes are his, yes,” she answered carefully. “But inside, you’re completely different. You’re not one of those who abandon their own.”
She had long stopped crying at night. She no longer waited for his footsteps on the porch. The money that used to go for his entertainment now went for textbooks and shoes for the children. The house had become brighter.
“If I were a boy, would Dad have stayed?” Liza suddenly asked at dinner.
Anya raised her head sharply, while Masha continued to concentrate on moving her spoon around the plate.
“He left not because of you,” Irina said firmly. “He’s just a weak man. But we are strong.”
Nadia brought a letter from Sergei. The first in two years. Irina stared at the envelope for a long time but never opened it.
“Don’t you want to know what he writes?” her friend asked in surprise.
“Why? We’re different now,” Irina replied, putting the letter in a drawer. “If he wants to see the girls, let him come and look them in the eyes.”
That evening, she took out an old photo — the four of them, before the youngest was born.
Sergei was smiling, hugging her from behind. Where had that man gone? Irina carefully cut herself and the children out of the photo and placed it in a new frame.
“We made it,” she whispered, looking at her sleeping daughters. “Without him.”
“Mom, I got in!” Anya’s voice trembled with joy. “They accepted me into the teacher training program!”
Ten years passed like one day. Masha was already running in the yard with the neighbor’s children, Liza was helping to bake the famous pies that the whole village knew, and Anya was preparing for her new life — in the city, at the university.
Irina held the enrollment letter to her chest. Her hands trembled. How many nights hadn’t she slept, working extra shifts so her daughter could study?
How many times had she denied herself new clothes just to save money for her children’s education?
“You deserve this,” she said, hugging her daughter, feeling how much she had grown in the past year. “You did everything right.”
The tulips in the garden had bloomed — bright, proud, having survived without much care. On the veranda, built by her hands and neighbor Petrovich’s, stood a new table made from old boards and covered with lacquer.
The ginger cat Bublik, already old and grumpy, was warming himself in the sun, and Timon had long since gone to heaven, leaving behind three kittens that now lived with Nadia.
The house had transformed — the old wallpaper had been replaced with new, light ones, with a small floral pattern. The wooden floor gleamed from the cleanliness. On the walls hung Masha’s drawings, Anya’s certificates, photos of their little family.
“I made a card,” Masha handed a sheet of paper to Anya. “The best family in the world.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Anya hugged her sister tightly. “That’s true.”
When the younger ones had fallen asleep, Irina and Anya sat on the porch. The stars twinkled in the dark sky.
“Are you scared?” Irina asked.
“A little,” Anya confessed. “What if I can’t do it?”
“You will,” Irina took her hand. “You’re strong. We all are.”
“I want to be like you, Mom,” Anya suddenly said. “Just a little softer.”
Irina laughed through her tears:
“Maybe softness wouldn’t hurt us.”
The village fell asleep. The lights in the windows of the houses went out. From the neighboring yard came the sound of a quiet melody — someone was celebrating a birthday. Life went on — without Sergei, but filled with meaning and warmth.
“I wonder where he is now?” Anya asked about her father. For the first time in a long while.
“I don’t know,” Irina answered honestly. “I never opened that letter. I burned it.”
“You did the right thing,” Anya nodded. “We don’t need it anymore.”
In the morning, Nadia brought fresh buns and news: they had seen Sergei in the neighboring village. Just passing through. They say he was looking for something or someone.
“What will you do if he comes?” she asked, glancing anxiously at the road.
Irina wiped her hands on her apron:
“I’ll listen. I’ll show him how we live.”
“And the girls?”
“He’s their father, no matter what. Let them decide for themselves.”
But Sergei never showed up. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe he just passed by. But it no longer mattered.
The day of departure arrived. Anya packed a small suitcase — only the essentials. The bus was supposed to arrive at noon.
Liza helped pack notebooks and books, silent, holding back tears.
“You’ll come every Sunday, won’t you?” she asked, looking into Anya’s eyes. “Promise?”
“Promise, little one,” Anya kissed her on the top of her head.
At the bus stop, silence hung in the air. Irina tried to hold herself together, but her eyes betrayed her.
“Call me as soon as you arrive,” she adjusted the collar of her daughter’s coat. “And don’t skimp on food, okay?”
Anya hugged her tightly.
The bus took her to her new life — with education, a profession, plans for the future. But her roots remained here, in this land, in her mother’s hands, in the ringing laughter of her sisters.
Irina stood, watching the bus until it disappeared around the corner. Liza pressed against her, wrapping her arms around her waist:
“We’ll make it, Mom.”