A man stood in the reception area of the maternity hospital, shoulders slumped. He held no flowers in his hands, unlike what is typical when greeting new mothers with babies. His cracked and chewed lips were tightly pressed together. This was not how Ignat had imagined meeting his long-awaited heir. Oh, not like this!
He had long dreamed of having a son, a boy. And now a nurse handed him a small bundle tied with a blue ribbon, carefully passing it into his hands without looking him in the eye. She herself felt awkward. Usually, when handing over a child, she congratulates the happy fathers, but in this situation, congratulations would sound blasphemous. The nurse remained silent. She wished the man would quickly leave, taking the child with him. But Ignat was in no hurry. He clutched the little boy to himself, a tear gleaming in the corner of his eye. He looked around as if he couldn’t believe it, half-expecting the mother of his son to appear at any moment.
But she wouldn’t appear, as both the young nurse and Ignat himself knew. They had already explained to him the complications that arose during childbirth, how Masha’s heart had stopped, and the fruitless attempts to revive her.
“At least your son was born healthy. A strong, healthy boy,” they told Ignat, as if that could be a consolation.
Ignat held the baby too tightly, wrapped in a flannel blanket and tied with a blue ribbon. The baby squirmed and mewed. The man came to his senses. It was time to leave. The poor nurse didn’t know where to look, she felt so awkward. She wasn’t to blame. But then who was? It was him! He had insisted on having a third child. Masha didn’t want to. She was tired. Tired of being alone.
Ignat worked as a truck driver, and his trips were very lucrative, as he was highly regarded. He and his wife lived well, in abundance. Their two daughters were growing up. But Masha complained that she was tired of being alone. Ignat bought a nice, expensive car. Masha was still dissatisfied. She said she needed a husband, not a car.
When she became pregnant for the third time, she wanted to terminate the pregnancy. But Ignat forbade it. He very much wanted a son. And here he was, the son, in his arms. But what now without Masha? He would have to change jobs, that was clear. You can’t go on trips with three children in tow. Masha got what she wanted after all. She achieved it with her death.
Ignat wanted to howl. To howl, to cry, but he held himself together. In his arms, a newborn, and he still needed to prepare for a funeral. Masha had to be buried decently, which meant he couldn’t give in to his emotions.
Back at Ignat’s house, Marina, the wife’s friend, was waiting. Ignat had always been gruff with her. Marina annoyed him. She was always hanging around their house because she had no family of her own. Ignat had expressed this to Masha and asked that Marina not be in the house at least when he was present. Only now did Ignat realize how unfair he had been to his wife’s plump friend. Marina was the first to rush over when she heard the sad news. While Ignat was in a trance, unable to comprehend what had happened, she took care of his daughters. The girls were still young. One was seven, the other five. Honestly, Ignat, who was constantly on the road, didn’t know how to handle them.
Ignat got home, and the boy had become very fussy. His crying reminded Ignat of a kitten’s mew. The man realized the boy was hungry. But what to do? How to feed him? Stunned by the news of his wife’s death, Ignat hadn’t thought about such things. But Marina had. She had already bought bottles and baby food. She quickly took the boy from Ignat’s arms.
“Oh, look how little we are, we cry,” the woman cooed, unfolding the blanket. “Oh, Ignat, look, he’s so fair. Doesn’t look like you or Masha. What’s this on his cheek? Dirt?”
Ignat looked at the boy, whom Marina was unswaddling, as she tried to rub something off his pale cheek. The baby was fair-skinned, with very light fuzz on his head. Definitely not like Ignat. Ignat was dark-skinned, dark-haired, and Masha was also dark. Marina rubbed the baby’s cheek so vigorously that the man got scared.
“You’ll rub a hole in him. That must hurt. Let me look. It’s not dirt at all. A birthmark.”
For a moment, Ignat suspected that the baby had been switched at the hospital. How could they have such a fair child, and with a birthmark on his cheek? The thought flashed through his mind and vanished. The boy cried insistently, wanting to eat. Marina took care of it, while she said to Ignat:
“Don’t worry about your son, I’ll stay with him. I’ll probably move in for a while. You’re not up to dealing with the kids right now.”
Ignat, as if awakening, tore his eyes away from the baby eagerly sucking from the bottle. He let out a heavy sigh.
“Yes, Marina, thank you very much. I’ll go to the funeral home. And probably order the wake immediately.”
“Yes, I know a cafeteria. They’re not expensive.”
“No need,” Ignat frowned, “no need where it’s cheap. I’m not going to skimp on Masha’s funeral.”
“But, Ignat, you have three kids to raise. You’ll need money.”
“I have money,” Ignat said gruffly. “Enough for everything.”
Ignat did have money. It wasn’t for nothing that he never got out of the truck. He built a solid, big house, bought a car, and had savings. He always dreamed of leaving the trucking business one day to open his own auto service. And then, he thought, he and Masha and the kids would really start living!
Masha’s funeral passed like a blur. Ignat acted mechanically, doing everything that was required, and held himself together, his heart clamped shut with an iron band.
It always seemed to him that if he let that invisible band slip, he would fall and never get up, drowning in his grief.
Relatives came, offered their condolences. Ignat’s only sister, Sonya, couldn’t come. They hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years already. She probably could have set aside her important affairs at such a time. But Sonya lives in Moscow, holding some position there. A big shot. Instead of her presence, she sent Ignat money and gave instructions over the phone.
“Hang in there, brother, hang in there. You have the kids now. You wanted a son so much. Now raise him. Give all your warmth to your little ones. Maybe it will soften the grief of the loss.”
Easy to say, raise him, if Ignat didn’t know how to approach the baby, and even with the daughters, he felt like he was getting to know them all over again. What would he do if not for Marina?
Marina stayed in Ignat’s house even after the funeral. Ignat offered to pay her for nanny services, and the woman quickly quit her main job.
To keep from going mad, Ignat got involved with his long-standing idea—opening an auto service. He already had a two-story garage attached to the house, so he didn’t have to go far. But returning home, the man increasingly found his son wet, crying in the crib, and an indifferent Marina to his tears. One day Ignat boiled over:
“Marina, what am I paying you for? Why is Yegorka again wet and probably hungry? What are you even doing? If this continues, I’ll find another nanny for my kids.”
“Oh really!” Tears welled up in Marina’s eyes. “Look at your daughters. They are like dolls. It’s a joy for me to look after them because they are yours. You don’t see anything, Ignat.”
Marina blurted out and covered her mouth with her plump hand. Her tearful eyes darted around in fear, and her expression looked as if she had said too much.
Ignat was stunned.
“What do you mean—your daughters? And Yegor, whose do you think he is?”
“Sorry, sorry, Ignat,” Marina whispered. “You either speak well of the dead or not at all. I would have never told you, but you’re not blind. Look at Yegor and at yourself, at your daughters. You were never home, and Masha was alone.”
Ignat’s hands, stained with engine oil, clenched into fists, and he involuntarily stepped toward Marina. His face was probably so threatening that the woman got scared.
“Ignat, I’m not lying to you. I even have proof. A photo on my phone. I’ll show you now.”
Marina dashed out of the room, returning with a phone in her hands. She quickly found the needed photo. She brought the screen close to Ignat’s face. The man’s vision blurred. He didn’t want to see this. To see a fair-haired man sitting somewhere at a festive table, draping an arm around Masha. His Masha.
“See, Ignat, he’s some businessman. He was in our city for only a few days. I photographed them, Masha and him. He’s half-turned here. You can’t see that he has a birthmark on his cheek in the shape of a teardrop. Just like Yegor’s.”
Marina spoke, and the phone in her hands shook. Ignat snatched the phone and broke it by striking it against his knee. He wanted to erase that photo from the screen forever, to never see it again. The man wasn’t thinking clearly at that moment. He stormed out of the house, but instead of returning to the garage, he headed to a bar. Just like that, in his work overalls with dirty hands.
Ignat deliberately got drunk, hoping the alcohol would erase the memory of the photo from Marina’s phone. A photo can be destroyed, but what about the living reminder lying at home in the crib, requiring constant care? How to deal with Yegor? Until that moment, looking at the boy, Ignat had felt a kind of trembling tenderness. Just one moment had turned everything in his soul. Now he hated that birthmark, those fair hairs. Someone else’s baby, someone else’s son! Oh, Masha, Masha, how could you? He worked only for you and the kids.
Late at night, Ignat returned to his house. He returned blind drunk, knocking everything in his path. Marina wasn’t asleep. She offered her shoulder and helped the man reach the bedroom. She pulled off his shoes and lay down next to him. She stroked his chest and whispered:
“Ignat, not everyone is like Masha. For instance, I would never betray you.”
The man was almost asleep, but he jerked at Marina’s words and suddenly pulled her to him.
The next morning, Ignat felt very sick. But Marina flitted about like a butterfly, already moving her things into his bedroom. The man regretted what had happened, and more than anything, he didn’t want to start a conversation about Yegor again. But Marina started it:
“Ignat, I understand you’re in a lot of pain, but now that you know everything, what will you do with Yegor?”
“What do you mean—what will I do? Do you think there are options?”
“Of course, there are. He’s not your son, he’s absolutely someone else’s boy. And he’ll always be a reminder of Masha’s infidelity. Let’s give him up to an orphanage.”
Ignat opened the refrigerator with a hangover, reaching for a jar of pickles. He had almost brought it to the table, intending to drink the brine, when Marina’s last words about the orphanage made him lose his grip. The jar slipped from his hands and shattered on the floor into large, sharp shards. In the room, Yegor cried as if understanding that his fate was being decided. Ignat stepped toward Marina, stepping on one of the scattered pickles, and spoke in an icy tone:
“Listen to me carefully. I will say this once and will not repeat it. We will never return to this conversation. No one and never should know that Yegor is not my son. He’s registered under my name, so I will raise him. And you, if you want to be with me, will keep quiet and take care of all the children equally. Do you understand?”
Marina nodded hastily and busied herself. She grabbed a mop from under the sink and began to sop up the spreading pickle brine.
The woman learned her lesson and, wanting to be with Ignat, never again mentioned the orphanage for Yegor. In front of the man, she pretended and acted like a caring mother. But Ignat was often not home, and then the growing Yegor got it from his stepmother.
Over time, Ignat himself began to understand that it’s easy to say something, but much harder to do. It was very difficult for him to treat Yegor like his daughters. The man tried, but just one look at the boy seemed to wrap his heart in an icy sheath. He could say the same words to both the girls and Yegor. Only when addressing his daughters was there warmth in his voice, while Yegor only felt the cold.
No one escorted Yegor to his first day of school. Marina was supposed to do it, but she took the boy to the school gates, pointed out where his class was lining up, and shoved him forward.
“See, that lady and the kids? That’s your teacher and your class. Go to them and do what they say. You’ll run home afterward; it’s not far. I have errands to run.”
His mother whistled away. Yegor, swallowing another insult and terribly shy, approached his first teacher. Unlike other kids, he had no flowers in his hands. The ceremony started and behind the rows of boys and girls stood their excited parents. They tried to take photos, adjusted bows and ties on their kids. Yegor, puffing out his lips, stood alone. After the ceremony, the kids were taken to the classroom. The teacher introduced herself to everyone and then dismissed them home. Classes were to start on September 2nd. Parents picked up their first-graders, but Yegor trudged down the school corridor alone.
“Hey, blondie,” he heard a voice from under the stairs. “What’s that on your cheek? Did birds poop on you? Go wash your face!”
Under the stairs, the older kids laughed. Yegor knew they understood it was a birthmark on his cheek; they just decided to mock him.
“Go wash yourself!” the boy tried to respond as rudely as possible.
“What did you say?” An older student emerged from under the stairs and grabbed Yegor by the jacket.
He yanked him toward himself, and the jacket tore. A teacher passing by stopped the older student with a shout. Yegor slipped from the boy’s grasp, but it was too late. The jacket was torn in two places.
The boy ran out of the school building, breathing heavily. His mother was right. He knew the way home. But he didn’t want to go there at all. His mother would again get angry, call him bad names, maybe even hit him. And his father would just give him a heavy look. His mother wasn’t related to Yegor; she always told the boy that. But his father, his father was his real dad! Today was September 1st, and he had promised Yegor’s sisters that after school, he’d take them to a cafe for ice cream. Yegor hadn’t been promised that, but he had hoped… Now that hope wouldn’t come to pass. For the new, torn jacket, his father certainly wouldn’t take him anywhere.
Why did his father love his sisters more than him? What had Yegor done wrong? You could feel it in everything. He took the girls for car rides, took them to nature, but left Yegor at home. His father even taught the girls how to drive, but he, a boy, wasn’t allowed near the steering wheel. He could hug and kiss them, but he didn’t touch Yegor, explaining that he was a boy and didn’t need tenderness. But Yegor sometimes so wanted to snuggle up to his father, to have him pat his head, just like he did with his sisters.
The sisters didn’t do very well in school, and, going to school, Yegor promised himself that he would definitely get straight A’s. Maybe then his father would look at him differently and even praise him. And here, please, the first day of school and a torn jacket! Yegor was used to the slaps and hurtful words of his stepmother, but his father… He would also be displeased.
The boy walked down the sidewalk, shuffling the sole of his new boots and hanging his head low. He was just level with a bus stop where a bus stood, its doors wide open. Without thinking, the boy dived into those doors. He would leave. Go far away. Far away from his mother and his father’s heavy look.
Yegor sat near the window and watched unfamiliar streets. People entered and exited the bus, but Yegor just sat there until the bus, having made a half-circle, finally stopped.
“Boy,” the driver called out, leaning out from behind the partition, “this is the last stop. Where were you headed?”
“Here,” Yegor mumbled, seeing that he was the only one left on the bus and slipping out of the open doors.
He stepped onto a paved area and realized it was the city outskirts because right next door, just one block away, the forest began. Yegor walked toward the trees.
“I’ll go, I’ll go into the forest,” he thought angrily. “I’ll go far away and live there. I’ll build myself a shelter, live off berries. They don’t need me, so let them take the girls to the cafe. Let them give them rides and pat their heads, and I’ll live alone.”
Ignat straightened up from under the hood of someone else’s car and wiped his dirty hands on a rag.
“That’s it, finish up without me,” he yelled to his assistants. “My kids are probably home from school. I promised to take them to the cafe.”
Striding home, the man thought that he should definitely take Yegor with them to the cafe. The boy always walked around like he was “drowned.” No matter how hard Ignat tried, the boy felt unloved, and today, after all, he had gone to first grade. Ignat was met in the hallway by his dressed-up and excited daughters.
“Daddy, daddy, are we going to the cafe by car? And then to the rides?”
“Of course, we’ll go. I’ll just wash up,” Ignat smiled. “Where’s Yegor? Let him get ready too.”
Marina, standing behind the daughters, shifted her gaze.
“What, you’re taking Yegor? You didn’t say. Okay, I’ll go look for him.”
“What do you mean look for him? Where is he?”
“Well, it’s just a short walk to school. One and a half blocks. Yegor knows the way perfectly. And why should I hang around there, at that ceremony? I went to the store while they were lining up.”
“There were no lessons today. Just a ceremony and a class hour!” Ignat roared. “He should have been home a long time ago. Where’s Yegor?!! Go find him, while I wash up.”
The girls didn’t get to eat ice cream that day. Because neither Marina nor Ignat himself could find Yegor. The boy had left school, then “vanished into thin air.” Closer to evening, Ignat ran to the police. When Yegor didn’t show up even at night, he couldn’t find peace.
The man was angry at Marina. Angry at himself for not being able to treat Yegor the same as his daughters. The man was almost sure that this was the reason for the boy’s disappearance. He should have taken off work and gone with him to the first day of school, as Yegor had dreamed.
Ignat didn’t go to bed. Together with his workers from the auto service, he combed the streets nearest to the school. They looked into every gateway, under every bush. Yegor was nowhere to be found…
The next day, Ignat, along with volunteers who joined, posted flyers with Yegor’s photo around the city. He stuck them at every stop, on every pole. And it worked. After lunch, a bus driver called the police. The man was one hundred percent sure that it was the missing boy he had let off at the last stop, near the forest. The search moved to the forest. On the third day, concerned city residents joined the volunteers.
Ignat hadn’t slept for three days. Stepping into his house for a minute, he saw a woman there whom he didn’t recognize right away. Next to Marina sat his elder sister Sonya, whom the man hadn’t seen for several years. Sonya had called on the evening of September 1st to congratulate the children on their first day of school. That’s when she learned about her nephew’s disappearance.
“I dropped everything and flew to help,” Sonya hugged Ignat. “How are the searches going?”
“We’re combing the forest,” the man replied to his sister. “What can you help with now?”
“What do you mean, what? I’ll go with you into the forest.”
“Alright,” Ignat nodded. “Marin, are you coming?”
“I can’t leave the girls alone,” Marina hesitated.
Ignat nodded. He understood everything about Marina. And he would deal with that later. Right now, the main thing was to find Yegor.
He went to the car, and his sister followed. Flyers with Yegor’s photo lay on the passenger seat. To sit down, Sonya picked them up and exclaimed.
“My God, how much your son looks like our grandfather! Ignat, does he have a birthmark on his cheek shaped like a teardrop? It’s incredible, passed down two generations!”
Ignat had already driven off, but at his sister’s words, he slammed the brake pedal to the floor. He braked so hard that Sonya nearly hit the windshield.
“What, what did you say? What does Yegor’s birthmark have to do with this?”
“Ignat, what’s wrong?” Sonya widened her eyes at her brother. “Have you looked at the family album recently? Do you remember what your grandfather, who died in the war, looks like? He died young, so there are only photos of him in his youth. He was very fair-haired. Your Yegor strikingly resembles him. And most importantly, our grandfather had exactly the same birthmark. And also on the left cheek.”
Ignat’s cheeks tensed. Without saying a word, he sharply turned the car around and returned to his house.
“Wait here for me,” he told his sister and dashed to the gate.
The man burst into the house with such a furious expression that Marina immediately got scared.
“Is something with Yegor? Did they find him?”
“Not with Yegor, with you,” Ignat roared. “I know everything. I know you lied to me about Masha and that he’s not my son.”
“How did you find out?” Marina turned pale.
“It doesn’t matter how I found out. Why did you do it?”
“Because I loved you. I wanted you to forget Masha. I wanted to have my own child, not wipe the nose of this Yegor. Why are you yelling? I didn’t manage. You didn’t give him up to the orphanage.”
Ignat’s hands itched. Itched very much. He realized that it was better to leave before he hit Marina.
“When I return, make sure your spirit is not in this house. Do you hear? Never let me see you again. Ever!!!”
Ignat spun around and ran to the car, where his sister was waiting.
Near the edge of the forest, there were a lot of people. Ignat saw their joyful faces, and his heart beat faster. What is everyone so happy about? Could it be…
He turned off the car and ran, looking at the smiling face of a young volunteer pointing him toward the ambulance. There, in the ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, sat Yegor. The boy’s face twisted when he saw his dad.
“Dad, forgive me, I wanted to return, but I got lost.”
“It’s you who should forgive me, son,” Ignat lifted the boy and hugged him tightly.
Tears ran down his cheeks. The man hadn’t cried so much even at Masha’s funeral.
“I’m guilty before you, son. Very guilty. I promise you, now everything will be different.”