Larisa had never thought of herself as weak. On the contrary—people saw her as the embodiment of prudence, cold logic, and iron will. From childhood spent within the walls of an orphanage, she learned one unshakable rule: you can only rely on yourself. No one will come to the rescue. No one will save you. In this world, you have to be strong, calculating—like a chess player thinking ten moves ahead. And Larisa built her life like an architect—with a blueprint, precise to the millimeter. No breakdowns. No impulses. No foolish hopes.
First came pedagogical college. Then a job—modest but stable. Primary school teacher. Her own home. A small, but personal apartment. And then—marriage. Not for a burst of passion, not for youthful recklessness, but for reason. With a man who was reliable, solid, someone with whom she could build what she had never had—a real family. The very “cell of society” she had read about in textbooks but never known personally.
She looked with contempt at those who chose the path of carelessness—girls who ran off with the first man they met, got pregnant at sixteen, ruining their lives in one moment of weakness. Larisa was different. She was smarter. She was stronger. She wouldn’t allow herself to fall.
But one day, into her carefully constructed world, burst a man who turned out to be stronger than all her plans.
Kolya.
Tall, with eyes like the sky at noon in July—bright, piercing, disarmingly beautiful. He worked at an auto shop near her dorm, laughed loudly, brought her chocolate bars, asked her out even when he had no money. He had an old but polished-to-a-shine Lada “nine,” and he drove her around the outskirts of the city, blasting loud music and telling stories about his adventures. He seemed free, generous, strong. She wanted to hide behind his back from the whole world.
And Larisa, always so restrained, always on guard, allowed herself to drown for the first time. For the first time, she let her feelings take control. The whirlwind of emotions swept her up, spun her around, and everything she had built for years—clear plans, iron principles, cold calculation—collapsed like a house of cards in a gust of wind. Her mind, just as she feared, shut down. And in that daze, she didn’t notice how she crossed the line.
When the two lines on the test confirmed her worst fear, her heart clenched with icy terror. But a spark of hope still glimmered in her soul. She went to Kolya with a pounding heart and trembling hands. She had already painted the scene in her head: he would hug her, say that everything would be different now, that they’d manage, that they’d get married. That this was the beginning of something bigger.
But reality hit with such force that she staggered.
Kolya listened and laughed. Not loudly, no. Dryly. Coldly. With a disdainful smirk on his lips.
“You’re serious?” he snorted, leaning back in his chair. “Larisa, come on. I didn’t sign up to be a dad. I have enough of my own problems. I don’t need a kid. And you, honestly, with that kind of ‘baggage’—I don’t need you either.”
Each word struck like a blow. He spoke as if discussing the weather, as if she were just an unpleasant nuisance in his carefree life. His eyes didn’t waver. His heart didn’t flinch. He didn’t see in her the woman he’d loved, didn’t see a future, didn’t see a child. He saw only a burden.
And in that moment, Larisa’s whole world, only just painted in warm colors, turned gray again. Cold. Empty. She walked down the street not noticing the rain, not feeling the chill. Tears ran down her cheeks, but inside there wasn’t grief—only emptiness. The plan destroyed. The future erased. She felt alone, betrayed, doomed. Ahead—only pain, silence, and the abortion she’d scheduled for the next day.
But fate, as it turned out, wasn’t ready to give up.
That evening, when she lay on the bed in her dorm room, surrounded by crumpled tissues, her empty gaze fixed on the ceiling, the phone rang. Insistently. Relentlessly. As if it knew she must not ignore it.
She picked up. A male voice, dry and formal, introduced himself as a notary.
“Larisa Andreyevna, you are involved in an inheritance left by your aunt, Nina Vasilievna Kravtsova.”
“What aunt?” she whispered, unable to believe her ears. “I don’t have an aunt. I don’t have anyone at all.”
“Nevertheless,” the voice continued imperturbably, “you must appear for the reading of the will. It’s urgent.”
The next day, in an office steeped in the smell of old paper, wax, and time, Larisa heard words that turned her life upside down for the second time in a week—but this time not into the abyss, but toward the light.
An elderly notary adjusted his glasses and read out the will of Nina Vasilievna Kravtsova. A name Larisa had never heard before. But to her, Larisa, were bequeathed: an apartment in the city, a large village house with land, and a substantial bank account.
She sat frozen, barely breathing. But there was a condition. Strict. Unusual. She would receive all this—only if she lived in the village house for exactly one year… together with a man named Semyon Igorevich Volkov, who, under the same will, inherited the garage and an old car.
“Who is this woman?” Larisa asked, trembling. “And who is Semyon?”
The notary sighed and set the papers aside.
“Nina Vasilievna… was not just your aunt, Larisa Andreyevna. She was your grandmother.”
The shock was so great that Larisa felt as if the floor had fallen out from under her.
It turned out her story wasn’t simply “abandoned at the maternity hospital.” Her mother, Nina Vasilievna’s daughter, had given birth to her young. Larisa’s father—a man with a criminal past—began blackmailing her grandmother, demanding money and threatening to take the child. To save her granddaughter, Nina Vasilievna conspired with her daughter, staged an abandonment, and placed Larisa in an orphanage, hoping to take her back later when things settled down.
But that “later” never came. The grandmother was threatened, barred from the orphanage. Then Larisa’s trail was lost in the system. All those years, she searched for her granddaughter. She found her—too late. She was already ill, unable to meet her. And Semyon—he was the son of her close friend, whom she had taken in as a teenager, almost like her own grandson.
This story shattered everything Larisa thought she knew about herself. She wasn’t nobody’s child. She wasn’t abandoned. She had a grandmother who loved her, searched for her, grieved for her. Suddenly, the decision she’d made that morning seemed like a nightmare. She left the office, found the nearest trash can, and threw away the abortion referral.
For the first time in a long while, something lit up inside her. Not hope—light. She had a home. She had money. She had roots. She had a family—however unexpected.
“I can do this,” she whispered into the damp air. “My baby and I can survive. And more than that—we can be happy.”
A week later, she arrived in the village. The house stood on the outskirts—solid, pine-built, with a well-kept front yard where it seemed every flower had bloomed in spring. At the gate stood a tall guy in a simple work jacket. He leaned against the post, looking at her with a hint of mockery in his eyes.
“So, you’re the suddenly appeared granddaughter,” he drawled instead of a greeting. His voice—low, husky. “I’m Semyon.”
“Larisa,” she answered shortly, feeling a spark of hostility inside. He acted as if she’d come to take away his last possession.
“Well, come in, heiress. Show me how you plan to spend a whole year here,” he said, opening the gate to let her through.
Inside, the house was warm, cozy, smelling of wood and herbs. On the table stood a photograph of an elderly woman with kind, intelligent eyes. Grandma Nina.
“She waited for you so much,” Semyon suddenly said quietly, noticing her gaze. “She always said: ‘I’ll find my little Lary. I’ll find her and hug her.’”
There was such deep love and grief in his voice that Larisa realized: he wasn’t just some tenant. He was part of this home. By right of the heart. And she was the outsider, coming by a piece of paper.
“Listen,” she said firmly. “I need this condition as much as you do. I don’t want to bother you. I need this year to get on my feet. Let’s just agree—we’ll tolerate each other.”
Semyon turned. A flash of surprise in his eyes. He’d expected whining, tears, drama. But got a businesslike proposal.
“Tolerate, huh?” he smirked, but without sarcasm now. “Alright. Deal. My room’s upstairs. Yours is on the first floor, with windows to the garden. Kitchen’s shared. You won’t get lost.”
He turned to the window. And at that moment, Larisa saw not a rough guy, but a tired, lonely man. Behind his sarcasm was the same pain of loss. The same longing. And that thought became the first fragile thread between them.
Life took a new course. Larisa got a job as a kitchen assistant at the school cafeteria. The work was simple but stable. Every ruble added confidence. She embraced Grandma Nina’s house as her own. Dug up garden beds, planted greens, decorated the yard with asters and marigolds—just as she’d loved in childhood. The house came alive, filled with her care.
At first, Semyon kept his distance. But he watched. Saw her belly grow. Stayed silent. Thought it wasn’t his business. Until one day Larisa decided to move a heavy chest of drawers. She’d almost pushed it when Semyon appeared in the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing?!” he barked. “Completely lost your mind? Put it down now!”
He easily moved the chest like a feather and turned to her:
“If I see you carrying heavy stuff again—I’ll kick you out, to hell with the will. Got it?”
From that day, everything changed. Semyon began quietly looking after her. Wordlessly brought milk, fixed the faucet, chopped firewood. Didn’t speak tender words, but his care was louder than any confession.
In the evenings, they sat over tea. Talked. Larisa told him about the orphanage, her fears, her dreams. Semyon—about his hard past, about how Grandma Nina saved him from the streets. Shared pain drew them closer. Once, when she mentioned Kolya, she saw Semyon darken.
“Give me his address. I’ll talk to him,” he said hoarsely, clenching his fists.
“Don’t, Syoma,” she stopped him gently. “He’s in the past. Let him be.”
She looked at his stern but familiar face and realized: the past no longer had power over her.
Labor pains began at night. Suddenly. Sharply. Larisa screamed. Her first thought—fear. She was alone. The ambulance—far. But at her cry, Semyon thundered downstairs, disheveled, eyes wide with panic.
“It’s time?”
He dashed around the house. Called the ambulance. Dropped a glass. Tried to pack a bag, though it’d been packed for a month. But he never left her side. His fussing was strangely calming.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedic nodded at him:
“Daddy, don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
Semyon didn’t explain. He carefully lifted Larisa like crystal and carried her to the car. Held her hand. Wiped her sweat. Answered the doctors’ questions. Stayed by her. Every moment. Every second.
And at that moment, Larisa realized: she loved him. Not because she had to. But because he was her support, her protection, her home. Their union was no longer forced. It had become family.
Two years passed. The will’s required year had long ended. But no one left. Larisa, Semyon, and their daughter Marina lived in that same house—now their fortress. Semyon opened a tire shop that became a steady business. Larisa—a happy mother, wife, homemaker.
One day, they went to a shopping mall. Semyon pushed the cart with laughing Marina sitting inside. Larisa picked out a hat. Simple, everyday happiness.
And suddenly—a glance. Kolya. The same smile. The same eyes. Only now—tired.
“Larisa? What a surprise!”
“We have nothing in common, Kolya. And nothing to talk about,” she replied coldly, stepping closer to Semyon.
Semyon silently stepped forward. Stood between them. Tall. Strong. Calm. Like a wall. No words. No threats. Just—her man.
Kolya shrank. Mumbled something. Left, hunched over.
Semyon hugged Larisa.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” she exhaled. “Better than okay.”
She looked at her husband. At their daughter. At their life. And her heart filled with gratitude. To her grandmother. To fate. To herself—for not stepping off the edge in her darkest hour.
Her path had been winding. But it led her exactly where she belonged—to love, to family, to real, hard-earned happiness.