Yulia sat at the kitchen table, peering out the window where a fine autumn rain was falling. A cup of long-cold tea stood nearby. She tried to understand when everything had gone wrong—when the chill between her and Boris had turned into an entire wall of ice.
— Sashenka, careful there, — Yulia said in passing when she saw her five-year-old son climb onto a chair to reach the cookies on the top shelf.
Little Sasha knew perfectly well that Mom didn’t allow sweets before dinner, but he still stretched toward the coveted box. Yulia could only smile at this childish cunning. If anyone truly had it simple, it was him: you want a cookie—you take a cookie. No complications.
She stood up to help her son and felt her heart clench when she looked into his big brown eyes, so much like her own. And it was precisely that resemblance that had become the source of all their problems…
It had begun in those first days after she and Boris learned she was pregnant. Yulia was over the moon. Boris seemed happy too, smiling when he told friends about the future heir. But then something changed—especially after a visit from his mother, Tamara Vasilyevna.
Yulia hadn’t thought much of it at the time. She figured he was just anxious—after all, a first child is a serious trial. She hoped everything would fall into place once the baby was born.
She remembered clearly the day she brought Sasha home from the maternity hospital. Boris stood in the apartment doorway, tense, holding a bouquet like a shield. The young mother expected that the first thing he’d want to do was take his son in his arms, study his face, his tiny fingers—but Boris only nodded, as if faced not with his child but a stranger.
— Need a hand? — he asked.
— Yes, take Sasha, please, — Yulia said, holding out the bundle.
Boris froze, then awkwardly took the baby, holding him at arm’s length like dangerous cargo. A moment later he quickly handed him back.
— I’m afraid I’ll drop him. Better you.
And that set the pattern. Boris always found an excuse not to be alone with his son—work, meetings, fatigue. Yulia explained it away as unfamiliarity with a new role, fear of doing something wrong, quirks of character. But deep down she felt that wasn’t it.
The distance became especially obvious as Sasha grew older. Other fathers gladly romped with their kids—carried them on their shoulders, taught them to ride bikes, took them fishing. Boris treated it like a duty—dry, joyless, mechanical.
Yulia kept inventing ways to bring father and son closer. She bought board games “for Dad and son,” organized outings, sometimes left them alone together, inventing urgent errands for herself. Nothing helped.
— Will you play with the blocks with him today? — she’d ask Boris.
— I need to finish a report, — he’d answer without lifting his eyes from the laptop.
And so it always went. Over time Sasha stopped asking to be picked up, stopped inviting his father into his games. He simply accepted it as a fact: Dad was nearby but as if behind glass—visible, yet out of reach.
One day, when Sasha turned five, Tamara Vasilyevna showed up at their apartment unannounced.
— I was passing by and thought I’d pop in for tea, — she announced, taking off her coat. — Haven’t seen my grandson in ages.
Over tea they discussed the usual things: health, weather, prices. Sasha sat nearby, drawing at his little table. Yulia watched her mother-in-law out of the corner of her eye as the woman kept casting strange glances at the boy.
— He’s so big already, — Tamara finally said, tapping her spoon against the cup. — But say what you will, he doesn’t look like anyone in our family. I always told Boris: he’s not yours.
Yulia froze, cup in hand. The silence that followed pressed on her ears like a plunge underwater. For a moment the whole world stopped; every sound vanished.
— What did you say? — Yulia almost whispered, not trusting her ears.
— Oh, don’t react like that, — Tamara waved a hand. — I’m just stating a fact. Look at him—nothing in common with our family. Not with Boris, not with me, not with his grandfather. All of it foreign.
Yulia glanced at her son. Sasha’s brown eyes, chestnut hair, the oval of his face—everything was from her. Of course he didn’t much resemble fair-haired, blue-eyed Boris.
— And why do you think he isn’t Boris’s? — Yulia tried to keep her voice level so as not to draw Sasha’s attention. Luckily, he was absorbed in his drawing.
— A mother’s heart doesn’t lie. I felt it right away. And I told Boris even before the birth.
The words lashed like a whip. Before the birth! All these years Boris had lived believing he was raising another man’s child. All the cold looks, the excuses, the distance—suddenly it all made sense.
— Excuse me, I need to step out, — Yulia rose from the table and went to the bathroom.
She closed the door, turned on the cold water, and held her wrists under the stream. Fragments of the past flashed before her eyes: Boris’s strange behavior when she announced the pregnancy, his tension at the ultrasound, his reluctance to discuss who the baby might look like.
She could have screamed, burst into tears, made a scene. But something inside her went still, hardened. She would not justify herself to the woman who had poisoned her family life. She would not beg for belief in her fidelity. She would not humiliate herself.
Returning to the kitchen, Yulia asked flatly: — When exactly did you tell Boris the child wasn’t his?
— Almost as soon as you said you were pregnant, — Tamara answered, as if speaking about the weather or a pie recipe. — I’m a mother; I feel these things. And besides, you worked with that handsome designer—what’s his name… Igor?
Yulia gripped the edge of the table, fighting the urge to throw her mother-in-law out then and there. Igor was Yulia’s colleague, a talented designer and openly gay—something Tamara, of course, didn’t know.
— I think it’s time for you to go, — was all Yulia could manage.
After Tamara left, Yulia sat motionless for a long time. Everything had fallen into place. That was why Boris had looked at her from under his brow all these years. That was why he never bonded with his son. He believed she had betrayed him, and that Sasha was proof.
The next morning, after dropping Sasha at kindergarten, Yulia went straight to a medical lab. She wasn’t going to throw hysterics or beg for trust. She wanted irrefutable facts.
Two weeks later Yulia received the DNA results. She didn’t wait for Boris to come home from work, didn’t prepare a special dinner or pick a “good moment.” As soon as Sasha went to sleep, she set the sealed envelope on the table in front of her husband.
— What’s this? — Boris asked, tearing his gaze from the TV.
— What you should have had from the very beginning. Proof, — Yulia said, looking him straight in the eye. — Your mother told me yesterday that she planted the idea of my infidelity in your head even before Sasha was born. Judging by your behavior all these years, you believed her.
Boris went pale; his eyes darted to the envelope, then back to Yulia.
— Yulia, I…
— Just open it and read, — she cut him off.
Boris slowly opened the envelope. As he read, his expression shifted—from tension to astonishment, then to shame.
— You trusted your mother more than me? Fine. Here’s the DNA—choke on it, — Yulia said, and she filed for divorce.
Boris looked up at her, bewildered.
— Don’t… Yulia, let’s talk.
— About what? About how for five years you looked at me like I was a whore? About how you refused to hold your own son? Or about how your mother poisoned everything between us and you chose to believe her?
Boris said nothing. What could he possibly say in his defense? That he was jealous? That his mother twisted his mind? That he couldn’t bring himself to trust?
— I didn’t file for divorce all these years only for Sasha’s sake, — he finally said. — I thought at least he should grow up in a complete family.
— Complete? — Yulia gave a bitter laugh. — A family where the father recoils from him as if he were contagious? Where he looks at him as a stranger? Do you know what Sasha asked me recently? “Mom, why doesn’t Dad love me?” What do you think I was supposed to answer?
Boris clenched his fists and stared at the floor. Sweat beaded on his forehead; red blotches rose on his cheeks.
— I didn’t… I thought… — the words stuck in his throat.
— Exactly, — Yulia snapped. — You didn’t think. You just believed.
— You don’t understand, — Boris managed at last. — Mom sounded so convincing. She showed family photos, compared features.
— Five years, — Yulia said quietly. — I put up with your distrust for five years. For five years I tried to keep our child from feeling like a stranger in his own home.
She turned and left the room. Boris remained seated, staring at the test results. The lines swam before his eyes: “Probability of paternity: 99.9998%.”
The next day Yulia called her mother-in-law.
— Tamara Vasilyevna, come over tomorrow at six. We need to talk, — she said curtly, hanging up before a reply could come.
Yulia spent the day in a kind of detachment. She felt neither anger nor hurt nor any urge for revenge—just endless exhaustion from the lies that had saturated the air of their family life. The night before she had watched Sasha sleeping for a long time. His face in sleep was so trusting, so calm. A child who didn’t know that his existence had become the cause of a cold war between the people closest to him.
Right on time the doorbell rang. Yulia opened it and silently let Tamara and Boris into the apartment. Tamara looked tense but held herself with her usual stiff dignity. Boris seemed to have aged overnight.
— Come into the kitchen, — Yulia said, indicating the table where a kettle and three cups were already set out.
When they had sat down, Yulia, without preamble, laid the printed DNA results in front of them and pointed to the main line.
Tamara went pale; her hands trembled around the cup. Boris sat motionless, like a stone statue, only his eyes darting over the lines as if searching for an error, a typo—anything that could justify his behavior all these years.
— Read. He’s your grandson. And your own son, — Yulia said, standing up from the table.
Without waiting for a response, she went to the bedroom. She had packed most of their things the night before. All that was left was to take what Sasha needed and a few personal items.
Boris rushed in as Yulia was fastening the suitcase.
— Yulia, wait, let’s talk! — Desperation colored his voice. — I was wrong. I let Mom get into my head. I should have talked to you myself, asked you directly.
— Yes, you should have, — Yulia replied calmly, continuing to pack. — But instead you chose to silently see me as a liar and a cheat. You chose to punish an innocent child with your indifference.
— I didn’t know how to ask! — Boris grabbed her hand. — Try to understand, I was afraid of the truth. I had doubts, but I didn’t want to believe them!
Yulia gently but firmly pulled her hand free.
— And now I don’t want to hear anything more. Everything that needed saying you’ve already said—with your silence, your actions, your distrust.
Tamara stood in the hallway, at a loss for words; it was written on her face.
— Yulia dear, — she finally said, voice shaking, — I thought I was protecting my son…
— No, — Yulia cut her off. — You destroyed his family. And you stole five years of a grandfather’s—no, of your grandson’s—fatherly love.
A few days later Yulia filed for divorce. She rented a small apartment not far from Sasha’s kindergarten. Boris came every day—at first with flowers and gifts, then with apologies and pleas for a second chance.
— I’ll fix everything, — he insisted on the threshold of Yulia’s new place. — I’ll be the best father. I’ll make up for every day I lost.
— That’s good, — Yulia answered. — But Sasha needs a father, not a husband for me.
— I love you, — Boris sank to his knees, clutching Yulia’s hands. — I understand now. I will never doubt you again. Give us a chance!
But Yulia had already made her decision. She could not live again with a man who had once preferred to believe someone else’s words over his wife’s—and who hadn’t even had the courage to ask a direct question. She no longer wanted to be a woman whom someone, deep down, suspected of lying.
Amazingly, living separately, she felt calmer. The apartment was small, but no ghosts of mistrust or resentment haunted it. There were no heavy looks, no need to prove her innocence. Just Yulia and Sasha—real, close, free.
Boris visited his son faithfully. Yulia didn’t interfere with their meetings but kept her distance. He could come as a father, take Sasha to the park, to the movies, to playgrounds. But the door to Yulia’s heart stayed closed—not out of vindictiveness, but because she could no longer risk what was most precious.
One day Boris brought Sasha back after the weekend and awkwardly handed Yulia a box.
— This is for you, — he said, embarrassed. — I found our old photos. Look through them when you have time.
That evening, after putting Sasha to bed, Yulia opened the box. Inside were their wedding albums, snapshots from their travels, the first photos of newborn Sasha. And a letter from Tamara.
“Yulia, I know I don’t deserve forgiveness,” she had written. “I was blind in my jealousy over my son. I was always afraid of losing him and, in the end, I destroyed his happiness myself. I’m not asking you to understand me, but I want you to know—I acknowledge my guilt before you and before my grandson. Blame me, not Boris. I poisoned his mind with my fantasies.”
Yulia set the letter aside. Tamara hadn’t found the courage to apologize in person, preferring a written confession to a real conversation. Not that Yulia expected an apology. Some wounds don’t need forgiveness—they simply put a full stop at the end.
Life gradually found a new rhythm. Yulia got a good job, Sasha started school. Boris paid child support on time and spent every weekend with his son. The former spouses maintained polite but distant relations.
A few times Boris tried to raise the possibility of getting back together, but Yulia invariably shook her head:
— Trust doesn’t die from a lie; it dies because someone believed the lie without a word.
She no longer tried to explain or prove anything. She had said enough that day: “Read.” In that moment, Yulia stopped being a victim of distrust and became a woman who chose herself and her dignity.
One day, after a weekend with his father, Sasha said:
— Mom, Dad said he loves me very much. And that he’s really sorry he didn’t show it before.
Yulia smiled and hugged her son.
— He does love you, Sashenka. He always has—he just didn’t always know how to show it.
That was true. Not the whole truth, but enough for a child. The rest—distrust, betrayal, shattered hopes—would remain between the adults. The story of lost trust is not for a child’s ears.
And for Yulia, a new chapter was beginning—a life where nothing had to be proved. A life in which she herself decided whom to trust, and how much. A life where her dignity and peace outweighed any regrets about the past.