Lidia walked along the frozen asphalt, and each step echoed in her temples with a dull, nagging pain. The city drifted in the dusk, the glow of the streetlamps blurring before her eyes like droplets of watercolor on wet paper. She had thought it was just exhaustion—endless projects, deadlines, sleepless nights. She told herself that if she could just rest, sleep well, the world would regain its colors. But in the doctor’s office she had just left, everything turned out far simpler—and far more terrifying. The diagnosis sounded like a sentence, one that forever slashed through the quiet, cozy dream she and Arseny had cherished for all three years of their marriage—a dream of children’s laughter filling the rooms of their home.
She pushed open the heavy front door, and the familiar smell of wax, old parquet, and vanilla hit her, triggering a sudden wave of nausea. Her heart tightened into a hard, aching knot. How was she supposed to tell him? How could she find words to clothe this soul-icing horror in something he could understand and accept?
“It’s okay, he loves me, we’re together, we’ll manage,” she mouthed silently as she took off her coat and hung it on the rack with the carved wooden birds they’d once bought at a flea market. Every movement was slow, viscous, as if she were moving under water.
In the living room, in the armchair by the fireplace, sat Arseny. He had just finished a phone call, a strange, bewildered smile frozen on his face, which vanished the instant he saw her. He set the phone down sharply on the side table, as if it had burned him.
“Lida, what happened? You look awful.”
She walked to the window so she wouldn’t have to see his eyes and stared at the frost patterns feathery on the glass. The words were born somewhere deep inside, tearing her chest apart, but they came out as a quiet, colorless whisper.
“We won’t have children, Arseny.”
She heard the armchair scrape sharply behind her.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“There won’t be any. Ever. The doctor said… he said I don’t have long. Months, maybe a year. If I’m lucky.”
A crushing silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the logs in the fireplace. Then his voice came, cold and sharp as a blade.
“You should have thought of that earlier! Earlier! I told you a thousand times—take care of your health, stop working yourself to the bone! But you never listen! You think you’re smarter than everyone!”
She turned slowly, unable to believe her ears. This was not the man she had married. Before her stood a spiteful, alien stranger with a face twisted by anger.
“You’re just… a stupid, irresponsible woman,” he hissed.
The words struck her so hard she physically recoiled and bumped into the doorframe. The pain that shot through her shoulder was nothing compared to what was happening inside her. He could be harsh, he could grumble—but this… when her world was collapsing before her eyes…
“Pack your things and get out,” his voice was now even and metallic. “I don’t need a sick, useless wife. You’re nothing. A barren, withered tree.”
The next half hour passed in a fog. She mechanically folded things into a travel bag; her fingers wouldn’t obey, they trembled. Her gaze fell on their wedding photo in the carved frame—they were laughing, bathed in sunlight, and the happiness in that picture seemed so endless, so solid. Now it was just an image from someone else’s life. Tears streamed down her cheeks; she went through an entire pack of tissues, but new tears kept coming, hot and bitter.
“This can’t be happening,” she muttered, zipping the bag. “This just can’t be.”
She burst out of the apartment and ran down the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator. Outside, a prickly, raw wind slapped her face. The sky was blanketed with heavy leaden clouds from which the first lazy snowflakes were starting to fall. Lidia wandered without seeing the way and soon found herself in the small square across from their building. She sank onto a cold iron bench.
“Let me freeze right here,” she thought with a bitter resolve. “There’s no reason to live anyway.”
She sat like that for maybe half an hour, maybe an eternity, turning into an icy statue of despair. And then her gaze caught a familiar figure by the entrance. Arseny had come outside. And to him, with a light step, a young, slender girl ran up. He slipped an arm around her shoulders; they started talking animatedly, laughing. Then Arseny took a large travel bag from her hands—very much like the one he had once given Lidia—and the two of them disappeared into the entrance together.
Her tears dried in an instant. Everything in her head fell into place with frightening crystal clarity. There it was. That’s who had been on the other end of the line. That was the reason for his sudden cruelty. He no longer needed her. She had become a burden he discarded the moment the chance arose.
As if in a dream, Lidia rose from the bench and wandered off toward an old part of the city where one-story houses huddled together, half-buried in drifts. One house, with a crooked fence and boarded windows, was clearly abandoned. She pushed the gate; it creaked and gave. Circling the house, she found a window with a broken pane and, mustering her last strength, clambered inside.
Dust hung in pillars where the last light of sunset slanted through dirty panes. The air was close and cold.
“I hope no one throws me out of here,” she said aloud, and the echo in the empty house answered her eerily.
She spent the night on an old, sagging sofa, covered with her own coat. Sleep wouldn’t come. She tossed, listening to every rustle, while scraps of memory, Arseny’s face, the doctor’s words rushed through her mind. Toward morning, in a half-doze, she fancied she heard something strange—the scrape of tires over packed snow, then the dull thud of a car door. Lidia sprang up, her heart pounding wildly.
“A car? Who could possibly need to be here?”
She tiptoed to the door and cracked it open. In the yard, under the meager light of a streetlamp, stood an expensive foreign car with the rear door open. She couldn’t see the interior.
“Where’s the owner?” flashed a worried thought.
She froze, waiting, but no one appeared. And then she caught a quiet, plaintive sound. Not crying—more like whimpering. Without thinking, Lidia ran into the yard and hurried up to the car. On the back seat, in a blue carrycot, lay an infant wrapped in a thin blanket. His little face was red from the cold.
“My God… baby, did they abandon you?” her voice trembled. Carefully, afraid of doing something wrong, she lifted the child from the carrycot and pressed him to her. He was so tiny, so defenseless. He quieted at once, burying his nose in her neck.
She carried him into the house, laid him on the sofa, bundled him in her scarf, and went back to the car. Next to the carrycot she found a cooler bag, and inside—several bottles of prepared formula.
“I’ll feed you now,” she said, checking the temperature. It was slightly warm. The baby latched greedily onto the nipple and began to suck, never taking his big, cornflower-blue eyes off her.
“Who could do such a thing?” Lidia whispered, drinking him in. “Was it really your parents?”
The child fell asleep right in her arms, content. And for the first time in many hours, something stirred in Lidia’s soul. The sharp, cutting pain of her own grief retreated for a moment, giving way to a burning sense of responsibility for this tiny life. She looked around. The house was dog-cold. They needed warmth. Circling the yard, she found some old, damp firewood in a shed and, with difficulty, got the little potbelly stove in the corner going.
…Meanwhile, a drama of its own was unfolding in a spacious apartment in the city center.
“Where is Yelisey?” Victor thundered, his voice ringing with barely restrained fury. His wife, Alisa, sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor with an empty look.
“Well? I asked you, where did you put our son?”
“I don’t know…” she shrugged helplessly. “Irka and I drove somewhere… I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember?” Victor clenched his fists hard. “You go clubbing, you drink, and then you ‘don’t remember’ where you left an eight-month-old baby? Are you out of your mind?”
“Don’t shout, my head is splitting,” moaned Alisa, trying to gather her thoughts.
“And the car? Do you also ‘not remember’ where you left the car?” His contempt was so thick it seemed to hang in the air. “Am I supposed to buy you a new one every month because you can’t keep track of the old one?”
Alisa genuinely couldn’t remember a thing. The previous evening was a blank white patch, edged with scraps of music and flashes of laughter.
“We… we stopped by my mom’s,” she blurted out suddenly—and immediately crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Victor didn’t spare her a glance. Snatching the keys to the spare car, he tore off to that same Irka. Alisa’s friend, hair disheveled and face crumpled, barely opened the door.
“Yelisey?” Victor barked, stepping over the threshold. “Where is my son?”
The woman blinked, trying to process.
“He… he’s at Alisa’s mom’s. At the dacha, I think.”
“At what mom?” Victor roared. “Her mother died three years ago! Have you all lost your minds?”
Ignoring her babble, he spun around and ran back to the car. The only place Alisa could have meant was her late mother’s old summer cottage in a suburban settlement. The drive took about an hour. He raced without easing up, his face a stone mask. Pulling up by the familiar crooked fence, he jumped out and wrenched at the gate. It wouldn’t budge—it was locked from the inside. His heart sank. He ran around the house and knocked on the broken window. He didn’t care about possible squatters or looters. He needed only his son.
By that time, Lidia had the stove going and had warmed some tea from packets she found in the first-aid kit. The baby—Yelisey, as it turned out—was sleeping soundly, arms flung wide. But the anxiety in Lidia’s heart didn’t ease—the formula was running out, and the diapers would last until evening at best.
“What are we going to do, hmm?” she murmured, leaning over him. “Hand a treasure like you over to an orphanage? Not happening.”
Her thoughts were cut short by an insistent knock on the window glass. She started and saw a man’s silhouette outside. Frightened, she went to the door and opened it.
On the threshold stood a tall, abashed man with intelligent, tired eyes.
“Hello,” he said, flustered.
“You… you’re here for the baby?” Lidia guessed, her voice shaking.
“Yes. I’m his father. Victor,” he said, fumbling in the inside pocket of his jacket. “I can show you my passport. Tell me—out in the yard… is there a car?”
Then it dawned on Lidia completely. This child hadn’t just been forgotten. Someone had wanted to get rid of him.
“The car was open,” she said quietly. “I heard a cry. I went out and he was… alone. All alone in that cold metal box.”
From those words, from the surge of emotion, from hunger and a sleepless night, her vision darkened and she crumpled to the dusty floor.
“What’s wrong?” Victor cried in alarm, scooping her up. He carried her in and laid her on the sofa next to Yelisey, who had woken and begun to cry.
“Please put me down,” Lidia whispered. “I’m all right. It’s just… I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.”
“How did you end up here?” Victor asked, settling her more comfortably and lifting his son into his arms.
And she told him. Everything. About the diagnosis. About her husband. About his lover. About her flight. About finding refuge in this abandoned house and… a new meaning.
“I’m sorry I barged in without asking,” she finished.
Victor listened, his face growing darker.
“It seems I urgently need to feed two poor, abandoned souls in this world!” he exclaimed decisively. “Do you mind if I step out for a bit?”
He returned twenty minutes later with enormous bags full of food: baby formula, diapers, fruit, bread, cheese, sausage, chocolate, juices.
“This… all for us?” Lidia whispered, unable to believe her eyes.
“Who else?” he smiled, and his face instantly looked younger. “You need to eat well to fight. It’s frightening to look at you—skin and bone. Apparently your husband is not only a scoundrel but a miser if he let his wife go hungry.”
“That happened too,” she admitted softly.
While Victor fed Yelisey, who tucked into his porridge happily and smiled at his father, he told his side of things. About brilliant, but empty and selfish Alisa. About her drinking, the endless parties. About how he’d hoped the baby would change her, and how she only plunged into the whirl of fun with even more zeal.
“She brought him here. My dearly beloved. She lives to party. As if she couldn’t at least call the nanny?” he said bitterly.
Lidia looked from him to the child, and her heart filled with a strange, aching tenderness for these two strangers who seemed so very alone.
Then Victor asked, looking straight into her eyes:
“Tell me honestly—do you have anywhere to go?”
She shook her head silently.
“Then allow me to offer you a job. Official, with a good salary. A nanny’s position for Yelisey. And a place of your own in our… in my home.”
…A week later, Alisa, back from yet another night out, demanded an explanation the moment she crossed the threshold.
“Darling, and who is this pale moth flitting around our house?” she said with hatred, sweeping Lidia with her eyes as Lidia rocked Yelisey.
“Meet Lidia. Our son’s new nanny,” Victor replied calmly.
“Nanny?” Alisa snorted. “We didn’t discuss anything! I don’t want some simpleton in my house! Hire an older, respectable woman.”
“And did you consult me when you left our son in a freezing car at an abandoned dacha?” His voice cracked like a whip.
“So my opinion doesn’t matter to you anymore?” she shrieked. “Then I’m leaving!”
“As you wish,” Victor said coolly. “According to the prenuptial agreement, in the event of your unworthy behavior, confirmed by evidence, you don’t get a cent. And I have camera footage, witnesses, and, God help us, this very incident. The court will definitely be on my side.”
And so it was. The court left Yelisey with his father, stripping Alisa of parental rights.
Two months passed. Surrounded by care and proper food, Lidia grew lovelier and found her strength again. The treatment she’d been prescribed gave hope; the doctors’ prognoses became cautiously optimistic. One evening Victor found her in the living room. She was reading a book, and Yelisey was sleeping in her lap.
“Lidia,” he began, sitting beside her. “You’ve worked a miracle. Not only with my son, but with me. This house became a home because of you.”
“Oh, Victor,” she smiled. “You gave me a second life. Your son… he became my medicine. The best there is.”
He took her hand in his.
“New Year’s is coming. And I want to celebrate it with the people closest to me. With you and Yelisey. But I have one condition.”
“What is it?” she asked, lifting her brows in surprise.
“I want to introduce you to my family not as a nanny, but as my fiancée. If you don’t mind, of course.”
And in that moment Lidia understood that her old life, full of pain and betrayal, had truly been left behind. That illness can be beaten when you have someone to live for. That family is not always a matter of blood, but of those who come to your aid in the darkest hour.
They married in the spring, when the apple trees bloomed in the garden by that very old house, which Victor bought and restored. And a year later, despite all the grim predictions, a little girl was born. They named her Veronika. The doctors, spreading their hands, spoke of “spontaneous remission” and a “miracle.” But Lidia knew what it was. The miracle lay not in pills, but in love—the kind that can melt the hardest ice of despair and bring new life where it had seemed there was no hope left at all