She hid the truth from everyone, even from her husband. He died without ever knowing the truth.
“The main thing is that he didn’t suffer at all,” they endlessly repeated at the funeral, and Anya nodded, though she couldn’t understand what was good about it if a person died. It would be better if he suffered and survived, for example. But even Pasha’s mother sighed and repeated this absurd nonsense.
“You should have left Sergey with me,” she asked when all the funeral and memorial affairs were over. “You are still young, you need to set up your life.”
Anya hugged her son and said:
“What life, Nina Stepanovna! Enough, I’ve already had my fill.”
The mother-in-law knew how Pasha used to beat her—she herself ran to her, hid, until he sobered up. Pasha thought that she had cheated somewhere—that’s why the boy didn’t look like anyone else. That’s why he beat her. Well, if he beats, it means he loves, the mother-in-law said.
Many thought so about her, even her own mother once asked who the grandson took after. When Anya got offended, she immediately backtracked and expressed her version: perhaps Sergey was switched at the maternity hospital?
Anya remained silent. She didn’t tell the truth to either her mother-in-law or her mother. Therefore, the little house that her grandmother left her as an inheritance came in very handy.
“Where are you going?” her mother was frightened. “There are only mosquitoes and bears there! I studied so much, worked so hard to get out of the village! And you want to go back there?”
“Yes, Mom, I want to! It will be good for Sergey there—fresh air, vitamins. And I feel good, I can’t see anyone right now.”
The mother-in-law attacked no less than her mother.
“Well, leave Sergey to me, pity an old woman! How much longer do I have? Give me the last consolation before death!”
One doctor agreed that it would be better this way, gave, so to speak, his blessing.
The house turned out to be exactly as Anya remembered it. Her mother had taken her there only a couple of times in early childhood, then stopped—after a quarrel with the grandmother. The grandmother wrote to Anya, later, when they got a telephone, she even called. She loved Anya very much, and now Anya felt ashamed that she had never reached her. Now she examined every item in the house, imagining how her grandmother had held them in her hands. She especially liked an old cookbook—on each page were marks made by her grandmother’s hand. However, Sergey, noticing that Anya was paying too much attention to the book, took the opportunity when she was distracted and began tearing pages from it, ripping them up, and throwing them into a pile. Then Anya spent three hours taping them back together with thin strips of tape, wiping her wet face with her sleeve to prevent the tears from smudging the already damaged text.
Basically, she knew what awaited her. But still, it weighed heavily on her soul. At lunch, waiting for her son to fall asleep, she surrounded him with pillows and went into the forest. She did not want to walk around the village—she had already decided that she would not communicate with anyone, but sitting at home all the time was also unbearable.
Her mother was right—there were plenty of mosquitoes. Anya hadn’t thought to bring repellent, even though she had bought it at her mother’s insistence, and instead of enjoying the beautiful views, she fought off the ravenous bloodsuckers. Maybe because of this, she lost track of the road and wandered off the path. Anya realized this late—heard a branch snap, looked around in fear, remembering her mother’s stories about bears, and couldn’t figure out which direction the village was. She became scared. Not for herself, for Sergey—he was there all alone! What if he woke up and she wasn’t home?
She tried to find the path she had been following all this time—rushed in one direction, then another, but all around, the trees looked like identical twins.
“Hey! Anyone!” she shouted, feeling incredibly foolish.
Anya didn’t expect an answer, but another branch snapped, and a tall man with a weather-beaten face appeared from the left.
“What are you yelling for?” he asked.
“I’m lost.”
Anya immediately regretted her words—who knows what kind of person he was. She should have said she saw a bear!
He laughed.
“Lost? The village is just a couple of steps away! Where are you from?”
Anya didn’t intend to tell him where she lived.
“I’m visiting,” she lied.
The man shook his head, smirked.
“Come on, I’ll lead you out.
Anya felt embarrassed when she realized that the village was indeed very close. She hurried to say goodbye, mumbling thanks to the man.
“Buy a mosquito spray!” he shouted after her. “And treat the bites with an aloe leaf!”
She remembered his words two hours later when her arms and legs became unbearably itchy. On the windowsill at her grandmother’s house was a sprawling aloe plant, and Anya decided to test his recommendation.
She used three leaves on the bites. It helped, especially with those she hadn’t scratched. Well, that was a lesson for her.
These walks became a breath of fresh air for her—she wasn’t used to living like a recluse, although she had been mostly homebound in recent years, but she still regularly visited the hospital, her mother, or her mother-in-law, and she could always talk with Pasha when he was sober. It had reached a point where she started talking to her grandmother—picking up a towel with embroidery and asking whether her grandmother had embroidered it herself or bought it somewhere. It was enough to drive one mad.
Now, Anya dressed differently for her walks—wearing a long-sleeve sweater and jeans in any weather, and she sprayed herself with repellent from head to toe, despite disliking its pungent smell. Fortunately, she quickly learned how to heat the sauna—helped by her youthful enthusiasm when she and Pasha attended a tourist club. She walked during the day, steamed in the sauna in the evening, and spent the rest of the time with Sergey.
Sometimes everything was fine: he obediently colored cars in his thick coloring book, read fairy tales about Doctor Aybolit and Fedorino Gore with her. But there were difficult days when even his favorite books flew across the room, and pencils broke like thin matches. Sergey was a strong boy, and Anya didn’t always manage his anger well.
After calming her son down, Anya went for a walk. The forest was pleasant—quiet, smelling of dampness and resin, and the singing of birds always made her feel better. During one of these walks, she met again the man who had helped her out of the forest on her first walk. It started raining that day, which was expected—the sky had been overcast since morning, but Anya went out anyway, wearing a raincoat for assurance. She hadn’t gone deep into the forest, which she no longer feared, when she saw him. He was sitting on the ground, clutching his leg—it was clear that something was wrong. Anya approached and asked:
“Do you need help?”
He looked up.
“Ah, the lost one! Here, I fell, seems like I broke my leg.”
“Should I call someone?”
“No need. Just find me a good stick, I can hobble, it’s not far.”
Anya found a stick, getting muddy and almost falling over roots. Well, she walked him home—she couldn’t just leave a person in such a situation.
His name was Bogdan. He indeed lived nearby, on the other side of the village, unlike her.
“And who are you visiting?” he asked.
“With grandma,” Anya answered vaguely.
Apparently, he understood that Anya didn’t want to talk, and he let it be. Instead, he talked about other things—about himself, about the forest dwellers, about how he moved here three years ago and lived like a hermit, not really befriending anyone. Anya felt there was some mystery behind it all, but she had her own secret, so she didn’t inquire further. Each of them had their own scars, no need for unnecessary questions. But she realized that she liked him. Maybe it had been too long since she had a man nearby, or maybe there really was a spark. And not just for her, because at parting, Bogdan said:
“Can I ask you something? Looks like I’ll be on crutches for a while, maybe you could take care of me?”
Just ten minutes earlier, he had spoken about how he disliked being dependent on anyone and how he managed various difficulties independently, so the request was quite ambiguous combined with his expressive looks.
“I’ll think about it,” Anya replied.
She didn’t think long—at night, instead of going to the sauna, she ran to him. His leg was tightly bandaged—a paramedic had come and said it was a sprain, fortunately not a fracture, but he still needed to be careful. He offered her tea, and that was all, though he looked at her in such a way that Anya blushed.
Instead of the forest, Anya now ran to him and was terribly angry when her son wouldn’t fall asleep. Before, she wasn’t irritated by such things—he would fall asleep eventually, what did it matter when to go for a walk. But now she so wanted to see Bogdan that every minute of delay seemed like an eternity.
They found much in common. Both had become widowed early (Bogdan told her his secret—they went hunting together with his wife, where she died in a foolish accident, but he blamed himself and couldn’t forgive himself), both were essentially loners, both loved long walks. With Bogdan, it was easy for her like with no one before. The only thing that overshadowed these best relationships of her life was Sergey. She just couldn’t admit to Bogdan that she wasn’t living here alone. At first, she didn’t think it would turn into anything serious, but then it was too late—how do you admit it after a month of relationship? Maybe he would have asked to visit her, but his injured leg saved the situation—he even got himself crutches somewhere, unable to step on his foot.
Her mother-in-law added fuel to the fire—calling almost every day and crying, offended that Anya had deprived her of her last joy in life. And uninvited thoughts appeared in Anya’s head—maybe, really, take him to grandma…
That day everything went awry—the porridge cooked for her son burned, and while Anya was taking the pot outside so it wouldn’t stink up the house, he managed to tear her favorite recipe book again. Then they sat down to draw, and Sergey started breaking pencils, and after breaking all, he demanded new ones. But there were no new ones—Anya had stocked up on pencils, telling the curious saleswoman that she was buying for a whole group of kindergarten children, but the supplies didn’t last long. And not getting his way, her son started to scream so loudly that Anya’s temples throbbed.
You are driving me crazy!” she yelled. “That’s it, I’m taking you to grandma’s, and you can live with her!”
She felt a weight lift off her shoulders. There was no need to make up anything or explain to Bogdan—she would simply take Sergey to her mother-in-law’s, and everyone would be satisfied.
After putting the recipe book out of reach, Anya went outside to wash the pot. Sergey was in the room—arranging his cars in parallel rows, which always took a long time, so she didn’t need to worry about him.
While Anya was busy with the pot, she thought about Bogdan. And later, as she burned trash in the sauna, throwing in the broken pencils. She was so lost in her dreams about her future life that she completely lost track of time. When she returned home and looked at the clock—it was time to cook lunch. Sergey would have his nap soon, which meant she could finally see Bogdan.
The soup was simmering on the stove when she sensed something was wrong—it was too quiet in the house, as if no one was there except for Anya. She checked the room—the cars were still in neat rows. But Sergey was gone.
“Come out now!” Anya demanded, feeling a cold sweat run down her back.
Sergey did not respond.
She searched all the usual hiding places, then thought to check his shoes and windbreaker. They were gone—neither the blue sneakers with anchors nor the bright yellow windbreaker were there.
Anya was shaken. Where could he have gone alone? She ran outside and screamed:
“Sergey!”
Silence. So silent that her ears began to ring.
She ran beyond the fence, squinting to try to spot the familiar yellow jacket. She dashed first one way, then another, loudly calling her son’s name, and completely lost her head out of fear. She was so distraught that she didn’t even recognize Bogdan, who was limping from a water column back to his house.
“Anya?” he was surprised. “What are you doing here?”
She was shaking and struggled to focus on his face.
“Sergey,” Anya whispered. “Sergey is missing.”
“Which Sergey?” Bogdan didn’t understand.
“My son…”
There was no time to think about his surprised and hurt look, but somewhere beneath the panic that gripped her, Anya noted that Bogdan might not forgive her. And she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had turned around and left, leaving Anya alone with her grief.
But Bogdan didn’t leave. He asked what the boy was wearing, what he looked like, where he usually played. When Anya confessed, lowering her eyes, that they only played in the forest behind the house, Bogdan shook his head and said:
“Well, then that’s where we need to look.”
Remembering her mother’s stories about bears, the panic overwhelmed Anya, so much that Bogdan had to shake her to bring her to her senses. After that, they went behind the house, into the forest, and found Sergey within ten minutes.
He was sitting on a fallen tree, holding a white mushroom.
“Look, mom, what I found,” he said calmly, as if he hadn’t gone anywhere without permission.
Anya rushed to her son, scooped him up in a hug, and burst into tears. He wriggled free—Sergey never tolerated her tears.
“I’ll bring it to grandma, as a gift. It’s a white mushroom. See—it has a brown cap. It’s a pity I don’t have a brown pencil anymore; I could have drawn the mushroom.”
Bogdan walked them home, waited while she fed Sergey the overcooked soup, more like porridge, and put him to bed. All this time, he sat on the porch, head bowed low, apparently contemplating whether to leave immediately without waiting for her pitiful explanations.
Anya didn’t hide anything. She told him about her husband, who had shown himself to be a terrible jealous man from the first days of their marriage, so much that she began to fear him, about the pills she took when she learned about the pregnancy—she didn’t dare have an abortion, Pasha would have killed her if he found out. About how her son was born—unlike anyone else, as if aliens had swapped him in his crib. How she went to doctors, trying to understand what was wrong with him, how a mustachioed geneticist with kind eyes told her they had some rare mutation.
“I didn’t tell Pasha, I was afraid he’d make me give him up. He always said that sick children should be in the hospital, better to have two new healthy ones. I didn’t tell my mom either—I was afraid she’d blab. But I think she figured it out on her own, without my explanations. And it’s hard not to understand—he’s big now, all the questions started. That’s why I moved here, away from the questions. You can’t imagine how tired I am of all those sideways looks in the hospital and at the playground… And it’s all my fault, I know!”
“You’re foolish,” Bogdan said, turned around, and left.
She didn’t stop him—she understood that he needed time. Maybe he could forgive her.
That same evening, she called her mother-in-law and told her everything. She had always been the same as Pasha—always grimacing if the conversation turned to sick children. Anya thought that now all those requests for her to give Sergey to her would end. But her mother-in-law said:
“Did I really think I hadn’t seen the kids? And I watch Malysheva—was it for nothing? Don’t worry—Pasha himself was a weird kid in childhood, and look, he turned out to be a good boy, right? Bring Sergey, I’ve missed him so much…”
Anya promised that they would definitely visit her for New Year’s. But Sergey would live with her. And her mother-in-law didn’t argue—they would come, and that was good enough, we’ll see after that.
Anya also apologized to her son. She told him that she loved him, that she was just very tired and upset. And that she never wanted to part with him because he was the best.
When there was a knock at the door, Anya flinched. Deep down, she hoped he would come—she waited for him the first day, the second, the third… Then she didn’t wait as much, though she continued to hope. More than a week had passed, and she could have stopped waiting, but she remembered his eyes and her reflection in them, and that didn’t allow her to erase the hope from her heart.
Of course, it was Bogdan at the doorstep. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning like in their last conversation. He was holding a box of colored pencils.
“Well,” he said. “Are you going to introduce me to your son?”
Anya sniffled, smiled at him.
“I will,” she whispered. “Come in…