After divorcing his wife, Rodion moved to the other side of the country. He said it would be easier that way to start over, and besides, he had been offered a decent job with good prospects.
“Well, I’ll call you, kids!” he told the children when he came to say goodbye. “And later you can come visit me! We’ll have fun.”
Asya and Gosha were, of course, upset. It hurt them that their father would now live so far away. But their parent seemed not to understand that at all. He was in a hurry to leave, eager to run off and begin his new life.
Rodion paid child support. But he soon reduced the amount by submitting a certificate showing that his income had dropped. On paper, everything looked legal and even believable. The only thing was, he hid the fact that part of his salary was paid under the table. Valeria, his ex-wife, did not argue. She did not want to dig around in that mess, so she let Rodion go without making any further claims.
Sometimes he called the children, but the conversations were formal. He asked how they were doing at school and whether they were behaving well. But it never went beyond that. He was not truly interested in what Asya and Gosha were living through. He did what he considered the bare minimum. Valeria did not demand anything more either. After the divorce, she simply tried to move on with her life.
From time to time, Valentina Ivanovna, Rodion’s mother, would come to visit. She was not a perfect person, but she loved her grandchildren and always brought them little surprises and gifts.
“Come here, my darlings,” she would call from the doorway.
“Grandma!” the children would shout, immediately running to hug her.
She was kind to them, and it was clear that after her son’s departure, she still needed a family around her.
Asya and Gosha saw their grandmother not very often, but still more often than they saw their father. Valeria and Valentina Ivanovna had a decent relationship. They even tried to help each other, but neither of them forgot that they were not blood relatives. Besides, Valeria still carried some bitterness from the divorce, and her former mother-in-law remained, after all, the mother of her ex-husband.
During one of her visits, Valentina Ivanovna went straight to the kitchen as usual. She had brought a cake and some other sweets. When she decided to wash her hands, she turned on the tap. It gave a quiet hiss, and then water began to seep out from underneath it.
“Oh my, has it been like this for long?” she asked Valeria.
“It’s been leaking a little… I really should call a plumber.”
“Then call one!”
“When?” Valeria sighed. “I’m at work during the day. And in the evening, you can’t get anyone from the management company to come.”
Suddenly Valentina Ivanovna brightened.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so? I’ll send Kostya to you! My nephew. If that tap bursts, you’ll flood all the neighbors! Paying compensation won’t be cheap!”
The next evening, someone rang the doorbell. When Valeria opened it, she saw a man standing on the threshold. He was tall, neatly dressed, and had a charming smile.
“Hello. I’m Konstantin… Aunt Valya said you needed some help.”
Valeria felt a little confused, but she nodded toward the hallway.
“Come in…”
She tried to remember his face. It seemed he had been at her and Rodion’s wedding. He must have been, because her mother-in-law had invited relatives from every possible branch of the family tree. They had probably met before, but Valeria did not dare address him too informally. She led him to the kitchen and, slightly embarrassed, asked:
“So… are you a plumber?”
Konstantin suddenly laughed.
“No, actually, I’m a design engineer. I just know how to fix a few things with my hands.”
Valeria immediately blushed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I just thought…”
“It’s all right,” he smiled. “Show me the tap.”
He quickly figured out the problem. Valeria took out some money.
“Thank you very much. Please, take this.”
He immediately shook his head and laughed again.
“No need. I told you, I’m not a plumber.”
Valeria hesitated. The situation had become twice as awkward. She no longer knew how to get out of it.
“Then maybe some tea? I was just about to make pancakes.”
Konstantin nodded. To be honest, he was so pleasant that Valeria became even more nervous.
“I definitely won’t refuse pancakes.”
Valeria smiled back at him. Inside, she felt a strange warmth she had not felt in a very long time.
Valeria herself did not notice how everything began to unfold. She made no plans, did not think about the future, and did not imagine herself in a new relationship. It was simply calm and easy to be around Konstantin.
They could sit in the kitchen and talk about everything under the sun, losing track of time as the hours slipped by. As it turned out, Konstantin and Valeria shared many interests. They loved the same movies, the same books, and listened to the same music. As for their personalities, they complemented each other so naturally that it felt as if they were two perfectly matching pieces of a puzzle.
The children also quickly became attached to their second cousin.
“Uncle Kostya, is it true you can fix everything?” Gosha asked.
“Almost everything!” he smiled. “I can teach you too, champ!”
“Of course I want to learn! Asya is always breaking things anyway.”
Valeria did not rush anything. It was enough for her to have what they had in that moment. She was not planning to get married again just because she was swept up in a wave of affection. Her marriage to Rodion had taught her to look more carefully at people.
But one day, something happened that shook Valeria for a while and, at the same time, made her true feelings clear.
This time, Valentina Ivanovna did not announce her visit. She simply arrived. The children opened the door. The woman took off her shoes and went into the room.
“Lerochka, I just…” she began, then suddenly stopped.
Konstantin was standing in the room. She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“Kostya? What are you doing here?”
A pause hung in the air. Valeria could not think of what to say.
“Did something break again, Lera?” Valentina Ivanovna asked suspiciously.
“No, Aunt Valya. Everything is working exactly as it should,” Konstantin answered calmly.
“Then what are you doing here?”
Valeria turned crimson, and the words stuck in her throat. So Konstantin said it himself.
“I just came to have tea with the woman I love.”
Valentina Ivanovna turned pale. She clutched at her heart and sank into an armchair. Valeria rushed toward her former mother-in-law, but the woman waved her away. Hysteria was beginning to take over.
“How could you? How could you even dare?” she cried indignantly.
The news literally knocked the ground out from under Valentina Ivanovna’s feet. After the first wave of anger, she began pacing around the room, pressing her hands to her chest and quietly sobbing.
“Kostya! How could you? She is your brother’s wife!”
Konstantin only smirked.
“First of all, he is my cousin.”
“What difference does that make?”
“A big one,” he shrugged. “And second, Rodion left her. He abandoned her with the children. He moved to the other side of the country. What are you even talking about?”
“But this is… this is…” Valentina Ivanovna began to stammer from anger.
“In short, I don’t see any problem, Aunt Valya.”
She understood everything. It would be difficult to get through to Kostya. So she decided to put pressure on Valeria instead. The next day, she called her former daughter-in-law.
“Lera, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she began. “He is Rodion’s brother! How could such a thing even come into your head? What a disgrace… What will the relatives say?”
“Valentina Ivanovna, after your husband died, didn’t you get married a second time?”
Valentina Ivanovna became even angrier.
“That… that is not the same thing! And Igor wasn’t related to Rodion’s father!” she protested.
“What difference does it make? Kostya is a good man. He loves me. He loves Asya and Gosha too. What do you want from me?”
“There! Asya and Gosha!” her former mother-in-law seized on the words. “What kind of example are you setting for them? That betrayal is acceptable? That people can do such unhealthy things?”
Valeria sighed.
“And what kind of example did your Rodion set for them? Was that a good one?”
Valentina Ivanovna realized that those two had become so bold that there was no reaching them. Then, as it seemed to her, only one right idea came to mind. She decided to call Rodion.
“Yes, Mom?” he answered fairly quickly.
“Can you imagine what is happening in your family?” she immediately started shouting. “Your Lera has started an affair with your brother!”
For the next five minutes, the woman told her son everything in a confused rush, raising her voice more and more. But instead of the reaction she expected, Rodion laughed.
“Mom, what do you want from me?”
“Come here!” Valentina Ivanovna ordered. “Come and put an end to this horror!”
He chuckled again.
“Mom, do you think I have nothing better to do?”
“But this is your family!”
Rodion tried to make his tone sound more serious, although his mother’s outrage had genuinely amused him.
“No… It isn’t my family anymore. My family is here,” he said calmly.
Valentina Ivanovna froze.
“What do you mean?”
“I was actually going to tell you, Mom,” he added almost casually. “I’m getting married in April to a wonderful woman. Her name is Alina… But don’t come. It’s expensive.”
But Valentina Ivanovna was no longer listening. She threw down the phone.
“Oh Lord…” she whispered. “What kind of morals are these? Where is this world heading?”
For about two weeks, Valentina Ivanovna could not collect her thoughts. Everything that had happened shocked her so much that she found it difficult to understand how to live with it. But eventually, the pieces fell into place. The woman reasoned that her former daughter-in-law, after all, was more honest and more worthy of her attention. She was raising two children, while Rodion had truly abandoned them all and was shamelessly building a new life for himself.
Valentina Ivanovna still could not fully accept Valeria’s choice for a long time, but deep down, she understood that Valeria also deserved happiness. Without ever formally blessing the relationship between her former daughter-in-law and her nephew, she began visiting her grandchildren again. And only after seeing that no one in their family condemned the union did the woman finally come to terms with it — and even attended Valeria and Kostya’s wedding.
As for her own son’s wedding, she was never invited.