“So you’re choosing your pride over our family?” Marina slammed the medical report down on the table.
“How lovely—now you’re going to blackmail me?” Viktor smirked. “Very original.”
“Vitya, it’s just a procedure! Millions of couples do it!”
“Millions of idiots jump off bridges—should I jump too?”
Three months earlier, Marina sat in the doctor’s office, trying not to show how her hands were shaking. She and Viktor had been trying to have a baby for six months, and month after month the test showed a single line. Fears crept in—what if something was wrong with her? What if she would never become a mother? Family had always been her dream, and the thought of childlessness scared her more than any illness.
Viktor tapped his fingers on the armrest; from his face it was clear he was just as nervous, only hiding it behind a show of calm.
“Azoospermia,” the doctor said. “A complete absence of sperm. A congenital condition.”
Marina blinked, not immediately grasping the meaning of the words. But she understood from her husband’s face—the news was bad. Very bad.
Viktor turned pale and slumped back in his chair as if he’d been struck. One thought pounded in his head: “Not a real man. You’re not a real man.” All these months he had secretly blamed his wife for the lack of pregnancy, and it turned out the problem was him. And now Marina knew the truth. She knew he wasn’t like other men.
“Can it be treated?” Marina squeezed her husband’s hand.
She didn’t yet fully grasp the scope of the problem, but she was already imagining how she would explain the delay with grandchildren to her parents. How she would fend off questions from friends who were going on maternity leave one after another.
“Unfortunately, no,” the doctor shook his head. “The seminiferous tubules didn’t develop properly. This occurs in about one percent of men; the causes aren’t fully understood. I understand how hard this is for a young family…”
He paused, looking at Marina’s bewildered face.
“But there’s IVF with donor sperm. It’s a completely safe procedure that gives a woman the chance to bear a healthy child.”
Marina clung to those words like a life buoy. So not everything was lost! She could still become a mother!
Viktor, at that moment, was seized by such a surge of anger that he barely restrained himself from getting up and walking out right then and there. This doctor was calmly suggesting his wife get pregnant by another man! And speaking as if it were the most ordinary thing!
“The success rate for IVF reaches about forty percent on the first attempt,” the doctor went on. “Many couples choose this path. The child will be genetically related to the mother, and you’ll raise the child together…”
“Thanks, we’ll think about it,” Viktor stood up abruptly.
The doctor’s words hit the sorest spot—his manhood. So any random man could give his wife what he could not. And now he was being told to accept it—and even be happy about it!
“Vitya, wait!”
Marina didn’t understand why her husband reacted so sharply. The doctor had offered a way out! A way for her to have a child!
“What is there to think about? Someone else’s child isn’t my child. Period.”
The doctor watched the family scene with professional sympathy—he had seen many such conversations. Men almost always took it hard.
“Vitya, we wanted a family!” Marina tried to hold him by the sleeve. “I want to give birth! It’s not working with you, but there’s another way!”
“Another way?” Viktor turned to her. “You want me to raise another man’s child? To look at him every day and remember that I’m defective?”
“No! I want us to have a family!”
“Then go to that doctor and let him pick a donor for you! Maybe a handsome, smart, athletic one—everything your husband isn’t!”
The doctor discreetly cleared his throat:
“I understand the news is shocking. Take time to think it over. And remember”—he addressed Marina directly—“the decision is always yours. For both of you.”
“Let’s get out of here!” Viktor grabbed his wife’s hand and practically dragged her out of the office.
On the way home Marina tried to calm her husband:
“Vitya, I know this is hard… But we’ll get through it! The important thing is that I can carry a child!”
“Not from me.”
“But I’ll be the one raising the child! And you too! He’ll be ours in how we bring him up!”
“Be quiet,” Viktor stared out the car window. “Just be quiet.”
And Marina fell silent, realizing that any words now would only make things worse.
That evening, Viktor’s mother, Elena Pavlovna, came over. Marina was setting the table and silently thanking fate that there was someone who could influence her stubborn son. An hour earlier she had called her mother-in-law and told her about the diagnosis—Viktor himself had allowed it, saying, “Call whoever you want; sooner or later everyone will find out anyway.”
“Mom, spare me your advice,” Viktor opened a bottle of wine with trembling hands. He filled his glass to the brim and tossed it back.
“Son, Marina is right. The child she carries will be yours in how you raise him.”
When Marina had phoned a couple of hours earlier and haltingly explained, Elena Pavlovna sank into a chair, unable to believe what she’d heard. Her boy would never be able to become a father! For the first few minutes there was only chaos in her head and pity for her son.
But when the shock passed, she began to think clearly. Marina was a young woman who dreamed of children. Elena remembered how, in her own youth, she had longed for motherhood, for cradling babies and teaching their first words. If Marina were deprived of that, she would likely not stay in the marriage. Which meant her son would lose his beloved wife and still end up without a family.
“Perfect! Now even my own mother is against me,” Viktor set his glass down so sharply that wine splashed onto the tablecloth. “Shall we put it to a vote? And you told her everything! What next, announce my problems to the whole town?”
“Vitya, I asked your permission! You yourself said—call!” Marina looked at him, flustered.
“Vitya, stop working yourself up!” Marina slapped her palm on the table.
She felt sorry for her husband, but his behavior frightened her. She had never seen such lack of restraint in him.
“What else am I supposed to do? You conspired!”
“We want your happiness,” Elena Pavlovna shook her head.
She understood: her son’s happiness lay in having a family. And a family was impossible without children—at least for Marina. If her daughter-in-law refused motherhood, sooner or later she would leave for someone who could give her a child.
“My happiness is not being forced to raise other people’s children!” Viktor jumped up from the table. “You want a child, Marina? Go cheat on me! Put horns on me and give birth! Why the hassle with donors and hospitals?”
“Viktor!” Elena Pavlovna gasped.
“Mom, don’t pretend! You understand perfectly well—what’s the difference, IVF or cheating? The result’s the same—someone else’s child!”
Marina turned pale and looked away. The conversation was taking a terrible turn, and her husband clearly needed time to swallow the blow to his pride.
“Vitya, this isn’t the time for such talk. You’re upset…”
“Upset?” Viktor laughed. “I’m thrilled to learn I’m not a real man!”
Three months passed. Marina met her sister Anya in a café—she desperately needed support and advice. The talk with her husband and mother-in-law had changed nothing, and time was passing.
“He’s just a stubborn ass!” Marina twisted a napkin in her hands.
“Maybe he needs time?” Anya looked at her sister, at a loss.
When Marina told her about Viktor’s diagnosis, Anya was silent for a long time, not knowing what to say. The situation seemed hopeless.
“Three months have gone by! He refuses even to discuss it!” Marina sobbed. “He takes any attempt to talk as a personal insult! I’m afraid to even mention children!”
“Call Seryozha, he’s his friend. Let him talk to him.”
Anya remembered how a year ago she herself had had a conflict with her husband, and it was a conversation with her best friend that helped find a way out.
“Do you think it’ll help?” Marina hesitated.
Taking problems outside the home had always seemed wrong to her.
“It’s worth a try. Maybe a man-to-man talk is what he needs. Sergey can support him and at the same time explain that you’re not the enemy.”
Marina nodded. In the end, if a friend could influence Viktor and persuade him to agree to IVF, it would be worth it.
A few days later Sergey came to see Viktor at work. They sat in a conference room.
“Vityok, don’t be mad at me or at Marina. She told me about your problem. I get how hard it is, but you have to go on living. Look at the situation soberly.”
“Marina had no right!” Viktor swung around to his friend. “And anyway, let me be clear—I’m not raising someone else’s kid! Seryoga, understand: Marina can’t get pregnant from me. Nature’s been cruel to me, but that’s reality. No!” Viktor slammed his fist on the table. “No other people’s children!”
“But you love your wife. Think about that.”
“There’s nothing to think about. My decision is final.”
“Vityok, you’re a fool.”
“Oh, join the chorus? Maybe I should post an ad: ‘Help convince an idiot’?”
“Marina loves you. She wants a family.”
“She can want whatever she likes. I want a lot too. For example, for everyone to leave me alone,” he says this because he’s tired of pressure from those around him. He feels everyone is trying to force their opinion on him, ignoring his own feelings and fears.
“You’ll lose her,” Sergey sees that his friend’s stubbornness will destroy the marriage. He understands that Marina won’t accept giving up motherhood, and that will be the end of their relationship.
“Wonderful logic! Either other people’s children or divorce. Bravo!” Viktor has come to this conclusion himself, analyzing the situation. In his mind there are no compromises—he sees only two extreme options for how this can go.
“That’s your choice, not hers,” Sergey stands up for Marina, because he understands: she’s ready for any path to creating a family, while Viktor flatly refuses to meet her halfway.
“No, Seryoga, it’s all of you who want to make the choice for me!” He believes those around him are trying to force a decision that goes against his convictions.
Sergey realized there was no point in continuing.
“All right, let’s talk work.”
“I don’t care.” Viktor stood up. “Bye.”
Marina insisted on a family council—she wanted support from her husband’s relatives, hoping they could help change his mind. Deep down she was preparing the ground for a final decision: if even Viktor’s parents couldn’t persuade him, then further struggle was pointless. Viktor’s parents came, and Anya as well.
“Son, come to your senses,” Viktor’s father, Pavel Nikolaevich, said quietly. “Marina is a good girl,”—he used the phrase “come to your senses” because he considers his son’s decision irrational and destructive.
“Dad, at least you stay out of it!”
“Vitya, why are you so selfish?” Anya asked gently.
“Oh, my wife’s sister has an opinion too! Let’s invite the neighbors while we’re at it!” Viktor is angry that his private life has become a topic for discussion. Marina watches in silence, trying to find a way to soften the conflict, but she understands that her husband is in an extremely aggressive mood.
“VIKTOR!” Marina tried to speak gently but snapped. “Stop mocking everyone!”—for her, “mocking” means his contemptuous attitude toward people who are sincerely trying to help.
“I’m mocking them? You’ve all turned this into a trial!” He decided it was a trial, not a search for a solution, because everyone present was arguing against his position.
“We’re trying to help!” his mother was shocked by what her son said. She looked at him with pain and incomprehension, disappointed by what he had become.
“You know what? To hell with all of you! My life—my rules!” Viktor doesn’t want to discuss the problem because he’s afraid to admit his own fears. He believes this concerns only him, ignoring his wife’s rights. He blames Marina for organizing the meeting and plans simply to wait everyone out until they leave him alone.
Viktor slammed the door. Marina covered her face with her hands.
“Don’t worry, dear,” said her mother-in-law. “He’s just confused.”
“Our son is upset,” added Pavel Nikolaevich. “It’s a stress reaction.”
When her husband’s parents left, Anya hugged her sister:
“Marina, your husband is a backward, possessive man. He’s just pathologically jealous.”
For two days Marina and Viktor didn’t speak—she decided not to provoke a quarrel, hoping her husband would say something, anything, but he moved around the house like a stranger and even cooked for himself.
Finally Marina made up her mind and began packing—she had concluded that living together had become unbearable.
“Where are you going?” Viktor noticed what she was doing out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t even look up from his laptop. At that moment he despised his wife, because he considered her weak. He had plenty of fantasies about how she would now surely go looking for a man who could give her a child. Viktor was convinced that as a husband he no longer satisfied her, and that humiliated his male pride.
“To Anya’s. I can’t be around you anymore,” she couldn’t—because the atmosphere in the house had become toxic.
“The blackmail continues? Cute,” he decided it was blackmail because he couldn’t believe his wife was truly ready to leave him.
“It’s not blackmail. It’s the end,” Marina was talking about the end of their marriage.
“How dramatic. No Oscar for this performance,” he tried to jab at his wife to protect himself from the pain.
“You know what? You’re right. Other people’s children are awful. But living with you is worse!” Marina reached that conclusion after sleepless nights. She had considered giving up on children, but then remembered how Viktor had accused her of cheating with her colleague Andrey just because he expressed sympathy. She realized her husband was pathologically jealous, and his refusal to have children was just an attempt to control her life completely. The main thing—she understood that her husband didn’t love her.
“The door’s right where it’s always been,” Viktor didn’t try to stop her because he wanted to show he didn’t care, hoping she would be the first to give in.
Marina left, closing the door quietly behind her.
Six months passed. Viktor sat at a bar with Sergey.
“She filed for divorce,” Viktor rolled a glass of whiskey between his fingers. He thought of the divorce bitterly, yet still considered himself in the right.
“What did you expect?”
“That she’d come to her senses. Understand I was right,” he believed in his own rightness, convinced that a man isn’t obliged to raise someone else’s child—that it goes against nature.
“Vityok, you’re an idiot.”
“Thanks for the support, friend!”
“She’s pregnant,” Sergey said it to show that Marina had found a way to be happy without Viktor.
Viktor froze—shock and rage surged through him, and he thought of betrayal.
“What? How?”
“She did IVF. Without you.”
“She had no right!” he decided that because he still considered Marina his property. Viktor boiled with anger, accusing her of treachery.
“She did. You’ve practically been divorced for a long time,” Sergey, inwardly, was glad for Marina—she’d managed to fulfill her dream.
“That’s betrayal! She left me at a hard moment! Promised to be with me always, but her female instincts turned out stronger! And anyway, what IVF—it’s obvious she just slept with someone!”
Sergey looked at his friend with disgust. Viktor had finally shown his true face.
After talking with Sergey, Viktor rushed to his former sister-in-law’s—with every step up the stairs he was thinking how he would demand explanations and force Marina to come back.
Marina opened the door.
“How could you?!” he accused her at once, because he saw himself as the injured party.
“Leave, Viktor.”
“It’s my child too!” he decided that because he couldn’t accept the idea that Marina could live without him.
“Since when?” Marina was genuinely surprised by the claim. “You said you don’t need other people’s children,” she didn’t want to continue the conversation, because she was afraid to trust his sudden change of heart.
Elena Pavlovna appeared behind Marina. Seeing his mother, Viktor thought of betrayal by the people closest to him.
“Son, go home. You destroyed everything yourself,” his former mother-in-law believed her son had brought the situation to this end.
“Mom? You’re here?” Viktor was shocked that his mother had taken his ex-wife’s side.
“I’m going to help Marina. And you… you made your choice,” she decided that because she saw in Marina a daughter who needed support.
“It’s a conspiracy!”
“No, Vitya. It’s the consequence of your selfishness,” Marina closed the door.
Standing in front of the closed door, Viktor thought that everyone had betrayed him. He saw himself as a victim of circumstances.
Elena Pavlovna didn’t abandon Marina, because over those months she realized: her son’s divorce didn’t cancel her own feelings for the girl who had become close to her. She also blamed herself for not supporting Marina enough in the conflict with Viktor. By becoming the child’s godmother, she felt she was correcting her mistake.
Pavel Nikolaevich came for the same reason—he had sincerely come to love Marina like a daughter and had no intention of losing her because of his son’s stubbornness. For him, family was defined not by a stamp in a passport, but by human relationships.
Viktor stood in the maternity ward corridor, where he’d come after his mother’s call. The day before, Elena Pavlovna had told him Marina had given birth to a daughter, hoping it would change him. He hadn’t planned to go into the room—he just wanted to see them from afar.
Thinking that he had remained behind the glass forever, Viktor meant his own choice. He had cut off his way back to the family when he laid down an ultimatum and wouldn’t budge even after the divorce. Now his parents had chosen Marina and her daughter, and he had become a stranger.
Shame and pride kept him from approaching Marina. Shame for what he had done—and pride that wouldn’t let him admit his mistake. He understood that after everything he’d said, he had no right to ask for forgiveness.
In the empty apartment Viktor wandered through the rooms where Marina had once lived. Her things had long since disappeared, but he mentally restored where everything had stood. He thought about how he had gotten exactly what he wanted—complete independence from “other people’s” problems. Only now he understood the price of that independence.
He didn’t pity himself and he didn’t hate himself—he simply grasped the scale of the loss. Viktor realized that his principled stand had turned into emptiness. He had feared responsibility for another man’s child, and in the end he was left without a family of his own and lost his parents’ respect.
Little Sofia truly became family to all the Vinogradovs, except for the one who had been so afraid that blood ties mattered more than love. Now he sat alone, thinking that a family is made not by genes.