When his mother got ready to leave again, Timka was twelve. She didn’t really explain anything, only said she’d been invited to teach—for just a couple of weeks. Everything will be fine, I’ll be back soon, you won’t even notice, she said. But her eyes darted around like a cat’s that knows it’s done something wrong.
They drove in silence. The car rattled along the rutted village road, dust hanging in a column. Timka looked out the window, waiting for his mother to say something tender, to promise she’d return, like she always did. Instead, she pulled up by an old log house with a sagging fence and killed the engine.
“Sit here a bit. Your great-grandfather will come out,” she said without looking at him.
“And you?”
“I’ll go… but just for a couple of weeks, Timosh, honestly.”
She jumped out of the car as if scalded and rushed into the house. A couple of minutes later an old man came out—tall and lean as a pole, with deep-set eyes. Great-grandfather. Timka hardly knew him—he’d seen him a couple of times in photos and heard the stories of how he’d spent his whole life in the village, working the land. The old man walked up and stood by the car.
“That’s it, Mikhail Savelyevich, I’m off. I’ll pick him up in a couple of weeks. Just keep an eye on him…” his mother said, turning away at once.
“Go on,” the old man said curtly, then opened the back door and looked at Timka. “Out you get.”
Timka slid off the seat, grabbed his backpack, and stepped into the dusty grass. The car lurched forward at once, throwing up clouds of dust. He didn’t remember whether his mother kissed him goodbye. Probably not. She just waved a hand and drove off. And the great-grandfather turned and headed for the house without even looking back—as if this was exactly how it was supposed to be.
The first morning in the village began before dawn. The old man knocked on the door and said sternly:
“Up. Time.”
Timka tried to open his eyes, but it was dark and cool. He pulled the blanket over himself like armor. Then he heard the door clap—the old man had gone out into the yard. He had to get up.
They washed with icy water from the well. Timka’s teeth clenched; his hands went numb, and the great-grandfather only grunted:
“Wake the body—wake the mind.”
Then came the chickens, the goat, the vegetable patch. Task after task, without a break. Timka got mixed up, complained, fell, skinned his hands till they bled. But the old man never raised his voice. He simply showed him how to do it. Once. And after that—watch and learn.
At midday, when the sun scorched the ground, the great-grandfather sat on the porch and lit a hand-rolled cigarette.
“You’re probably thinking—what’s the point of all this? In the city there’s TV, internet, cartoons… And here it’s a cow and a shovel. Don’t think. Do. The earth doesn’t suffer fools. Laziness is a plague; it rots the soul.”
The days flowed one after another. His mother didn’t call. Didn’t write. At first Timka waited. Then he just kept quiet. In the evenings he sat on the bench by the wall and looked at the sky, which in the village was enormous. So big it made his heart stop. He wondered—what if she never came back?
One day he asked the old man:
“Grandpa, will she definitely come?”
The old man smoked, staring at the sky in silence, then said:
“Don’t wait. Live.”
The old man taught without words. How to press a plantain leaf to a wound. How to heat the stove so it wouldn’t smoke. How to catch fish without a rod—by hand in a side channel. How to read rain by the smell of the air. He didn’t praise, didn’t pat him on the head, but every time Timka did something right, a spark lit in his eyes—and that was enough.
Timka grew stronger. His hands grew calloused, rough. He stopped complaining. In the morning he got up by himself and washed at the well. He could kill a chicken, clean a fish, haul water from the well. There were no holidays in the village, no gifts. But every morning felt like the start of something real. And every evening’s silence was like a prayer.
The letter came two months later. A yellowed envelope, smeared handwriting.
The great-grandfather read it silently, then folded it carefully.
“Your mother’s in the hospital. Nerves, they said. She won’t be up any time soon.”
Timka lowered his head. His throat tightened. But there were no tears.
The old man laid a hand on his shoulder.
“That’s life, Timofey. Sometimes parents don’t know how to be parents. But you—make sure you become a man. Don’t grow bitter.”
Summer passed. Then autumn. The school was in the next village. Timka walked there through the forest—four kilometers there and back. His great-grandfather met him at the gate. In winter—with a lantern. In spring—with tea on the porch.
One day Timka came home with a bruise under his eye.
“A fight?”
“Uh-huh. Someone called me a ‘throwaway.’”
The old man looked at him for a long time, then said:
“Those who hit with words are weaker than a fist. But sometimes you have to answer. Just not with malice. With fairness.”
One evening they sat by the stove. The old man was peeling potatoes; Timka was reading aloud. Suddenly the old man paused and said quietly:
“You’ve become a man, Timofey.”
“I’m just living the way you do.”
“And I—like my grandfather did. Everything goes in a circle. The important thing is not to lose your conscience in that circle. You haven’t lost it.”
In the spring, almost a year later, a car stopped by the house. A woman stepped out. Her high heels sank into the wet ground. She knocked at the gate. Timka stood by the shed, a bucket of manure in his hands.
“Timosha!” she exclaimed, as if she’d left yesterday and everything was fine.
He set the bucket down and walked over slowly.
“You’ve come?”
“Yes, I want to take you with me… You can’t imagine how hard it’s been… I’ll take you, all right? Let’s go home.”
Timka looked at her. At her hands with the perfect manicure. At the eyes where deception and fatigue lurked. At the lips unaccustomed to speaking the truth.
“I’m already home,” he said quietly.
His mother faltered.
“But you’re my son and you have to…”
“And he’s my grandfather,” Timka nodded toward the great-grandfather.
The old man came out of the house, adjusting his cap. He looked on calmly, as always. Without anger, without reproach.
“Can he stay?” the woman asked, her voice trembling slightly.
“It’s his choice,” the old man said.
Timka stayed. He went to school and did the chores. He learned to plow, to do carpentry, to build. And years later he himself became someone people in the district respected. Not for his last name. For his spirit.
He buried his great-grandfather himself. He didn’t cry; he just held that dry, strong hand—the one that taught in silence. The hand that held all the love that doesn’t shout, but simply lives.
And on the shelf in the room, an old photograph remained. A boy and an old man. Against the backdrop of the village. No smiles, but the truth.
And in Timka’s heart there lived one phrase, which he later passed on to his own son:
“Not everyone who gives birth is a parent. And not everyone who stands beside you is a stranger. Family is the one who holds your hand when you’re standing on the edge.”