Mom, can Anechka stay with you for a week? Tanya and I need to go to her city to sort out some paperwork. Maybe we’ll put the apartment up for sale at the same time.”
Nadezhda Ivanovna tore herself away from her mug of tea and looked sternly at her son.
“Why aren’t you taking her with you?”
“Well… What would she do in those offices? Just notaries and realtors. And you’ve got fresh air here, a vegetable garden. It’ll be better for her.”
“Then why are you going?” Nadezhda Ivanovna remarked dryly, already sensing where the conversation was heading. “Tanya could get everything done on her own.”
“Mom, Tanya doesn’t understand any of that. She needs help. And the two of us will sort everything out faster.”
Nadezhda Ivanovna stayed silent. She knew it was pointless to argue with her son. She rarely quarreled with Vitaly; she didn’t want him to feel guilty. But the thought of being left alone with a nine-year-old girl for a whole week worried her.
Anya was, of course, calm and well-mannered. But she wasn’t her own. Vitaly had married Tatyana two years ago and had accepted her daughter as his own. Good for him, of course. But to Nadezhda Ivanovna, the girl was still a stranger.
“Mom, you understand I really need this. Anya’s quiet, she won’t tire you out at all. You just have to take her to school and pick her up.”
It wasn’t the first time her son had said such things. But Nadezhda Ivanovna knew: there is always more trouble with a child than it seems. She already had plenty to do—garden beds, canning… everything was on her.
“All right,” she exhaled, looking at her son. “Bring your Anechka. But I’m warning you—she’d better not complain about the chores. I won’t be playing games with her.”
Vitaly smiled.
“Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”
Nadezhda Ivanovna just waved a hand. “The best”… And then that girl would come and mess up her whole schedule. Just wait and see.
“Fine,” Nadezhda Ivanovna agreed reluctantly. “But let Anya understand right away: this is not a resort. She’ll be helping. And I’m not going to wait on her.”
“Of course, Mom,” Vitalik replied, as if reassuring himself.
On the weekend they all came out to the dacha together. When she heard the sound of the car pulling up, Nadezhda Ivanovna didn’t even go outside. She stood at the window and watched Vitalik pull a suitcase out of the trunk while Tatyana helped Anechka climb out of the car. The child clutched her backpack as if it held her last treasures.
“Skinny,” Nadezhda Ivanovna muttered under her breath. “Clearly, they don’t feed her at all.”
“Thank you so much,” Tatyana was the first to come up. “You’re helping us out a lot.”
“What choice do I have?” Nadezhda Ivanovna grumbled, not looking her daughter-in-law in the eye.
Anya stood by her mother the whole time, not stepping away from her even for a second. She looked frightened, as if she were ready to run away at the first opportunity.
“Mom, I’ll be back soon,” Tatyana said gently and hugged her daughter.
“Don’t leave me,” the girl whispered, burying her nose in her mother’s jacket.
The tears on her face made Nadezhda Ivanovna feel a pang of guilt. She wasn’t some sort of monster. Why was the child so terrified?
“Come on now, stop it,” she said, trying to make her voice sound softer. “Everything will be fine. Your mommy will be back soon.”
Getting into the car, Tatyana turned around once more. Worry was written in her eyes.
“Maybe we should go back for her?” she suggested to Vitalik when they had reached the highway.
“Tanya, don’t start with the hysterics,” he cut her off. “Mom will cope. Anya is a well-brought-up girl. Nothing will happen to her.”
“Yes, but… she’s not really her grandmother,” Tatyana wouldn’t let it go. “I know how your mother feels about her. She’s not angry, of course, but there’s no love there either.”
“Mom is just strict,” Vitaly tried to explain. “She has everything clearly laid out: duties, order. It’s fine, Anya will settle in.”
Meanwhile, back at the dacha, Nadezhda Ivanovna was already setting the table. She had cooked soup the day before, specially for the girl.
“Eat,” she said, pushing the plate toward Anya. “Take some bread. We’re not in the city here; we don’t just sip soup without bread.”
Anya obediently picked up the spoon but ate slowly, in tiny sips.
“Don’t sit staring over your plate,” Nadezhda Ivanovna added sternly. “You need to get used to things quickly. I’ve got a lot of work to do here.”
The girl nodded silently, and Nadezhda Ivanovna thought how hard it really was to get used to someone else’s child.
“We’ll finish lunch now,” Nadezhda Ivanovna said, trying at least somehow to ease the tension, “and then we’ll go pick raspberries. Do you like raspberries?”
“I do,” Anya answered quietly, without raising her eyes from the plate.
“Well, perfect. We’ll pick some, then we’ll make pancakes and eat them with raspberries.”
Anya nodded, but her face was still tense. She ate silently, in a strange way, as if she didn’t feel either taste or smell. It didn’t look like the usual behavior of a child. Typically, children, even quiet ones, always chatter, get distracted, but this girl… it was as if she had simply set herself a task—to complete the required action and that was it.
Nadezhda Ivanovna noticed this but said nothing. At some point, she even felt a little sorry for Anya. Why was it like this? Why did she keep so quiet, not rejoicing like other children? She was only nine, and yet she looked as if she already knew everything. Or didn’t want to know.
“Will you help me make pancakes?” she asked.
Anya raised her head but didn’t meet her gaze.
“I don’t know how,” the girl said, as if it were the most natural thing.
“That’s okay, I’ll teach you. And tomorrow you can show them how you can cook. You’ll surprise Vitalik and your mom.”
At the word “mom,” Anya flinched slightly. A tiny movement impossible to hide. But what struck Nadezhda Ivanovna most was that the girl clearly wanted to ask something but didn’t dare. Strange.
“What do you and your mom usually cook?” Nadezhda Ivanovna asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Mom usually cooks by herself…” Anya paused for a second, then added, “She only taught me how to fry eggs.”*
“Oh, then we’ll get plenty of practice this week! Afterwards you can give them a cooking master class!” Nadezhda Ivanovna smiled.
Anya looked at her, and something indistinct flashed in her eyes. Perhaps doubt. Perhaps gratitude. But she probably didn’t even know what to do with all of it. Far too many complicated questions for a girl who should only be playing and dreaming. But, alas, life doesn’t always give you a chance to be a child, does it?
“What are you thinking, bursting into tears?!” Nadezhda Ivanovna asked in fright when she saw the girl suddenly freeze with eyes full of tears. “Did I say something to hurt you?”
Anya shook her head, as if there were no words at all, and, unable to hold back, buried her face in “grandma’s” chest, as if she really were her own. And then it all broke loose. She cried for a long time, quietly, almost without sound.
Nadezhda Ivanovna was taken aback, not knowing what to do. She wasn’t even used to being alone with children. But now there was no time for shyness—she had to understand what was going on.
“There now, what is it?” she began, rocking the girl gently. “Everything will be all right, don’t cry.”
Anya kept sobbing, but after a couple of minutes her voice grew a little quieter.
“I’m afraid my mom has left me,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
Nadezhda Ivanovna froze. Was it really because she was here at the dacha and her mom wasn’t around? For a long time she couldn’t find the right words.
“What are you saying!” the woman threw up her hands. “What kind of mother would abandon her child?! They’ve gone away on business, and leaving you with your grandmother is not a punishment! It’s good here, thank God. Look at these apples, at this grass! Tomorrow we’ll go swimming, and in a week your mom will be back, everything will be fine!”
“Dad said the same thing,” Anya whispered, unable to hold back. “He said he’d be back soon and then he never came… He left Mom and me. And now Mom has a new husband, why would she need me?”
Nadezhda Ivanovna felt a sharp stab in her chest. What thoughts for such a tiny thing, poor child. She hugged the girl to her as if trying to hide her in her own warmth, to protect her from this world where everything was so unclear.
“Oh, you poor little thing! Your mom will never leave you, don’t worry! And Vitalik won’t either! He loves both of you very much!”
“Really?” the girl asked, looking at the woman hopefully.
“And what do you yourself think?” Nadezhda Ivanovna asked, gently stroking the girl’s head.
Anya thought for a moment, then nodded. It was the moment when Nadezhda Ivanovna felt that maybe she really did have something to give this child.
And that evening, when the sun had already begun to slip behind the horizon, Anya picked up the phone and happily heard her mother’s voice. Excitedly talking over herself, the girl told her that she and Grandma had already made pancakes, and Anya proudly described everything she had managed to do that day.
Tanya, hearing her, apparently also breathed a sigh of relief. She promised she would be home soon.
The whole week passed in a kind of quiet but genuine cooperation. Anya helped with the chores, and it was obvious how she opened up more and more with each passing day. They swam in the lake, picked apples and ate them straight off the branches. At first Anya was shy, but when Nadezhda Ivanovna gave her permission, the girl seemed to find something important in that simple act. Everything tasted so good, as if the earth itself were treating them.
On the last evening, just before sunset, Tanya called and said that they would come the next morning. When Anya heard this, she smiled. The fear that had been on her face at the beginning was gone.
Now someone was waiting for her.
“Can I come to you again, Grandma?” Anya asked quietly, hugging Nadezhda Ivanovna.
The question seemed to hang in the air, and the entire mistress of the dacha, with all her usual sternness, suddenly felt something stir in her chest. As if some invisible warmth had filled her soul.
“Of course, come,” she answered, her voice trembling. “We haven’t had time to teach you everything yet…”
She noticed Tanya and Vitalik exchanging surprised glances, but they stayed silent. They probably couldn’t make sense of what was happening now between her and this small, yet so grown-up child.
Anya quickly turned around and, smiling, ran to the car. Nadezhda Ivanovna waved after her, pretending that everything was fine. “No need to show weakness,” she thought, hiding her feelings. But however hard she tried to keep a straight face, her heart was tightening in her chest.
“Well, what did you expect? Time always flies, and you can’t manage everything alone,” she muttered to herself as she headed back into the house, as if she still had a whole bucketful of chores left to do.
But at that moment she could barely hold back her tears. As soon as she stepped inside, she closed the door behind her, not letting anyone see her vulnerability. “So this is what it’s like, being a grandmother?” she thought. Strange feelings flickered through her mind: joy, sadness, a peculiar tiredness and, at the same time, gratitude. What happiness it is when you can teach someone something simple and important, and feel how dear that person has become to you.
She stood there, looking at the threshold, as everything grew quiet around her. And for the first time in a long while, she felt that in life there are places that open up with every new exchanged glance. Where there is hope and simple human warmth, even if you are “just” a grandmother.
“Do you really not find me scary, do you?” Anya suddenly asked, sitting on the porch and watching with interest as Grandma watered the flowers. Nadezhda Ivanovna stopped, wiping her hands on her apron. The question was unexpected and, at first glance, naive, but there was something deeper in it.
“Scary?” the woman repeated in surprise, raising her head. “Why would I be afraid of you?”
Anya shrugged, her gaze becoming thoughtful. There was still a certain difficult sadness shining in her eyes, as if she were still trying to understand what was happening in this world and why she needed this grandmother.
“You’re not really my grandmother, are you?” she asked again, narrowing her eyes as if trying to unravel an old riddle.
Once again, Nadezhda Ivanovna froze. She understood that this question couldn’t be left unanswered. It wasn’t just curiosity; it was a deep need to understand what was happening to her.
“Well, not exactly yours,” she said at last. “But I can be one for you, if you like. A grandmother who will teach you to bake pancakes and pick raspberries, the way I once taught my daughter. You don’t mind if I become that for you, do you?”
Anya looked at her again and, in a very childlike, cautious way, came a little closer.
“I… I don’t know. I thought only real grandmothers could be like that…” she began, but cut herself off, as if unsure whether she should open herself to these words.
Nadezhda Ivanovna set the bucket down and put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. She didn’t know what to say in reply. Everything in life was so complicated and multilayered. There had been times when she herself had felt how hard it was to share her love between people and hadn’t always understood who was truly close. But now, looking into those big eyes, she realized: someone had appeared in her life whom she wanted to love without fear.
“We grandmothers are people too,” she said quietly. “Sometimes we find grandchildren where we least expect them. And even if they’re not our blood, we still have something important and real that can’t be measured in family ties. You’re not a stranger to me, Anya. And even if you’re not my real granddaughter, I’m ready to be the one who supports you.”
Anya stayed silent. Then she took her hand and smiled a little. It wasn’t yet a confident smile, more a timid attempt to trust. But Nadezhda Ivanovna knew that a lot was hidden behind that look. This wasn’t just a naive child; this was a girl who had learned some things earlier than others, who had seen and felt more than she would have liked.
“You’re not scary either, Grandma,” Anya said with a small laugh. “You probably wouldn’t be teaching me to do all this if you were like… all the other grandmothers.”
Nadezhda Ivanovna laughed, and her laugh was simple and sincere, just as it had been many years ago when she was younger and lighter at heart. Now everything was different, but life always brought its gifts. And one of those gifts was sitting right next to her. A little girl who had stopped being afraid and had begun to believe that even if her mother had gone away and her father had left, there were still people in this world who could become true family, even without being related by blood.
“I’m still going to teach you how to make pancakes,” she went on. “And I’ll teach you some other things too, yes. We’ll manage a lot in that short time you’re here. Because you and I, Anya, are basically one team, right?”
Anya nodded quietly, and the same smile appeared on her face as a couple of days earlier, when she had first asked Nadezhda Ivanovna if she could be her grandmother.
The day was drawing to a close, a coolness crept into the air, and the sun’s rays, cutting through the shadows, fell on their heads. It was as if the whole world had slowed down, allowing these two women and this girl to understand that the time they had spent together wasn’t just a few days at the dacha. It was a moment when something important had happened, and even if tomorrow everything would be different, those few days would stay with them forever.
Anechka sat down beside her and quietly asked:
“When will we do what we promised again?”
Nadezhda Ivanovna smiled and, shrugging lightly, said:
“As soon as you come again, Anya. I promise. And then we’ll cook in a way no one else can.”
And so, despite all the uncertainty of the future, they both knew: in life there is always room to learn something new, to share something important and simple. And perhaps it is precisely in these small things that all true family bonds are found