We’re stuck at the crossing again,» sighed Klavdiya Petrovna, adjusting her woolen scarf. «What do you think, Anya, maybe we’ll get lucky and find a gold bar on the tracks?»
«As if,» I smirked. «You’d be lucky to find a frozen crow here.»
The November wind cut to the bone. I was returning from the evening shift at the station, where I’d been a cashier for years. The sky hung so low, it seemed it might fall on our heads at any moment. The streetlights along the railway lit every other one, turning my way home into a strange dance of light and shadow.
After Nikolai’s death—three years had passed, but it still hurt to remember—I often stayed late at work. At home, only silence and a radio in the kitchen greeted me. Sometimes I wrote letters to my friend Tamara in Novosibirsk, but she rarely replied—she had three kids, no time for letters.
That evening, I decided to take a shortcut through the spare tracks. My legs were buzzing from fatigue when I heard a sound. At first, I thought it was my imagination. But the sound repeated—a soft cry, like that of a kitten.
«Kitty-kitty,» I called out, peering into the darkness between the sleepers.
The sound grew clearer. It was definitely crying, a child’s cry.
My heart skipped a beat. I hurried toward the sound, stumbling over rocks and frozen earth. Behind a pile of old sleepers, curled up into a ball, was a little girl. In the dim light of the lantern, I made out her dirty, tear-streaked face with huge frightened eyes.
«My God,» I breathed, kneeling down. «How did you end up here?»
The girl—a five-year-old—only curled up tighter and fell silent.
«You’re frozen,» I touched her cheek. Cold as ice. «Come with me, we’ll have some tea with raspberry jam at home.»
She didn’t resist when I picked her up. She was as light as a feather.
«My name is Anna Vasilyevna,» I told her as I carried her home. «I live nearby. I have a cat, Vasily. He’s naughty—always trying to pee in the slippers when I forget to feed him on time.»
The girl remained silent, but I felt her gradually relax, pressing against my shoulder.
At home, the first thing I did was stoke the stove. While the water heated, I fed the girl hot soup. She ate eagerly yet neatly, glancing at me from under her brows.
«Don’t be afraid,» I smiled. «No one will hurt you.»
After a bath, dressed in my old nightgown (I had to roll up the sleeves ten times), she finally spoke:
«Will you really not throw me out?»
«Really,» I answered, combing her tangled hair. «Will you tell me your name?»
«Lena,» she whispered. «Lenochka.»
The next day, the police could only spread their hands. No reports of a missing child had been filed. The young officer sighed sympathetically:
«We’ll have to put her in an orphanage. You understand, it’s the procedure…»
«No,» I said firmly. «We won’t.»
«Anna Vasilyevna,» he hesitated, «but you live alone…»
«And what? I’ll manage. I’m not that young anymore.»
That same evening, Lenochka, sitting in the kitchen with a cup of milk, suddenly asked:
«Why didn’t you have children?»
I nearly dropped the ladle:
«Who said I didn’t?»
«There are no pictures,» she shrugged.
«Smart girl,» I chuckled. «Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. But now I have you.»
She smiled—for the first time in those days—and I knew: I’d never give her up. Come what may.
«Mom, why do you have such a strange dress in this photo?» Lenochka held an old picture where I was in my best crepe de Chine.
«It’s not strange, it was fashionable. I stood in line for a year to buy that fabric.»
The guardianship proceedings dragged on for three months. Endless paperwork, endless offices, skeptical looks from officials. «Do you understand the responsibility? What if her parents show up? How will you support her?»
I just shrugged: «We’ll manage somehow.» And at night, I counted pennies, figured out how to stretch my salary for two. I turned old curtains into a dress for Lenochka, tailored a jacket out of my coat for her.
Neighbors whispered behind my back: «Why does she need this? She has no children of her own, so she took someone else’s. What if the child has bad genes?»
Especially persistent was Nina Stepanovna from the first floor. Every time she saw us by the entrance, she dramatically sighed and rolled her eyes: «Oh, Anna, you’re going to have trouble with her…»
Lenochka once couldn’t take it:
«And you, Aunt Nina, are just jealous. Your own son is grown up, and he doesn’t even visit you.»
I barely held back laughter, looking at the neighbor’s stunned face. At home, of course, I scolded her for her cheekiness, but deep down, I was proud—she was getting a character.
Gradually, life got on track. Lenochka went to first grade, and I took a job as a janitor at her school—to be closer to her. Teachers couldn’t praise her enough: capable, catches on the fly.
In the evenings, we often sat at the old dining table—I checked her notebooks, she did her homework. Sometimes she would suddenly look up from her textbook:
«Mom, is it true that they used to write all the letters differently?»
«Who told you that?»
«Some boy in class. Says his grandmother still wrote with yat letters.»
«And what did you answer?»
«Told him that now it’s not about yat letters, but about writing without mistakes.»
On rare weekends, we had celebrations. We baked pies, made jam, and in winter, we made dumplings. Lenochka loved that process, though she got more flour on herself than shaped dumplings. The dumplings were almost meatless, but at least there were some.
«Mom, look, this dumpling looks like our school director!» she laughed, showing a lopsided lump.
«Give me that director, or he might end up in the soup, and that would be awkward.»
There were, of course, difficulties. In the sixth grade, Lenochka got involved with a group of older students. Started skipping lessons, being rude. I couldn’t sleep at night, always thinking—where did I go wrong, what did I miss?
The culmination was her running away from home. A note on the table: «Don’t look for me, I’m not your real daughter anyway.» I rushed to the station—I felt in my heart she was there. And sure enough: there she sat on that very bench where we first met. Frozen, crying.
«Well, where were you planning to go?» I asked, sitting next to her.
«I don’t know…» she sniffled. «Just… everyone says you’re not my real mother.»
«And what’s a ‘real’ mother? The one who left you in the cold?»
«Sorry…» she buried her face in my shoulder. «I won’t do it again.»
At home, over tea with raspberry jam (the same as on our first evening), she suddenly asked:
«Do you ever regret taking me in?»
«Do you ever regret staying with me?»
We looked at each other and laughed.
Time flew unnoticed. Lenochka grew up, changed. From an awkward teenager, she turned into a beautiful girl. After school, she decided to go to medical school—said she wanted to help people. I was only glad: it meant all those years I taught her kindness weren’t in vain.
I remember how she came home after graduation—happy, with a medal on her chest. She sat next to me on the couch:
«Mom, I’ve been thinking… They say there are no accidents. Maybe it was fate—that you walked down that road then?»
«Maybe it was fate,» I smiled. «But I’ll tell you this: fate is fate, but the choice is always ours.»
That evening, she first told me about her past. About her alcoholic mother, the beatings, how her mom brought another suitor home and that man… Lenochka didn’t finish, but I understood everything. That day, she ran away from home and never returned.
«I was afraid for a long time that you would turn out the same,» she confessed. «But then I realized: real love—it’s not about blood, but about the heart.»
When it was time for her to go to the institute, we both cried. I packed everything I could for her: an old suitcase, some money, a jar of jam…
«Mom, stop fussing over me, I’m not little anymore!»
«For me, you’ll always be little.»
Then there were letters, rare phone calls from the public phone, short visits during holidays. Lenochka did excellently, worked as a nurse in a hospital. I was proud of her and often caught myself thinking: how good it was that, back in ’75, I didn’t pass by.
I’m embarrassed to admit, but there was a moment when I almost gave up. In the first year, when the money ran out completely, and the salary wasn’t even enough for food. I was about to go to the guardianship authorities… And then the upstairs neighbor, Maria Ivanovna, brought a whole bag of children’s clothes—her granddaughter had outgrown them.
«Hang in there, Anyuta,» she said then. «God didn’t send you the girl for nothing.»
And I held on. Learned to darn, sew, make incredible recipes from the bare minimum. Lenochka never complained, even when she had to wear reshaped clothes or eat potato soup three days in a row.
I remember sitting with Lenochka in the kitchen after her first practice at the hospital. Tired but satisfied, she warmed her hands on a cup of tea:
«Mom, I’ve been thinking… Everyone complains about a Soviet childhood—that there was nothing, that they couldn’t get anything. But I only remember how we made dumplings while listening to ‘Theatre by the Microphone,’ how you braided my hair and told me stories. Even the old dress from your skirt was my favorite—you even added lace to the hem…»
At the medical school graduation, our entire station family gathered. Klavdiya Petrovna dressed in her best suit, which she saved for special occasions, Zina the cashier brought a huge bouquet of peonies from her garden. Even Nina Stepanovna hobbled over—she was already walking with difficulty by then.
When Lenochka went up on stage for her diploma, I caught a glimpse of our acquaintances discreetly wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs. I remember how they used to gossip back then…
«Anya,» Nina Stepanovna touched my elbow, «forgive me, old fool. Remember how I always nagged you—why, for what? And look what a daughter you’ve raised—a doctor! You didn’t suffer with her as I prophesied, but found your happiness.»
I watched as my girl, now Dr. Elena Anatolyevna, accepted congratulations from the professors and thought: every wrinkle on my face, every sleepless night by her bed, every darn on an old coat—it was all worth it. Lord, how worth it it was…
And Lenochka… she grew up to be a real doctor. «Gifted by God,» her colleagues said. But for me, she always remained that little girl from the railway, who one day changed my entire life.
And then she gave me a house! Many years later. Let her tell it herself.
I had planned this surprise for my mom for a long time. Saved up, worked two jobs, took night shifts, invested money wisely… I chose the house carefully—a single-story, so mom wouldn’t have to climb stairs, with a large garden where she could grow her favorite peonies.
When I came to pick her up that March day, she was bustling in the kitchen, baking her signature pies:
«Lenochka, why didn’t you warn me! I would’ve cleaned up…»
«Mom, drop that cleaning. Let’s go, there’s something to do.»
«What kind of business?» she wiped her hands on her apron. «My dough is rising…»
«The dough can wait.»
All the way, she tried to find out where we were going. I dodged the question, though my heart pounded with excitement. When we turned onto a country road, mom grew suspicious:
«Len, you’re not taking me to some hospital, are you? I’m healthy!»
«Better,» I winked.
At the gates of the new house, she stopped. Spacious veranda, bright windows, apple trees in the garden…
«People live nicely,» she sighed.
«Now you’ll live here.»
At first, she didn’t believe it. Then she cried. Walked through the rooms, touched the walls, as if checking—it wasn’t a dream.
«Darling, how… This must’ve cost a fortune…»
«And you think I’ve been slaving away in a private clinic for so many years? So that you could freeze in your old age in that Khrushchevka?»
We spent another week in the old apartment, packing things. Every trinket held memories. Here’s the worn-out tablecloth where I learned to write letters. Here’s a cup with a chipped handle—I broke it on the first day when my hands were shaking from fear. Mom didn’t scold me then, just glued it and said, «Now it’s special.»
Neighbors helped with the move. Even Nina Stepanovna brought over her famous «Napoleon»:
«Don’t forget to visit us, Vasilyevna. Who will tell me the news now?»
At the new place, mom thrived. Started a vegetable garden, grew flowers. In the mornings, she sat in the gazebo, drank tea, and watched the sunrise. She said she had never slept so well—quiet, birds singing.
Only sometimes I noticed how she secretly wiped tears, looking at old photos. Especially at that one where we were by the Christmas tree—I was six, in a dress made from a reshaped curtain, so happy.
«You know,» she said one evening as we sat on the veranda, «I almost walked past then. It was dark, scary… And then I thought—what if someone needs help there?»
«And how did it turn out, huh?» I took her hand. «You saved me, and now I’m saving you.»
«Silly,» she patted my head like when I was a child. «You’ve already saved me long ago. From loneliness, from emptiness… After my husband died, I was completely lost. But then you appeared—and meaning returned.»
Recently, I took a leave from work, moved my office to an extension of mom’s house. I’ll see patients here—half the city comes to me anyway. And the main thing—I’ll be able to be with her.
In the evenings, we still drink tea with raspberry jam. Only now, not in a cramped kitchen, but on a spacious veranda. Mom started a new tradition—baking pies for a nearby orphanage.
«Maybe,» she says, «someone’s fate is waiting there too?»
And I look at her and think: what a joy it is—to be able to thank the person who gave you life. Not the first, biological one, but the real one—full of love, care, and warmth.
And let them say that miracles don’t happen. I know: the main miracle happened on that cold November evening in 1975, when a lonely woman didn’t walk past a frozen child on the railway. Everything else is just gratitude for that miracle.
Now, every evening, I go into mom’s room, adjust the blanket, and kiss her cheek—just like she did when I was little. And each time she whispers:
«Thank you, my girl.»
«Thank you, mom. For everything.
