The shadow of the tall poplar outside had already fallen across half the yard when the worst thing in all sixteen years of the Beketovs’ life together began. The air in the living room—thick with cigarette smoke and mute tension—felt like you could slice it with a knife. Artyom Viktorovich, a man with hands etched with dark veins and a gaze accustomed to command, pressed his temples, trying to drown out the mounting pain. His wife, Lilya, sat opposite, curled in on herself, endlessly worrying the edge of her old knitted cardigan. Her world—so orderly and clean—was collapsing before her eyes, and the culprit of this apocalypse sat between them, eyes downcast to the floor.
Their daughter. Ariana. Their quiet, withdrawn Ariana, who smelled of baby cream and books—and now carried a foreign, anxious, bitter secret.
It had all started with a trifle. The school medical checkup. The girl flat-out refused to see the gynecologist. The homeroom teacher, a fussy, jittery woman, called Lilya, hinting at “strange and inappropriate behavior.” Sensing trouble already, Lilya tried to speak softly to her daughter over tea with raspberry jam. But Ariana sat in silence, staring into her cup, her fingers whitening with how tightly she gripped the spoon.
Then she pulled it out. A neatly folded slip from the private clinic “Eden.” Not a certificate—a sentence. Gestational age: ten weeks. The diagnosis sounded like a taunt: “Physiological intrauterine pregnancy.”
Having read the paper, Artyom Viktorovich slowly, as if in slow motion, sank into an armchair. His pupils pinpricked.
“Explain,” he said, his voice low and creaky, like a rusty door in the wind. “Who is he?”
Ariana only shook her head without looking up. Her long lashes cast shadows on her pale, almost translucent cheeks. It seemed she might dissolve at any moment, evaporate under this interrogation.
“It was my decision. He has nothing to do with it,” she whispered—and there was steel in her voice, a metal Lilya had never heard before.
“Covering for a scoundrel!” Artyom slammed his fist against the armrest, making the crystal vase on the table tremble. His hand reached for a pack of Belomor. “I’ll— I’ll smash him to splinters! Rot him in prison! You’ll tell me his name, right now!”
“Artyom, don’t! The smoke… it’s harmful!” Lilya instinctively snatched the pack from him, her voice shaking. Already she was defending. Not her daughter. A grandchild. A descendant. Someone who didn’t exist yet, but had already turned everything upside down.
“And how could you, as her mother, not notice?” He swung his rage-filled, helpless gaze to his wife. “Right under your nose! You were always saying she comes home on time, that she doesn’t run around!”
“I’m sorry,” Lilya lowered her eyes. Guilt—caustic and burning—spread through her veins. “I… I never would have thought. She’s our little girl…”
“So you won’t say his name?” Artyom leaned toward his daughter again, his shadow covering her completely. “I’ll find out. I’ll find out everything. And then he won’t know what hit him. I swear.”
“Dad, don’t,” her plea came out surprisingly calm, almost detached.
“Then he can marry you! Support you and your…” he groped for a word, “brood!”
“Artyom!” Lilya practically jumped. “She’s our daughter! And that’s our grandchild, for your information!”
“I don’t want to get married,” Ariana shook her head again. “At least not now.”
“And that’s right, honey,” Lilya babbled, glancing nervously at her husband. “Your father and I will take care of everything. We’ll arrange it somehow… He’ll be like a son to us. Or a daughter! You always wanted a little sister, Arisha?”
Artyom Viktorovich stared at his wife as if seeing her for the first time. Disgust twisted his face.
“Are you out of your mind, Lilya? Wake up!”
“Don’t, Mom,” Ariana lifted her eyes to her mother for the first time. They were huge, bottomless, the color of a stormy sky. “I won’t be able to lie to him my whole life. I won’t be able to watch him call you Mom and Dad, and me… sister.”
There was something in her gaze that made Lilya shrink inside. Something irreparable.
“Ariana, you’re a child yourself!” she cried, tears finally spilling—hot and bitter. “School, university… Your whole life is ahead of you! With a baby, you’ll bury it! Miserable job, constant exhaustion, sicknesses! And no decent man will marry you!”
“I don’t need one!” Ariana turned sharply toward the window, toward the setting sun.
“You’ll go have the baby at Aunt Sveta’s in Reutov,” Lilya went on, wiping her tears and trying to pull herself together. “She’ll get you into a good maternity hospital. Quiet, calm. And for now count on us.”
She threw a defiant look at her husband, but he kept silent, staring into the smoke-choked ashtray.
When Ariana went to the store for bread, the silence exploded. Artyom unleashed a barrage of accusations at Lilya.
“You spoiled her! Raised her like some kind of witcher! Here’s the result of your permissiveness!”
“And you?!” she snapped back, retreating toward the sideboard. “You carried her around on your hands! ‘Daddy’s princess!’ Don’t you dare pin it all on me! If you were home more often, maybe none of this would’ve happened!”
“And why do you even need this… grandchild?” he shouted, already beyond control. “Why? You’re forty-two! You won’t manage! Your back, your health!”
“Thanks for reminding me about my age!” Lilya flared, humiliated in the sorest spot. “Other women my age are just starting to live! Maybe I still hoped… to have one of my own!”
Artyom froze with his mouth open. The careless cigarette hung from his lip.
“Really?” he rasped, and his voice unexpectedly gave way—became softer, gentler. “Lilyush… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean the age… It’s just… hard. And your back…”
“Leave me alone!” she turned away—but hearing the familiar scratch of a match, exploded again: “And don’t you dare smoke in here! Into the stairwell! Now!”
“Aye-aye!” he saluted unexpectedly, and despite herself a strangled smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. He caught it and exhaled inwardly. She never stayed mad for long. That was her saving grace.
The secret didn’t last. Ariana’s best friend—red-headed, fidgety Snezhana—couldn’t keep such an atom bomb inside. Within a day the whole school, from first-graders to the vice principal, was whispering that “Beketova got knocked up.” They’d mocked Ariana before for her shyness and slight plumpness; now the bullying became total. They pointed at her, cracked filthy jokes, and some “well-wishers” even left diapers and baby food in her locker. Worst of all was that no one, absolutely no one, could even guess who the father was. Ariana didn’t hang out with boys, didn’t go on dates. Her pregnancy was an immaculate conception, a jeer at logic.
Gritting his teeth, Artyom Viktorovich paid the necessary people to have her switched to home schooling on a fabricated note: “severe nervous exhaustion.”
Behind the family’s back he began his own investigation. He ran through all the young males in the neighborhood: the hooligan neighbors, the upperclassmen, young workers from the plant. He even hired a private detective—a mustached type in a threadbare trench coat—but the man named a price that could’ve bought a new Moskvich. Artyom spat and took another route. He offered a reward—triple less, but still solid—to anyone who would name the “scoundrel.”
Hell began. His phone ran red-hot. Artyom had to take time off to sit by the apparatus.
Bounty hunters descended on him like crows on carrion. They pointed to some Sergeys-who-drink, Vityas-the-rockers, college kids next door. No evidence whatsoever. A typical exchange went like this:
— “Hello! Are you the one paying for information?” piped a teenager’s voice.
— “Possibly,” Artyom drilled the receiver with his gaze.
— “Up front! Half!”
— “You get the full amount when I know you’re not lying.”
Usually the call ended there. But some “eyewitnesses” appeared. One swore he personally saw Ariana kissing in the stairwell with some dark-haired guy in a leather jacket. Another swore she secretly met with a married swimming coach.
— “Too bad I didn’t have a camera!” one such witness lamented. “If I’d known, I’d have taken a pic!”
— “And when was this?” Artyom wrote the name in his notebook.
— “Two months ago…”
Two months ago, according to the note, Ariana was already pregnant. Artyom silently hung up and lit another cigarette. His ashtray looked like a little cemetery.
During these days, Irina called him.
— “I told you not to call here,” he hissed into the phone, cupping it with his palm.
— “You’ve forgotten about me completely,” she drawled in a spoiled tone. “You don’t come by, you don’t call…”
— “Now’s not the time,” he justified himself, gooseflesh prickling his back.
— “Ah, right. I heard. You’ll be a grandpa soon… Artyom, I miss you…”
— “Artyom, who is it?” Lilya stood in the doorway of the office. Her face was pale, dark crescents under her eyes from sleeplessness.
— “No one,” he put the phone down, his heart pounding in his throat. “What’s with you?”
— “I asked you not to smoke in here!” She pointed at the overflowing ashtray. “Quit this filth!”
— “Sorry, Lilyush… Nerves…” He crushed the butt.
At that moment the phone gave a dying croak—an incoming text. From Irina.
Lilya raised an eyebrow.
— “What’s that?”
— “Aleksandr Ivanych,” he lied, horrified by his own helplessness. “Inviting me fishing.”
He snuck a glance at the screen: “So I’m nothing to you, then?”
— “You’re getting worse at lying, Artyom,” Lilya shook her head and left, leaving him in a cloud of shame and guilt.
— “Lilya! Lilyushka!” he rushed after her. “I’ve never lied to you! Never!”
— “Oh, you have?” she turned—and in her eyes he saw not anger but endless fatigue and pain. “My heart has known it for a while…”
— “No! You… you’re the only woman in my life!” he blurted, grabbing her hands.
— “Ah, you sly fox,” she wagged a finger at him without malice. “Watch yourself…”
On Monday, Artyom Viktorovich left for work earlier than usual. He had to meet Irina. Tell her it was over. Climbing the stairs to her apartment, he rehearsed his speech in his head, picking words that wouldn’t sound like treachery.
He rang their signal: two short, one long. No one answered for a long time. He was about to leave—breathing a sigh of relief—when the door swung open. A huge, sleepy lunk stood there in baggy boxers and a tank top.
— “What d’you want, old man?” he yawned.
Behind him Artyom saw Irina’s pale face, twisted with fear. She pressed her hands together in prayer.
— “Is Aleksandr Ivanych home?” Artyom forced out, finding his footing unexpectedly.
— “No one by that name here,” the big guy grunted and slammed the door.
“Thank God,” Artyom thought, heading downstairs. He felt incredible relief. The affair had weighed on him from the start. Now he was free.
On his way home from work he stopped at the priciest shop in the neighborhood and bought Lilya those very French perfumes she’d been eyeing for a year. He added a huge bouquet of scarlet roses and a bottle of champagne.
— “What’s this?” she asked at the door, puzzled. “Are we celebrating something?”
— “Just felt like making you happy,” he whispered, kissing her cheek.
— “What is it? A celebration?” Ariana echoed from her doorway.
— “For you too, sunshine.” He handed his daughter a huge box of fancy Belgian chocolates. “Your favorite—truffle centers.”
— “Thanks, Daddy!” a rare smile lit her face.
— “What are you doing giving her chocolates?” Lilya tapped his shoulder lightly with the bouquet. “Chocolate is a strong allergen! She shouldn’t!”
— “I thought… while it’s still early, maybe it’s okay…”
— “Sweetheart, what does the doctor say?” Lilya perked up at once. “When can I talk to them? We need a plan!”
— “Mom, a parent’s presence is needed only if they send you for an abortion,” Ariana said quietly.
— “Ptui-ptui-ptui, don’t jinx it!” Lilya spat over her shoulder. “But the chocolates—are they allowed?”
— “They’re allowed,” Ariana nodded.
Then the impossible happened. Ariana came over and hugged them both at once, pressed her face against them. They stood like that, all three—entangled in arms, flowers, and boxes—more of a family than they’d been in a long time. They sat at the kitchen table. A fragile, quivering armistice took hold.
— “Your father and I will move into your room,” Lilya said dreamily, pouring tea. “It’s the sunny one. And we’ll give you and the baby our bedroom! Your father, of course, has smoked it… um… perfumed it up, but they have services now—ozonation and such. We’ll do a Euro-renovation!”
— “I’ll do it myself,” Artyom cut in. “New wallpaper, stretch ceiling… Honey, will you pick the wallpaper? With little bears or bunnies?”
— “God, I’m so happy!” Lilya clasped her hands. “I even dreamt I was pushing a pram… and inside such a baby! A tiny dumpling! By the way, sweetie, when’s your ultrasound? When will they tell us the sex?”
Ariana chewed the chocolate slowly. She looked somewhere past them, at the wall.
— “I don’t think it’ll be any time soon.”
— “What do you mean, not soon?” Lilya was put out. “They say you can see by four months!”
— “Mom. Dad,” Ariana lowered her eyes into her cup. Her voice went very quiet, barely audible. “I have to tell you… Actually… I’m not pregnant.”
Silence fell—thick, dense, ringing. Lilya froze with the tray in her hands.
— “Not pregnant?” she whispered, her face blanching. “What happened? Did you…?”
— “There is no baby,” Ariana didn’t look up. “There never was. I made it up. The certificate from the clinic… I bought it at the metro. It’s fake.”
Artyom nearly dropped the champagne bottle he was trying to open.
— “What?!” his voice broke into falsetto.
— “And the doctor? The one who wrote the certificate?” Lilya clung to the last straw.
— “I didn’t go to any doctor. I’m sorry.”
At last it dawned on Lilya. Why her daughter had fought so desperately when she offered to go to the clinic together, to do all the tests. Why she dodged conversations about lab work so strangely.
“Why… why would you do this?” Lilya’s voice shook. She still couldn’t believe that the one she’d already wrapped in her mind, rocked, named—didn’t exist. “Why would you do this to us? Explain!”
— “I wanted you and Dad to be together again,” Ariana said, her voice finally firm. “For you to stop fighting. For Dad… for Dad to come home.”
Lilya stared, uncomprehending.
— “But we… we didn’t fight that much…” she said slowly. “And I’d already bought you a book… ‘The Most Beautiful Names.’ I thought we’d choose together…”
— “I’m sorry,” Ariana’s voice wavered, and she finally looked at their bewildered, emptied faces. “I didn’t know you needed him this much… If you want, I’ll…”
— “No!” Artyom’s voice rang out loud, almost commandingly. “Everything in its own time! Starting tomorrow—you’re back to school! I’ll call your homeroom teacher.”
— “But—”
— “No buts!”
Ariana left the kitchen with her head bowed.
Lilya watched her go in silence.
— “And I’m a fool,” she said softly at last. “I even noticed she’d lost weight… and she should have been putting it on…”
Artyom went to her, tried to hug her, but she drew back.
— “Don’t despair. We’ll have grandkids. We will.”
— “What did she mean, Artyom?” Lilya raised her eyes to him. There were no tears in them. Only a cold, piercing question. “‘So that Dad would come home’? What does that mean? What am I supposed to know?”
Artyom Viktorovich sank heavily onto a chair. The time had come.
— “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he coughed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t forgive me. One day… our daughter saw me. With another woman. I promised her I’d break it off. And… I didn’t keep my word.”
Lilya sat motionless, turned to stone. She seemed not even to breathe.
— “Leave, Artyom,” she finally forced out in a strangled, alien voice. “I don’t want to see you.”
— “I won’t leave.”
— “Then I’ll pack and go myself,” she rose, but he stood in front of her, blocking the way.
— “Did you see what she resorted to? Do you understand what that was for? I can’t leave. Who knows what she’ll think up next time! I’ve broken it off with that woman. For good. For you. For her. Forgive me.”
Lilya left the kitchen without a word.
Artyom hoped she would, as always, get over it quickly. But this time was different. She didn’t speak to him for three days. He tried jokes, little digs—she left the room in silence. On the fourth day, in desperation, he told some stupid tailor joke, and she smiled faintly. It was enough.
Encouraged by this tiny victory, Artyom Viktorovich staged a grand spectacle. He phoned old pals who, in their youth, had been the talk of the district in the VIA “Samotsvety,” and talked them into coming over.
At exactly nine in the evening, the quiet courtyard rang with guitars and Artyom’s cracked but heartfelt baritone:
“I am here, Inezilia,
I’m here beneath your window.
All Seville is gathered
In darkness and in slumber…”
Heads popped out onto balconies one after another. Passersby stopped, smiling.
“Filled with all valor,
Wrapped in my cloak…” Artyom warbled, but on the high note his voice treacherously broke and he fell into a cough.
One of the musicians jumped in, saving the moment:
“With guitar and sword,
I’m here beneath your window!”
People on the balconies applauded. But Lilya did not appear.
— “Inezilia, f—’s sake, come out!” someone from the tipsy crowd bellowed. “The man’s trying! Hey, you witch!”
Back home, Artyom was crushed. He had tried everything. He decided he had lost. Late that night, when Lilya had already gone to bed, he went into the bedroom. The room was dark.
— “Lilya,” he said into the darkness. “I must have hurt you too much. You’re right. You deserve better. Tomorrow I’ll leave.”
The covers rustled sharply in the silence.
— “Get in bed, troubadour,” she snickered through her sleep.
Lilya’s dream came true. Less than a year later she really was rolling an elegant pram down the park alleys. But not with a grandchild—with their second child, late and madly longed-for. Everyone was happy. Happiest of all was Ariana, who fell in love with her little sister at first sight and chose the name herself—Bogdana. “God-given,” she said, rocking the baby in her arms. And Artyom and Lilya silently agreed. Because sometimes the truest miracle is born from the most artificial, the most desperate lie. Like an artificial sun lit on a gloomy day to drive the clouds away.
