I forgot my husband’s milestone birthday. Completely, absolutely, irrevocably wiped the date from my mind. The blame lay with a mad, knock-you-off-your-feet work rhythm: an Indian delegation, crucial negotiations, endless interpreting from English into Russian and back again, twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day. When you work as a high-level simultaneous interpreter, your brain slowly stops being part of you—it turns into a soulless, perfectly tuned machine that grinds up words, terms, intonations. In that mental meat grinder there’s no room left for the personal, for quiet joys and family dates. And so, sitting in a cozy café after yet another exhausting meeting, I was half-heartedly scrolling my phone, letting my eyes slide over the numbers in the calendar. And then… it was like a jolt of electricity. In exactly three days my Artyom would turn forty-five. Forty-five! A full-fledged, serious milestone. And I… I hadn’t prepared a thing. No gift, no surprise, not even a hint of a celebration.
I smacked my forehead right in the middle of the room, and the sharp clap made the waitress start; she froze beside me with a tray. Ignoring her frightened look, I grabbed my phone in a frenzy, my trembling fingers barely hitting the numbers. I dialed my boss.
“— Mikhail Petrovich, I urgently need time off. Starting tomorrow. At least a week,” my voice came out hoarse and clipped.
“— Lika, are you out of your mind? We’ve got the delegation, you know everything—without you we’ll drown!”
“— Find another interpreter. Hand it off to someone. I’m sorry, but this… this is more important than all the delegations in the world.”
I hung up, and a strange mixture of panic and relief spread through my body. For the first time in ten years of an immaculate career I had done something so reckless and irresponsible. But my Artyom was worth it. Twenty years of marriage… For twenty years he had patiently waited for me in the evenings with reheated dinners, listened to my endless complaints about the difficulties of translation, silently massaged my shoulders, numb from tension. The most loving, most devoted, most understanding husband on the planet. And I? I couldn’t even remember his milestone birthday.
And what could I give a man like that? An expensive watch? Trite and soulless. The newest gadget? He had everything he needed. A trip to some exotic country? He, like me, didn’t have time for that. Sitting at the table, clutching a cooling cup, I suddenly realized something terrible: I didn’t know what my own husband dreamed of. Over the years we had sunk so deep into the whirlpool of routine that we’d forgotten how to talk about the lofty things, stopped sharing our most intimate, even if unrealistic, desires.
I left for home late in the evening. And, as luck would have it, I got stuck in a monstrous traffic jam at the entrance to our bedroom community. The cars stood in a motionless tin river, occasionally inching forward a few meters. I was drumming my fingers on the steering wheel when a persistent tapping sounded at the side window.
I turned and saw a girl. About ten, with fair, almost flaxen hair in two messy braids, and huge cornflower-blue eyes that were far too serious for a child. But her clothes were more than strange: a long, patched, multicolored skirt, a faded kerchief on her thin shoulders, and a jumble of cheap, glinting glass beads on her neck. At first glance—a little gypsy. But her face—pretty and clean, with delicate porcelain skin—was typically Slavic, as if it had stepped out of illustrations for Russian folk tales.
“— Lady, let me tell your fortune!” Her little voice rang like a bell, and again her small palm thumped at the glass. “I’ll tell the truth, cheap!”
I waved her off irritably, gesturing for her to go away. I had always been skeptical of fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, and other “miracle makers.” Charlatans, nothing but fraud. The girl pouted her red lips, offended, and ran to the next car. I couldn’t help following her with my eyes: skinny, barefoot—even though it was early October, and the evenings were really getting cold. My heart clenched with an unpleasant suspicion: who was using a child in such a mercenary, cruel way?
I came home morally and physically drained. Artyom met me as always—with a warm, calm smile and his invariable question, “What’s for dinner, love?” Without taking off my coat, I rushed to him and hugged him tightly, burying my face in his firm, dependable shoulder, inhaling that familiar, soothing scent.
“— Forgive me for hugging you for real so rarely.”
“— Lika, what happened?” he pulled back, anxious, to look me in the eyes.
“— Nothing terrible. I’m just very tired. And I suddenly realized that the last time we really, soul to soul, talked was probably a month ago.”
He gently stroked my hair, and his touch was so dear and so welcome.
“— It’s all right, I understand everything. Your job is hellish. It’s okay.”
“— Artyom, tell me honestly,” I looked up at him, “what do you dream of? If I had a magic wand to grant any wish—what would you ask for?”
He thought. He was silent so long I started to worry.
“— Honestly?” he exhaled at last. “I don’t know. Probably… that you wouldn’t be so tired. That’s all.”
His words made a bitter, tearful ache rise in me. He had forgotten how to dream. Or he simply didn’t want to burden me with his real desires, hiding them deep down.
The next day I called my sister Oksana. She owned a small but very cozy restaurant and could always suggest a brilliant idea for organizing a celebration.
“— Oks, help me out. I’m drowning. I haven’t the slightest idea what to give Artyom for his milestone.”
“— Go see a fortune-teller!” she laughed into the phone.
“— Are you serious?”
“— I’m kidding, of course. Although… you know, there’s this little girl hanging around here. Name’s Marika, about ten. Reads palms. I, just for laughs, gave her my hand to look at—and she told me such things about my past that my hair stood on end. How could she know I’d had a complicated wrist fracture as a child? Or that in fifth grade I was head-over-heels in love with the gym teacher?”
“— She probably overheard it somewhere,” I shrugged, though we were on the phone.
“— From where?! I haven’t told anyone that in twenty years! Anyway, if you see her—try it. Small, fair-haired, with huge eyes. Maybe she’ll give you some sensible advice too.”
I snorted skeptically, but a tiny seed of curiosity and faint hope had already dropped into the soil of my subconscious. What if that very girl from yesterday’s traffic jam was this Marika? She’d offered to tell my fortune. And her looks were memorable, unlike anyone else’s.
That evening I drove the same road again. I deliberately picked rush hour, the time of the worst jams. And my calculations paid off—I saw her again. The same thin little figure in the motley skirt flickering between bumpers, the same persistent knocking on windows. I pulled over to the shoulder and waved to her.
“— Hey, sweetie! Come here!”
She ran up happily, her eyes shining.
“— Lady, you decided to have your fortune told?”
“— I did. How much is it?”
“— Whatever you can spare. I’m not greedy.”
She settled into the passenger seat, and the cabin filled with a faint smell of wild herbs and autumn dust. Up close she was even prettier. A clean, intelligent little face, an attentive, studying look. She didn’t look like a street urchin at all.
“— Give me your hand.”
I held out my palm. The girl gently took it in her small hands, and at that moment I saw. I saw—and felt the blood freeze in my veins. Her fingers were fused. Not all of them, but two on each hand—the index and middle were joined into a single whole, forming strange, unnatural webs. I turned pale. That rare anatomical feature… I had seen it somewhere. Or rather, known of it. In Artyom.
Or rather, I no longer saw it—he’d had successful surgery in early childhood, the fingers neatly separated. Only barely visible, thin, thread-like scars remained between the phalanges. But from his stories I knew for sure that he had been born with the very same anomaly. Syndactyly, that was the name. And, importantly, it often passes down through heredity.
My heart began pounding so wildly a ringing filled my ears. Could it be… Could my honest, faithful Artyom have a child on the side? The girl was just the right age—about ten. Ten years ago he had gone on a long business trip to Chișinău for almost two months. I even joked back then that he’d probably fall in love with some hot Moldovan.
“— What’s your name?” I asked, doing everything I could to keep my voice from trembling and betraying the panic inside.
“— Marika.”
“— Do you have a last name?”
“— Why do you need it?” she grew wary.
“— I’m just curious.”
“— Berladskaya. We’re from Bessarabia.”
Bessarabia—why, that’s the historical region of Moldova! All the puzzle pieces in my head crashed into a horrifying picture. A scalding wave of merciless heat washed over me. Artyom had cheated on me. And now his illegitimate daughter was standing by the road begging for coins.
“— And your father—who is he?” I pressed on, my throat tightening.
“— A janitor. Over there, works in that park.” She waved toward an old, neglected park across the road.
“— And does he… have fingers like that too?”
Marika looked at me in surprise, as if asking how I could know.
“— Yes, my dad’s are even worse. Four fingers are fused on each hand. He can only really swing a broom. That’s why I tell fortunes, to earn money. He taught me.”
Four fingers! From Artyom’s stories, he also had four fused fingers on each hand. I remembered exactly—he’d described in detail how, at seven, he underwent a complex, hours-long operation.
“— Marika, read my fortune now. Tell me what I should give my husband for his birthday.”
She looked carefully at my palm again, ran her fused little finger along the lines of life and fate.
“— Ask him yourself. Just like that, honestly—what do you want more than anything in the world? And he’ll tell you. Only don’t brush it off if he starts dodging. Insist. Ask.”
I silently took five hundred rubles from my wallet and handed them to her. The girl beamed.
“— Thank you so much! You’re very kind.”
“— Marika, may I come tomorrow, and we’ll talk some more?”
“— Of course, come. I usually walk in the park after lunch. Over there, where the old oak alley is.”
She pointed to that very park where, according to her, her father worked. The very park where, by a twist of fate, Artyom and I had met twenty-five years ago. Back then it had been a well-kept, romantic place with young, trembling saplings and neatly painted benches. Now the trees had become mighty, sprawling giants, and the benches stood peeled and forlorn.
I came home in a state of complete turmoil. All evening I watched Artyom on the sly, with pain and disbelief. He looked as always—calm, loving, open-hearted. Could this man really be capable of such a terrible betrayal? Could he really have hidden the existence of his own child from me for ten whole years?
I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Tossing and turning, I made a firm decision—to speak to him directly. I’d set up a romantic dinner, buy good wine, light candles. Let him think I’d simply decided to please him and celebrate his birthday early. And then… then I’d ask my main question about Chișinău.
The next day I bought out half the grocery store and cooked his favorite dish—duck baked with apples and prunes. I set the table with the elegance of a Michelin restaurant, lit dozens of scented candles, and put on our shared favorite jazz album. When Artyom came home, he froze on the threshold in surprise.
“— Wow! What’s the occasion? Did I miss something?”
“— No reason. I just wanted to do something special for you. Ahead of time.”
We sat down to dinner. I poured him some fine red wine, just a little for myself. We chatted about trifles, about work, about the sudden vacation that had opened up for me. Twenty minutes passed before I gathered my courage and strength.
“— Artyom,” I began, setting down my glass. “Tell me honestly, what project exactly did you fly to Chișinău for ten years ago?”
He turned pale as if I’d struck him. His fingers loosened, and the glass of expensive wine nearly tipped onto the tablecloth. He stared at the pattern on the tabletop, unable to lift his eyes to mine. A few long seconds dragged by.
“— That… that was so long ago. Why stir up the past?”
“— Please, tell me. It’s very important to me.”
He drew a ragged, heavy breath, as if hoisting an unbearable weight.
“— I was looking for my brother.”
His words took my breath away.
“— What brother?” I whispered. “You don’t have a brother!”
“— I did. Pavel. Five years younger. He… he disappeared when he was only seven. Thirty-eight years ago.”
I had known Artyom for twenty-five years. Twenty-five years! And he had never—do you hear me, NEVER!—breathed a word about a brother. I had been absolutely sure he was an only child.
“— Tell me everything,” I asked softly.
Artyom leaned back in his chair, covered his eyes with his palms, sinking into the darkest depths of memory.
“— Pashka… Pashka was born with syndactyly. Like me. Only his was worse—four fingers fused on each hand. At seven I had surgery, they separated everything successfully. But for him… they didn’t make it in time… there wasn’t enough money for both of us right away, my parents were saving up. They planned to operate on him at eight.”
He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat.
“— We were at a dacha, my friend’s parents’. All the kids were playing in the yard. Pashka came up to the swings where a girl, about ten, was swinging. He politely asked to take a turn, and she… she looked at his hands, twisted her face and screamed across the whole yard: ‘You’ve got flippers! You’re a seal! An ugly seal!’ Then she cackled, mean and taunting. The others, like a pack, picked up the cry. They surrounded him, poked fingers at him and chanted in chorus: ‘Seal! Seal!’”
I squeezed his hand without thinking, feeling icy goosebumps run down my back. He went on without opening his eyes, as if reliving the nightmare.
“— Pashka burst into tears and ran. We thought he’d run into the house to Mom and Dad. We searched for him first half an hour, then an hour, then two… Then we roused the whole area. Called the police. In the forest by a dirt road they found his jacket… And that’s all. Not another trace. No one saw anything.”
“— Good Lord…” I breathed.
“— Our parents looked for him until their last day. They put up flyers, made TV announcements, hired private detectives. Mom… Mom couldn’t bear the grief. Ten years later she was gone. Dad lived just a month after her and followed. It was as if he’d waited only for her to go so as not to remain here alone.”
Hot, salty tears rolled silently down my cheeks.
“— And after that, silence settled in our house forever. Dead, tomb-like silence. No one laughed, no one joked. No music played. It felt like with Pashka, life itself, the very soul, had left our home. I was twelve, and I kept silent and endured. But it was unbearable.”
“— And why did you go to Chișinău specifically?” I asked, already guessing the answer.
“— Ten years ago a detective found a lead. An eyewitness said she’d seen a boy of seven or eight with hands like that in a gypsy camp near Chișinău, in Bessarabia. I jumped up and flew there. I drove around all the surrounding villages, all the known encampments. But… I found nothing. By then the camp had long since moved on, and no one could remember anything.”
I sat stunned by his confession, trying to digest what I’d heard.
“— Artyom, do you remember what Pavel looked like?”
“— As if I see him now. Tow-headed, with huge blue eyes, freckles scattered all over his nose.”
“— Any scars? Distinguishing marks?”
“— Over his left eyebrow. A scar. Split it open when he fell off a bike at four.”
I stood, went to him and hugged his shoulders, pressing my cheek to his temple.
“— Artyom, I understand. I understand what you want more than anything in the world.”
“— What?” He looked up at me, his eyes red with tears.
“— To find your brother. And bring him to where your parents rest. So he can ask their forgiveness. And so they can finally be at peace.”
He flinched as if shocked.
“— Lika, that’s impossible. Either he died back then in that forest, or… or he’s living somewhere far away, and we’ll never find him.”
“— What if I told you I might know where he is?”
Artyom turned to me very slowly. In his tear-clouded eyes, a tiny, faint spark of hope lit up, mixed with a primal fear of disappointment.
“— What are you trying to say?”
“— Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll go to the old park. The one where we met. I’ll show you something.”
The next day, right after lunch, we went to the park. Artyom walked beside me in silence, his face a tense mask. I knew we should find Marika there. We walked along the main alley—it had truly changed beyond recognition. The young saplings that once were thin rods had become majestic, centuries-old oaks and spreading lindens.
“— Look,” I said quietly, pointing to a crooked but still familiar bench. “Do you remember this bench? It’s where you first told me you loved me.”
He smiled sadly.
“— How could anyone forget.”
At that very moment Marika came running out from under the thick canopy. Seeing me, she waved happily.
“— Lady! You came!”
Artyom, who stood next to me, froze as if rooted. His face went utterly white, as if he’d been splashed with lime. He couldn’t take his shocked gaze off the girl.
“— Artyom, this is Marika. She’s ten; she’s the daughter of the janitor who works in this park.” I turned to the girl. “— Marika, show your hands to the gentleman, please.”
With mild surprise but trusting, she held out her small palms. Artyom saw those same grotesquely fused fingers, and his body jerked—he staggered. I just managed to grab his arm.
“— Marika, where is your father working now?”
“— Over there, around that bend, there’s an old guard hut. He lives there. But he’s a bit sick today, lying in the hut.”
“— Can you take us to him?”
“— Sure! Come on, I’ll show you.”
We followed her in silence. Artyom shuffled, barely moving his feet, as if walking to the scaffold. I understood—he had already realized everything, but was afraid to believe it. It would be too painful to be burned by false hope.
Marika led us to a dilapidated, peeling shack by the far fence of the park. A miserable hovel of rotten boards, with one small, filthy window. A musty, boozy, hopeless smell seeped from the door. The girl pushed the creaking door lightly.
“— Papa, you have guests!”
We stepped over the threshold. It was dim inside, and a heavy, nauseating stench of unwashed body, cheap alcohol, and mold hit our noses. In the corner, on bare, dirty boards serving as a bed, lay a man. About forty-five, unshaven, in ragged, threadbare clothes. I couldn’t help pressing a handkerchief to my nose. Artyom took an unsteady step forward, peering into his features.
The man cracked his eyes open with effort. He tried to prop himself up on an elbow but couldn’t—it was clear he had “taken a lot on board” the day before. His bleary, unfocused gaze slid over us. It stopped on Artyom—and suddenly his whole body tensed, and a spark of recognition flashed in his eyes.
“— Who… is that?” he rasped, barely intelligible.
Artyom slowly crouched down in front of the pallet, never taking his eyes off the man’s face. His hand, trembling, reached for the man’s forehead, where a pale, old scar stood out clearly above the left eyebrow.
“— Pashka…” It wasn’t a voice but a torn, soul-rending whisper. “— Is that you?”
The man on the bed began to shake all over. His eyes flew wide open; horror, hope, and disbelief sloshed in them. He stretched out his hand with its grotesquely fused, claw-like fingers and, carefully, almost reverently, touched Artyom’s cheek.
“— Igor’ok?..” he whispered, using Artyom’s home nickname, the one only the closest had used in childhood.
They froze like that for several timeless seconds. Then Artyom, with a sob and a force I didn’t know he possessed, lunged forward and wrapped his brother in his arms, pressed his grimy, dusty head to his clean shirt. And they wept. They wept aloud, childishly helpless, desperate and purifying. Marika huddled against me in fright, and I hugged her thin shoulders, feeling the same hot tears running down my face.
“— I’ve found you…” Artyom murmured through his sobs, clutching his brother. “— Thirty-eight years… Thirty-eight long years I’ve searched for you, and now… at last I’ve found you.”
“— Forgive me, brother…” Pavel hiccupped, his body shaking with big tremors. “— I didn’t want to… didn’t want to run so far. I hid in a gypsy wagon, fell asleep, and when I woke up we were already hundreds of kilometers away. I was afraid to come back, thought you’d curse me, scold me… The gypsies took me in, raised me, but…”
“— It’s all right… Now it will be all right. I’m with you.”
They sat there, locked in that embrace for a long time, unable to let go, as if afraid it was only a dream. Then Pavel tore himself away with effort and looked at me.
“— And this… who is she?”
“— My wife. Lika.”
“— Your wife…” he gave a bitter little smile, and in his eyes something of an un-lived, maimed life glinted. “— So you grew up… got married. And I… I stayed that seven-year-old boy who, because of a couple of hurtful words, ran away and ruined everything.”
“— Pash… Mom and Dad… They’re gone. It’s been five years. They rest side by side, in the same cemetery. Dad didn’t last a month after Mom.”
Pavel covered his face with his big, damaged hands and began to cry again, but now quietly, hopelessly.
“— I knew… I always felt they were gone. Mom… Mom would never have stopped, never have given up searching. If she didn’t find me… it means something irreparable happened.” His shoulders shook with silent sobs. “— Forgive me, my dear ones… All my life I only thought of returning, falling at your feet, asking forgiveness… But I was afraid. Afraid you’d reject me. Say I had betrayed you.”
“— No one betrayed anyone,” Artyom said firmly, with a severity uncharacteristic of him. “— You were a small, foolish, hurt child. Children don’t carry that kind of guilt. The fault lies with that girl who mocked you. And we are at fault—we didn’t watch closely enough, didn’t protect you. But now none of that matters. One thing matters—I found you. We’re together again.”
We took Pavel out of that hovel that same day. First, we drove him to the memorial cemetery where his parents lay side by side. Pavel, barely reaching the modest headstone, fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the cold, rough granite.
“— Forgive me… I didn’t mean to leave you… I loved you… Always, to my last breath, I loved you…”
Artyom stood beside him, unable to hold back tears, his strong, warm hand resting on his brother’s hunched, shaking back. Marika clung to me, and I felt her little body tremble with quiet, restrained sobs. I stroked her soft hair—such a smart, strong girl who had known so much grief and deprivation in her ten years. Raised without a mother, with a father who was slowly drinking himself away, numbing unbearable inner pain, and who, in despair, made her earn money by fortune-telling.
“— Daddy, I’ll never, ever run away from you,” she whispered, looking at her father. “— I promise.”
After the cemetery we took Marika with us. Pavel, without resisting, agreed to go to a good rehabilitation center—he understood himself that alone he couldn’t fight the demons of the past. He spent two long months in the clinic, learning to live anew. They performed a complex operation on his hands. The surgeons, after examining him, spread their hands—at his age and with such old deformities it was impossible to separate the fingers completely, but improving motor skills and function a bit was doable.
“— I’m infinitely grateful as it is,” Pavel said after the operation, looking at his bandaged hands. “— A little is still better. And I’m a pretty good carpenter, by the way. Even with these claws I learned to make beauty from wood.”
We eventually celebrated Artyom’s birthday at my sister Oksana’s restaurant. Pavel came—clean-shaven, freshly trimmed, in a new, perfectly fitting suit we’d picked out. Marika—in a gorgeous blue dress that perfectly set off her eyes, with a graceful silk clip in her hair. The whole party she didn’t leave my side.
“— Aunt Lika, can I come to you every day now?” she asked, looking up at me with her cornflower eyes.
“— Marika dear, you live with us now. Forever.”
“— Really?” Her eyes shone with such happiness that my heart clenched. “— And Dad?”
“— Dad will definitely get better, find a good job, rent a cozy apartment. And you’ll live with him. But you can always, at any moment, come to us. We’re one big family now.”
Artyom put his arm around my waist then and kissed me gently on the cheek.
“— This is the most incredible, most priceless gift of my life. Thank you, Lika.”
“— Don’t thank me,” I shook my head. “— This is all Marika. If not for this girl, we would never have learned the truth.”
“— Marika the seer,” Artyom smiled. “— Maybe she really does have a gift?”
“— Hardly,” I smirked. “— A very smart, well-read, and preternaturally perceptive girl. She just gives very wise, down-to-earth advice. That’s all her magic.”
“— Aunt Lika, I really do love to read,” Marika confessed. “— And I want to study well. Maybe even economics later. Papa says I’ve got a good head for numbers.”
“— We’ll definitely help you,” I promised firmly. “— You can study to be whatever you want. An economist, a doctor, a scientist.”
All evening Artyom never left me, danced, smiled, laughed with that ringing, boyish laugh of his. I hadn’t seen him truly happy like that in many, many years. Pavel sat at the table and chatted animatedly with Oksana about carpentry work—it turned out she needed a skilled craftsman for some light renovations at the restaurant. Marika, sitting beside them, listened closely and sometimes tossed in such precise and smart remarks that Oksana only raised her brows in surprise:
“— Little one, are you sure you’re only in fourth grade? You talk like a grown, accomplished person.”
“— I’ve read a lot of books,” Marika answered modestly. “— The gypsies had a whole library. Grandma Agata taught me—she was Russian, and ended up in the camp by accident, just like my dad.”
When the last guests had gone, the four of us remained—me, Artyom, Pavel, and Marika. We sat at the big table, sipped fragrant herbal tea, and simply talked. Pavel told us about his life in the camp—how the gypsies took him in, raised him, taught him a trade; how they married him at sixteen to young Gabriella. How Marika was born, and how his young wife died tragically in the mountains, falling from a cliff in a storm. How, unable to cope with fresh grief, he slowly but surely began to drown it in the bottle.
“— Marika… she saved me from the final abyss,” Pavel said, looking at his daughter with love. “— I woke each morning and saw her eyes. And I understood—you can’t give up. She was left all alone. All alone in the wide world. She had no one but me.”
“— Now she does,” Artyom said firmly. “— Now she has a big, close-knit family. An uncle, an aunt. And soon, who knows, cousins—brothers or sisters.”
I laughed, blushing.
“— Don’t get ahead of yourself. But… who knows.”
Meanwhile, Marika climbed into my lap, nestled in, and pressed her cheek to my chest.
“— I missed gentle, motherly hands so much… Mama’s been gone a long time, and Grandma Agata died three years ago. There was no one to hug me…”
I hugged her tight, with all my strength, feeling something warm and bright spread inside me. This little, fragile girl had walked an unimaginably hard road. And she was the one who led me to the most important, most genuine gift for my husband—not a thing, not a trinket, but the reunion of a family torn apart thirty-eight years ago.
Artyom raised his glass of clear mineral water:
“— I propose a toast. To meetings that seem accidental but are really the threads of fate. To kindred souls that find each other even through the thickness of decades. To family. Real, eternal.”
We clinked glasses. Pavel lifted his too—in the clinic they’d taught him you can celebrate without alcohol, and he now followed that rule faithfully.
“— To sister Lika,” he added, looking at me with boundless gratitude. “— Who proved more perceptive and wiser than all the detectives in the world put together. And to my little chick Marika, who led you right to my door.”
“— And I only advised you to simply talk honestly,” Marika reminded us, mischievous sparks dancing in her eyes. “— And everything happened by itself. I didn’t do anything special.”
“— You did,” I disagreed. “— You were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. And you pointed out the one true path. That’s real, pure magic—not predicting the future, but helping people see what’s right under their noses.”
We sat at that table until the first roosters. Artyom showed Pavel old, time-worn photographs—their shared carefree childhood, their parents’ faces, the house that had long since changed owners. Pavel cried and laughed at the same time, recognizing dear features, places, forgotten moments of happiness. Marika dozed off in my arms—happily exhausted by her surging emotions. I carried her to the room we’d set up for her, tucked her in with a soft down quilt, and kissed her warm forehead.
“— Sleep, our little enchantress. You worked a real miracle. Without even knowing it.”
When I returned to the living room, I stopped on the threshold. Artyom sat with his arm around his brother, like in childhood. Both were silent—no words were needed to understand each other. I stood, afraid to disturb that fragile, sacred minute of reconciliation and forgiveness. Artyom turned, saw me, and held out his hand.
“— Come here. You’re part of this family. The most important part.”
I came and sat beside them. The three of us sat there, and for the first time in many, many years I felt my life filled to the brim—completely, deeply, all-embracingly. Not work, not career, not the race for success. But this—family, love, forgiveness, and reunion.
Pavel got a job at a carpentry workshop run by one of Artyom’s acquaintances. It turned out he really was a talented craftsman—even with his scars and limited dexterity he created true wonders from wood. He rented a small but very cozy apartment not far from our house. Marika started school near us, and every day after classes she dropped by. She did her homework at our big table, ate dinner with us, and told us with delight about her school successes.
The teachers could only spread their hands—the girl who six months earlier had been wandering the streets and begging turned out to be one of the most capable and diligent students in the grade. She especially excelled at the exact sciences and literature. I happily worked with her on English—after all, I’m a professional interpreter; it would be a sin not to share my knowledge.
A year later Pavel met a woman—a quiet, kind librarian named Svetlana. She bonded with him and Marika with all her heart. They had a modest but very heartfelt wedding. Marika was over the moon—she had a mother again.
And we, Artyom and I… we really did decide to have a child. At forty it was a certain risk for me, but we believed in a miracle. And the miracle happened—after a year and a half we had a boy, sturdy and healthy. We named him Pavel, in honor of the brother we had found. Marika became the most tender and caring cousin in the world—she spent whole days minding the baby, singing him lullabies, telling tales she’d once heard from the gypsy grandmother Agata.
Sometimes in the evenings, when our big, noisy, incredible family gathered either at our place or at Pavel’s, I sat off to the side, watched this celebration of life, and couldn’t believe that it had all started with a forgotten birthday and a little girl who tapped on my car window in a traffic jam. With that very girl who advised me to simply talk heart-to-heart. And we did. And we found what we had been seeking for nearly four decades.
Shared blood is no guarantee of kinship, but it is a chance to gain it. Shared pain is a chance to heal together. And shared, boundless love is the force that gathers the scattered shards of fates into a single, beautiful, complete mosaic. A mosaic of a family once cruelly shattered by a child’s taunt and fear. But which we managed to piece together again—thanks to a coincidence that, on closer look, turned out not to be a coincidence at all, but fate itself
