The year had turned out surprisingly warm. Indian summer dragged on, painting the leaves in fiery gold. The air was clear and sweet, like thick honey, and a fine pre-winter web drifted through it. In such a setting, the news brought into the house felt especially bitter and unfair.
“Varka, Varka,” came a tired voice outside the window—familiar from her childhood.
The girl standing by the stove flinched, set the towel aside, threw a faded shawl over her shoulders, and hurried into the yard. Her father—stooped yet powerful, his face carved with wrinkles and worries—was slowly opening the gate. Genuine exhaustion showed in his movements, the heavy kind that comes after long, fruitless work.
“I’m coming, Father.”
“Come here… we need to talk,” the man sank onto a rough wooden bench he’d once built with his own hands and patted the empty spot beside him in hopelessness.
“Talk? About what? Father, did something happen?”
“It did, daughter, it did… I’ve brought trouble on my own head. I ruined the cow—didn’t mean to, but it turned out that way. I gave her the wrong medicine and that was it—she’s done for.”
The girl’s heart clenched into an icy lump, and her lips pressed the edge of her kerchief so a moan wouldn’t slip out. This wasn’t just a loss—it was disaster. Damage to kolkhoz property. In her mind flashed Vasily the carpenter, the one who’d driven a horse into a ravine and it broke its legs. They gave him seven years—seven long years stolen from life. What would happen now to her father, a gray-haired laborer who’d lived through fire and water in the Civil War?
“Father, what will happen? Will Tikhon Ilyich really take you to court? You’re friends—since childhood! You stood shoulder to shoulder in hard times!”
“Friendship is friendship, but kolkhoz property is another matter. If only we were relatives—then it’d be a different story… a completely different conversation.”
“But you’re not relatives—you’re friends! All your life you’ve had each other’s backs!”
“And that’s why—as a friend—he offered to cover for me. Only he wanted to have some interest in it, you see… not do it for nothing.”
“What does he want in return, Father?”
“You—as a daughter-in-law. He wants you to marry his Stepan.”
The world swam, tilted. Stepan… His image rose from memory—tall, broad-shouldered, with eyes full of arrogance and a predatory readiness. All over the village he’d chased after girls, lifting skirts—shameless lout. His heavy, appraising stare made her shudder.
“How? Father, I don’t love him—he’s not dear to me at all. He… he looks at me in a way that makes my skin crawl.”
“After the cow died and Tikhon talked to me, we went together to Stepan. He wants you as his wife with all his heart and promised he wouldn’t hurt you. Do you think I want you any harm, daughter? If I weren’t sure of his word, I’d go to court without a second thought. Save your father, daughter. I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life.”
Hot, salty tears rolled down her cheeks, cutting wet tracks through the dust on her skin. There was no choice: either her father went to court—to darkness and humiliation—or she went to the altar with a man who stirred only cold revulsion. Life offered her a bitter cup, and she would have to drink it to the last drop.
“I agree. Set the wedding.”
“We’ll do it on Pokrov, the way our ancestors taught.”
On Pokrov the village celebrated two weddings—Varvara and Stepan’s, and her friend Anna and Grigory’s too (he was also, by the way, the chairman’s son). Golden autumn seemed to try to compensate for the bitterness of one union with the brightness and joy of the other. Vara watched with hidden pain how tenderly her friend looked at her chosen one, how her face glowed with happiness. In Vara’s own soul there was such nausea that it seemed better to climb into a noose than to cross the threshold of a new home with an unloved man.
After the wedding, Stepan—already well into his drink—led her to a new, recently built house. His father had made sure his newly married sons wouldn’t know hardship.
The cow that had died because of that ill-fated “carelessness” was written off, as if she’d eaten the wrong herbs in the meadow. No one dug into it; everything was settled quietly and smoothly. Vara kept resentment in her heart toward her father-in-law: he could have pulled it off out of friendship, without this awful, humiliating bargain.
“Here’s where we’ll live,” Stepan smiled broadly as he brought her into the entryway. “Do you like the house? Mother spent a whole week getting it ready—washing, scrubbing, trying to please you.”
She nodded silently, crushing her kerchief into a lump in her pocket. Fear bound her, made her movements wooden. She was a married woman now; for the first time in her life she would spend the night not under her parents’ roof. For the first time, a man would touch her—a man her soul could not accept.
“Now you’ll be the mistress here,” he swept an arm across the spacious main room. “And here the master will be me.”
He led her to the room with a massive wooden bed—Archip the carpenter’s handiwork. Drunk at the wedding, Archip had bragged that he’d built the marriage bed with his own hands and gifted beds to both of Tikhon’s sons, earning praise and approval from the villagers—and currying favor with the bosses.
“Well then—come in, make yourself at home. I’ll haul some water. Need to wash off the tiredness of a hard day… but such a happy one for us.”
Varvara would never forget that night. Drunk Stepan didn’t understand that she wasn’t one of those carefree girls he’d groped in haylofts, but a chaste, innocent girl—his lawful wife. His roughness and impatience became a nightmare for her, a deep mental and physical trauma.
In the morning, when she got out of bed, she felt as if a cart had run her over and then rolled her in dust. Holding back tears rising in her throat, she began searching the house for food. If she was a wife and mistress now, she had to act accordingly. First thing: cook. Her stomach growled with hunger—at the wedding yesterday she couldn’t swallow a bite.
“Well, my precious little wife. Was your husband good?” Stepan stretched as he came out of the room, while she had already boiled potatoes, put them on the table, added sour cream, and peeled two boiled eggs.
“Any moonshine left from yesterday?” he asked, dropping heavily onto the bench.
“I don’t know. I can go to my parents and get cabbage brine—Father always drinks it if he’s had too much the day before.”
“It’s fine, I’ll come around. Sit and eat with me. You need strength. The night was a fun one!” He roared with laughter, and Vara flinched at a wave of sharp, physical disgust.
He could feel her coldness, her dislike, and it heated his anger, which he took out on her without mercy. For the smallest “fault”—an undersalted soup, a shirt ironed wrong—he could insult her with filthy curses, or wind her braid around his fist, shouting each time that he would make her an obedient, submissive wife. And yet, in his eyes, in their dark depth, sometimes something elusive flashed—some unspoken pain of his own that, paradoxically, felt even stronger than the physical pain Vara endured.
“You don’t love me? Don’t love… Then why did you marry me?” he asked her once, when—after he’d done his “marital duties”—she simply turned silently toward the wall.
“You know perfectly well why. And Father promised you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And if you remember, at first I treated you kindly. I gave gifts, spoke tender words—but none of it matters to you. You frown, nod, and go back to your chores. Whether I love you or beat you, the result’s the same. But if you think you’ll divorce me—you’re wrong. I won’t let you go. You’ll bear me children. I’ll teach them how to respect their father and the master of this house. Yet we’ve lived together a year and still nothing. Maybe there’s something wrong with you?”
“I’m fine… I’m already with child…” Vara murmured, barely audible.
“What?” Stepan jerked up on his elbow. “How long have you known?”
“Two weeks.”
“And you’re only telling me now? What kind of wife are you?” He shook his head hard and collapsed onto the pillows, staring at the ceiling.
From the day he learned his wife was pregnant, he stopped touching her, as if he’d lost all interest—and soon returned to his old mistresses.
In May 1940 she gave birth to a little girl, Mashenka, who seemed to have absorbed all her mother’s tenderness and beauty. It was clear from the start. Stepan, rough and inattentive as a husband, unexpectedly fell madly and touchingly in love with his newborn daughter.
That same year Anna and Grigory had a son, Alexander—just a month later. Tikhon Ilyich blossomed as if he’d grown twenty years younger, boasting around the whole kolkhoz that he was the happiest grandfather: a grandson and a granddaughter born almost at the same time.
But his joy did not last long. Happy, carefree days gave way to tears, longing, a torturous wait, and a hope as fragile as autumn ice.
1941 came.
“Varka, Lidiya Nikitichna is demanding I move into their house,” Anna—her friend and also her sister-in-law—complained. “She says it’ll be hard for me alone with two children soon, and she’s ‘offering help.’”
Anna stroked her large, already noticeably rounded belly and looked at Vara pleadingly.
“She has a point. Sasha’s barely more than a year old and the second baby is on the way. You can’t move back to your parents, can you?”
“Where—to Zakharovka? Since they moved a year ago, we hardly see each other—work, muddy roads, something always gets in the way. I don’t know anyone there, and here there’s you… and Grisha. What if it all ends soon and he comes back? I want to wait for him at home. And my parents already have seven kids on the benches—where would I fit with two more? Help me, Varka. At least with advice. I don’t want to live with my in-laws. With our dear ‘mommy’s’ character, I’ll become her servant—and she already sticks her nose into everything. I know she has experience, but I’m the mother, not my own child’s nanny who needs constant instructions—how to bathe him, how much to feed, which side to lay him on…”
Vara couldn’t help laughing at her worried face.
“Why are you so worked up? Just say no—what’s the problem?”
“I can’t. It’s awkward. But how did you escape it? Did our precious mommy not invite you too?” Anna asked.
“She did—of course she did. I told her that if it gets hard, I’ll bring my own mother to live with me, or I’ll go back to my father’s house and wait for my husband there.”
“You’re still angry at Tikhon Ilyich?” Anna asked softly, almost in a whisper. She was one of the few who knew the real reason for this unhappy marriage.
“Can something like that be forgiven?”
“But everything’s fine between you, right?”
Vara looked at her silently, bitterness undisguised.
“You never told me anything. Is it really that bad?”
“Bad? Another word fits better—horrible, unbearable. Not ‘bad.’ You know, he left three months ago, and I don’t even miss him. It’s inhuman—but I feel like I finally got a gulp of freedom.”
“And I miss Grisha… though I know he doesn’t particularly miss me. His love passed as if it had never existed. Less than half a year after the wedding, I caught him with a girl. I told no one—was ashamed. When I got pregnant again, do you know how happy I was? I thought: two children—that’s serious, everything will be different. I’m such a fool, aren’t I? And I was an obedient wife to him. What was he missing?” Anna sobbed, wiping away a traitorous tear.
“Obedient…” Vara said. “Anechka, sometimes when I hear that word, it stirs a storm of anger in me. I was always an obedient daughter—look where it got me… I tried to be an obedient wife, and that didn’t bring happiness either. Do you know what I’m thinking now? When Stepan comes back, I’ll fight back. I won’t submit to anyone anymore. Let him kill me—I’ll still stand up for myself.”
Anna pressed against her, and they sat like that, hugging—two young women, captives of circumstance—in silence broken only by the crackle of firewood in the stove.
“I should go… but I don’t want to,” Anna said. “It’s lonely at home with little Sasha, and my feet won’t carry me to my in-laws…”
“Then stay,” Vara looked at her with sudden resolve. “Why not? No one will ask questions—two relatives living in one house, waiting for their husbands and raising children. Bring your things to me!”
“Can I?” Anna asked, hope lighting her eyes.
“You must. Come on—I’ll help.”
Leaving Sasha and Masha with Vara’s parents, the two young women began carrying their simple belongings from one house to the other. Lidiya Nikitichna, seeing the commotion, stormed out onto the porch:
“Girls, what are you doing? What is this?”
“Why are you upset, Mama?” Anna answered, feeling Vara’s unbreakable support behind her. “It’s exactly what you wanted—I won’t be alone, Vara will help with the children, we’ll be each other’s support. Together it’ll be easier. We’ll raise the kids and wait for our husbands to come back from the war.”
“But I meant something completely different!”
“Well, we decided this way. It isn’t easy for Vara alone either. Now we’ll be together.”
Lidiya Nikitichna nearly ground her teeth with anger—but what could she do? Later she only complained to her best friend about how willful and disobedient her daughters-in-law were, with no respect for age.
Meanwhile, Vara and Anna lived in one house, creating their small, fragile world. They helped each other, and it truly became easier for both—sometimes Anna watched all the children, sometimes Vara. They divided responsibilities: Vara, stronger and more enduring, took the heavy work—wood, water, the garden—while Anna took the meticulous, lighter work—cooking, cleaning, sewing.
A month remained until the birth, and Anna eagerly waited, whispering to Vara on quiet evenings about her dreams.
“What will you name her?”
“Lyubov. Little Lyubochka.”
“A good name,” Vara agreed tenderly.
“Girls, are you home?” came the familiar voice of Potap the postman, his knuckles drumming on the window.
“We’re home, we’re home. What is it—did you bring a letter?” There had been no letters from their husbands for two months; Anna worried, while Vara, to her shame, felt only a frightening indifference.
“I did. Varka—come here.”
Vara threw on a kerchief, went outside, and followed the postman, who led her farther from the yard, deep into the garden.
“Where are you taking me, Potap?”
“Come on, come on… I don’t want Anna to hear. Vara… there’s a death notice for Grigory. We need to be careful… gentle…”
Vara’s heart clenched like an iron vise. Careful? No matter how you say it, for her friend it was immeasurable, all-consuming grief.
“Can you tell Grisha’s parents yourself? Or take the notice to them?”
“Take it. I’ll tell Anna myself.”
Vara turned back and opened the gate to go into the yard—when she suddenly ran into Anna, standing as if rooted to the ground. Her eyes were full of bottomless, animal terror.
“A death notice for Grisha, right? That’s why he came? Tell me I imagined it—tell me!” Anna collapsed into hysteria, her voice breaking into a scream. Vara hugged her hard, pressing her close, feeling her tremble.
“Hush, hush, Anechka. I’m here. I’m with you. Calm down. It’s war—what can you do…”
“Why—why is it so unfair? Why Grisha?”
“Not only your Grisha has fallen. Vasilievna got a notice for her son a week ago. But she’s holding on—she understands. And you must think of the children: of Sasha… and the baby inside you.”
After calming Anna as best she could, Vara put her to bed, bathed the children, and rocked them to sleep. Then, after thinking, she went to her in-laws. They sat at the table embracing like two old trees broken by a storm. Their faces held such mute, consuming grief that her own heart tightened with sudden pity. Forgetting old resentments, she sat down opposite them and said softly:
“I’m so sorry. Please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you, daughter. How is Anechka?” Tikhon Ilyich asked, wiping away a sparse man’s tear.
“She calmed down—she’s sleeping now. Tikhon Ilyich, you were in the city recently… have you heard anything about Stepan? Like Grisha, he hasn’t written in two months—what if something happened to him too?”
“They say nothing—no time for scribbling, he’ll write when he finds a chance. That’s what they say.”
“If you learn anything, please tell me. I’ll go—need to be with Anna now.”
Back home, Vara found her friend and the children asleep. She slipped under the blanket, but sleep wouldn’t come. She dozed off only toward morning, tossing all night and hearing Anechka crying and moaning in her sleep. In a sinful moment she thought: better if God took Stepan. Then she was ashamed of her dark thoughts. He was there at the front, defending the homeland—and she wished him evil.
Under these heavy thoughts she finally fell asleep, and suddenly a piercing scream full of pain tore her awake—Anna was crying out. Labor had begun.
“Lord, it’s too early,” Vara gasped, jumping up.
“Varechka, help me. There’s still a month… what do I do?” Anna writhed with pain, looking at her with frightened, pleading eyes.
“Hold on—I’ll bring help!”
The children woke, frightened, darting around the room. Scooping both up, Vara ran to her parents. She hurried the kids inside, shouted to her mother on the run that Anna was giving birth, and raced for the medic. Sergey Petrovich—old and experienced—set to work, but the birth was difficult: the woman’s body, exhausted by grief and anxiety, wasn’t ready, yet the child was pushing to come out. Thirteen long, agonizing hours Anna fought for her baby’s life, and at last delivered a girl.
“She won’t make it,” the medic said quietly, leading Vara into the entryway.
“What are you saying? Do something!”
“I’ve done everything I can. All that’s left is to hope for a miracle. She’s half-unconscious. I’ve seen many like this. Premature, hard labor, the baby is big—the term is more than eight months, it seems to me. Do you know any prayers?”
“One—my grandmother taught me. But what does that have to—”
“Then pray. I did all I could… all I could. I gave pain relief. Now it goes how it goes.”
Vara wanted to slam her head into the wall from helplessness. She was angry at that exhausted man—he saw her friend dying, and couldn’t save her.
She entered the room where Anna lay. Anna’s face was pale, almost translucent.
“Varechka, I know I’m dying.”
“Don’t say that,” Vara wept, dropping to her knees by the bed.
“I saw Sergey Petrovich’s eyes… that’s how they look at the hopelessly ill. There was pity in them—and doom. Vara, I beg you—take care of my children. I know you’re very kind. I have no right to ask, I’m not worthy of your friendship and love—but I’ll довер them to no one else…”
“What are you saying? Anna—you’re like a sister to me…”
“I’m a bad person,” Anna said, her lips dry and cracked, syllable by syllable. “A terrible person. I know I’m dying, and if there really is something beyond, I don’t want to take a secret with me. I want to repent to you. My daughter… my daughter is Stepan’s.”
“What? How, Anechka? You loved Grisha—how could you have Stepan’s child? You’re delirious, it’s the medicine. Soon it’ll pass and we’ll laugh together…”
“It’s no laughing matter, Varechka. Grigory strayed—he came to my bed rarely. I dreamed of having another baby so he’d have no time to think of others. But too little time had passed since Sasha’s birth, and he hardly came to me as a husband. And then Stepan… He drank, his tongue loosened. He said he liked me, that I was different—not like you. That I was a good wife—gentle, smiling. The next day it happened again. I couldn’t tell Grisha—I didn’t want to set brothers against each other. I couldn’t tell you either—I was afraid of losing you. I didn’t know you hated him. In public you’re different… And when he pressed me— I didn’t resist. I thought if I got pregnant by him, no one would know; they’re brothers, they look alike. We were together three times, and then I started driving him away. Then I learned I was pregnant. I didn’t see Sergey Petrovich—I lied to him. I had two weeks left, not a month…”
“I don’t care, Anyuta, who the child is from. That’s your sin. But I desperately want you to live. And after… I give you my word—no one will ever know.”
“I won’t live, Varechka. And there’s one more secret. I overheard Grisha and Stepan talking. They caught me and ordered me to keep silent. But now I don’t care. That cow really ate something in the meadow—your father wasn’t guilty. When he came, she was already lying dead; he didn’t even have time to give medicine. They had an agreement, Varka—your father and our father-in-law. They wanted to marry you off, but knew you’d fight it. And when they saw that animal, the idea hit them…”
A few hours later, Anna was gone. In her cold fingers Vara held the tiny Lyubochka, who—against the grim predictions—miraculously survived.
After the funeral, Vara took a long time to recover, sinking into silent grief. She threw herself entirely into caring for the children—she had promised Anna she would look after her son and daughter.
“Varya, are you here?” Lidiya Nikitichna appeared on her doorstep three days after her daughter-in-law’s funeral.
“I’m here.”
“Pack Sasha and Lyubochka—I’m taking them. It’s too hard for you with three little ones, and they’re чужие to you, but they’re my grandchildren.”
“My sister moved in with me—don’t you know?” Vara smirked, looking at her mother-in-law. Interesting… did she know everything?
“What sister? Alyonka? She’s just a child herself—only fifteen.”
“It’s fine. At her age I was nannying four,” the older woman snapped. “But tell me this—did you know? You all knew?”
“Knew what?” Lidiya Nikitichna stared, confused, but тревога flickered in her eyes.
“About the cow. About how my father and your husband staged that whole спектакль for me. That he wasn’t facing a sentence, but your Stepan needed to marry the daughter of a family friend.”
“Where did you—”
“Anna confessed. She heard it from your sons.”
“I didn’t know anything,” Lidiya Nikitichna lowered her gaze—betraying herself.
“You knew… you all knew. And if you don’t want me to spread it across the whole district first and then divorce Stepan, you’ll leave the children with me. Otherwise the whole kolkhoz will condemn you. Do you need that?”
Without a word, Lidiya Nikitichna turned and left. The door slamming behind her felt like a line drawn under that miserable conversation.
Soon her father came. He sat across from her at the table and, watching her deftly and tenderly swaddle the baby, asked in a dull voice:
“So… you hate me now?”
“Why would I, Father? There’s no hatred in my heart. There’s resentment, deep incomprehension, bitter disappointment… should I list more?”
“I wanted what was best.”
“What was best?” Vara asked, not lifting her eyes. “To marry me off to someone I didn’t love, to doom me to suffering, to make me endure every night and every day… that’s what you call the best fate?”
“No. I thought you’d come to love him, that feelings would appear and everyone would be happy: you married to an eligible man, we’re related to Tikhon. And times are hard—connections like that matter.”
“It makes me sick to listen, Father. And seeing you is even more unbearable…”
Vara carried the baby to the cradle, making it clear the conversation was over.
Anatoly Stepanovich sighed heavily, got up, and left. He understood his daughter might never forgive him. The wall he had built between them with his own hands was too high and too strong.
Victory. Homecoming.
Three and a half years had passed since Anna died. With the help of her younger sister Alyonka, Vara raised three children. No matter how her in-laws begged for their grandchildren, she was unyielding. Vara had given Anna her word—and she would keep it. Besides, Lyubochka was her husband’s daughter, and so she had to wait for her father in his home.
Stepan survived. Barely a month after her friend’s funeral, Vara received his first letter. He wrote that he had lain in the hospital for a long time and confirmed his brother’s death, finally crushing the weak hope of the parents who sometimes still prayed it was a mistake…
He wrote warm, heartfelt letters, and Vara read each one in astonishment—as if something in him had changed at the root, as if he were a different, unfamiliar man. She didn’t write back about what she knew—about their secrets, their shared bitter past.
And then he came.
Tall, still broad-shouldered, but in his gaze—once proud and hard—there was no trace of the old coldness. Seeing his wife on the threshold, he said nothing—only hugged her tightly, soldier-style, pressing her to him as if afraid to let go. Then he dropped to one knee, scooped up little Mashenka running to him, and kissed her cheeks.
Five-year-old Sasha and three-year-old Lyubochka watched this grown tall “uncle” with shining medals on a worn soldier’s tunic with shy curiosity.
“These are my nephews already so big?” He set down his daughter, lifted the little girl into his arms, then drew the boy close by the shoulders.
“And you’re our uncle?” Sasha asked, examining the orders with interest.
“Uncle. Come on—let’s go inside and get acquainted.”
The children bustled around, Stepan ate supper with appetite—devouring homemade cabbage soup as if he hadn’t tasted it in forever. Then Alyonka came for the children and took them to her place, sensing delicately that her sister and husband finally needed to be alone.
As soon as the door closed, Stepan came up behind Vara and carefully—almost reverently—embraced her, pressing her to the still-rough fabric of his tunic. She shuddered involuntarily; a familiar freezing wave of fear ran through her body. She remembered the past nights—the terrible nights before he left…
“You’re afraid of me…” he said with bottomless sadness. He turned her to face him and gently stroked her cheek with his fingertips. “Vara, it will be different. Not like before. I’ve changed, and I’m asking you—begging you—give me a chance. Just one chance.”
“You believe a person can change? I fear something else…”
“What?”
“That you’ve become even crueler than before… that the war hardened you completely.”
He took her hand—not squeezing, just holding it—and led her to the bed.
“Don’t worry. I won’t touch you against your will. Never again. May I just hold you and tell you something?”
She nodded silently, letting him hold her. He laid her down, lay beside her, and began to speak. His voice was quiet and steady—about the hospital, comrades, fear, pain. As he spoke, the ice in her soul began to melt; the tension slowly drained away. She let herself calm down and stopped trembling.
“Before I ended up in the hospital, I saw something. I saw our young nurse—tiny, fragile—being harassed by our battalion commander. She couldn’t refuse him, and he used her, making her his field wife. I saw her cry at night, saw how she suffered, the emptiness in her eyes. And no one dared stand up for her—he was hard and vile, with power. And how she laughed when he died from a stray fragment… I saw happiness and freedom in her eyes. Can you imagine? And suddenly I looked at us from the side—and I was horrified. I understood what you had felt all those years before mobilization. Late, damn it—too late. And I asked myself: if I had died, would you have cried? Or would you have sighed with relief like that nurse? I understood what an animal I was… what unforgivable things I did…”
“So what do we do now?” she asked quietly, almost under her breath.
“I’m asking you to let me… I won’t touch you until you want it yourself. I want to win your heart, Vara. Not with force, not with fear—with something else. And if I still disgust you, if there isn’t even a tiny corner for me in your heart, I’ll set you free. I’ll give you a divorce—honest word.”
“You really have changed… I feel like I’m seeing a different person.”
“War changes people. Some for the better, some for the worse. But no one stays the same… no one.”
“I understood even from your letters that you’d become different. You never spoke those words to me—the thoughts you poured onto paper…”
Then they heard children’s ringing laughter outside the window—playing with Alyonka.
“Isn’t it hard for you with them? With three?”
“No,” Vara smiled sincerely for the first time that evening. “They’re wonderful. They’re my joy.”
“Then why didn’t you give your nieces and nephew to their grandparents? They probably asked.”
“Because I wanted the daughter to wait for her father at home…”
“Masha? What does Masha have to do with it?”
“I’m not talking about Masha. I’m talking about Lyubochka. She’s your daughter. I know everything. How our wedding happened—and that you cheated on me with Anna.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat; shame and pain twisted his face.
“How do you know?” he whispered.
“Anna told me before she died. She confessed.”
He slid off the bed and dropped to the floor, burying his face in her knees. His mighty shoulders shook.
“Forgive me, Vara… forgive me. I don’t know what came over me back then—what blindness. I’m guilty before my dead brother, before Anna—and before you most of all.”
“Stepan, we can try again from a clean slate. But you must understand one thing forever: I will not be an obedient, submissive wife anymore. I’m a person—with my own thoughts, feelings, desires—and you will have to reckon with them.”
“Everything will be different, Varechka. Different. I promise. I’ll prove it to you.”
EPILOGUE
Half a year had passed since Stepan returned. They officially registered the children as their own and raised them together, and to everyone in the village they looked like one big, close family. Vara watched her husband with quiet amazement—he had become attentive, caring, truly gentle. He helped with chores, nursed the children, and in the evenings could simply sit beside her, holding her hand, talking about plans for their shared future.
And then one day, after sending all three children to their grandmother, she herself came into the main room where Stepan was making something for Masha.
“You…” He looked at her in surprise, watching her slowly, with a slight smile, untie the strings of her blouse.
“I want a baby. Another son. You are a husband after all, aren’t you?” she said, and in her eyes was not a showy happiness, but the real thing.
He laughed—a happy, understanding laugh—and, scooping her into his arms, realized he had finally managed to melt the many years of ice in the heart of his once-unyielding, and now most beloved and desired wife. Outside the first snowflakes spun, foretelling a long winter—but this time a truly warm one. And in their shared home—earned through suffering and forgiveness—peace finally settled.
