Seventeen thousand had just hit Anna’s bank card.
She was walking home in high spirits.
“Usually it’s less, but this time, with the advance included, it came to over thirty thousand. And my boss even added a two-thousand bonus.
Well, I did work two double shifts in a row at the end of the month…” She glanced down at her hands without meaning to. “They look terrible. The metal dust has sunk in so deep, it will never come out.
Women my age have neat manicures at forty, and all I have are cuts and cracked skin. Looks like I’ll spend my whole life standing by that machine.
Oh well. The important thing is raising my daughter. She’s already finished her first year. Let her have a different life.
Let her work in an office, get married… I’ve spent my whole life alone. At least maybe things will turn out well for her.”
After buying groceries, Anna came home. Her daughter was in the kitchen cooking something.
“We got money on the card today!” Anna said happily.
“Good,” her daughter answered dryly.
“Vasilina, why do you look so gloomy?”
“Nothing. Sit down and eat.”
“Here, slice the ham and cheese so we can have a decent dinner,” Anna said, unpacking the groceries.
When they sat down at the table, she asked again,
“So why are you upset?”
“Yesterday Maxim introduced me to his parents.”
“Maxim? Which one?”
“You don’t know him,” Vasilina said with a faint smirk. “He drove me home the other day.”
“He has his own car?”
“Yes. And his own apartment. And his parents have money.”
“Sweetheart, don’t go after someone like that… He’s not for you.”
“That’s exactly the kind of man I want!” Vasilina snapped, her voice sharpening. “I want to live properly, not keep scraping by from one of your paychecks to the next!”
“Vasilina, are you lacking anything? You dress well, you have a phone…”
“Everybody has that now!”
“All right… and what about his parents?” Anna asked, trying to soften the conversation.
“What about them…” The girl waved her hand dismissively. “His father is so respectable-looking. His mother is polished, covered in jewelry, like she stepped out of a magazine.”
“And what did you talk about?”
“They asked who my parents were,” Vasilina said, pressing her lips together. “I was so ashamed… What was I supposed to say? That I don’t have a father, and my mother works a factory machine?”
“My girl, not everyone lives in cottages and drives expensive cars. Somebody has to work with their hands.”
“Then let somebody else do it! I want to live!” she cried, then burst into tears and ran to her room.
Anna remained at the table, her head lowered.
It hurt.
Everything she had ever done had been for her daughter alone.
The next day, Vasilina came home excited, wearing a mysterious smile.
“Mom, tomorrow is Saturday. I invited Maxim over.”
“Oh!” Anna said, startled. “What time is he coming?”
“In the evening.”
“We need to buy groceries, make something tasty.”
“I’ll do the cooking. Mom, you need to fix yourself up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your hair. Makeup.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Anna asked, glancing at herself in the mirror. “Am I already old?”
“What does age have to do with it? You just need to look nice.”
“All right, I’ll go to the hairdresser…” she said with a smile. “But makeup…”
“I’ll do your makeup myself,” Vasilina said, taking her hands. “But your hands… Mom, they need to be sorted out. A manicure.”
“A manicure? I work at a machine.”
“Your nails look awful…”
“It’s the dust that got into the skin…” Anna looked down at her palms. “All right, I’ll try to do something.”
“Come on, scrub them. I’ll book you right now. Tomorrow morning they’ll do your hair and nails.”
“Book it,” Anna said firmly.
“We’re going to make you beautiful!”
“I’ll go buy the groceries for now.”
As she stepped out of the building, she found herself thinking:
“So my daughter sees me as old? I’m only forty-one…”
Her neighbor Fyodor walked past, nodded, and kept going.
“Even he doesn’t notice me… He used to be handsome once… And now he’s alone…” she sighed. “And he doesn’t even look at me…”
When she returned home with the shopping bags, she had barely crossed the threshold before her daughter said,
“Mom, get ready! I booked you for a manicure. They’re waiting for you in half an hour.”
“But how… I…”
“Come on, hurry up! I’m going with you,” Vasilina said, taking the bags from her.
Anna spent the whole day on edge. After all, today the man who might one day become her son-in-law was coming.
Then the doorbell rang.
“Good afternoon, Anna Stepanovna,” the young man said confidently. “My name is Maxim.”
“Very pleased to meet you,” she answered warmly, studying him to herself. “A good boy. Down-to-earth. Not arrogant.”
“Maxim, come in!” Vasilina called.
At the table, the conversation flowed easily. Maxim talked about the family business and how he had earned enough for his own apartment and car.
Anna kept catching herself thinking that this was exactly the kind of son-in-law she would want… and yet she could not picture her daughter beside him.
“Vasilina wants everything at once… She likes him because of the money… And he seems to understand that,” Anna thought.
“Maxim, what are your plans?” Anna asked carefully.
“I’m going to keep working with my father. I’d also like to find a job for your daughter. I know she’s studying. I’m studying too, by correspondence.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three. I served in the army. I’m in my third year now. I work for my father—he pays me about seventy thousand.”
Anna listened in disbelief. She could not understand how her daughter took that as something ordinary.
“My father started almost from nothing,” Maxim went on. “After the army, he studied and worked as a drill operator at a factory.”
“As what?” Anna asked in surprise.
“A drill operator.”
“I’m a drill operator too,” she said proudly, only to notice the displeased look on her daughter’s face.
“We have a small factory,” Maxim continued. “I went through every stage. My father says a person has to know the work from the ground up.
Your daughter studies logistics. For now, she could work as a dispatcher with us.”
Anna listened and could hardly believe it: her daughter and factory work did not belong in the same sentence. But Maxim spoke with such certainty, as if everything had already been decided.
After he left, Anna could not calm down for a long time.
That evening Vasilina came back.
“Sit down and eat,” her mother said quietly.
Her daughter sat in silence, staring thoughtfully at her plate.
“Mom, did you like Maxim?”
“Very much. And you?”
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
“What bothers you?”
“If we get married, he’ll be the one in charge. No question.”
“And do you think it should be otherwise?”
“I don’t know…”
“I was probably like that when I was young too,” Anna sighed. “And now… if only someone would ask…”
“Mom, it’s my vacation. I studied for ten months, and now he’s offering me two months working as a dispatcher. Can’t I rest?”
“For free?”
“No, for forty thousand a month.”
“Forty? Even experienced workers at our factory don’t make that much!”
“Mom, I want something else…”
“You want to live on his account?”
“No!”
“Then what does he need you for?” Anna asked bluntly.
“I’m beautiful,” her daughter answered proudly.
“There are plenty like that.”
“I love him!”
“You love his money.”
“No!”
“Then you’d fall for a janitor too.”
“Oh, Mom…”
“He needs a wife, not just a pretty girl,” Anna added softly.
That night, neither of them could sleep.
Vasilina lay awake thinking:
“Mom is right… I want everything at once… Maxim understands that… He isn’t rushing… He needs more than a pretty face…”
Anna could not sleep either. Before bed, she looked into the mirror… and felt as though she were seeing herself for the first time.
“I’m still beautiful… I’m only forty-one… Why did I give up on myself?”
In the morning, Vasilina went to see Maxim—serious and determined.
Anna cleaned the apartment and got ready to go to the store. She noticed her daughter’s cosmetics, remembered yesterday’s advice… and suddenly decided to try.
When she stepped out of the building, Fyodor stopped dead in his tracks.
“Anya… is that you?”
“Who else were you expecting?” she laughed.
“You… you look so beautiful!”
“Thank you.”
“Let me walk you to the store,” he offered unexpectedly.
“All right,” she said with a smile.
That evening, as Anna walked home, she caught herself thinking new thoughts.
“Fyodor is actually a good man… And not boring at all… We even went to a restaurant…”
When she got home, her daughter studied her carefully.
“Mom, why are you glowing?”
“I don’t quite understand it myself yet,” Anna said with a smile. “What about you?”
“I’m starting work with Maxim tomorrow.”
“Good for you. When you earn your own money, you feel different. And he’ll see you differently too.”
“I understand.”
“Hold on to him.”
“Thank you, Mom… You really opened my eyes.”
Then Vasilina looked at her more closely.
“Mom… are you in love?”
The cup slipped from Anna’s hand and shattered on the floor.
“What makes you say that?” Anna asked, trying to hide her embarrassment.
“That mysterious smile… and you’re wearing my makeup,” her daughter laughed. “You’re very beautiful, Mom!”
“Thank you… And you opened my eyes too…”
That autumn turned out to be rich with weddings.
On the Feast of the Intercession, Maxim and Vasilina had their wedding—loud, joyful, full of life.
And three weeks later, Anna married Fyodor.
