З життя
If You Can Spread Your Legs, You Can Take Responsibility—Otherwise, Just Walk Away From Parenthood
Lydia and her husband had longed for their first child. For nine months, hed fussed over her like a prized teapotescorting her to university, especially when the pavements were slick with black ice, which he absolutely forbade her to navigate alone. Just before the birth, though, he was sent away on business. He couldve refusedhed already planned to quit his job once the baby arrived. What sort of life was it, traipsing off on shifts while Lydia was left alone with a newborn?
But fate had a wicked sense of timing. The contractions started the moment Eugenes train pulled out. Not only was the pain unbearable, but her husband wasnt there. Not exactly the dreamy first-birth scenario shed imagined.
The baby arrived healthy, but Lydia couldnt bring herself to call Eugene. Let him hear the news from someone else, she thought bitterly.
She glanced around the ward. Opposite her lay a woman in her forties. Nearby, a young girl chattered into her phone, while by the door, another woman wept quietly into the wall.
Exhausted, Lydia collapsed onto the stiff NHS pillow and fell into a sleep so deep, the world might as well have vanished.
“Will you be breastfeeding?” a voice pierced through her drowsiness. Lydia turned eagerlyonly to see the nurse addressing the weeping woman by the door.
“Cat got your tongue? At least hold her. Look what a beauty youve got.” The woman stayed frozen, face still to the wall.
“Oh, youre all quick to have a bit of fun, but when it comes to responsibility, suddenly its better to give the baby up,” the nurse muttered before bustling off.
The forty-something womanNataliewas the first to break the silence, her voice sharp. “You think I wanted this? Im forty-three! My sons marriedIm about to be a grandmother, and now this? But whats done is done. The babys innocent. If you didnt want her, you wouldnt have kept her this long. And now shell bounce between care homes? Have you even thought about her life?”
Anya sobbed harder, loud and unashamed now.
“What goods crying? It wont fix anything,” Natalie huffed. “Take the baby, feed her, and stop being daft.”
“Maybe she was assaulted,” piped up Albina, finally setting her phone down. “Or the fathers someone closestepdad, maybe?”
Lydia listened, guilt gnawing at her. Here she wasloved, supported, with a husband who doted on heryet she still found reasons to sulk. And then there was Anya, alone, unwanted. And the baby, guilty of nothing but existing.
That little girl would grow up hardened. Maybe her parents were drinkers. Maybe the man whod promised her the world had bolted the second he heard about the baby. No balloons, no flowersjust a mother with nowhere to go.
Shame and pity twisted in Lydias chest. “If you had somewhere to stay,” she ventured, “would you keep her?”
Anya stared at her like shed lost her mind. “Of course. But thatll never happen.” She turned back to the wall, silent.
Two hours later, Lydia announced, “Youll live in the halls. My mums the caretaker. You can clean floors, and theyll give you a room.”
“Oh!” Albina chimed in. “Ive got a spare going-home outfit. Ill call my husbandweve got two, no need for both.”
“Ill bring clothes,” Natalie added. “My daughters old thingswashed and pressed. Theyre good as new. Useless to me nowIve got grandsons on the way.”
By the next day, women from other wards were offering nappies, a pram, even a cot.
“Blimey, Ive got nothing to give,” fretted a young mum from down the hall. “But Ill buy formulajust in case.”
Anya wept again, but this time from sheer relief. “Ill pay you back,” she mumbled, while the others patted her shoulder.
“Pay it forward,” they said.
That night, drifting off, Lydia smiled. Everything would work out for Anya. Shed find a good man. And her little girl? Shed have her mum. What more could she need?
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Igor Never Came Back from Holiday: “Why hasn’t your husband written or called?” “No word, Vera—not after nine days, not after forty,” Lyuda would joke, adjusting her work apron over her broad waist. “So he’s gone off the rails, or worse, then,” her neighbour nodded sympathetically. “Well, wait and see. Have the police said anything?” “Everyone’s silent, Vera—quiet as fish in that sea of his.” “Life, eh… fate.” That conversation weighed heavy on Lyudmila as she swept the autumn leaves from her doorstep in the dreary fall of 1988. Three years into her well-earned retirement, she’d had to take up work as a council cleaner to make ends meet. Life had always been simple—she and her husband, both dutiful workers, had raised a son, no scandal, no sorrow. Then Igor went on a seaside holiday and never returned. She’d phoned every hospital, every police station, even the morgue. Her son, stationed with the military, helped with inquiries—it was discovered Igor checked out of his hotel but never boarded the train home. Lyudmila wanted to go search for her husband, but her son insisted he’d handle it. Weeks passed, and she kept herself busy to stifle her fears. Then, as suddenly as he’d vanished, Igor reappeared—no suitcase, just the same navy suit and a weary silence. As she fussed to feed him and her son, the truth unravelled: Igor had been living with another woman by the sea, seeking “freedom.” The shock, the ache of betrayal—Lyudmila couldn’t bear it. Igor, shamed and lost, tried to return weeks later, but Lyudmila stood firm. It wasn’t just heartbreak—it was the pain of not knowing, of years shared and suddenly made strange. She swept her pathway, watching leaves collect and blow away, knowing sometimes those who hurt us most have already gone with the wind. (Original Title Adapted for English Culture: Igor Never Came Back from Holiday: The Disappearance, the Heartbreak, and the Road Swept Clean)
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THE MOTHER-IN-LAW Anna Petrovna sat in the kitchen, watching the milk quietly simmer on the stove. Three times she’d forgotten to stir it, and each time she remembered too late: the froth would rise and spill over, and she’d wipe the stovetop in irritation. In those moments, she realized: it wasn’t about the milk. Ever since her second grandchild was born, it was as if everything in the family had gone off the rails. Her daughter grew weary, lost weight, and spoke less. Her son-in-law came home late, ate in silence, and sometimes retreated straight to the bedroom. Anna Petrovna noticed all this and thought: how could anyone leave a woman alone like this? She spoke up—first gently, then with more edge. At first to her daughter, then to her son-in-law. But she began to notice a strange thing: after her words, things in the house didn’t get lighter—they got heavier. Her daughter defended her husband, her son-in-law grew more withdrawn, and she herself went home with the feeling she’d once again done the wrong thing. That day, she went to the vicar not for advice, but because she simply had nowhere else to go with these feelings. ‘I suppose I’m just a bad person,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘I do everything wrong.’ The vicar was sitting at his desk, writing. He put down his pen. ‘Why do you think that?’ Anna Petrovna shrugged. ‘I wanted to help. But it seems all I do is make everyone angry.’ He looked at her kindly, without judgment. ‘You’re not a bad person. You’re tired. And very anxious.’ She sighed. That felt like the truth. ‘I’m scared for my daughter,’ she said. ‘She’s so different after giving birth. And him…’ she waved a hand. ‘It’s like he doesn’t even notice.’ ‘And do you notice what he does?’ asked the vicar. Anna Petrovna thought. She remembered last week, when he quietly washed the dishes late at night, thinking no one noticed. Or on Sunday, when he took the pram out for a walk, even though it was clear he just wanted to lie down and sleep. ‘He does things… I think,’ she said uncertainly. ‘But not the way he should.’ ‘And what is “the way he should”?’ asked the vicar calmly. Anna Petrovna wanted to answer right away, but suddenly realized she didn’t know. In her head: more, more often, more attentively. But specifically what, she couldn’t say. ‘I just want it to be easier for her,’ she said. ‘Then say that,’ the vicar responded gently. ‘But say it to yourself, not to him.’ She looked up at him. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean that right now, you aren’t fighting for your daughter—you’re fighting with her husband. And fighting means tension. Everyone gets tired of that. You. Them.’ Anna Petrovna was silent for a long time. Then she asked: ‘So what should I do? Pretend everything’s fine?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just do what helps. Not words, but actions. And not against anyone, but for someone.’ On the way home, she thought about this. Remembered how, when her daughter was little, she didn’t lecture her but just sat beside her when she cried. Why was it different now? The next day she showed up without warning. Brought soup. Her daughter was surprised, her son-in-law awkward. ‘I won’t stay long,’ Anna Petrovna said. ‘Just came to help.’ She watched the children while her daughter slept. Left quietly, without saying a word about how hard things must be or how they ought to live. A week later, she came again. And a week after that. She still saw her son-in-law wasn’t perfect. But she began to notice other things too: how carefully he lifted the youngest, how he tucked a blanket around her daughter at night, thinking no one saw. One day, she couldn’t help herself and asked him in the kitchen: ‘Is it hard for you right now?’ He looked surprised, as if no one had ever asked him that. ‘It’s hard,’ he said after a pause. ‘Really hard.’ And that was it. But after that, something sharp disappeared from the air between them. Anna Petrovna realized: she’d been waiting for him to change. But what needed to change was herself. She stopped discussing him with her daughter. When her daughter complained, she didn’t say, ‘I told you so.’ Just listened. Sometimes she took the children so her daughter could rest. Sometimes she called her son-in-law to ask how he was. It wasn’t easy. It was much easier to get angry. But slowly, the house grew quieter. Not better, not perfect—just quieter. Without the constant strain. One day her daughter said: ‘Mum, thank you for being with us now, not against us.’ Anna Petrovna thought about those words for a long time. She realized something simple: peace isn’t when someone admits they’re wrong. It’s when someone is the first to stop fighting. She still wished her son-in-law was more attentive. That wish didn’t go away. But living alongside it was something more important: wanting peace in the family. And every time the old feelings came up—indignation, bitterness, the urge to say something sharp—she asked herself: Do I want to be right, or do I want life to be easier for them? The answer almost always told her what to do next.
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