Lyuda suddenly felt nauseous and stumbled outside to get a breath of fresh air. Her head was spinning, and she felt as though she might faint at any moment.
“What’s wrong with you?” her fourteen-year-old brother Pashka asked anxiously.
“I don’t know. My stomach feels awful.”
She sat beside him on the porch and breathed deeply.
“You’re pregnant,” Pashka suddenly said.
Lyuda stared at him.
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend I don’t understand anything. I saw you with Vladimir Mikhailovich. I saw you both coming back from the fields with straw in your clothes. I saw him visiting you at night too.”
Lyuda turned red with embarrassment, but then his words forced her to think. She had missed her period for more than a month. She had been feeling sick and dizzy.
Could she really be pregnant?
The thought terrified her.
Lyuda and Pasha had been left orphans during the war. Their parents had gone to the front in 1942 and never returned. Their grandmother had cared for them until illness left her bedridden, and Lyuda and her younger brother had looked after her until she died.
Afterward, the two children had been left completely alone.
Lyuda began working on the collective farm while still very young. She was hardworking and proud and refused to depend on others.
Then Vladimir appeared.
He was a young agronomist who had recently graduated and had been sent to their village for practical work. When he began courting Lyuda, she was overwhelmed by his attention.
There were few young men left in the village after the war, and Vladimir seemed educated, confident, and different from everyone she knew.
He promised to marry her.
Lyuda believed him.
Her closest friend Zoya warned her repeatedly.
“Be careful. You hardly know him.”
But Lyuda accused Zoya of jealousy and refused to listen.
Then, one morning, Vladimir disappeared.
He had been transferred to another collective farm hundreds of kilometers away. He had not even said goodbye.
Lyuda ran to the chairman, Ignat Zakharovich, begging him to give her Vladimir’s address.
“Who are you to him?” he asked.
“I’m his fiancée.”
The chairman looked at her sadly.
“When he left yesterday, he didn’t mention you at all.”
Those words destroyed the last of Lyuda’s hope.
Soon she became certain she was pregnant.
She tried desperately to find a way out of the situation, but nothing changed. Pasha, despite being younger than her, remained practical.
“You’ll have the baby,” he said. “We’ll manage.”
“But who will marry me afterward?”
“You should have thought about that earlier. Now we’ll raise the child.”
The villagers soon noticed her growing belly.
Whispers followed her everywhere. Women mocked her and asked when the wonderful agronomist would return to marry her.
One day, while working near the grain storehouse, Lyuda overheard two women insulting her.
She stood behind a partition, fighting tears.
Then Zoya’s voice suddenly interrupted them.
She reminded the women that their own families were far from perfect and accused them of judging Lyuda while hiding their own scandals.
The women fell silent.
Lyuda approached her friend afterward.
“Zoya, forgive me. You were right.”
Zoya embraced her.
“You’re my little disaster.”
In May 1949, Lyuda gave birth to a daughter named Anna.
Pasha helped her whenever he could, and when he eventually left for the city to study, Zoya became Lyuda’s greatest support.
Life, however, remained difficult.
Because Lyuda was unmarried, some village men assumed she would welcome their attention.
One married neighbor, Alexei, repeatedly offered to “help” her and tried to flirt with her.
Lyuda rejected him every time.
Eventually Alexei’s wife, Maria, became jealous and accused Lyuda of stealing her husband.
One night Maria even smashed Lyuda’s windows, convinced that Alexei was inside the house.
Lyuda let her search every room.
Moments later, they heard Alexei drunkenly singing outside as he stumbled toward his own home.
The following morning, Lyuda demanded that the chairman deal with the matter.
Maria was forced to pay for the broken windows and repair the damaged gate.
Afterward, Ignat Zakharovich spoke privately with Lyuda.
“Today it’s Alexei. Tomorrow another man may cause trouble. Why don’t you study and get a profession?”
The idea surprised her.
Lyuda had always wanted an education, but family hardship had prevented it.
The chairman offered to help her study accounting in the city.
Lyuda agreed.
She left Anna temporarily in Zoya’s care and traveled to study. Every weekend and holiday she came home.
After graduating, she returned to the collective farm as a bookkeeper.
Years passed.
Zoya married. Pasha became a machine operator.
Lyuda worked constantly and raised Anna.
By the time Lyuda was thirty, nobody laughed at her anymore. She had earned respect through hard work and determination. She combined accounting with managing field brigades and became one of the most dependable people on the farm.
Then, in 1961, Vladimir returned.
Twelve-year-old Anna came running to her mother.
“Mom, the chairman wants you at the village council. Some man has arrived.”
Lyuda assumed there was a problem with her reports.
But when she entered the office, she froze.
Vladimir was sitting beside Ignat Zakharovich.
The chairman explained that he was retiring and Vladimir would temporarily take over his position.
Then he announced that Lyuda would become Vladimir’s assistant.
“I already have enough work,” Lyuda said coldly.
As she turned to leave, Vladimir spoke.
“I know about Anna.”
Lyuda spun around.
“My daughter has nothing to do with you. She is mine.”
Vladimir tried repeatedly to apologize during the following months.
He admitted he had been young, selfish, and foolish. He had married the daughter of an influential official, but the marriage had ended badly.
After his father-in-law died, Vladimir’s career began to collapse. His wife left him for another man, and eventually he accepted the opportunity to return to Lyuda’s village.
“I thought you had married,” he told her. “I thought you had forgotten me.”
“I did forget you,” Lyuda replied.
Once, she had dreamed of Vladimir returning and begging for forgiveness. She had imagined taking him back.
But now she felt almost nothing.
Only resentment for the girl she had once been.
Vladimir also tried to approach Anna, but the girl kept her distance.
She already knew the story.
The villagers had told her how her father had abandoned her mother and disappeared for thirteen years.
Six months later, the collective farm gathered to elect a permanent chairman.
Many people expected Vladimir to remain in the position.
Instead, he stood before everyone and began speaking about Lyuda.
He described how she had worked since childhood, earned an education, become an excellent organizer, and devoted her life to the collective farm.
Then he surprised everyone.
“I propose Lyudmila Stepanovna Akimova instead of myself.”
He explained that her candidacy had already been approved.
He would leave.
For Krasnye Zori.
The same place he had fled to years earlier.
The villagers began raising their hands in support of Lyuda.
Even Maria voted for her.
A week later, Vladimir left.
Lyuda watched him go without tears.
Thirteen years earlier, his departure had broken her heart.
This time, she felt only relief.
“Mom, is he gone?” Anna asked.
“Yes, Anechka. He’s gone.”
“Good. I didn’t like him anyway. Aunt Zoya says he isn’t a decent man.”
Lyuda smiled sadly.
“Aunt Zoya was right about him from the very beginning.”
Lyuda became chairman and held the position for twelve years.
Anna grew up and left to study medicine. Pasha became a respected machine operator and later a brigade supervisor. He married a kind woman, and soon their home was filled with children.
Lyuda never remarried.
She no longer felt that she needed a husband to make her life complete.
She had her work, her daughter, her brother, Zoya, and eventually her grandchildren.
After twelve years as chairman, Lyuda stepped aside, and her brother took over the position.
The responsibility had been heavy, and she was happy to leave it behind.
Now she could finally devote her time to the people she loved most.
She had once believed Vladimir’s promises, feared the judgment of the village, and begged life to become different.
Years later, she needed none of those things.
She had built her own life.
And she was finally free.
