For a long time, the daughter tried to persuade her mother to move abroad and live with her. The woman sold her house and cow and flew away. But only a month later, she returned home.
The little wooden rooster rested in Maria Afanasyevna’s palm—smooth, warm, polished by time and the touch of her fingers. The woman sat on the porch of an old house on the outskirts of the village, slowly turning the figurine in her hand as she watched the sun sink behind the birch grove.
Her father had carved that rooster for her many years ago.
It was the only thing Maria Afanasyevna had brought back from a strange house three thousand kilometers away.
And it had all begun with an ordinary phone call.
On a Saturday evening.
The phone rang just as she picked up the milking pail and was about to go to Zorka.
It was the same mobile phone her daughter had given her about three years earlier.
“Mom,” Oksana had said at the time, “at least this way we’ll always be able to stay in touch.”
And Maria Afanasyevna really was always available. She carried the phone in the pocket of her apron and constantly worried that she might miss a call from her daughter.
“Hello, Mom? It’s me.”
The voice sounded muffled, as though it were coming from somewhere underwater.
Maria Afanasyevna had never fully understood how all those internet calls worked, but she had learned to tell the difference: if the connection hissed and the words arrived with a slight delay, it meant Oksana was calling from abroad. If the sound was clear, she was probably somewhere closer.
This time, the line was hissing.
“Oksanochka, my dear! How are you doing over there?”
“Mom, listen to me. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
A crackling sound came through the receiver.
“You’re all alone there. We have a big house. Four bedrooms. A garden. The climate is good, and there are excellent doctors nearby. Maybe you could move in with us?”
Maria Afanasyevna slowly lowered herself onto a stool.
Her legs suddenly felt weak.
“What do you mean, move in with you?”
“Come here, to Portugal. Martin and I have discussed everything. You’ll live with us. You’ll finally get to see your grandchildren. Danylko has already started forgetting Ukrainian, and Sofiyka speaks almost entirely in the local language. When you come, you can teach them. And you’ll finally get some rest yourself. How long can you keep living alone in the middle of nowhere?”
“But what about the farm, sweetheart? The cow. The chickens. The vegetable garden.”
“Sell them.”
“And the house?”
“Sell the house too. Mom, what is a house, really? Just walls. We are your family. We love you, and we want you close to us. You’ve worked without rest your entire life. Now it’s time to live a little for yourself. It’s warm here, and the sea isn’t far away. Just imagine sitting in the garden, surrounded by flowers, with your grandchildren running around…”
“Oksanochka,” Maria Afanasyevna said quietly, “I’m frightened.”
“What is there to be afraid of? I’ll meet you at the airport. I’ll help you with the paperwork. All you have to do is say yes.”
Maria Afanasyevna remained silent.
Outside the window, darkness was falling quickly.
In the shed, Zorka began to moo, sensing that her owner was late. The entryway smelled of dried thyme. Murka the cat was curled up asleep on top of the stove.
“I’ll think about it,” the woman finally said.
“Just don’t think for too long, Mom. We’re really looking forward to seeing you.”
The connection was cut off.
Maria Afanasyevna placed the phone on the old chest and remained motionless for several more minutes.
Then she got up and went to milk Zorka.
The cow was already restless.
The woman pressed her forehead against the animal’s warm side and milked her in silence while tears fell, one after another, directly into the bucket.
Zorka was sold two weeks later.
A man came from a neighboring village. He spent a long time examining the cow, feeling her sides, checking her teeth, and bargaining over practically every hryvnia.
Maria Afanasyevna stood to one side and barely said a word.
When Zorka was led out of the shed, she suddenly stopped and looked back at her owner.
For a long time.
With large, moist eyes.
Almost like a human being.
Maria Afanasyevna could not bear it.
She turned around, went into the house, and finally allowed herself to cry.
The neighboring women took the chickens.
Aunt Hanna, the former village postwoman, agreed to take Murka.
The vegetable garden was easier to deal with because the land was part of an agricultural share. At the village council, they explained:
“We’ll take care of everything. The share will remain in your name, and you’ll continue receiving the payments.”
The house sold surprisingly quickly.
Almost too quickly.
A buyer appeared almost immediately—a man from the district center who wanted to rebuild the old cottage as a summer home.
He offered a good price.
Maria Afanasyevna was taken aback.
Could this house, which her grandfather had built with his own hands, these walls that remembered the lives of three generations, really be worth that much money?
Her hand trembled as she signed the papers.
Meanwhile, Oksana called almost every day.
She kept urging her mother to hurry.
“Mom, when are you finally coming? We’ve prepared everything here. We’ve cleared out a room for you. You should see the curtains I bought—lace ones! I’ll buy the tickets myself. You only need to get your international passport.”
And Maria Afanasyevna did.
The passport.
The necessary documents.
Everything happened so quickly that the woman barely had time to understand what was going on.
And then, suddenly, she found herself standing at the airport with a single suitcase.
It was old.
Scuffed and worn.
Everything she had decided to take from her former life fit inside it: a few dresses, a warm knitted cardigan, photographs of her parents, her grandmother’s icon, and the little wooden rooster her father had once carved.
An entire lifetime fit into one suitcase.
On the airplane, Maria Afanasyevna sat beside the window.
She watched the land gradually recede far below.
The forests, fields, and rivers became small, almost like toys.
Somewhere down there, in the middle of that enormous green landscape, was her village.
Or rather, it was no longer hers.
It belonged to someone else now.
Maria Afanasyevna looked down and secretly crossed herself, hoping no one would notice.
Oksana met her at the airport.
She was beautiful and tanned, wearing a light dress and smelling of expensive perfume.
There were embraces.
Kisses.
Tears.
“Mommy! You’re here! My dearest!”
“Oksanochka…”
“Come on, quickly! The car is waiting. Martin couldn’t come because he’s working. But the children are at home. They can hardly wait. Danylko even made a sign that says, ‘Welcome, Grandma.’ Though he wrote it in Portuguese,” Oksana said with a laugh. “Never mind. Once you settle in, you’ll teach them to speak properly!”
The drive to the house took about two hours.
Green hills and red-tiled rooftops flashed past the windows, and from time to time, a blue strip of sea appeared in the distance.
It was beautiful.
Very beautiful.
Maria Afanasyevna looked at it all and, for some reason, felt herself growing colder inside.
The house was even more luxurious than it had appeared in the photographs.
Large.
Brilliant white.
There was a swimming pool in the yard, roses all around it, and grapevines climbing the walls.
Spacious rooms, paintings, soft furniture, and tiled floors.
A separate, bright bedroom had been prepared for Maria Afanasyevna, with a balcony overlooking the hills.
And the curtains really were hanging in the windows.
Lace curtains.
Beautiful ones.
Certainly expensive.
“Well, Mom? Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” she answered.
Then the grandchildren appeared.
Danylko was already twelve. He was tall and thin and wore a T-shirt with English writing on it.
Sofiyka was eight, a dark-haired girl in a pink dress.
They greeted her in Ukrainian, though with a noticeable accent.
“Good afternoon, Grandma.”
“Hello, my darlings…”
Maria Afanasyevna pulled them close.
The children tolerated the embrace for several seconds, then quickly slipped away and ran off.
Oksana sighed.
“The internet, games, friends on video calls… Don’t be offended, Mom. They’ll get used to you.”
Maria Afanasyevna was not offended.
She simply stood in the middle of the enormous room, gripping her old suitcase tightly, unable to understand where she was supposed to put herself now.
For the first few days, everything seemed unusual.
It was as though she had stepped into a beautiful film.
Oksana showed her the city.
They walked along narrow streets, visited old cathedrals, and passed cozy cafés with wicker chairs.
Somewhere in the distance, the sea glittered.
The air smelled of fresh pastries, coffee, and flowers.
Everything was unfamiliar.
Foreign.
Beautiful, yet still foreign.
Maria Afanasyevna walked beside her daughter and remained silent most of the time.
Oksana talked, pointed things out, and explained everything enthusiastically.
Her mother merely nodded.
After returning home, Maria Afanasyevna tried to help with the household.
But there was absolutely nothing for her to do.
A hired woman named Isabel worked in the house.
She cooked, cleaned, and did the laundry.
One day, Maria Afanasyevna tried to wash the dishes, but Isabel immediately and gently took the sponge from her hand.
“No, no, señora. I’ll do it.”
That evening, Maria Afanasyevna asked her daughter:
“Oksanochka, what am I supposed to do here all day?”
“Rest, Mom! Read. Go for walks. Watch television. They even have our channels.”
“You know I hardly ever watch television.”
“Then sit in the garden. Water the flowers.”
She tried.
She watered the roses.
But the garden was not hers.
And the roses were not hers.
And the earth beneath her feet was foreign.
Even its scent was different.
It did not smell right.
It did not smell like home.
In the evenings, Maria Afanasyevna sat on the balcony and watched the golden light settle over the distant hills.
It was beautiful.
Very beautiful.
But inside her, there was only emptiness.
Like a house from which absolutely everything had been removed.
She constantly thought about Zorka.
The cow’s warm side.
Fresh milk.
The smell of dried thyme in the entryway.
Murka jumping onto the stove and curling herself into a ball.
The voices of neighbors beyond the fence.
The mooing of cows.
Smoke rising from chimneys.
The old porch that creaked beneath her feet every time she stepped on it.
And gradually, she understood the most frightening thing of all:
None of it belonged to her anymore.
And perhaps it never would again. About a week later, the first unpleasant conversations began.
“Mom, how long are you going to sit in your room all day? Go outside. We have wonderful neighbors—Senhora Carmen and Senhor João. Of course, they don’t understand our language, but you could still find some way to communicate…”
Maria Afanasyevna looked at her daughter.
“How, Oksana? With hand gestures?”
“Mom, don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m simply asking. You brought me three thousand kilometers away. We sold everything. We sold the house. We sold the cow. And now what? I’m a stranger here. I can’t even exchange two words with a neighbor. I can’t go to the shop alone because I don’t understand the signs or even the prices properly.”
“Mom, it’s only difficult at first. You’ll get used to it. You’ll gradually learn the language…”
Maria Afanasyevna looked at her in astonishment.
“At sixty-four? Oksana, can you hear yourself?”
Her daughter sighed heavily and turned away.
But the real turning point came a little later.
It all began with an ordinary pot of borscht…
Her Daughter Invited Her to Live Abroad. She Sold Her House and Cow and Flew to Join Her—but Returned Just One Month Later
The little wooden rooster rested in her palm—smooth, warm, polished by time and the touch of a mother’s fingers.
Maria Afanasyevna sat on the porch of a small old house at the edge of the village, slowly turning the figurine from side to side as she watched the sun sink behind the birch grove.
Her father had carved that very rooster for her many years ago.
It was the only thing she had brought back from a stranger’s house three thousand kilometers away.
And it had all begun with a single phone call.
On a Saturday.
Late in the evening.
The phone rang just as she was about to pick up the milk pail and go milk Zorka.
It was the same mobile phone her daughter had given her about three years earlier.
“Mom,” Oksana had said back then, “at least this way we’ll always be able to stay in touch.”
And Maria Afanasyevna really was always available. She carried the phone in the pocket of her apron and constantly worried that she might accidentally miss one of her daughter’s calls.
“Hello, Mom? It’s me.”
The voice sounded muffled, as though it were coming from somewhere underwater.
Maria Afanasyevna had never fully understood how those internet calls worked, but she had learned to recognize one thing: if the connection hissed and the voice arrived with a slight delay, Oksana was calling from abroad. If the sound was clear, she was somewhere closer, in the city.
Now the line was crackling noticeably.
“Oksanochka, my dear! How are you?”
“Mom, listen to me. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
There was a brief pause. More crackling.
“You’re completely alone there. We have a large house. Four bedrooms. A garden. The climate is wonderful, and there are excellent doctors nearby. Maybe you should move in with us?”
Maria Afanasyevna slowly lowered herself onto a stool. For some reason, her legs had suddenly grown weak.
“Move where?”
“To us, in Portugal. Martin and I have already discussed everything. You’ll live with us. You’ll see your grandchildren. Danilka is already forgetting Ukrainian, and Sofiyka speaks almost entirely in the local language. You can teach them. And you’ll finally get some rest yourself. How long can you keep living in that backwater?”
“My dear, what about the animals? Zorka, the chickens, the vegetable garden?”
“Sell them.”
“And the house?”
“Sell the house too. Mom, a house is only walls. We are your family. We love you, and we want you close to us. You’ve worked your entire life and never had a proper rest. It’s time you finally lived for yourself. It’s warm here, and the sea is nearby. Just imagine: you’re sitting in the garden, flowers all around you, and your grandchildren are running beside you…”
“Oksanochka,” she said quietly, “I’m frightened.”
“What is there to be afraid of? I’ll meet you at the airport. I’ll help you with the documents. All you have to do is agree.”
Maria Afanasyevna remained silent.
Outside, twilight was slowly thickening. Zorka mooed from the shed—the cow had realized that, for some reason, her owner was late. The entryway smelled of dried thyme. On top of the stove, Murka the cat slept curled into a fluffy ball.
“I’ll think about it,” Maria Afanasyevna finally said.
“Think about it, Mom. Just don’t take too long. We’re really looking forward to having you here.”
The line went dead.
She placed the phone on the old chest and remained motionless for a little while longer.
Then she got up and went to milk Zorka, who was already becoming restless.
Maria Afanasyevna sat beside the cow, pressed her forehead against the animal’s warm side, and began to milk her.
Her tears quietly dripped straight into the bucket.
Zorka was sold two weeks later.
A man came from a neighboring village. He spent a long time feeling the cow’s sides, looking into her mouth, examining her teeth, and bargaining over every last coin.
Maria Afanasyevna stood a short distance away and silently watched.
When they began leading Zorka out of the yard, the cow suddenly stopped, turned around, and looked at her former owner with a long, moist gaze.
It was almost human.
Maria Afanasyevna could not bear it.
She turned away, went into the house, and only there allowed herself to cry.
The neighbors took the chickens. Aunt Anna, who had once worked as the village postwoman, agreed to take Murka.
Nothing had to be done about the garden. The land belonged to a shared agricultural parcel, and the village council explained, “We’ll complete all the paperwork properly, and you’ll receive payments.”
The house sold quickly.
Far too quickly.
A buyer appeared almost immediately—a man from the district center who wanted to convert the old building into a summer cottage.
He offered a good price.
Maria Afanasyevna was even taken aback.
Could this old house, which her grandfather had built with his own hands, these walls that remembered three generations of her family, really be worth so much money?
Her hand trembled noticeably when she signed the papers.
Oksana called every day.
She kept urging her to hurry.
“Mom, how much longer is this going to take? We’ve already prepared everything here. We completely fixed up your room. I even bought new curtains—lace ones! I’ll book the ticket myself. All you have left to do is get an international passport.”
So she got one.
Then she obtained a visa.
Everything happened so quickly that Maria Afanasyevna hardly had time to understand what was taking place.
Before she knew it, she was standing beside the check-in counter at the airport with a single suitcase.
One old, battered suitcase.
It contained everything she had decided to take from her former life: several dresses, a knitted cardigan, photographs of her parents, her grandmother’s icon, and the wooden rooster her father had carved so many years ago.
Her entire life fit inside one suitcase.
On the airplane, Maria Afanasyevna sat beside the window.
She watched the earth gradually fall away. Forests, fields, and rivers became tiny, almost like toys.
Somewhere down there, in the middle of that endless green landscape, her village remained behind.
Or rather, no longer hers.
It belonged to someone else now.
She stared down and quietly crossed herself, trying not to let the passengers beside her notice.
Oksana met her at the airport.
She was beautiful and tanned, wearing a light summer dress. She smelled of expensive perfume.
There were embraces.
Kisses.
Tears.
“Mommy! You’re here! My darling!”
“Oksanochka…”
“Come on, quickly! The car is waiting. Martin couldn’t come because he’s working. But the children are at home and can hardly wait to see you. Danilka even drew a poster saying, ‘Welcome, Grandma.’ He wrote it in their language, though,” Oksana said with a laugh. “Never mind. You’ll teach him!”
They drove for a long time, almost two hours.
Hills, houses with tiled roofs, and the distant glitter of the sea flashed past the windows.
It was beautiful.
Very beautiful.
Maria Afanasyevna looked around, yet for some reason she felt colder and colder inside.
The house was even more luxurious than it had appeared in the photographs.
It was large and snow-white, with a swimming pool in the yard, roses beside the paths, and grapevines climbing the wall.
There were spacious rooms, paintings, soft sofas, and gleaming tiled floors.
Maria Afanasyevna’s room was bright, with a small balcony overlooking green hills.
The curtains Oksana had mentioned hung on the windows.
Lace curtains.
Expensive.
Beautiful.
“Well, Mom? Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” she answered softly.
Then the grandchildren came out.
Danilka was twelve—tall and thin, wearing a T-shirt with foreign writing on it.
Sofiyka was eight, with dark hair and a pink dress.
Both greeted her in Ukrainian, but with noticeable accents.
“Good afternoon, Grandma.”
“Hello, my dears…”
Maria Afanasyevna embraced them tightly.
The children stood patiently in her arms for a few seconds, then gently slipped free and ran off somewhere.
Oksana sighed.
“The internet, games, friends on video calls… Don’t be offended, Mom. They’ll get used to you.”
Maria Afanasyevna was not offended.
She simply stood in the middle of the enormous, bright room, clutching the handle of her old suitcase, with absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do now.
The first few days seemed interesting.
It felt as though she had stepped into a movie.
Oksana drove her around the city.
Narrow streets. Ancient cathedrals. Cafés with wicker chairs. The sea somewhere ahead of them.
The scents of coffee, pastries, and flowers mingled in the air.
Everything was unfamiliar.
Foreign.
Beautiful—but still foreign.
Maria Afanasyevna walked beside her daughter and barely spoke. Oksana chatted cheerfully, pointed out the sights, and told different stories.
Her mother merely nodded.
At home, Maria Afanasyevna decided to help with the household chores.
But there was almost nothing for her to do.
The house was looked after by a hired housekeeper named Isabel, a calm and quiet woman who wore an apron.
She cleaned.
She cooked.
She did the laundry.
One day, Maria Afanasyevna tried to wash the dishes, but Isabel immediately approached and carefully took the sponge from her hand.
“No, no, señora. I’ll do it.”
That evening, Maria Afanasyevna asked her daughter:
“Oksana, what am I supposed to do here all day?”
“Rest, Mom! Read. Go for walks. Watch television. There are plenty of channels in our language.”
“You know I don’t like television.”
“Then sit in the garden. Water the flowers.”
She tried.
But the garden belonged to someone else.
The roses belonged to someone else.
Even the earth was foreign.
It seemed to spring differently beneath her feet.
It smelled different.
It breathed differently.
In the evenings, Maria Afanasyevna sat on the balcony and watched the hills glowing beneath the golden light of the setting sun.
It was beautiful.
Unbelievably beautiful.
And inside her, there was emptiness.
It felt as though all the furniture, photographs, and belongings had been removed from a house, leaving behind nothing but bare walls.
She remembered Zorka.
The warmth of the cow’s side.
The smell of fresh milk.
The thyme in the entryway.
Murka jumping onto the stove in the evening and curling herself into a ball.
The mooing of the neighbors’ cows.
Smoke rising from chimneys.
The creaking of the old porch.
And suddenly she understood:
None of it existed anymore.
And there was no way to restore the life she had lost.
About a week later, the first unpleasant conversations began.
“Mom, how long are you going to sit alone in your room? At least go outside. We have wonderful neighbors—Señora Carmen and Senhor João. Of course, they don’t speak our language, but you can still communicate somehow…”
“How exactly?” Maria Afanasyevna asked. “By waving my hands around?”
“Mom, please don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m only asking. You brought me three thousand kilometers away. We sold everything. We sold the house. We sold the cow. And what happens now? I’m a stranger here. I can’t even talk to the woman next door. I’m afraid to go to the shop by myself because I don’t understand half the writing.”
“Mom, this is temporary. You’ll settle in. You’ll learn a little of the language…”
“At sixty-four years old? Oksana, do you understand what you’re suggesting?”
Then there was the incident with the borscht.
Maria Afanasyevna decided to cook real homemade borscht.
The kind she had always prepared at home: with a good meaty bone, beetroot, cabbage, beans, properly sautéed vegetables, and an aroma that immediately made the heart feel warm.
She asked Oksana to buy the necessary ingredients.
Oksana brought everything.
But as soon as Maria Afanasyevna began cooking, Isabel hurried into the kitchen and immediately started waving her hands.
“No, no, señora! You mustn’t. This is my work. Please.”
Maria Afanasyevna did not understand most of the words.
But she understood the tone perfectly.
She silently stepped aside.
In the end, Isabel cooked the borscht.
Her own way.
Completely wrong.
She did not sauté the beetroot but threw it straight into the pot.
She cut the cabbage into large pieces instead of slicing it thinly.
The smell was entirely different.
And the taste would be wrong too—Maria Afanasyevna knew that even before tasting the first spoonful.
She stood beside the kitchen doorway and watched an unfamiliar woman cook her borscht in her own daughter’s house.
She could no longer even cry.
It seemed that she had no tears left.
Another week passed, and Maria Afanasyevna finally understood:
She could not do it.
She would not endure it.
She felt as though she were slowly suffocating.
Everything here was beautiful.
Proper.
Comfortable.
Clean.
Spacious.
But she could not breathe this air.
It felt too dry.
Too hot.
Too foreign.
She needed different air—damp, carrying the scents of a river, fresh grass, and woodsmoke.
She needed different soil—gray, heavy, clay-filled, and familiar.
She did not need a beautiful life.
She needed her own life.
She called Aunt Anna.
The same woman who had taken Murka.
“Anya, good evening. It’s me, Maria.”
“Maria?! Where are you calling from?”
“Portugal.”
“My God… Why does your voice sound like that? Has something happened?”
“Yes, Anya. Something has happened. I want to go home.”
There was silence at the other end of the line.
“Home where?”
“To the village.”
“Maria, you sold everything. The house to that summer resident. The cow to that man…”
“I know. But I still want to come back.”
Anna was silent for a while.
“Come back,” she finally said. “You can stay with me at first. Then we’ll figure something out. Perhaps we can find you a little house. We don’t abandon our own people.”
“Thank you, Anya.”
“Oh, stop that. Just come.”
The conversation with her daughter was difficult.
“Mom, do you even understand what you’re saying? Where will you go? There’s nothing left for you there. No house. No animals.”
“My land is there. My native land. Here, I’m a stranger.”
“Mom, what land are you talking about? You spent your entire life working yourself to exhaustion on that land for pennies! In mud, frost, and dampness. Here you have the sea, a wonderful climate, and your children beside you. Look around! Don’t you appreciate what you have?”
“I do, Oksanochka. I appreciate it very much. You’ve done so much for me. You’re clever. You’re wonderful. But I can’t live here. Do you understand? I simply can’t. I’m like a fish that has been pulled from the water and placed on the shore. I have nothing to breathe.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I won’t. I tried.”
Oksana began to cry.
Maria Afanasyevna sat opposite her daughter and cried as well.
But quietly.
Without sobbing.
“Can you imagine what people will think about us?” Oksana asked, wiping her wet cheeks. “The neighbors, our acquaintances? My mother came to live with me and left again after one month. What am I supposed to tell them?”
“Tell them the truth. Tell them that I love you. I love you very much. But I grew up there, and I need to spend the rest of my life there. I won’t be able to live here. Forgive me.”
And Oksana forgave her.
She bought her a return ticket.
She helped her pack her belongings into the same old suitcase where the wooden rooster lay.
She drove her mother to the airport.
She embraced her so tightly that it seemed she did not want to let her go.
“Just don’t disappear over there, do you hear me?”
“I won’t. Call me.”
“Every day.”
“Not every day. But call.”
Maria Afanasyevna walked through the airport—small and thin, wearing her familiar headscarf.
In one hand, she carried her old suitcase.
In the other, a bag filled with gifts.
Oksana stood in the distance and cried.
Martin placed an arm around his wife’s shoulders.
“She’s strong,” he said quietly. “Very strong.”
“She’s stubborn,” Oksana replied through her tears. “She gave her entire life to me, and now she’s returning to almost nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing. Her home is there. You simply don’t feel it.”
“And you do?”
“No,” Martin admitted honestly. “But I saw something else. She was alive there. Here, she was slowly fading away.”
Maria Afanasyevna returned to the village at the beginning of July.
The journey was long.
First the airplane. Then a train. Then a bus. She traveled the last few kilometers in a passing car.
Maria Afanasyevna got out near the edge of the village, placed her suitcase on the ground, and looked around.
A dusty road.
Potholes.
Crooked utility poles.
The old birch tree at the entrance to the village.
The smell of grass.
The river.
Smoke.
Everything was familiar.
Everything was hers.
She slowly walked through the village.
She passed her former house.
A tall new corrugated-metal fence now surrounded it.
The new owner was sitting on the porch in shorts, drinking something from a metal can.
He saw her.
He nodded.
Maria Afanasyevna merely looked away and continued walking.
At last, she reached Anna’s house and knocked.
The door opened almost immediately.
Anna saw her and threw up her hands.
“Maria! You’re back!”
“I’m back.”
“Come inside quickly. I’ll put the kettle on. And your Murka is here. She’s been waiting for you.”
The cat emerged from behind the stove.
She stopped.
She looked carefully at her former owner.
And suddenly recognized her.
She approached and began rubbing herself against Maria Afanasyevna’s legs.
Maria Afanasyevna lowered herself onto a stool, lifted Murka into her arms, and burst into tears.
For the first time that entire month, she truly cried.
She sobbed uncontrollably.
The way children cry when they no longer have the strength to hold anything inside.
“There, there,” Anna said, stroking her friend’s head. “You came back, and that means you did the right thing. You’ll stay with me for now. Then we’ll think of something. You won’t be abandoned.”
And she was not abandoned.
She lived with Anna for about two weeks and then bought a small, old cottage at the very edge of the village.
The previous owner had died, and his heirs had no need for the house, so they sold it cheaply.
The cottage leaned slightly to one side.
But the walls were strong.
The stove was good.
The neighbors helped repair the roof.
They fixed the fence.
The world was not without kind people after all.
Especially in a village, where another person’s trouble rarely remains someone else’s problem for long.
About a month later, Maria Afanasyevna was already working in her own vegetable garden.
It was small.
But it was hers.
She planted potatoes.
Onions.
Carrots.
She got several chickens.
She had not yet decided to buy another cow. It was expensive, and at sixty-four she no longer had as much strength as she once did.
Although by autumn, perhaps she would decide to get one after all.
Oksana called often.
About once every three days.
“Mom, how are you? Are you sure you won’t change your mind and come back?”
Maria Afanasyevna always gave the same answer:
“Everything is fine, Oksanochka. Don’t worry. I’m home.”
And it was the absolute truth.
On the evening of the first of August, she stepped onto the porch.
She sat on the step and watched the sun slowly set.
The same wooden rooster, her father’s gift, lay in her palm.
It was the only object that had survived every move and every change.
Smooth.
Warm.
Polished by decades and by her fingers.
Maria Afanasyevna slowly turned it in her hands and thought.
She thought about how a true home was not merely walls and a roof.
Home was a place where you stepped onto the porch in the morning and understood that every blade of grass beneath your feet was familiar.
Every sound was dear to you.
Every scent belonged to you.
Home was where the earth spoke to you in a language that required no translation.
Once, she had lost her home.
Then she had managed to find it again.
Not in the place where her former house had stood.
But very close to it.
Almost the same.
Almost familiar.
The wooden rooster suddenly slipped from her fingers and fell onto the porch boards.
Maria Afanasyevna leaned down, picked it up, and smiled.
Life continued.
Imperfect.
Strange.
A little awkward.
Sometimes funny.
Sometimes bitter.
But it was hers.
Her own.
And no one—not even the person who loves you most in the world—can live it in your place.
