Anna Petrovna, is it true that you and Ivan don’t have your own children?” Galina squinted, leaning over the fence.
“God did not give us any,” I replied quietly, clutching the empty bucket tighter in my hands. I always hated such conversations. Every time someone in the village brought up the topic of children, everything inside me would tighten, as if I were being wrung out like a wet towel. In our village of Mikhailovka, conversations revolved around two things: children and the harvest. And this year’s harvest was splendid, but with children…
In the evenings, I often sat on the porch of our old house, watching the sunset and thinking about my husband. Ivan had been working in the taiga for a year and a half, cutting wood so that we could afford more than just potatoes from the garden. When he left, I kissed his prickly cheeks and whispered, “Come back soon.” And he would smile with his crooked smile and reply, “I will, Anyutka. Before you know it.”
But time moved slowly. In those months, I seemed to have aged ten years. At thirty, I sometimes felt strong enough to bear the burden of a whole life. Especially when the neighbor’s kids ran past. Mashka from the right recently had her third, Tanya from the left was expecting twins. And I… I just watered my dahlias and pretended that was enough. We had tried for a long time to have children, but fate decided otherwise.
That night, a real downpour started. The rain hammered on the roof so hard it seemed like it was going to break through. I woke up to strange sounds. At first, I thought it was a cat – there were plenty of them around here. But this sound was different – thin, gasping.
When I opened the door, the first thing I saw was a little bundle right on the doorstep. My heart skipped a beat and froze somewhere in my throat. There was someone moving inside the bundle.
“Lord,” I whispered, picking it up in my arms.
It was a boy. Very tiny, about three or four months old. His face was red from crying, his eyes squeezed shut, and his fists clenched. A worn plush dog lay next to him, soaked through.
“Quiet, little one, quiet,” I pressed him to me, and he almost immediately calmed down, only occasionally sobbing.
In the morning, I ran to Nikolai Stepanovich, our paramedic. He lived two houses down and knew all of Ivan and my troubles.
“Kolya, help!” I blurted out as soon as I crossed the threshold.
He looked at the bundle in my arms, then at my face, and without words, he understood everything.
“Anna, are you sure about what you’re doing?” he shook his head, but I saw not condemnation, but sympathy in his eyes.
“Kolenka, dear,” I pleaded, ready to kneel before him. “Help me with the paperwork. We’ll say it was a premature birth. Ivan will never know, he’s in the taiga…”
“And what about your conscience?” he asked, but I saw that he was already giving in.
“Without a child, my conscience will still give me no peace.”
Five months flew by like one day. The boy, whom I named Misha, grew amazingly fast. He learned to turn over, babbled incessantly, and when he smiled, a charming dimple appeared on his right cheek.
I prepared for Ivan’s return as the most important event in life. I made his favorite cabbage pies, scrubbed the floors to a shine, even hung new curtains. But my heart still pounded like crazy.
When a familiar voice sounded in the yard, my legs almost gave out.
“Anyutka!” Ivan burst into the house, tanned, thin, but so dear. “And who do we have here?”
He froze at the baby crib, where Misha was calmly napping. The baby opened his eyes and smiled joyfully, revealing the familiar dimple on his cheek.
“Vanya… This is our son,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I found out about the pregnancy after you left. And he was born prematurely… I’m sorry I hid the truth—I was afraid of jinxing it.”
Ivan stood still, his silence seemed endless. Then his face lit up with a broad smile: “A son? Our son?! Anyuta…” He picked me up and spun me around the room.
Misha laughed joyfully, watching our happiness, and I couldn’t hold back the tears—out of happiness or excitement, I couldn’t tell.
Years flew by unnoticed. Misha grew up to be a perceptive child, bringing joy to me and Ivan every day. After that distant job, my husband got a job at a local sawmill—the salary was less, but he was home every evening. I watched as they together built birdhouses in the yard or repaired the old car, and my heart was filled with mixed feelings.
Every time Ivan noticed a resemblance between himself and his son, I felt a strange sense of unease. This happened especially often when Misha showed his stubbornness or started another mischief.
I particularly remember the moment when six-year-old Misha first climbed an apple tree. I was hanging the laundry, and he was already perched at the very top of the tree.
“Mom, look, I’m like a bird!” he shouted, joyfully swinging his legs.
“Mishenka, come down immediately! You could fall!” I exclaimed in panic.
“I won’t fall because I’m daddy’s son!” the little one laughed loudly.
Hearing these words, Ivan beamed with pride. “See, genes play a role!” he remarked, recalling his childhood spent among trees.
That night, I cried for a long time in the sauna, trying to hide my emotions. Genes… If only he knew…
When Misha turned twelve, an incident occurred that stirred my worst fears. We were drinking tea on the veranda, and Misha had just returned from the river, all tanned.
Ivan said thoughtfully, “Anya, why is he so dark? Everyone in my family was fair-haired…”
The cup in my hands trembled treacherously. “Probably from Uncle Petya… Remember the photo of my cousin?”
“Ah, right,” Ivan nodded, but I noticed he began to study his son more often, thinking no one saw.
After that, I began to notice how different Misha was from us. Dark curly hair, brown eyes, tanned skin that didn’t pale even in winter. And his character… Completely unlike ours.
Ivan always acted thoughtfully, calmly, methodically. But Misha was like gunpowder—ignited by any spark, but quickly cooled down. Where did that come from?
During sleepless nights, I often thought about Misha’s real mother. Who was she? Why did she leave her child? Maybe a young girl, scared of responsibility? Or a married woman with a complicated story? Or perhaps, poverty decided for her?
I was grateful to this unknown woman for the maternal happiness she gave me, however difficult her choice was.
One day I even tried to find her, driving around neighboring villages and carefully inquiring about young women who had left these places fifteen years ago. But to no avail. And what would I have told her if I had found her?
When Misha turned fifteen, he became seriously ill. High fever, delirium, no medicine helped. Ivan and I did not close our eyes for three days and three nights, taking turns at his bedside.
“Maybe send him to the district hospital?” Ivan suggested. “They have better medical equipment there…”
“Nikolai Stepanovich explained that transportation now might be dangerous,” I replied, changing the cold compress on Misha’s forehead.
And I thought about something else—what if a blood transfusion was needed? And if they asked about hereditary diseases? What would I say?
Fortunately, everything turned out fine—on the fourth day, the temperature dropped. Misha opened his eyes and quietly asked, “Mom, can I have some water?”
I couldn’t hold back the tears, hugging him. Ivan tried to calm me: “Anya, stop, everything is fine now.”
But I didn’t stop, because I realized something important: no genes matter. I really am his mother—the one who worried every minute of his illness, afraid to lose him, and rejoiced at every breath.
That year was special—Misha grew a lot, even surpassing his father in height. He taught himself to play the guitar using only a tutorial. In the evenings, boys gathered in the yard, and his songs spread over the quieting village:
“How enchanting are the evenings in Russia…”
The girls couldn’t take their eyes off him. Especially Lenochka, the postwoman’s daughter, who found any excuse to walk past our house.
“He looks like me,” Ivan winked. “In my youth, I was also the first guy in the village.”
And I watched my handsome, talented son and worried—what will happen when he grows up? When he wants to know the truth about his origins? When he notices that he doesn’t resemble any of the relatives?
Sometimes nightmares woke me up. I dreamed that Misha’s real mother would come for him—a young, successful woman. He would leave with her, not even looking back. Or Ivan would find out the truth and leave our house, taking with him all the years of our life together, all the joys and warmth.
Every evening, I prayed—for Misha, for Ivan, for that unknown woman who gave me her child. And for myself—to have the strength to keep this secret or find the courage to confess.
That year was remembered for a major fire at the Stepanovs. All the villagers ran out to help extinguish the flames. Misha was one of the first to rush into the burning building—he heard that old Stepanida was left inside.
I saw him carry her out in his arms—small, emaciated, wrapped in a wet blanket. Her gray hair was disheveled, her face black with soot, but she was alive.
“Mishenka,” she whispered, once on the ground. “Thank you, son…”
He smiled his trademark smile with the dimple: “What are you talking about, Grandma Valya. There was no other way.”
And it was at that moment that I realized—it doesn’t matter whose blood runs in his veins. What matters is that Ivan and I raised a decent person. Maybe that’s what true parenthood is?
But the feeling of guilt continued to torment me. Every time Ivan was proud of his son, I felt like a cheater. I had stolen someone else’s child, stolen someone else’s happiness, deprived my husband of the right to choose.
This secret grew in me like a tumor, and I knew—sooner or later, it would destroy me. Either I would find the courage to tell the truth.
Misha turned twenty-five. He graduated from the city institute but returned to his native places—he said he couldn’t live without our nature, without the open space. He got a job as a music teacher at the local school, married Lenochka—the same one who constantly walked past our house as a child. Now they live in the neighboring house, which Ivan and I helped them acquire.
By that time, I had completely turned gray. Ivan also became gray-haired, but remained just as strong. Only he started smiling more often, especially after Lenochka announced her pregnancy.
“I’ll be a grandmother,” I whispered at night, burying my face in the pillow. But I still couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth.
It was a warm September day that felt like summer. We gathered at the table in the yard—me, Ivan, Misha with Lena. The aroma of borscht and fresh bread filled the air. On the favorite apple tree, where Misha used to climb as a child, the last red fruits remained.
“Imagine,” Misha was telling, adding salad to his plate, “today one first-grader asks: ‘Is it true that music heals?’ I told him: ‘Of course, it’s true.’ I took the guitar, played ‘The Grasshopper Sat in the Grass’—and by the end of the lesson, the whole class was singing!”
Lena laughed, stroking her barely noticeable belly. Ivan winked at his son—as if to say, see, the teaching gene comes from you. And I looked at them and understood—I could no longer keep this secret. Physically impossible.
“I need to tell you something,” my voice sounded muffled, as if from afar.
Everyone froze. Misha paused with his fork halfway, Lena put down her cutlery. Only Ivan continued to smile: “What’s the matter, Anyuta? Are you already preparing some story for the future grandson?”
“No,” I clenched my fingers so tightly that my knuckles whitened. “I need to tell… the truth about Misha.”
Such silence fell that it seemed even the birds had stopped singing.
“On a rainy night twenty-five years ago…” Each word came with difficulty, like a stone falling into water. “I found a baby on the doorstep of the house.”
I continued to speak, not taking my eyes off the old apple tree—the very one where Misha climbed as a child. I told them everything: about that fateful night, about my fear, about the documents that Nikolai Stepanovich helped to arrange, about the long years of deception and anxiety.
“I lied to you, Vanya. I lied out of fear of losing you. You always said that you could never love someone else’s child…”
Ivan jumped up so sharply that the chair tipped over. His face turned gray, like the cloudy sky before a storm.
“Twenty-five years,” he hissed through his teeth. “Twenty-five years you’ve been lying to me?”
He headed for the gate, and I tried to follow him, but Misha stopped me: “Let him walk, mom. He needs time to think.”
“Mom…”—this word sounded like balm to the soul.
“You’re not angry?” I whispered, not daring to look up.
“For what?” he moved closer, gently taking my trembling hands in his large, warm ones. “For giving me life? A family? Maternal love?”
“But I’m not the real…”
“The real one,” he interrupted firmly. “The most real. You didn’t raise me for nine months, but for your entire life—in your heart. What does it matter how I appeared in this house?”
Lena sobbed quietly: “I always wondered—why do Misha and I have different eyes? But now I understand—it doesn’t matter at all…”
Ivan returned long after midnight. I was still sitting on the porch—the very place where I once waited for him as a young girl from his shift. He sat down next to me, pulled out a pipe—the first in fifteen years.
“Remember,” he broke the prolonged silence, “how Misha almost drowned at twelve? I barely managed to pull him out of the whirlpool in time.”
I nodded. Of course, I remember—after that incident, my first gray hairs appeared.
“And remember how he brought home his first A? How he learned to ride a bike? How we sent him to the army?”
Ivan paused, looking off into the distance. “You know, Anya, when you brought him that rainy evening… Maybe it wasn’t by chance. Maybe that’s when Misha became our son. It doesn’t matter how he appeared in our house. What matters is that he grew up to be a good person because he grew up in our family, with our love.”
I cried, but these were tears of relief. Because I knew—the secret would no longer eat away at me from the inside. Because I understood—blood doesn’t define kinship. It’s defined by how we love, how we care, how we build our family.
