05/02/2025
In 1993, a deaf baby was left on my doorstep. I took on the role of his mother, but I had no idea what the future would hold for him.
"Misha, look!" I froze at the gate, unable to believe my eyes.
My husband clumsily stepped over the threshold, bent under the weight of a bucket filled with fish. The coolness of the July morning cut right through to the bone, but what I saw on the bench made me forget the cold entirely.
"What is it?" Mikhail set the bucket down and came over to me.
On an old bench by the fence stood a woven basket. Inside, wrapped in a faded blanket, lay a child. A little boy, about two years old.
His huge brown eyes stared straight at me—not with fear, not with curiosity, just stared.
"My God," Mikhail breathed, "where did he come from?"
I gently ran my finger through his dark hair. The boy didn’t flinch, didn’t cry—he only blinked.
In his tiny fist was a crumpled piece of paper. I carefully pried his fingers open and read the note: "Please help him. I can't. Forgive me."
"We need to call the police," Mikhail frowned, scratching the back of his head. "And let the village council know."
But I had already scooped the child into my arms, holding him close. He smelled of dusty roads and unwashed hair. His romper was worn but clean.
"Anna," Misha looked at me anxiously, "we can't just take him."
"We can," I met his gaze. "Misha, we've been waiting for five years. Five. The doctors said we would never have children. And now…"
"But the law, the documents… The parents might show up," he objected.
I shook my head: "They won't. I can feel it."
The boy suddenly smiled widely at me, as if he understood our conversation. And that was enough. Through friends, we arranged guardianship and took care of the paperwork. 1993 was a hard time.
Within a week, we noticed something strange. The boy, whom I had named Ilya, didn’t respond to sounds. At first, we thought he was just dreamy, deep in thought.
But when the neighbor's tractor rumbled past right under our windows and Ilya didn’t even stir, my heart sank.
"Misha, he can’t hear," I whispered one evening after putting the child to bed in an old cradle that once belonged to our nephew.
My husband stared long into the fire burning in the stove, then sighed: "We'll go see Doctor Nikolai Petrovich in Zarechye."
The doctor examined Ilya and spread his hands: "Congenital deafness. Complete. Don’t even hope for surgery—this isn't a case where it would help."
I cried the entire way home. Mikhail was silent, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. That evening, after Ilya fell asleep, Mikhail pulled a bottle out of the cupboard.
"Misha, maybe you shouldn’t…" I began.
"No," he poured half a glass and downed it in one gulp. "We’re not giving him up."
"Who?"
"Him. We're not giving him up," he said firmly. "We'll manage ourselves."
"But how? How will we teach him? How will we…"
Mikhail interrupted me with a gesture: "If we have to—you'll learn. You're a teacher. You'll figure something out."
That night, I didn’t sleep a wink. I lay there staring at the ceiling, thinking: "How do you teach a child who cannot hear? How do you give him everything he needs?"
And by morning, the realization came...
Continued in the comments 👇
