My Beauty baby, New York, NY (2025)

10/31/2025

Sunflower smiles and sparkling eyes!😍😍😍

10/31/2025

Shut your mouth and not another word about the vacation, my sister is coming over with her family tomorrow,” the husband hissed.

“Enough with your constant nagging about the sea!” Yegor shouted, throwing the TV remote onto the couch. “Inna is coming with her family tomorrow, and we’re not going anywhere!”

Those words hit the living room like an icy shower. Vera froze in the middle of the room, a tourist brochure with pictures of the azure sea trembling in her hands.

Nagging?

She slowly lowered the brochure onto the coffee table. Yegor slouched in the armchair, flipping channels, and in the glow of the screen, his face seemed strange, indifferent.

“What did you say?” her voice was quiet but carried something dangerous.

“I said what I said.” He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Inna is coming with Andrey and the kids. For a month. So forget about your sea and stop bothering me.”

A month. The word hung in the air, heavy and unbearable. Vera felt something inside her tighten into a knot.

“Yegor, we’ve been planning this vacation since winter. I already bought the voucher. Paid the money.” She spoke slowly, as if explaining to a child. “I waited a whole year…”

“And I said — forget it!” He slammed his palm on the table. “Family is more important than your whims!”

Whims? Vera felt blood rush to her face. Those sleepless nights with a calculator when she counted every penny? Giving up a new jacket to save for the trip? Dreams of the sea air she imagined every morning on her way to work?

“What whims, Yegor?” She stepped toward him, and in her movement was a strange determination. “I work tirelessly. At home, at work. When was the last time I rested?”

“Don’t start your whining.” He turned the channel louder. “Inna is my sister. She rarely comes. Period.”

Rarely? Vera snorted. Inna showed up at their house every summer like an unstoppable force. Bringing her three kids, husband Andrey — a man who could eat a refrigerator and ask for seconds. And every time Vera turned into the servant.

“Yegor, listen to me.” She sat down on the edge of the couch opposite him. “I understand family is important. But I am also a person. I have needs, desires…”

“What desires?” He looked at her mockingly. “Lying on the beach? Swimming in the sea? What are you, some kind of chicken?”

Chicken? Vera looked at her husband — this man she had lived with for fifteen years. When did he become like this? When did his eyes turn so cold?

“Yes, I want to go to the sea.” She stood up. “I want to wake up to the sound of the waves. I want to walk barefoot on the sand. I want to be just Vera, not a cook, cleaner, and nanny for other people’s children.”

“Other people’s?” Yegor jumped out of the chair. “These are my sister’s children!”

“Who will trash the house on the first day!” Vera could no longer hold back. “Who will scream, break things, demand things! And Inna will lie on the couch complaining about her life!”

“How dare you!” Yegor’s face darkened. “Inna is a wonderful mother!”

“A wonderful mother doesn’t raise monsters!” The words slipped from her lips like stones falling from a cliff. “Remember what they did last year? Broke grandma’s vase, drew on the walls with markers, and the youngest almost set the kitchen on fire!”

“Kids will be kids…”

“And what about me? Am I not a person?” Vera felt something hot and uncontrollable rise inside her. “I’m supposed to endure this nightmare because ‘kids will be kids’?”

Yegor looked at her, surprise in his eyes. As if seeing his wife like this for the first time — disheveled, eyes blazing, ready to fight.

“Inna is coming tomorrow,” he said quietly. “And that’s final.”

“Then meet them yourself.” Vera headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To the bedroom.” She turned at the doorway. “To think.”

To think about how to live with a person who sees nothing in her but a housekeeper.

The bedroom door slammed, and silence fell over the house. Heavy, tense silence before the storm.

Vera lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. In her hands she still clutched the crumpled tourist brochure. The sea... She pictured this vacation so clearly. Morning walks along the shore, salty air, freedom from endless household chores. And now instead — a month playing servant to spoiled children and their indifferent parents.

But what can I do?

She fell asleep with that thought, clutching the last shard of her dream in her hand.

Outside the window, the trees rustled, and that noise sounded like distant ocean waves — the waves Vera would not hear this summer.

Or maybe she would?

Morning greeted Vera with gray rain and the rumble of an arriving car. She stood by the bedroom window, sipping coffee, watching a familiar group get out of a black SUV.

First out was Inna — tall, dyed blonde in a bright pink tracksuit. Even from a distance, she waved her arms, shouting something at her husband.

“Andrey, be careful with the suitcase! Those are my new shoes!” a shrill voice reached the window.

Andrey — a stocky man with thinning hair — silently hauled bags from the trunk. His mouth was tightly pressed, like a man long resigned to his fate.

The kids... Vera involuntarily grimaced. Ten-year-old Maxim had already stepped in a puddle and was now jumping around, splashing mud everywhere. Seven-year-old Sonya was screaming something about a doll she’d forgotten in the car. And four-year-old Dima was simply screaming — for no reason, just because he could.

“Vera!” Yegor shouted from the hallway. “They’re here! Come down!”

They’re here. As if she hadn’t seen. As if she hadn’t heard this nightmare for the past five minutes straight.

Vera finished her coffee and slowly went downstairs. The hallway was complete chaos. Inna hugged Yegor, leaving pink lipstick marks on his shirt, the kids ran around between suitcases, and Andrey unsuccessfully tried to shake mud off his shoes.

“Verochka!” Inna rushed to her with open arms. “How are you, dear? You’ve lost weight! Were you sick?”

Inna smelled of cloying perfume and ci******es. Vera barely held back from pulling away.

“Hello, Inna. How was the trip?”

“Terrible!” Inna rolled her eyes. “The kids were cranky, Andrey got lost three times, and I almost died of heat. Where’s the air conditioning? You have air conditioning, right?”

“We do,” Vera replied dryly. “In the bedroom.”

“And the living room?” Inna was already walking into the room, looking around. “We’re going to sleep there. Andrey snores, you know, I need it cool.”

Of course, she did. Vera looked at Yegor. He avoided her gaze, fiddling with the suitcases.

“Mom, where’s the bathroom?” Maxim tugged on Inna’s hand. “I really need to go!”

“There,” Vera nodded toward the corridor.

The boy ran off, leaving wet footprints behind. Meanwhile, Sonya found Vera’s favorite crystal candle holder and was examining it with interest.

“Sonya, put that back,” Vera asked.

“What’s this?” the girl continued turning the candle holder in her hands. “Can I play with it?”

“No, you can’t. It’s fragile.”

“But I’m careful!”

“Sonya,” Andrey interrupted, “listen to Aunt Vera.”

“She’s not my aunt!” the girl snapped back. “We’re not related!”

An awkward pause fell. Inna forced a laugh.

“Kids are so straightforward! Don’t mind them, Verochka.”

Straightforward. Vera took the candle holder from the girl and put it higher out of reach. Sonya pouted and went to find other amusements.

“Mom, what’s this?” Maxim came back from the bathroom and was now poking at the wall. “Why is there a hole here?”

Everyone turned. There really was a small hole in the wall — where a nail for a painting used to be.

“That’s…” Vera was at a loss. “We wanted to hang a new painting.”

“Can I put my finger in it?” Maxim was already reaching for the hole...

Continued in the comments

10/30/2025

Valya wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. She couldn’t understand why Dima had started treating her this way—had he stopped loving her? That night he’d come home late again and gone to sleep in the living room.

In the morning, when he came out for breakfast, Valya sat down across from him.

“Dim, can you tell me what’s going on?”

“What’s your problem?”

He drank his coffee and tried not to look at her.

“Since the boys were born, you’ve changed a lot.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Dima, we’ve been living like roommates for two years. Did you notice that?”

“Listen, what did you expect? The house is always strewn with toys, it smells like some kind of milk porridge, the kids are screaming… You think anyone would like that?”

“Dima, but they’re your children!”

He jumped up and began pacing nervously around the kitchen.

“All normal wives have one normal child. So he sits quietly in a corner and doesn’t get in the way. But you had two at once! My mom told me, and I didn’t listen—women like you can do only one thing: breed!”

“Women like me? What kind is that, Dima?”

“The kind with no purpose in life.”

“But you were the one who made me quit university because you wanted me to devote myself entirely to the family!”

Valya sat down. After a pause, she added:

“I think we need to get a divorce.”

He thought for a moment and said:

“I’m all for it. Just don’t you go filing for child support. I’ll give you money myself.”

Her husband turned and walked out of the kitchen. She might have cried, but just then noise came from the nursery. The twins had woken up and were demanding her attention.

A week later she packed her things, took the twins, and left. She had a large room in a communal apartment that she’d inherited from her grandmother.

The tenants were new, so Valya decided to get acquainted with everyone.

On one side lived a sullen man, not that old yet, and on the other a flamboyant woman of about sixty. First she knocked on the man’s door:

“Hello! I’m your new neighbor, I’d like to introduce myself. I bought a cake—come to the kitchen for tea.”

Valya smiled earnestly. The man gave her a once-over, then grunted:

“I don’t eat sweets,” and shut the door in her face.

Valya shrugged and headed to see Zinaida Yegorovna. She agreed to keep her company, but only in order to deliver a speech.

“Here’s the deal: I like to rest during the day, because in the evenings I watch my shows. I hope your offspring won’t disturb me with their screaming. And be so kind as not to let them run in the corridor; they are not to touch, soil, or break anything!”

She talked for a long time, and Valya thought with a pang that life here was not going to be sweet.

She enrolled the boys in a kindergarten and got a job there herself as a nursery aide. It was very convenient—she worked right up until it was time to pick up Andrey and Yura. The pay was peanuts, but Dima had promised to help.

For the first three months, while their divorce was in progress, Dima really did throw them some money. But just as much time had passed since the divorce, and there had been no more money from him. Valya hadn’t been able to pay the utilities for two months.

Relations with Zinaida Yegorovna were getting worse by the day. One evening, as Valya was feeding the boys in the kitchen, the neighbor glided in wearing a satin robe.

“Dear, I hope you’ve solved your financial issue? I wouldn’t want to lose electricity or gas because of you.”

Valya sighed:
Continued in the comments

10/30/2025

Anna never trusted her husband. So she had to rely only on herself. That’s just how things had turned out in their family life.

Her husband Viktor was as handsome as a poppy in bloom. He was always the life of any party. He drank in moderation, didn’t smoke, and wasn’t obsessed with soccer, fishing, or hunting. In short, “a paragon—fit for a palace.”

Precisely because of all these fine qualities, Anna suspected her husband sought comfort outside their home. Men like that are rare—you couldn’t find one with a lantern in broad daylight. And the “huntresses” would surely find him themselves…

The only thing that soothed Anna a little was that her husband adored their little boy. Viktor doted on Styopa. He spent all his free time with his son. So Anna believed that this fierce fatherly love was more than enough to keep their family together.

…At school, Anya was teased as “Antoshka” because of her fiery red hair and the freckles sprinkled all over her face.

Her mother, a classic beauty, had told her since childhood: “Anyuta, you’re my ugly duckling. Forgive the comparison. But we have to face this bitter truth. And who else will speak that truth to your face if not your own mother? Hardly anyone will want to marry you. So in life you’ll have to rely only on yourself. Study diligently. And after school, build your own career. And if some decent man ‘comes along,’ don’t be finicky. Be an obedient wife to him.”

Anya remembered that counsel for the rest of her life.

After graduating from school with a gold medal, Anya went on to university. That’s where she met her future husband. The girl had no idea what a catch like him saw in her. Later Viktor admitted that she was the only girl he wasn’t afraid to approach. Anya didn’t use makeup at all—no “war paint.” She dressed modestly and didn’t know how to flirt with boys. And once Anya realized that such a striking guy was seriously courting her, she decided to seize the initiative. She wasn’t about to miss such a gift of fate! Anya proposed to Viktor that he marry her. At first the young man was taken aback by such an immodest offer from a girl. But Anya promised to be a meek, humble, and faithful wife. “And love will come with time,” she assured her suitor. Viktor didn’t agree right away, but in the end he accepted tying his life to this plain yet quick-witted girl. His mother helped him decide. When Vitya first brought his future wife home, Viktoriya Olegovna looked Anya over with a disapproving, stripping gaze. She disliked the girl’s looks intensely. Her son was a prize! Handsome as the sun, bright as the moon. Any girl would go after him! And here—some freckled ragamuffin. She felt sorry for her Vitya. She’d wanted beautiful grandchildren, not red-haired “Antoshkas.”

The first meeting didn’t go all that well.

Of course, Anya noticed her future mother-in-law’s displeasure. Deep down, Anna understood that a handsome husband could be an obstacle to marital happiness. Even so, she had no intention of letting her chance slip away. She decided to visit his mother without Vitya. She had to save her future marriage—it was hanging by a thread. Vitya’s mother received the girl and served her tea. This time Anya even seemed rather pretty. “I’m getting used to her…” Viktoriya Olegovna thought in surprise. Anya promised she would be a faithful and obedient wife to her son for the rest of her days. That was the argument that outweighed all the external “shortcomings” of the prospective daughter-in-law.

Viktor’s mother was a lonely woman. Long ago, her husband had left her and their son for a new love. True, a year later he came back—worn out and bedraggled. The prodigal husband’s own family didn’t take him back. It was a hard time. All her life, Viktoriya Olegovna asked herself the same question—perhaps she should have forgiven the scoundrel? Cried out the betrayal and moved on together? But on the other hand, that deed would have stuck in her soul like a thorn and ached and ached and ached…

Raising a son alone was no easy task. So Viktoriya Olegovna decided to approve her beloved son’s choice. She understood that Anya would wait for Vitya no matter what roads he took—even the bumpiest. And what more does a mother need to be happy? Viktoriya Olegovna blessed Vitya and Anya’s marriage.

…A year later the couple had a son, Styopka. He turned out to be the spitting image of his handsome father, which delighted Viktoriya Olegovna beyond words.

Viktor fluttered around his son like a mad moth. Styopa became the meaning of his life.

But his love for his wife never took shape.

Anya, too, never burned with passion for her husband. Their relationship was even and calm. Anya washed and ironed her husband’s shirts, cooked lunch and dinner, and kissed his cheek at night. Viktor handed over his entire paycheck to his wife, brought her flowers on her birthday, kissed her cheek in the mornings, and ran off to work. It all felt more like ritual than love. The family waited for real marital feelings. Viktor and Anna knew for certain such feelings existed—books were written about them, and their friends described them in vivid colors. And after five years, Viktor found that feeling. Only not in his own family.

She was a girl of heavenly beauty. Her name was Bozhena. Everything about her was unearthly and alluring.
Continued in the comments

10/30/2025

Little angel amidst a floral backdrop.😍😍😍

10/30/2025

Happy baby wrapped in white towel 😍😍😍

10/30/2025

He brought his mistress to the theater. And then his wife stepped out of the limousine. He braced for a scandal, but his wife walked past without even looking at him.

She entered the opera on the arm of a stranger, and in that instant his perfect world crumbled to dust, exposing the ruins he himself had built. The two tickets to the performance—the coveted slips of paper for which he’d been posing as a connoisseur of the arts—nearly slipped from Arthur’s numb fingers when he saw the black limousine, polished to a mirror sheen, glide up to the gleaming entrance of the Grand Opéra. The air of that cold Paris evening was a dense cocktail of wet asphalt, expensive perfume, and the anticipation of celebration. His fingers instinctively, almost animal-like, tightened around Lilia’s hand—young, radiant, still unaware that she was nothing more than a bargaining chip in someone else’s game. And then, as if in slow motion, the frosted car door swung open.

And there she was. Viktoria. Not as a wife, not as the familiar shadow in his life, but as a goddess of cold, calculated retribution, dressed in a gown the color of ripe Bordeaux—one that, he knew for certain, cost more than three of his monthly salaries. Silk streamed over her figure like liquid copper, shimmering in the spotlights. She did not deign to bestow a single glance on him, as if he were a void, a ghost unworthy of even a fleeting look. Arthur stood paralyzed while Viktoria—his Vika—the woman who for fifteen years had brewed his morning coffee, pressed his shirts to razor-sharp creases, and silently listened to his endless dinnertime monologues, entered the temple of art with her chin held high. Her hand rested in the crook of a man’s impeccably tailored tuxedo sleeve, a man whose posture and calm assurance all but oozed wealth and power.

Arthur had never seen this man before. The stranger leaned toward her, whispered something, and the corner of her lips trembled into the faintest, but very real, smile. He held her arm with the tenderness reserved for someone truly precious, with a reverent tremor Arthur realized he had never felt for her—perhaps ever.

“Arthur, darling, who are those people?” Lilia whispered, and in her voice came the first notes of alarm, dimming the joy of the long-awaited evening.

Arthur didn’t answer. He couldn’t. A tight, invisible noose of shame and realization clenched his throat. Because in that icy second the monstrous truth dawned on him. Viktoria knew. She had known for a long time. And this evening, this opera, this “chance” encounter—there was not a drop of chance in it.

It wasn’t just a show of strength. It was a meticulously planned, cold-blooded declaration of war, issued without a single shot fired. A war he had already lost without even knowing it had begun.

Arthur had always thought himself fortune’s favorite, a golden boy destined for some special, shining fate. He was a solid middle-manager who’d worked his way up to head of a department at a reputable IT company, drove a new Audi A6 whose interior smelled of leather and money, wore a Swiss watch that weighted his wrist with a pleasant heft, and basked in the envious-admiring glances of colleagues. Success, for him, was tangible: it smelled like leather upholstery, fine to***co, and aged whisky that left a tart aftertaste of victory on the tongue.

But at home… At home reigned a different universe. Quiet, predictable, measured to the last detail. Viktoria never complained. Not once. She was the perfect wife, the clockwork mechanism of their household. She rose at six so that, when he woke, fresh coffee was already steaming on the table and toast was browning. She asked how his day had gone, and he, eyes on his smartphone, tossed back something monosyllabic, a clipped fragment of a sentence. In the evenings she served dinner, smiled her calm, slightly detached smile, and spoke of domestic trifles, of their son. Their son Anton, fifteen, teetering on the brink of adulthood. Of a leaking roof, of meeting her friends, of a new book. Arthur nodded, grunted something in reply, not listening. His thoughts were already there, in the boiling world of big deals and secret trysts where admiration awaited him.
And then, in his office—this glass anthill—she appeared: Lilia. Bright, twenty-six, with a cascade of chestnut hair and a laugh like a crystal bell. A marketing manager. She looked at Arthur as if he were a demigod, caught his every word, burst into laughter at his flat jokes, and sought his gaze across the open-plan floor. She gave him what he believed Viktoria could no longer offer: the intoxicating nectar of admiration, youth, and unconditional adoration.

The first shared cup of coffee at the café around the corner. The first business lunch that smoothly slipped into a candid conversation. The first late-evening message: “I miss your laughter at the office.” The first, so effortless, lie. “I need to stay late, darling—crunch time.” Viktoria would reply: “I understand. Don’t rush. I’ll wait.” And he was sure she waited. Waited for his return to a cold dinner. But he didn’t know—couldn’t imagine—that Viktoria wasn’t waiting for him. She was waiting for proof. Waiting for certainty, like a predator before the pounce. Waiting for the perfect, millimeter-precise moment to strike.

Because Viktoria was not the gray little mouse he had taken her for all these years. Behind the façade of an exemplary, slightly old-fashioned homemaker hid the keen, analytical mind of a chess player who calculates twenty moves ahead, and the steely patience of a hunter poised in ambush. The first, barely visible cracks in the façade of their marriage appeared almost six months ago. A faint, alien floral scent clinging to the collar of his shirt. The slight, almost imperceptible smile flitting across his face at messages on his phone—a smile he hadn’t given her in years. His iPhone, that faithful companion, lying face-down ever more often, as if ashamed of its contents.

Viktoria staged no scenes, didn’t sob into her pillow at night. She acted with the cool method of a covert operative. She went to the bank and opened her own separate account, to which she began squirreling away money from those very “gifts” he grudged her. She started an elegant leather journal and began recording every odd expense, every late night at the office, every accidentally glimpsed, fragmentary snippet of a message on his phone. Then, with the help of a tech-savvy niece, she found her name. Lilia Dubois. But even then, with every thread in her hands, she didn’t know what to do with this web of lies. What the reckoning should be.

And then fate, tired of his arrogance, brought her together with a man who became her guide to a new world. A man who, without the slightest hint of flirtation, calmly and respectfully showed her something fundamental: that she, Viktoria, had intrinsic worth. Not as Arthur’s wife. Not as Anton’s mother. But as Viktoria. The worth of a person—of mind and soul.

His name was Mark Semyonov. Successful, well-known in his circles, an architect. Composed, gray at the temples, an intelligent man about ten years older than Arthur. Owner of a prestigious design bureau. A man endowed with the rarest gift—the gift of true, profound listening. Their acquaintance began with plans to renovate their country house. Viktoria asked about materials, about style, and he answered thoroughly, attentive to each of her ideas, even the most tentative. Soon their conversations outgrew professional bounds. They could talk for hours about art, books, life. And for the first time in many, many years Viktoria felt that she wasn’t merely being heard. She was being seen. Truly.

But Viktoria did not fling herself into his arms in search of consolation. Instead
Continued in the comments

10/29/2025

I took pity on a tramp and let him spend the night. By morning, he’d dealt with all the neighbors. For good.

It all began on that very morning that seemed to promise no storm. The sun was just rising above the rooftops, painting the sky delicate peach tones. The air was fresh and clear, and from the fields drifted the sweet scent of blooming meadow grasses. Anna, as always, had gotten up before dawn to finish all the housework before the children went to school. She was already filling the chickens’ drinkers when her son, Seryozha, burst out of the open front door. His face was pale, his eyes wide with fright.

“Mom, where are you? There’s a… a tractor!” he blurted out, out of breath. “It’s pulled right up to our fence!”

Anna’s heart froze for an instant and then dropped somewhere down into a cold emptiness. She threw the bucket aside and hurried—almost running—across the yard to the gate. And then a sight met her eyes that took her breath away. The neighbors’ huge, roaring tractor with a massive bucket was mercilessly scooping up everything in its path. It churned the earth, tore out by the roots her beloved peonies and dahlias, the ones she had cherished all these years—the very flowers that delighted her every summer with their riotous blooms. And there went a section of the old, sagging fence she had kept meaning to fix; it cracked under the pressure of metal and slowly, almost reluctantly, collapsed, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“Stop! What are you doing?!” Anna cried, waving her arms desperately, trying to get the driver’s attention.

But the young guy at the wheel, a mud-smeared cap on his head, didn’t even turn around. He could see her perfectly well in the side mirror—that much was obvious from the way he deliberately looked away. He knew, he knew perfectly well what he was doing—destroying someone else’s work, someone else’s beauty, someone else’s little world. Hot tears rolled down Anna’s cheeks from the sense of helplessness, but she wiped them away with the back of her hand, trying not to let her son see.

Ah, how she had suffered with these new neighbors… They had bought the house next door only three months ago, but it felt like an eternity had passed. At first they arrived quietly, modestly, smiling at everyone, saying all the right, pretty words about an “eco-friendly lifestyle,” “unity with nature,” and “spiritual development.” You could tell at once—they were city folk. Dressed in expensive, branded outfits, they drove a huge SUV that probably cost as much as half the village.

And then, as if the mask had fallen off, the real ordeal began. They started tossing their garbage over the fence right onto her property, their huge, vicious dog kept squeezing through the holes in the fence and wreaking havoc on her neat vegetable beds, and on weekends music thundered from their house until two or three in the morning, so loud the windowpanes shook. And it wouldn’t be so bad if she were the only one who had to endure it, but she had children! Seryozha would come home from school pale, eyes red from lack of sleep, unable to focus on his lessons. And little Liza, her darling, was afraid to go to bed at all, stifling quiet sobs into her pillow when the neighbors started up another noisy party.

“Their dog tried to get in again,” Seryozha muttered, clutching the sleeve of her blouse. “I waved a stick at it, tried to scare it off, but it growled at me and bared its teeth…”

My God, what kind of life is this! Last month she had finally reached her limit and, mustering all her will, went to see the district policeman, Vasily Petrovich. She begged him, said, “Do something, Vasilich, please help, I can’t take it anymore, we can’t live like this.” To his credit, he came that very day—and she even felt relieved, thinking that at last peace would come. He went over to talk to the neighbors and… vanished. An hour passed, then two. He came out of their house only by evening; his face was flushed, he wore an embarrassed, crooked smile, and from the pocket of his uniform jacket there stuck, rather conspicuously, a brand-new, expensive smartphone. And that on his modest salary!

“Anna, don’t go messing with good people,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “So what if their music’s loud. They’re young, they want to have fun. Can’t even sneeze these days without someone complaining.”
And she understood everything. Clear as day. Money—it decides things everywhere, even here, in a backwoods village. And what could she set against them? Two cows that kept food on the table, a small garden, and two children to raise. Her husband had gone to the city to earn money five years ago and… vanished as if into thin air. Disappeared. He didn’t even send alimony regularly, the scoundrel. She spun like a squirrel in a wheel, trying to make ends meet.

But Anna had a stubborn, reckless spirit. She decided that if the law wouldn’t help, she would handle it herself. That very day she gathered all their trash that lay on her property into big plastic bags and heaved them back over the fence. That’s when the real nightmare began… The district policeman showed up in barely half an hour, his face twisted with rage; he tapped a finger at his temple: “Are you crazy, Anna? They’ll sue you! They’ve got connections—serious ones, you understand? They’ll have your kids put in an orphanage in no time, and you in court!”

And for the first time she felt truly afraid. Not for herself—no—for her children. She stood in the middle of her ravaged yard, clutching those very bags, tears streaming down her face in bitter, helpless rivers.

“Mom, why are you crying?” Seryozha ran up, hugged her, pressed himself to her. “Don’t cry—I’ll tell them myself, I’m not afraid of them!”

Her heart clenched with pain and pride at once. The boy was only twelve, and already a true defender, ready to rush into battle for his family.

“Oh, son, my dear, better not get mixed up with them,” she wiped her tears with her worn sleeve. “To them we’re nobodies, empty space, second-rate people. What can we set against them? Nothing.”

Seryozha frowned; his lips pressed into a thin, stubborn line.

“I’ll grow up, I will, I’ll earn tons and tons of money, buy us a big house, and then they’ll dance to my tune! We’ll see about that!”

“Go on now, sit with your sister for a bit, read her a book,” she gently sent him into the house, feeling a new lump rise in her throat. “I need to go to the market—we need money; can’t do without it.”

Every day of hers was like the one before. Up at four, milking the cows, making breakfast for the children, getting them ready, and then the long trip to the district market. Milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs—those were their main income. This isn’t the city where you’re guaranteed a paycheck at the end of the month. Here you survive however you can, hustle and scrape, or you’ll starve and the children will have nothing to eat.

And those neighbors… They were like a speck in the eye, a constant source of worry and irritation. One time their dog would get into the henhouse and scare all the chickens; another time the music would pound so loudly your ears rang; and then some new unpleasantness would crop up. Sometimes such a wave of grief and hopelessness would wash over her that she wanted to let her hands fall, just lie down and not get up. But she couldn’t—under no circumstances. She had children, her own flesh and blood. Who needed them besides her? No one.

And on that ill-fated day she was, as usual, at her spot in the market, selling dairy products. The heat was unbearable, pesky flies swarmed over the counters, and there were very few buyers. The neighboring vendors—women like her, no longer young and worn down by life—were quietly gossiping among themselves:

“Annushka, why are you so gloomy today? Those new folks of yours getting on your nerves again?
Continued in the comments

My Beauty baby

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