The nurse asked gently, “Anna Sergeyevna, the documents are ready. Who’s taking you home?”

“I’ll manage,” Anna replied, hiding her exhaustion.

A week after a difficult childbirth, no one had come for her. Ivan hadn’t visited once.

Cradling her newborn daughter, Liza, and with the nurse’s help carrying Mitya, Anna stepped outside. She had just enough money for milk and bread, not for a taxi.

At the bus stop, she clung to hope. Ivan once said, “I want a son and a daughter, just like you.” Fate had given her both—on the same day.

But when she arrived home, she was met with silence and stale air.

“Ivan?” she called out. “We’re home.”

Ivan appeared, tightening his robe. His cold, detached gaze swept over Anna, the babies, and the bags—almost as if he were seeing strangers.

Without emotion, Ivan spoke, “I’ve been thinking… this isn’t for me.”

“But you said—”

“I changed my mind,” he shrugged, as though discarding a broken item. “I’m still young. I want to live my life, not deal with diapers.”

“I’m leaving,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “I’ll stay at Seryoga’s for now and figure things out later.”

“The place is in your name. I’m not dealing with custody or child support. Your choice to give birth, your problem now.”

With that, he spat on the floor near the couch, grabbed his bag and coat, and slammed the door behind him.

Anna, overwhelmed with grief and disbelief, crawled to the couch, clutching her babies to her chest. This was her new reality.

“We’ll survive,” she whispered to herself, repeating the mantra that would carry her through the years ahead.

Three years passed.

Anna worked a night shift on the farm, covering for a sick coworker. The children stayed with a neighbor who had become like a second mother to them.

One evening, Anna returned home exhausted but smiling. She carried a loaf of bread, a can of milk, and a bag of caramels.

“Mom!” the children rushed to her, their arms wrapping around her.

“There’s going to be a party at the kindergarten,” she said, catching her breath. “For moms and dads.”

“We should invite Daddy,” Mitya suggested.

Anna’s heart sank. The moment she had feared had arrived. Her children were growing up and starting to ask difficult questions.

“You don’t have a dad,” she said quietly.

That night, the children cried—not from hunger or pain, but from the realization that something was missing.

Anna held them close, now teenagers, on the brink of a new life. Her hope, her reason, and her heart torn in two.

“Mom, was Dad really a bad person?” Mitya asked.

“No,” she replied, her voice heavy. “Not bad. Just weak. He was afraid of responsibility.”

She didn’t sleep that night, knowing that the time would soon come when her children would need to know the full truth about their father—the truth she had sheltered them from for so long.

Years passed.

Liza noticed a man standing near the school gate, his eyes scanning the crowd. Mitya looked up and saw him too. Their eyes met—exactly like Ivan’s.

“Hello,” the man said, his voice hoarse. “You’re Liza and Mitya, right? Anna’s children?”

The silence stretched, the years of unanswered questions weighing heavily between them.

“I’m your father,” Ivan finally said. “I’m Ivan.”

“I just wanted to talk… to see you,” he stammered, a lifetime of regrets in his voice. “Maybe it’s not too late. I’ve been thinking a lot.”

Mitya’s voice was calm but firm. “Mom’s home. If you want to talk, go to her.”

“I know I’m to blame,” Ivan murmured. “I’ve lost everything. But… I wonder if I could still get to know you?”

“You don’t know anything about us,” Liza said, her voice trembling with anger. “You have no right to show up like nothing happened.”

Ivan lowered his head, defeated by the years of mistakes.

Without another word, Liza and Mitya walked away together, side by side. Ivan watched them leave, his eyes filled with regret, and for the first time in years, real tears welled up in his eyes.

When Anna saw her children enter, she knew something had happened. Mitya’s pale face and Liza’s stiff posture told the story.

Anna covered her face with her hands, a storm of emotions raging inside her—anger at Ivan, fear for her children, and an odd sense of relief that he was still alive and had remembered them.

“I didn’t want him back,” she thought. “Without him, we became better. Stronger. A real family.”

The three of them embraced—three bodies, three hearts, beating as one.