“Mila is pregnant,” Zhenya forced out, looking not into Ksyusha’s eyes but at the middle of her forehead, as though there were some special eye there that could understand him and forgive him.
He had told her about his affair with their neighbor a month earlier, in this very kitchen, while potatoes were sizzling on the stove and a semolina cake was finishing baking in the oven. Back then, her husband’s words seemed to reach her through a thick layer of water that had filled her ears and heart, as if to soften the blow. Somehow, they had agreed to try to save their marriage, if only for the sake of their three daughters, born one after another, the eldest of whom was only seven.
How Ksyusha survived that month was impossible to put into words.
“Endure it,” her mother kept saying. “All men cheat. How are you going to raise three girls on your own?”
And Ksyusha endured.
In the evenings, after putting her daughters to bed, she would stand under streams of icy water and scrub her skin painfully with a rough washcloth, biting her thin lips so that no one would hear her muffled sobs. By the time she came into the bedroom, her husband was already asleep.
“And what are you trying to tell me?” Ksyusha managed to ask, although she already understood what she was about to hear.
“Forgive me, but I’m tired. I can’t go on like this anymore.”
Zhenya’s handsome face twisted into a grimace, and his hands, resting on the kitchen table, clenched into fists. Children’s shouts drifted through the open window along with the spring breeze and the scent of bird cherry blossoms, which had bloomed unusually early that year without being touched by frost. Ksyusha automatically glanced outside to make sure no one was bothering her daughters, then bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from crying.
“Don’t worry, I won’t abandon you. I’ll help with money and anything else you need. I can take the younger girls to kindergarten like before. If you stay here, I’ll pay for the apartment…”
His monotonous words sent sharp pain throbbing through Ksyusha’s temples. She was no longer listening. The meaning of what he said dissolved into the hum of the refrigerator, which was packed with children’s yogurts and low-fat cottage cheese that Ksyusha had been eating in an attempt to lose weight, unable to forget Mila’s slim figure.
Her wedding ring, which had become a little tight over the past year, seemed to pulse around her ring finger.
Suddenly, she saw their family life through her husband’s eyes: herself constantly exhausted, surrounded by pots and pans and an ironing board, without a manicure or any of those feminine little luxuries…
Well, perhaps it was no surprise that he had chosen the pretty neighbor instead.
A bitter wave of nausea rose in her throat, and Ksyusha silently got up and went out onto the balcony to catch her breath.
When her mother learned what had happened, she insisted that Ksyusha and the girls move in with her. Ksyusha was grateful. Living in the same apartment building as her rival, who would soon be proudly showing off a rounded belly, was unbearable.
But on the other hand, moving away reduced the chances of Zhenya coming back.
And Ksyusha still desperately believed that he would return. She understood that there was no real basis for this hope, yet deep inside she was convinced that their union had been made in heaven and that things could not end any other way. They were supposed to be together.
“How can I make Mila stop wanting to be with him?” she asked her mother.
They both understood that Zhenya himself was unlikely to leave his young lover, especially if she was carrying his son.
“Daughter, why do you even need a traitor like that? You should be thinking about your girls. You have to raise them, not waste your thoughts on a man who betrayed you.”
But Ksyusha could not stop thinking about her daughters.
Or rather, she did think about them—but mainly about how to bring their father back.
“Well, maybe give the girls to Zhenya?” her mother suggested doubtfully. “That’s considered normal now. In the past, fathers had to fight just to be allowed to see their children, but now there’s equality. Especially since he’s the one who walked out on the family. If he took responsibility for destroying the family, let him take responsibility for the children too. I doubt Mila would be thrilled to suddenly have three stepdaughters.”
As tempting as the idea sounded, Ksyusha could not imagine giving her daughters to another woman.
What if Mila treated them badly?
No. That was out of the question.
Sitting in her mother’s apartment, with its familiar smell of lavender fabric softener and the heavy floral perfume her mother had worn for nearly ten years, Ksyusha kept thinking about how she might outmaneuver her rival.
The best idea she could come up with was to overwhelm Zhenya with requests.
Let him not only take the girls to kindergarten but pick them up as well. Let him attend school meetings and holiday performances, search for the right size of dance shoes, and spend two hours in the emergency room just to make sure a bruise was nothing serious.
Help came from where Ksyusha least expected it.
For a long time, she had blamed her lack of appetite and constant nausea on stress. But then it occurred to her that there might be another explanation.
She bought a pregnancy test.
Two bright lines glowed under the yellow bathroom light.
Her heart began pounding with sudden, almost joyful excitement.
Now she had a trump card too.
“Have you lost your mind?” her mother shouted. “You don’t even know how you’re going to raise the three you already have, and now you want to have a fourth? Where are you going to put another child? He’s not coming back, so stop hoping. If he left, then it’s over.”
Ksyusha stubbornly pressed her lips together and made her decision.
She would have this baby.
And it would be a boy.
Then Zhenya could choose which son he wanted to live with.
She did not tell Zhenya directly.
Instead, she continued carrying out her plan. She called him at any hour of the day or night and asked for help with things she had always managed on her own before, listening with satisfaction when Mila’s irritated voice rang out in the background.
Just you wait, dear Mila. This is only the beginning.
Zhenya noticed Ksyusha’s growing belly early, long before a stranger would have seen anything.
After all, he knew Ksyusha’s body well.
A deep crease appeared on his forehead, and his lips trembled.
“What does this mean?” he asked hoarsely.
Ksyusha shrugged.
“Have you gone crazy?” he asked, repeating almost exactly what her mother had said. “You know that I’m going to have…”
Then he stopped.
As if this baby were somehow not his too.
The girls were delighted.
They were going to have a little brother!
Of course, it was still too early to say for certain that it would be a boy.
But Ksyusha learned from a mutual acquaintance that Mila was expecting a girl. The woman giggled and joked that Zhenya apparently only knew how to make daughters.
At her second ultrasound, Ksyusha was so impatient she could barely lie still.
“Well? Who is it?” she asked for the fifth time.
“It’s a boy, a boy,” the ultrasound technician finally said with a smile.
Mila found out about Ksyusha’s pregnancy and showed up at her workplace without warning.
She carried her enormous belly proudly in front of her, as though she were expecting twins, even though her due date was supposedly still some time away.
“You bitch!” Mila shouted. “Don’t even think about it! Zhenya loves me anyway! And if you keep trying to interfere with us, we’ll take your boy away from you!”
After that, Ksyusha became truly bitter.
She began pestering Zhenya even more, deliberately presenting their father to the girls in such a way that they would add fuel to the fire themselves.
And one day, she even went to see a local old woman who claimed she could cast love spells, remove curses of loneliness, and perform all sorts of similar magic.
“I don’t want her baby to be born,” Ksyusha said.
The old woman shook her head.
“You’re taking a terrible sin upon yourself.”
“I don’t care.”
When the needle pierced Mila’s photograph, Ksyusha suddenly felt a sharp pain in her own belly.
Fear rushed through her.
What was she doing?
Did she really wish such grief upon Zhenya?
“Stop!” she cried. “I changed my mind!”
“Too late,” the old woman said darkly.
Ksyusha began going to church.
Who would believe it?
She, who hated her rival with every part of her heart, now prayed for Mila’s health.
Her son kicked stubbornly inside her, constantly reminding Ksyusha why she had started all of this in the first place.
As Mila’s due date approached, Zhenya began spending more and more time at Ksyusha’s place.
“You really glow when you’re pregnant,” he said one day. “Mila, on the other hand, has turned into a piranha. She’s lost her looks, and her personality has become unbearable.”
Ksyusha enjoyed hearing that.
She felt that her husband was beginning to understand something important: only the face had changed, while life itself would remain the same.
Now another woman would cook soup and iron shirts, gradually losing her manicure, her slim waist, and the other privileges of being young and carefree.
Though when Ksyusha thought about her own mother, she realized that her mother had never neglected her manicure or perfume.
Where did she find the energy?
The old woman’s dark prediction turned out to be wrong.
Mila’s baby was born.
Zhenya messaged Ksyusha to say that Mila had been taken to the maternity hospital.
Why did she even need to know that?
But lately Zhenya had begun telling her everything. Apparently, he missed Ksyusha’s ability to listen and understand.
That night, Ksyusha slept badly.
Her son kicked furiously inside her, and all kinds of thoughts crowded her mind.
At five in the morning, a message arrived.
“She gave birth.”
Ksyusha exhaled in relief.
Three days later, Zhenya arrived with bloodshot eyes and gray appearing at his temples.
“Down syndrome,” he forced out.
Ksyusha froze.
“Didn’t the screenings show anything?”
“No… Everything looked fine.”
Ksyusha suddenly felt as though the ceiling were pressing down on her.
She wanted to go outside, look up at the blue sky, and turn her face toward the gentle sunlight.
Could this somehow be her fault?
“What am I supposed to do?” Zhenya asked hollowly.
“What do you mean, what are you supposed to do?” Ksyusha asked, confused.
Once again, he did not look into her eyes. His gaze was fixed slightly above them, and he spoke quickly, as though afraid she might stop him.
“You know how badly I wanted a son. And I miss the girls. I miss you too. Ksyusha, forgive me, okay? I was an idiot. I didn’t understand how lucky I was. It felt good to have such a young woman paying attention to me.”
Realizing where he was going, Ksyusha stopped him.
“You have a daughter there too. And she needs you more than we do.”
Zhenya’s face crumpled.
Ksyusha squeezed his hand.
“Everything will be all right. Mila needs you now. And so does the little girl. What did you decide to name her?”
He sniffled.
“Snezhana.”
“That’s a ridiculous name.”
“I said the same thing…”
They sat in silence, listening to the quiet ticking of the wall clock.
Ksyusha’s mother had taken the girls outside for a walk. Her son moved inside her belly.
Ksyusha felt calm and certain.
She would raise all four children, even if Zhenya could not help her.
She was going to have a son. Wasn’t that happiness enough?
The most important thing was that he be healthy…
Guilt spread through her veins, but she kept telling herself that the needle had nothing to do with what had happened.
She wanted to fall to her knees and ask Zhenya to forgive her.
But he would never understand anyway.
“Go,” Ksyusha said. “You were made to raise wonderful daughters.”
Zhenya stroked her cheek and placed his palm against her belly.
“I won’t abandon you,” he said.
“I know,” Ksyusha replied with a nod.
After he left, she stood in the bathroom for a long time, scrubbing herself with the rough washcloth and crying.
Her son kicked angrily, as though demanding that she calm down.
Life went on.