She was crying. Yesterday, and today. She didn’t leave the house and kept searching for an answer to the question: why did this happen? Did she say or do something wrong? She only loved him. But her husband filed for divorce. How could she tell her parents? How could she tell her little daughter? She had lived with the hope that everything would work out.
She forgave him, turned a blind eye. Now she lay curled up in a ball, so small, so vulnerable, abandoned by everyone. Teardrops trembled on her eyelashes, bittersweet and salty, like her unhappy life. And so she fell asleep.
It had all started so brightly and beautifully! She grew up as a beloved child. The sun didn’t give her as much warmth as her family did. They called her Mary. She studied well, was cheerful and beautiful. She dreamed of becoming a teacher, and her dream came true. Her only fear was that her parents would find out about her love.
She kept her beloved hidden from everyone. She knew they wouldn’t approve of her choice, wouldn’t give their precious daughter to the man her heart had chosen. And her heart didn’t ask for permission.
In her final year of college, she quietly whispered to her mother:
— Mom, I think I’m going to get married soon.
But when Alex crossed the threshold of her parents’ home, her mother went pale. Mary saw her mother struggling to compose herself. Then came tears and arguments. But Mary stood her ground. Love filled every cell of her body, every thought. She lived for Alex, breathed him. It was an otherworldly love. She didn’t see or hear what her parents saw in her chosen one—his dishonorable actions, his crude jokes. Mary felt like the happiest bride, glowing with that strange radiance that all happy, lovesick people emit.
They celebrated the wedding. Mary went to college during the week and came home on weekends. By the time she graduated, she already had little Annie. So absorbed was the young woman in motherhood that she didn’t notice how Alex was changing.
There was no work. Annie grew up, old enough to stay with her grandmother.
— Maybe we could go abroad to earn money, buy a house, — Mary once suggested to her husband.
But Alex wouldn’t hear of it. So Mary decided to go alone. She cried in a foreign land, missed her daughter, worked like a slave, while Alex lived a carefree life back home.
Three years later, she returned, unable to bear the separation from her family any longer. Her mother kept urging her to come back.
With the little money she earned and some help from her parents, they bought an apartment in the city and celebrated the move. Annie started school. But Mary no longer recognized her Alex. Still, she kept turning a blind eye to his friends, his late-night outings, his drinking.
— Maybe he was always like this? Maybe I was just too blinded by love to notice, — she sometimes thought, but continued to endure in silence.
Alex insulted her, grew jealous, accused her of cheating. Mary cried, defended herself, swore she’d never been with anyone but him. It was useless. He stayed out more and more. Mary refused to believe the gossip until she accidentally saw her beloved in the arms of some blonde. She had trusted him so much, endured everything, forgiven everything, terrified of losing him. She couldn’t imagine life without him. He was, after all, the father of her daughter, who loved him so much. Perhaps Annie had inherited that deep, blind love for Alex from her mother.
— Mommy, if Daddy comes home late and drunk, we’ll sit quietly and not say anything, just so he doesn’t leave us, — Annie would often beg her mother.
And Mary endured. She stayed silent. She even smiled at her husband. But he took advantage of her patience, disregarded her obsessive love.
Mary dreamed of her mother, the river, the meadows, her daughter wrapping her little arms around her neck. A phone call interrupted her dream. She didn’t answer. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. Glancing at the clock, she realized she could still catch the bus to the village.
— God, what a beautiful world! — she thought, looking through the window at the street. — I can see, hear, walk. My daughter needs me, my parents need me. I don’t need him, but he’s still a part of me. And I’ll live with that. I’ll love only him. He’s in my daughter, for whom I’m grateful to God and to him. I have to keep going. God will give me strength.
The woman sighed, smiled, and began to prepare for the journey. To the dearest people who were always waiting for her. And in her heart, a flicker of hope remained—that her great, powerful love would somehow prevail.
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