Lyuba gave birth very young. She had just turned eighteen when she got pregnant. When Lyubasha’s mother found out about her daughter’s pregnancy, she clutched her heart in horror, while her father frowned and threatened to have a serious talk with the girl’s boyfriend.
“Where is this Valera? Give me his number! I want to find out what his plans are…”
But Lyuba did not know either her boyfriend’s current phone number or where he lived. They had met by chance, dated for several months, and when the girl told him about her condition, Valery changed his SIM card and disappeared from her life.
Olga Dmitrievna, Lyuba’s mother, comforted her daughter while she grieved over the boyfriend, but she herself was terrified. She did not know what to do now.
“Let her give birth!” her father said firmly when his wife asked for advice. “The child is not to blame for having a foolish mother and a coward for a father!”
And that was what they decided. Lyubasha spent her entire pregnancy at home. After school, she had enrolled in college, but because of the pregnancy she had to drop out. The expectant mother lived in her parents’ house, in the very same room where, only a couple of years earlier, she had done her homework and dreamed of a bright future.
Nine months later, Lyubov gave birth to a son. From that moment on, everything changed. If before the girl had thought that the birth of the baby would make her stronger and push her to do everything she could to improve their lives, now the future seemed hopeless.
“I’m so tired, Mom!” Lyuba said through tears. “I can’t stay in this cage anymore! Little Dimochka is always in my arms and cries constantly!”
Lyubasha was shocked by how difficult it was to care for a newborn baby, even though her parents helped her in every possible way. Her mother took on most of the chores of caring for the baby, and her father worked around the clock, but Lyuba was still on the verge of a breakdown.
“What did you expect? He’s a baby! Small and helpless. It’s all right, he’ll grow a little, and it will get easier,” her mother reassured her.
When Dimochka turned six months old, Lyubov decided that she had to earn money herself for formula and diapers for her son.
“Are you serious? And how do you imagine that working?” her parents asked the logical question.
“It’s very simple! I’ll go to the capital to earn money. There are more chances there to find a job without an education and make decent money.”
“And Dimochka?” her father asked with a frown. “Who will your son stay with while you work?”
“With you. You work in shifts anyway, so let him live here for now. By the time I settle down in the capital, Dima will be older, and I’ll be able to put him in a nursery. Then I’ll take him with me, and we’ll start a new life together in the big city.”
Unlike their daughter, Olga Dmitrievna and Sergey Petrovich were down-to-earth people. They understood that in the capital it was difficult even for locals to get a child into kindergarten, and for newcomers it was much harder. But the mother and father did not stop their daughter. While determination to move forward still burned inside her, they did not want to clip her wings.
“I’ll stay in touch all the time. As soon as I find a job, I’ll start sending money for Dima. I don’t want him to grow up in poverty,” Lyuba said, standing at the railway station with her parents and her son. She held the baby tightly against her, trying not to cry.
Lyubasha’s words sounded confident. Her parents hoped their daughter would soon return and take the boy, but deep down, they could not shake a feeling of anxiety.
At first, Lyubov called her father and mother every day. She told them how the job search was going, how hard it was to share a rented apartment with a stranger, and how expensive it was to live in a big city.
Lyuba also often spoke with her son. Olga Dmitrievna would turn on a video call, and the young mother could enjoy communicating with little Dima.
When Lyubasha found a job, the calls became less frequent. She said she worked until late, got tired, and had no strength left for anything.
“But Dima will forget you if you don’t see him,” his grandmother worried.
“I understand, but in order to take him, I need to work a lot!” Lyuba replied.
A year later, her parents decided that Lyuba was about to take her son to the capital. She had more or less gotten on her feet and had even rented a separate apartment.
“When are you coming for Dimochka? Have you signed him up for kindergarten?” her mother kept asking.
“I signed him up, but I don’t think we have any chance. Some children wait in line until school. There is an option with a private kindergarten, but I can’t afford it,” Lyuba sighed.
Years passed. Sometimes Lyuba came to visit her son and parents, but she never even hinted at taking him with her.
“Mom, who will stay with him there while I work? You know yourself, he’s always getting sick. If I start taking sick leave, I’ll be fired immediately.”
“So what now? Do you want to abandon your own child?” Sergey Petrovich grumbled unhappily.
“Why abandon him? He isn’t living with strangers, he’s living with you. Besides, I send you money regularly,” Lyuba objected.
Lyubov really did support her son financially, but it was her parents who raised him. They were the ones he saw as his mom and dad.
When Dima turned six, Olga Dmitrievna began insisting that Lyuba send her son to school in the capital, but Lyuba categorically refused.
“Mom, I can’t. I’ve enrolled in evening classes at the institute. Now I work during the day, and after that I study. I physically won’t be able to take care of a child. Please, look after him a little longer. Once I get my diploma, I’ll take him.”
“I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before…” Olga Dmitrievna snorted.
The grandmother and grandfather had already become attached to the child, practically considering him their own son. Dima sometimes even called them “Mom” and “Dad.” He knew he had a real mother who worked in the big city. He even bragged to his friends in elementary school that she was successful and rich and would soon take him away, but deep down he did not want to go anywhere. His home was here, beside Grandma and Grandpa.
After graduating from the institute, Lyubov received a promotion at work, and along with it, a salary increase. Olga Dmitrievna thought that now her daughter would definitely remember her son, but she was mistaken. Not only did Lyubasha no longer want to take Dima, she also stopped sending money for his support.
“Daughter, there was no money this month. Are you sure you sent it?” Olga Dmitrievna asked carefully, hoping Lyuba had simply forgotten.
“No, Mom, I haven’t sent it yet. I’m having financial problems right now. I rented an apartment closer to work, and the rent has become more expensive. But don’t worry, you and Dad buy everything Dima needs for now, and then I’ll reimburse you.”
Olga Dmitrievna and Sergey Petrovich did not expect any reimbursement, but from that moment on, they began to realize that the thread connecting Lyubasha and Dima had long since snapped. Their daughter barely thought about her child anymore.
They became certain of this when Dima showed them photos of Lyuba on social media. In the pictures, their daughter was already different: with a new hairstyle, in fashionable clothes, standing against the backdrop of the capital’s skyscrapers. She had a completely different life now, and Dima did not fit into it. And the boy saw in those photos a completely unfamiliar woman, even though she was his by blood.
The boy continued living, knowing that his real mother was somewhere far away and was constantly earning money. He did not even suspect that at some point she had stopped supporting him, and now he was fully provided for by his grandmother and grandfather.
Time passed. Dmitry finished elementary school.
When his mother forgot to wish him a happy birthday, he finally began asking serious questions about her.
“Why doesn’t she come or call? Does she not love me?” the boy asked his grandmother and grandfather.
These questions tore Olga Dmitrievna’s heart apart. One day she could not take it anymore and called Lyubasha herself.
“Do you not remember your child at all? Why have you disappeared? He asks about you constantly!” she scolded her.
“Mom, do you think I have time for that? I work all the time! I don’t even have days off!” the woman justified herself.
“Don’t lie! Your father and I know that work isn’t the only thing you’re doing there. Who is that dark-haired man you’re always taking pictures with? Sergey and I may not be young anymore, but we know how to use the Internet.”
“That’s Misha. He’s my boyfriend. We’re dating,” Lyuba answered.
“And when are you going to meet with your son? So you have time for a personal life, but not for your child?”
“Stop it, Mom! I have the right to be happy! It’s time for you and Dad to retire and rest, but I still have my whole life ahead of me. I want to have a family too!” Lyuba suddenly blurted out.
Hearing this, Lyuba’s mother was stunned. Not because her daughter had already written her parents off, but because she had believed that Dima was Lyuba’s family. But it turned out Lyuba was looking for family in a completely different place.
And so the boy lived without his mother. By the age of sixteen, Dmitry had become a tall and handsome teenager. He helped his grandfather, took part-time jobs to help the family, and shared his worries with his grandmother. Dima thought about his mother less and less, immersing himself in his life in the provincial town.
Then one day, Lyuba returned. She appeared on the doorstep of her parents’ house unexpectedly — alone and without a suitcase, as if she had only dropped by for a minute.
“I’ve come for my son,” the daughter announced almost immediately after entering the apartment.
Olga Dmitrievna, Sergey Petrovich, and Dima froze at such a statement. The teenager barely recognized his mother at all. For the past several years, he had seen her only in photographs, and now she was planning to take him away.
“Why?” he asked, stunned, noticing that his grandmother and grandfather had been left speechless by the shock.
Lyubov smiled nervously and approached her son.
“You’re already grown up, Dimochka. It’s time for you to move to the capital. There are far more opportunities there than here. You’ll finish school, enroll in an institute… And at the same time, you’ll help with your little sister. You know I recently gave birth to a daughter, don’t you? My husband and I work a lot, you understand…”
“What?!” Olga Dmitrievna and Sergey Petrovich exclaimed almost in unison. “You want to take Dimka so he can become a babysitter?!”
Lyuba did not deny it. She said it as it was.
“Dima is my son, and Varya is my daughter. A brother is obligated to look after his little sister. I don’t see anything wrong with that! On the contrary, he’ll even benefit from it: he’ll move to the capital, live there without worries, and get every opportunity for a good life!”
Silence fell over the room. Olga Dmitrievna and Sergey Petrovich did not even know how to react to such frankness from their daughter. But Dima did.
“And don’t you want to remember your own maternal duties? Where was your care and attention all these years? Why did you stop sending money to Grandma and Grandpa? They felt sorry for you and didn’t file for child support, and now you dare to say that I’m obligated to look after some little sister I’ve never even seen?!” Dima’s face turned crimson with emotion.
“You don’t understand, son. This is your chance to make something of yourself and be with your family!” Lyuba continued insisting.
“I have a family,” Dmitry replied, looking at his grandmother, “but you haven’t been part of it for a long time…”
Those words contained everything: a childhood without a mother, school celebrations without her presence, and years of empty promises, not one of which had been kept.
Lyubov was taken aback, but still tried to persuade her son.
“This is needed more by you than by me!” she retorted.
“Leave. We don’t need you,” Dima answered, no longer arguing with her. Nor did he leave his grandmother and grandfather, who were already retired. At that moment, the teenager clearly realized that home and family are where you are loved and where people stand by you in difficult times — not where you are called only when you become useful.
