Lika and Nikolai left their friends’ house where a birthday was cheerfully celebrated and headed home. November had long since settled in. Against the dim light of the street lamps, falling snowflakes were visible. Occasionally, a light breeze would push them forward.
«What beauty!» exclaimed the woman, admiring the evening scene. «Exactly,» agreed her husband, embracing Lika.
They had walked some distance when suddenly his wife stopped. «Do you hear that?» she asked Kolya. «I hear, a child is crying,» he replied, looking around. «Do people walk with babies at this time? The cry is completely infantile,» Lika continued worriedly. «Moreover, the child is somewhere nearby, only I can’t understand where exactly.»
Stopping, the young couple looked around. «It seems to be in that direction!» Nikolai finally said, rushing towards the city park. There, on a bench already covered with snow, lay a bundle from which the crying was coming. «He’s so small,» Lika whispered quietly. «But where are his parents?» «I think they left him here alone,» the man decided.
The woman carefully picked up the child, and the baby immediately calmed down. «Little one, who hurt you so?» Lika wondered, speaking in a tender voice. «Such cruel parents left the baby in the cold!»
Soon, the couple arrived home. Laying the child on the couch, the woman unwrapped him and gasped: before them was a girl who could barely be a month old. She wore a worn onesie, and she was wrapped in a similarly worn, holey flannel blanket.
«We need to feed her urgently, and apparently, her diaper was changed several hours ago,» Lika said in a lamenting tone. «I’ll run and buy everything,» the husband offered. «Buy formula, a bottle, and diapers,» the wife explained, rocking the warmed-up baby in her arms. She seemed about to cry.
Fifteen minutes later, Kolya returned, having bought everything necessary. «Here are disposable diapers, since we don’t have others yet,» he said, placing the bag in front of his wife. «There, now we’ll change and feed you,» Lika rejoiced, fussing over the baby. Her skin was all chafed. The woman carefully applied baby cream to her little body and laid down new diapers. The baby eagerly sucked on the bottle with the formula, as if she had not been fed for a long time.
«We have to report this to the police station, otherwise, it looks like we stole her ourselves,» Nikolai suggested. «I wouldn’t want to come under the scrutiny of the police.»
«I agree with you,» Lika replied, putting the satisfied and content girl to sleep.
Early in the morning, child welfare officers and police were present in their apartment. With a heavy heart, Lika watched as the baby was taken from their home. In just one night, she had grown so attached to the little one that parting with her now struck a deep chord. Nikolai and Lika had been childless for seven years. Lika had once been pregnant but lost the child after four months. Since then, the couple had lost hope of becoming parents. Perhaps the found baby had completely lost her own mom and dad…
Left alone, Lika and Kolya pondered the fate of the girl.
«Darling, how I wish I could hold her in my arms again! She’s so pretty,» said the woman. «You know, I liked all this fuss and commotion around the little bundle,» her husband thoughtfully replied, looking out the window. In the courtyard of the playground, mothers walked with strollers. Nikolai imagined Lika among these happy mothers and smiled. Three months passed. The young couple’s dream came true. The authorities failed to find Sofia’s real parents. Lika and Kolya were happy. They bought everything their little girl needed for her age: a stroller, a crib, clothes, toys, and much more. Sofia became their darling. Now Lika proudly strolled with a pink stroller in the courtyard of her home, cheerfully chatting with other moms about children. No one had any doubts: the adoptive parents would do everything possible for her. Lika and Nikolai truly got Sofia on her feet. At seventeen, she graduated from school with a gold medal and planned to enroll in a teacher-training college.
After the graduation ball, the entire family gathered at the table to celebrate the occasion. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
«I’ll open it; you, my girls, sit,» Kolya said with a smile, hurrying to the hallway.
Soon, everyone saw a tipsy couple: a man and a woman. They brazenly barged into the living room. «Daughter, congratulations on finishing school!» declared a shaggy lady in a gray, time-worn jacket. «Daughter, Svetochka, we are proud of you!» the man nodded, then scratched his head, as if thinking what else to add. «Who are you?» Sofia jumped up from the table. «Why have you come?» «We are your real parents, dear,» hiccuped the so-called mother. «These people found you in the park on a bench seventeen years ago.» «Mom, Dad, explain what’s happening? Is this some kind of circus?» the daughter bewilderedly looked from the guests to Kolya and Lika, who exchanged glances. «Sofia, don’t listen to them. We are your real parents, and these are just alcoholics. They just want to drink and came to us for a bottle,» said the father. «Oh, you already distribute hangover cures?» Sofia retorted. «How low you’ve sunk.»
Lika intervened in the conversation, tearfully recounting the story of the baby found in the park. The girl looked stunned at Kolya and Lika and almost cried. Gathering her courage, she declared:
«If this is really the case, then both of you get out of here!» she commanded, pointing the uninvited guests towards the exit. «Daughter, why are you like this? You have younger brothers and sisters,» said the rough, smoky-voiced shaggy woman, further tousling her hair on her head. Her husband shifted from foot to foot and looked as if he was lost in time. The couple looked like those who sometimes forget what season it is, not to mention the ordinary time on the clocks.
«Well, okay. I’ll come visit you soon,» Sofia promised, just so the strange people would leave their apartment right now.
The shaggy aunt and her beau began to bow to everyone, and then they finally left. After closing the door, Nikolai breathed a sigh of relief.
«What a stench they made!» Lika exclaimed, opening the window.
Sofia looked curiously at her parents and asked: «Tell me, is it true?»
The mother looked down. «Yes, daughter,» the father confessed.
The mother and father told her about how they found her in the park on a snowy, cold bench in an old blanket, and about the fuss they went through, arranging all the necessary adoption papers.
«Then… then, mom, dad, I love you even more!» the daughter declared, nearly crying. She hugged her father and mother gratefully and said she couldn’t imagine what would have happened if they hadn’t appeared in the park that evening.
Time passed. The inadequate guests did not show up again. Of course, Sofia’s family understood the reason for their visit. Alcoholics just need money for drinking. That’s why they needed their own daughter, whom they had abandoned to fate, because of money. Perhaps, she would help… But Sofia thought differently. The girl was very troubled by how such people could have several children and not care for them? It was clear that such unfortunate parents only needed child support money…
Several years passed. Sofia graduated and got a job at a teaching college. She never forgot that somewhere she still had biological brothers and sisters. One day she decided to visit them.
The girl walked to the needed address accompanied by her boyfriend. She and Veniamin had been friends for a long time, and he promised to help her. Soon, they arrived at a semi-ruined house where someone lived.
«Is this the place?» Venya’s mouth dropped open in surprise. «It seems so,» Sofia nodded and entered the yard, which hadn’t seen repairs in about a hundred years.
They knocked on the old wooden doors. After half a minute, footsteps were heard inside. «Ah, remembered us, have you?» grumbled the same shaggy aunt. «Well, come in. And who’s this with you? Your fiancé? If he’s the fiancé, we should pour a drink and toast to him.» «I’m the fiancé, but we didn’t come here to drink,» Veniamin seriously told the owner of the dilapidated house. «Well then, what? At least give some money to the kids, they’re hungry, and I have nothing. We buried their father a year ago,» the woman disclosed.
In the doorway of another room, a pair of children’s eyes appeared. «This is for you,» Venya handed the children two large boxes of candies. They immediately grabbed the gifts from his hands and disappeared into their room.
At the table sat a skinny young boy. He looked at the guests fearfully and seemed lost in thought. «This is our Mishanya, meet him. He’s shy, but he’s good. He dreams of studying,» the shaggy aunt grumbled.
Sofia and Venya approached him. «Well, shall we get acquainted?» the girl offered, extending her hand to the boy. «I’m your sister.»
The young man glanced at her sideways and reluctantly reached out his hand… They took Mishu with them. He turned out to be quite clever. With her parents’ help, Sofia helped him enroll in an educational institution and rented an apartment for him in the city. She and Veniamin visited the boy every day. Gradually, he «came to life» and even entertained his relatives with funny jokes.
In the alcoholic mother’s house, two more children remained, aged ten and nine. Sofia sometimes met them at school and gave them large bags of food. She felt very sorry for her little sister and brother because their foolish mother squandered the benefits they received. The girl sometimes invited them to her place so the kids could feel like children for a while and escape their worries. She and Veniamin took them to the cinema, brought them to amusement rides, and simply walked with them in the park. Eventually, their mother passed away due to her lifestyle, which she had led for many years.
Nikolay and Lika proved to be good parents, and soon their family grew by two more children. Mainly, Kolya and Sofia handled their upbringing, as the father and daughter had more free time. Thus, Artem and Vasilisa grew up in the foster family. They forgot about their childhood filled with hardships as they stepped into adulthood as completely normal individuals. As children, they had dreamed of escaping their dilapidated home and their shaggy mother, but were very afraid of her. Now their dream had come true on its own. Moreover, Artem and Vasilisa became excellent psychologists, who later had their own office and a steady flow of patients.
