What is that over there?» I stopped in the middle of the path leading to the station, straining my ears.
Sobs were coming from the left, faint but insistent. The cold February wind tickled my neck and whipped the hem of my coat. I turned toward the railway tracks, where the abandoned switchman’s hut stood out against the immaculate white background.
A bundle lay near the rails. An old dirty blanket, with a small hand sticking out.
«My God…» I picked it up from the ground.
It was a little girl. About a year old, maybe a little less. Her lips were blue, but she was breathing. She was barely crying, drained of strength.
I opened my coat, pressed the baby against me, and ran back the way I came, toward the village—to the nurse, Maria Petrovna.
«Zina, where did you find her?» she asked, carefully taking the child.
«On the tracks, she was just lying there in the snow.»
«So she was abandoned. We must call the police.»
«The police?» I squeezed the little one against my chest. «She’ll freeze before we get there.»
Maria Petrovna sighed, then took a box of infant formula out of the cupboard.
«This will do for a start. And then, what do you plan to do?»
I looked at her, the frail face of my goddaughter hidden in my sweater.
«I’ll keep her. I have no other choice.»
The neighbors whispered behind my back: «She lives alone, at thirty-five it’s time she got married, and here she is picking up other people’s children.» I pretended not to hear anything.
Friends helped with the paperwork.
I named her Aliona. This new life appeared so bright to me, just beginning.
The first few months, I barely slept. Fevers, colic, teething… I rocked her while singing old lullabies that my grandmother used to hum to me.
«Ma!» the little one said at ten months, reaching her hands out to me.
I started to cry. So many years alone, and here I was, a mother.
By age two, she was running everywhere, chasing Vaska the cat. Always curious, always sticking her nose into everything.
«Look, my little smarty!» I exclaimed to a neighbor. «She already knows all the letters!»
«Really? At three years old?»
«Check for yourself!»
Galia showed her each letter, Aliona named them without a mistake, then she told the story of the Hen with the Golden Eggs.
At five, she went to kindergarten in the neighboring village. I took her there by hitchhiking. The director was amazed that she read fluently and counted to a hundred.
«Where does such a little prodigy come from?»
«The whole village raised her,» I replied, laughing.
At school, she wore her long braids down to her waist. Every morning, I braided them and chose a ribbon to match her dress. At the first parent-teacher meeting, the teacher told me:
«Zinaida Ivanovna, your daughter is exceptionally gifted. We don’t often meet children like her.»
My heart leapt with pride. My daughter. My little Aliona.
The years flew by. Aliona became a real beauty—tall, slender, eyes blue as a cloudless summer sky. She won prizes at regional Olympiads, and the teachers didn’t hold back their praise.
«Mom, I want to go to medical school,» she announced in the eleventh grade.
«That’s expensive, darling. How will we manage city life?»
«I’ll get a scholarship!» her eyes shone. «You’ll see!»
And she succeeded. I spent the evening of her graduation in tears, from joy and worry. It was the first time she was going so far away—to the regional capital.
«Don’t cry, Mom,» she said, hugging me on the platform. «I’ll come back every weekend.»
She was lying, of course. Her studies consumed her entirely. She came back once a month, then even more rarely. But she called me every day.
«Mom, we had a complicated dissection in anatomy! And I got an A!»
«Bravo, my darling. Are you eating well?»
«Yes, Mom. Don’t worry.»
In her third year, she fell in love with Pasha, a classmate. She brought him home—tall, serious. He shook my hand confidently, looked me in the eye.
«He’s good,» I told her. «But don’t neglect your studies.»
«Mom!» she got angry. «I’ll get my honors degree!»
After university, she was offered a residency. She chose pediatrics—she wanted to treat children.
«You’re the one who saved me,» she told me one day on the phone. «Now, I’m going to save other children.»
She returned to the village increasingly rarely: shifts, exams… I didn’t hold it against her; I understood.
One evening, she called, her voice sounding strange:
«Mom, can I come tomorrow? We need to talk.»
«Of course, my darling. What’s happening?»
I barely slept that night, a bad feeling in my heart.
Aliona arrived pale, her eyes hollow. She sat down, took a cup of tea, but her hands were trembling so much that she dropped her cup, which shattered on the floor.
«Mom, some people came to see me. They say… they are my biological parents.»
«How did they find you?»
«Through connections, via mutual acquaintances… I don’t know exactly. The woman was crying. She told me she was young and naive. Her parents forced her to abandon me. She has suffered all her life… and has been looking for me.»
I remained speechless. So many years fearing this moment.
«And what did you answer?»
«That I would think about it. Mom, I don’t know what to do!» Aliona burst into tears. «You are my real mother, my only mother! But they suffered too…»
I hugged her, stroking her hair like in the old days.
«They suffered? And who abandoned you in the middle of winter on the tracks? Who didn’t think about whether you would survive?»
«She said she put me near the switchman’s hut because she knew the trackman would pass by soon. Except he was sick that day…»
«My God…»
We sat embracing as night fell. Vaska the cat rubbed against my legs, meowing for his dinner.
«I want to meet them,» Aliona said two days later. «Just to talk. To know the truth.»
My heart clenched, but I nodded:
«You are right, my daughter. You have the right to know.»
The meeting was set at a café in the city. I went with her, but I stayed in the next room.
She came out two hours later, eyes red, but serene.
«Well?»
«Normal people. She was seventeen. Her parents threatened to kick her out of the house. My biological father didn’t even know I existed. She hid it. Then she remarried and had two other children. She never forgot me.»
We walked through the spring city, the air scented with blooming lilacs.
«They want to be part of my life. To introduce me to my brothers and sisters. My biological father… is alone now. When he found out about me, he cried.»
«And you, what have you decided?»
Aliona stopped and took my hands:
«Mom, you will always be my mother. The one who raised, loved, and supported me. Nothing will change that. But I want to know them. Not to replace you—just to understand myself better.»
Tears welled up, but I smiled:
«I understand, my darling. I’ll be here.»
She hugged me:
«You know, she thanked me… For having been saved and raised to be who I am. She said I turned out better, no doubt, than if she had had me as a little girl without support.»
«That’s not what matters, Aliona. I loved you, every day, every minute.»
Today, Aliona has two families. She met her brothers—one is an engineer, the other a teacher. She is in contact with her biological mother: sometimes they call, sometimes they see each other. Forgiveness wasn’t easy, but my daughter is stronger than anything.
At her wedding to Pasha, we were all around the same table, she and that woman. Both in tears watching the young couple dance their first waltz.
«Thank you,» she whispered to me. «Thank you for our daughter.»
«Thank you,» I replied. «For trusting me with her destiny.»
Aliona now works at the regional pediatric hospital. When her own daughter was born, she named her Zina—in my honor.
«Mom, are you going to watch the little one?» she laughs, handing me my great-granddaughter.
«With pleasure! I’ll tell her stories, I’ll sing her lullabies. Just like I did for you.»
Little Zinochka grabs my finger with her tiny hands and smiles with all her missing teeth. Exactly like Aliona did years ago, when she looked at me and I knew: it was destiny.
Love doesn’t choose who we call «family.» It simply exists—immense like the sky above the village, warm like the summer sun, eternal like a mother’s heart.
