Tessa Novak was terrified of being happy. It seemed that nearly every joyful event in her life was followed by a devastating blow. This pattern had held true for almost twenty years, ever since the strange day when, as a young schoolgirl, she first learned the cruel law of her life: if she celebrated too much, she was bound to cry bitterly soon after. That day, she had brought home a report card from the second grade filled with straight A’s, only to be met at the door by her tearful paternal grandparents.
She had never known her mother’s parents. When Tessa was about five, she started asking questions about her relatives. She was curious why most of the kids at kindergarten talked about having two sets of grandparents.
Her mother dodged the questions for a while, but then, deciding Tessa was old enough, she shared the difficult truth. She explained that she had been left as a baby on the steps of an orphanage, where she was raised.
“Honey, I was so little that I don’t remember anything before the orphanage. The only life I knew was a collective one. I had nothing to compare it to, so I never questioned things that I would now consider terribly unfair. But the important thing is, they fed me, raised me, and educated me. And then I was lucky enough to meet your father. You know the fairy tales we read? Well, your dad is better than any prince. He saw me, and he warmed my heart. You have no idea how scared I was that his parents would be against me and try to separate us.”
Fortunately, her mother’s fears were unfounded.
“Your Grandma Vera and Grandpa George became the real family I never had. So, you see, they, your father, and you—you are my closest people, my everything.”
Her mother’s story made a deep impression on young Tessa. It was her first brush with the harshness of the world. She felt terribly sorry for her beautiful mother and found it hard to imagine a life with so little affection and care. Sometimes, Tessa wondered who could have abandoned her mother. In fairy tales, a young princess was sometimes stolen away.
In her imagination, her mother was the daughter of some noble family, taken by their enemies. Tessa would invent her own happy endings where they would one day be reunited, discover they had a granddaughter, and all become the best of friends.
For a while after her mother’s confession, Tessa was terrified of suffering the same fate, but the anxiety eventually faded. By the time she started school, she rarely thought about it. Her parents and grandparents adored her. She never felt deprived of affection and never brought up the painful topic again.
On that terrible day when Tessa was forced to grow up in an instant, it turned out her parents had been in a car accident on their way to work. As fate would have it, they needed to visit a suburban branch of the company where they both worked. There had been no bad omens, no signs warning them against the trip. And even if there had been, her practical parents would have likely ignored them. They always did what duty required.
That morning, as they saw Tessa off to school, they hugged her and wished her luck. But on that day, fortune turned its back on the Novak family. A reckless driver, overtaking on a blind curve, slammed into her father’s car at full speed.
Her parents’ car was thrown from the road like a discarded piece of trash. The mangled vehicle became a trap for both driver and passenger. Witnesses immediately called 911, but for Tessa’s parents, it made little difference.
While Tessa was celebrating the end of the school year with her classmates, her parents were fighting for their lives in separate ambulances. The joy of good grades and the start of summer vacation was quickly replaced by a somber mood. After several weeks in the hospital, both of her parents passed away, almost at the same time. They never regained consciousness, and Tessa was heartbroken that she never got to tell them how much she loved them.
After the funerals, which Tessa endured in a haze, she couldn’t stand to be in their apartment. Every time she passed her parents’ bedroom, she would break down. Her grandmother, who had left her country home to move in and support her granddaughter, consulted with her husband.
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