He was silent. And that silence was the answer.
Yulia learned from Alexander that Vasilisa Nikitichna was moving to the countryside to live with distant relatives: it was quieter there, the air was cleaner, and there would be people to look after her. She took a day off and went to say goodbye. The old woman was sitting on the porch of a village house, peeling potatoes into an enamel basin. Seeing Yulia getting out of the taxi, she smiled the same smile that Yulia remembered from their first meeting in the hospital corridor.
“You’ve lost weight, my child! But your eyes have become brighter. That means you’ve taken the right path.”
“Thank you!” Yulia sat down next to her on the step. “Thank you for everything! If it weren’t for you back then…”
“Nonsense!” Vasilisa Nikitichna waved it away. “I only gave you a little push. You walked the path yourself, with your own two feet. You were able to protect yourself. Weren’t you? That’s wonderful.”
The old woman put down her knife and wiped her hands on her apron.
“The hardest part now is to live without anger. Not everyone who hurt you is a villain. Some are just lessons. Once you’ve learned the lesson—let it go. Otherwise, that weight will stay with you. And you don’t need that, do you?”
Yulia left, looking back at the small house with its crooked fence, at the figure of the old woman waving after her. A chance meeting in a hospital corridor, an old Soviet banknote, a few conversations on a wooden bench—and her whole life had turned around, set on a new track.
The autumn morning in Zhytomyr was clear. The sun shone through the curtains of the rented apartment, drawing golden stripes on the floor. Yulia woke up before her alarm, lay for a while looking at the ceiling, then got up, made tea, and went to the window. The city was waking up below, people hurrying to work, mothers taking their children to kindergarten, an old man walking his dog. Life went on, stopping for no one. The silence no longer felt oppressive, and loneliness was no longer frightening.
Yulia finished her tea, got dressed, took one last look at the room—small, someone else’s, but already her own—and left for work. To love does not mean to sacrifice yourself to the point of exhaustion. To live together means to live honestly. And when honesty is gone, leaving is not a defeat, but a salvation. She understood that now. She accepted it as a part of herself.
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