— Why?
— Because I lived to see this moment, — she said. — This house, this garden, this tea, you. — She paused. — You know, when you’re old, you start to count. You count what you did right and what you did wrong. I made many mistakes in my life. But on that day when I fed the three of you, I didn’t make a mistake.
Matvey took her hand.
— You didn’t just feed us, — he said. — You gave us faith that the world could be kind. And we carried that faith through everything.
Zinaida Petrovna nodded.
— Then I did enough, — she said quietly. — Then my life had meaning.
That evening, the three brothers sat on her porch and watched the sunset. Zinaida Petrovna was dozing in her chair, covered with a blanket. On the table was the same box with her treasures: the napkin with the sauce stain, the cheap spoon, the drawing with the stick-figure people.
Gleb picked up the drawing and looked at it.
— Remember when you drew this? — he asked Matvey.
Matvey nodded.
— I wanted her to have something of us, in case we never came back.
Denis looked at the sleeping Zinaida Petrovna.
— She kept it all this time, — he said. — All these years.
— Because to her, we were real, — said Gleb. — Not vagrants, not a problem—people.
They fell silent, watching the sunset. The sky turned orange and pink. And somewhere in the distance, a bird was singing.
— We kept our promise, — Matvey said finally.
— We did, — Denis agreed.
— And now, — said Gleb, — we have a family.
Zinaida Petrovna lived for many more years—peaceful, warm years, surrounded by care. She saw the triplets get married, saw them have children. She became a great-grandmother, a real great-grandmother to children who called her “Baba Zina” and ran to her for pancakes and stories. And every time someone asked her the secret to happiness, she would give the same answer:
“There is no secret. Just do good when you can, even if no one sees, even if it seems like it won’t change anything. Because you never know which seed will grow.”
And then she would smile and add:
“And feed the hungry, always feed the hungry, because sometimes one bowl of soup can come back to you as a whole family.”
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