At dawn, I get off at a small station north of Petrozavodsk. Irina’s hometown sits another hour out by bus, surrounded by woods and broken roads that only show up on maps when zoomed in too far.
Her mother’s cousin lives on the edge of the village. The house leans, but it holds. Valentina answers the door in a sweater twosizes too big and boots without laces. She smells like bread, even before the oven is warm.
She doesn’t ask for a name or reason. She looks me over once—face, hands, posture—and decides what I am.
“You can stay until you’re not scared,” is all she says and then goes on prattling about husbands who run too wild and don’t care about their wives.
“They’ll come to senses soon enough, dear.” She comforts me as she hands me a thick wedge of black rye bread and a pint of milk. I thank her and eat the bread. I decline the milk after a few sips. She says nothing and leads me through the house.
“You’ll take the back room,” she says. “It’s warmer.”
The room holds a single bed with wool blankets, a table under the window, and a lamp that clicks once before it lights. I fold my coat over the chair and lie down without taking off my boots.
The next morning starts early. Life here is narrow and still. Chickens scrape in the yard. A radio plays from the kitchen, the sound bent by a bad signal. The snow is already thick around the fence, and more is coming.
Valentina doesn’t give instructions. I take the mop from its hook and scrub the floors. I peel potatoes. I stack wood until my arms ache. At night, I lie under the blankets and listen to the house shift and settle, the roof answering the cold with brief knocks.
I don’t stay long. Villages remember faces. They talk without trying to.
Two weeks later, I leave before dawn wearing a different coat and carrying a different bag. I catch a train heading further north, toward a city that smells like cold water and diesel.Arkhangelsk is big enough to hold strangers and small enough not to ask questions. Ships come and go. People stay busy.
I rent a room from a woman who only takes in women. No visitors. No exceptions. The wallpaper is cracked, the bedframe squeaks, and the lock works. That’s enough.
I find work at a packaging warehouse near the docks. The shifts run early, and the building stays cold even after midday. I tell the supervisor that my husband died in an accident and that I’m carrying his child. I say he left debts I can’t pay and that I had to leave my old address. It’s close enough to the truth. She nods once, says nothing, and writes my name in the register. She tells the others to leave me alone.
No interviews and no questions after that. My job is simple—check labels, stack boxes, log numbers. The work repeats. It doesn’t require stories.
I wear the same clothes every day. I eat lunch at the far end of the breakroom. I show up on time, leave on time, and give no one a reason to remember me.
My nausea and headache settle, slowly. Food stays down. The light doesn’t sting. I move through the room without bracing for the next wave, and for a little while, everything feels strangely open. Welcoming, even.
The clinic is three tram stops away. I enroll under the name I got from Andrei. The papers pass inspection without a second glance. The nurse at the clinic is brisk but not unkind. She moves through the steps, blood drawn, measurements taken.
The doctor reviews the chart, checks the scan, and tells me it’s a girl. He says it plainly, but something inside me unlocks.
I don’t speak right away. I nod, get dressed, and leave. On the way home, I press a hand to my stomach and feel her shift.
That night, I speak to her for the first time. Then again after work, after the lights are out. I press my palm to my stomach and tell her I’ll keep her safe. That whatever comes, she won’t face it alone. I don’t know what she’ll need yet. I tell her I’ll learn.
After that, I start waking earlier, even before the trams start running. I stretch before work. I eat what I should, not just what’s available, drink warm milk before bed, cut back on coffee, stop skipping meals.
I start checking shop windows for warm frocks and padded mittens, looking at soft caps, rubber toys, and thick blankets. I don’t buy anything. But I take note of what’s there and where to find it.
Work doesn’t change, but how I move through it does. I sit when I can. I walk slower on ice. I speak less, stay aware.
When the water breaks, it’s night. A snowstorm rages outside, wind thick against the glass. The city sounds far away, as if it’s pushed back to make room. The pain starts, sudden and exact. There’s no one to hold my hand. No one to call. I chose it that way. The safest option.
When they place her on my chest, she’s warm, loud, and alive. I’m soaked in sweat, but I don’t cry. I breathe.
“Mila,” I say. And the name holds.
No one calls. No one sends flowers. We leave the hospital two days later. A taxi takes us across town, slow through icy roads, back to the rented room with a working lock. It’s warm enough, and no one asks what I am doing alone.
I learn Mila’s signals, the short breath before a cry, the twist of her fingers when she wants to be held. I learn my own responses too. The sound I make when I soothe her. The words I repeat when the rest of the world is asleep.
Our days take shape without needing to be planned. Feed her. Change her. Hold her. Walk until she sleeps. She rests with her hand against my chest, and I wake before she does. Nothing drifts. Nothing slides. The hours are full, and they stay that way.
Time moves without gaps. I don’t go back to Valentina’s. I don’t contact Irina. After a few months, I move again, south this time, to a coastal town that smells like salt and old concrete. Tourists come in summer, fill the streets for a few weeks, then vanish. No one stays long enough to ask questions.
