Struggle: The Path to Power

Masha

It's been another half a month.

Today Masha got up earlier than her grandparents and sat down on the bench by the porch.

Everything was green in the neighborhood, and the sun was about to come out. There was a slight breeze, and for a moment it seemed that everything was fine and there was nothing to grieve about, but I didn't want to think so, because it wasn't.

She put her hand on her stomach, feeling what was left of her husband. She had thought many times about what to name the child, but they couldn't come to a single decision, she wanted him, Rafael, to like it.

"If it's a girl, it's Christina. – thought Masha. – He liked that name. But if it's a boy… He never told me what his favorite boys' names were. He never told me anything, not even his own. So what do I do with that?"

She closed her eyes and remembered how she'd met him, how she'd first seen his eyes, how she'd breathed in his scent. Her heart had beaten like never before, and the air had felt not just different, but like nothing she'd ever experienced before.

She remembered the first time she had said "goodbye" to him, smiled and went to her soma… It felt as if the Lord, the Virgin Mary and Jesus were all looking at her, at her reactions and feelings. And she didn't want to think about it, she just wanted to believe. Believe that this is love, the love that will be with her for the rest of her life.

And the first time they kissed. "It's good that he didn't see my face," Masha thought, because she felt herself blushing then, and so she pressed herself against him at once, close to him. And that warmth, which went round and round, rattled like a native. Then she realized that this was it, her happiness, it had come not just once, to stay for life.

Masha decided, so that forever, that she would never part with him, never, no matter what happened…

She was holding herself together as best she could right now. She gathered her strength and inhaled, then exhaled. All the heavy stuff came out, and only a small tear rolled down her cheek. Just one.

"Daughter, no matter how I look at you, you have the same expression," Maria Sergeevna quietly closed the front door and looked at the girl again.

– I miss you.

– Me, too. For my folks.