While her parents battled, Nastya stood in the hallway softly crying. “What exactly are you looking at?” Can’t you see that the adults are preoccupied? “Get out there,” her father shouted, pushing his daughter outside. Nastya conversed with Tanya in the yard. Tanya was a little older, in third grade. “Your parents are getting a divorce,” she revealed.”What exactly does that mean?” Nastya inquired.

“Oh, nothing at all. You’ll live with your mother, and your father will take you out on weekends and buy you chocolates.” Nastya found it difficult to believe because her father could yell at her. “He says she’s a mistake of his youth, a mistake of nature,” Nastya’s father frequently commented about her. The girl had no idea what that meant. But she was certain that a “mistake” meant anything unpleasant.

Tanya informed her that she had a failing score on a spelling exam due to a spelling error, for which her parents chastised her. But, for some reason, Nastya’s father referred to her as a mistake, which the youngster couldn’t understand. Her parents divorced after some time had gone. Nastya didn’t understand why her mother sobbed for so long. After all, her father was no longer present, so no one would yell at her mother.

Nastya’s father reappeared in her life when she became a student. He was critically unwell and in desperate need of assistance. Nastya was the only person to whom he could turn. Despite not communicating with his daughter, he attended her high school graduation. But Nastya resolved to assist him right away. She stayed at his side, helped with medical procedures, and read the news aloud to keep him entertained. He told her that he remarried after divorcing her mother.

But their second marriage also failed; they had no children and divorced. He contacted Nastya late at night and said, “I see, my daughter, I see everything.” For all the comments said to me as a child, you were the best thing that ever occurred to me.” The physicians notified them in the morning that Nastya’s father had died. Nastya and her mother stood in front of his grave.

Nastya wailed ceaselessly, while her mother stared at the gravestone with a stone-like gaze. “Just as there was no happiness in love, there’s no sorrow now,” her mother murmured as she walked away.