Olesya’s hands trembled as she placed fresh flowers on Andrey’s grave. The rain soaked through her coat, but she barely noticed. At eight months pregnant, she should have been nesting, preparing a nursery, dreaming of the life they’d build together. Instead, she was here, saying goodbye to the only man who had ever loved her.
A noise startled her—a faint buzzing from inside the crypt. Against her better judgment, she stepped inside and found an expensive smartphone lighting up with an incoming call. The voice on the line was warm, grateful. “I was working there yesterday,” the man said when she mentioned the cemetery. That’s when her legs gave out.
She woke in a hospital bed to the face of Andrey’s brother, Dima. His mother, Nina, sat beside her, holding photographs of Andrey that Olesya had never seen—proof that he had spoken of her often, that his family had been waiting to welcome her. The life she thought was over was just beginning.
Now, years later, as she watched Nina teach her daughter how to bake the same cookies Andrey had loved, Olesya understood the cruel irony of fate. Sometimes, the things we fear most—like meeting his family—turn out to be the very things that save us.
