“Take him, please!” The woman thrust a weathered leather suitcase into my arms and pushed the boy toward me. I nearly dropped the groceries I was bringing back from the city to our village neighbors.
“I dont understand I dont know you”
“Misha. Hes three and a half,” she said urgently, her grip tightening on my sleeve. “Everything he needs is in the suitcase. Dont abandon him!”
The child clung to my leg, his wide brown eyes staring up, blond curls messy, a scratch marking his cheek.
“This is insane!” I tried to step back, but she was already ushering us toward the train.
“You cant do this! What about authorities?”
“No time!” Her voice cracked with panic. “I have no choice, understand? None!”
Other passengers crowded us inside the carriage. Glancing back, I saw her still on the platform, face buried in her hands, weeping.
“Mom!” Misha lunged for the door, but I held him back.
As the train pulled away, her figure shrank into the dusk.
Somehow, we settled onto a bench. The boy burrowed against me, sniffling. The suitcase dragged on my armheavy as lead. What was inside?
“Auntie, is Mama coming?”
“Of course, sweetheart. Shell come.”
Passengers eyed usa young woman with a bewildered child and a battered suitcase.
The whole ride, my mind raced. Was this a prank? But the boy was real, warm, smelling of soap and biscuits.
At home, Peter froze mid-task, clutching a log. “Masha, where did you?”
“Not wherewho. Meet Misha.”
Over semolina porridge, I explained. Peter pinched his nose, frowninghis thinking face.
“We must call the police.”
“And say what? That someone handed me a child like a lost puppy?”
“Then what do we do?”
Misha ate carefully despite his hungerwell-mannered.
“Lets check the suitcase,” I suggested.
With “Nu, pogodi!” playing for distraction, we pried it open.
Money. Neat stacks of bills bound with bank straps.
“God above,” Peter breathed.
I grabbed a bundle5,000s and 100s. At least thirty bundles.
“Fifteen million,” I whispered.
We exchanged stunned glances, then looked at Misha, giggling at the cartoon.
Peters friend Nikolai offered a solution days later over tea.
“Register him as found. I know someone in social services. Though therell be expenses.”
Misha adapted quicklysleeping on Peters old cot, naming the chickens, shadowing me everywhere. Only at night did he whisper for his mother.
“What if his real family surfaces?” I fretted.
“Then well face it. For now, he needs a home.”
Three weeks later, Mikhail Petrovich Berezin became ours officially.
We told neighbors he was our orphaned nephew. The money funded clothes, toys, house repairs”For the boy,” Peter muttered, hammering tiles.
Misha thrived. By four, he knew the alphabet; by five, he could read and subtract.
“He belongs in a city school,” his teacher urged. But we feared recognition.
At seven, we enrolled him locally. Teachers marveled”Photographic memory!” “Flawless English!”
At home, he sanded wood in Peters workshop, crafting little animals.
“Dad, why dont I have grandparents?” he asked once.
“Gone before you were born,” we replied. He accepted it but studied old photos thoughtfully.
By sixteen, Moscow State University professors sought him”Prodigy! Nobel material!”
I still saw the frightened boy from the platform.
The money dwindledtuition, tutors, a city apartment. The last three million funded his university account.
On his eighteenth birthday, Misha hugged us. “I love you. Thank you.”
A year later, a thick envelope arrivedno return address. Inside, a letter and an old photo.
Misha read silently, paling, then flushing. Over his shoulder, I glimpsed:
*Dear Misha,*
*If youre reading this, Im gone. Forgive me. Your fathers partners wanted us dead. I faked my death to save you. I watched from afaryou grew beautifully. Now claim whats yours: 52% of Lebedev-Capital. Contact lawyer Kravtsov.*
*Forgive me. I loved you every second.*
*Elena (your mother)*
The photo showed a young woman embracing a laughing blond boyMisha, years earlier.
“I always sensed something,” he murmured. “But youre my real parents.”
Peter muttered, “What an inheritance.”
Misha hugged us fiercely. “We split it three ways. Youre my family.”
Weeks later, Kravtsov confirmed Mishas inheritance. Former partners sued but lost.
“Mom picked right,” Misha said at dinner. “She chose people brave enough to take a stranger with a fortune.”
“What stranger?” Peter scoffed. “Ours!”
Kravtsov interjected, “But dividing millions? The treasury will notice.”
Options followedsalaries, shares, property in our names.
Back home, we pondered the upheaval. Soon, reporters and “relatives” swarmed us.
“Were moving,” Misha finally declared.
Our new gated mansion near Moscow housed Peters expanded workshop, my garden, and crested chickens.
Misha excelled in finance”Like his father,” Kravtsov noted.
One evening, Misha voiced a wish: “I need to find Moms grave.”
We dida humble stone by a lake: *Elena Lebedeva. Loving Mother.*
White roses in hand, Misha whispered, “Thank you for choosing them.”
On the flight back, he proposed, “Lets start a fund for orphansPlatform of Hope.”
Peter joked, “You already took the suitcase money for your apartment.”
“Then well fill a new one,” Misha laughed.
Now, we thrivewealthy, busy, philanthropic. But most of all: a family.
Sometimes I wonder: What if Id refused? But no. That desperate woman chose right. And so did we, opening our lives to the boy who became our heart.
