– Good afternoon.
– How do you do? Are you Maria?
– My name is Kate, and Maria is my mother. She’s busy at the moment and asked me to answer. Do you need something?
– Can you please tell her that Anna called. I think she’ll understand. Tell her to call me back immediately, I really need help.
– Okay.
After about 15 minutes Maria came out of the bathroom, she approached her daughter and asked:
– “Who called, daughter?
– There’s someone called Anna. Said you to call her urgently.
And Maria immediately understood everything…
Kate didn’t know that Anna was her mother’s own sister. Maria had not seen her family for 26 years, as long as she had not been in her own home. For her, the family was like neighbors. A daughter, a son, and a husband are the only family Maria has.
– Kate, thank you for answering her.
– Mom, why are you so pale? Why don’t I just block her number and call it a day?
– Don’t do that. Isn’t Winona outside waiting for you?
– Yeah. I’m gonna be late, but if you need help, I’m not going anywhere.
– It’s okay, don’t worry.
Kate ran outside, where a school friend was waiting for her. Maria went to the window to see if everything was okay.
The window was cold and Maria pressed her forehead against it, she tried to cool her anger and rage. It had been many years, and the anger was still there. It should be easier with the years, in some ways it was, but the anger and resentment remained.
Twenty-six years ago, on her 20th birthday, Maria threw a party at their dacha. The house was large, with a veranda and a gazebo. There was so much space that Maria invited the whole class.
Maria was so unused to the noise and to so many people that she ran away and hid under the stairs. Soon a friend found her.
– While I was looking for you, I was beginning to think that you had left, but then I remembered that this is your dacha. Okay, let’s go quickly.
– What’s wrong?
– Just follow me.
– Are you sick? – Maria didn’t understand anything.
– I feel fine. Do you want me to show you who feels fine right now?
Lisa grabbed Maria by the arm and dragged her to the second floor, where all the rooms were closed.
– Wait, it’s all locked.
– I thought so, too. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t have it any other way. – Lisa opened the door as wide as she could.
The two silhouettes on the bed recoiled like cockroaches from the light, and scurried around looking for clothes.
Maria caught her breath. Her boyfriend and her sister in the same bed. This couldn’t be happening.
– Maria, we didn’t mean for any of this to happen. – Anna said.
– Yes, we did, Lisa intervened, and from what I understood, not for the first time.
Started hysterics and scandal.
– Lisa, let’s go – said Maria through her tears, and most importantly, that her friend heard her.
But that night was not the worst thing that awaited Maria. She lived in the dacha for a week, avoiding her family and her sister, but after a week her mother demanded to come back. At home, Maria was told everything and confronted with the fact:
– Anna was expecting a child. Bruce’s. Like it or not, they’re getting married,” her father said and turned away.
Lisa certainly wasn’t wrong when, she said, it wasn’t the first time this had happened.
Maria’s legs went numb as she walked to her room. Now she had no one to support her. Her family turned their backs on her, a decision they had taken with ease and in their entirety. Maria’s mother tried to come in several times, but Maria wouldn’t open the door.
– Leave her alone. Let her cry like that, she’ll get used to it. You’ll still run after her here, calm down. – said her father.
In the morning, Maria was already gone. She took all the necessary things, and quietly left, leaving only a note that she would never come back. Maria kept her word.
At first, Maria lived with Lisa in a rented apartment. Maria studied and worked, then met her future husband. Several times Maria heard rumors that her parents were trying to find her, but she didn’t care.
And what the point was for Anna to show up in her life and how she found the number remained a mystery to Maria. She had no idea how her sister’s life had turned out, where the child was now, or what happened to her parents. They were strangers to Maria.
Stepping away from the window, Maria picked up her phone and blocked that unknown number.
– We should change the number, – Maria said to herself.
