– When are you going home? – I’m going to your place forever. Won’t you look after me?

– When are you going home? – I’m going to your place forever. Won’t you look after me?

We met by chance in the mountains when we were on vacation. I just asked her, out of politeness, about the children. It was clear at once that something was wrong, because it was very difficult for her to answer. Her children were long gone, her daughter was a doctor, and her son a geologist.

– I am over seventy, and I still have no grandchildren,” Nelly cried.

Her daughter, was beautiful and gentle and well aware of her beauty. Her parents were teachers. At school the girl always had starring roles, was the host of holidays, the head of the class. She was so fond of acting that she went to the capital to enter the university, but failed her exams. After that, she worked at a school for a year, and then she surprised everybody: at the first attempt she got into medical school. Now she works in a private clinic, has an apartment and a country house.

– But there is no happiness,” Nelly sums up. – She has been married twice: one was older than her and abusive, she ran away from him. The second was a younger man who ran away from her himself. She’ll be 50 soon, and she doesn’t have kids. And who needs her real estate?

She named her son after her father. He’s under 60, and he’s single. He is always on the road, always on expeditions and scientific work… He has a house there, but he visits it very rarely.

– If it were not for cell phones and Internet, nobody knows when she would see her children. So they contributed and gave me this holiday in a sanatorium. I live by myself, so at least a little look at people. Now I know why my children live like this,” Nelly cried.

Nelly herself grew up in the arms of an aunt who had no children of her own. She was over 30, so she crawled to her sister and begged on her knees: “Have mercy on me, give me Nelly. Nelly’s mother had four other children besides her. She was pulling on all of them. That’s why she didn’t blink an eye, she just said: “Take it!” Nelly lived with her aunt, who refused her everything. And dresses and dolls and sweets. She still worked as an accountant, but that was different.

Time passed, Nelly finished school and graduated from the Pedagogical University. She married and had children of her own. At first she still visited her aunt, but then she forgot about her aunt completely, because of family problems, work, distance… In her old age, her aunt came to visit Nelly on her own. She could hardly drag her suitcase and fell into the house, very weak, exhausted and old. Nelly’s husband didn’t like that very much, and neither did Nelly herself.

When are you going home?

– I’m going home for good. Won’t you look after me?

– Well, you see, I have children, a husband… Are you unhappy at home? – On the same day, her aunt packed her things and left in tears, leaving her to look after your children in the same way in her old age!

A month later, Nelly received a telegram: as soon as her aunt arrived, she lay down at once and never got up again. And only decades after her aunt’s death, Nelly remembered: she had children, but no one looked after them.

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– When are you going home? – I’m going to your place forever. Won’t you look after me?