A mother found out the truth about her daughter and took a night bus into the city. Her daughter never told anyone what happened next.
Lida found out by accident.
Her daughter’s friend, Natasha, came to the village for the weekend to visit her parents. She dropped in on Lida, as a neighbor, just for tea. They settled in the kitchen, chatting about this and that. Then, when Natasha was about to leave, she stopped in the doorway.
“Auntie Lida,” she said, looking at the floor. “Go to Alina. In the city. Right away.”
“What happened?” Lida turned pale. “Are you sick?”
“No. Not sick.” Natasha bit her lip. “Just… go. Please.”
And she left, almost running out of the house.
Lida didn’t sleep a wink that night. In the morning, she took two days off from the post office, packed her suitcase, and got on the bus.
Alina had left for the capital three years earlier, right after finishing school. She went to university to study economics. Lida was proud of herself: her daughter was the first in her family to graduate from university.
Lida had worked most of her life as a cleaner in the village administration office, and before that as a milkmaid. Her husband, Igor, had died many years ago when Alina was six. Lida raised her daughter alone.
Alina called her once a week. She talked about her studies, her dormitory, her friends. Her voice was cheerful and energetic.
Only in the past year had something changed.
She called less often and kept the conversations shorter. Alina gave evasive answers to all of Lida’s questions.
“Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m studying. I work part-time.”
“Where do you work?” Lida asked.
“Oh… just in a cafe. As a waitress.”
But something wasn’t right in her voice.
Lida could feel it, but she pushed away her anxiety. Her daughter was young and beautiful. Why worry? Everything would be fine.
Lida sat on the bus now, looking out the window at the fields, her heart clenched with a terrible foreboding.
What could Natasha have discovered that Alina’s own mother didn’t know?
Lida had arrived in the capital that evening.
She hadn’t been there in five years, since she had taken Alina to preparatory class.
The city overwhelmed her with its noise, lights, and crowds.
Lida stood lost at the bus station, a bag in one hand and a piece of paper with an address in the other.
It wasn’t the address of Alina’s dormitory.
Natasha had written another.
Lida had taken a taxi for the first time in her life. The driver, a young man, talked about everything the whole way, but Lida didn’t listen. She
stared out the window.
They had arrived.
A tall building stood in a new neighborhood, surrounded by glass and concrete and a guarded entrance.
Lida got out and stood there for a moment, looking up.
It couldn’t be.
Alina told her that she still lived in a dormitory, sharing a room with three other girls, in modest circumstances.
Lida dialed her daughter’s number.
“Hello, Mom?” Alina looked surprised. “Did something happen?”
“I’m here,” Lida said. “In the city. In front of the building.”
There was a pause.
A long pause.
So long that Lida thought the connection had been lost.
“Which building?” Alina asked quietly.
“In this one.”
Lida gave her the address.
Silence settled on the phone.
It wasn’t just a pause, it was a deathly, deafening silence.
Lida could hear her daughter’s breathing becoming more and more irregular.
« I’m going down, » Alina said. « Stay here. »
About ten minutes later, she left the building.
Lida barely recognized her daughter.
It wasn’t as if Alina had changed dramatically. She had the same figure, the same light brown hair, the same eyes.
But there was something different about her.
Her clothes were expensive, not at all like those of an average student.
Her coat was something Lida had never seen in stores back home. A leather handbag with a shiny buckle hung over her shoulder.
Her face was carefully made up and groomed, but there were dark circles under her eyes.
And there was a look of terror on her face.
« Mom… » Alina stopped a few steps away. « Why did you come? »
« What do you think? »
Two women stood facing each other.
One was tired, wearing an old winter coat, with working hands, and her temples were starting to turn gray.
The other was young, beautiful, in expensive clothes, but her eyes were full of fear.
“Come,” Alina said. “But not here.”
They went to a cafe across the street.
It was expensive, with live music and waiters in white shirts.
Lida felt uneasy. She sat stiffly in her chair, not knowing what to do with her hands.
Alina ordered a coffee confidently and naturally, as someone who goes to such places.
“Mom,” she said after the waiter had left. “What do you know?”
“Nothing,” Lida replied. “Natasha said, ‘Go talk to Alina!’” She said something had happened. So I came.”
Alina covered her face with her hand.
She stayed like that for a long time.
Then she lowered her hand, and Lida saw that her daughter was crying.
Silently.
Tears were streaming down her face, smearing her mascara.
“Mom,” she whispered. “Mom…”
Then she fell silent.
Because telling the truth meant ruining everything.
And not telling was no longer an option.
They spent an hour in the café.
Maybe longer.
Alina spoke in fragments, stumbling over her words, as if trying to explain herself and confess her confession at the same time.
Lida listened without interrupting.
Her face was set in stone.
The story was simple and terrifying.
Alina was penniless in her second year of university.
Her scholarship was small. Her mother sent her everything she could, but it wasn’t even enough for food.
A girl from the dorm introduced her to “good people.”
At first, Alina simply took men to dinner.
Then it became more.
Alina said she wanted to quit, but she needed the money and couldn’t find another job.
Eventually she got used to it.
That is, never really.
She just accepted it.
There was money.
Clothes.
An apartment.
Restaurants.
And a constant, uninterrupted sense of shame.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Alina whispered. “I was afraid. You wouldn’t have survived that.”
Lida was silent.
