We built a life.
Not a fairy tale.
But life.
And when George died of a heart attack at fifty-nine, I thought part of me had died with him.
I was thirty-three.
I had two little kids.
Sylvia was seven.
Michael — on four.
From that day on, I didn't think of a new love.
Not because I didn't get the chance.
Because I didn't have the strength.
I was working.
I was raising you.
I taught you.
I paid bills.
I was struggling to give you an education, a home, a security.
The years passed.
You have grown.
You got married.
You had your own children.
I stayed in the big house alone.
Sometimes it was quiet.
Very quiet.
But I wasn't unhappy.
Or at least I thought so.
Sylvia looked at me with wide eyes.
"What does this have to do with the baby?" he asked.
I looked at Todor.
He sat quietly in the last row, with the cane between his knees.
Two years ago, he found me.
There was a whisper in the room.
"How?" the judge asked.
Through an old friend of mine from high school. He saw a picture from a class meeting. He asked for me. He learned that I was a widow. He found my address.
Mikhail laughed nervously.
"And what?" After fifty years, he just knocked on the door and you decided to have a child?
"It wasn't like that.
"How was it then?"
He spoke with anger.
But behind his anger, I could hear panic.
He didn't want to know.
Because if he knew, he'd have to admit that I'm not a crazy old woman.
I was a man of my own life.
With its own history.
With his own right to choose.
“The first time Todor came, I didn’t let him go,” I continued. “I was standing behind the door and crying.” Not because I didn't want to see him. But because I was afraid I'd see how much time had passed.
"And then?" Sylvia asked quietly.
I saw him in a cafe. We talked for three hours. Then four. Then all day.
Todor smiled slightly.
"She was still ordering coffee without sugar," he said.
For a moment I felt something like heat.
Then I looked at my kids.
And the heat disappeared.
“We didn’t plan anything,” I said. “We didn’t plan to get married.” We weren't planning on having a child. We just... we're back to each other.
"Seventy-nine years old?" Sylvia whispered.
"At seventy-nine, I'm still alive, Sylvia.
She pulled back, as if my words had hit her.
