The greenish light of the operating room was reflected in Tamara Rudnitskaya’s eyes, which were frozen in concentrated tension. The silence, broken only by the measured beeping of the cardiac monitor and the muffled breathing of those present, enveloped the room like an invisible cocoon. A small heart, just the size of a six-year-old boy’s fist, beat beneath her fingers, trusting and defenseless.

“Clamp,” she said softly, and the instrument, handed by the assistant, lay in her palm with familiar precision. Tamara saw nothing but a tiny defect in the interventricular septum. Her fingers moved with incredible precision, as if someone was guiding them from within.

She could feel that heart like her own, every contraction, every jolt of blood. Mentally she spoke to it, “Be patient, little one, just a little longer. Soon you’ll be healthy and strong.”

“Dr. Rudnitskaya,” her blood pressure is dropping, came the anesthesiologist’s voice to her. “I see,” Tamara replied calmly, not taking her eyes off the surgical field. “Everything is under control.”

No one in the operating room noticed that her fingers touched for a moment the antique locket hidden under her surgical suit, a simple metal oval engraved with the image of wormwood, securely fastened to a thin chain. The three-hour operation was a success. The boy’s heart, freed from the pathologic orifice, was working smoothly and strongly.

As Tamara was leaving the operating room, she overheard a conversation among the young interns. “Magic hands, you can’t call them anything else,” one said. ‘They say she hasn’t had a single fatality yet.

‘Impossible,’ objected another. ‘Statistics are a stubborn thing. And did you see her save a boy today?” Her blood pressure collapsed, and she didn’t even wag an eyebrow.

Tamara didn’t listen further. She knew the value of these stories and the value of her luck. It wasn’t luck at all.

In the resident’s room, she allowed herself a moment of rest. Covering her eyes, she took out the locket and ran her thumb over the time-darkened metal. The image of Grandma Nastya, so clear as if they had seen each other only yesterday, came into view.

“You are my continuation, Tamarochka,” her grandmother said, braiding her braids with warm, herb-scented hands. “My blood flows in you, and my gift will be yours.” An earthen hut on the outskirts of a village near Kiev, surrounded by a fence covered with wild grapes.

Herbs hung on the walls, filling the rooms with a bitter healing aroma. And people, an endless stream of people coming with their aches and pains to Grandma Nastya, a well-known herbalist and healer in the whole neighborhood. Tamara was eight at the time.

She helped her grandmother collect herbs, learned to distinguish useful plants from poisonous ones, memorized recipes for decoctions and tinctures. But most importantly, she absorbed something elusive that could not be explained in words. “Why do people come to you, Grandma?” little Tamara would ask, watching as another healed person bowed at her grandmother’s waist.

“Because they believe, granddaughter. And I believe in them. It’s not herbs that heal, Tamarochka, but love and faith.

Herbs are only helpers. And in the evenings her grandmother taught her to put her hands on sore places, to feel where the pain lurked, to see it with her inner vision. “Your hands are special,” Grandma Nastya said.

“Warm. Alive. Such hands take away pain.”

Mother and father didn’t approve of these lessons. Mother was a teacher, father an engineer, both believed in science and progress. Grandmother’s fairy tales, Mom snorted when she caught them at another session.

But Grandma only smiled enigmatically. When the time came to choose a profession, no one doubted that Tamara would follow in the footsteps of her mother or father. “Teacher, translator, economist, here are worthy professions for a girl,” said the parents.

And Tamara applied for medical school in Kiev. “Daughter, think well,” exhorted the father. “Surgery is not a woman’s profession.

You will have to cut people.” “I will not cut, but treat,” replied Tamara with the same stubborn crease between her eyebrows, which so often appeared at Grandma Nastya. And only her grandmother supported her.

“Follow your heart, Tamarochka,” she said, placing an antique locket in her granddaughter’s palm. “It will not deceive you.” A month later, Grandma Nastya was gone.

As if passing the baton to her granddaughter, she quietly drifted off to sleep with a peaceful smile on her lips. A phone call interrupted Tamara’s memories. The screen flashed the name of Kristina Berezhnaya, a school friend and perhaps the only close person left in Tamara’s life.

“Is the surgery over?” “How are you?” A familiar worried voice was heard in the receiver. “I’m fine,” Tamara replied, feeling a wave of fatigue come over her. “The boy will live.

I’ve made reservations at the Old Grad downtown.” “In an hour.” “No objections,” Christina stated peremptorily.

A tired smile touched Tamara’s lips. Christina had always been like that, impetuous and determined. A literary woman with the soul of a regimental commander.

They met in a cozy cafe in the center of a Ukrainian city, where Christina had already ordered her favorite herbal tea and cinnamon cakes. “You’ve completely driven yourself up,” Christina said instead of greeting, casting her friend a critical eye. “Third complicated surgery in a week.

I know, I got your schedule from the head nurse. There are a lot of kids and not enough surgeons,” Tamara shrugged. “No one but me.”

“No one but you,” Christina teased. “Look, Tamara, it’s been four years. You can’t hide from life in the operating room forever.”

Tamara looked away. What was there to talk about? That life without Maxim had turned into an endless succession of working days, diluted by rare meetings with her friend? You know, today I hosted a delegation from France at my school for the first time, Christina changed the subject. Such an interesting teacher came.

‘Don’t get me started,’ Tamara shook her head. ‘Your attempts to introduce me to interesting teachers have already become a parable. Well, we can’t all be workaholic loners.”

Christina exclaimed. “You’re not just a doctor, Tamara. You’re also a woman.

And who says one thing gets in the way of the other?” replied Tamara with a tired smile, absentmindedly stroking her locket. After dinner, sitting behind the wheel of her car, Tamara made a decision. A week from today was Maxim’s birthday.

According to long-established tradition, she should go to the cemetery the day before and tidy up his grave before the new workday began. Outside the window the April rain rustled, drumming softly on the roof of the car. Tamara looked at the road, but saw other things – Maxim’s bright eyes, his impetuous smile, the blueprints spread out on the floor of their living room.

“I build for centuries, Tamara,” he used to say, showing projects to restore historic buildings in Kiev. He left suddenly, incongruously, scaffolding collapsing, instant death. She was left, with an emptiness inside, and a gift that wasn’t enough to save the person closest to her.

The locket was back in her fingers. “It’s not herbs that heal, but love and faith,” Baba Nastya’s voice whispered. Love and faith.

What Tamara had lost four years ago at the construction site with Maxim. What she had yet to regain. The morning was surprisingly clear, as if the sky had been washed away by the night rain.

Tamara drove the car slowly down the winding road to the old town cemetery, holding wildflower seeds, cornflowers, daisies, bells on the passenger seat. “Wildflowers have power,” Baba Nastya said, “they are free to choose where they live.” Tamara stopped the car at the old wrought iron gate and, taking the bouquet and a small bag with cleaning tools, headed down the main alley deep into the cemetery…