Her mother had left on Wednesday afternoon and told her daughter not to go outside.

When Polinka went to bed, the stove was still warm, but by morning the house had grown cold.

Her mother was gone, so the girl crawled out from under the blanket, slipped her feet into felt boots, and ran to the kitchen.

Nothing had changed there.

On the table stood a sooty pot.

Inside it—Polinka remembered—were four potatoes, boiled in their skins.

She had eaten two of them the night before.

A nearly full bucket of water stood on the floor.

Polinka peeled the remaining two potatoes and had breakfast, dipping them in salt and washing them down with water.

Cold air drifted up from the cellar, and the girl crawled back into bed.

She lay under the blanket and listened to the sounds coming from outside.

Polinka waited for the gate to creak and for her mother to return.

She would light the stove, and the house would become warm.

Mom would boil potatoes and pour them onto the table, and Polinka would roll the hot ones around so they’d cool down faster.

Last time, Mom had brought two cabbage pies, and Polinka had eaten them with hot tea.

Now there were no pies, no tea, and worst of all—it was already getting dark outside, and her mother still hadn’t come back.

Before it got completely dark, the girl crept into the kitchen, finished the last potatoes, scooped up a mug of water, and placed it on the stool next to the bed.

Then she wrapped herself in her mother’s old hoodie, pulled the hood over her head, and climbed back under the blanket.

It was dark outside and cold inside the house.

Polinka, a little six-year-old girl, lay in bed under an old quilt, trying to stay warm, waiting for her mother to return.

In the morning, nothing had changed, except that the house felt even colder and there was nothing to eat.

Polinka dragged in five logs from the hallway—she had to go there twice to do it.

Then she pulled a stool to the stove, stood on it, and opened the damper with a poker.

It didn’t work the first time, and soot and some dust rained down on her.

Polinka had seen her mother light the stove many times and tried to do everything just the same.

She placed two logs in the stove, tore some sheets from an old newspaper, crumpled them and shoved them between the logs, laid dry birch bark on top, and another log over that.

Then she lit the paper and bark.

When the logs caught fire, she added two more and closed the stove door.

After that, Polinka washed about ten raw potatoes, put them into a cast-iron pot, filled it with water, and, standing on the stool, slid it into the stove.

The girl was tired after doing all this, but it seemed to her that the room had become warmer.

Now she just had to wait for the stove to properly heat the house and for the potatoes to cook.

Once, Polinka had a father, but she didn’t remember him.

He had packed his things and gone to the city because Mom often visited her girlfriends and, as Grandma said, “drowned her eyes.”

While Grandma was alive, life was good for Polinka.

The house was always clean, warm, and smelled of pies.

Grandma often baked pies with cabbage, carrots, and berries.

She also made delicious millet porridge in a cast-iron pot—setting a plate in front of Polinka and a mug of baked milk beside it.

Back then, there was a television in the house.

Polinka watched cartoons, and Grandma watched something called “serials.”

Without Grandma, everything got worse.

Mom would leave during the day and return at night, when Polinka was already asleep.

There was often no food in the house, and the girl made do with boiled potatoes and bread.

Last spring, Mom didn’t plant a garden, so this year even the potatoes were scarce.

Polinka didn’t know what had happened to the TV.

Mom had never been gone for this long before.

The house grew warm, the potatoes were done.

Polinka found a bottle of sunflower oil in the kitchen cabinet.

There wasn’t much oil—just one tablespoon—but hot potatoes with oil tasted much better than cold ones plain.

She brewed raspberry leaves in a mug, drank the hot tea, and felt hot.

She took off her mother’s hoodie, lay on the bed, and fell asleep.

The girl woke up to noise.

In the room were neighbors—old lady Masha, old man Yegor, and another unfamiliar man.

“Zakharovna,” said the stranger to old lady Masha, “take the girl to your place for a couple of days.

I called her father—he’ll come on Sunday.

An investigator and a doctor are coming from the district now.

I’ll wait for them here.”

Old lady Masha looked for clothes to dress Polinka, but found nothing, so she put the same hoodie on her and wrapped her in Grandma’s old headscarf.

When they stepped into the hallway, Polinka saw something near the woodpile, covered with two sacks.

From under one of them, a foot in her mother’s boot stuck out.

Old lady Masha brought Polinka to her house and told her husband to heat up the bathhouse.

She washed the girl, thoroughly steamed her with a birch whisk, wrapped her in a big towel, sat her in the anteroom, and told her to wait.

A few minutes later she returned with clean clothes.

Polinka sat at the table in a flannel pajama and wool socks.

Her head was wrapped in a white scarf with little blue dots.

In front of her was a plate of borscht.

A woman entered the room, looked at Polinka, and sighed heavily.

“Here, Maria Zakharovna,” she said, handing old lady Masha a large bag, “some clothes for the girl.

Mine have grown up already.

There’s a winter jacket too.

Such a tragedy.”

“Thank you, Katya,” replied old lady Masha, then turned to Polinka, “Did you eat?

Come, I’ll turn on cartoons for you in the other room.”

That day and the next, several more women came to visit Maria Zakharovna.

From bits of conversation, Polinka understood that her mother had been found frozen in a snowdrift, completely by chance.

And someone had called her father, and he would be coming soon.

Polinka missed her mother and felt sorry for her.

At night, she cried quietly under the blanket, so no one would hear.

Her father arrived.

Polinka looked curiously at the tall, dark-haired man she didn’t remember at all.

She was a little afraid of him and kept her distance.

He looked at her intently too and only once, when they were introduced, awkwardly patted her on the head.

He couldn’t stay long, so they left the next day.

Before leaving, he shut the shutters, nailed the windows and doors shut with crossed planks, and asked the neighbors to watch over the house.

Old lady Masha said goodbye to Polinka:

“Your father has a wife – Valentina. She will be your mother. You must obey her in everything, don’t contradict her.

Help around the house. Then she will love you.

Apart from your father, you have no one else, and no other home besides your father’s.”

But Valentina never grew to love Polina.

The woman had no children of her own, and perhaps she simply didn’t know how to love a child.

Still, Valentina never mistreated the girl.

She made sure Polina was always neatly dressed, though she rarely bought her new clothes, relying instead on things given by colleagues and acquaintances.

As soon as the father brought Polina home, Valentina “took care of it” and enrolled her in kindergarten.

She dropped her off in the mornings and picked her up after work.

At home, she would immediately start cooking dinner or doing chores, while Polina sat in her room, staring out the window or drawing.

The father didn’t talk much with his daughter either.

He believed he was doing everything necessary: she was fed, clothed, and had shoes – what more could she need?

When Polina started school, she caused no trouble for either her father or Valentina.

She studied well, mostly earning B’s, though she got C’s in math, physics, and chemistry.

But the teachers said she tried hard – those subjects just weren’t her strength.

She excelled in craft classes, especially sewing, knitting, or embroidery.

Even the teacher was amazed at how skillfully Polina worked.

Olga Yuryevna would demonstrate a new stitch or pattern once, and Polina would replicate it perfectly, as if she had known it all along.

That was how Polina lived in her father’s home: from the age of ten, she cleaned the apartment herself, could iron mountains of laundry, and by thirteen, she was cooking for the whole family.

She and Valentina only talked about house matters, but it seemed to Polina that she needed nothing more.

Her father was pleased that the home was peaceful – no teenage crises like the ones his coworkers complained about with their daughters.

He considered his daughter’s silence and reserve just part of her character.

After ninth grade, Polina said she wanted to go to college and become a dressmaker and tailor.

Her father went with her to the industrial-economics college, they submitted the documents, and in September Polina began her studies.

She still did a lot around the house, but now she also started sewing.

Valentina had an old sewing machine – Polina repaired it, and soon there were no problems if something needed hemming, curtains needed sewing, or clothes needed mending.

She did it all herself.

Neighbors began asking her for help – shortening pants, sewing custom-sized bedding.

She charged little, but she didn’t spend the money – she saved it.

Three years flew by unnoticed.

School ended, and Polina turned eighteen.

To her father’s surprise, she announced that she wanted to return to her native village.

“Isn’t it good here? Why are you leaving?” her father asked.

“You raised me, and I’m very grateful to you. But from here on, I’ll do things on my own.”

Polina could barely find her old house.

Unlike many villages, hers hadn’t died out – in fact, it was growing.

A new road had been built nearby a few years ago, new residents moved in, and new houses were built.

The house that once seemed huge to Polina now looked like a humble shack next to the new two-story cottages.

But a few neighboring houses were still the same.

On one side was Grandma Masha’s house, and on the other – Grandpa Yegor’s.

She wondered if they were still alive.

Polina opened the gate – it creaked just like it had when little Polina would listen for the sound, waiting for her mother.

She stepped up onto the porch. “Can’t get in without tools,” she thought.

Leaving her things on the porch, she went to Grandma Masha’s house.

Polina entered through the gate and saw an elderly woman weeding a flower bed.

“Hello,” Polina said.

The woman straightened up and looked at her closely.

“Hello,” she replied. “Who are you? Your face seems familiar…”

“Maria Zakharovna, it’s me – Polina.”

“Well I’ll be! Polina! You look so much like your mother!” Grandma Masha exclaimed. “You’ve come!”

“I have, but I can’t get into the house. Do you have a crowbar or something to pull off the boards?” Polina asked.

“Wait just a second!” she said, then called toward the house: “Zakhar! Come here!”

A young man of about twenty came out onto the porch.

“Grandson! Grab a tool and help the neighbor open her house.”

An hour later, all the windows and doors were open, and Polina stepped inside the house she hadn’t seen in twelve years.

There, in the hallway, her mother had lain the last time she saw her – or rather, her mother’s feet, in worn brown boots.

There was the quilt under which she tried to keep warm.

A bucket, a cast-iron pot, a soot-blackened saucepan.

It was as if Polina had gone back twelve years.

She remembered Grandma Masha’s words: “Behave well, and you’ll be loved.

You have no other home but your father’s.”

“No other home? But here it is – old, with a sagging porch, but so dear to me!” thought Polina.

“I will be happy here!”

For almost a week, she cleaned, scrubbed, washed, painted.

She found a stove repairman in a neighboring village – he cleaned the chimney and fixed the stove, and Polina whitewashed it.

She threw out piles of junk from the pantry and attic, hung new curtains.

Zakhar helped her fix the porch and the sagging fence.

During that time, villagers came by – those who remembered her and her mother, and were surprised that she had left the city to return here.

Her father probably wouldn’t have recognized his quiet, withdrawn daughter – Polina couldn’t stop smiling.

She was cheerful and friendly.

A local tractor driver tilled her garden, and although it was already late in the season, under Maria Zakharovna’s guidance Polina managed to plant a few things and tidy up the berry bushes.

“It’s alright – you’re late with the seedlings this year, but next year you’ll plant everything you need,” Grandma Masha said.

When the house was ready, Polina got a job – though not in her profession.

There was no tailor shop in the village, and she didn’t have a sewing machine.

So she took a job at the post office.

Not behind a window – she delivered mail to three neighboring villages.

They gave her a government-issued bicycle, and off Polina went, pedaling: two kilometers to one village, three to another.

With her first paycheck, she bought a sewing machine.

With her second – a serger.

She began sewing – first for herself, then for others.

Not much, of course – the village wasn’t a city – but word spread, and soon people from other villages came too.

A couple of years later, someone else was delivering the mail – Polina had enough income from her garden and sewing.

Besides, it had become hard for her to ride a bike – she and Zakhar, whom she married, were expecting their first child.

Polina kept in touch with her father and Valentina – they came to the wedding and invited the young couple to move back to the city.

But they declined.

“My home is here,” said Polina.