98 After

Nazar Yartsev:

A gloomy day in a gloomy place. A light drizzle began to fall, painting the gravestones in darker shades. The wet earth stuck unpleasantly to our shoes, but the little boy didn’t care. He stood there staring at the smiling photo of someone dear to him, sincerely grieving the loss.

“Lukas, let’s go already,” Masha said softly, taking the boy by the shoulder with understanding. “It’s about to pour. Mom’s in a better place now. She’s not suffering anymore there. And there’s no booze there either,” the blonde added quietly and sadly, running into my reproachful glare.

Natalya died six months after we took guardianship of her children. I hired a caretaker to help the woman, to look after that disaster of a mother. But the problem remained the same. Natalya herself didn’t want help, and during the hours when the caretaker wasn’t there, she kept drinking thanks to her “kind” neighbor. Her mind never cleared, not even once, during all that time. Then one day, the caretaker simply found the woman dead in her own bed.

The kids took their mother’s death hard. No matter what she’d been, she was still their mom. Yeah, she drank. Yeah, she stopped recognizing them long ago. But the children never suffered violence or beatings from her. Just indifference, and even that came from a sick mind.

Masha suffered more than Luka did. For years that girl had carried everyone on her shoulders and taken care of everything herself. And she was devastated that she hadn’t been there during her mother’s last days, because we’d been abroad for long-term treatment.

It was hard.

And the word hard can’t even begin to describe the nightmare we went through. Endless tests, medications, chemo, pain, tears.

When our girl sobbed over her beautiful long hair falling out, none of us stayed indifferent. Our entire family shaved our heads too. By choice. In support of our little warrior.

Then all of us together went trying on wigs over our shiny bald heads and laughed our asses off in the process. Luka and I preferred to stay gloriously bald, Masha picked a wig with long rainbow-colored hair, and Anya became a light pink blonde.

My girls. My beloved princesses. The most beautiful and the most precious.

And when my father came to visit us, he shocked everyone too with his gleaming bald head.

He adored the kids and treated them like his own grandchildren. His eyes especially lit up with interest when he discovered Masha’s sharp entrepreneurial streak and the iron grip of a ruthless businesswoman. Grandpa was fascinated. Completely charmed.

Masha’s therapy lasted two long years, and now for another five years our daughter will remain under a hematologist’s supervision so any possible relapse can be caught in time.

But she wasn’t the only one receiving treatment.

Since we were abroad for such a long time, it would’ve been stupid not to send my beloved for examinations too. And the doctors there weren’t nearly as categorical as ours had been. They gave a fairly hopeful prognosis regarding Anya’s condition.

Of course, things don’t happen as quickly as we’d like, but we’re trying. Working on it. So far the test still hasn’t shown us those precious two lines, but we’re not losing hope, and we’re definitely not giving up.

After Masha’s first successful round of chemotherapy, I finally proposed to Ann.

Properly.

With a surprise, a ring, romance, and down on one knee.

My beloved said yes, and in that moment I was the happiest man alive.

But we decided to postpone the wedding until Masha fully recovered. It felt right. And Anya herself was undergoing treatment too, so there simply wasn’t time for wedding chaos.

And now our little one is officially listed as “Healthy,” and tomorrow is our day.

There’ll be a beautiful outdoor ceremony in a gorgeous scenic place outside the city, with plenty of guests attending. Honestly, only our closest people will be there. It’s just that I have a lot of them. And it turned out Anya’s side has no shortage of relatives either.

Truth be told, we officially signed the papers yesterday already, but nobody knows that. We needed it that way for the ceremony.

And today, the kids wanted to visit their parents. We never deny them that. It’s sacred.