the rift.

Nadezhda

Before the pregnancy.

Yes, many things were different before the pregnancy. For one, my mother would look at me.

She would smile and laugh. She would pull me into a hug at the end of the day and kiss me on the forehead.

Now, I'm trapped in the after.

When my own mother is so consumed by disappointment that she can't even say my name.

"Why did you come today?" I ask, finally voicing the question that had been burning inside of me since she told me she asked Mr. Paplov for the morning off. "Why did you come with me if you can't even bring yourself to look at a picture of my baby?"

She stiffened at the words. My baby. "You shouldn't be alone."

"I'm alone all day," I argue. "I spend hours cleaning rooms in silence. Not to mention coming back to the cottage at the end of the day to find you are already in your room. You don't mind that I'm alone then."

She crosses her arms over her chest. She is thinner than she was a few months ago, and I want to ask if she is eating. She hasn't had dinner with me for the last week, but I'd assumed she was eating before I came home. Now, I'm not so sure. "The doctor is different."

"How?" I want her to look at me. Being silent and waiting for her anger to pass clearly hasn't worked, so perhaps I should try asking her all the questions I've kept pent inside. Maybe I should force her to voice the thoughts and feelings she has been silently stewing over for the last month. Maybe it will help.

"They could give you bad news," she says sharply, her tone in direct opposition to the concern shown by her words. "You shouldn't drive after news like that. Someone should be there for you."

The stone around my heart softens, and I reach across the console to lay my hand over hers. "That is different," I agree softly. Tears spring to my eyes at the thought that my mother still cares. She still worries for me, still wants to be there for me. However, they dry immediately when she wrenches her hand away and leans into the passenger side door.

"And it shouldn't be me," she snaps. "It should be your husband. Or boyfriend, at least. But you do not have one of those."

Her words slithered down my spine like ice water, sending a shiver through me. "No, I don't."

"It should be the father of your child," she said, pointing again to the sonogram in the cup holder. "He should be the one here to take care of you. Where is he?"

We'd had this discussion too many times to count in the last month, and it always ended the same way. Me, closed-lipped and burning with shame, my mother marching off to her room and slamming the door.

I turn onto the gravel driveway that stems from the main road and wraps around the back of our cottage. It is narrow and bumpy, used only by the very few people who ever make their way to our house.

When I don't say anything, my mother sighs and shakes her head. As soon as I park our beat-up car behind the house, she throws open the door and marches inside. I know where she is headed—her room. She will hide in there until I go up to the main house to work. Then, she will emerge and go about her day, doing her best to pretend I don't exist. To avoid me. I can't live this way anymore. Losing my father was hard enough, but now I've lost my mother, too.