Dasha of Rain. Alla Krasnova

      ISBN 978-5-0059-4945-5

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

      Viviena Mikhailovna stopped by an old linden tree that grew in front of her house. Before dialing the intercom code and entering the house, she had to stand a little and collect her thoughts.

      For the third day, Viviena Mikhailovna went to work herself, not herself, as if lowered into water. She worked in a antenatal clinic as an obstetrician-gynecologist, and she scared the patients with her appearance.

      «Doctor, what’s wrong with me?» the patient asked, looking into her fearful eyes.

      – Everything is fine, – Viviena Mikhailovna answered, – you are pregnant. Congratulations,» she said with a blank look.

      «I know,» the patient replied. «It’s been eight months now.

      «Ah, it’s clear,» Viviena Mikhailovna answered. «So the birth is coming soon.

      ***

      Colleagues were perplexed what had happened to her, but they were afraid to ask, after all, they did not welcome interference in someone else’s private life at any level. But still, sometimes they asked uncomfortable questions: «Maybe it’s time to retire? Tired already, Viviena Mikhailovna?

      Viviena Mikhailovna wanted to answer them something in her defense, but her head was occupied with other thoughts. Therefore, she only shrugged her shoulders in response and said that she would definitely think about it sometime at her leisure. She did not name the true reason for her strange condition, because she did not want to pass for an obstetrician-gynecologist with a gadget. After all, what could be worse than a crazy doctor of this delicate specialty? Nothing can be.

      In addition, Viviena Mikhailovna knew that a reputation takes a long time to earn, and it can disappear in one moment, and now it seemed to her that this moment had come. But how much Viviena Mikhailovna did for her impeccable reputation: she was polite and tactful, sensitive and kind, she constantly studied and developed in her profession. She always had the highest fertility rates, and patients thanked her with kind reviews on the network. And here it is… and this is after thirty years of super-exemplary service in this quivering field. Now she was even afraid to return home, because at home she was waiting for a meeting with the very one, because of which it was all, or rather, with the very one.

      ***

      It happened three days ago, on a Monday evening. Viviena Mikhailovna just returned home after work, changed into home clothes, a comfortable cotton dressing gown with green polka dots. She lived in an apartment alone, she had no children of her own, and her husband had died a year earlier from a massive heart attack. When she returned home, to her two-room, very clean, always tidy apartment, the first thing she did was turn on the TV. She didn’t watch it, but it provided the backdrop. Against the background of a working TV, where voices sounded and people flickered, it was easier for her to think about work. She thought about the treatment plan for another patient, weighed all the pros and cons. Then she cooked dinner, took a shower, read a book and went to bed. So passed her leisurely, ordinary evening. If they called her, and mostly her friends or patients called her, she always answered. Viviena Mikhailovna, after the death of her husband, tried to completely occupy herself with work, because it distracted her from gloomy thoughts, and she did it well. But this time everything turned out differently, although nothing foretold that this evening would completely change her life, dividing it into before and after.