Give up the inheritance, you shameless woman! You’re robbing his real family!” Maria yelled, her face flushed with rage.
I stayed calm. “He wrote the will in full clarity. I’m not giving up anything.”
Tears welled up as I walked through our quiet village, holding a letter from Igor Vasilievich—my neighbor for seven years. We had lived like family. He returned to the village after leaving his second wife and children behind. I’d lived here alone with my son Kolya since his father disappeared years ago.
I still remember the first time we met. He mistook me for my mother, Lida. When I told him she had passed and that I never knew my father—Igor—the pain in his eyes said it all.
From then on, Igor became a part of our lives. He helped around the house, became a father figure to Kolya, and filled the space left by so many others. He worked the land, shared stories, and slowly, we built something real.
His children rarely visited. When they did, it was only to ask for money or try to convince him to sell his house. Then, one winter, Igor suffered a stroke. His family vanished again. Kolya and I, along with our elderly neighbor, cared for him until his final breath.
When he passed, I was shocked to learn he’d left everything to me. Then I read his letter:
“I am your father. I left your mother because of lies I believed. I never looked back—until I met you. You gave me family, love, and forgiveness without even knowing who I was. Everything I have is yours. Forgive me. I love you. –Igor”
The truth crushed me—and healed me. I had unknowingly cared for the father I’d resented my whole life.
But peace was short-lived. His daughter Maria returned in a rage. When I refused to give up the inheritance, things turned ugly. She vandalized our garden, opened the animal cages, and eventually tried to burn part of the property. The police caught her.
I dropped the charges on one condition: that she never come near us again.
After that, life slowly returned to normal. Our kind local officer, Ivan, kept checking in. Flowers turned into conversations, and eventually, something more. Kolya adored him.
“Mom, I want a sister,” he said one day, smiling.
And in time, he got one. We named her Agatha.
I didn’t sell Igor’s house. I tore down the fence and joined the land, so Kolya would one day decide what to do with it. Ivan fixed the roof. He never left. He became our protector, our home.
And now, when I whisper into the wind, “Thank you, Papa,” I know he hears me.
Because out of heartbreak came healing, and out of loss, a new beginning.
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