The conversation with a random fellow traveler on the train started as usual about nothing. And then he asks me:
-Do you have any single women in mind? With an apartment or a house. I can do everything around the house. I’ve been a carpenter all my life…
-Why would you want that? – I wondered. I took a closer look at the man. He looked about 70 years old, overweight and with gray hair. I saw that his shirt was not quite fresh, and old sports pants. Frankly speaking, the first impression he left on me was not very good.
-Yeah… I want to meet him. Maybe we could get together, so we could live our lives together. – He said nothing. And then he says:
-“Don’t think that I want to settle down and live off the shelf. I have a good pension. I am still able to help out around the house, and I can also do some housework. In my old age I would like to find a woman to support each other to the very end.
-Are you lonely? Don’t you have any relatives? – I asked, and he was quiet again and said:
-Yes… I’m on my way from my youngest son’s house… To my eldest. I’ve been traveling for three years now. Here and there… I live in the garage in the summer. I don’t want to get in their way.
My wife and I lived well. We had everything: an apartment, a good house built later – a carpenter. I earned money for a car, we bought a four-seater Zhiguli.
My elder son finished the institute and decided to get married. My wife and I consulted and gave him an apartment. And the younger son, he was ten years younger, we promised him a house. We hoped that someday he would graduate and come to live with us. We would live together. He finished his studies and left for another town. He was given a one-room apartment as a young specialist. Then he got married and had a baby. My wife and I helped out – what a young family.
Ten years later my wife got ill and that was it. She left… I was left alone.
Then the youngest son comes and says: “Father, you and mother said you’d give me a house. It’s been so many years, and I’m still living in a one-and-a-half-bedroom with my family. We want a second child. Where can we put him? We don’t have enough room. Come on, sell the house. Promised me and my mom.
Of course, I was very upset. But he’s right. The older one is provided with housing, and the younger one has to wait for my death? When it will be, I do not know.
So I sold the house. I gave him the money. But I kept the money for a small garage, I keep my car there, and now I make a living in the summer. When it’s cold, I go to one or the other for a month or two. But I can see that I am in the way. And my sons-in-law aren’t really waiting for me, they grumble. And my sons don’t want any scandals.
Once I got together with a woman in our town. She was so spiteful! Whatever I do, it’s all wrong. I stand up wrong, sit down wrong. I eat too much, I wash rarely, and if I do it more often, I waste a lot of water. It’s not my woman, with whom we’ve lived for 46 years… I’m going back to my garage. While it’s summer… And by winter, where to? So there’s no woman in sight?
I looked at him and my heart was torn with pity. He lived to a ripe old age, raised his sons and was left without a roof over his head. But he wasn’t a slacker, he worked all his life. And he was left alone…
