The stories of unhappy families resemble one another, but each has its own pain and despair. Life is a series of trials. Some meet them with dignity, making every effort to overcome. Others – falter, break down.
Maria’s life didn’t work out, she was addicted to drink. She drowned her loneliness and melancholy in her glass. Boozers succeeded each other, and the mother in a drunken stupor did not notice how the two children – the eldest son Richard and daughter Helena – were growing up next to each other. Often there was nothing to eat and no wood in the house. The children never saw their father, but they surprisingly loved and appreciated their mother.
Richard served in the army and went to town. He found a job, got a little bit of a job, began to provide for himself and helped his mother as much as he could.
Helena, as soon as she turned seventeen, moved to live with her boyfriend, whom she had been dating for over a year. Unsettled life, her mother who was always drunk – all this made the girl seek warmth and comfort under another’s roof.
After another binge, Maruya got an ulcer. With a stomach bleed, she was taken to the regional hospital. Doctors were unable to stop the bleeding for a long time, but they still wrestled Maria out of the clutches of death. Helena worked part-time at a construction site, she needed to finish school, and no one cancelled household chores. The money she earned was spent on medicines for her mother and trips to the region. The girl was tossing and turning between school, work, the hospital and home.
In the hospital Maria changed her mind a lot – after being on the brink of the grave, she decided to turn her life around, to give up drinking. Meanwhile, Richard got married, lived in the city in a rented apartment. The wife was pregnant. She had a two-year-old son from her first marriage. Every penny counted in the young family. Katya planned to work at least six months until her maternity leave, counting on her mother-in-law’s help in taking care of her young son and future grandson. Richard brought his mother to town, took her into his family.
Maria did not let her son down – she gave up drinking, babysat a non-native grandson, managed the household. However, soon her daughter-in-law began to complain of her mother-in-law more and more often: she cooked something wrong, cleaned in a wrong way, reproached her for sitting on her son’s neck, though she never got a job herself.
Maria did not cross her daughter-in-law. She silently tolerated the whims of the pregnant woman. At first she got a job as a cleaner in a neighbouring store, then worked as a potato slicer for a small grocer. But her daughter-in-law would not stop – nagging her mother-in-law, biting her husband until one day, after another scandal, Richard threw his mother out in the middle of the night with all his things!
Sister Helena told Richard that now it was her turn to help her mother, not a little girl anymore, turned eighteen. Helena has broken up with her boyfriend and now needs help and support herself, at least until she finishes school.
What about Maria? She rents a room in a small apartment with a man who works with her in the potato harvest. For now – so far, and what happens next, life will show.
There is no right or wrong in this story. The mother failed to build a nest for her chicks, to give her children warmth and care. Nevertheless, she does not stop being their mother, the only family member who gave life to them. The son and daughter have their own trials ahead of them, which they must overcome without losing mercy, compassion, and love.
