For this it is absolutely not necessary to live together, but Nadya did not object. She suddenly realized that Tolik was not the last bachelor on Earth, and she did not have to make any sacrifices to become his wife. Moreover, she has still not been able to meet him personally and feel at least some sympathy for him, thanks to his overly intrusive mother.

Nadya was silent for the rest of the evening and they watched the ballet peacefully, but at home she told her mother that she would not become Anatoly’s bride for any price.

On Saturday, Nadya went to the hospital right in the morning, postponing everything until later. It was necessary to check notebooks, help mom with cleaning, prepare a big lunch for tomorrow (they always had a family meal after Sunday service and invited more guests), but abandoned children suffer there, and this is the most important thing.

Nadya got up early, baked homemade raisin cookies and made dried fruit compote: articles on the Internet claimed that all this was indicated for kidney disease. She dug out Ganina’s most neutral old things on the mezzanine: T-shirts, pants, socks, and also took out the game “Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All” that had been lying around for a long time, and also took it with her.

There was no good news from the center yet: Svetlana was still absent. This worried Nadya, and she separately prayed to God for admonition and the safe return of Varina’s mother.

Not expecting any trick, Nadya happily opened the door of the room and immediately came across a man standing by the window. This was the same brawler and rude person. This time he was dressed in jeans and a turtleneck sweater and had his hair neatly combed. His eyes no longer sparkled with unreasonable anger, but they didn’t smile either. The man looked at Nadya with concern, anxiety.

“Hello,” he said at the first second.

“Good afternoon,” Nadya responded, looking away, but it came out hoarsely.

This man made her nervous, as if he were a powder keg and it was unknown what word or action of hers would turn out to be the spark.

Nadya approached Varya, who was sitting on the bed, hugged and kissed her. She asked about her health. All this time, Nadya felt the stranger’s gloomy and attentive gaze on her, as if she were a fly in a glass box, and he was a meticulous insectologist.

Varya felt quite tolerable, although she complained of pain in her buttocks, which the evil aunt nurses mercilessly pricked with needles twice a day.

“This is necessary to get better,” Nadya admonished the girl, “so that her tummy doesn’t hurt anymore,” but she did not want to accept such a structure of the world.

When the time came to distribute gifts, Nadya, of course, invited Petya to the treat, and with him, so as not to seem impolite, his uncle. The children praised both the compote and the cookies very much, and devoured almost half of them in one sitting. The man turned out to be more modest – he barely chewed half of the cookie and put the rest in his pocket. And he limited himself to a simple “Thank you.” But when the children enthusiastically took up the game, Petya’s uncle asked Nadya to go out into the corridor with him for a minute.