Parents are always looking out for their children. Often parents are disappointed in their grown offspring. What adult daughters are like in our story today.
Mother’s story.
Barbara has raised three children. They are all grown up and live independent lives. The eldest son has a family and a job abroad. On holidays, he sends photos and postcards. The mother lovingly keeps it all and occasionally revisits it.
“We miss you very much, son. Maybe you could come and visit? At least we would have met our grandchildren and daughter-in-law,” she writes to her son.
Her middle daughter has a military husband. They move around a lot. They raise a daughter. Sometimes they stop by for a while to visit. Barbara’s husband respects his son-in-law: the daughter has found a good husband.
Her younger daughter does not have a family life. Polina was married, had a son, but her husband left her. The girl took her mother’s advice to go to the city, and went in search of a better life. She got a job there as a seamstress in a factory and took her son with her.
To visit her youngest daughter.
“Can you manage without me for a week? – Barbara said to her husband, “I want to visit and see how Polina and her husband are doing.”
David walked his wife out. It will not be easy for her to drag heavy bags, but she wants to please her daughter. For twenty-four hours Barbara rode in a second-class carriage on the side. She was glad to see her daughter. After all, three years had passed since the last meeting.
“Mother, why didn’t you call to say you were coming? I’m at work now. I can only pick you up from the train station by evening.”
“Sorry, I wanted to surprise you!” – Mom said.
“Are you sure you’re okay there?”
“Everything’s fine.”
At the door stood my grandson. Tall, statuesque, looking like his grandfather when he was young.
“Hello, my boy!” – his grandmother hugged him.
“That’s enough.” – began to free himself from the boy’s embrace.
“Why didn’t you meet me? Barely made it from the station with my bags.” – Asked the tired woman.
“I had to clean up and set the table for your arrival. I rushed from work and started boiling borscht and fried cutlets.”
Then Barbara’s phone rang, and she answered her bored husband that she was fine, had been met and helped to get there, and now they were having dinner at the table, which had been set by Pauline.
At the table, arranging plates of borscht, Pauline asked her mother, “Will you have one cutlet or two at once?” Barbara was so tired and hungry that she could have had three, but she thought about it and replied, “Just put it on the table, and then we’ll see.”
Eventually a plate of five cutlets appeared on the table. So much for the festive table with which the daughter welcomes her own mother. The woman thought they were having money problems and decided she would be sure to help them out. At dinner, the daughter immediately asked when her mother planned to drive back. The woman took offense and said she could leave tomorrow, too, if she was in the way.
Barbara was home alone all day, and in the evening, everyone sat in their room and did something. And then the grandson went to a neighbor’s house, and Pauline went out with her friends. Mother had to sit alone all the time.
Barbara became bored and realized that she was superfluous here. She began to get ready and overheard her grandson asking his mother: “When is your uncle coming? We were going to the soccer game.”
“When Grandma leaves.” – Polina replied.
The distraught woman immediately packed her things and headed for the exit. She didn’t say goodbye either. She was joyfully met by her husband, who had missed his wife all this time. It turned out that despite all the warmth and care they had invested in their children, now the children did not need them at all.
