Viviena Mikhailovna stopped by an old linden tree that grew in front of her house. Before dialing the intercom code and entering the house, she had to stand a little and collect her thoughts.

For the third day, Viviena Mikhailovna went to work herself, not herself, as if lowered into water. She worked in a antenatal clinic as an obstetrician-gynecologist, and she scared the patients with her appearance.

«Doctor, what’s wrong with me?» the patient asked, looking into her fearful eyes.

— Everything is fine, — Viviena Mikhailovna answered, — you are pregnant. Congratulations,» she said with a blank look.

«I know,» the patient replied. «It’s been eight months now.

«Ah, it’s clear,» Viviena Mikhailovna answered. «So the birth is coming soon.

***

Colleagues were perplexed what had happened to her, but they were afraid to ask, after all, they did not welcome interference in someone else’s private life at any level. But still, sometimes they asked uncomfortable questions: «Maybe it’s time to retire? Tired already, Viviena Mikhailovna?

Viviena Mikhailovna wanted to answer them something in her defense, but her head was occupied with other thoughts. Therefore, she only shrugged her shoulders in response and said that she would definitely think about it sometime at her leisure. She did not name the true reason for her strange condition, because she did not want to pass for an obstetrician-gynecologist with a gadget. After all, what could be worse than a crazy doctor of this delicate specialty? Nothing can be.

In addition, Viviena Mikhailovna knew that a reputation takes a long time to earn, and it can disappear in one moment, and now it seemed to her that this moment had come. But how much Viviena Mikhailovna did for her impeccable reputation: she was polite and tactful, sensitive and kind, she constantly studied and developed in her profession. She always had the highest fertility rates, and patients thanked her with kind reviews on the network. And here it is… and this is after thirty years of super-exemplary service in this quivering field. Now she was even afraid to return home, because at home she was waiting for a meeting with the very one, because of which it was all, or rather, with the very one.

***

It happened three days ago, on a Monday evening. Viviena Mikhailovna just returned home after work, changed into home clothes, a comfortable cotton dressing gown with green polka dots. She lived in an apartment alone, she had no children of her own, and her husband had died a year earlier from a massive heart attack. When she returned home, to her two-room, very clean, always tidy apartment, the first thing she did was turn on the TV. She didn’t watch it, but it provided the backdrop. Against the background of a working TV, where voices sounded and people flickered, it was easier for her to think about work. She thought about the treatment plan for another patient, weighed all the pros and cons. Then she cooked dinner, took a shower, read a book and went to bed. So passed her leisurely, ordinary evening. If they called her, and mostly her friends or patients called her, she always answered. Viviena Mikhailovna, after the death of her husband, tried to completely occupy herself with work, because it distracted her from gloomy thoughts, and she did it well. But this time everything turned out differently, although nothing foretold that this evening would completely change her life, dividing it into before and after.

Viviena Mikhailovna was just about to blanch the eggplant when she heard a subtle noise under the sink. All she had to do was open the door under the sink to see what was inside. But it seemed to her so unimportant that she continued to go about her business.

There were two eggplants, they had to be scalded with boiling water and kept in salt water to rid them of the usual eggplant bitterness. Suddenly, the phone rang. Viviena Mikhailovna went into the corridor to pick up the phone, and again she heard the noise under the sink and a barely perceptible lowing. Again, she chalked it up to the random sounds that running water down a sink can make. It even crossed her mind that she needed to clean the sink by pouring a cleaning solution into it overnight.

An old friend called. Viviena Mikhailovna was glad to hear her, but she could not talk to her for a long time, because she had to cook dinner — eggplants with cheese. After chatting for fifteen minutes with her friend and telling her about her business, she returned back to the kitchen. She pulled the eggplants out of the salt water, cut them up and put them in a frying pan, in which the oil was already boiling. And again, strange sounds were heard from under the sink. «Yes, what is it! — she thought, and her hand reached out in her hand for a small door. Did Viviena Mikhailovna know at that moment that this simple action would change her life forever. No, she did not know this, so when she opened the door, she looked under the sink for a long time, and then she staggered and fell to the floor, losing contact with the outside world for a second.***

When Viviena Mikhailovna opened her eyes, this something from under the sink was already sitting on her chest and was looking at her with its one bright eye with whitish eyelashes. The second eye was simply not provided for by her nature.

A soft sticky substance that looked like jelly and slime at the same time now lived in her house and sat on her chest. The substance did not speak, only mumbled, but gradually getting used to it, Viviena Mikhailovna began to call her Dasha and talk to her. Someone gets a cat in her old age, someone a dog, and she, against her will, got herself in her old age her unshed tears named Dasha, her grief that was not told to anyone, which accumulated, accumulated year after year took on flesh.

Viviena Mikhailovna never complained about her fate to anyone, neither to her husband, nor to her friends, and she did not complain to herself either, always continuing to live on. Even when her husband died. And then something happened, she knocked from under the sink, she opened it and here it is — her grief, it looks like this. And what to do with it now? She decided to love him, not to throw him away, he is her own, dear, earned by so many years of silence. So weird, slimy and simple. Cool to the touch and warm when pressed against you, held against your chest, and then released. In general, she had long been accustomed to it, only before it was inside, and now it has also become outside. It was almost impossible not to recognize him. This is Dasha, rain Dasha.

***

Now, when Viviena Mikhailovna returned home, she knew that Dasha, like the rain of her unshed tears, was waiting for her at home. She took her in her arms, talked to her, heard her lowing.And once she said to her: «That’s it, I’m leaving work, it seems that I got everyone there.» The world became hostile to Viviena Mikhailovna, it began to seem to her that younger colleagues were hostile towards her. Therefore, in one second she wrote a statement and left. So they began to live with Dasha together, and they did not need anyone. Nobody, except money, which they really lacked, because now there was no work, and there were few savings.

***

From her husband, Viviena Mikhailovna left a potter’s wheel, he loved to make decorative vases at his leisure, now Viviena Mikhailovna decided to make pots from clay. While she was spinning the potter’s wheel, Dasha was spinning on it like on a carousel, and she had fun. «Just like a child,» thought Viviena Mikhailovna, looking at her. She always wanted children, but it didn’t happen. Ironically, she adopted children from other women, helped children be born and women give birth, but she herself did not have children. It seemed to her before that it was not so important that at work she would get what fate did not give her, but in fact she was in pain. Looking at Dasha, she understood that she also hid this pain from herself.

«Maybe we should sell these pots?» Where to put them? Viviena Mikhailovna asked Dasha.

Starting a business in old age was not easy, so Viviena Mikhailovna began to advertise the sale of pots on all sites, but days and weeks passed, and no one bought their pots, no one needed clay pots in such quantities.

***

Time passed, money did not increase. Therefore, having once again bought oranges for a promotion, Viviena Mikhailovna decided to leave the seeds in order to plant them.

— What do you think, will we be able to grow our own oranges? she asked Dasha.

Dasha mumbled in response.

And the very next day, Viviena Mikhailovna filled the pots with earth, and then, together with Dasha, they planted orange seeds in them. Dasha helped, trampling on the pots, to tamp the earth. She was light, so it turned out exactly what was needed.

«Here,» said Viviena Mikhailovna, «they will grow up soon and we will sell oranges, we will get rich,» she smiled sadly.

But the second business, connected with the sale of oranges, did not work for her, because the harvest is long, very long. The money was almost gone, so she was no longer expecting anything good. But just at that moment she received a call from work and was invited to return. The birth rate dropped, the patients demanded that their kind doctor return. So Viviena Mikhailovna returned to work.

***

Time passed, the patients became pregnant and brought new people into the world, it was a great joy for Viviena Mikhailovna. But now, returning from work, she began to notice that Dasha was getting smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller, as if decreasing with time. The more Viviena Mikhailovna returned to life, the less her suffering became, and gradually Dasha became less and less. And when the first sprouts of oranges appeared in pots, Dasha completely disappeared, as if Dasha had dissolved. Viviena Mikhailovna fell in love with her very much, but now orange trees were waiting for her at home, which every day more and more turned into a cheerful and sonorous orange forest, as a sign of eternal life.

Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу Dasha of Rainавтор Alla Krasnova

Alla Krasnova

Dasha of Rain

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Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу Dasha of Rain
автор Alla Krasnova