Dena didn't like the holidays, especially she didn't like New Year's Eve. That's how much it costs! Masquerade costumes to Lisa and Sasha, to give money for New Year's gifts to kindergarten, and even products for the festive table - pure ruin! The budget of their small family was strictly calculated, so the money for the holidays Dena began to save long before their coming. For two years now, Dena has been living in austerity mode.
Two years from the moment of death of parents - and, apparently, the whole life has passed. Parents died in that terrible plane crash when they flew from Moscow to Perm. We flew from some kind of scientific conference. They were both doctors, and besides medical practice, they were also engaged in scientific work. As Dena lived a week after their death, she does not remember. Everything was as if in a fog: identification (though, what was there to identify, everything was carried out on DNA), condolences of colleagues and friends of parents. Some people came, said something, felt sorry, offered something - Dena didn't react to anything, she was like a stone one - she didn't even have tears. She came to her senses and started to think about something when the question arose about the transfer of Lisa and Sasha to the orphanage. They were 3 years old at the time, and the education inspector strictly said that the children were to be placed in an orphanage.
That's when Dena came to her senses and realized that there was no time to kill herself and grieve her - she had to save her brother and sister. Thanks to the head doctor of the clinic where the parents worked, he raised everyone on their feet, used all his connections, and the children stood up. Yes, thank God Dena was eighteen years old at the time - she had a legal right to be a guardian. She wrote and signed a lot of papers and obligations, and was given custody of her brother and sister.
Two years have passed since then, but every week they have strict aunts from some child protection commission who check everything. They check the order of the apartment, how the children are dressed, what toys they play, what they eat, and what they open the fridge and pots on the stove. And each time, with a dissatisfied look and disappointment that no violations could be found, they serve their time. And Dena's life has changed so radically over the last 3 years that it seems to her that she has just become a different person.
There was a happy family - loving and understanding daddy and mum and their beauty, and a smart daughter. It was my mother's idea to call her daughter Dena. As a child, my mother read Oseeva's story "Dinka" and she liked the main character of the story so much - the unpredictable and willful Dinah, that for the daughter of another name she did not imagine. And when the parents have already lost hope for the second child, twins were born: brother Sasha and sister Lisa. Dena was then already fifteen years old. And three years later, this tragedy happened. At that time, Dinka was studying at the university, at the faculty of journalism. She did not quit university, transferred to the evening department, and got a job as a cashier in the nearest supermarket.
And after evening classes at the university, when my brother and sister fell asleep, washed the floors in the hallway, paid, however, a little, but this help in their poor budget. The children went to kindergarten. And life seemed to have entered a calm direction, unhappy, but orderly. But if there was enough money for life in the strictest economy, it was worse with time. The merry-go-round began in the early morning: to wake the children, to collect them, to take them to kindergarten, to rush to work, to pick up the children from kindergarten after work, to feed them and run again, now to university for classes.
In the evening I had to hire a nanny, her salary was eating the lion's share of their budget. Upon returning from the classes, Dina let the nanny go, put the children to bed and went to wash the floors in her entrance. And then it was necessary to study lectures, to wash clothes for children, to iron something, to prepare a meal for tomorrow. When she, at the third o'clock in the morning, got to bed, just fell asleep on the move. But Dina did not want to leave the university, parents were so happy when she entered, and it was not easy, the competition - as in a theatrical university. She dreamed of becoming a journalist since high school.
No personal life, of course, Dena did not have. She didn't go to student parties, didn't go to any nightclubs, she didn't have time or money for that. At first, the guys looked after Dena, she was a beautiful girl, long blond hair and eyes, unusually deep green color worried more than one man's heart. But Dena's constant silent and fierce opposition to all of her courtship gradually discouraged all of her gentlemen. The university nicknamed her "bluestocking", but the girl was glad that no one else was bothering her. All the males in the student community seemed empty, frivolous and very young and stupid to her. During the 2 years that passed after the tragedy, she went a very hard way (both morally and physically), and in her soul, of course, became older than her peers. There were no girlfriends among her classmates either - friendship requires time, which Dena already catastrophically lacked.
The continuation follows in 2 parts