At the same time yesterday we were on the beach, and Dad was preparing to fish on his drifter, and Mom was sitting on a big rock and sewing up her old skirt, without pity tightening and turning it out.
- I'll run to Tamara on my way home. She called and asked me to come in. It's important," she said. When are you going to come home?
- And you sailed with us, gull.
- Vitya, I beg you. This marine life was enough for me to live three lives ahead of us.
An hour later, Mom kept sewing up her skirt on the drifter deck, and Daddy was pulling gear, and I was fiddling with my Polaroid, and we seemed like a real family: one that was happy the same way.
- Remember, Len, Valerka Prudnikova? Although so many years have passed...
- Valera? Prudnikov? - Mom asked her again, accidentally injected a needle. - Is this our mutual acquaintance, or what? I look through my head, and something is not...
- There's only one person in the dorm. In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. One guy was downstairs. A shy one, the girls were laughing.
- There were different types of people on the floors who couldn't be found there. Everyone couldn't be remembered.
- Well, I met him last month in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Honestly, I recognized his big neck by his birthmark. And so there is no way.
Mom involuntarily twisted her skirt until she heard the sound of the first bursting threads. It made her feel like she was spreading mint matter.
- Well, you're giving it to me, and I remembered the mole as well.
- We were friends for a long time. Like I said goodbye to you, I went downstairs to him to drink beer. And he was just talking to me," Dad used to sneer his head off under his nose. - Honestly, I have never met anybody like him before: he was in love, but he didn't take decisive steps. She says she twists her curls on her finger and twists them back, and, most importantly, she doesn't notice herself, but I like it: I look, I drink, I would look back for a century. Well, I encouraged him, and I said, "I'm going to write a script, as if everything was an accident. He'll look at me like he's scared eyes, waving his hands at me. And she hides everything from me. Once at a party, the whole hostel gathered, I asked him to show me which one. I didn't crack.
- Vitya, it's very personal, and you climbed up to him with your advice.
- So I did not understand one thing: to tell me about my feelings - told, and did not take action and did not want my help. Well, who needs such love. Do you just admire the locks or something?
- Or maybe they knew each other. Maybe he didn't tell us everything.
- So he had some ridiculous love according to the stories.
- That didn't mean they didn't know each other. Maybe something didn't add up.
- I was the one who found out what didn't add up! And I tell him: since you've already gone far, (and they came, as I soon realized, oh, how far!), and since you love her, that you do not call her to marry? And he: I'm afraid to get married. Here I am afraid, and all now. I want her to always be there for me: the floor above.
- And that we are all about his student years? - Mom threw her hands up and dropped them on her knees. - You kind of saw him the other day.
- Yes. We had a heart-to-heart conversation. He was alone and left alone. He is busy with business, owns several barges, and disposes of goods. He did not move out of town. In short, I invited him to visit us. And he started waving again: I thought, if it wasn't for his mole, I would have recognized him by the movement of his hands. Well, I didn't understand. I ask: you're afraid of islands or something. And he started joking around here.
- So, he wouldn't come to visit - Mom's voice sounded like it was on one note, flat, without intonation, and she took up the needle again.
- Here I am not an example: I decided, kissed, hugged, loved.
- Oh, peacock...
- What's the point? Why am I not a hero? Remember how long I've been trying to get you and me to meet me for the first time. And I did it, didn't I?
- I'm just tired of seeing you out.
- So, it works! I just confirmed it myself.
I looked at my parents and caught myself thinking that they rarely remembered their youth. And then they remembered and immediately came to life.
- Vitya, I wasn't sure whether to stay with you or not until the end.
- Ohohohohoh...
- And I'm serious, and Mom's tone has really lost the last notes of coquetry.
- Just then... Well, you know, we were careless..." and Mom looked back at me. - Well, I decided that it was with you that I needed to build this suddenly nascent family. I thought it was the right thing to do. And you were ready at least tomorrow.
- It was me," Dad winked at me proudly. - It's not easy.
- Oh, but don't! - Mom playfully threatened him with a finger, but then darkened again. - Yes, it was not an easy time for me...
- And let's go to Valerka's for a visit! - suddenly my father decided to go and turn his body around to my mother.
- Jesus, Vitus, what are you talking about? I don't remember him at all, you haven't seen him for so many years. It's kind of uncomfortable to show up like this," Mom rolled her eyes and put her hands together. - Well, you can say that sometimes!
- It's terrible how indecisive everyone around me is," Dad waved his hand at Mom and managed to catch her looking at her with a steel gaze and not to take his back. - Daughter, and then let me and you.
To be continued on the next part