One day I went to my mother's birthday party and saw her old friend with a man at the party. Actually, nothing was surprising in it, Nadezhda Petrovna, was lonely, and, despite her age, still a very beautiful and successful woman. When I was still a schoolgirl, they often came to visit us together with my husband. My mother told me that Nadezhda had been divorced for a long time.
I was not interested in the fact that there was a man in her life - it was a matter of life. It was amazing how they treated each other. It seemed like a young couple in love during the honeymoon. Their eyes glowed with such tenderness and happiness that even I, a young woman, was jealous of this young couple. He looked after her so carefully and carefully, and she was so sweet and embarrassed to accept them. I was intrigued and asked my mother to tell me about them. The love story that Nadezhda carried through the years is told in this story by my mother...
This story usually began as a thousand stories before it.
We met a guy and a girl got to know each other, fell in love with each other. Nadia was a graduate of a cult school, Vladimir was a cadet of a military school. There was spring, there was love, and it seemed that only happiness was ahead. They walked through the streets and parks of the city, kissed and made plans for the future. I was in the middle of the eighties and the notions of friendship and love were pure, light and ... categorical.
Nadia believed that love and fidelity were inseparable. But life sometimes brings surprises, and not always pleasant. One day, when she was in a hurry to the school, she saw Vladimir at the tram stop. But not one, but with a girl. He smiled, hugged her and said something joyfully. He did not see Nadia, she was walking on the other side of the street.
However, she wasn't walking anymore, but standing there like a dug in, not believing her eyes. Maybe I should have come and explained myself, but she was a proud girl and it seemed humiliating to her to sink to some questions. Then, in the mid-seventies, the maiden pride was not an empty sound. Nadia had no idea who the girl was. It wasn't my sister, Volodya didn't have any sisters, she knew it.
All night long Nadia cried in her pillow and by morning she had decided that she wouldn't ask and find out anything. Why, if she saw everything with her own eyes. Ask her to hear the lying "you didn't get it right.
Youth is principled and uncompromising, but it lacks wisdom. She broke up with Volodya without explaining anything to him, when she met him, she just said that everything between them was over. Without answering his bewildered and confused questions, she just left. She couldn't look at his face as she thought it was a lie. By the way, her high school graduation and placement came up. She was sent to work in the library of a small town in the Urals.
Nadia went to her place of work and tried to get Volodya out of her mind. A new life began, and there was no room for old mistakes and disappointments.
The arrival of the young librarian in the town was not unnoticed, she was a beautiful girl. Almost from the first days of Nadia's work in the library, she was taken care of by a young lieutenant who worked in the police. He cared for naively and touchingly: he gave flowers, stood at the library counter for a long time, kept silent and sighed. It took him quite a long time, and it took him many days before he dared to escort her home. They began to meet, and after a while, Sergei (that was the lieutenant's name) explained his love for Nadia and offered to marry him.
She didn't answer once, she said, "I'll think about it. And how not to think here, if there is no love. Of course, there was nothing repulsive about his appearance or behavior. He was a tall young man with good manners and a pleasant appearance. But in her heart still lived the memory of her lost love. Although Nadia knew that there was no turning back to the past, and if so, she had to think about the future and somehow arrange her life. In those distant years, it was accepted that the girls got married in time, the fate of the old maiden did not attract anybody.
Sergei was a good guy, from a decent family, with a prestigious profession (service in the police was honorable and, in principle, equated to military service). And the girlfriends advised you to miss such a guy, and where you will find the best, in a small town was not a particularly rich choice of grooms. And she made up her mind. Thought it would hold its breath - it would fall in love, however, not always this well-known expression reflects reality.
After a while, they got married, and at first, Nadia liked the new life, which she plunged into with her head. It was nice to feel like a married lady, to hang out with a family nest, to clean up the apartment, to wait for her husband from work. It was like a new exciting game, with unknown rules and pleasant surprises. But when all the novelty went into the category of ordinary, she clearly understood that the postulate "hold out - fall in love", does not work.
The continuation follows in 2 parts.