I asked my son to drive me to a nursing home for a few days “until my back eased up,” but when I called him a week later, I heard on the other end: “Who are you?”
That day, I spent a long time packing the essentials into an old travel suitcase. Reading glasses, a thick dark blue sweater that Misha had given me back when he was a student, a few photographs: him in first grade, him with his diploma, him with his fiancée. I told myself it was only for a couple of days, just until my back stopped aching, until I could rest a bit from the endless cooking and laundry. Misha stood in the kitchen doorway, buried in his phone, barely nodding when I asked if it would be hard for him to drive me.
“Mom, it’s just a nursing home for the elderly,” he said as he zipped up his jacket while heading out. “They take care of you, feed you. You’ll get some rest. And I need to sort out some work stuff; we have a project on fire.”
I looked at his broad shoulders and thought about how recently he still seemed small to me, with a constant scraped knee and green antiseptic on his nose. Back then, he promised he would “never leave me alone.” Now, he nervously messaged someone, smiled occasionally, and didn’t even notice when I wiped tears with the hem of my robe.
The trip felt short—or maybe I just wanted it to be. The nursing home was on the outskirts of the city: a gray three-story building, a neat yard, benches. On one sat a thin old lady feeding the sparrows. The smell of medicine and cheap detergent hit me as soon as we stepped inside. A nurse in a faded uniform offered a strained smile:
“New here? Come in, let’s get you registered.”
Misha moved quickly: filling out papers, signing, pulling out a card from his wallet. I tried to memorize his profile, the line of his jaw, a faint wrinkle by his eye. “Just a couple of days,” I kept repeating silently. “A couple of days and he’ll bring me back home.”
“Mom, I have to run,” he glanced at his watch. “I’ll come by tomorrow, okay? If not tomorrow, then the day after for sure.”
He hugged me vaguely, pressing his lips to my temple, smelling of valerian and chamomile shampoo. A minute later, all I saw from the window were the red taillights of his car. I stood there like a schoolgirl forgotten after class.
For the first two days, I waited honestly. I didn’t unpack my suitcase fully, barely ate, and constantly listened for footsteps in the hallway. Every squeak of the wheelchair wheels sounded like his quick step. The old ladies at the table already called me by name, the nurse brought pills “for blood pressure and sleep,” and I kept telling myself: “They’ll take me home soon, I’m only here briefly.”
On the third day, I asked the nurse for a phone.
“Of course, Maria Petrovna,” she handed me an old handset. “But not for long, okay?”
I dialed Misha’s number, one I knew by heart. The phone rang endlessly.
“Hello?” finally, a tired voice answered.
“Mishenka, it’s me,” I smiled into the silence, though he couldn’t see me. “When will you come? It’s fine here, but I think… I want to come home.”
There was a silence—like when someone struggles to remember something and can’t.
“Who is this?” he asked directly.
I thought I misheard. I asked again. He repeated, irritation clear:
“Who are you? How did you get this number?”
At first, I thought he was joking. Then my ears started ringing.
“Misha… it’s Mom,” I whispered. “I… we… you brought me here yourself…”
A soft laugh followed, but it wasn’t his.
“Listen, ma’am, my mother died three years ago. Don’t call me, okay?” Then the line went dead.
The world seemed to tilt sideways. I sat on the hard, squeaky bed and stared at the phone dimming in my hand. “Mother died three years ago.” I still felt his careless hug around my neck, remembered how a week ago I smoothed his coat and said, “Son, put on at least a scarf.” Maybe I had lost my mind? Maybe I had died and this was all a bad dream?
The nurse, seeing my face, gently took the phone away.
“No luck reaching him again?” she asked, avoiding my eyes.
“He said his mother died,” my voice betrayed me with a tremble. “Said he doesn’t know me.”
She sighed heavily and sank onto the chair beside me.
“Maria Petrovna… Your son came to see the director the day you were admitted. He handed in the documents. I… overheard by chance. He asked to register you as a permanent resident and said, ‘Consider my mother no longer alive.’”
The words hit like stones. I didn’t scream or cry. I just felt something inside finally break, like an old wardrobe propped up for years with a stool.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I recalled how we lived after my husband left us. How I worked two jobs so he could attend swimming lessons. How I sewed his graduation suit, pricking my fingers until they bled. How when he was five, he cried when I left for a shift, whispering, “Mommy, don’t leave me.” And now—”Consider my mother no longer alive.”
In the morning, I got up earlier than the others, ate tasteless porridge, and went to the common room. Newspapers and an old laptop for “shared use” were always on the table.
“May I use the internet?” I asked the nurse.
She raised her eyebrows but nodded and entered the password. I typed the name of Misha’s company, found the website. I found the “About Us” section. There was his photo: a confident man in an expensive suit, beside a young woman and a six-year-old boy. The caption read: “Happy husband and caring son.”
A wave of bitterness rose in my throat, nearly choking me. Then something switched inside—not tears, but stubborn determination. I closed the laptop.
“Maria Petrovna, are you okay?” the nurse asked cautiously.
“Yes,” I answered firmly, surprisingly so. “I need to ask a favor.”
I asked her to help me renounce his guardianship and the pension in his favor. “If I don’t exist, then I don’t exist for his wallet, either,” I said. Admiration and pity flickered in her eyes.
A week later, it was all done. Money stopped being withdrawn by my son, and soon the nursing home received a call. He demanded explanations from the director, shouting that “this wasn’t the agreement.” I sat behind the wall, listening to his voice—so familiar, yet so foreign now. At one point, the director spoke calmly:
“Your mother asked to have no relation to you anymore. And yes, she is alive.”
There was a long silence, then a muffled: “Tell her it was her decision”—and the call ended.
That evening, I sat on a bench in the yard. The same thin old lady who fed sparrows on my first day sat beside me.
“Well, dear, did you get what you waited for?” she asked.
“I did,” I looked at the sky where the first stars were lighting up. “Just not what I wanted.”
Sparrows hurriedly hopped at our feet, squabbling over crumbs. I took a piece of bread from my pocket and carefully crumbled it.
“You know,” I said quietly, “I don’t have a son anymore. But I think I have myself back.”
The old lady nodded and placed her warm hand on mine. And in that strange, medicine-scented yard, among the forgotten elderly, I felt a fearless solitude for the first time in years.
