The son drove his father to the forest “to get some fresh air,” but returned home alone an hour later and told his mother this would make things easier for everyone. He even took the old jacket off his weary father’s shoulders, as if it would no longer be needed. The mother stood by the window, wiping her hands on her apron, unable to understand why the back seat of the car was empty.
“Where is he?” she finally asked, her voice muffled, as if the words were stuck in her throat.
“Mom, how many times…” Sasha rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Dad’s better off there. He doesn’t understand much anymore. We can’t handle this on our own. I took him to a state care home. There are doctors, caretakers… everything’s proper.”
She looked closely at his face. Sasha avoided her gaze, blinking more often than usual, nervously fidgeting with the keys in his hands.
“A care home?” she repeated. “Tell me the address.”
“We’ll get the paperwork done tomorrow,” he said hastily, “It’s late now, you’re tired.” He came over quickly and kissed her on the cheek. “Trust me, this is better for everyone. For him, too.”
She didn’t sleep that night. She stared at the empty bed in the corner where just that morning the old man had been fiddling with the radio, trying to catch the melody from their youth. His shirt hung neatly folded over a chairback, as always. He never liked disorder.
She remembered how recently, despite fumbling with his words, he whispered, “Just don’t scold our son… it’s hard for him.” His eyes held a strange, childlike trust then.
At dawn, she got up, put on her husband’s sweater to fill some of the cold emptiness, and quietly entered her son’s room.
“I want the address,” she said. “Or I’ll go to the police myself.”
Sasha sat up sharply on the bed.
“Mom, what are you…” He faltered. “It’s far, outside the city. I’ll show you later. The papers aren’t ready yet…”
She just looked at him. Sasha couldn’t hold her gaze and turned away. Fear flashed in his eyes—the same childish fear he had when he used to steal money for sweets.
An hour later, she was on a minibus heading toward the village Sasha hesitantly named. On her lap rested her father’s old hat.
There was no care home.
Only a bus stop, a dimly-glassed convenience store, and a dirt road stretching into the forest. The shopkeeper, a stout woman in an apron, shrugged in surprise:
“Care home? There’s never been one here. Just the forest and an old quarry.”
Her legs nearly gave out. She stepped onto the road and looked toward the woods. Dry leaves skittered down the shoulder in the wind, and the sky was cloaked in gray. She walked as if she had no ground beneath her feet, clutching the hat tighter.
Minutes later, the forest began. Dry branches creaked overhead. Then she thought she heard a familiar cough. Her heart sank. She picked up her pace, then almost ran.
He sat on a fallen log, clutching a plastic bag of medicine to his chest. No jacket. Just his shirt. His cheeks were blue from the cold, his eyes red and confused. When he heard footsteps, he lifted his head.
“Dear…” he whispered, though she was his wife, “I think I got lost. Sasha said he’d be back soon. I’m waiting.”
She fell to her knees beside him, wrapped her arms around him, holding him like a child. He trembled with a slight shiver.
“Let’s go home, okay?” she whispered, swallowing tears. “Let’s go.”
He rose obediently, leaning on her shoulder just as she once leaned on his arm on their wedding day. Every step was heavy, but he kept repeating:
“Please don’t scold our son… it’s hard for him…”
They returned home that evening. The apartment smelled of soup—Sasha had cooked and, apparently, was waiting. When the door opened, he came out into the hallway with a forced smile. Seeing his father, he paled.
“Mom… I…” His words caught.
She passed Sasha by, settled her husband into his chair, draped a blanket over him. Only then did she turn to her son. Her eyes bore no anger or hysteria—only weariness.
“You left him in the forest,” she said evenly. “Not a care home. In the forest.”
He looked away.
“I would have returned…” he muttered. “I just… couldn’t at once. I got scared. I thought…”
“You thought about yourself,” she interrupted quietly. “About how hard it is for you. But he sat there on that log, waiting. With his bag of medicine. He believed his son wouldn’t abandon him.”
Sasha suddenly sank to the floor, covering his face with his hands.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him…” he sobbed. “I just can’t anymore. One night I woke up and saw him standing in the doorway, not recognizing me. I was scared. I felt like I lost my father then…”
As she looked at the grown man before her, she saw the same boy who once shattered a window and tremblingly picked up the glass just so his father wouldn’t be upset.
“We’re both losing him,” she said. “But as long as he’s alive and still remembers your name, we have no right to leave him in the forest like an unwanted thing.”
A hoarse voice came from the next room:
“Sasha… son… come here…”
He rose and walked over to his father as if to a sentencing. Standing beside him, unsure where to put his hands, the old man looked at him with clouded eyes and suddenly smiled—that same gentle smile that used to greet him when he came home from school.
“I knew you’d come back,” he whispered. “A man keeps his word.”
Sasha pressed his lips tight, knelt, and buried his forehead in his trembling father’s hands.
That evening, after his father had fallen asleep, the mother took down an old box from the cupboard. Inside were photographs: a young, strong man carrying a child on his shoulders; the same man holding her hand at the registry office; the three of them by the sea, where Sasha was still learning to swim.
She silently laid the pictures on the table before her son.
“This is the man you left in the forest today,” she said. “If it’s so hard for you, we’ll find a care home. A real one. I’ll sell the summer house, take out loans, work. But we will take him there together, hand in hand. We’ll explain everything. We’ll cry together. But we won’t lie or abandon him.”
Sasha looked at the photos as big, ugly tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Mom,” he whispered, “will you ever forgive me?”
She sighed and sat down beside him, exhausted.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Maybe someday. But first, you need to ask his forgiveness. Every day. As long as he still remembers who you are.”
From behind the wall, his father stirred and coughed. Sasha got up, went into the room, tucked the blanket more snugly, moved a glass of water closer to the bed. Then he sat down next to him in the chair.
He would sit there like that every night until his strength gave out. Maybe, this was his punishment — to remember that day in the forest and every evening look into the eyes of the man who still smiled at him like a child and believed his son would never abandon him.
