Victoria remembered every detail of that damp, biting evening in late October: the cramped hallway of her rented flat on the edge of Lozova, the cold phone against her ear, her four-year-old brother Ilko sobbing on the line. His little head couldn’t understand why his beloved Vika no longer slept next door, no longer read him the story of the clever fox who tangled his tracks. She promised to come Saturday with coloring books, hung up, and slid down the wall, empty. The phone lit up again.
Her mother. “Vikusya, dear, how are you? ” The contact photo was years old, from a time when Galina could laugh without a care. She asked about the vet clinic, about the cold rental, then dropped her hook.
“Could you take some leave? Three days, even unpaid. My tests came back terrible. The doctor ordered strict bed rest.
Sit with the little ones while I recover. Your father’s stuck at the Polish border, and the debts won’t pay themselves. I’ll send you taxi fare. ”
Victoria stared at a crack in the ceiling.
Twenty-three years old. Veterinary assistant, working twenty-four-hour shifts, studying Spanish in every free hour. In six months, an internship at a rehab center for working dogs near Barcelona would open doors no Ukrainian clinic could. She hadn’t told her family.
If she caved now, she’d never escape. “Mom, I can’t. All my shifts are set. No one can cover me.
”
A heavy silence. Then a sigh like a boiling kettle. “I see. When you were in tenth grade with appendicitis, I spent a week at your hospital bed.
Slept on a hard stool. But that’s different, I suppose. Goodbye. ”
The dial tone hit like a slap.
She walked out into the cold night, ended up at the train station, and sat on a concrete bench, watching freight trains pass, trying to sort her life into order. All she found was chaos sewn from other people’s needs. When she was seven, Taras was born. At eight, she was changing diapers, warming formula, washing cloth diapers by hand when the machine broke—standing on a stool, pinching her fingers on clothespins, crying because no adult saw how hard she tried.
Nazar came next, barely a year later. Her mother joked: “Tarasik can’t even walk, and a brother is already ready. ” At nine, Victoria cooked semolina and kept the toddler from eating cat food. At twelve, she tried to rebel.
“Dad, I don’t want children. I’m tired of being a nanny. ” He laughed, patted her head. “You’ll grow up, have three of your own.
It’s in our blood. ” She memorized every word. It was then she understood her own wishes meant nothing in that house. By thirteen, she was holding Solomiya, the fourth child, while her mother lay on the sofa with a wet towel on her head—thyroid, blood pressure, anemia.
Father was beyond the border, repaying a loan for the house, coming home every few months. When Galina announced the fifth pregnancy, Victoria was fifteen. “Mom, you can’t give birth again. Your heart won’t hold.
” Galina smiled. “It’s a new life. How can you refuse such a gift? ” Victoria pressed: “Have you ever asked what I want?
” The smile vanished. “Don’t teach me how to live. Go do your homework. ”
Her teenage years were an endless shift at a daycare.
Classmates had first loves and careless mistakes; Victoria measured her life in paracetamol, mountains of laundry, cheap washing powder. She finished school with a silver medal—gold would have required perfect attendance, impossible when the younger ones caught bronchitis and her mother was too tired to nurse them. She entered the veterinary academy on a budget. No one asked what she wanted.
She didn’t ask herself. On her second year, a family friend offered her a job at a private vet clinic. The pay was tiny, but it was hers. She bought her own jeans.
She paid for Spanish courses herself. Her teacher Carmen, a lively Spanish woman, told her once: “You have talent. You need to get out of here. ” It cracked the ice around her heart.
At nineteen, Ilko was born—the sixth child. By then Victoria was losing her mind. Coming home was a minefield: boys smashing furniture, Solomiya whining, Matviy starting fights, the baby screaming at a pitch that split her skull. She stayed late at the clinic, reading veterinary texts with a dictionary, just to avoid that door.
Her mother called. “Where are you? Ilko has a fever. Are you coming?
Buy bread. ” One day Victoria stopped answering. It was her first deliberate rebellion. The reckoning came a month ago at a family dinner.
Galina announced she was expecting again—the seventh child. Her father chewed his cutlet in silence. Victoria set down her fork. “Mom, you’re forty-three.
Your blood pressure is always over two hundred. You’ll be bedridden by the second trimester. ” “Vika! ” her father slammed his fist.
“I’m not only talking to her. Did you ask if I’m ready to be a nanny again? Did you ask Taras, who’s ashamed to bring friends home? I’m twenty-three.
I’ve never given birth, but I have five children. I can’t take another one. ” Her mother burst into tears; her father pounded the table until the plates jumped. Three days later, Victoria found a flat, packed two suitcases—documents, laptop, the old cat Borya—and left.
Her mother called, weeping, calling her a traitor. Her father called once: “Had your fill of independence? Come back. ” She blocked him.
Now, a month later, her mother had changed tactics. No screaming, just that soft wounded voice. Guilt would break her daughter faster than anger. But something in Victoria had hardened into iron.
Two days after the call, she still went home—not because she’d caved, but because she’d promised the little ones. She bought mandarins, chocolate, and the marker set Ilko dreamed of. Taras opened the door. “Oh, our runaway’s here.
Mom, Vika’s come. ”
Galina floated out of the kitchen, gray-faced, belly showing at four months, arms spread for a hug. Victoria hugged her one-armed, handed over the groceries, and slipped into the children’s room. For half an hour, the kids covered a giant sheet of paper with space monsters.
It was the brightest moment of her week. Then Galina called Solomiya to help, Ilko ran off to cartoons, and Victoria was left with scattered toys, torn wallpaper, a chair leg taped together. The familiar stench of a trap rose in her throat. She walked into the kitchen.
“Good you came,” Galina said, stirring soup. “On Friday I need to see a cardiologist. Sit with the little ones from noon to evening. You have the day off.
”
“Mom, I can’t. I have a critical interview on Friday. ”
The spoon froze. “What interview?
”
“The internship in Spain. I applied. If it goes well, I’m leaving in the spring. ”
“Spain?
” Galina turned. “So you’re fleeing the country. Abandoning the children. Abandoning me in my condition.
”
“I have the right to build my own life. ”
“Ungrateful egotist. We gave you everything. Who will cook for them when I’m in the hospital?
”
“Did you think about that when you planned the seventh child? ” Victoria stepped forward. “Did you ask me if I want to be a free nanny again? Did you ask Taras?
Nazar? Solomiya? ”
“Don’t you dare judge me! You’re cold, calculated.
You’re afraid to love. ”
Victoria laughed, sharp and bitter. “Mom, I spent my childhood living like you—without a husband and without a voice. I wiped your tears.
I raised your children. I taught them multiplication tables while you hid behind your fatigue. And now I’m the egotist? ”
Solomiya started crying.
Taras filled the doorway; Ilko clutched a toy car. Galina went pale, gripped the table, and sank onto a stool. “Get out,” she said hoarsely. “Get out and don’t come back.
You’re no longer my daughter. ”
Victoria looked at Solomiya’s tears, at Taras’s raw hurt. She crouched before Ilko. “Ilyusha, I love you so much.
I love Solomiya, Nazar, Matviy, Taras. I’ll always love you. But I’m not your mother, and I never was. Remember that.
” Then she walked out, closing the door on her mother’s screaming. On Friday, Victoria sat before her laptop in a pressed white blouse, hair pulled tight. Beneath the desk, her fingers twisted the hem of faded jeans. On screen, Mateo, the Spanish coordinator, asked about complex surgeries, shelter volunteering, difficult dogs.
Then: “You mentioned five younger siblings. That must be an incredible experience. Children and animals require so much patience. ”
A brief, ringing silence.
“It taught me iron patience, clear organization, quick decisions under stress. But the most important lesson: every living being has boundaries. They must be respected, not broken for someone else’s needs. That is the principle I build my work on.
”
Forty minutes later, her phone buzzed. She’d been accepted. She didn’t call anyone. She borrowed money from Liza, arranged for Borya to stay with her, and bought a ticket for mid-March with a layover in Istanbul.
She packed her worn suitcase: documents, the Spanish textbook, two pairs of socks her grandmother had knitted, one photo of herself with Ilko and Solomiya building a sand castle. That evening, Taras called. His voice cracked. “Sorry I was silent at the kitchen.
I was scared. Mom treats you unfairly, I know. I’d run away myself, but I need to finish school. ” Her nose stung.
“You go to your Spain. I’ll watch the kids as much as I can. ” She thanked him, begged him not to quit school, promised photos every week. Two days before the flight, her father called.
He didn’t yell. He asked to meet at a cheap café by the bus station. He was already there, in the far corner, thinner than she remembered, gray stubble, dark circles, work-cracked hands wrapped around a cardboard cup. “Leaving for long?
” “A year contract. If they like my work, it can be extended. ” He nodded. “Your mother is wailing.
But don’t judge her too hard. She loves you. She just doesn’t know another way. She was raised to believe a woman is only a mother, a keeper, a servant.
”
“Dad, and you? ” Victoria’s voice cracked. “You work like a mule, sleep in a cold cabin for months. Have you ever asked if you wanted this life?
”
He drank his coffee, grimaced. “I’m a simple man. I’m used to hauling. When I married your mother, I thought two, maybe three kids.
But she’s stubborn. Each pregnancy is a sacred mission. I stopped arguing after Solomiya. We just drag the cart by inertia.
Don’t hold a grudge, alright? ”
“I don’t have a grudge, Dad. I just don’t want to drag the cart anymore. ”
He was quiet.
Then he reached into his worn jacket and put a thick, crumpled envelope on the table. “A hundred thousand hryvnias. My personal savings, bit by bit. Not a word to your mother—let her think it went to repairs.
You’ll need it over there, to stand on your feet. ”
She tried to push it back. He covered her hand. “Take it.
Don’t argue. ” His voice trembled. “Maybe at least you’ll break out of this carousel. Live your life as you see fit.
”
She took it. It wasn’t money. It was the freedom he’d never had the courage to take for himself. They sat another twenty minutes.
Then he stood, hugged her awkwardly, patted her thin shoulder, and walked into the gray crowd. She watched his hunched figure dissolve. On the plane, the engines pushed her back into her seat. Through the round window, her city dissolved into rain clouds below.
Somewhere down there remained the screaming, the smell of formula, the scattered toys, the weight of other people’s expectations. Ahead waited Barcelona. She pressed the backpack with her passport and her father’s envelope to her chest, closed her eyes, and for the first time in twenty-three years, breathed fully, deeply. She wasn’t fleeing a battlefield.
She was finally going home—to herself.
