Their daughter Lena vanished in 1990, on the day of her graduation.
It was a warm June night. Mom had prepared her favorite vanilla pie.
Lena was spinning in front of the mirror in a blue dress, laughing, and her father, Nikolai, looking at her, suddenly thought: “This is it – real happiness…”
But no one could have undertood that this would be their last evening together.
After graduation, Lena never returned home.
The years passed. Olga, her mother, almost never left the house. Nikolai grew old early. Hope, like a flame in an old lamp, gradually faded.
And here it is – 2012.
Nikolai went up to the attic to tidy up in one rainy October day. The air was filled with dust, boxes of books, old toys, and junk were all around. And abruptly he found a photo album. The very one with Lena’s childhood photos: school parties, summer trips, first grade…
The photo displays an adult Lena, about thirty years old, standing by a wooden house against the backdrop of mountains. On the back is the inscription: “2002. I am alive. Forgive me . ”
From that moment on, a new phase of his life began – the search for answers.
Nikolai silently handed the photo to his wife, then Olga took it with trembling hands, looked at it closely – and froze.
– It’s her… It’s Lena…
“She was alive…” he muttered. “After twelve years… and she didn’t call to her family. Why?..”
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