Christina got up at the crack of dawn this morning: she had to hurry to the store while there was still fresh bread and before her favorite curd snacks were snapped up, which, in her opinion, paired perfectly with tea. She quickly pulled on her jeans, a sweater, and on her feet—her old, comfortable sneakers. Outside, it was still gray; the summer sunrise had only just begun over the high-rises of their neighborhood.
Approaching the front door, she noticed how the hallway was strewn with her nephew’s toys, whom she sometimes babysat: a little toy car with worn-out wheels, a plastic tractor without a bucket—they had been left over from yesterday when a friend had visited with her son. Christina smiled as she gathered them onto a shelf. “It’s nice that there’s sometimes the sound of a child’s laughter in the house, even if it isn’t your own,” she thought. After all, she didn’t have any children of her own yet: there was her career and other reasons. And she didn’t have a husband either—she had recently broken up with a guy who turned out to be “not ready” for a serious relationship.
She quickly tossed her wallet and phone into her purse and stepped out onto the landing. The warm air and sunbeams promised a magnificent summer day. The girl took the elevator down, stepped out into the yard—where already grandmothers were bustling about and two students were smoking on a bench. “Everything seems normal,” Christina thought. She nodded to her neighbor:
“Good morning, Aunt Valya!”
