Twins Vera and Yelena Yerofeyev had no idea of each other’s existence within about thirty years. It was just by chance that they met at a bus station.
The girls’ mother married their father for love, and the couple was incredibly happy when the twins came to the world. At that time, the family lived in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. Once, their mother Maya decided to take the girls and visit her mother who lived in the Russian city of Kostroma. When they got back home in a month it turned out that the father told he would abandon the family for some other woman whom he loved. The abandoned wife did not want to find out details of her husband’s love affair.
When the couple divorced, the girls’ father Vladimir said he wanted one of the twins to stay with him, but the mother strongly objected and wanted both to stay with her. The desperate mother asked her friends to hide the girls not to let the ex-husband meet and take them. Unfortunately, Yelena fell seriously ill, and doctors said that the girl would survive if moved to a region with a milder climate. So, Maya agreed that the father could take the ill girl and move to some other region. However, when the mother packed up Yelena’s things for a trip with the father she could not imagine that next time she would see the daughter in thirty years.
The twins were too small when they were separated, so within so many years since Yelena’s departure both forgot about each other. And each of the parents chose never to recollect that they had given birth to twins, and the girls were happily growing away from each other. When doctors said that Maya was seriously ill, she decided to tell her daughter Vera that there was another daughter Yelena and both girls were as like as two peas in a pod. The woman was crying bitterly when she told the story about the loss of her second daughter.
When Vera learnt that she had a twin sister she made a decision to find her, but two years of her searches brought no results. The mother and the sister did not know if the father kept the girl’s last name or changed it. Maya knew that some of her ex-husband’s relatives could be in Israel and supposed that her second daughter may be living there also. But searches for Yelena in Israel were in vain again.
Vera says that it was a divine intent that she met her sister. Once, Vera traveled with her little son in a bus as they planned to visit her friend in Russia’s Ivanovo Region. The little boy suddenly cried that he noticed a woman looking very much like his mother. The strange woman was standing by the road. Vera glanced at her and immediately rushed out of the bus. She ran up to the woman and asked her name. Vera was stunned to learn that the woman’s name was Yelena, and it meant she was her twin sister. It turned out that Yelena was in the place in passing. She was surprised to learn that she had a sister and a different mother. She always thought that the father’s second wife was her real mother. By the moment the twins met after the many years of separation their father was already dead. What is more, Yelena had no idea that she had a twin sister.
Yelena could not believe the story that Vera told about the mother and their family; she thought it was incredible. She felt it was true only when she met the mother and saw tenderness and anguish in the ill woman’s eyes. Maya died soon after meeting the second daughter whom she never saw since childhood. The sisters organized the mother’s funeral together. Now they are absolutely sure they will never part again.
Oksana Anikina
Pravda.Ru
Translated by Maria Gousseva
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