She loved him, and he loved her — a story as old as the world itself.
Ethan was the handsomest man in their small village, and he took a wife that matched him perfectly. It was such a happy couple; Maria took care about their two children, and Ethan worked hard from dawn till dusk so that his family lacked nothing.
One day a village chief offered him a job — a very good one, and well-paid too, but far away from his home. What’s more, it had to take no less than two years. Maria weighed all advantages and disadvantages and decided to let her husband go and do the job, because the money was good — much better than they had so far. You know how it is in small villages: everyone around is a relative or a close friend. You just can’t charge family and friends much, so earnings can’t be high.
It was very hard for Maria and kids, especially when the seasonal farm work was in full swing.
She had to do all by herself: taking care of harvest and putting hay in storage, working in the garden and tending cattle.
But the thought that her husband will come back soon and they will keep living as happily as they did warmed her heart ad supported her in the hardest times.
One day she got a letter from Ethan.
He wrote that he found another woman, that he lives with her now and that he is not sure if he will ever come back. This was enough for her, so she didn’t finish reading the letter — she tore it into pieces and cried bitterly.
“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” — She thought.
On one of the autumn evenings she got her revenge, and in three days she received another letter from Ethan. She didn’t care much what it said, but children begged her to read:
— Do read what father says.
What he said was that work was going well and that he was very surprised she didn’t write back for a while.
“Are you angry with me, Maria?” — He asked. — “I did say I was just joking in the end of that letter. How could I ever choose another woman over you? I would rather die than do that!”
Maria cried and cried in despair and prayed to God that her sinful affair with another man didn’t bring any results.
But no miracle happened: in due time she felt there was a new life stirring inside her. No thoughts of killing the baby ever crossed her mind for she thought that it was better to be a sinner than a murderer.
She waited for her husband’s return as one would wait for an imminent retribution.
He came back in March — his hair overgrown, his eyes so tired, but still happy to see his family.
And Maria met him with her eyes swollen from all the crying during the last months and a distinctly rounded belly.
Ethan understood everything.
Silently he came closer and put his hand on her belly. He felt the baby stirring uneasily under his fingers, as if it felt the danger. He suddenly realized that this baby whose heart is beating inside his wife is theirs; hers and his, not someone else’s. There was no arguing, no explanations, no yelling. They didn’t even talk about the baby.
Everything was as it was before, only Maria didn’t dare to look him in the eye.
Ethan did all he could to protect her from the hard work, tending to cattle all by himself. Perhaps he felt it was his fault too, that bad joke, because he knew that Maria didn’t read the letter to the end.
A girl was born in early summer.
The entire village was like a stirred up beehive; everyone understood that the child was not Ethan’s. They’ve even started thinking of choosing other parents who could raise her. But the family didn’t pay any attention to them, and those most troublesome received such answers from Ethan that discouraged them from troublemaking once and for all. One of the neighbors, for example, started sporting a big gap in his teeth after he asked “How can you live with that slut?”
The girl was growing fast and was a true favorite of her parents’.
