In the late 1990s, I was dating a guy named Sasha. I am 22, he is 29 years old. I was a single mother and he was a single father. We had boys of the same age. I lived with my mother and son, and he lived in a neighboring house with my son, mother, sister and nephew.
I met his family. Sasha's sister Tatiana became my best friend. And my relationship with his mother was, perhaps, better than with my own.
One winter morning his sister came running to me. She asked if Sasha was with me. Do I know where he is? I said that I hadn’t seen him since yesterday evening when I was visiting them.
On the eve we arranged a small meeting. Sasha's mom baked pies, Tanya and I made salads. I didn't stay with them for the night: my son was capricious - I went home. Perhaps, had I acted differently, everything would have been different.
Sasha is missing. Relatives wrote a statement to the police. Sasha could hardly be visiting someone. He was a domestic guy, not very sociable, and the family moved to this area recently, did not have time to make acquaintances.
As his family explained, after I left, they continued their gatherings. Sasha (then alcohol was sold around the clock) decided to buy another bottle, went for it and did not return. For some reason I immediately felt that everything was bad and that he was probably not alive.
On reflection, I remembered how I came to them a week before Sasha's disappearance. They have an ordinary Khrushchev building, one room, a living room, a walk-through, through it they went to the bedroom. And here we are sitting in this room as a female trio (Sasha came home from work tired and went to bed), watching TV, talking.
Suddenly I see Sasha coming out of the bedroom and going into the corridor (there is also a kitchen and a bathroom) without looking at anyone, as if he does not see us at all. But at the exit from the living room he stopped, turned around and looked at me very intently.
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He didn't come back for a very long time. I was surprised:
- What's Sasha in the toilet, fell asleep, or what?
His mother and sister stared at me.
- What are you, he sleeps a long time ago!
- Didn't you see? About ten minutes ago he walked into the corridor.
My sister went to look for him there, and my mother and I looked into the room. Sasha was snoring quietly on the sofa. They laughed at me, but I really saw him! I will never forget this intent, parting look …
Later it turned out that Sasha was killed not far from his house, in a garage array, through which he decided to take a shortcut to the store. He received several dozen stab wounds, but died of blood loss and hypothermia. The criminals - local drug addicts - just threw snow at him in the garages.
In March, during the thaw, my five-year-old son found Sasha. He and his friends, despite my strictest prohibitions, jumped around the garages. Under the snow near one of the garages, my son saw something brown that looked like a stuffed toy. I tried to pull it out, and it turned out to be Sasha's hair.
So what did I see a week before his death? Farewell of his soul to me?
Elena Valentinovna ILYINOVA, Yekaterinburg