“Where did you get this photograph?” Seeing the picture, the chief physician seemed to turn to stone.
Over his many years of work, Semyon Ivanovich had grown used to sudden night calls: sometimes an urgent operation had to be performed, other times a patient’s condition worsened abruptly. Today he had received an alarming message that a patient in intensive care had taken a sharp turn for the worse.
Passing by the doctors’ lounge, the chief physician stopped. The door was ajar, and a dim lamplight spilled out from inside. Semyon Ivanovich pushed the door open and saw a strange scene: at a table cluttered with textbooks and notebooks, head resting right on the open books, a girl was asleep. She looked very young, thin. Ksyusha—that was her name. Semyon Ivanovich vaguely recalled that she had recently been hired as an orderly.
He frowned and cleared his throat.
“Ksenia?” His voice made the girl jerk as if she’d been shocked by electricity, and she stared at him in fright.
“Oh! Semyon Ivanovich… I… I’ll clean everything up right away! I’m so sorry!”
“And what is this—some kind of reading room in the doctors’ lounge?” he asked sternly, crossing his arms over his chest. “And why are you sleeping during working hours?”
The girl froze, clutching two books tightly, as if afraid they’d be taken away.
“I wasn’t sleeping on duty, honestly,” she said quietly. “My shift was already over. It’s just… I have nowhere to go right now.”
Semyon Ivanovich narrowed his eyes.
“What do you mean, nowhere?”
Ksyusha took a deep breath and began to speak quickly:
“The landlady of the apartment I was renting decided to sell it. She kicked me out without warning. I barely managed to pack my things, and that’s it. I haven’t had time to find a new place yet. And I need to study… I’m working toward an honors diploma at medical college, exams are coming up, so I… decided to stay here and prepare.”
She spoke in a rush, her words tangling together, and again came the apologies:
“I’m sorry, Semyon Ivanovich. I understand everything, I won’t stay here again, I promise—please don’t be angry.”
Semyon Ivanovich stood silently, looking into her guilty eyes, thinking. Normally, he was sharp-tongued: for falling asleep at work he could give such a dressing-down that even seasoned doctors tried not to cross his path unnecessarily.
But now he was looking at this bewildered girl with eyes red from lack of sleep and saw not a slacker, but a determined student clinging to her chance to learn, even when life had kicked the stool out from under her.
“And where are you planning to live?” he asked at last.
Ksyusha blushed.
“I’ll find something… maybe a room, a dormitory. Don’t worry, I won’t spend the night at the hospital again.”
The chief physician was silent a moment longer, stroking his chin, then unexpectedly suggested:
“Stay with me for now.”
Ksyusha was taken aback. She had been afraid of this man since her first day on the job: everyone said Semyon Ivanovich was strict, abrupt, a “steel” boss. And now here he was, offering her a helping hand.
“No, no, really… I couldn’t… I’d only inconvenience you. I…” she waved her hands, dropping her eyes in embarrassment.
“Nothing inconvenient,” Semyon Ivanovich cut her off. “I live alone. The house is big, plenty of empty rooms. And the library is at your disposal. There are books there you won’t find at college.”
Ksyusha still tried to decline, but his tone allowed no argument. In the end, she only nodded and said softly:
“If you insist… thank you.”
As promised, Semyon Ivanovich gave Ksyusha a spacious room in his home. When she first stepped inside, she was bewildered: bright, with a large window where the morning sun streamed in, neat furniture, a bookcase, an armchair by the wall. For a girl used to a modest flat, it seemed almost like a palace.
Then he showed her his greatest treasure—the library, and her eyes lit up. Shelves stretched up to the ceiling, lined with dozens, hundreds of volumes: old editions, reference books… Ksyusha stood there, unable to tear her gaze away. She had always thought such libraries existed only in films.
“Wow…” was all she could say.
“Make use of it,” Semyon Ivanovich said simply. “There are plenty of rare editions here—you’ll find them useful for your exams.”
From then on, whenever she had a spare minute, she would run there. She read, took notes, made summaries.
“You should take a vacation,” Semyon Ivanovich suggested one day. “Prepare for your exams in peace.”
Ksyusha tried to protest, but he insisted:
“You’ll have time to earn extra money later. You don’t have rent to pay now, so no arguments. Studying is the most important thing.”
Semyon Ivanovich didn’t impose his company. In the mornings he left for the hospital, in the evenings he returned and always invited Ksyusha to breakfast and dinner. Gradually, she stopped fearing him. In conversation he turned out to be nothing like the strict, unyielding man he seemed in the hospital corridors: at home, he was quiet, a thoughtful listener.
“And why did you decide to go into medicine?” he asked once, as they drank tea in the living room with a pie Ksyusha had baked.
Ksyusha smiled and shared something she had hardly told anyone.
“My grandfather dreamed of becoming a doctor. He even enrolled, but… he… died. So I decided—since Grandpa couldn’t make it, I’d try. Maybe I’ll succeed.”
Semyon Ivanovich listened attentively, restrained, but his eyes had grown particularly serious.
“So you’re trying for the both of you?” he clarified.
“Something like that,” the girl nodded. “I feel as if I must carry his dream through to the end.”
“Commendable,” Semyon Ivanovich said approvingly with a nod.
One evening, while sorting through books in the library, Ksyusha pulled a massive volume with a leather spine from the shelf. She opened it, and suddenly an old photograph slipped out.
She picked it up and froze: from the black-and-white picture a young girl looked at her—a light dress, a braid down to her waist, a clear, bright smile. Ksyusha’s heart pounded: it was her grandmother!
Clutching the photo with trembling fingers, she rushed into Semyon Ivanovich’s study. He was sitting at his desk, leafing through medical journals.
“Semyon Ivanovich…” her voice quivered. “Tell me, where did you get this photograph?”
He raised his head, saw the picture, and seemed to turn to stone. For several seconds he was silent, then slowly removed his glasses.
“Where did you find it?”
“In a book… in the library,” she replied hurriedly.
Semyon Ivanovich remained quiet for a long moment. It was clear he was fighting with himself. Finally, he put the papers aside and said softly:
“Since you’ve trusted me, opened your heart, it would be dishonest for me to stay silent.”
He stood up, paced the room, and began to speak slowly, as if reliving the past:
“She was my fiancée. Lyubasha.”
His voice faltered, but he went on…
“After my first year, I was sent out for practical training. There, something terrible happened—I ended up in the hospital for a long time. And when I returned, I learned that the house where she rented a room from a lonely woman had burned down, and she’d died.
The police told me that identification was, of course, impossible, but they showed me a ring. The ring I had given her…”
Ksyusha listened, and something inside her seemed to break.
“After that, I tried to go on with life. I even got married once… but soon realized that no one could ever replace my Lyubasha. I loved her too much. Since then, I’ve been alone.”
He fell silent, staring out the window. A heavy silence hung in the room.
Ksyusha turned pale, her hands trembled. Suddenly, her heart tightened so much that she couldn’t breathe.
“What’s wrong?” Semyon Ivanovich asked anxiously, turning toward her. He hurried to bring a glass of water. “Here, drink.”
She took a sip and whispered with difficulty:
“That… that’s my grandmother in the photo. Lyubov Viktorovna. And… she’s alive.”
Semyon Ivanovich froze, as if unable to believe his own ears.
“How… alive?”
Ksyusha was still clutching the photograph, her fingers shaking. Her thoughts were jumbled, her heart pounding so hard it seemed to echo in the silence.
Only now did it dawn on her that the chief physician’s name and her grandfather’s were the same: Semyon. Semyon Ivanovich. But since childhood she had been sure her grandfather had died. Her grandmother had never doubted it either. That was why Ksyusha had never paid attention to the coincidence—until now.
She raised her eyes and spoke softly:
“She’s alive, Semyon Ivanovich.”
And she told him what her grandmother had shared: when her fiancé left for training and didn’t write for a long time, Lyubasha went to his parents, but the neighbors said they’d gone away for an extended time.
So she turned to his friend, and he told her that Semyon had died, that he’d been buried in that distant town…
Semyon Ivanovich leapt to his feet.
“What?!” His voice rang like steel. “Which friend?”
“I… I don’t know his name,” Ksyusha stammered. “Grandma said that later he even tried to persuade her to marry him. He said her daughter needed a father and he was ready to be that… But she refused. She loved only my grandfather. You…”
Semyon Ivanovich began pacing the room, unable to sit still.
“My God…” he muttered. “So she’s alive… Alive! My Lyubasha…”
Ksyusha went on, striving to stay calm though everything inside her was trembling:
“And that house where Grandma rented her room—it really did burn down. But she wasn’t the one who died. She’d been having money troubles, and that evening the landlady took the ring, saying, ‘Pay for the room and I’ll give it back.’ Grandma brought the money, but by then there was neither house nor landlady…”
Semyon Ivanovich stopped and sank into a chair.
“So that’s where the ring came from…” he said quietly. Tears glistened in his eyes.
Ksyusha sat gently across from him and carefully laid her hand on his.
“After that, Grandma moved to another town,” she said softly. “That’s where she still lives. That’s where my parents are, too. I’ll go back there once I get my diploma.”
Semyon Ivanovich looked up at her, and only then understood why something in this girl had felt so familiar from the start.
“So… I have a daughter? And you’re… my granddaughter?”
Ksyusha nodded, brushing away a tear.
“Yes… it turns out I am.”
And at that moment they both understood: fate had not brought them together by chance.
Semyon Ivanovich rose, hugged her gently—awkwardly, as if afraid to scare off this new feeling—and whispered:
“God… thank You for letting me learn this while I’m still alive.”
Ksyusha leaned against him and suddenly felt that the fear she had once felt toward the stern chief physician had completely melted away. Before her was not a strict boss, but her grandfather, who had lived in loneliness for so many years, unaware that he had a family.
From that moment, everything changed. And first of all—Semyon Ivanovich himself.
The hospital staff exchanged glances: where had the severe, unyielding chief physician gone, the one whose gaze could make even experienced surgeons tremble? Of course, he was still demanding, but now there was a warmth in his voice no one had heard before. He began to smile more often, sometimes even joke.
“Our chief seems twenty years younger,” people whispered in the corridors.
And at home, he became a completely different man. Now he often sat next to Ksyusha and told stories from his student days. Now he called her “my little granddaughter,” and that word made her heart ache sweetly.
And then came the day when Ksyusha received her diploma—red, just as she had dreamed. Semyon Ivanovich was there at the ceremony, proud and moved, looking at her as only the dearest of people can.
After the celebration he said calmly, but firmly:
“Well then, granddaughter. It’s time for us to go.”
“Go where?” she didn’t understand at once.
“Home, to your city. You can’t imagine how hard it was not to rush to Lyuba the moment I learned the truth, but I waited until you finished your exams so we could go together. Besides, I had to wrap things up here.
“You know, I’ve long been planning to open a small private clinic. And now I know for sure—I’ll open it where my family lives. And you’ll help me.”
Ksyusha gasped.
“Is that true, Grandpa?”
He smiled wryly.
“Do I joke about things like this?”
And so, the day finally came when they set out for the very town where Lyubasha had once moved.
To make sure Semyon’s arrival wouldn’t be too great a shock for her, he decided to stop at a hotel first.
“You go home,” he told Ksyusha. “Prepare your grandmother. I don’t want this to come as a blow to her. So many years have passed… Let her be ready for this news.”
He spoke calmly, but his hands trembled. For so many years he had only dreamed of this meeting, and now it was so near.
Ksyusha agreed. Her eyes, too, showed excitement.
She arrived home, embraced her grandmother, answered her questions for a long while as she gathered her courage, and then gently said:
“Grandma, we’re going to have a guest today.”
“A guest?” Lyubov Viktorovna squinted in surprise. “And who might that be? Have you found yourself a fiancé?”
“Better!” Ksyusha replied. “Someone very… very important. The one you’ve been waiting for your whole life.”
Lyubov Viktorovna turned pale; the one she had been waiting for had long been gone from this world.
“Grandma, please don’t worry,” Ksyusha said softly, taking her hand. “Grandpa is alive. Alive, do you understand? They deceived you. And tonight he’s coming here.”
For a few seconds the room was silent except for the ticking clock, and then Lyubov Viktorovna leapt to her feet.
“I can’t wait until evening! Where is he? Where?!”
And an hour later she was knocking at the hotel room door.
Semyon Ivanovich opened the door and froze. On the threshold stood her—his Lyubasha. Older, of course, with silver strands in her hair, but in her eyes the same gentle warmth he had remembered all his life.
“Lyuba…” he whispered, his voice betraying a tremor.
She clasped her hands to her chest as though afraid her heart would burst.
“Syoma…”
He took a step forward, then another, and in the next moment they were embracing, as though those unbearably long years of separation had never existed.
“Alive…” Lyubasha murmured, pressing against his shoulder. “Alive… My God, is this really true?”
“Alive,” he repeated, looking into her eyes. “And you’re alive—and now I’ll never let you go.”
And Ksyusha watched them, understanding: here it was—the real love that doesn’t die from time, or hardship, or distance.
Soon there was another meeting, no less moving. Semyon Ivanovich met his daughter—Ksyusha’s mother—for the first time, a daughter whose existence he had never even suspected.
He stood on the threshold, feeling his heart ready to leap from his chest again. She looked at him for a long moment, then stepped closer, hugged him tightly, and whispered only:
“Dad…” and burst into tears on his shoulder.
That was enough to make the decades stolen by someone else’s lies and by circumstances lose their weight.
Semyon Ivanovich kept his promise and opened a private clinic. Small, but with the most modern equipment, and founded on the principles he had always lived by: honesty, care for the patient, no cutting corners. Ksyusha continued her studies and worked beside her grandfather—at first helping as an assistant, but gradually taking on more and more. He was proud of her and would say:
“Look, Lyubasha, what a fine granddaughter we have!”
And in the evenings they all gathered at home: grandmother, grandfather, their daughter with her husband, and their granddaughter. Laughter filled the table, memories of the past were shared, and plans for the future were made. And each one of them knew: life had given them a second chance at happiness.
