They lived well, in pleasure, and Anatoly was sure that this was love and real family happiness. She turned thirty, he thirty-eight, when she told him that she was pregnant… He prepared two solid hot sandwiches with cheese and ham, took out cold beer from the fridge, set a small table by the wide, soft couch, put down a crystal ashtray, and sat back, relaxed… That was it— the day was over. He was tired; he wanted to watch TV, have dinner, drink beer, and then crawl under the blanket and fall asleep. To wake up in the morning, drink a cup of coffee, and go to his job, to his office… To come home in the evening… Suddenly, he started crying. No one had seen it. And when he knew no one was watching, sometimes he allowed himself to cry. Out of self-pity. He found it unfair that God punished him—him, a man made for family life—for some unknown reason, taking away both his wife and the unborn child… It was so sad, so unbearably sad that you wanted to howl at the moon. If someone who knew him had seen him at that moment, they would have been bewildered. Anatoly Koncevich had a rather masculine appearance. Tall, leanish…