“””For years, the doctor laughed at his mute colleague—until his own mistake put a patient on the brink. Then she did the IMPOSSIBLE!””
Lydia was born with a severe speech defect that defined most of her life. From early childhood, she faced difficulties unimaginable to others. Every word came with immense effort, every sentence became a trial full of pain and fear. But even in the toughest moments, her mother—Elena Vasilievna, a woman with a kind heart and strong spirit—was always by her side, never letting her daughter lose hope.
“Hold on, dear,” her mother said almost every day. “When you grow up, everything will get better. The main thing is not to pay attention to foolish people.”
But how can one ignore what hurts? How stay calm when you are mocked every day at school? Classmates bullied Lydia, mimicked her speech, invented cruel nicknames, and teachers pretended nothing was happening. Gradually, the girl stopped speaking altogether—answering only with nods and gestures, and crying at home, burying her face in a pillow.
University was even harder. Lydia dreamed of becoming a doctor because she wanted to help people. She enrolled in medical school, fighting every minute of study as a new battle. Instead of support, the professors only intensified her suffering:
“How will you talk to patients?” Professor Ivanova once asked sarcastically during a seminar. “Maybe you should reconsider your career choice?”
These words etched pain into the girl’s heart. She thought for a long time, cried, felt useless—but at some point found the strength to make a decision that changed her life. Lydia chose to specialize as a pathologist.
“The dead don’t ask questions,” she quietly told herself as she filled out paperwork at the department.
It was as if fate was playing a cruel joke on her. At 175 centimeters tall, with long dark hair, expressive brown eyes, and symmetrical features, Lydia was incredibly beautiful. Men turned to look at her on the street, admired her appearance—but once she spoke, their interest vanished like a candle in the wind.
After graduating, Lydia got a job at a large city hospital with its own morgue. Here, she felt safe. She mostly worked alone, rarely interacting with colleagues except on official matters. Her workday passed in silence among sterile tables and cold medical instruments. In this place, she could be herself without fear of ridicule, judgment, or intrusive glances.
Stanislav Egorovich was the complete opposite of Lydia. A charismatic, confident attending physician surrounded by a swarm of admirers. He was tall, athletic, with piercing blue eyes, used to women throwing themselves into his arms. His romances were legendary, and nurses discussed every move he made.
One day, a lab colleague gently nudged Lydia’s elbow:
“Lidochka, our handsome guy has an eye on you. Last night he was asking about you all evening.”
The girl just shrugged. She had long stopped believing in love or her attractiveness to other men. To her, it was just empty words, distant and meaningless.
Their meeting happened in the evening as Lydia was leaving after her shift. By the service entrance, leaning against an expensive car, stood Stanislav.
“Hi, beautiful,” he smiled broadly. “I’m Stanislav. I guess you’ve heard about me.”
Lydia nodded, not daring to speak.
“Look, you can’t have relationships like ordinary girls—let’s just date right away, no extra talk,” he declared with a confidence that made Lydia tense inside. “I don’t mind your… condition. I like silent women.”
Lydia took a notebook and pen from her bag, quickly wrote a few words, and handed him the paper.
“Sorry, you’re not my type,” Stanislav read aloud.
His face instantly changed. The confident smile turned into an angry grimace.
“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “You should be glad someone offered you this! You think many would want to get involved with a mute?”
Lydia silently turned and walked away. Inside, she trembled from humiliation, but at the same time felt a strange relief. Good thing she worked in the morgue, where she rarely crossed paths with people like that.
At home, Lydia found her mother preparing dinner. Elena Vasilievna, a fifty-year-old woman with tired eyes, always tried to support her daughter, though life had been hard on her too.
“How’s work?” her mother asked, setting the table.
Lydia wrote in her notebook: “A doctor tried to ask me out.”
“So what?” Elena Vasilievna perked up. “That’s a good guy!”
“I don’t want to face betrayal like you did with Dad,” Lydia wrote.
Her mother froze, holding a plate. Then sighed heavily and sat across from her daughter.
“Lida, I need to tell you something. Something I should have said a long time ago.”
Lydia looked up, sensing she was about to hear something important.
“Your father didn’t leave us,” her mother said quietly. “I left him. I was young and foolish, thought he didn’t love me enough. But he… he sent money all those years for your support. I put it into your account.”
Lydia felt like the ground was slipping beneath her feet.
“He’s back in town,” Elena Vasilievna continued. “Wants to see you but won’t insist. Says he understands if you don’t want to.”
Lydia sat silently for a long time, digesting what she’d heard. She had believed all her life that her father had betrayed them, but it turned out…
The next day, she wrote to her mother: “I want to meet Dad.”
The meeting was set at a small café downtown. Lydia arrived early, nervously waiting while clutching her notebook. When a tall man with gray temples and familiar brown eyes appeared at the door, her heart beat faster. Arkady Viktorovich looked solid and dignified for his fifty-five years. Seeing his daughter, he stopped, and Lydia noticed his lips tremble.
“Lidochka,” he said softly, approaching the table. “You’ve grown so much. How beautiful you are.”
Lydia wrote in her notebook: “Hi, Dad.”
Those two words, a short phrase written neatly, became the beginning of a long journey toward reconciliation, toward understanding herself and her loved ones. They spent almost two hours together in the café, during which Arkady told so much about his life as if making up for lost years. He spoke about how much he missed his daughter, how he followed her university successes, how proud he was even from afar. And Lydia, not uttering a word aloud, still answered him—through notes in the notebook, through glances, through the warm atmosphere gradually filling the space between them.
And at some moment, unexpectedly to herself, she said:
“Dad…”
The word came with difficulty, but clearly, with effort, and with feeling. And Arkady smiled as if he had received the most precious gift in life.
“Come have dinner with us,” Lydia added, picking up her pen again.
As they left the café, they bumped into Stanislav. The doctor was clearly drunk, his face twisted into a malicious grin.
“Oh, look who I found! Our little mute on a date with grandpa!”
Arkady silently looked at him, then calmly said:
“Young man, step aside.”
“Or what?” Stanislav sneered. “Your little girl, by the way, is very rude. I asked her out, and she…”
He didn’t finish. Arkady’s precise blow sent him to the asphalt. There was nothing superfluous in this—only a father’s righteous anger protecting his daughter, who would no longer be humiliated.
“One more word about my daughter, and you won’t like it,” he said coldly, standing over the fallen man.
Lydia looked at her father with admiration. For the first time in her life, someone stood up for her so decisively and unconditionally. She felt a new feeling rising inside—not just gratitude, but confidence.
But Stanislav wasn’t ready to give up. A few days later, he decided to take revenge…
Continued in the comments “