About the book: 2021 / Where were you before, honey? You don’t need to be loved, but you need to be drunk in one gulp, like spring water. For people like you, they tear up crosses and sell their souls to Satan. Where were you, my dear, when I had not yet become a stone bastard? My heart chose her right away. Aibolit froze. My hands were shaking. He turned away from the patient, lifted his mask and exhaled quietly. Are women not enough for you, Aibolit? “I don’t have enough fire,” my heart answered. My father and my fiancé decided everything without my consent. I should become the second wife. And the second one is always bitter. One consolation: a doctor with kind eyes, my first and unexpected love.