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Prologue
Silence. Only the wind stirs the tops of the sunflowers, and somewhere in the distance a lonely bird cries. Anna stands in the middle of the garden, hunched over, her hands in the ground. Her fingers dig into the roots of the weeds, pulling them out with a crunch. Each weed is like a small betrayal. Each is a reminder.
She doesn't notice how the sun burns her back, how sweat runs down her temples. Here, among the beds, time flows differently. Here you can forget.
But the weeds always come back.

Chapter 1
The letter arrived in the morning.
Anna was still drinking tea, looking through the window at her garden - neat rows of carrots, onions, potatoes. Everything was neatly weeded and watered. Order.
The envelope lay on the table, white and foreign. On it was her name, written in a handwriting that made her heart clench.
"Mother".
Just one word. But it was enough.
She didn't open the letter. She just went out into the yard to the shovel. The earth accepted her, as always.

Chapter 2
Ten years.
Ten years since Dasha left. Not "left" - she left. Without explanation, without goodbyes. She left only a note:
"I need to breathe. I'm sorry."
Anna thought then that her daughter would return. That it was just a rebellion, youthful maximalism. But days turned into months, months into years. Dasha didn’t call. She didn’t write.
And then the first letter arrived. From another city. Then from another country. Short lines, like telegrams:
"I'm fine".
"Don't worry".
"I'm alive."
Nothing extra. No "mom", no "love".
Anna did not answer.

Chapter 3
The neighbor, Marya Ivanovna, sometimes asked:
- Well, has your Dasha shown up?
Anna just shook her head and went to weed the beds.
Weeds were simpler than people. They could be picked up and pulled out.

Chapter 4
This time the letter was different.
She nevertheless opened it in the evening, when the sun was already setting, painting the garden crimson.
"Mom, I'm coming back."
That's it. No date, no explanation.
Anna clenched the sheet of paper in her fist. Then she smoothed it out and read it again.
My heart was beating as if it wanted to burst out of my chest.

Chapter 5
She waited.
The days merged into one endless wait. Anna weeded the beds, but even the weeds seemed to grow more slowly now.
And then, one evening, when she was sitting on the porch and looking at the road, a figure appeared in the distance.
Tall, thin. Unfamiliar and at the same time - familiar.
Dasha stopped at the gate.
- Mother.
Anna stood up. Her hands reached out to her daughter, but something inside her clenched, preventing her from taking a step.
- You... why?
Dasha lowered her eyes.
— I needed to go back.

Chapter 6
They sat in the kitchen. Silently. The tea in the mugs was getting cold.
“I thought you hated me,” Anna finally said.
Dasha shook her head.
— I hated myself.
Silence covered them again like a heavy blanket.

Chapter 7
In the morning Dasha went out to the garden.
Anna saw her from the window - her daughter was standing among the beds, looking at the ground. Then she knelt down and began to weed.
Anna came out to her.
- You never liked doing this.
Dasha did not raise her head.
— It took me time to understand.
- What?
— That weeds are not only in the ground. They are inside.
Anna slowly sat down next to him and picked up the hoe.
- Then we will weed together.
Weeds always come back.
But now they are being pulled out by two pairs of hands.

Chapter 8
The rain started suddenly - large drops pounded the roof, washing away the dust from the cabbage leaves. Anna and Dasha barely managed to run into the house, leaving their wet boots at the threshold.
“Tea?” Anna asked, already putting the kettle on the stove.
“Yes,” Dasha nodded, wiping her wet hair with a towel.
They sat at the kitchen table, the unspoken still hanging between them. Ten years is no joke.
“Why did you leave?” Anna finally asked, looking out the window where the rain was drawing murky patterns.
Dasha exhaled slowly.
— I was suffocating.
— From what?
— From… everything. From this house. From your love.
Anna squeezed the mug.
- I never kept you on a chain.
- No. But you held yourself back. And I couldn't stand it.

Chapter 9
Anna did not sleep at night.
She lay and listened to Dasha tossing and turning behind the wall. She remembered how that same room ten years ago was filled with music, laughter, and then with the slamming of doors and silence.
In the morning she found her daughter sitting on the porch.
“You’re not asking where I’ve been,” Dasha said, not looking at her.
— If I wanted to tell, I would tell.
Dasha smiled.
— Still the same.
- And you don't.
They fell silent. Somewhere in the grass a grasshopper chirped.
— I lived in the city. I worked. Then I went abroad. It was difficult.
- And now?
- I'm here now.
Anna nodded. That was enough for now.

Chapter 10
Marya Ivanovna, of course, came the very next day.
- Dashenka! - she screamed, barely crossing the threshold. - Well, let me look at you!
Dasha smiled politely, but Anna saw how her fingers clenched into fists.
- Hello, Marya Ivanovna.
- Oh, how you've become! - the neighbor patted her on the shoulder. - Do you remember how you stole raspberries from me when you were a child?
Dasha laughed tensely.
When Marya Ivanovna left, Dasha turned sharply to Anna:
- Why did you tell everyone that I “ran away”?
Anna frowned.
- I didn't say anything.
- Then how do they know everything?!
— People came up with it themselves.
Dasha exhaled sharply and went out into the yard.

Chapter 11
The conflict was brewing like a thunderstorm.
They tried not to quarrel, but every phrase, every glance seemed to touch old scars.
“You’re still angry,” Anna said one day.
- No.
- Then why can't you just talk to me?
- Because you expect me to fall on my knees and beg for forgiveness!
Anna recoiled as if she had been struck.
- I never expected this.
- Then what are you waiting for?!
- I just want to understand!
Dasha closed her eyes.
- I don't know how to explain it.

Chapter 12
The turning point came unexpectedly.
Dasha climbed into the attic to find old books and accidentally knocked over a box. It fell, spilling its contents across the floor.
Photos.
Dozens of photos. Dasha as a child, at school, at graduation. Everything that was before.
And then - newspaper clippings. Advertisements: "Wanted..." Recordings of calls to the police. Phone numbers, addresses.
Anna was looking for her.
All these years.

Chapter 13
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dasha’s voice trembled.
Anna stood in the doorway, pale.
- You didn't want to be found.
- But you... you...
- I am your mother.
Dasha sank to the floor, clutching the photograph in her hands.
- Sorry.
Anna slowly walked up and hugged her.
— Weeds need to be weeded together.

Epilogue
Summer has passed.
Dasha stayed. They finished building the greenhouse and planted new trees.
Sometimes in the evenings they sat on the porch and were silent. But this was a different kind of silence.
The weeds were still growing.
But now they knew they could be pulled out.

Weeding. Part three
Chapter 14. Roots
Autumn came unexpectedly - yellow leaves fell ahead of time, as if they were in a hurry to cover the ground before it froze until spring.
Dasha was digging potatoes when an unfamiliar man came into the garden. Tall, in a shabby leather jacket, he stood by the gate and smoked, watching her.
“Are you Dasha?” he asked finally.
She straightened up, wiping sweat from her forehead.
- And who are you?
“My name is Artyom.” He took a step forward. “I… knew your mother.”
- My mother is alive.
- Not this one. The other one.
The shovel slipped out of his hands.

Chapter 15. Someone else's truth
Anna was silent the whole way from the hospital.
“You knew,” Dasha squeezed the seat with her fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
— I thought it didn't matter anymore.
- Doesn't matter?
The car shook on a bump.
“She died when you were two,” Anna finally said. “You didn’t remember her. And I… I just wanted you to have a family.”
Dasha turned to the window. Fields flashed past the glass, as endless as this lie.

Chapter 16. Letters under the floor
The attic held more secrets than it seemed.
Under the floorboard there is a stack of letters in blue envelopes.
"Dear Anna, thank you for raising my girl..."
"If I don't come back from this war..."
"Tell her that I loved her..."
Dasha sat on the cold boards, and the letters danced before her eyes.
She had two mothers.
And they both abandoned her.

Chapter 17. Snowstorm
Artyom turned out to be her half-brother - her biological mother's son from her first marriage.
“She was looking for you,” he said as they drank tea in an empty caf;. “But Anna changed her name, moved…”
- Why did you come now?
"Because I'm dying." He smiled crookedly. "And you're the only thing left of her."
The snow outside the window fell thicker and thicker, covering up the tracks.

Chapter 18. Defrosting
Anna was waiting by the stove when Dasha returned in the morning.
“You’re right,” said Dasha, throwing snow off her boots. “The weeds are inside.”
She took a blue envelope out of her pocket.
- But some of them... turn out to be flowers. Just planted in the wrong place.
Anna exhaled slowly.
- What are we going to do?
— Weed. Be careful.

Final. Spring flowerbed
Artyom died in March. Dasha planted sunflowers on his grave – the same ones that grew in her childhood garden.
Anna went through old photographs, creating a new frame: two women in military uniform, a laughing girl, letters in blue envelopes.
Weeds and flowers.
Pain and forgiveness.
Everything is so intertwined with roots that it can no longer be pulled out.

Epilogue. Season Five
Five years have passed.
Dasha could never live in the house with the blue wallpaper, where it smelled of apples and old books. She rented an apartment in the city, forty minutes away, and now came every weekend to weed, plant, dig. Anna was getting old. Her hands no longer obeyed her as before, but she still went out to the garden - slowly, with a stick, sat on a bench and watched Dasha tinkering in the earth.
"You're missing the weeds," she screamed.
“I leave them on purpose,” Dasha responded. “For biodiversity.”
Anna snorted, but didn't argue anymore.
One spring, when the ground had already thawed but there was still a smell of cold, Dasha brought a girl with her. About seven years old, with dark pigtails and wide-open eyes.
“This is Lisa,” said Dasha. “Mine.”
Anna wasn't surprised. She had long noticed the strange calls at night, the vague explanations of why Dasha suddenly disappeared for a week. But she didn't ask.
“Grandma,” Lisa said, carefully touching her wrinkled hand. “Will you teach me how to weed?”
Anna looked at Dasha. She was standing with her hands in her pockets and smiling.
“I’ll teach you,” said Anna. “Just watch out, you have to pull out the roots completely. Otherwise they’ll come back again.”
Lisa nodded, pressing her lips together seriously.
In the evening, the three of them sat on the porch, drinking tea with mint that Dasha had once planted near the fence.
“You know,” Anna said, watching Lisa carefully scoop jam out of the jar with a spoon, “weeds aren’t always enemies.”
Dasha raised an eyebrow.
— Is this a new revelation?
- No. I just thought.
Lisa licked the spoon.
— What kind of enemies are they then?
“The ones that don’t let others grow,” Anna said. “And these… they just live.”
Dasha laughed.
- Oh my God, Mom. You're getting wise.
“Old age,” Anna shrugged.
The next day, the three of them went out into the garden. Liza was diligently digging the earth with a small shovel, Dasha was loosening the beds, and Anna was sitting on a bench and giving orders.
- More to the left. No, not like that. Right here, see?
“I see!” Lisa shouted.
The sun warmed my back. The wind rustled the leaves.
And the earth, black and alive, accepted them back.