Lena stood below, handing him tools.

Within a week, a new fence surrounded the yard. Two weeks later, the garden was cleared, plowed, and planted. The house filled with the smell of fresh pies, and in the evenings, neighbors began dropping by—drawn in by Lena’s warmth and easy conversation.

One evening, Baba Nina said quietly to Grandpa Kolya:

“You know… at first I thought he’d gone mad.”

“And now?”

She looked toward Stepan’s yard, where he was laughing as he worked on his old motorcycle, Lena beside him, talking animatedly.

“And now… I think she gave him his life back.”

In that moment, the whole village understood something they never expected.

Old man Stepan—the one everyone thought was lonely and broken—had become the happiest man on the street.