Tonya Gromeko (a.k.a. Antonina Alexandrovna) Timeline and Summary

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• Tonya first shows up in this book when Yuri Zhivago moves in with the Gromeko family. He and Tonya are close from the beginning, and they do nearly everything together.
• When Tonya's mother takes ill and goes to her deathbed, she makes Yuri and Tonya promise that they'll get married and have a family together. This seems to be the first time the two of them have thought of each other romantically.
• When Tonya's mother dies, Tonya is heartbroken. Staying true to her mother's dying wish, she falls in love with Yuri Zhivago and marries him. They have a son together.
• Tonya's life is disrupted when her husband Zhivago gets called away to be a doctor in the army. While he's gone, the two write letters to one another.
• When Zhivago returns, Tonya decides that it's too difficult to live in Moscow during the harsh winters, so she and her family move to an old estate in the mountains that her family used to own. Unfortunately, she finds out that she's not especially welcome there, because her ancestors were rich landowners in the area, and anyone who had or has wealth is on the bad list.
• One day, Zhivago disappears while on a trip to the town of Yuriatin. Tonya doesn't realize that he's been taken prisoner by a radical militia. She, her father, and her son are deported from the country before she can ever see Zhivago again.
• In the last third of the novel, Tonya writes to Zhivago from Paris. She knows that he is now living with another woman and that he has no plans of ever reuniting with her and their family. She writes him a letter saying she's not mad and that she hopes he has a happy life.