All Amazing Babies

For the first few months of living together, Oleg and I were blissfully blind in love. Everything felt effortless: I cooked dinner, he did the dishes; I ran the laundry, he hung it up; we cleaned the apartment on weekends while his ’90s playlist played in the background. Our money sat in one shared account, and neither of us kept track of who put in how much or what it was spent on.

But by the beginning of the second year, something quietly shifted. Maybe the romance of routine gave way to plain routine. Or maybe it happened when we finally started talking about an apartment.

“Len, we need to save,” Oleg said one evening as we sat in our rented kitchen staring at a wall in the neighboring building. “Seriously save. If we put away thirty thousand a month, in three years we’ll have enough for a down payment.”

I nodded, already imagining our future place—bright, big windows, maybe even a balcony. Thirty thousand sounded realistic. We both worked. We both earned decent money. What could possibly be difficult?

It turned out… everything.

The first point of friction was my yogurt. Or rather, not the yogurt itself, but where I bought it.

“Four hundred rubles?” Oleg pulled a little glass jar from the fridge and stared at it like it was caviar. “Two hundred and fifty for yogurt?”

“It’s not just yogurt,” I said, continuing to slice tomatoes for a salad, forcing myself to stay calm. “It’s from a farm. No additives, real starter culture. You know regular yogurt makes my stomach hurt.”

“Lena, yogurt at Pyaterochka is seventy rubles.”

“And at Pyaterochka it’s full of thickeners and E-numbers. I can’t eat that.”

Oleg opened the jar, sniffed it, tasted a spoonful.

“Normal yogurt,” he shrugged. “But for that price…”

I didn’t argue further. The tomatoes were from the same farm—six hundred a kilo instead of the usual two hundred. But they were amazing: sweet, dense, with a real tomato taste, not that crunchy winter supermarket imitation.

“Oh, and by the way,” Oleg said, reaching into the freezer, “I grabbed pizzas. Three on sale—worked out cheap.”

Three frozen boxes landed on the shelf, pushing aside my frozen berries (also farm berries, frozen by hand in summer—but that was another story).

“And I bought beer,” he added, clearly proud of himself. “Good stuff—German. A whole case with a discount.”

 

A case meant twenty-four bottles. I did the math in my head: even discounted, it was at least three thousand. But I stayed quiet. Everyone has their weaknesses, right?

The next few weeks turned into a strange, silent standoff. I kept buying my farm products—cottage cheese, eggs, vegetables, meat from a supplier I trusted. It cost more, but I felt the difference. It wasn’t a whim; it mattered for my health, for our health.

Oleg kept buying convenience foods. Alongside the pizzas came stuffed crepes, ready-made cutlets you only had to heat up, nuggets. The cupboard filled with chips, crackers, and nuts for beer.

“It’s convenient,” he explained. “You come home tired, heat something up in ten minutes, and you’re done. No need to stand at the stove for an hour.”

I didn’t object. Honestly, I didn’t. He could eat what he wanted. But irritation kept building when I saw him in the evenings with a bottle of beer and a bag of chips in front of the TV, while I spent half an hour in the kitchen making a proper dinner.

One Saturday, he went out with friends.

“I’ll be back by ten,” he promised.

He came home at one in the morning—buzzed, smelling like beer, talkative.

“Such a great night,” he announced while I helped him out of his jacket. “We started at Zhiguli, then went to this new place near Mayakovskaya—those burgers are insane—then we even did karaoke…”

I stayed quiet. By morning he wouldn’t remember half of what he said.

But the next week it happened again. Then again. Friday or Saturday became sacred—Oleg’s time to meet the guys. I wasn’t against friendship, truly. But when the month ended and we sat down to go over our budget, we found only eight thousand in savings instead of thirty.

“Where did the money go?” Oleg squinted at his phone, scrolling through his bank statement.

“I don’t know,” I said, staring at mine. Mine looked almost the same.

We went quiet, both drowning in numbers. Supermarket. Delivery. Café. Supermarket again. Gas station. Pharmacy. Delivery again…

“Len,” Oleg looked up, and there was something new in his eyes—something wary. “How much do you spend on your farm stuff?”

I felt my back tighten.

“I don’t know. I haven’t tracked it separately.”

“Let’s count it,” he said, and an unpleasant note slipped into his voice. “Yogurt—two fifty. Cottage cheese—how much?”

“Three hundred.”

“Eggs?”

“Two fifty.”

“Tomatoes?”

“Six hundred.”

He kept tallying, and I felt anger flare inside me. Yes, I spent more on groceries—but I cooked. Every day. Real, healthy food.

“So that’s about fifteen thousand a month just for your farm products,” he concluded. “That’s half of what we’re supposed to be saving.”

“And how much do you spend on your nights out?” I blurted.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything. You go to bars every week. Every week. What, do they pour drinks for free?”

“I work. I’m allowed to relax,” Oleg’s face darkened.

“And I work too!” My voice cracked into a shout even though I didn’t want it to. “And I’m allowed to eat food that doesn’t make me sick instead of that supermarket chemical mess!”

“It’s not chemicals—it’s normal food that millions of people eat!”

“And then millions of people get sick!”

We stood there, breathing hard, staring at each other. We’d never had a fight like that—little spats, yes, annoyance, sure, but not a direct clash with accusations thrown point-blank.

Oleg looked away first.

“Fine,” he said, flat and heavy. “Let’s think about what to do.”

For the next week, we barely talked. We spoke about household things—pass the salt, I’ll be late, we need toilet paper—but not about the real issue. And the real issue hung between us like an invisible wall.

I tried to understand what was happening. We loved each other—I was sure of it. But somehow money, that cursed money, was turning into a source of tension. And it wasn’t really about the money itself. It was something deeper. The right to live your own way? The right to be yourself?

Oleg must have been thinking the same, because on Friday evening—while I was making dinner (baked chicken with vegetables, all farm-fresh, all delicious)—he came into the kitchen with a strange expression.

“Len, I’ve figured it out,” he said.

“Figured what out?”

“How we can save.”

I set down the knife I’d been using to peel carrots.

“Let’s do it fairly: you pay for your yogurts, and I’ll pay for my food,” my husband announced.

I stood there, trying to process it.

“What do you mean?” I finally asked.

“Simple. Separate food budgets. You buy what you want with your money. I buy what I want with mine. Utilities, internet, everything else—fifty-fifty. That way we’ll see who actually spends what.”

“Oleg, that’s ridiculous…”

“Why is it ridiculous? It’s fair!” He spoke fast, confident—like he’d prepared for this. “I don’t stop you from eating your farm stuff. You don’t stop me from eating what I like. Everyone is responsible for themselves. And one more thing: I’ll save fifteen thousand a month, and you save fifteen—into our joint apartment fund. Deal?”

“And what about shared dinners?” I asked. “When I cook for both of us?”

He hesitated for a second.

“Well… if you cook something shared with regular ingredients, we split it. But if you want to cook with your farm products—that’s your expense.”

A sharp, bitter hurt hit me. So my care for our health—my standing at the stove every evening—was now considered “my personal spending”? And yet… there was something oddly tempting about his idea. Maybe we really should try it. Prove to him, with numbers, that I wasn’t spending as outrageously as he imagined.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s try it. One month.”

“Great!” Oleg’s face brightened. “You’ll see, it’ll be more convenient this way.”

Starting Monday, we began our “new system.” I kept a separate notebook where I wrote down every food expense. Oleg installed a spending tracker app.

The first days felt weird. I’d buy groceries and immediately wonder: is this mine or shared? Chicken was shared, but the vegetables for it were mine—farm produce. Pasta was shared, but the sauce made from farm tomatoes was mine. My head turned into a messy accounting puzzle.

Oleg seemed confused too. He bought his convenience foods, heated them up on his own plate, and looked at me with a guilty expression when I made myself a salad.

“Want some?” I’d ask, holding out the bowl.

“That’s your food,” he’d say uncertainly.

“Oh my God, Oleg—just take the salad,” I’d snap.

He would, but the air stayed tense. Something felt wrong about living separately at the same kitchen table.

A week passed. On Friday, as usual, Oleg went out with friends.

“Bye, I’ll be back late,” he said, kissing my cheek.

“Have fun,” I replied, with a tone so neutral he either didn’t catch the sarcasm—or chose not to.

I was alone. I sat down with my laptop and opened my notebook of expenses. In one week I’d spent three and a half thousand. Multiply by four—fourteen thousand a month. It fit. I could still put away my savings amount, with some left over.

And Oleg?

I truly wasn’t planning to check. But his phone was on the table—he’d taken his work phone—and without thinking I picked it up, unlocked it (I knew the passcode), and opened his expense app.

I froze.

In one week Oleg had spent twelve thousand rubles. On food. Just one week.

I scrolled through the categories. Pizza delivery—1,200. Burger delivery—900. Another delivery—sushi, 1,500. Zhiguli bar—2,300. Another bar—1,800. Store run: beer and snacks—2,000. Another delivery. And another.

Twelve thousand in a week.

I put the phone back and sat staring at nothing. That meant fifty thousand a month. Fifty. And he’d been lecturing me about a yogurt jar worth four hundred rubles…

The anger that rose in me was cold—and strangely clarifying. I didn’t make a scene when he stumbled in after midnight, loud and cheerful. I went to bed and turned my back to the wall.

“Len, are you asleep?” he whispered, sliding under the blanket.

“I’m asleep,” I said without turning.

Week two passed. I kept buying my farm products and cooking my meals. Oleg kept ordering delivery—almost every day. Pizza, rolls, something else. And he kept going to bars.

“How’s your budget going?” I asked one evening, keeping my tone light.

 

“Fine,” he said, eyes still on his phone.

“You’re saving fifteen thousand?”

“Of course.”

He was lying. I could tell. But I stayed quiet. Let him see the truth at the end of the month.

Week three brought a new twist. It was a coworker’s birthday, and they “just had a little get-together” after work—at a restaurant. Oleg came home around eleven.

“How much did you spend?” I couldn’t help asking.

“What?” He was slightly drunk and didn’t understand at first.

“Money. How much?”

“Not much—we split it… four thousand, maybe.”

Four thousand for one evening—while I weighed tomatoes at the store, choosing the cheaper ones.

“Great,” I said. “Very economical.”

“Len, it was a birthday…”

“Sure. Of course.”

Week four was the hardest. We barely spoke. I cooked for myself, he ordered for himself. We ate at different times, from different plates, like roommates instead of a couple.

I missed us. I missed shared dinners and kitchen conversations, the way he used to lick the spoon when I asked him to taste a new dish. I missed closeness.

But I didn’t want to be the first to give in. Let him see the results of his “fair” system.

And then the first of the month arrived. That evening we sat on the couch, each with our phone.

“So… totals?” Oleg asked, and his voice sounded strained.

“Sure.” I opened my notebook. “I spent thirteen thousand eight hundred rubles on food this month. And I saved fifteen thousand, like we agreed.”

I looked up. Oleg was silent, staring at his phone screen.

“And you?” I asked, even though I already knew.

He stayed quiet for another thirty seconds. Then, very softly, he said:

“Fifty-two thousand.”

“What’s fifty-two?”

“I spent fifty-two thousand rubles on food.”

Silence dropped between us. I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to blurt, There. Now you see. But he looked so lost, so miserable, that my anger drained away.

“I thought…” he started, then stopped. “I really thought I spent less. I mean, I eat simple food, convenience stuff, cheap things…”

“But you order delivery every day,” I said quietly. “Delivery is extra cost. And you go to bars every week.”

“I know.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I went through everything. It’s… it’s awful. I spent over twenty thousand on bars. Almost twenty on delivery. And I didn’t even notice it happening.”

“And did you save anything?”

He shook his head.

“No. There was nothing left.”

I felt strange. I had been right, and he had finally seen it—yet it didn’t feel like a win. Only exhaustion, and an odd emptiness.

“Len,” Oleg turned to me, and in his eyes was something I hadn’t seen in a long time—vulnerability, maybe. “I’m sorry. I was an idiot. I blamed you for us not being able to save, while I… I never even thought about how much I waste on crap. Pizza, bars, delivery… it’s meaningless spending.”

“And my yogurts are meaningful?” I couldn’t resist the jab.

“Your yogurts are health,” he said seriously. “And you cook. Every day you cook real food. And I… I was just a lazy selfish guy who tried to dump everything on you.”

I didn’t answer. Inside me, something softened—the bitterness and anger of the last month beginning to melt.

“And another thing,” he continued. “I missed it. Us. Eating together, you cooking while I tell you about work. Just… being together. This was horrible, Len.”

“I missed it too,” I admitted.

We went quiet. Then Oleg pulled me into his arms, and I leaned into him, feeling the tension of the month finally loosen.

“Can we start over?” he whispered. “One shared budget—but I’ll actually track my spending. Bars—max twice a month, and no more than three thousand each time. No delivery. I’ll eat what you cook. And you… keep buying your farm products. They’re worth it.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I tried your cottage cheese last week. It really is better.”

I laughed—for the first time in a month, a real laugh.

“Alright,” I said. “We’ll try. But with one condition: if you genuinely want to go out for a drink with friends, don’t deprive yourself. Just plan it ahead, and we both know how much is going toward that. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The next day I made a big pot of borscht. Oleg stood beside me, chopping potatoes—crookedly, but with effort—while telling me about a new project at work. The soup bubbled on the stove, the kitchen smelled of dill and garlic, and outside the window snow was falling.

“You know,” Oleg said, dropping another potato chunk into the pot, “maybe we really can save up for an apartment after all.”

“We can,” I agreed. “If we do it together, not each on our own.”

He kissed the side of my neck, and I thought those words weren’t only about money. They were about life. Together. Not perfectly, not without arguments and mistakes—but together.

And I kept buying my farm yogurts. Because some habits aren’t just habits. They’re self-care.

And Oleg finally understood that.

The first warning signs appeared in mid-March, when Oleg came home earlier than usual with a cardboard box in his hands. Marina could tell from his face at once—what they’d both secretly dreaded for the past six months had finally happened.

“They cut me,” he said flatly, setting the box of personal items down in the entryway. “The entire department. ‘Cost optimization,’ apparently.”

Marina stepped toward him, wanting to hug him, but Oleg pulled away, went straight to the kitchen, and took a beer from the fridge. It was three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon.

“Oleg, we’ll survive this,” she said carefully. “My paycheck is stable—we’ll manage. The main thing is not to give up. You’ll start looking for a new position…”

“Don’t pity me,” he snapped. “I know what I’m doing.”

Except, from the way things went, he wasn’t going to do anything at all. During the first week Marina blamed it on shock—on needing time to come back to himself. Oleg slept late and spent most of the day at the computer. Maybe he was sending out résumés, maybe he was playing games; Marina didn’t check. She worked as a manager at a construction company, left at eight in the morning, came home at seven in the evening, and every day she hoped to see at least some sign of movement.

But the changes she noticed weren’t the ones she’d been hoping for.

By the end of the second week the apartment looked nothing like itself. Oleg cooked and never cleaned up—pans with dried egg stuck to them sat on the stove until night, crumbs blanketed the table, and empty beer bottles lined up neatly on the windowsill. Marina came home exhausted and immediately started putting everything back in order.

“Oleg, could you at least wash the dishes?” she tried one evening, keeping the reproach out of her voice.

“Was busy,” he muttered without lifting his eyes from the screen. “I’ll do it later.”

Later never came.

A month after he was laid off, Marina realized the shift wasn’t only about mess. Oleg had become sharp and irritable, snapping at any remark, turning rude over nothing. When she timidly asked how the job hunt was going, he blew up.

“What, you’re going to keep tabs on me now? Am I some little kid? I’ll find work when I find it!”

 

“I’m just asking,” Marina tried to explain. “I’m worried…”

“Worried?” he mocked. “Then don’t stick your nose in it. I’ve got enough problems.”

Marina fell silent. She wanted to say the problems were theirs now, that she was tired too, that it would be nice to feel like a team. But she swallowed it—because she was afraid of making him even angrier.

And then the real thing happened.

In early May, Marina came home from work yet again and found piles of dirty dishes. Oleg wasn’t alone in the kitchen. His younger brother, Sergey, was sitting at the table beside him, surrounded by beer bottles and bags of chips.

“Marinka, hey!” Sergey shouted. “I’m going to crash here for a bit—hope you don’t mind?”

Marina looked at her husband. Oleg stared off to the side.

“Meaning…?” she asked carefully.

“Olga and I—my wife—we had a little argument,” Sergey said casually. “Figured I’d give her time to cool down. Oleg offered me your place. Just a couple days, no more.”

A couple days turned into two weeks.

Sergey took over the couch in the living room and turned it into his personal territory. His things were everywhere. He watched TV late into the night and didn’t care about the volume. The brothers sat together drinking beer, laughing at their own jokes, and Marina felt like a stranger in her own home.

A home she’d bought with her own money, by the way—before marriage. Oleg moved in only after the wedding, but somehow everyone had decided that detail no longer mattered.

“Oleg, we need to talk,” Marina said on another day off, when Sergey went out to the store.

“About what?” Oleg didn’t even lift his head from his phone.

“About your brother. He’s been here two weeks. When is he leaving?”

“Soon. Why are you freaking out?”

“I’m not freaking out. I just want to understand what’s happening. This is my apartment, Oleg, and I didn’t agree to anyone else living here.”

That made him look up. Something ugly flickered in his eyes.

“Your apartment?” he repeated slowly.

“Yes. Mine. I bought it—you know that.”

Marina knew she’d stepped onto dangerous ground, but she couldn’t stop. Everything she’d been holding in finally spilled out.

“Oleg, I’m exhausted. I work all day, I come home, and instead of resting I clean up after the two of you. There’s dirt everywhere, dishes piled up, cigarette butts on the floor…”

“Cigarette butts?” Sergey snorted—he’d just walked in with a bag of beer. “Marinka, come on. The ashtray just overflowed.”

“I’m not talking to you, Sergey,” she cut him off.

“Well excuse me, madam,” he rolled his eyes and headed to the living room.

Oleg stood up. Marina saw his jaw tighten.

“Listen, Marina,” he began in a low voice, anger barely contained. “I get it—you’re tired. But my brother and I aren’t sitting here for fun. I’m going through a hard time, in case you missed it. I need support, not your complaints.”

“Support—like me paying for you for two months?” Marina blurted.

Silence dropped between them. From the living room came the sound of the TV turning louder—Sergey’s idea of being “polite.”

“Paying for me?” Oleg smirked, but there was nothing amused in it. “You’re really bringing that up?”

“Is it not true?” Marina felt her voice trembling, but she kept going. “I pay for everything—utilities, groceries, all of it. And you can’t even wash your own dishes.”

“I’m looking for work!” he shouted.

“You’re drinking beer and playing tank games!” she snapped. “I see you, Oleg. I’m not blind.”

He stepped toward her, and for a second Marina thought she didn’t know him at all. A stranger stood in front of her—angry, bitter.

“You know what, Marina?” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry I’m not living up to your expectations. But I’m sick of your nagging. You act like I owe you something.”

“You owe me at least basic respect,” she said softly. “You’re living in my apartment, I’m feeding you…”

“In your apartment,” he cut in. “Ah. So you’re going to hold that over my head forever now?”

“I’m not holding it over your head. I’m stating a fact. And I don’t like what’s happening here. I want your brother out, and I want you to start doing at least something at home if you’re not working yet.”

Oleg turned away, paced the kitchen, then whirled around.

“What does it matter whose apartment it is?” he blurted. “I’m the man, which means I’m the master of everything. And I’ll do what I think is right in here. If I need my brother’s support, he’ll live here. If I want to rest, I’ll rest. And you…”

He didn’t finish, but Marina didn’t need him to.

“You know what, Oleg?” Her voice turned unexpectedly calm. “You’re right. You’re a man. And as a man, you can be the master of a house. Just not of this one.”

“What?” He blinked, not understanding.

“Pack your things,” Marina said clearly. “You and your brother. Pack up and get out. Today.”

“Are you insane?” Sergey sprang into the doorway.

“Shut up,” Marina said without looking at him. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“Marina, you can’t kick me out,” Oleg tried to smirk, but it came out weak. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I can. And I am,” she said. “You said it yourself—what does it matter whose apartment it is, you’re the man and the master of everything. Perfect. Go be the master somewhere else. Move in with Sergey—let Olga clean up after both of you, since you’re such ‘lords of life.’”

“You’ve completely lost it,” Sergey muttered.

“Sergey, if you’re not out of here in an hour, I’m calling the police,” Marina said quietly, in a tone that made arguing feel pointless. “You can test whether Olga will let you in. Or go to your mom’s. I don’t care.”

“Marina, we can talk this through,” Oleg said, clearly not expecting her to go this far. “Don’t do anything rash.”

“There’s nothing to talk through,” she said, yanking open the closet, grabbing a bag, and tossing it at him. “I’m tired of being a cleaner in my own home. Tired of your rudeness. Tired of watching you turn into someone I don’t recognize. Leave. Think about how you’ve been acting.”

“You don’t have the right,” Oleg started, but she cut him off.

“I do. This is my apartment—my home. And I decide who lives here. You wanted to be the master? Go be one somewhere else.”

The brothers exchanged a glance. Marina could see they didn’t believe she meant it. They were waiting for her to cry, to back down, to take it all back.

But she wasn’t taking anything back.

“One hour,” she repeated. “And I don’t want to see either of you here.”

They left within forty minutes, shoving their things into bags, muttering about hysterical women and “bitter witches.” Marina stood at the window and watched them load Sergey’s car. Her hands trembled, her throat tightened, but she refused to cry.

When the door finally closed behind them, the apartment felt painfully silent.

Marina sat at the kitchen table, both hands wrapped around a mug of cold tea, and only then allowed herself to cry—not out of self-pity, not out of hurt, but out of relief. It felt like she’d set down a weight she’d been carrying too long.

The first three days were strange. She came home from work and instinctively expected chaos, but everything stayed clean—exactly as she’d left it that morning. The quiet felt unfamiliar, almost ringing in her ears. No late-night TV, no drunken talk, no empty bottles.

She wandered from room to room as if meeting her own home again. It was pleasant—and oddly sad at the same time.

Oleg called on the second day. Marina didn’t answer. He texted: “You realize you went too far, right? I’m at Sergey’s. Olga’s not happy at all. Maybe stop messing around?”

She didn’t reply.

On the third day he called five times. Marina kept ignoring him.

On the fourth day, he showed up. He rang the bell, and Marina, sighing, opened the door. Pretending she wasn’t home felt stupid.

“Marina, come on,” Oleg looked rumpled and unshaven. “Enough already. Olga kicked us out. Said she won’t carry two freeloaders on her back. Now I’m literally on the street.”

“And Sergey?” Marina asked.

“Sergey’s at Mom’s. But there’s only one spare spot, and he already took it.”

“So there’s a spot for you too.”

“Mom lives in a two-bedroom! Where am I supposed to go?”

“On the couch. On the floor. Not my problem, Oleg.”

He stared at her like he didn’t recognize her.

“Marinochka, please,” he pleaded. “I get it. I was wrong. Let me come back, and we’ll talk calmly.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, folding her arms. “You haven’t changed. You’ve just run out of options.”

“I have changed!” he rushed out. “I realized I was wrong, I swear. I get it now.”

“You realized Olga didn’t tolerate your rudeness either?” Marina asked quietly. “That being ‘master of everything’ only works where people allow it?”

His jaw clenched.

“So what—now I’m supposed to live on the street?”

“Live with your mother. Find a job. And when you do—then we’ll talk.”

“Marina, this is absurd!”

“No, Oleg. What was absurd was tolerating what you allowed yourself to become. Go. And don’t call me until you have a job. I mean it.”

She shut the door. He stood there a moment longer, then she heard slow, heavy footsteps fade down the hallway.

Marina went back to the kitchen, sat down—and realized she was smiling. For the first time in weeks, she felt genuinely light.

The next weeks were peaceful. Marina worked, came home, tidied up—only after herself now, and it was almost enjoyable. She cooked dinner, watched shows, read the books she’d been meaning to start for ages.

Sometimes she felt lonely. Sometimes she caught herself listening for the sound of keys in the lock. But then she remembered the last months—the mess, the rudeness, that line: “What does it matter whose apartment it is?”—and being alone didn’t seem so frightening.

Oleg called once a week. She didn’t pick up.

And then, a month and a half later, he texted: “I got a job—sales manager for security systems. Three-month probation, but they promise good pay. Can I come by?”

Marina stared at the message for a full fifteen minutes.

Then she typed: “Come Saturday at two. We’ll talk.”

On Saturday, Oleg arrived exactly at two. He wore a clean shirt, was freshly shaved, and held a bouquet.

“Come in,” Marina stepped aside.

They sat in the kitchen. Oleg set the flowers on the table, folded his hands, and looked her in the eyes.

“Marina, I want to apologize,” he said quietly. “For everything. I acted like a complete idiot.”

She stayed silent, waiting.

“When I got fired, I just… broke,” he continued, choosing his words slowly. “I felt useless. Like a loser. And instead of pulling myself together, I dumped my anger on you—the one person who was supporting me.”

“You weren’t dumping anger,” Marina corrected gently. “You were trying to feel powerful at my expense. To be ‘the boss’ somewhere.”

He nodded.

“Maybe you’re right. It was easier to play ‘the master’ than to admit I was scared—that I couldn’t handle it, that I felt like dirt.”

“Oleg, I would’ve supported you,” Marina said. “If you’d just talked to me. If you didn’t treat me badly, didn’t turn the apartment into a dump, didn’t drag your brother in here.”

“I know,” he said, rubbing his face. “God, I know. When Olga threw both of us out—me and Sergey—I suddenly saw myself from the outside. Two grown men with no jobs, behaving like pigs. And I thought… is that really me?”

“And what did you answer?” Marina asked.

“That it was me,” he admitted. “And I hated it.”

He told her he’d lived with his mother for three weeks, how she scolded him daily—called him an idiot, said he’d thrown away a good wife, said he was acting like an infant. He admitted he’d wanted to snap back, then realized she was right.

Marina listened and felt something inside her slowly thaw.

“I started looking for work for real,” Oleg went on. “Sending ten résumés a day. Going to interviews. And I found something. The pay’s lower than before, but it’s a start. And I’ll work hard.”

“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” she asked. “When you lived here?”

He hesitated, then answered honestly.

“Because I didn’t have to. Because you fed me anyway. You stayed anyway. Why strain myself if I could just sit and play tanks?” He gave a bitter half-smile. “I was living off you, Marina. I understand that now. And I’m ashamed.”

“Good,” she said softly, lifting the bouquet and breathing in the scent. “Chrysanthemums. My favorite. You remembered.”

“Of course I did.”

They were quiet for a moment. Outside, a couple walked past with a dog; somewhere nearby kids laughed loudly.

“So… what now?” Oleg asked. “I want to come back. I want to start over. But I understand if you don’t. If I burned every bridge.”

Marina looked at him. Her husband sat across from her—tired, humbled, unsure. Nothing like the cocky man who’d shouted about being “the master of everything.”

“Rules,” Marina said. “If you come back, there will be rules.”

He nodded, bracing himself.

“First: chores are fifty-fifty. Cleaning, cooking, all of it—shared.”

“Agreed.”

“Second: your brother is never staying here longer than an evening. If he’s fighting with his wife, he can solve it himself.”

 

“Agreed.”

“Third: no disrespect. Not to this home, and not to me. If you’re struggling, we talk about it. But you don’t get to take it out on me—or turn my apartment into a landfill.”

“Marina, I agree. I agree to everything,” he said, reaching across the table and covering her hand with his. “I’ll be different. I swear.”

She looked at their hands, then at his face.

“And if you ever go back to that behavior,” she said slowly, “there won’t be a second chance. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Then… alright,” she said, giving a small smile. “You can come back.”

Oleg stood, walked around the table, and hugged her. Marina closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his shoulder. She knew this wasn’t the end of their problems. There would be hard days. Trust didn’t rebuild overnight.

But it was a beginning. The start of something new.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for not leaving me for good.”

“I didn’t leave you,” she corrected. “I left the person you became. And this one,” she pulled back slightly and met his eyes, “this one… I think I still remember.”

He smiled—truly smiled—for the first time in months.

And Marina thought that sometimes people really do have to hit bottom to understand how far they’ve fallen. Sometimes you have to lose everything to value what you had.

And sometimes you simply have to find the strength to say, “Enough,” and not be afraid of being alone—if the alternative is living in constant humiliation.

That evening they cooked dinner together. Oleg chopped salad; Marina fried chicken. They talked—carefully, avoiding the sharpest corners, but they talked. The sun set outside, the kitchen smelled of garlic and spices, and for the first time in a long while Marina felt that things might be okay.

Not immediately. Not magically.

But in time—okay.

A sharp ring at the door sliced through the mourning silence of my apartment. Forty days hadn’t even passed since Kostya’s funeral—I still hadn’t learned how to breathe without him—yet my mother-in-law, Larisa Grigoryevna, was already standing on the threshold. And she wasn’t alone. Beside her was a hunched man with a briefcase. She didn’t even look at my tear-streaked face. Instead of condolences, she spoke in an icy, proprietorial tone:

“Galya, this is a notary. We’ve come to process the apartment. Kostya always said it would go to me. So pack your things.”

Forty days. Galina stared at Kostya’s photo and couldn’t believe it. Forty days without his laughter, without his warm hands, without his quiet “I’m home.” The apartment they had built together like a little nest had turned into an echoing crypt filled with silence and memories. Every cup in the kitchen, every book on the shelf screamed of him.

A tragic, absurd accident. In an instant, her world collapsed. And in that collapsed world, the only person who didn’t comfort her—who seemed, if anything, to be waiting for something—was her mother-in-law, Larisa Grigoryevna.

Right after the funeral she started her attacks. First came the silky phone calls.

“Galya, how are you holding up? All alone, aren’t you? Kostyenka worried about me so much… He always said, ‘Mom, you’re the only one I have, I’ll take care of you.’ He was a golden son, not like some people…”

Galina stayed silent, gripping the receiver until her knuckles hurt. She knew where this was going. Larisa Grigoryevna had been dancing on bones for ten years—ever since the day of her and Kostya’s wedding. She never accepted that her son, her only boy, now belonged to another woman. She always considered Galina a freeloader, a cunning provincial girl who had “snared” her Moscow prince and his apartment.

The apartment had been Kostya’s. He’d inherited it from his grandmother before they even met. But the renovation, the coziness, the soul of it—all of that they poured into it together. Galina remembered how they argued themselves hoarse over the color of the bedroom wallpaper, and how afterward, laughing, they smeared each other with paint. This was their home.

 

The phone rang again. The screen flashed: “Mother-in-law.” Galina took a deep breath and answered.

“Galya, I hope you’re slowly packing your things,” Larisa Grigoryevna began without preamble, her voice cold. “You’ll need to move somewhere. You can’t live in someone else’s apartment forever.”

Galina’s breath caught.

“What?.. W-what things? Larisa Grigoryevna, what are you talking about? Kostya’s been gone only a month…”

“So what? Life doesn’t stop!” her mother-in-law snapped. “Kostya always said that if anything happened, this apartment would go to me. That was his will. He was a decent son. So let’s do this without a scandal. Tomorrow I’m coming with a notary so we can formalize everything properly. Be at home.”

The line went dead with short beeps. Galina sank to the floor. A notary? Formalize? She was stomping into her grief, into her pain, and demanding she vacate the place. No—this was no longer a dance on bones. This was a declaration of war. And in that second, Galina understood she would no longer be the quiet, obedient daughter-in-law. She would fight. For her home. For Kostya’s memory.

The next day, exactly at noon, a sharp, demanding ring sounded at the door. Galina knew who it was. She opened up. Larisa Grigoryevna stood on the threshold dressed all in black, but with the expression of someone who hadn’t come to mourn—she’d come to take possession of an estate. Beside her stood a hunched man in a worn suit, a briefcase in his hands.

“Good afternoon,” her mother-in-law drawled with an icy smirk as she brushed past Galina into the apartment. “This is Andrey Viktorovich, a notary. We’re here to settle the formalities.”

“What formalities?” Galina asked quietly but firmly, closing the door. “Official inheritance happens after six months.”

“So clever,” Larisa Grigoryevna snorted, running her hand over the dresser like a homeowner. “A bit dusty here, Galya. You’ve really let the place go.” She clicked her tongue. “For some people it’s six months, and for others everything is obvious. I have all the documents. Kostya left the apartment to me.”

With theatrical flair she unzipped her bag and pulled out a thick folder.

“Here! Everything’s here! Kostya’s old will from ten years ago, and the deed of gift we discussed…”

“We won’t be discussing anything until the will is officially read,” Galina cut her off. Her voice trembled, but she held steady. “And I don’t understand why you brought this man.”

The notary, who had been silent until then, coughed awkwardly.

“Larisa Grigoryevna, I explained… A private consultation is one thing, but official actions are only possible in the established order.”

“Be quiet, Andrey Viktorovich!” the mother-in-law barked. “You’re here to process things, not to give advice! Galina, I don’t want a scandal. Just understand: you are nobody here. A wife is one today and another tomorrow. But a mother is sacred. Kostya understood that. He wanted me to live here in my old age.”

She spoke as if Galina were empty space—as if their ten years of happy marriage had never existed.

“He loved me!” Galina cried, unable to hold it in any longer. Tears poured from her eyes. “We were happy! And you… you spent your whole life trying to break us up! You hated me!”

“Hated you?” Larisa Grigoryevna flung up her hands theatrically. “Sweetheart, I simply didn’t notice you. You were an annoying misunderstanding in my son’s life. And now that misunderstanding will be corrected. The apartment is mine. Andrey Viktorovich, draw up the transfer act!”

“I’m not drawing up anything!” the notary protested. “That’s illegal!”

“Then get out of here!” Galina shouted, pointing at the door. “Both of you! Out of my house!”

“Yours?!” her mother-in-law shrieked, her face twisting with rage. “You wretch! How dare you tell me what to do?! Why, I’ll—”

She raised her hand, but Galina didn’t flinch. She stared straight into the eyes of the woman who had poisoned her life for years, and felt grief melt into cold, hard resolve.

“I’m giving you a week,” Larisa Grigoryevna hissed, lowering her arm. Her face was purple with fury. “A week to pack your junk and get out of here. Otherwise I’ll call the police and throw you into the street like a stray dog!”

“On what grounds?” Galina’s voice was surprisingly calm. All fear had vanished. “This is my home. I’m Konstantin’s wife.”

“Ex-wife!” her mother-in-law smirked maliciously. “Now you’re a widow. A penniless widow. And this is my son’s apartment, and he left it to me! He promised me personally! On your wedding day he said, ‘Mom, no matter what happens, you won’t be out on the street.’”

Galina gave a bitter smile. She remembered that day. Larisa Grigoryevna had thrown a horrific scene, called her a predator, then sobbed on Kostya’s shoulder, complaining that he was abandoning her. That was probably when he said something to soothe her—something this manipulator twisted to her advantage.

“Promises can’t be sewn onto a case file, Larisa Grigoryevna. There’s the law. And there’s the will, which we’ll learn about in due time.”

“Ah, you mean the will!” the mother-in-law dug into her folder again. “Here it is! Kostya wrote it when he was twenty-five. All property—to his mother, Larisa Grigoryevna. Look!”

She shoved a piece of paper under Galina’s nose. Galina glanced quickly. It really was a will.

 

“That was before me,” Galina said evenly. “Marriage and a later will отменяют the previous one. You don’t seriously think that in ten years Kostya didn’t take care of his family?”

Larisa Grigoryevna’s face twitched. For a second uncertainty flashed in her eyes, but she instantly drowned it in a new wave of anger.

“He didn’t take care of it! Because he knew you’d trick him! Rob him! He complained to me—said you only think about money!”

It was a lie. A brazen, filthy lie. Kostya would never have said that. They lived in perfect harmony. Yes, there were arguments, like any couple—but they always ended in reconciliation. He loved her, and she knew it. Her mother-in-law’s lie was the last straw.

“Enough,” Galina said sharply. “I don’t want to listen to your lies anymore. I told you: leave. We’ll resolve everything with the notary when the time comes. And if you show up on my doorstep again with threats, I’ll call the police.”

“You… you’re threatening me?!” her mother-in-law gasped.

“I’m warning you,” Galina answered firmly. “Your performance is over. You won’t get this apartment. Because Kostya loved me. He lived with me—and he ran from you, because your ‘love’ suffocated him his whole life. Now go.”

Larisa Grigoryevna froze with her mouth open. She hadn’t expected that kind of resistance from her quiet, accommodating daughter-in-law. She glared at Galina with hatred, then spun around and, grabbing the stunned notary by the arm, stormed out, slamming the door.

Galina was left alone. She slid down the wall onto the floor and burst into tears. But these weren’t tears of grief—they were tears of rage and release.

Six months passed. Six long, painful months of waiting. Larisa Grigoryevna didn’t show up again, but Galina felt her invisible presence. She called mutual acquaintances and complained about the “black widow” who had thrown her out of her son’s apartment. She spread filthy rumors. Galina tried not to pay attention, but it was hard.

And then the day of the will reading came. Galina arrived at the notary office half an hour early. She sat in the waiting room, clutching her purse in cold fingers. Her heart pounded so hard it felt as if it might leap out of her chest.

The door opened, and Larisa Grigoryevna walked in. She wore an elegant pantsuit, and on her face was a confident, contemptuous smile. She threw Galina a triumphant look and sat opposite her, ostentatiously crossing one leg over the other.

“Well, Galya? Ready to be evicted?” she hissed. “I hope your suitcases are already packed.”

Galina said nothing, only gripped her purse tighter.

They were invited into the office. The notary, an older, solid man, asked them to sit and began the official procedure. He spoke in a dry, monotone voice, reading out standard wording. Larisa Grigoryevna tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk. Galina sat motionless, like a statue.

“…And now we proceed to the reading of the will made by citizen Orlov Konstantin Igorevich,” the notary said, and opened a thick envelope.

He put on his glasses and began to read.

“‘I, Orlov Konstantin Igorevich, being of sound mind and clear memory, by this will make the following disposition… All my property which at the day of my death shall belong to me, whatever it may consist of and wherever it may be located, including but not limited to the apartment located at the address…’”

The notary named the address of the apartment Kostya and Galina had shared. Galina’s heart stopped. Larisa Grigoryevna leaned forward, her eyes shining with greed.

“…‘I bequeath to my beloved and only wife, Orlova Galina Petrovna.’”

The silence in the office became deafening. Galina looked up at the notary, not believing her ears. Larisa Grigoryevna froze with her mouth half-open. Her face slowly began to flood red.

“What?” she rasped. “This… this is some kind of mistake! I have another will! He couldn’t!”

“Please do not interrupt,” the notary said sternly and continued. “‘In a separate clause I wish to dispose in regard to my mother, Orlova Larisa Grigoryevna…’”

Her mother-in-law jumped to her feet.

“There! There! Now he’ll explain everything—how it was just a joke!”

The notary gave her a heavy look and slowly, with deliberate emphasis, read the next lines.

“‘…in regard to my mother, Orlova Larisa Grigoryevna,’” the notary repeated, looking over his glasses at the woman who had gone pale. “‘I, Orlov Konstantin Igorevich, fully and unconditionally deprive her of the right to inherit any of my property by law.’”

The blow was so strong that Larisa Grigoryevna swayed and collapsed back into her chair.

“How… deprive?..”

“That’s not all,” the notary said, returning to the document. “Konstantin Igorevich left an explanatory letter which he asked to have read as a mandatory part of the procedure.”

He cleared his throat and began reading text written by hand. Galina recognized Kostya’s handwriting at once.

“Mom. If you’re hearing this now, it means I’m gone. And it means you came to divide up my property, certain that it rightfully belongs to you. I’m writing this not out of anger, but out of deep bitterness. I always loved you, but your love was suffocating. You never saw me as a separate person—only as your property.

When I met Galya, for the first time in my life I became truly happy. I found my home, my family. And you did everything you could to destroy it. Your endless manipulations, lies, intrigues, your attempts to turn me against her… You poisoned ten years of our life. You told me she didn’t love me, that she only wanted money and the apartment. But the only person who ever talked about my apartment was you, Mom.

Galya is my life. She was with me in joy and in sorrow; she supported me when I wanted to give up; she created warmth in our home, which you always called ‘mine.’ She never asked me for anything.

That is why I leave everything I have to her. This is not just an inheritance. It is my gratitude, my love, and my attempt to protect her from you even after my death. I know you won’t leave her alone. But this home is her fortress. My last request to you, Mom: leave her alone. Let her live. Goodbye.”

When the notary finished, there was dead silence in the room for several seconds. Galina cried openly. These were tears of gratitude, love, and endless longing for her husband, who understood her so deeply.

And then the silence was torn apart by a wild, animal scream.

“LIES! IT’S ALL LIES!” Larisa Grigoryevna shrieked, springing from her chair. Her face was twisted with rage and disbelief. “She set it all up! That witch! She drugged him, bewitched him! He couldn’t have written that! He loved me!”

She lunged toward the notary’s desk, trying to snatch the papers from him.

“You’re in cahoots! How much did she pay you?! I’ll file complaints! I’ll sue! I’ll prove it’s a forgery!”

“Calm down, citizen Orlova!” the notary said sternly, pushing her hand away. “The will is certified according to all regulations. The authenticity of Konstantin Igorevich’s signature has been confirmed. Your actions may be regarded as disorderly conduct.”

“Disorderly conduct?!” Larisa Grigoryevna screeched, turning on Galina. Her eyes shot sparks. “This is all your fault! You stole my son from me—and now you stole his apartment! Curse you! May you never have peace in that house! May every corner remind you of him and tear your heart to pieces!”

Galina stood up. She wiped her tears and looked her mother-in-law straight in the eyes.

“It already does. Every corner. And I’m grateful to him for that,” she said quietly but firmly. “As for you… I pity you. You lost your son twice. First when you tried to destroy his happiness. And now—finally. You ended up with nothing not because I stole anything, but because there is nothing in your heart except greed and spite.”

Those words hit Larisa Grigoryevna harder than any scream. She froze, her face turning ash-gray. She stared at Galina with such savage hatred that Galina felt uneasy.

“I’ll destroy you,” she whispered. “I swear…”

She spun around and, staggering, walked toward the exit. The office door slammed with a crash.

Galina sank back into her chair. It was over. The war that had lasted ten years had ended. She had won. But there was no joy—only a ringing emptiness and endless gratitude to a husband who, even from beyond the grave, had managed to protect her.

“Orlova Galina Petrovna,” the notary called gently, pulling her out of her stupor. “My condolences… and congratulations. You’ll need to sign the documents to enter into the inheritance.”

Galina took the pen. Her hand no longer trembled.

Almost a year had passed since that day at the notary’s office. Galina was slowly returning to life. She rearranged the apartment, changed the curtains, bought a new sofa. She needed the home to stop being a mausoleum and become alive again. Kostya’s photo still stood in the most prominent place, but now Galina looked at it with a bright sadness rather than tearing anguish.

Larisa Grigoryevna kept her “promise.” She tried to sue, contesting the will; hired lawyers; wrote complaints to every office she could think of. But it was all futile. The law was on Galina’s side. After several failed attempts, her mother-in-law went quiet. From mutual acquaintances Galina heard that she sold her small apartment on the outskirts and moved to some distant relative in another city. She never appeared in Galina’s life again.

One evening Galina was sorting through Kostya’s old papers. In one of the boxes she found a notebook. It was his diary from the first year they lived together. Galina opened it with a pounding heart.

On one page she read:

“Mom caused another scandal today. Says Galya is using me. How can she not understand? Before Galya, I wasn’t living at all. I existed. And now I live. I breathe. And if I ever have to choose between Mom’s peace and happiness with Galya, I will choose Galya. Always. I have to protect her. From everyone. And first of all—from my own mother.”

Tears rose again, but they were warm, bright tears. He understood everything. He always had.

Galina closed the diary and went to the window. Outside, the evening city hummed, lights burned, life flowed on. She was alone, but she no longer felt lonely. Love lived in her heart, and behind her was an unbreakable wall her husband had built for her.

She took a deep breath. A new life lay ahead. Her life. And she knew she would manage. For her own sake. And in his memory

And when she entered the restaurant, her mother couldn’t believe her eyes…”

“Have you completely lost it?” she almost shouted, recoiling as if caught red-handed. “Me? In this? Playing your fiancée? Yesterday, I was digging food out of the trash!”

He calmly clicked the lock, closing the door, and, tiredly leaning against the wall, said:

“You have no reason to refuse. I’ll pay more than you could imagine. Just one evening. Be my fiancée. For them. For my parents. It’s just a game. A play. Or have you forgotten how to act?”

She was silent. Her fingers in worn gloves trembled. Her heart was pounding as if trying to burst out. “Could this be the start of a new life? Or at least the end of old pain?”

Thus began a story no one was prepared for.

He was as rich as a whole country. His name was Nathan Berg. Young, strict, with cold eyes and a serene face. His name graced business magazine covers, and his photos were on lists of the world’s most influential bachelors. Upbringing, money, power — everything was by the book. But his parents, living in Europe, kept repeating:

“When will we finally meet your girlfriend? Why are you hiding?”

They decided to come without warning. Tomorrow.

Nathan was not scared — he was confused. Not because he feared their judgment, but because he didn’t consider any woman suitable for the role. He despised actresses. Couldn’t stand fake smiles. He needed someone… real. Or at least very different from those they expected.

That evening, he was driving through the city. Cold, traffic jams, evening lights. And suddenly he noticed her — at the metro entrance, with a guitar and a cardboard sign saying: “I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a chance.”

Nathan stopped. For the first time, he didn’t drive past.

“What’s your name?”

She raised her eyes. Her voice was hoarse but full of pride:

“Why do you need to know?”

He smiled slightly.

“I need a woman who knows how to survive. For real. Alive. Without makeup. Like you.”

Her name was Marta. 27 years old. Behind her — an orphanage, escapes, years on the street, rehabilitation, cold nights, and a guitar. Her only truth.

The next evening, she stood in front of the huge mirror in the Emerald Hotel room. Her hands trembled as she smoothed the fabric of an expensive velvet dress the color of the deep sea. Her hair, freshly washed and stylishly done, shone. Makeup accentuated her features so much she was almost unrecognizable.

“They’re already at the restaurant,” Nathan said, adjusting his cufflinks. “We’re late for our happiness.”

 

“Think it will work?”

He looked at her for a long time.

“I think you’re the only person who can win over my mother.”

At the restaurant, everything seemed under control. Almost.

His father was reserved but attentive. His mother — a woman with refined manners and a sharp gaze, able to read a person with one eyebrow’s movement. Her eyes fixed on the girl across from her.

“How did you meet my son?” she asked.

Marta felt Nathan’s gaze on her. He nodded slightly.

“At a bookstore,” she answered. “I dropped a volume of Schopenhauer, he picked it up… and we both laughed.”

“Schopenhauer?” the woman was surprised. “You read philosophy?”

“As a child. In our orphanage, the librarian allowed us to take books even with the hardest topics — if we promised to return them.”

Silence hung. Nathan’s mother slowly put her glass down without taking her eyes off Marta. Too intently.

“In an orphanage?” she asked again, and her voice flickered with something elusive — curiosity, or a trace of old pain.

Then something happened that no one expected.

Marta suddenly straightened, gathered all her dignity into a fist, and said firmly:

“Sorry. I’m lying. I’m not your daughter-in-law. Not from a bookstore, but from the street. I’m homeless. Just a woman who got tired of being someone’s possession and today felt like a human being for the first time.”

Instead of judgment or scandal, the woman in a strict suit stood up, came over, and hugged her.

“My daughter… I started from nothing once too. Someone gave me a chance. And I’m glad you took yours.”

Nathan was silent. He just watched. And for the first time understood: the game was over. And real life was just beginning.

She told the truth — and received not contempt, but an embrace. None of them yet knew it was just the first step. Nathan’s mother turned out to be surprisingly sensitive — she saw in Marta not deception, but strength of spirit. His father remained distant.

“This is madness, Nathan,” he said coldly, cutting through the tension. “You brought us to a house of street fantasies?”

“This is my choice,” the son replied calmly. “Not your verdict.”

After dinner, Marta went outside. Took off her shoes, leaned against the wall, and cried. But not from shame — from relief. She told the truth. And no one turned away.

Nathan approached quietly. He held her coat.

“You won’t go back to the street. You’ll live with me. As long as needed.” He paused. “You deserve more.”

“I’m not asking for pity.”

“I’m not offering that. I’m giving you an opportunity.”

…

So began their strange, sharp, but honest life together. He worked late into the night, demanding of himself and others. She studied. Borrowed books, listened to lectures, cleaned the apartment, cooked. Sometimes she picked up the guitar again — not for money, but because something alive was waking inside.

She was changing.

“You’ve become different,” he said once.

“I’m just not afraid for the first time that they’ll throw me out.”

…

A month later his father left. Didn’t say a word. Just left a note: “If you choose your heart — don’t count on my fortune anymore.”

Nathan didn’t even open the envelope. Just threw it into the fireplace and quietly said:

“Money comes and goes. But if you lose yourself — you’re worth nothing.”

…

Three months later Marta saw two lines on a test.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered, sitting on the bathroom floor. “It’s too early… We’re not even a couple…”

When she told him, Nathan was silent for a long time. Then he hugged her.

“I don’t know what this feeling is called. But I know one thing — it’s right.”

…

There were court battles over the land his father wanted to take. There were rumors on the internet about “a billionaire and a homeless woman staging a show of happiness.” There were difficult births, fear of losing the baby, pain, anxiety.

And then there was a new life.

A life in which Marta became the author of her own book. A woman who stepped onto the stage not as a beggar by the roadside, but as a person who passed through poverty, indifference, and betrayal — and survived.

And every time she faced the audience, she said:

“I was a ‘fiancée for an hour.’ Now I’m a wife for life. Because one person saw me as a human being.”

…

The final scene — the very same restaurant. Marta holds the hand of a ten-year-old girl with lush curls.

“See, baby? Right here your dad smiled for the first time for real. Here we became a family, not a play for spectators.”

Nathan stands nearby. Smiling. Holding her hand. No hint of regret in his eyes.

He didn’t marry a princess. He chose a queen. Who once sat on the street with a cardboard sign asking not for help, but for a chance.

“An overdue loan payment? What loan?” Zinaida pressed the phone between her ear and shoulder, trying with her free hand to catch the cash register log as it slid off the desk.

“Credit agreement number seven-three-four-eight, dated November twenty-second of last year,” the woman’s indifferent voice droned in the receiver. “Issued in your name as co-borrower. The primary borrower is Mikhail Andreyevich Petrov. The arrears amount to two months.”

Zinaida froze. The log thudded dully onto the floor. Mikhail. Misha. Her husband. Dead for a year now. Since October. And the loan, apparently, was taken in November. The square of sunlight lying on the faded linoleum of the cashier’s little room suddenly seemed mockingly bright, out of place.

“There must be some mistake. My husband… he died in October. Last year.”

There was a short pause on the line, filled with the rustle of papers.
“Zinaida Pavlovna, my system shows the date the agreement was concluded. And your signature is on the documents. You need to come to the central office in Volgograd as soon as possible to clarify the situation.”

The call cut off. Zinaida slowly lowered the hand holding the phone. She was forty-three. For the last year she had lived like a sleepwalker in a thick fog of grief. Widow. A word that still scraped her throat. Her world had shrunk to the size of a small two-room apartment with a view of old poplars, and the cash desk of the sports complex where she had worked for fifteen years. A world in which tennis remained her only outlet, the only bright spot. Twice a week she went out on court, and only there, hitting back the springy yellow ball, did she feel life returning to her numbed limbs.

Misha… He couldn’t have. He simply couldn’t. He was the embodiment of reliability, her rock wall. Any thought of debts or loans horrified him. How? And, most importantly—with whom?

The first thing she did was call Inna, Mikhail’s sister.
“Inn, hi. I just got a call from the bank…” Zinaida swallowed. “They’re saying Misha has some loan. And I’m… a co-borrower.”

“Loan?” Inna’s voice sounded deliberately surprised, a bit too loud. “Oh, Zinochka, what are you talking about! Maybe some old one resurfaced?”

“No. They say it’s from November.”

“November?” Inna held a pause worthy of a drama-theater actress. “Strange… Although, wait. He did say something to me… about business. Yeah, yeah, he wanted to open some kind of workshop to repair boat motors. Volgograd, the Volga’s nearby, there’d be clients, he said. He probably started gathering documents, and you just forgot. It happens after… such grief.”

 

Zinaida was silent, listening closely to her sister-in-law’s intonations. Something in that overly sympathetic tone grated on her ear.

“But he died in October, Inna. And the agreement is dated November.”

“Oh, those people in banks don’t know anything! They mix things up and then you have to sort it all out. Zina, the main thing is don’t worry. Maybe it’s just an error in the dates. Come over to mine tonight, we’ll sit, talk. I’ve just baked a cabbage pie.”

She hung up, leaving Zinaida alone in the hollow silence of her little room. From behind the door came the muffled thud of balls against the court wall and the squeak of sneakers. Spring in Volgograd was coming into its own, filling the air with the smell of heated asphalt and blooming apricot trees. But Zinaida felt only an icy cold spreading from within. A workshop for motor repairs? Misha, who couldn’t tell a carburetor from a battery? That was as absurd as if she herself suddenly decided to become a ballerina.

That evening at Inna’s it smelled of cabbage pie and anxiety. Inna herself, a short, stout woman with an ever-evaluating gaze, bustled around the table.
“Well, come on, sit down, Zinochka. Tea? Or something stronger? You look, honestly…”

She sat down opposite her, laying her short fingers with their bright manicure on the tablecloth.
“So what’s this loan then? Is it a big amount?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t say,” Zinaida answered quietly, staring into her cup.

“Well, our Misha was a guy with imagination,” Inna sighed. “He always had some project in his head. Maybe he really did want his own business… And you, all worn out, signed the papers without looking. He could be very persuasive.”

“I didn’t sign anything after he died,” Zinaida said firmly.

“Oh, come on, Zina!” Inna waved her hand irritably. “Maybe it was before. The formal date could’ve been processed later. Bureaucracy! The main thing now is to figure out what to do. If the amount isn’t big, maybe it’s just easier to pay it off little by little? So they don’t drag Misha’s name through the mud. For the sake of his memory…”

The word “memory” rang out like a shot. Inna used it like a skeleton key, trying to pick the lock of Zinaida’s soul.

“I’m going to the bank. Tomorrow,” Zinaida said, getting up. “Thank you for the pie, it’s very good. But I have to go.”

“Zin, wait!” Inna jumped up. “Maybe you shouldn’t bother with the banks? Why do you need all that stress? I can find everything out myself through my contacts. Quietly, without fuss.”

“No. I’ll do it myself.”

She stepped outside. Dusk was settling over the city. In the distance, on the other bank of the Volga, the lights of Krasnoslobodsk were coming on. The air was warm, smelling of river and dust. Zinaida walked home, and for the first time in a year her head was filled not with grief but with cold, ringing fury. They were deceiving her. Crude, clumsy deception, taking her for a docile, grief-stricken widow who could be fed any lie.

The next day, during her lunch break, she went to the bank’s central office. A tall building of glass and concrete in the very center of Volgograd. Inside—air-conditioning coolness, the scent of expensive perfume, and the quiet hum of equipment. Zinaida, in her modest blouse and skirt, felt like a stranger here.

A young female manager studied her passport for a long time, then searched for something in the computer.
“Yes, Zinaida Pavlovna. Here’s your agreement. A consumer loan for eight hundred thousand rubles.”

Zinaida felt the floor slip from under her feet. Eight hundred thousand.

“Show me the documents.”

The girl printed out several sheets. There it was, the agreement. Mikhail’s name. Her own. And the signatures. Misha’s signature looked similar but somehow… uncertain. And her own… It was a crude, clumsy forgery. Someone had simply tried to copy her flourish.

“May I have copies of all the documents?” Zinaida asked, her voice trembling.

“Of course.”

She walked out of the bank with a folder in her hands. The sun was beating into her eyes. Eight hundred thousand. For what? For whom? The idea of a motor-repair business now seemed not just absurd, but mocking.

That evening there was tennis. Her partner, Vladimir—a man about her age, calm, laconic, a lawyer—immediately noticed something was wrong. The balls flew past, her shots were weak, she kept losing focus.

“Zin, what’s going on?” he asked after yet another lost point, stepping up to the net. “You’re not yourself.”

And she, unexpectedly even for herself, told him. Everything. About the call, about the conversation with Inna, about the trip to the bank and the forged signature.

Vladimir listened in silence, frowning. His usually impassive face had become hard.
“All right,” he said when she finished. “This is no simple mistake. This is Article 159 of the Criminal Code. Fraud.”

“But who? Inna? Why would she?”

“The motives can vary,” Vladimir rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But one thing is clear: you need to protect yourself. Immediately. The memory of Mikhail is one thing. A criminal offense and a huge debt is quite another. You must file a statement with the police. And with the bank’s security service.”

His words sobered her. He didn’t say “don’t worry” or “it’ll all work out.” He said “fraud,” “statement,” “protect yourself.” He saw not a grief-stricken widow, but a person in trouble who needed concrete help.

“I’m afraid,” she admitted quietly. “It’s Misha’s family. It’ll be a scandal… dirt.”

“Zinaida,” he looked straight into her eyes. “The dirt has already started. The moment someone forged your signature. The question is whether you’ll let them smear you and Misha’s memory with it—or you’ll clean it off.”

 

After practice they sat in the little café at the sports complex. On a napkin, Vladimir sketched out a plan of action. “First—a written complaint to the bank. Second—a statement to the police about fraud. Third—a request for a handwriting examination of the signatures.” Everything was clear and to the point.

“I’ll help you draft the statements,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. You’re not alone.”

And for the first time in a long while, Zinaida felt not loneliness, but support. Solid, manly, reliable support—the kind she had lacked for a whole year.

The next day Inna called her herself. Her voice oozed fake concern.
“Well, Zinochka? Did you go to the bank? What did they say?”

“They said I owe eight hundred thousand. And that my signature was forged.”

Silence hung heavy on the line. So dense it felt you could touch it.

“How… forged?” Inna finally squeezed out. “Zin, are you out of your mind? Why are you slandering Misha? He would never—”

“I’m not slandering Misha,” Zinaida replied in an icy tone. “I’m saying someone used his name and forged my signature. I’m going to the police tomorrow.”

“To the police?!” Inna squealed. “Are you crazy?! You want to shame our family? Drag everything out into the open… Do you even understand what you’re doing?! You want those cops to drag my brother’s, your husband’s name through the mud?!”

“I want the truth, Inna. And I’m not going to pay for fraudsters.”

Zinaida hung up. Her hands were shaking. She had done it. She had crossed the line. She had declared war.

That evening the doorbell rang. Inna stood on the threshold. Her face was red, twisted with rage. She walked into the apartment without being invited.

“Who do you think you are, huh?” she hissed, stepping toward Zinaida. “Decided to play the heroine? ‘She’s going to the police!’”

“Leave, Inna.”

“I’m not leaving until you come to your senses!” Inna glanced around the modest yet cozy apartment. “You think I don’t know what you’re after? You want to grab everything for yourself! Misha’s flat, the car in the garage! You think we’ll let you?”

“It’s my apartment too,” Zinaida said quietly but firmly. “We bought it together.”

“Yeah, together! With his money! While you sat as a cashier for three kopecks!” Inna flew into a scream. “Yes, Misha needed money! He wanted to buy out a share in the business from his partner! He had big plans! And you… you were always the brake! Always with your fears, your penny-pinching! He had to do it! He wanted what was best for the family, for you!”

Zinaida looked at her and no longer saw her husband’s sister, but a stranger filled with malice. Lies seeped from every word. What business? What partner? Misha told her everything.

“Enough lying, Inna.”

“It’s not lies!” Inna suddenly lowered her voice to an intimate whisper. “Zin, listen. Let’s settle this quietly. We’ll sell his Volga, the dacha… We’ll pay it off bit by bit. No one has to know. We’ll preserve his bright memory. Let’s not involve the police, I beg you…”

She tried to take Zinaida’s hand, but she pulled away.

“Whose memory are we preserving, Inna? The Misha I loved, or the one you’ve just invented to cover your own scam?”

At that moment, Zinaida understood. She understood everything. There had been no partner. No grand plans of Misha’s. The money had been for Inna herself. Her husband had recently lost his job, her college-aged daughter had expensive tastes. She had simply taken advantage of her brother’s death. Dug up some old documents, cozied up to a shady bank clerk, forged the signatures… The calculation was simple: the devastated widow wouldn’t dig too deeply, she’d be afraid and would quietly pay, just to “avoid tarnishing her husband’s memory.”

“It was you who took the loan,” Zinaida said—not as a question, but as a statement.

Inna’s face contorted. The mask slipped.
“And even if it was me?” she spat. “So what? I’m his sister! I had the right! He would’ve helped me! But you—you’re a stranger! An outsider! You always were! You were obliged to help your husband’s family!”

This was the culmination. The moment of truth. The clash of two worlds. Zinaida’s world, where love and memory were sacred, and Inna’s world, where blood ties were nothing but a tool for getting what you wanted.

“No, Inna,” Zinaida replied calmly. Her voice no longer trembled; steel rang in it. “I will not consent to this. And I won’t pay. You will pay. And not just the money.”

She opened the front door.
“Leave. Or I’ll call the police right now.”

Inna looked at her with hatred, hissed a curse through her teeth, and stormed out onto the landing.

Zinaida locked the door with every lock. She leaned her back against it and slowly slid down to the floor. Silence… blessed silence. She felt neither relief nor joy. Only immense, draining fatigue. And a strange, quiet sense of release. As if she had just performed a complicated operation and removed a malignant tumor from her life.

The next morning she woke to bright sunlight streaming through the window. Volgograd shone, washed clean by the night’s rain. For the first time in a year, Zinaida looked at this light not with sorrow, but with hope.

She got ready methodically and calmly. She put copies of the agreement, her passport, and Mikhail’s death certificate into a folder. She called Vladimir to clarify a few details. He said he’d be waiting for her by the police station after lunch.

Her first stop was the bank. The same central office. Today she didn’t feel like a stranger here. She walked in with her head held high, fully aware she was in the right.

The head of security, a gray-haired, stern man with attentive eyes, received her. She silently laid the documents out in front of him.

“I’m a cashier,” she began evenly. “I’ve been working with money and documents for fifteen years. I know what a genuine signature looks like and what a forgery looks like. Here is my signature.” She took a sheet of paper and signed several times. “And here is what appears on this agreement. I’ve also brought my husband’s death certificate—Petrov Mikhail Andreyevich. The agreement was concluded a month after he died. I believe your bank has serious issues with client verification procedures and, possibly, with the integrity of your employees.”

The man was silent for a long time, comparing the documents. He saw before him not a frightened woman, but a confident professional speaking the language of facts.

“Zinaida Pavlovna,” he said at last. “We will immediately begin an internal investigation. Thank you for informing us. We will be in touch.”

It was her first victory. Small, but important. She was not just defending herself; she was restoring order disrupted by lies and greed.

After the bank, she met Vladimir. Together they went to the police station. The smell of bureaucracy, worn-out chairs, indifferent faces. But Vladimir was beside her, and that gave her strength. She wrote her statement—dry, factual, just as he had taught her. The date of the call. The amount of the loan. The forged signature. Her suspicions regarding her sister-in-law, Inna Petrova.

When they came outside, the spring air seemed especially fresh.

“Well, that’s that,” she said, feeling the tension of the last few days begin to ease. “Now we wait.”

“You did everything right,” Vladimir nodded. “You were great. Very strong.”

He said it simply, without flattery, and his words warmed her.

“Tennis court?” he suggested. “Shall we loosen up a bit?”

“Let’s,” she smiled.

On the court she played as she had never played in her life. Every shot was precise, powerful, calculated. She wasn’t just hitting the ball—she was knocking out the remnants of fear, doubt, and bitterness. She moved lightly, freely, as if she had shrugged off an invisible burden from her shoulders. Vladimir could barely keep up, watching her with surprise and admiration.

In the final set, at 5–5, she stepped up to serve. Tossed the ball, arched her back—a powerful, whiplike stroke. Ace. Match point. She laughed—for the first time in a very, very long while. Freely and happily.

The investigation lasted several months. It confirmed everything. Under the weight of the evidence, Inna confessed. It turned out she had talked a friendly manager in the loan department into helping, promising him “a cut.” Both of them faced trial. The loan was annulled. Mikhail’s name was cleared of lies. Zinaida’s name—of debt.

Her relationship with her husband’s family was destroyed forever. But Zinaida realized she had lost nothing. Because anything that could be destroyed by a single scam had never been real in the first place.

One summer evening she sat with Vladimir on a bench on the Central Embankment. The sun was setting over the Volga, painting the sky pink and orange.

“You know,” she said, looking at the water, “I didn’t just get rid of the debt. I feel like I found myself. The me I’d long lost. The one who can not only endure and drift with the current, but also fight.”

“I always knew she was there,” Vladimir smiled. “She was just waiting for her moment. For her serve.”

He gently took her hand. His palm was warm and strong. And Zinaida, without hesitation, squeezed his fingers in return. Ahead lay a new life. Unclear, mysterious, but undeniably her own. And she was ready for it

“This area is for VIP clients; you’re not allowed in here,” Igor hissed at me, his fingers digging into my forearm.

They were cold—like the look he’d been giving me for the last ten years.

I silently stared at the heavy velvet rope blocking the entrance to the fireplace lounge.

There, in the soft light of the floor lamps, sat people whose faces flashed across financial news. Igor had always strained to get into that circle. He thought he’d long since earned the right.

“Anya, don’t embarrass me. Go to our table by the window—I’ll be there in a minute,” his voice oozed that condescending irritation that had become the background noise of my life.

He spoke as if explaining to a fussy child why you can’t touch something hot.

I didn’t move. Five years. Five long years I had been just “Anya” to him. A function.

A woman who maintained a flawless household while he “built an empire.” He had long forgotten who I’d been before him.

Forgotten that my father, a professor of economics, left me not only his library but also a rather sizable account—and taught me how to manage it.

“Did you hear me?” Igor tightened his grip, his face beginning to redden. “What are you doing here, I’m asking?”

I slowly turned my head toward him. In his eyes sloshed vanity mixed with poorly concealed anxiety.

He was so proud of himself—of his suit that cost several thousand euros, of his status.

He had no idea that his “empire” was a house of cards built on risky loans, and that I was the anonymous creditor who had been buying up his debts for the past two years.

Every time I asked him for money “for hairpins,” he would toss a few bills on the table with patronizing flair.

He didn’t know that I immediately transferred that money to a separate account labeled “humiliation.” They became the symbolic part of the capital I was steadily building while he was busy admiring himself.

“I’m waiting for business partners,” I answered quietly. My voice was even, without a trace of the hurt he was so used to hearing.

 

It threw him off. He expected tears, reproaches, submission. Anything but this icy, businesslike calm.

“Partners? Your yoga instructor?” he tried to sneer, but it came out weak. “Anya, this isn’t your level.

Serious matters are decided here. Go, don’t get in the way.”

I watched as, beyond the velvet rope, the owner of a major media holding took his seat.

He met my gaze and gave the slightest nod. Not to Igor—to me. Igor didn’t even notice.

He didn’t know that three days ago I had signed the final document. That this restaurant—his favorite stage for displaying status—was now mine.

That soon all his “VIP acquaintances” would be my guests, courting my favor.

“Igor, let go of my arm. You’re in my way,” I said just as softly, but with a new, hard edge. The tone of someone who gives orders, not requests.

He froze, peering into my face as if trying to find the old Anya there—the one who used to look up at him from below.

But she was gone. In her place stood a woman who had just bought his world. And he was the first person she intended to evict from it.

For an instant Igor’s arrogant mask slipped. Confusion flickered, but he smothered it, taking this for open defiance.

“Who do you think you are? Lost all fear, have you?” he hissed, trying to drag me aside, away from prying eyes.

But I stood rooted to the spot, feeling my resolve harden with every second.

“I told you, I’m expecting guests. It would be awkward if they saw this unpleasant scene.”

“What guests?” he nearly growled, losing control. “Enough. You’re going to the car right now. We’ll talk at home.”

He tried to play the tired old card of the “caring husband” worried about his wife’s condition.

He glanced around, seeking sympathy from a passing waiter. But the waiter simply bowed to me and asked, “Anna Viktorovna, is everything all right?”

At that moment our children approached us—Kirill, tall in a perfectly tailored suit, and Lena, elegant, her gaze steady. They were the living embodiment of my secret investments.

“Mom, we’re here. Sorry, we were delayed at a meeting,” Kirill kissed my cheek, deliberately ignoring his father. Lena hugged me from the other side, forming a living barrier.

Igor was taken aback. He was used to the children being reserved with him, but this was something new. This was a united, unbreakable front.

“And what are you doing here?” he tried to reclaim the role of head of the family. “I didn’t invite you.”

“Mom did,” Lena replied calmly, straightening the shawl around my shoulders. “We’re having a family dinner. And a very important occasion.”

“A family dinner? Here?” Igor swept a hand around the room. “Lena, this place isn’t for your little gatherings. I’m paying for your table in the main room.”

He still didn’t understand. He saw only what he wanted to see: a housewife for a wife and idle children.

He didn’t know that their IT startup, which he dismissed as “toys,” had just received a multimillion acquisition offer from a Silicon Valley giant.

A silver-haired manager came over—the one Igor always called familiarly “Petrovich.” But now there wasn’t a trace of obsequiousness in his bearing.

“Anna Viktorovna,” he addressed me alone, his voice loud and clear. “The fireplace lounge is ready. Your guests are gathering. May I escort you?”

Igor froze. He looked from the manager to me, then to our children, who regarded him without the slightest sympathy.

The word “Viktorovna” cracked like a gunshot.

Petrovich stepped forward and, with a bow, unhooked the velvet rope. He was opening the way for me into the world Igor had so desperately tried to enter—into my world.

“You…” Igor breathed, and in that word was everything: shock, disbelief, the first stirrings of fear. “What does all this mean?”

I looked at him one last time with the gaze he knew so well—the gaze of the obedient wife.

“It means, Igor, that your table is no longer being served,” I said, and without looking back, I stepped beyond the rope.

I entered the fireplace lounge, feeling his scalding stare on my back. Lena and Kirill took their places at my sides like a living shield. Conversations died away. Dozens of eyes watched the unfolding drama.

Igor took a step after me, trying to cross the invisible line. Rage twisted his face. He couldn’t accept being shut out of his own paradise.

“Anya! I’m not finished!” he shouted.

The manager, with perfect tact, blocked his way.

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t go any farther. This is a private event.”

“I’m her husband!” Igor roared, jabbing a finger at me. “That’s my family!”

Kirill stepped forward. His calm was more frightening than his father’s shout.

“Dad, you’re mistaken. This is Mom’s business. And her guests,” he said evenly. “That IT project Lena and I are working on… Mom is our main investor and, effectively, the controlling owner. She founded it.”

Igor laughed—a wild, broken laugh.

“Investor? Her? She can’t string two words together without my approval! Any money she had—I was the one who gave it to her!”

“Exactly,” Lena cut in, steel ringing in her voice. “All those bills you tossed her ‘for pins’—she invested them in us.

And she invested Grandad’s inheritance, which you didn’t even bother to ask about. While you were building an ‘empire,’ Mom built a real business. From scratch.”

Igor swept the room with a frantic gaze, searching for support. He locked eyes with the banker he’d played golf with yesterday.

The man was studying the pattern on his cigar with great interest. Igor looked to the official to whom he’d provided “services.” The man pretended to be absorbed in his neighbor’s small talk. Igor’s world was collapsing before everyone’s eyes.

 

I approached the central table, where my partners were already waiting. I picked up a glass of champagne.

“Forgive the brief delay, gentlemen,” my voice sounded surprisingly firm. “Sometimes you have to shed ballast to move forward.”

I raised my glass, looking straight at Igor.

“To new beginnings.”

The room burst into applause. Quiet, restrained—yet all the more deafening for Igor.

He stood alone in the middle of the room, humiliated, bewildered. Security was already drifting discreetly in his direction.

He looked at me. There was no anger left in his eyes, no self-pity. Only a scorched-out emptiness and a question. He had lost a war he never even knew was being waged.

The guards didn’t lay a hand on him. They simply stood nearby, silent and imposing. It was enough.

Hunched, Igor turned and walked toward the exit. Each step echoed dully in the sudden hush. The door closed behind him, cutting him off from the world he’d considered his own.

The evening went flawlessly. I discussed merger terms with my partners; Kirill and Lena delivered a brilliant presentation of the new project.

I felt as if I had shrugged off a heavy, ill-fitting cloak I’d worn for many years.

I breathed freely. And yet somewhere deep inside was a quiet sorrow for the boy I had once married.

When we got home, it was already past midnight. The light was on in the living room. Igor sat curled up in an armchair.

Spread before him on the coffee table were bank statements, the deed to the house, car documents. All the things he thought were his.

He looked up at me. There was no anger in his eyes, no resentment. Only a question, and a world burned to ashes.

“Is that all?” he asked quietly.

I sat down opposite. The children stood behind me.

“Not all, Igor. Only what was bought with my money. And, as it turns out, almost everything was,” I spoke calmly, without gloating.

“Your construction business has been bankrupt for a year. I bought up your debts through shell companies so you wouldn’t lose face. So the children wouldn’t lose a father who’d failed.”

He looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. Not “Anya,” not “the wife,” but a person. A strategist who had beaten him on his own field.

“Why?” he whispered.

“Because you’re the father of my children. And because I gave you a chance. Every day I waited for you to see me—not your housemaid,” I paused. “You didn’t. You were too busy staring at your own reflection.”

Kirill placed a folder on the table.

“These are the papers for a new company. Yours. We’ve transferred part of the assets to it. Not much, but enough to start over. If you want.”

Igor looked from me to the children. Slowly, he understood. He hadn’t been thrown out onto the street. He’d been given a lesson.

A harsh, humiliating lesson—but a lesson. He’d been shown that the world doesn’t revolve around him.

He lowered his head and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders trembled. These weren’t tears of rage or self-pity.

It was the soundless collapse of an entire universe built on arrogance.

I stood and came to him. For the first time in many years, I laid a hand on his shoulder—not as a supplicant, but as someone who gives.

“Tomorrow at nine we have a board meeting, Igor. Don’t be late. You’ll be in charge of the new construction division. On probation.”

He didn’t answer. He just sat there, shattered and stunned. But I knew he would come tomorrow.

And he would be a very different man. A man who at last had learned to respect his wife.

Granny Anya drank some sour milk, said her prayers, and got ready for bed. Her knees ached worse than usual today. The alcohol rub didn’t help, and she’d run out of ointment.

Ah, look what she’d come to. Her eyes barely saw, her back was twisted with pain, her knees throbbed. And when would God finally take her to Himself…

Her husband Vanya was there, her son Styopa, her parents… and she was left here alone, wasting away—sad and terribly lonely. No joy in life. An old dog in the kennel and Vasya the cat—that was her whole family…

Suddenly she heard the door creak. Again she’d forgotten to lock up for the night. Heavy footsteps sounded.

“Hand over the money, old woman!” someone shouted loudly. A man stepped into the room; his face was hard to make out.

“My boy, don’t shout like that. I’m not deaf. Not yet. Money, you say? There should be something left from my pension in the wallet—look there in the wardrobe, on the top shelf.”

The man stood like a post. Silent.

“Well, what are you standing for? Take the money if you came for it. Must be you’re really desperate, you wretch. Looks like you need it more than I do. I don’t need much—there’s bread, there’s groats, I’ll get by somehow… Are you hungry? Will you have some supper? I’ve got pink tomatoes—tasty ones, the neighbor treated me. I’d slice some salted pork, but I don’t have any. I don’t eat it—my blood pressure jumps.”

The man took the wallet, opened it, then put it back without taking anything.

“Granny… I won’t take your money. But I wouldn’t say no to something to eat…”

“What’s your name, at least? Let’s have a chat, since you’ve come in. Hardly anyone ever drops by—only my neighbor Klava and the postman. I’m bored and sad. Things really that bad for you, son?”

“Bad, gran… I just got out of prison. Nowhere to live, no parents. My ex-wife lives happily in the city—she doesn’t need me, and neither does my daughter. My name’s Viktor…”

Granny Anya got up from the bed and went to the fridge. She took out tomatoes, a piece of cheese, sliced bread, and poured sour milk.

“Here, Vitya—help yourself. Everything’s fresh. You say your child doesn’t need you? Well, you must’ve done some foolish things before—she’s hurt, that’s why. What did you do time for?”

“For a fight. I was drunk and I really messed up… My wife left me right away, remarried. Never even came once to visit… She sold our house—it was in her name. I’m homeless now. That’s what I’ve come to—going to rob old ladies…”

 

Viktor covered his face with his hands and began to cry.

“Cry, dear— it’ll be easier. When my son Styopa died, I cried for so long. Then he started coming to me in dreams, saying, ‘Mother, you’ve soaked me with your tears—stop, it’s damp here.’ And I stopped. What’s the use of crying now? My only hope is that I’ll see my loved ones soon, but God hasn’t arranged to take me yet. So I live as I can. I wait for my hour.

“I don’t need anything— the fence is crooked, the trees have grown wild, the garden’s all weeds, and I don’t even care. Who would I do it for? My name’s Anna, by the way. Granny Anya.”

Viktor wiped his face with his sleeve, sat at the table, and started eating the tomatoes greedily, salting them and biting into them, washing them down with sour milk.

“And if you want, stay the night here. There’s a spare cot. I feel you’re not a bad man—just a wounded soul. You need to settle in one place, find work. Work heals, you know. Life will get a meaning—you have to be useful to people. And don’t do evil, dear—you’ll have to answer for everything later…”

“Thank you, Granny Anya. My grandmother, by the way, was also named Anya. She was kind—baked delicious fish pies. And Easter cakes for Pascha.”

“I used to bake too. Now only memories are left. Life was hard, but we were happy. My old man was a good person, kind… and Styopa was the same. He limped—since childhood—but he never hurt anyone in his life. And he died saving a little girl. A truck was rushing at her—he saw it, threw her to the side, and he himself…”

“Wait—was he, by any chance, at the Vostochny state farm about thirty-five years ago? It’s not far from here.”

“He was, of course. His aunt lived there—he went there for the holidays.”

“Then he saved me, it turns out. I couldn’t swim well—I went into the river and couldn’t get back. I started choking, and some boy jumped in from the bank and pulled me out onto the shore. I remember his name was Stepan, and he limped on one leg.”

“That’s what I’m saying—Styopushka had a kind soul… It’s a pity he left so early—no family, no children… He lived a short life, but a worthy one.”

“You had a wonderful son! What a small world. My feet brought me to you—yes, with bad intentions, but clearly not for nothing. You know what? I’m in your debt. My debt is to help you. In memory of Stepan. I’ll fix the fence and cut back the trees. Don’t be afraid of me. I won’t do you any harm.”

“Stay with me, Vitya. God’s will in everything… Just promise you’ll never harm anyone again. You’ll live honestly and decently.”

“I promise, Granny Anya…”

Viktor came up to her and took her dry, wrinkled hand. She stroked his cheek.

“Unshaven… Just like my old man. He didn’t like shaving either. Tomorrow go buy yourself a razor, and a shirt and trousers. I’ll give you money. And look for work. We need men’s hands in the settlement.”

And so they began to live together. Viktor got a job as a general laborer, bought groceries, cooked. He cleaned himself up and looked quite decent—tall, broad-shouldered, with strong, sinewy hands. He fixed the fence, put the garden and vegetable patch in order.

“Granny Anya, let’s plant potatoes so we’ll have our own, and tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage—everything will be ours! And I also want to add on a toilet and a bath—once I save up some money.”

“Thank you, dear. You should find yourself a woman too… Take a look at the saleswoman in the grocery store. A good woman—Vera. Lonely and respectable.”

“I know her. She’s nice. I like her, and I think she likes me too…”

“That’s wonderful, Vitya. Life’s getting better, look at that. You’ve blossomed, and I’m not lonely anymore. The neighbors whisper, saying I took in an ex-con. Let them talk. None of their business… Thank you, son, for everything…”

A few months later Viktor married Vera and brought her to live with Granny Anya—she insisted.

“The house will be full of life at least. I was wasting away here alone, and now it’s like I have a son and a daughter…”

They did repairs, and Granny Anya couldn’t be happier. They treated her with respect and honor.

“I live like a queen… They bought me new headscarves, little robes, medicine… I don’t have to cook or clean, every day is cheerful with you, and I even started watching TV series. You know, I’ve even stopped wanting to die. And soon Verочка will give birth—then it’ll be balm for my soul. I’ll rock the baby…”

Vera gave birth to a boy. Viktor decided to name him Stepan, in honor of Granny Anya’s son; his wife didn’t mind.

“Oh, my dears, you’ve moved me to tears. Styopa is the spitting image of his daddy—such a sturdy little fellow. God grant health to him and to you, my dear ones… Viktor, I made out my will in your name—there’s no one else…”

And truly, they became like family to her. She received so much warmth and care in the time she lived with them.

 

Granny Anya died quietly at night, in her sleep. Neighbors and acquaintances came to the funeral.

“Viktor, Vera, thank you for brightening her loneliness. Granny Anya’s eyes started shining with joy—before that they were dull—and she smiled lately. You could see she was happy,” the neighbor Klavdia thanked the couple through tears.

Viktor was grateful to Granny Anya all his life. She saved him in a hard moment, set him on the right path. And he believed his feet had not brought him to her house for nothing. Stepan—no other way—had decided to help from the other side: his mother, and Viktor too…

 

“I’m pregnant,” I said, and a smile spread across my face all by itself.

Kirill, standing by the window, froze. He didn’t even turn around, but in the glass I saw his shoulders tense.

I was waiting for a hug, joyful shouting—anything at all, but not that strange, rigid stillness.

“Me too,” Lena’s quiet voice sounded.

My sister stepped out of our bedroom. She was wearing Kirill’s T-shirt—the one I loved most, the one he slept in.

She pushed her hair back, and the gesture was so ordinary, so at-home, that for a second my head swam.

Flashes of memories I’d never paid much attention to flickered through my mind.

Kirill “at a meeting” late at night, and Lena dropping by “just to chat,” nervously checking her phone.

The two of them laughing at a joke only they understood, while I stood beside them feeling like an extra in my own celebration of life.

“You’ve got the key, right, Lena?” he’d asked when we went on vacation. “Please water the plants. There’s no one else I can trust.”

And I’d been happy, thinking what a close-knit family we were.

“What?” I asked again, though I’d heard everything perfectly. My voice sounded foreign—wooden.

“Anya, I’ll explain everything,” Kirill finally turned. His face was white as a hospital wall. “It’s not what you think. It’s… a mistake.”

Lena stared straight at me. There was no remorse in her eyes. Only exhaustion and some kind of angry, stubborn determination.

“It’s not a mistake,” she snapped, looking at Kirill. “Stop lying. At least now.”

He shot her a furious glance.

“Shut up!”

I looked from my husband to my sister. At the man I’d spent five years building a future with, and the woman I’d shared childhood secrets with.

They were two meters away, but it felt like a chasm separated us.

And in that chasm all my “we” drowned—our plans, our tenderness, our future nursery.

“A mistake, huh,” I repeated, my lips twisting into a smirk. “So the two of you are having a mistake? Or does each of you get your own?”

Kirill stepped toward me, hands outstretched.

“Anyutka, sweetheart, let’s talk. Just not now. Lena, leave.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” my sister answered calmly, folding her arms. “We’re having a baby. And I won’t let you pretend I don’t exist again.”

I backed away from Kirill until my spine hit the cold hallway wall.

“Out,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Out. Both of you.”

They didn’t leave. My word—so heavy just five minutes ago—turned into an empty sound.

“Anya, don’t act rashly,” Kirill began in that conciliatory tone I hated. The tone he used when he wanted me to “be understanding.”

“You’re a smart woman. We’re both adults. Yes, I’m guilty. But right now we need to think not about emotions, but about the children. About our children.”

He stressed the last word, trying to tie us together again, to create the illusion of a shared future.

“What ‘our’ children are you talking about?” I asked venomously. “The one who’ll grow up with a single mother, or the one your mistress will give birth to?”

Lena flinched and let out a quiet sob.

“Don’t call me that. You don’t know anything.”

“Really?” I turned to her. Cold fury pushed the shock aside. “Then enlighten me. What am I supposed to know? That you slept with my husband in my bed? Isn’t that enough?”

“It wasn’t like that!” her voice grew stronger. “We love each other. It’s not just an affair.”

Kirill grabbed his head.

“Lena, I asked you!”

“And I’m tired of staying silent!” she shouted. “Tired of being a secret, a mistake that needs fixing!”

“Anya, you always got everything. The perfect husband, the perfect home. And me? I was always in second place. Just ‘Anya’s sister.’”

Her monologue was soaked in old resentment so deeply that I was stunned. She wasn’t defending herself. She was accusing me.

I remembered how, in childhood, Mom always said: “Anyutka is the smart one, Lenochka is the pretty one. To each her own.” It seemed Lena had never made peace with that “own.”

“So you decided to take what’s mine?” I asked quietly.

 

“I took what belonged to no one!” she snapped. “He wasn’t happy with you. You just didn’t want to see it.”

I looked at Kirill. He avoided my eyes. And in that moment I understood Lena was telling the truth—not about love, no. But about the fact that he’d allowed her to believe it. He’d complained to her about me, building a corrupt bond fed by his weakness and her envy.

“Fine,” I said, and my calm made them both tense. “Let’s say so. What are you proposing? The three of us living together? Or will you make a schedule?”

Kirill lifted his head.

“Stop it. That’s not constructive. I’m suggesting… we live separately for now. I’ll rent Lena an apartment. I’ll help both of you. We need time to think things through.”

He spoke as if he were discussing a business project—splitting assets, managing risk.

“So you want me to sit here, pregnant, and wait while you ‘think’ about which of your pregnant women you’re coming back to?” I laughed. It came out ugly, grating.

“Anya, you’re making it complicated.”

“No, Kirill. You simplified it to the limit. Down to something animal. Leave. And take her with you. You’ll pick up your things later—when I’m not home.”

I took out my phone and dialed.

“Hello, security? There are strangers in my apartment. Yes, they refuse to leave.”

Lena looked at me with hatred. Kirill stared in disbelief. He hadn’t expected this from me. He was used to “good girl Anya,” who would always understand and forgive. But that girl had just died.

Of course my call was a bluff. Our complex didn’t have any security service—just a sleepy concierge. But they didn’t know that. The word “security” sobered Kirill immediately.

“You’ll regret this, Anya,” he hissed, grabbing Lena by the hand. “You’re throwing a pregnant woman out of the house. Your own sister.”

“I’m throwing my husband’s mistress out of the house,” I corrected, looking him straight in the eyes. “And you are simply a traitor.”

When the door slammed behind them, I slid down the wall onto the floor. But there were no tears. Only scorched emptiness and adrenaline ringing in my ears.

The next day, hell began.

First my boss called.

“Anya, hi. Listen, your husband called… Kirill. He’s very worried about your condition. Says that with the pregnancy you… well… have unstable behavior.”

I went cold.

“What else did he say?”

“Well, he asked us to give you leave. To take care of you. Said you might not be entirely… competent when making decisions.”

I understood everything. He hadn’t just left. He’d started systematically destroying me, painting me as insane. He hit the sorest spot—my job, my reputation, my independence.

An hour later a courier delivered a letter from his lawyer. A thick envelope full of legal terms boiled down to one thing: he was filing for division of property. And he wasn’t demanding half.

He wanted the entire apartment, claiming it had been bought with his personal funds before the marriage, and my contribution to the renovations was “insignificant.”

But the last page was the most terrifying. He petitioned for a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation for me.

To determine whether I could be an “adequate mother” for our unborn child.

There it was—the bottom. He was going to take not just my apartment. He was going to take my child. My child. Use my pregnancy, my vulnerability, as a weapon against me.

Something inside snapped. The very thread that connected me to the old Anya—understanding, forgiving, “good.”

He thought I’d break. That I’d cry, beg, accept his terms. He forgot. He forgot everything.

He forgot who sat with him at night when he was just starting his business, proofreading contracts. He forgot who kept his “gray” accounting in a notebook because there was no money for a real accountant.

He forgot that I knew all his schemes, all his offshore accounts, all his “tax optimizations.”

I had been his shadow, his faithful squire. And he decided the squire was unarmed.

I walked to the safe we’d bought together “for important documents.” My hands didn’t shake. I entered the code only he and I knew.

Inside, under a stack of our marriage certificates and the apartment papers, lay a thin folder. A folder he’d asked me to “just keep” a couple of years earlier.

“It’s insurance, Anyutka,” he’d said then. “Just in case. Let it stay with you—you’re the most reliable one I have.”

He was so sure of my blind loyalty, of my ignorance, that he made that fatal mistake. He put the weapon in my hands himself.

I took out my phone. But I didn’t call a lawyer. I dialed an old university friend who now worked in economic investigations.

“Hi, Stas. I’ve got a very interesting story for you. About a very successful businessman.”

The effect of my call wasn’t immediate. Stas explained that an anonymous tip was only grounds to start a check. The process would be long. But the machine started turning.

The first few months were torture. Kirill pressed from every side. His lawyers buried me in lawsuits.

He called our mutual friends, telling them I’d gone crazy from hormones. But I held on. I knew I had a trump card—and I simply waited.

He took the first hit six months later: a tax audit. Official and ruthless.

They froze his main accounts “pending clarification.” He called me. I didn’t answer.

Lena tried to reach me too. She sent pathetic messages: “He left me. I have no money. Help me, you’re my sister.” I read them and deleted them.

The collapse wasn’t fast—it was excruciating. Like slow poison. One by one, partners began turning away from him.

The reputation he valued so much started to crack. He tried to sell the business, but no one wanted a “toxic” asset.

He called me the day his card was declined at an expensive restaurant.

“What have you done, you idiot?!” he hissed into the phone. “You’re destroying my life!”

“No, Kirill,” I answered calmly, sorting through baby clothes I’d bought the day before. “I just turned on the lights. The cockroaches scattered on their own.”

He threatened and screamed that he would ruin me. But his voice no longer had that former certainty. Only fear. He understood I wasn’t playing by his rules anymore.

He lost the property division case. My lawyer proved the apartment had been bought with marital funds, and his “personal money” had actually been siphoned from his own company.

His bid for custody was dismissed after details of the tax investigation surfaced. He became unreliable in the court’s eyes.

In the end he lost everything—his business, his money, his status. He received a massive fine and a three-year suspended sentence with a ban on holding managerial positions.

For a man like him, it was worse than prison.

Two years passed.

I sat in a cozy café, watching my son Misha concentrate as he tried to build a tower of blocks.

Beside me sat Andrey—the man I met at a class for new parents.

 

Calm, dependable, with kind eyes. He didn’t try to replace Misha’s father; he simply loved both of us.

Suddenly my phone vibrated. An unknown number. I answered.

“Anya? It’s Lena.”

I stayed silent, not knowing what to say.

“I… I just wanted to say… I’m sorry,” her voice trembled. “I was such a fool. I envied you my whole life. Your ease, your strength. I thought that if I took him, I’d become you. But I became no one.”

“How are you?” I asked evenly.

“We’re… okay. I named my daughter Nadya. Kirill… he didn’t even come to the hospital to pick us up. He didn’t have time for us. He tried to borrow my last money and disappeared.”

I looked at my son, who finally placed the last block and clapped happily. Andrey smiled and gently touched my hand.

“Len,” I said. “If you need help… for Nadya… you can count on me.”

She sobbed into the phone.

“You really… could?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But my door will always be open for my niece. And you and I… maybe someday.”

I hung up. Forgiveness wasn’t fireworks that freed you from the past.

It was a quiet decision—a decision not to drag a heavy burden of resentment into my new, happy life.

The memory of betrayal became part of me, like a scar that no longer hurts, but reminds you that you survived.

I was no longer a “good girl.” I was a woman who had learned to protect herself. And I liked that version of me much more

 

“I definitely wouldn’t marry a man like that!” rang out a clear, bright child’s voice in the silence—surprisingly confident for someone so young.

Marina flinched and turned sharply. In front of her stood a little girl—about six, with a long fair braid, a worn jacket, and eyes that held a strange, beyond-her-years clarity.

The bride in a snow-white dress, rustling with every step, froze at the entrance to the restaurant. Inside, guests, music, a three-tier cake, and the groom—Artyom—were waiting. But the child’s words pierced the hush like a thunderclap.

“Sorry… what did you say?” Marina asked again, trying to smile, though something inside her gave a little jolt, like an alarm bell.

The girl shrugged.
“He’s mean. I saw him yesterday. He pushed my mom.”

Marina frowned. Her heart started pounding. She crouched to be at the girl’s level.
“What’s his name?”

“Artyom. He came to our place yesterday. He yelled. Mom cried after.” The girl wiped her nose with her sleeve. “I thought he was just an acquaintance, and then I saw—he’s your groom…”

Marina walked into the restaurant as if through a dense fog. Everything around her—chandeliers, smiles, camera flashes—felt distant, not her own.

Artyom came up quickly, flashing a dazzling smile.
“Everything okay, sweetheart?”

“Tell me…” Her voice trembled. “Were you with a woman and a child yesterday?”

Artyom froze. For a moment something flickered in his eyes—fear? guilt?—but then he scowled.
“What nonsense is this? Of course not! Is this a joke? Have you lost it on a day like this?”

“The girl had a braid. She said you pushed her mother. That you came by yesterday.”

“Kids get all sorts of ideas!” he snapped. “You didn’t actually believe her, did you?”

Marina looked at him, and for the first time she saw—not a groom, but a stranger. Strong, self-assured, in an expensive suit… with cold in his eyes.

“I’ll be right back,” she said quietly, took off her veil, and headed for the exit.

The girl was waiting in the same spot.

“Will you show me where you live?”

She nodded silently.

It was only a few blocks away. The girl ran ahead; Marina followed, holding up the hem of her dress. They turned into a courtyard—old, with a rusty slide and broken windows on the third floor.

“This is us. Mom’s home.”

Marina climbed the creaking stairs behind her. The girl opened the door with a key.

The room was cold. A young woman sat on the floor by the radiator, hugging a notebook. She looked up.

“I… don’t know who you are,” she whispered.

“I’m Marina. Today I was supposed to marry Artyom.”

The woman went pale and pulled her daughter closer.
“He… didn’t say he was getting married.”

“Did he push you yesterday?”

“Yes. When I said I didn’t want this anymore. We were together for two years. He promised he’d divorce and start a new life. But then everything changed. He started shouting, forbade me to work. And yesterday he came drunk. He wanted to take Polina. He said, ‘You’re nobody. But she’s mine. I can do whatever I want with her.’”

Marina sat down on the edge of the rug. Her throat tightened. She wanted to cry, but inside there was only emptiness.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Who would listen to me? I have no job, no support. And he’s rich, influential.”

The girl pressed herself quietly to her mother.
“Mom, she’s nice…”

That evening Marina didn’t return to the wedding hotel but to her own apartment. It was quiet there. Only the cat curled up purring in her lap.

Her phone wouldn’t stop ringing: first her friend, then her mother, then Artyom himself.

She didn’t answer.

Then she opened her messenger. His message:
“You made a spectacle of me! You’ll regret this!”

She simply tapped “Block.”

A month passed. Life slowly found a new rhythm. Marina started working at a center that helped women in difficult situations. And one day she saw that same mother there again—Natalia.

Now Natalia was learning to sew, taking part in fairs, and her daughter Polina wore a bright ribbon and no longer hid behind her mother’s back.

“Thank you,” Natalia said one day. “You saved us without even knowing it.”

Marina only smiled.

One evening, as they were walking in the park, Polina suddenly took her hand.
“I told you all that because you were beautiful but very sad. And I got scared that you would start crying too, like Mom.”

Marina squeezed her little hand.
“Thank you, Polina. Because of you, I got out too.”

And for the first time in a long while, she smiled for real.

The real tears came later—when she was alone.

Marina closed the door, took off her coat, sank to the floor in the entryway, and finally allowed herself to cry—to sob, to let go. The pain wasn’t only that Artyom had turned out to be a liar. It was deeper—an ache that she had never truly been wanted. Not in childhood, not in youth, not now. All her life she had tried to be “right”—pretty, smart, agreeable, the “perfect wife.”

But who was she—really?

She sat down at the table and wrote a letter—not to anyone else. To herself:

“You deserve more. You are not a thing. You should be loved not for your looks, but for who you are. You don’t have to keep quiet to be accepted. You don’t have to endure for the sake of being ‘nice.’ You are a person. Alive, real, feeling. You have the right to be happy. To be weak. To be yourself. And to have the right to choose.”

The next morning she woke up different, as if she’d shed an old, tight skin. She went to the hairdresser and, for the first time, didn’t ask, “Does this look good on me?” She simply said, “Do what I want.”

And the world around her felt different. The air—softer. The sun—warmer. She began to hear herself.

Natalia and Polina became her family. They came over—at first for tea, then to read books, watch movies, and make crafts together.

One day Marina fell asleep in an armchair. When she woke, a child’s blanket had been carefully laid over her, and beside her lay a paper flower. Polina whispered softly:
“You’re ours now.”

And Marina cried—without shame, without holding back

.

Life gradually found a new rhythm. Marina began hosting meetings for women in difficult circumstances—women who had once been as she was. She helped with paperwork, looked for housing, supported them in finding work.

And in each of them—tired, frightened, shoulders slumped—she recognized a reflection of her former self.

And she said quietly but firmly:
“I know how much it hurts. But let’s start with the most important thing—with you. With your ‘I.’”

Six months later she happened to see Artyom—in a café on the corner, at a table with a new girlfriend. He laughed loudly, stroked her hand in a showy way, as if to prove to the world everything was fine.

He didn’t notice her.

She looked at him—not with pain, not with resentment, but with mild surprise. Like an old photograph where everything has faded and the faces are no longer recognizable. Like a stranger. And suddenly she understood: he could no longer hurt her—neither her heart nor her life. His shadow no longer lay across her path.

And Polina…

Polina now left her notes more and more often—on magnets on the fridge.

“You’re the kindest!”
“I want to be like you!”
“Mom smiles every day now.”

And one day, on Marina’s birthday, the girl came with a big box. Inside was a homemade cake decorated with jelly candies and a card with crooked letters:

“You became a bride—but not to that man.
You became the bride of our family.
We chose you ourselves.”

Marina hugged them both tightly—Natalia and Polina.
And for the first time, she truly felt she was home.
Not in a fancy house, not in a wedding dress, not under applause.
Just—home.
In a heart that is warm. Where you are awaited. Where you are loved not for the image, not for success, not for appearance—
but simply for being you.

Eight years passed.

Polina grew up—from a skinny, shy girl with frightened eyes into a strong, bright young woman. The same eyes, but now they shone not with suffering, but with faith, courage, and dreams. She entered a teacher-training college. Her goal was simple:
“So that no child ever feels alone. So that everyone knows—they are valued.”

By then, Marina was no longer just helping—she had opened her own center. Small and warm, in an old house with wooden windows and gentle light. There were children’s toys, books, cozy armchairs with throws. And most importantly—the light was always on. Not the electric kind, but the human kind. Women came here who had lost their homes, their hope, themselves. And here they were truly welcomed.

Natalia changed too. She completed accounting courses, found a job, rented a bright apartment. Once quiet, afraid of her own shadow, now she could calmly say:
“No. That’s not part of my job. I have boundaries.”

They became a family. Not by blood—by choice. By heart.

And then, on a warm spring day, Marina stood by a big window, her forehead resting against the glass. Down in the garden, girls were decorating a floral arch. The air smelled of lilacs; soft music played; women laughed.

Today was a wedding.

But not hers.

Today Polina was getting married.

Marina had spent a long time choosing a dress. Not white—that was the bride’s day. But light, soft, with a gentle sheen. The dress she once couldn’t wear. And now—she could.

When the music started, everyone stood. Polina walked slowly, in a long white dress, with a wreath of fresh flowers. And beside her—not a father, not a relative, but Marina. They walked hand in hand.

All the while they moved down the path strewn with petals, Polina didn’t take her eyes off her. And when they reached the altar, she turned and whispered:
“You are my family. You saved me. Mom gave me life, and you taught me how to live.”

Marina wanted to answer but couldn’t. The words stuck in her throat. Only tears ran down her cheeks.
But they weren’t tears of pain.
They were tears of release. Tears of healing.

After the wedding, as dusk settled, Marina stepped out into the garden. The air was heavy with the scent of lilacs and fresh cake. Someone was dancing, someone hugging their children; in the corner a guitar played softly.

Suddenly a quiet voice sounded behind her.
“May I sit?”

She turned. In front of her stood a man of about fifty, gray at the temples, with kind, slightly tired eyes. He was holding a cup of tea.
“I’m the groom’s father,” he smiled. “And you—you’re Polina’s mom?”

Marina smiled gently in return.
“Not exactly. More like… a mother by fate.”

He looked at her for a long moment.

“You know… that’s even more important.”

They talked for a long time—about books, about losses, about how to survive loneliness. He had been widowed two years earlier. He understood what it meant to start from scratch when it feels like the world has stopped.

And suddenly Marina felt calm. Not anxious. Not wary. Just—well.

When he left, she remained standing under an old cherry tree, gazing up at the clear evening sky.

The stars were just coming out—like drops of light on dark watercolor.

And in the quiet she whispered:
“Thank you, fate.
Thank you for that little girl with the braid by the restaurant.
For the tears that taught me to value things.
For the falls after which I learned to rise.
And—for the meeting.
Not back then.
But right on time.”

A wooden hand-carved sign now hung above the center’s entrance:

“A home where you can begin again.”

And every time new women with children came here, Marina looked at them and remembered that day.
That voice.
Those words:

“I wouldn’t marry a man like that!”

One child’s cry—honest, sincere, like a heartbeat—changed not just a wedding.
It changed everything.

And now she knew:
Sometimes the simplest word, spoken by a small heart, becomes a beacon in the darkest night.
And it leads you not just toward the light—
but home.
Toward love.
Toward yourself.

 

Galina Petrovna stepped over the threshold of our apartment like she owned the place, and I realized—what I’d feared most was starting.

“Darya, pack your things,” my mother-in-law said, not bothering with a greeting. “You’re moving back in with us. We’re selling this apartment.”

I froze with a cup of coffee in my hand. Artyom, my husband, stood beside his mother, avoiding my eyes.

“Excuse me, what?” I set the cup down, trying to stay calm. “This is our apartment. We’ve been paying the mortgage for three years.”

My mother-in-law smirked and pulled some documents from her bag.

“The apartment is registered in Artyom’s name. And Artyom is my son. And he agrees with my decision. Right, son?”

Artyom nodded, still not looking at me. I felt the ground give way beneath my feet.

“Artyom, what is she talking about?” I stepped closer to him. “We talked about this! This apartment is our home!”

“Mom’s right,” he said quietly. “It’ll be better for us to live together. Why pay a mortgage when my parents have a huge house?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Three years earlier, when we’d just gotten married, I’d clearly stated my position—living separately from our parents. Artyom agreed. We took out a mortgage; I paid half my salary toward the payments and built our little nest. And now this?

“Galina Petrovna,” I turned to my mother-in-law, “this is a family matter. Artyom and I will decide it ourselves.”

“It’s already decided!” she snapped. “Artyom told me everything. About how you refuse to have children until the mortgage is paid off. About how you forbid him from helping us with renovations. About how you turn him against his own mother!”

“I’m not turning him against anyone!” I protested. “I just want us to have our own life!”

“Your own life?” she stepped closer. “Girl, you married my son. Now his family is your family. And you will live by our rules!”

“No, I won’t!” I straightened up. “Artyom, tell her! Explain that we had an agreement!”

But Artyom stayed silent. He stood with his head lowered like a schoolboy being scolded by a strict teacher.

“See?” Galina Petrovna said triumphantly. “My son understands that family is sacred. And you, daughter-in-law, need to learn that!”

She said “daughter-in-law” with such contempt that my chest tightened with hurt.

“I’m not moving anywhere,” I said firmly. “And we’re not selling the apartment.”

“That’s not for you to decide!” my mother-in-law raised her voice. “The apartment is in Artyom’s name!”

“But I pay half the mortgage! I have every receipt and payment record!”

“So what?” Galina Petrovna shrugged. “You paid for living here. Like rent. Artyom, confirm it!”

I looked at my husband in horror. Was he really going to say that?

“Yes, Mom’s right,” Artyom whispered.

Something broke inside me in that moment. The person I trusted—the person I loved—had betrayed me. And not just betrayed me: he’d planned it all in advance with his mother.

“Wonderful,” I said, picking up my phone. “Then I’m calling my lawyer.”

“A lawyer?” my mother-in-law laughed. “And what will you tell him? That you voluntarily paid to live in your husband’s home? No one forced you!”

“I’ll tell him I invested money into marital property. And I’ll demand compensation.”

“Marital property?” Galina Petrovna pulled out another document. “And here’s the prenup you signed. Remember?”

With trembling hands I took the paper. Yes—three years ago, Artyom had asked me to sign a marriage contract. He said it was a formality, that his mother insisted, but it meant nothing. I hadn’t read it carefully back then—I trusted him.

Now, scanning the document, I understood my mistake. In black and white it said that any property acquired during the marriage in one spouse’s name remained that spouse’s personal property.

“Do you get it now?” my mother-in-law said, settling onto the sofa like a queen on a throne. “You’re nobody here. A temporary tenant. And if my son decided you’re moving in with us—then that’s how it will be!”

I looked at Artyom. He still stood there without lifting his eyes.

“Why?” I asked him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Mom’s right,” he mumbled. “We’ll be better off living together. And we’ll save money.”

“Money?” I couldn’t suppress a bitter smirk. “For three years I gave up half my salary, denied myself everything—and for what? So your mother could come in and claim our apartment?”

“Not ours—mine,” Artyom corrected, looking me in the eyes for the first time. “The apartment is registered to me!”

 

And then I understood: the man in front of me wasn’t the one I’d married. Or maybe I just hadn’t seen his real face behind the mask of a loving fiancé.

“I’m giving you a week to pack,” Galina Petrovna said, standing up. “By next Monday you’d better have the apartment cleared. The realtor will come Wednesday for an appraisal.”

“And if I refuse?” I asked.

“Then Artyom will file for divorce, and you’ll leave with nothing,” she smiled. “But if you move in with us and behave like a good daughter-in-law, maybe I’ll allow you to stay married.”

She headed for the door; Artyom followed.

“Artyom!” I called after him. “Are you really going to let her treat me this way?”

He turned back, and I didn’t see a trace of doubt in his eyes.

“Mom always knows what’s best,” he said—and walked out.

I was left alone. I sat down on the floor in the middle of the living room and tried to process what was happening. My mother-in-law had trapped me. The prenup stripped me of rights to the apartment even though I’d honestly paid for it. My husband turned out to be a mama’s boy, incapable of making independent decisions.

But I wasn’t going to give up.

The first thing I did was call my friend Olga—she worked as a lawyer.

“Olya, I need help,” I said, trying not to cry. “Urgently.”

“What happened?” she asked, alarmed.

I briefly explained everything. Olga was silent for a long time, then sighed.

“A prenup is serious. But do you have all the documents proving your mortgage payments?”

“Yes. I kept everything.”

“Great. Come to me right now. We’ll see what can be done.”

I gathered every document and went to Olga’s. She carefully reviewed the papers—the contract, the receipts, the bank statements.

“You know,” she said at last, “there’s one point here. You weren’t paying just to live there. You were making mortgage payments. That’s documented. We can try to prove you contributed to repaying the loan, which means you’re entitled to compensation.”

“But the prenup…”

“A prenup can’t contradict the law. If we prove you didn’t just live in the apartment but participated in paying off the mortgage, the court may side with you.”

A flicker of hope rose inside me.

“And one more thing,” Olga continued. “If Artyom and his mother are forcing you to move, that can be classified as psychological pressure—especially considering your mother-in-law is effectively kicking you out of your home.”

The next day I met Artyom again. He came to the apartment to grab his things—apparently he’d decided to stay with his parents until I moved out.

“Artyom, let’s talk calmly,” I said. “Why are you doing this? We were happy!”

“We were,” he agreed. “Until you started distancing yourself from my family. Mom says you’re a bad influence on me.”

“Your mom is wrong! I just wanted us to have our own life!”

“But family is the most important thing!” Artyom raised his voice. “Mom raised me, sacrificed everything! And you want me to abandon her!”

“I don’t want you to abandon her! I want you to be an independent adult man—not an eternal mama’s boy!”

Artyom flushed with anger.

“How dare you talk about my mother like that!”

“I’m talking about you, not her! Though there’s plenty to say about her too. Your mother is a manipulator! She uses you—controls your every step!”

“Enough!” Artyom grabbed his bag. “Mom was right! You’re toxic! You’re trying to destroy our family!”

“Our family was destroyed by your mother and her need to control everything!” I shouted after him, but he was already slamming the door.

That evening Galina Petrovna called me.

“Darya,” her voice was icy, “Artyom told me about your conversation. How dare you insult me?”

“I was just telling the truth,” I said.

“The truth?” she laughed. “Girl, you have no idea who you’re dealing with. I can make it so you lose not only the apartment—but your job too!”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a warning. I have a lot of connections in this city. One word from me—and you’ll be fired. So I suggest you be smarter and accept my offer. Move in with us, be a good daughter-in-law, have grandchildren—and everything will be fine.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then blame yourself. You have five days left.”

She hung up. I knew Galina Petrovna wasn’t joking. Her late husband had been a major businessman; she really did have influence. But I wasn’t going to surrender.

The next day I went to work as usual. I was an accountant at a small firm, and my boss, Sergey Pavlovich, had always valued me as a specialist.

By lunchtime I was called into the director’s office.

“Darya,” Sergey Pavlovich began, clearly uncomfortable, “someone called me… Galina Petrovna Vorontsova. Do you know her?”

“My mother-in-law,” I answered.

“I see. She… hinted that if you keep working here, her company will cancel its contract with us. And they’re our main client.”

Anger surged inside me.

“So what did you decide?”

“Darya, you’re an excellent specialist, but…” He spread his hands. “I can’t risk the firm. I’m very sorry.”

“So you’re firing me?”

“I’m asking you to resign voluntarily. It’ll be better for everyone.”

I stood and walked toward the door.

“Darya!” the director called after me. “I truly am sorry. But I don’t have a choice.”

“You do have a choice,” I said. “All of us do. You just chose money.”

I returned to my desk, packed my things, and left. I didn’t even write a resignation letter—let them fire me “for cause” if they wanted.

At home, Artyom was waiting for me. He sat in the kitchen looking smug.

“Mom said you’re not working anymore,” he said. “Maybe now you’ll come to your senses?”

“Your mother deliberately got me fired?”

“She just showed you what happens if you keep being stubborn. Dasha, understand—Mom wants what’s best for us! She wants us to live as one big family!”

“She wants to control you—and me along with you!”

“Why do you hate her so much?” Artyom stood up. “She hasn’t done anything bad to you!”

“Haven’t?” I snapped. “She’s kicking me out of my home! She got me fired! She humiliates me every time we meet!”

“That’s your own fault! If you were a normal daughter-in-law…”

 

“A normal daughter-in-law?” I couldn’t hold back. “In your mother’s version, a ‘normal’ one is a powerless servant who fulfills every whim!”

“Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that!”

“And don’t you dare tell me what I can say! This is still my home—at least for four more days!”

Artyom left without a word. I stayed alone, thinking through my next steps. Galina Petrovna had shown she could take my job. But I still had one trump card.

I picked up my phone and called my uncle. He worked at the tax inspectorate.

“Uncle Misha? It’s Dasha. I need your help.”

“What happened, niece?”

I told him the whole story. He was quiet for a moment, then gave a low chuckle.

“Vorontsova, you say? Interesting. Do you know her late husband left behind some very tangled business? And the tax office has been keeping an eye on some of their companies for a long time.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do. If your mother-in-law keeps pressuring you, remind her about a company called ‘Stroyinvest.’ I think she’ll understand.”

I thanked him and thought it over. I had leverage against Galina Petrovna now—I just had to use it correctly.

The next day my mother-in-law came again—this time with a realtor.

“We’re inspecting the apartment for an appraisal,” she announced from the doorway.

“Without the owner’s permission, you have no right to perform an appraisal,” I said calmly.

“Artyom is the owner! And he gave permission!”

“Artyom is not currently living in this apartment. And I am registered here and have the right to be here until the marriage is officially dissolved.”

“You—!” my mother-in-law turned red with rage. “I’ll throw you out on the street!”

“Try,” I smiled. “And by the way, Galina Petrovna—greetings from ‘Stroyinvest.’”

She went pale.

“What do you mean?”

“I think you understand perfectly. The tax office is very interested in some of your affairs. And if you continue to harass me, that interest can become… more active.”

“You’re blackmailing me?”

“I’m defending myself. You started this war.”

She stared at me with hatred.

“Fine,” she hissed. “You can stay here. But Artyom will still file for divorce!”

“That’s his right. Just like it’s my right to demand compensation for the mortgage money I paid.”

She turned and stormed out, slamming the door. The realtor shifted awkwardly in the hallway and left too.

An hour later Artyom called.

“What did you say to my mother?” he yelled into the phone. “She’s hysterical!”

“I just stated my position.”

“You threatened her!”

“No. I warned her about the consequences of her actions. There’s a difference.”

“Dasha, stop this! Apologize to Mom and we’ll settle everything peacefully!”

“Peacefully? Artyom, your mother tried to throw me out and got me fired! What ‘peace’ is there?”

“She just wanted us to live together!”

“No—she wanted control. Total control over you and me. And I’m not going to become her puppet!”

“You know what? We’re getting divorced! And you’ll walk away with nothing!”

“We’ll see,” I said—and hung up.

In the following days, a real war unfolded. Galina Petrovna tried every way she could to push me out. She showed up with different people—first a plumber to “check the pipes,” then an electrician to “inspect the wiring.” I didn’t let anyone in.

Artyom sent divorce papers. I gave them to Olga, and she began preparing a countersuit for division of property.

“We have a chance,” she told me. “You can prove you contributed significant funds to paying down the mortgage. The court might order Artyom to compensate you.”

But Galina Petrovna wasn’t going to surrender. One day I came home and found the locks changed. My belongings were in boxes by the door.

I called the police. The officers listened to both sides—me and Artyom, who just “happened” to be home.

“She has no right to be here!” Artyom insisted. “We’re divorcing, and the apartment is mine!”

“I’m registered here!” I argued. “And until the court decision, I have the right to live here!”

The officers checked the documents and took my side. Artyom had to switch the old locks back.

“You’ll pay for this!” Galina Petrovna hissed when she appeared.

“I’m recording this conversation,” I warned, holding up my phone. “All your threats will be given to my lawyer.”

She fell silent, but her look promised trouble.

And it didn’t take long. Two days later the neighbors upstairs flooded my apartment. Supposedly a pipe burst. But I knew Galina Petrovna’s friend lived up there.

I photographed all the damage and called the police again. This time they drew up a report for property damage.

“Prove it was me,” my mother-in-law smirked when we met in the stairwell.

“I don’t have to prove anything. The court will figure it out.”

The divorce was in full swing. At the first hearing Artyom claimed I had no rights to the apartment because of the prenup. Olga presented proof of my mortgage payments.

The judge studied the documents carefully.

“Mrs. Vorontsova, did you in fact pay half of the mortgage payments?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Here are all the receipts and bank statements.”

“Mr. Vorontsov, do you confirm your wife participated in repaying the mortgage?”

Artyom hesitated, glanced at his mother sitting in the courtroom.

“She was just paying to live there,” he finally said.

“But the amounts exactly match half the mortgage payment,” the judge noted. “And the payments went directly to the bank toward the loan.”

“That’s… that’s a coincidence,” Artyom muttered.

The judge postponed the hearing for further review of the paperwork.

After court, Galina Petrovna came up to me.

“You think you’ve won?” she hissed. “I won’t let some upstart take my son’s apartment!”

“I don’t want to take the apartment. I want fair compensation for the money I paid.”

“You won’t get a kopeck!”

But the next hearing showed she was wrong. The judge ruled that I was entitled to compensation for half of the mortgage funds that had been paid.

“The court rules,” the judge read out, “to obligate Vorontsov Artyom Denisovich to pay Vorontsova Darya Mikhailovna compensation in the amount of one million two hundred thousand rubles.”

Galina Petrovna jumped up.

“That’s unfair! She tricked him into giving her that money!”

“Order in the courtroom!” the judge said sharply.

After the session Artyom approached me.

“Are you happy? You destroyed our family!”

“No, Artyom. Our family was destroyed by your inability to be independent and by your mother’s need to control everything.”

“We’ll appeal!”

“Go ahead. I have time—and a good lawyer.”

 

But there was no appeal. Instead, a week later Galina Petrovna called me.

“Darya, let’s meet and talk.”

“What is there to talk about?”

“A peaceful solution.”

We met at a café. She looked tired and older.

“I’m ready to pay the compensation,” she said without preamble. “But I have a condition.”

“What condition?”

“You sign an agreement saying you have no further claims against Artyom or our family. And you leave the city.”

I laughed.

“Leave the city? Why would I?”

“I don’t want you to be in my son’s sight.”

“Your son made his choice. And I’m not going anywhere because of your whims.”

“Then you won’t get the money!”

“I will. By court order. And if you stall, I’ll go to the bailiffs.”

She clenched her fists.

“I hate you!”

“It’s mutual,” I said calmly. “But unlike you, I don’t let emotions control my actions.”

In the end, the money was transferred to me a month later. I rented a new apartment and found a job at another firm. Life gradually got better.

And six months later I ran into Artyom by chance at a mall. He was with a young woman—quiet-looking, modest.

“Dasha?” he said in surprise.

“Hi, Artyom.”

The woman looked at me curiously.

“This is… my ex-wife,” Artyom introduced awkwardly. “And this is Lena. We’re… seeing each other.”

I smiled at Lena.

“I’m happy for you. And here’s some advice—don’t sign a prenup, and don’t agree to live with your mother-in-law.”

Lena blinked, confused. Artyom turned red.

“Dasha, don’t…”

“Just friendly advice,” I shrugged. “All the best.”

I walked away, leaving them standing in the middle of the mall. I didn’t care whether Lena listened to my advice or not. Everyone makes their own choice.

And I made mine—I chose freedom and independence. Yes, it cost me my marriage, but can you really call it a marriage when one person fully submits to another?

Galina Petrovna got what she wanted—she pulled her son back under her control. But she lost more than she gained. Because Artyom remained a mama’s boy, incapable of an independent life.

And me? I learned a priceless lesson. Now I know you should never lose yourself for someone else. And you should never let a mother-in-law dictate how you live.

Every daughter-in-law should remember: respect has to be mutual. And if a mother-in-law doesn’t respect the boundaries of a young family, that family is doomed.

My divorce wasn’t an ending—it was a beginning. The start of a new, free life where I decide how to live, who to talk to, and what choices to make.

And you know what? I don’t regret a thing