«Mom, why do you need this?» Her daughter looked at Olga as if she were about to jump out of a plane. «You’re already fifty-two!» «That’s exactly why I need it,» Olga buttoned her gray blouse and looked at herself critically in the mirror. «I have no intention of sitting at home, just waiting for […]
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On Friday morning, Oleg asked Svetlana for the second time over breakfast what time she would be back on Saturday. The first time, she answered: after her trip with their daughter, closer to the evening. The second time he asked, just ten minutes later, as if her return time was much more significant than just […]
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«Anna Mikhailovna, I beg you, at least let me organize the forty-day memorial!» Lyudmila clasped her hands to her chest, struggling to steady her trembling voice. «Petya has been gone just a month… I haven’t even had time to come to terms with it yet.» «You haven’t had time, you say!» her mother-in-law slammed her […]
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The name cards on the table weren’t where they had been left that morning. Nadya noticed this when she brought water into the separate room and saw that the translator’s seat had been pushed right to the edge, while the «Tanaka» card was now next to the chair Vadim Sergeevich had chosen for himself. There […]
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«Take the dog and don’t come back here again,» Aunt Zoya said, bracing the gate with her knee. «Your grandfather left her to you, so you should be happy.» She set my suitcase down on the wet gravel. Next to it, she put a metal bowl, which clinked against a stone. Tuman, the old German […]
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Lidiya Stepanovna was standing by the door with a bucket when she heard a voice coming from the office: «Just two more weeks, and she’ll do everything I say.» The voice belonged to her daughter’s fiancé. She put the bucket down against the wall—the next conversation made her completely forget about cleaning. «The most important […]
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The third number nine bus passed by the stop in an hour, and Iryna Hryhoriyivna thought she now knew this route better than the drivers themselves. «If I sit here much longer, they’ll hire me as a dispatcher,» she muttered and hugged her bag even tighter to her lap. Inside her bag were three dozen […]
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— Valya, this is the third time you’ve shown me a photo of your youngest grandson. But have you even once in the past month asked how I’m doing? Valentina froze with her phone in hand. The screen showed a round-faced boy in a bright blue cap, smiling. — Luda, what’s wrong? I’m just telling […]
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«Lesia, we’ll bring the kids to your place on Saturday morning. They’ll stay until Sunday evening, is that alright?» «Andrii, don’t you want to ask if I’m available first?» «Are you busy?» her brother sounded surprised. «Olena and I have already planned everything. We’ve booked the hotel, even started packing our things.» Lesia pushed away […]
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At half past ten at night, Liza was hemming a stranger’s dress—a dress for a woman she’d only met forty minutes earlier. It was dark blue with tiny white polka dots, size forty-eight. Liza laid it out on a stool under the kitchen lamp, pinned the hem, and carefully pulled the thread, as if every […]
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