“Buy one just like it, only red,” my mother, Tamara Ivanovna, said, sliding a sheet of paper folded into quarters across the table toward me. “So they’ll both have the same one.”
I unfolded the paper. In her handwriting—large, heavy strokes—she had copied the name from the box, every single letter and number.
“Mom, when did you manage to do this?”
“While you were running to the store. Nikita showed it to me himself. He was showing off.”
Mother had come to our town on the morning bus, the one that leaves Klenovka at seven. She brought a jar of pickles and a bag of green onions, set them down by the door, and immediately went into the kitchen to put the kettle on as if she were at home. My husband Sergei had gone to the garage, Nikita was sitting behind the closed door of his room, and I was left alone with her.
Nikita, my son, had saved for that quadcopter for an entire year. He was nine and had just finished second grade. Every ruble he had received for birthdays and New Year’s had gone into an old metal tea tin. He had saved 6,900 rubles. We added another 1,500, and in May he finally bought it for 8,400. He carried the bag from the checkout to the car himself and wouldn’t let anyone else touch it.
“Mom, he saved for it for a whole year.”
“Well, good for him. And who’s going to save up for Grisha? Vera’s on her own, living on her shop salary.”
Grisha was the son of my younger sister Vera. He was seven and would start first grade in the fall. They lived in Lugovoye, twenty kilometers from Mother, and, as usual, Grisha was spending the summer with Grandma.
“Mom, I’m not buying another one.”
“Why not?” Mother sat down opposite me and folded her hands on the oilcloth table covering. “There are two earners in your family. She has only her shop job.”
“Because it isn’t my toy. It belongs to Nikita.”
“What do you mean, it belongs to Nikita?” Mother said. “They’re brothers.”
I had been hearing that phrase—“they’re brothers”—since childhood. In our family it had always meant the same thing: whatever belonged to me was shared, while whatever belonged to Vera was Vera’s.
“Mom, do you remember my white skates?”
“What skates, Katya? That was a hundred years ago.”
“I begged for them for two winters. I wore them for one. Then Vera grew, and suddenly they became hers.”
“So you’ve been holding a grudge against your sister ever since?” Mother almost rose from her chair. “She was seven. You were twelve. What was I supposed to do, let her run around barefoot?”
“She had her own skates. She got new ones that same year. And I was told I was too old.”
Mother waved her hand dismissively and poured herself more tea without asking. Then she immediately changed the subject, talking about how poorly her cucumbers were growing that year, how Aunt Raya had been having blood-pressure problems, how the porch needed repairing.
Then, after finishing her tea, she returned to the subject.
“Katya. Just buy it. It won’t bankrupt you. He’ll see Nikita’s—what am I supposed to tell him?”
“Tell him it belongs to Nikita.”
“But they’ll be together all summer. Is he supposed to stand there and watch?”
“He can ask. Nikita will let him use it if he asks.”
“He won’t,” Mother said. “Your boy is growing up greedy. Just like his father.”
I picked up the piece of paper she had left on the table and put it into the pocket of my robe.
“I’m not buying it,” I said. “Not a red one, not a blue one.”
Mother was silent for a moment. Then she pushed her cup away.
“Well, then he shouldn’t bring his own either. No need to tease another child.”
She left on the afternoon bus at two. Nikita walked her to the bus stop, and when he returned he immediately disappeared into his room and spent a long time fussing with something.
I looked in. He was putting the quadcopter box under his bed, against the wall, then pushing his backpack in front of it.
A week later, Vera called.
“Katya, Mom said you refused Grisha,” my sister began without even saying hello.
“I did.”
“What’s wrong with you? He’s little.”
It was Sunday, June first. I was washing dishes, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear, and my neck ached all evening afterward.
“Vera, I don’t owe your son anything.”
“I’m not saying you owe him. I’m asking you as a decent human being.” She sighed. “He’s already told all the kids in the neighborhood he’s going to have one.”
I turned off the water.
“Told who?”
“The other kids. And Grandma Raya. He was bragging about it.”
“Why did he think he was going to have one?”
Vera fell silent.
In that silence I already understood everything, but I still asked directly because I needed to hear her say it.
“Vera. Who told him he was getting one?”
“Mom,” my sister replied. “She said Nikita would bring his and that both boys would fly it during the summer.”
I dried my hands on a towel and sat down on a stool.
“So my mother promised your son something that belongs to my son. Without asking either him or me.”
“Why do you have to put it like that?” Vera said. “She meant well. Katya, why are you clinging to every penny? Your husband does side jobs.”
“Eight thousand four hundred rubles isn’t pennies to a nine-year-old who saved for an entire year.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, what difference does it make?” my sister said. “Our family never used to keep score.”
“We did, Vera. We just always kept score in one direction.”
She hung up first.
I immediately called Mother.
“Mom, what did you promise Grisha?”
“I didn’t promise him anything. I said they’d both fly it during the summer. Isn’t that true?”
“No. Because Nikita gets to decide that, not you.”
“Oh,” Mother said. “Look how important we’ve become.”
“Mom, if you already promised him one, then you buy it.”
“On my pension?” Her voice became shrill, the way it always did when she was convinced she was right. “I raised you on that pension, I’ll have you know.”
“Then don’t promise things that belong to other people.”
She went quiet. Then she said she had potatoes on the stove and hung up.
That evening Nikita sat on the floor beside his bed. The box rested on his knees, and he was checking every corner of it as though something might have disappeared during the week.
“Mom, can I not take it?”
“Not take it where?”
“To Grandma’s.” He didn’t look up. “Let it stay here.”
“Why?”
“Just because. It’s big. Takes up a lot of space.”
“Nikita.”
“And the battery runs down,” he said. “There’s an outlet here, and over there I might forget.”
At the time, I assumed he was simply afraid something would happen to it. Grisha was younger; maybe he would grab it, drop it off the porch, and that would be the end of it.
So I said, “Fine. Don’t take it. We’ll leave it at home.”
It never occurred to me that he might have been afraid of something else.
Not once.
Later, when Seryozha came home from a side job, I told him that maybe we shouldn’t send Nikita there at all that summer.
“Because of what?” He was taking off his shoes in the hallway. “The copter?”
“Because of the way they spoke to me.”
“Katya, the argument is between you and your mother. But it’s his summer.” He put his shoes under the coat rack. “There’s a river there. Boys to play with. Here he’s got a courtyard and asphalt.”
I agreed. I didn’t want to explain to a nine-year-old that he couldn’t go anywhere because the adults couldn’t settle an argument over a toy.
On Saturday, June seventh, we took him to Klenovka for two weeks.
We arrived around noon. Seryozha immediately went to look at the porch, Mother went inside to get dishes, and the yard was pleasant—warm, chickens wandering around, the sound of the river rushing over the shallows beyond the fence.
Grisha was squatting beside a barrel, untangling fishing line.
A spinning rod was leaning against the barrel beside him.
I recognized it immediately.
Blue electrical tape was wrapped around the butt of the rod—three uneven layers, one corner sticking up. Seryozha had wrapped it himself two summers earlier when the handle cracked.
“Grisha,” I said. “Where did you get that?”
“Grandma gave it to me,” he replied without turning around.
“And where did Grandma get it?”
“I don’t know. It was standing in the entryway behind the door.”
I walked over and took the rod in my hands.
The electrical tape. The scratch on the reel. Even the knot on the fishing line—the same knot Seryozha always tied.
Mother came out onto the porch holding a towel.
“Why are you bothering the child?”
“Mom, this is Nikita’s spinning rod.”
“Nikita left it himself,” Mother said calmly. “The boys agreed.”
“He told me he dropped it in the river. Last year. He told me that in July, and I believed him.”
Mother tossed the towel over her shoulder.
“Well, then he lied. Children lie.”
“Mom, why didn’t you tell me once during the entire year?”
“Tell you what?”
“That Grisha had the rod. You’ve seen me a hundred times since last summer.”
Mother shrugged.
“What was there to say? It’s just a stick.”
I called Nikita.
He came out of the entryway, saw the rod in my hands, and red blotches immediately appeared on his neck, the way they always did when he was lying or frightened.
We walked behind the house, toward the woodpile.
“Nikita. You didn’t lose it in the river.”
He was silent.
“Nikita.”
“Grandma gave it away,” he finally said. “Grisha was crying because he only had a regular fishing rod. Grandma took mine and gave it to him.”
“While you were there?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“I said it was mine.” He stared at the ground. “And Grandma said I shouldn’t be stingy and told me not to tell you. She said you’d buy me another one, and if I told you, you two would fight.”
“Nikita. Did she give away anything else?”
He thought for a moment.
“My flashlight. And the remote-control car I got for New Year’s. Grisha broke the car right away.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“She’s Grandma,” my son said.
And that was it.
No one had dropped the fishing rod into the river. My mother had given it to Grisha right in front of my son and had ordered my son to keep quiet about it.
And he had kept quiet for an entire year.
I went back into the yard.
Seryozha was standing beside the porch with a hammer in his hand, and from our faces he had already understood everything.
“Pack your things,” I told Nikita. “We’re going home.”
“Katya…” my husband began.
“Seryozha. Get in the car.”
Mother folded her towel in half and hung it over the railing.
“You’re taking the child home over a stick?”
“I’m taking him home because you taught him to lie to me.”
“Oh, what dramatic words,” Mother said. “Lie. I was protecting him from a scandal. From your scandal, Katerina.”
I didn’t take the fishing rod that day.
I put it back beside the barrel and walked toward the car.
Nikita carried his own bag out and climbed into the back seat. Grisha stood beside the barrel watching us. Mother didn’t come out beyond the gate.
My son was silent the whole drive home, staring through the window, while I drove and thought about everything except the fishing rod.
I thought about the fact that in the course of one summer my child had learned how to keep a secret from me—and had kept it until I practically stumbled over the truth myself.
I hadn’t even noticed.
Mother’s birthday was two weeks away. June twenty-first. We had gone to see her every year for as long as I could remember.
I didn’t want to go.
Seryozha said, “Your mother is still your mother. She’s sixty-two. We’ll go, give her the present, sit for an hour, and leave.”
The three of us went.
I wasn’t willing to leave Nikita home alone, and after what had happened I didn’t want to take him to Grandma’s either—but he asked to come because of the river.
There were a lot of people there: Aunt Raya, Mother’s sister, some neighbors, Vera and Grisha, and people from Lugovoye.
They had carried the table out into the yard.
I brought Mother a scarf and a cake. She unfolded the scarf, held it against her shoulders, said, “Must have been expensive,” and that was the end of anything pleasant that day.
About an hour and a half later, after everyone had already poured their second round of drinks, she started talking while looking past me.
“Our Katerina keeps score now. Won’t even spare a fishing rod for her own nephew.”
The table went quiet.
Aunt Raya put down her fork.
“Katya, come on. They’re children.”
“Aunt Raya, the children have nothing to do with this,” I said. “This is about the adults.”
“You hear that?” Mother looked around the table. “Apparently I’m the guilty adult. And I treated both of them equally my whole life. Never gave one a bite more than the other.”
I put down my cup.
“Equally, Mom? Fine. Let’s count it all in front of everyone.”
“Katya,” Seryozha said quietly.
“The headlamp we gave Nikita for his birthday. He left it here two years ago, and that winter I saw Grisha wearing it on his hat when we came for New Year’s. The remote-control car he got for New Year’s. The rubber boots from two years ago—they’re still in your entryway, and Grisha wears them to the river. The spinning rod. Those are just the things I know about. I have no idea how much has changed hands over the past three summers.”
“But they play together!” Vera said. Her face was red. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Playing together means one person lends something to another. It doesn’t mean taking something from one child and ordering him to keep quiet about it.”
“No one took anything from him!” Vera half rose from her chair. “He gave it away himself!”
“Who told you that?”
Vera opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
“Mom,” she said.
I looked at Mother.
Mother sat straight in her new scarf, smoothing the oilcloth with her palm.
“Mom, you told Vera that Nikita gave it away himself. You told Nikita not to tell me. And now you sit here between us listening while both of us repeat things that aren’t true.”
“I was keeping the peace,” Mother said. “Someone had to.”
“You weren’t keeping the peace. You were just giving away what belonged to me because no one dares argue with you.”
Aunt Raya started saying this wasn’t the time or place, that it was a birthday celebration.
I stood up and walked toward the barrel.
Grisha was sitting where he always sat, the spinning rod with the blue electrical tape across his knees.
“Grisha,” I said. “This belongs to Nikita. I’m taking it back.”
He clutched the handle with both hands, his fingers white, and started howling.
Vera came running across the yard.
“What are you doing? You’re ripping it right out of a child’s hands!”
“I am,” I said, prying his fingers open. “The person who took it out of my child’s hands is sitting at the table eating your salad.”
I put the rod in the trunk.
We left before tea was served.
Mother came out onto the porch and called after me as I was opening the car door.
“Bring Nikita in July. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Aunt Raya called that evening.
“Katya, you took it straight out of the child’s hands, in front of everyone,” Aunt Raya said. “Aren’t you ashamed?”
“I am, Aunt Raya. And I took it anyway.”
“Your mother didn’t sleep all night afterward.”
“Neither did I. Except I didn’t sleep for a year.”
She talked for a while longer about how we were all one family and how Mother wouldn’t live forever, then said goodbye.
After the call, Seryozha sat down across from me in the kitchen.
“Katya. Maybe we should take him there for July?”
“Are you serious?”
“He’s sitting here in the city surrounded by asphalt. Over there there’s a river, a forest, other boys.” My husband rubbed his face with his palm. “Your mother is old. Fine, she gave the kid the fishing rod. So what?”
“It isn’t about the fishing rod, Seryozha. She forced him to keep his mouth shut for a year. Do you understand that?”
“I understand,” he said. “And I still feel sorry for the boy. He only gets one summer.”
We didn’t come to an agreement.
He went to the garage. I stayed in the kitchen until eleven, sorting through buckwheat that didn’t need sorting.
For the next two weeks, everything was quiet.
Mother didn’t call me. I didn’t call her.
Nikita went to the quarry with Seryozha, raced around the courtyard, and once flew his quadcopter over the stadium. Half the neighborhood boys came running to watch.
Then, on Saturday, July fifth, he came up to me holding his phone.
“Mom. Can Dad and I go see Grandma tomorrow? Just for one day.”
“Why all of a sudden?”
“I just decided I wanted to,” he said. “She didn’t call me.”
He said it exactly the way a child repeats a memorized sentence—too smoothly, while looking in the wrong direction.
“Nikita. Did Grandma call?”
He stood there for a moment.
Then nodded.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Ask Dad. He’ll bring you.’” My son swallowed. “And tell Mom it was your own idea.”
A year earlier it had been, “Don’t tell your mother.”
Now it was, “Tell your mother it was your own idea.”
Not a single thing had changed.
I took his phone, checked the calls, handed it back to him, and went to get dressed.
On Sunday, July sixth, I drove to Klenovka alone.
I arrived sometime after nine in the morning. Vera was there on her day off, Grisha was in the yard, and Mother was kneading dough.
“Oh,” Mother said, wiping her hands. “You came. Where’s Nikita?”
“At home.”
I walked into the small room.
Nikita had had his own shelf above the bed there since he was four: toy soldiers, cars, books, a calendar with soccer players that he had kept up for three years.
His old sneakers stood below it. A windbreaker hung from a nail.
I took his rubber boots from the entryway right beside the front door. Grisha watched me take them.
I carried everything out—two bags plus armfuls of things, four trips in all—and loaded it into the trunk beside the spinning rod.
Mother stood on the porch, flour still on her hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking Nikita’s things.”
“Katya, have you lost your mind?” Vera came out behind her. “That’s his room!”
“It was his room.”
I slammed the trunk shut.
“Mom, listen carefully, and Vera can hear this too. Nikita isn’t coming here this summer. Not in July, not in August. And not next summer either.”
“You’re taking my grandson away from me,” Mother said.
“I’m taking him away from a grandmother who teaches him to lie to his mother. If you want to see him, come to our place. While I’m there.”
“What will people say when they find out?”
“They’ll say I’m a terrible daughter. I’ll survive.”
Mother stood there wiping her hands on her apron even though there was nothing left to wipe away.
Vera shouted after me that I was using my child to settle my own grudges, that I remembered every slight anyone had ever done to me and forgave nobody.
Grisha watched us from behind the shed door and didn’t come closer.
On the kitchen table, under the oilcloth, lay that same sheet of paper with the large handwritten letters.
She still hadn’t thrown it away.
At home, I unpacked the bags and put everything back on Nikita’s shelves.
Seryozha took our son to the playground so he wouldn’t get in my way.
I sat down on the floor between the bed and the wardrobe, surrounded by those toy soldiers and books, and didn’t move for about five minutes.
For the first time in all those years, I didn’t have to wonder in advance which of his things he would bring home from Grandma’s and which would stay behind.
Seryozha had two weeks of vacation in August.
We went camping at the quarry, then visited his sister in the city, and on other evenings we simply rode our bicycles along the river beyond the bridge.
Our son took his quadcopter every single time.
Once he almost dropped it into the quarry for real—all by himself, without any grandmother involved.
Mother hadn’t called since July sixth.
Not once.
Aunt Raya was telling all the relatives that Katya was driving her mother into an early grave and that things had come to this: the poor old woman could only look at photographs of her grandson.
At the end of August, I received a message from Vera.
No greeting, just one sentence:
“Grisha asked why Nikita never came. I didn’t know what to tell him.”
I didn’t reply.
I still haven’t.
In the middle of September my sister sent me a photograph.
Not a single word. Just a picture.
The little room. The bed. The shelf above it.
Now Grisha’s toy cars stood on the shelf, and his jacket hung from the nail.
At the beginning of October Aunt Raya invited us to her birthday.
I told her we were working.
Once my son asked me about Grisha—whether he had been upset that we left that day with his fishing rod.
“It wasn’t his fishing rod,” I said.
“Yeah,” Nikita replied. “But he didn’t know that.”
The spinning rod stands in the corner behind our wardrobe.
Nikita hasn’t touched it even once. He said to just leave it there.
And last week, while doing his homework at the kitchen table, he asked without turning around:
“Mom, are we going to Grandma’s next summer?”
I said we’d see.
It was a lie, and I think he knew it.
Maybe I should simply have bought a second fishing rod and kept quiet.
I took my son’s summer away with my own hands so that he wouldn’t have to give away what was his.
A victory—but was it worth the price?
And the quadcopter box is still under his bed.
He doesn’t hide it anymore.
