The doorbell rang at six o’clock. Two hours earlier than expected.
Tetiana had just finished cutting up the herring for her ‘shuba’ salad when she thought that Maksym just couldn’t wait again. That was just like him: he’d say, «I’ll be there at eight,» and then show up outside her building with bags in hand, sending a message that he was just passing by. She went to open the door, still wearing the apron with big red poppies her mom gave her after her very first paycheck as a teacher.
Standing at the door was Anton.
A blue puffer jacket, plaid scarf, boots caked with snow that immediately began melting on the parquet. Beside him, a maroon suitcase on wheels—so big it looked like you could fit half the apartment inside.
«Well, sis, open up!» Anton rolled his suitcase into the hallway without waiting for an invitation. «I’m here for the holidays. At least until the third, we’ll see after that.»
Tetiana stood there with the herring in hand, not sure what to do with her arms.
«Anton… You could have at least called.»
«Why? You’re home. You’re always at home.»
«I might have plans, you know.»
He laughed so genuinely, as if she had just told a joke.
«What kind of plans, Tanya? Grading papers?» Anton was already shrugging off his coat, looking for somewhere to hang it—even though the coat rack was full. «Or have you finally found yourself a man and are keeping him hidden from your own brother?»
She didn’t say anything. And of course, Anton didn’t notice that her silence lasted a second longer than it should have.
* * *
Tetiana was thirty-five. She taught math at a lyceum and lived alone in a two-room apartment on the fifth floor of a panel building. She had long grown used to one simple thing: her family only remembered her when they needed something.
Anton was six years younger and was still «the little one» in their mom’s eyes. Back in spring, the «little one» had come to stay for a week because he had an interview in the regional center. The interview took just an hour, but he stayed nine days. During that visit, he emptied the fridge, left a mountain of towels in the bathroom, and said goodbye by telling her that her borscht was «just not like mom’s.»
In March, he asked for money. «Just for a week, Tanya, I promise.» She handed over the cash she’d been saving for two years for a seaside vacation. That week came and went a long time ago—and the money was never returned.
When she tried to complain to their mother, she always heard the same thing:
«But he’s the younger one. And he’s a boy. Can’t you spare it for your brother?»
She didn’t begrudge him. She just felt hurt. But no one in the family ever made that distinction.
Maksym had entered her life a year ago, in November. The week before her exams, her laptop died—taking with it years worth of notes and assignments. In a small workshop near the market, a tall, unhurried technician stayed late, rescued all her files, and brought the laptop to her at the lyceum the next day because she had forgotten her charger. He waited in the lobby for forty minutes while her class finished, sipping tea from a teacher’s thermos the janitor brought him.
Since then, he’d always been around. He remembered she didn’t like sweet coffee. He knew that Sunday nights were for marking notebooks, so he’d bring her dinner in containers to make sure she wouldn’t go hungry. For the first time in years, he was someone who asked, «But how are you, really?»—and actually waited for her answer.
She hadn’t told her family about him. She knew exactly how it would go. Mom would start in: how much does he make, why isn’t he married yet, won’t he deceive you. Anton would crack his jokes. That warm feeling she finally found would be dissected to bits, like a herring at the dinner table.
This New Year’s, they decided to celebrate just the two of them. She was making ‘shuba’ and Olivier salad, he was bringing some jellied meat his mom had cooked, and tulips. No guests, no phone calls with holiday greetings until two in the morning. Just two people sharing a table together.
* * *
Anton managed to accomplish quite a lot in just two hours.
He opened the fridge and ate half the platter Tetiana had prepared for the holiday table. He examined the bottle of sparkling wine and said she picked ‘some sour stuff.’ He criticized the tangerines for being too small. Then he sprawled on the couch, cranked the TV up to full volume, and started issuing commands from there:
— Tania, make me some tea! Tania, where’s your decent pillow?
She was chopping beets and thinking she could still stop all this. She wrote to Maksym: «Sorry. My brother showed up out of the blue. If you don’t want to come, I understand.»
The reply came a minute later: «I’ll come. If you don’t mind.»
«I don’t mind,» she wrote back. Then she put a third plate on the table.
At eight, the doorbell rang again. Maksym was standing there with tulips, a bag jingling with a pot of jellied meat, and a small box wrapped in a blue ribbon. Anton got to the hallway before his sister and looked the guest up and down.
— Oh! — he said triumphantly to Tetiana. — Well, come in since you’ve arrived.
* * *
Anton was the first to sit at the table. At the head, right where Tetiana herself had meant to sit.
— Well, let’s get to know each other, — he said, piling Olivier onto his plate. — I’m the man of the house here. Any questions about my sister go through me. What do you do for a living?
— I repair electronics. I have my own workshop, — Maksym responded calmly.
— A workshop… Well, well. And do you have your own apartment? Or are you just here to snag Tania’s place?
— I have my own place.
Anton nodded, as if ticking off an item on a form, and seemed a bit disappointed that there was nothing to nitpick. Then he turned to his sister.
— Maksym, just don’t get your hopes up, — he said in that tone of someone doing you a favor. — She’s… well, how to put it. Thirty-five years old and all she thinks about is homework. Even mom’s given up. Her cooking is mediocre, see, the beets in the ‘shuba’ are undercooked. Honestly, I figured she’d stay single till retirement. So, you can say you’re lucky anyone at all…
Tetiana felt her cheeks flush hot. She lowered her eyes to her plate, just like she always had when Anton made those kinds of jokes in front of others.
— Tania, bring more bread, — her brother ordered without looking at her. — And ketchup. You’re the hostess, after all.
She started standing up out of habit.
Maksym set his fork on the edge of his plate. He didn’t slam it down, just placed it softly.
— Tania, please sit down, — he said quietly. Then he looked at Anton. — Anton, was it you in March who took the money from Tetiana, the money she’d saved for two years for a vacation, and promised to pay it back in a week? That week seems to have stretched on quite a bit.
Anton turned pale. The room fell so silent, you could hear someone cheerfully singing a New Year’s song on the TV. Clearly, he thought his sister would keep quiet about it. She always had before.
«This is family business,» he spat out. «It has nothing to do with you.»
«Agreed,» Maksym nodded. «It doesn’t concern me.»
And he didn’t say anything else to Anton. He turned to Tetiana.
«Tania, what do you want? Not what mom wants, not your brother—you. If you say you want me to leave, I’ll go, no hard feelings. If you say otherwise, I’ll stay.»
* * *
No one had ever asked her that before. Not as a child, when Anton got a bicycle and she was told, «You’re older, you can wait.» Not ever since.
Tetiana was silent for a long time. Then she took off her apron and hung it over the back of the chair.
«I want to have a holiday—just once—that I chose myself,» she said. Her voice trembled, but she didn’t stop. «Anton, I love you. Really. But my apartment is not a hotel where you can show up unannounced and stay as long as you please. And just because I’m kind doesn’t mean I owe you anything. This past year, you haven’t called me once just to talk. Only when you needed money, a place to sleep, or someone to explain something to mom for you.»
«What, you’re seriously kicking your own brother out on New Year’s Eve?!» Anton practically jumped out of his seat.
«I’m not kicking you out. I’m saying I have other plans. You didn’t ask about them, so I’m telling you now. It’s an hour by bus to mom’s, the last one leaves at 9:30. You’ll make it. If you prefer, I can call a taxi to the bus station for you.»
Anton looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Then he jerked to his feet, grabbed his jacket from the hanger, almost knocking Tatiana’s coat down with it.
«Fine, sit here with your handyman! Mom will hear about all this!»
The door slammed. The wheels of his maroon suitcase rumbled down the stairs for a long time, and two puddles from melted snow were left in the hallway.
* * *
Mom called exactly ten minutes later. Tetiana hadn’t even had time to sit down.
«What are you thinking?!» she yelled so loudly that Tetiana moved the phone away from her ear. «Anton is standing at the bus stop, in the freezing cold, on the holiday! You chose a stranger over your own brother! I didn’t raise you like this! How shameful!»
Tetiana listened. Before, at this point, she would have already started explaining herself. This time, she waited until her mom paused for breath.
«Mom, do you know I’ve had someone in my life for a whole year who makes me happy? You don’t, do you? And do you know why? Because in that year, you haven’t asked me even once how I am. You’ve called me four times. I counted. And all four times, it was about Anton: take him in, lend him money, explain something for him, don’t get upset with him. You say he’s family. But who am I to you, mom? Am I family to you?»
Silence filled the phone. Tetiana could hear the TV in her mom’s kitchen, the ticking of the wall clock—the same one that was already five minutes slow when she was in school. Her mom stayed silent for a long time. For the first time in Tetiana’s life, she didn’t have an answer.
«Happy New Year, sweetheart,» her mom finally whispered quietly and hung up.
When Tetiana returned to the hallway, the puddles were gone. Maksym had wiped the floor with a rag he found in the bathroom and was now washing his hands, acting as if nothing had happened.
«Are you okay?» he asked.
«I don’t know,» she answered honestly. «It’s like something heavy has been lifted off me. And I’m a little scared.»
«That’s normal. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel.»
They sat down at the table. Maksym served himself some ‘shuba’, took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully.
«By the way, the beetroot is just right,» he said. «Cooked perfectly.»
Tetyana laughed. For the first time that evening.
Inside the box with the blue ribbon were two tickets for a train to the sea at the start of July. She stared at them, speechless, while Maksym opened the juice Anton had called sour.
Tetyana quietly put the third plate back in the cupboard. Clean, it stayed there.
