“Miss, who are you here to see?” The door swung open, hitting Nina with the smell of cement dust and sweat.
A man in work clothes smeared with primer wiped his hands on his trousers. Behind him, a drill shrieked.
Nina stood on the landing, clutching the key that, only a second earlier, had stubbornly refused to go into the lock.
“I… this is my apartment.”
“What do you mean, yours? The owners changed the locks yesterday. They told us to strip everything down to the concrete.”
The worker stepped aside, and Nina saw the hallway.
Or rather, what was left of it: the pistachio-colored wallpaper she had hung on her only day off was dangling from the walls in torn strips. Beneath it, bare concrete showed through. Where the shelf with her grandmother’s books had once hung, there was now a crooked hole for new wiring. Construction dust hung in the air.
She took a step back.
That morning, the landlady of the rented one-room apartment where Nina had lived for the past three years had sent a short message: “Ninochka, we’re selling the apartment. You have two months to move out.”
Nina had not been frightened. She had a backup plan: Grandma Vera’s apartment. Old, in need of renovation, but dear to her. A place where she had invested every spare ruble over the past six months. She had come here with one thought: to move her things in today.
“So are you coming in or should I close the door?” the worker grumbled.
“Close it,” Nina said.
The new lock clicked.
A steady noise filled her ears. Nina closed her eyes and suddenly remembered, with perfect clarity, the evening from three weeks earlier.
She had been standing on a shaky aluminum stepladder near the ceiling. It smelled of paint and wet plaster. Her right hand, gripping the roller, would no longer straighten properly. The clock showed half past eleven at night. The unpaid day off she had taken from work was coming to an end.
On the windowsill, covered with newspapers, Grandma’s cup of strong black tea was growing cold. A simple faience cup with a thin brown crack along the handle. Nina had found it in a box on the mezzanine, washed it, and placed it by the window. The only surviving thing that connected her to Grandma Vera.
The phone in the pocket of her jeans vibrated briefly.
She carefully wiped her fingers, stained with white paint, on a rag and took out her phone.
Nina swiped the screen. The photo showed a bright, elegant hall in a Georgian restaurant. In the center of the frame was her mother, looking younger, with beautiful hair, laughing sincerely at something. Beside her was her father, holding a glass of red wine, and Alina. Her younger sister sat with perfect posture, wearing a new powder-pink silk dress, her head resting on their mother’s shoulder.
The caption read: “The coziest evening. The best family ❤️.”
Nina looked at the screen. Around her were bare walls. For some reason, her family had forgotten to invite her to that cozy evening.
“Ninochka, you’re our workhorse, after all,” her mother had said gently six months earlier as she handed over the keys. “Fix the place up properly, and then we’ll decide what to do with the apartment. You understand, don’t you? It’s hard for us.”
Nina always understood everything.
She did not write anything under the photo or call anyone. She simply tapped the heart and liked it. Then she slipped the phone back into her pocket, picked up the roller, and reached toward the ceiling again.
Back then, looking at Grandma’s cracked cup, she had been sure she was doing it for herself. Creating her own safe corner.
And now that corner had been taken away.
Nina opened her eyes. Behind the door, the sound of the drill started up again, then faded.
She put the key into her bag and took out her phone. She found her mother’s number in her contacts. Her finger hovered over the call button for a second, but Nina changed her mind.
She turned around and went down the stairs. She needed to go to her mother.
Two hours later.
“Ninochka? Why aren’t you at the office at this hour?”
Lyudmila Petrovna stood in the doorway of her spacious three-room apartment, wearing a velour tracksuit. From the kitchen came the smell of stewed cabbage and fresh coffee. A normal, warm parental apartment where, for some reason, there had always been too little room for Nina.
“Why are there workers in Grandma’s apartment, Mom?”
Lyudmila Petrovna blinked. The smile slipped from her face. She shifted from one foot to the other and looked away.
“Come into the kitchen,” she said quietly. “Would you like some tea?”
“I don’t want tea! Answer the question.”
Her mother went over to the kitchen cabinets, picked up a damp sponge, and began carefully scrubbing the already clean countertop.
“Nina, we wanted to tell you this weekend… We were going to get everyone together. Alinochka and Kostik submitted their application to the registry office. They need somewhere to live, to build a family. And Kostya doesn’t earn much yet. They can’t afford a mortgage.”
“So you gave them Grandma’s apartment.”
“We transferred it to Alina. Made a deed of gift.” Lyudmila Petrovna threw the sponge into the sink and finally turned to her older daughter. In her eyes shimmered the familiar mixture of guilt and reproach, perfected over the years. “Nin, please understand. The renovation there is already fresh. They’ll finish the one room you didn’t manage to do. The apartment is just right for young people, and you… well, you’re independent. You earn well. But Alinochka is like a hothouse flower, completely helpless. Who else is supposed to help her if not her parents?”
Nina looked at her mother.
Somewhere deep inside, an old childhood pain sharpened. Everything was as always. They had seen an apartment cleaned of years of dirt, ready to live in, and solved the problem of their beloved younger daughter.
“I bought all the materials myself. I leveled the walls with my own hands.”
“Oh, well, if you want, your father and I can gradually pay you back for the materials,” her mother said fussily, smoothing her hair. “We’ll add something from our pension. Just don’t be offended, Ninochka.”
Nina silently turned and walked out into the hallway.
“Ninochka, where are you going? Let’s have lunch!”
The front door lock clicked. Nina did not say goodbye.
She went down into the courtyard, walked over to her used Škoda, sat in the driver’s seat, and slammed the door.
The car smelled of old plastic and vanilla air freshener. Nina placed her hands on the steering wheel. Her fingers were trembling. She pressed her forehead against the cold wheel.
She had exactly sixty days to leave her rented apartment. The new owner did not care that she was independent. A deposit for a new rental, the first month’s payment, the realtor’s fee, movers… That was at least one hundred fifty thousand.
She did not have that money. She had left all her savings in Grandma’s apartment.
She had been left out on the street. The backup exit she had cherished, where she had poured her soul and her last pennies, had been boarded shut.
Nina raised her head and looked in the rearview mirror. A grown, tired woman looked back at her, a woman who was used to being convenient. “Fix it.” “Bring it.” “Do the renovation.”
She put her hand into her jacket pocket to get her car keys, and her fingers brushed against the now completely useless key to Grandma’s apartment.
Nina looked at it. She needed to give it back to her mother, lay it on the countertop, turn around, and leave their lives.
She got out of the car and went back toward the entrance.
Five minutes later.
The front door was ajar. Apparently, her mother had taken the trash out to the landing and had not latched the lock completely.
Nina pushed the door open. The hallway was quiet. Only Lyudmila Petrovna’s muffled voice came from the bedroom.
“…yes, she’s already gone, Alin. Of course she was upset, what did you expect? But it’s fine, she’ll swallow it. She gets over things quickly, you know… Yes, we’ll come by this evening to see how the workers are doing.”
Nina froze, standing in the hallway, clutching the key in her hand.
Her mother was talking on the landline phone that stood on her bedside table. Her mobile phone was here, on the shoe cabinet in the hallway.
And it was lit up.
On the screen, in large letters, was a chat with the contact “Alinochka Daughter.”
Nina had not intended to read someone else’s messages. But her eyes caught her own name, and she lowered her gaze.
Alina: Mom, what’s going on with Grandma’s apartment?
Mom: Alin, it’s in terrible ruin. It’s impossible to live there, and your father and I don’t have money for renovations.
The date was old: the end of March. Three and a half months ago. That was the day her mother had first called Nina and sighed into the phone: “Ninochka, could you take a look at Grandma’s apartment? The pipes are rotten, we might flood the neighbors…”
Nina swallowed with a dry throat and ran her finger over the screen, scrolling up.
Alina: Then let Nina do it. Tell her it needs to be prepared for renting out. She loves pretending to be the family savior.
Alina: Let her replace the wiring and level the walls, that’s the most expensive part. Then we’ll transfer it to me.
Alina: Just don’t tell her about the deed of gift right away. She won’t refuse if she thinks she’s doing it for the family.
Mom: Oh, Alin, somehow that doesn’t feel right…
Alina: She’s alone, Mom. She doesn’t need much. And I’m going to give birth soon. Do you want your grandson dragged around rented corners?
Mom: All right, I’ll tell her tomorrow. The main thing is that she doesn’t find out ahead of time, or she’ll quit halfway through.
Nina stared at the screen.
This had not been a moment of weakness from her parents or a spontaneous decision made “because things turned out that way.” It had been a plan, and in that plan, her role had been free labor.
They knew she would carry bags of dry mix. They knew she would take side jobs to buy good paint.
They were simply waiting for her to finish the dirty work.
Her mother’s voice in the bedroom went silent. Footsteps sounded.
Very slowly, very carefully, Nina placed the phone back on the cabinet exactly as it had been lying.
Lyudmila Petrovna came out into the hallway and flinched when she saw her older daughter.
“Ninochka? You… came back?” She instinctively glanced at her mobile phone, then at Nina again. Her face turned pale.
“I forgot to give this back,” Nina said calmly.
She placed the old key to Grandma’s apartment on the cabinet beside the phone.
Her mother looked at the key, then shifted her gaze to her daughter’s face. And apparently something in Nina’s stone-like expression made Lyudmila Petrovna take a step back.
“Nin… what’s wrong?”
Nina did not throw the phone against the wall or demand explanations. She no longer needed her mother’s excuses.
She looked right through her.
“All right, Mom. I understand everything.”
Lyudmila Petrovna exhaled shakily. Her shoulders dropped. Obvious relief flashed in her eyes: she had given in, swallowed it as always.
“Well, that’s my good daughter, that’s good. I told you, your father and I will later…”
Nina turned around and left the apartment.
Now she knew where she had to go. She was going to Alina. To her new territory.
Three hours later.
The door to Alina’s new apartment opened after the very first ring.
Her sister stood on the threshold in a powder-pink silk robe. In her hands, she held a rounded mug of cappuccino. Behind her was a fresh hallway smelling of expensive paint. The pistachio-colored wallpaper was gone.
When she saw her sister, Alina froze. The mug trembled in her hands.
“Nina? What are you… doing here?”
Alina tried to smile, but the smile came out guilty and insolent.
“Listen, Nin, I understand you’re angry,” she began quickly, shifting into her usual offensive mode. “But Mom decided it herself. Kostik and I need it more. You don’t have anyone, and we need to build a family. You’re strong, you’ll earn enough for yourself again…”
“I didn’t come for the apartment, Alina,” Nina said calmly, stepping over the threshold and pushing her sister aside with her shoulder.
She walked into the kitchen, where three weeks earlier she had scrubbed old linoleum on her knees. Now there was a new kitchen set.
Alina followed her, nervously tugging at her robe.
“Then what did you come for? To ask for money? Bring the receipts and Kostik will transfer it…”
Nina stopped in the middle of the kitchen and turned to her sister. She did not look into her eyes, but slightly above the bridge of her nose. Under that gaze, Alina fell silent mid-sentence.
“Alina, you got the apartment,” Nina said in a voice stripped of emotion. “That means you get everything else too.”
“What everything else?” Alina frowned.
“Write it down if your memory is bad. You take Mom to the cardiologist every month. You make the appointment, take time off work, and sit in line with her.”
“Wait, Nin, I don’t know how to deal with doctors…”
“Dad’s blood pressure medication—I’ll send you the names by message. You buy it. And you take it to them, because they forget.”
“Nin, I’m going to have morning sickness soon. I’m not allowed to get nervous!” her sister’s voice broke into a shout.
“When their pipe bursts at three in the morning, you go. When Mom thinks she’s having a mini-stroke and you have to wait four hours with her in the entrance for the ambulance, you sit with her. When they need to move things to the dacha, dig up the garden beds, buy a new television, and set up the channels—you do all of that.”
Nina fell silent.
“I am stepping out of this role right now,” Nina finished.
Alina stared at her with wide eyes. The victorious superiority was gone from them. In its place was a panicked, childish fear. She understood: the apartment had not been a gift. It had been an advance payment, one she would have to pay for over the years.
“You can’t do this,” Alina babbled. “They’re your parents too!”
“They made their choice.”
Nina walked over to the windowsill. Among glossy interior design magazines stood Grandma’s cup, with blue forget-me-nots and a brown crack along the handle. Apparently, the builders had used it as an ashtray; there was ash at the bottom.
Nina picked up the cup and shook the ash into the trash bin.
“And I’ll take this.”
Alina snorted, trying to regain control of the situation.
“Go ahead, take it. It’s some cheap junk anyway. I was going to throw it out. Kostik says cracked dishes bring poverty.”
Nina said nothing. She turned and walked toward the exit.
“Nina!” Alina shouted after her. “What, are you offended? Nin! Mom will go crazy if you don’t answer the phone!”
Nina stepped out onto the landing. The door slammed shut behind her.
She went down the stairs, clutching the faience cup in her hand. Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell.
Alina was already dialing their mother’s number.
Nina went out into the courtyard, got into her car, placed the cup on the passenger seat directly on top of her jacket, and started the engine.
She had exactly two months to find a new home. And for the first time in thirty years, she had no obligations to the people who considered her cheap junk.
Exactly two months passed.
With a sharp sound, Nina sliced the packing tape on the last cardboard box with a utility knife.
The small studio on the outskirts of the city was half the size of her previous apartment. A fold-out sofa, a narrow wardrobe, and a kitchen table barely fit inside. The light laminate creaked slightly underfoot, and it took twenty minutes to walk to the metro through courtyards, past gray panel buildings.
The move, the deposit for the first and last month, the realtor’s fee, and the movers had cleaned out every last kopeck of her savings. She had three thousand rubles left until payday.
But it was quiet here.
Nina took a stack of sweaters out of a box and put them on a shelf. She closed the wardrobe door.
Yesterday at work, the department head had asked her to stay after the planning meeting. He had asked her to close the office door. Then he had looked at her carefully over his glasses.
“You’ve changed, Nina,” he said, shifting papers on his desk. “Your gaze is different. More collected, tougher. And your performance has improved. I’m thinking of giving you the Northern Branch project. Can you handle it?”
She answered that she could.
She really had become different. It was as if a soft rod had been removed from inside her, the one around which other people’s debts, grievances, and manipulations had been wound for years. It turned out that without that rod, her back stayed even straighter.
Nina walked over to the window.
On the narrow plastic windowsill stood Grandma’s cup, thoroughly washed clean of dirt and cigarette ash. A ray of morning sunlight fell directly onto the brown crack crossing the faience handle with blue forget-me-nots. The cup was old, chipped, imperfect, but it was whole.
Nina clicked the kettle button, and it began to rumble.
Her phone vibrated on the table.
Nina turned around. A photo appeared on the screen: Lyudmila Petrovna smiling against a background of blooming apple trees at the dacha, with the large word “Mom.”
The phone vibrated, slowly crawling across the smooth surface of the table.
Nina leaned her hip against the countertop and looked at the screen.
She had no desire to pick up the phone, to say everything that had built up inside her, to prove that she was right, or to hear apologies. Nor did she have any desire to reject the call vindictively, punishing them with silence.
Somewhere on the other side of the city, in Alina’s freshly renovated apartment or in the old parental three-room flat, something was happening now. Perhaps it was time to take her father to the cardiologist, and Alina had used morning sickness as an excuse. Or maybe the washing machine had broken. Or maybe they simply needed money.
The world in which Nina had been a convenient free tool continued to spin, but without her.
The phone went dark.
Three seconds later, the screen lit up again. A second call in a row. That was how people called when they realized the lifebuoy was floating away forever.
Nina turned away from the table.
The kettle clicked loudly and switched off. She took Grandma’s cup from the windowsill, put a tea bag into it, and poured boiling water over it. The water turned a deep amber color.
She wrapped her hands around the cup, feeling the warmth pass through the old faience, and looked out the window.
Beyond the glass, a janitor in an orange vest was slowly sweeping yellow autumn leaves. A woman in a bright jacket was leading a sleepy, resisting child by the hand to kindergarten. An ordinary, normal day was beginning.
Nina raised the cup to her lips and took the first sip.
For the first time, she was home.
Nina’s story is, after all, a story about how important it is to protect your life in time from those who try to take control of it. And if there is anyone truly worth learning the art of protecting boundaries from, it is cats. My cat is an absolute master at this: if he wants to be alone, no one will disturb him, and if he decides to come for affection, he does it with royal dignity. Looking at his independent expression, you understand that valuing yourself and your peace is not selfishness, but a simple rule of life. I’m sharing with you a photo of my fluffy role model.
