“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Raisa Zakharovna declared, placing her massive horn-rimmed glasses on the kitchen’s plastic tablecloth with a thud, as though stamping an official seal onto an invoice. “We’re selling the property. Then we’ll divide the money sensibly. We need to help Sveta with the down payment on an apartment. The poor girl is forty-six and still being shuffled from one rental to another. We’ll get Vitya a newer car—his position as a site supervisor demands it. And with whatever is left, we’ll give my country house a proper renovation. A family has to stick together, Nadya.”
I sat opposite her, slowly stirring my tea and observing this free performance with mild, almost scientific fascination. In my own kitchen, in the apartment I had inherited from my late mother, three people were enthusiastically dividing up property that had absolutely nothing to do with them.
My fifty-two-year-old husband, Viktor, nodded vigorously while demolishing his second bowl of borscht. His younger sister Svetlana—the “poor girl” with two divorces behind her—was already scrolling through real-estate websites on her phone, greedily licking her lips.
This circus had begun with an absurd event one month earlier.
That was when Pavel Arkadyevich first materialized on my doorstep. I knew him only from my mother’s old photographs from the early 1990s. Now he was a tired but impeccably groomed seventy-six-year-old man wearing a cashmere coat that looked like an alien spacecraft against the backdrop of my worn linoleum floor.
It turned out that thirty years earlier, my mother, Galina, had not merely “worked as a saleswoman,” as she had always told me. She and Pavel had opened one of the first privately owned market kiosks. My mother had invested all the money she received from selling my grandmother’s country house. She had stood behind the counter in temperatures of twenty degrees below zero, kept the preliminary accounts, and negotiated with suppliers.
When the first serious profits appeared, Pavel Arkadyevich simply transferred everything into his own name, threw my mother out, and even blamed her for a cash shortage. My mother raised me alone, paid off the debts, and never complained.
By the time Pavel Arkadyevich reached old age, he had developed heart problems, acquired a chain of gas stations and several shopping centers, and suddenly discovered that he possessed a conscience. He did not ask for forgiveness. He said that some things could not be forgiven. He had simply decided to repay an old debt.
Pavel Arkadyevich had found me a month earlier. During that time, I verified his story, consulted a lawyer, signed the necessary documents, and only yesterday received the official extract confirming that a seventy-square-meter commercial unit on the ground floor of a newly built high-rise now legally belonged to me.
Pavel Arkadyevich had covered every expense associated with transferring the property. The unit was already leased to a national pharmacy chain under a long-term agreement. On top of that, the old man had offered me a management position at one of his branches, with a salary so generous that it had made my head spin slightly.
And now my “loving” relatives, who only yesterday had called my late mother “a loser from the market,” were enthusiastically carving up her compensation.
“Mom’s right, Nadya,” Viktor said through a mouthful of food, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “What do we need commercial property for? It’s nothing but trouble. Renting things out isn’t for ordinary people like us.”
Raisa Zakharovna, a former warehouse manager, straightened her back proudly when she felt her son’s support.
“Exactly! All this commercial real estate of yours is nothing but a bubble!” My mother-in-law raised one finger, broadcasting wisdom acquired from television talk shows. “Renting is dead. Everybody buys everything online now! Brick depreciation and utility bills will leave us penniless. We need to sell it immediately, while there are still fools willing to buy!”
I carefully set my cup aside.
“Raisa Zakharovna, brick depreciation is what happens when you use one to crack walnuts at your country house. That property has a long-term lease with a pharmacy. People have not yet learned how to swallow medicine through the internet, so the income is stable.”
“Well, look at how clever you are!” my mother-in-law snapped instantly, losing all her expert polish. “You’re a merchandise manager at some third-rate supermarket, yet you’re as arrogant as the minister of finance! Your job is to obey your elders!”
My mother-in-law puffed up and turned red, resembling an overripe tomato that had suddenly been denied the right to become premium ketchup.
Svetlana looked up from her phone and whined petulantly.
“Nadya, why are you being so greedy? You already have your mother’s three-room apartment. And we’re family. We aren’t strangers to you. Besides, you’ll have to pay taxes on the rental income. It’s nothing but paperwork.”
“You’re right about that, Sveta,” I said with an agreeable smile, watching my relatives release a collective sigh of relief. “There is paperwork. But Pavel Arkadyevich transferred the property together with an active lease agreement. I have already discussed all the expenses, taxes, and documentation with a lawyer. The income has been calculated, and there is no need to sell anything.”
Silence fell over the kitchen.
Viktor stopped chewing. The word “lawyer” had an extremely irritating effect on him.
“Well…” My husband straightened up, deciding to take matters into his strong masculine hands. “In that case, I’ll manage everything. I’m the head of the family, so I’ll control the accounts. A woman dealing with tenants and documents is bound to make a mess of things. You’ll get confused. They’ll take advantage of you!”
I looked at him with sincere admiration.
“Vitya, last week you confused the electricity bill with the internet bill and spent three days without Wi-Fi, cursing American conspiracies. Exactly which accounts are you planning to manage?”
“Don’t you dare make me look like an idiot in front of my mother, you venomous snake!” my husband roared, slamming his fist on the table so hard that the spoon in his borscht gave a frightened clink.
He puffed out his chest like a pigeon sincerely convinced that he had been the one to lay the golden egg that morning.
Raisa Zakharovna realized that diplomacy had reached a dead end and switched to issuing direct orders.
“Here’s what’s going to happen! Enough talking nonsense. Tomorrow you take the day off, and we go to the notary. You’ll give Vitya a general power of attorney with the right to sell the property. This is not up for discussion. In this family, property will be used for everyone’s benefit!”
I looked at the people with whom I had lived for almost twenty years.
Viktor had always brought home just enough money to cover his gasoline and cigarettes, spending the rest of his time lying on the sofa while waiting for a “promotion.” For years, Raisa Zakharovna had reproached me for every piece of bread I ate and reminded me that I had “no family and no roots.”
They had never seen me as a person. To them, I had always been a convenient function—an endlessly compliant merchandise manager responsible for their personal happiness.
And now, when fate had unexpectedly returned what my mother had paid for with her health and her life, they had decided without the slightest hesitation that it belonged to them.
Simply because they had graciously allowed me to enter their “great” family.
“There will be no visit to the notary tomorrow,” I said, rising from the table and calmly gathering the dirty dishes.
“And why is that?” my mother-in-law asked, narrowing her eyes threateningly.
“Because tomorrow I’m going to file for divorce,” I said, turning on the water in the sink. “And tonight, Vitya, you’re packing your things and moving in with your mother.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Svetlana shrieked. “You’ll be lost without my brother! Who is going to want you at your age?”
“Don’t worry, Sveta. I now have a stable income and an excellent job.” I turned toward my husband, who sat there with his mouth hanging open, unable to understand how his comfortable world of borscht and sofa cushions had just collapsed.
“And let me remind you that this apartment belonged to my mother and was mine before the marriage. Property given to me as a gift is not subject to division under the law either. So there’s nothing for us to divide except your fishing rods.”
Raisa Zakharovna jumped to her feet, clutching her heart. However, when she noticed that I was not rushing to fetch her heart drops, she recovered instantly.
“You mercenary little wretch! We took you in! We kept you warm! And now, the moment you smell money, you decide to destroy the family?”
I approached the table, placed both hands on it, and looked my mother-in-law directly in the eyes. My voice was quiet, but it made Viktor instinctively draw his head down between his shoulders.
“Pavel Arkadyevich spent thirty years living with the knowledge that he had robbed my mother. The three of you decided to repeat his crime in a single evening. But you won’t get away with it with me.”
Viktor continued shouting that he was not going anywhere, shaking his fists in the air. But when he realized I would not retreat by a single step, he spat angrily and reluctantly began stuffing his clothes into a travel bag.
Raisa Zakharovna took her son home with her, loudly accusing me of monstrous ingratitude all the way down the stairwell. Svetlana left last, her face so twisted that anyone might have thought I had personally taken away an apartment she had already purchased and renovated.
A month later, I received my first rental payment.
I successfully began my new job at Pavel Arkadyevich’s branch, where I was treated with a level of respect I had not experienced in years.
That evening, my phone rang. Viktor’s number appeared on the screen.
He spoke softly, with a carefully rehearsed weariness in his voice, and suggested that we “forget everything and start with a clean slate”—provided I agreed to sell the commercial unit and invest the money in their “family business.”
“You don’t want to come back to me, Vitya. You want to come back to the property. But it isn’t waiting for you,” I replied calmly.
Then I switched off my phone for good.
