“Vika, come quickly!” someone sobbed into the phone.
“Who is this?!”
“Come on, think faster! You’re supposed to be the smart one!” the voice on the phone snapped angrily. “It’s me! Vitalik! You could at least recognize your own brother! Mom was in an accident! She’s in the hospital right now! And I’m all alone, and I have absolutely no idea what to do!”
Vika slowly absorbed what she had just heard: Mom, accident, hospital. What a call from the past! But she had to go. Vika began getting ready…
Vika could no longer even remember the last time her relatives had called her. And she was happy about that. Before the “big scandal,” their calls had been frequent and persistently unpleasant…
“Vikusya, can I rob you just a little?” her mother’s syrupy voice would ask, and Vika knew immediately what that meant: they were planning to rob her on a grand scale.
“How much, Mom?” Vika would ask wearily.
“Oh, honestly, you…” Tatyana Alexeyevna would try to sound embarrassed. Then she would name the amount. Usually it really was outrageous.
“Mom, I’m an economist, not a safecracker.”
“Well, first of all, you’re a senior economist. And second, it’s for Vitalik!”
“Ah, well, if it’s for Vitalik, then that explains everything!”
“You’re so mean!” her mother would complain, offended.
“And ugly and ridiculous too! If I remember correctly, you used to accuse me of that as well!” Vika would remind her sarcastically.
“I never said anything like that!” Tatyana Alexeyevna would deny uncertainly…
Of course she had said it—and worse. To her mother, Vika had always been the “ugly duckling,” a mistake, a “fright.” But Vika’s brother, Vitalik, was perfection itself in their mother’s eyes. For some reason, however, this homegrown Apollo was completely unsuited to working for a living. That was why Mom often called her supposedly ugly daughter…
Vitalik and Victoria’s father had left Tatyana Alexeyevna many years earlier. Their marriage had been a mismatch from the very beginning. Once, when young student Tanya was searching for a wealthy husband, she noticed her university professor, Ivan Sergeyevich. And he wanted so badly to believe that the young, long-legged beauty had genuinely fallen in love with him, a forty-year-old wise man, that he convinced himself it was true.
Vitalik was born first: the long-awaited little angel, looking exactly like Tatyana. Two years later, when the marriage was already falling apart and heading toward divorce, Vika was born completely unexpectedly—and she was the spitting image of her father.
Ivan Sergeyevich was a decent man. He loved his children, and despite everything, he still felt gratitude toward his wife. So after the divorce, he exchanged his large luxurious apartment in the city center and made sure his ex-wife and children had decent housing. He also paid substantial child support. Despite all that, Tatyana somehow came to hate her former husband. Perhaps she could never forgive him for once calling her narrow-minded, or perhaps she was simply furious because he had been the one to file for divorce first.
Ivan Sergeyevich lived far away, so Tatyana took all her anger out on Vika. From early childhood, the girl grew accustomed to being told that she had been unwanted and unattractive.
“You look so much like your nerdy father!” Tatyana Alexeyevna often said, managing to insult not only Vika but her professor father as well.
Vitalik, on the other hand, was Tatyana Alexeyevna’s ray of sunshine on a rainy autumn day.
“Sweetheart, you really shouldn’t get upset over little things! So what if some Sveta turned you down? Soon you won’t know where to hide from all those Svetas!” she would comfort her son.
“She didn’t just turn me down! She called me stupid!” Vitalik complained, blinking his long eyelashes.
“Oh, forget about it! Why listen to someone like her? She’s just jealous! I saw your Sveta—a skinny little herring with thin, pale hair! Ugh! I honestly don’t understand what you saw in her!” Tatyana Alexeyevna said, hugging her son.
“She’s not a herring!” Vika defended Sveta, who was actually a pretty blonde and an excellent student. “She’s smart and beautiful!”
“Everyone looks beautiful to you because you compare them to yourself!” Tatyana Alexeyevna cut off Vika’s protests. There was no reason to upset her brother.
Vika would fall silent and later stare sadly at herself in the mirror, which seemed to confirm her mother’s judgment.
“Well… I’m definitely never going to be a beauty,” Vika thought as she examined her reflection. “These stupid glasses, this pointed nose, these thin lips… depressing. Well then, there’s only one thing left—to become smart. Being both stupid and ugly would really be too much.”
And so Vika threw herself into her studies. Her intelligence, like her appearance, came from her father. She graduated from school with excellent grades and entered university on a state-funded place. That was especially fortunate because her mother had never been eager to spend extra money on her “unsuccessful” daughter.
Vika did not insist on anything. She wore whatever clothes were bought for her, used an ancient phone handed down from her brother, and endured her mother’s constant criticism, which by then no longer even offended her.
Vitalik, meanwhile, grew more handsome and more arrogant with every passing year. The first delighted Tatyana Alexeyevna. The second she carefully ignored.
“Mom, what university? That would be unbearably boring!” Vitalik declared.
“But I already spoke to your father about getting you admitted…” his mother said sadly. “What are you going to do, sweetheart? You can’t get a respectable job without higher education.”
“And what exactly do you mean by a ‘respectable job’? Rotting in an office from nine to six, five days a week? No, thanks!” Vitalik grimaced.
“And what are you planning to live on?” his mother asked innocently.
“Well, for now, I’m counting on you! You’ll give me time to find my place in life, won’t you?” Vitalik did not doubt it for a second.
Tatyana Alexeyevna sighed quietly. It would have been nice if there had been something to count on. Her own job was nothing special. She had dropped out of university after getting married, deciding that one intellectual in the family was more than enough.
Fortunately, she had completed some courses, and a friend helped her get a job as a hairdresser at her salon. Of course, she could take clients at home on weekends… but then she would have no life at all.
Still, there was no other option. Vitalik needed to find himself! And she, as his mother, was obligated to help him do it.
Meanwhile, Vika graduated from university and easily obtained a position as an economist at a large company. Soon afterward she took out a mortgage on a small apartment. It was tiny, but it was hers.
To her surprise, she even found a husband.
At first, Vika, who was completely unused to male attention, interpreted the courtship of Maksim, a PR specialist, as some sophisticated form of mockery. She constantly imagined younger colleagues giggling around the corner and placing bets on whether Maks could charm ugly little Vika.
“Vika, I don’t know who messed around inside your head or what exactly is going on in there, but you have absolutely no idea what you’re worth!” Maks once snapped after Vika interpreted yet another compliment as sarcasm. “I see an intelligent, attractive woman in front of me who has developed such a massive inferiority complex that I don’t understand how she manages to carry it around.”
“Yeah… attractive,” Vika muttered, staring habitually at the toes of Maks’s shoes.
“This is unbearable!” Maksim rolled his eyes. “Read my lips: I like you! I want to ask you out on a date. A harmless, friendly, innocent one! Will you go?”
And, to her own surprise, Vika agreed.
“Enough being afraid,” she decided, and nodded.
That first date led to a whole series of wonderful meetings, ending eventually in a wedding.
Life moved forward, bringing pleasant changes into Vika’s days. Beside Maks, she blossomed. She replaced her grandmother-style glasses with contact lenses, completely updated her wardrobe, and told her inferiority complex to go to hell.
Only one unpleasant thing remained unchanged: the demands of her relatives. For some reason, Vika felt powerless against them.
She was not surprised when her mother called for the first time demanding help.
“Vikusya, this is why I’m calling. It’s Vitalik’s birthday, and the boy dreams of having a car. It doesn’t have to be new, but it absolutely has to be a good foreign car! I can’t afford a gift like that on my own. You’ll help, won’t you?”
The question sounded more like a statement.
“Isn’t that a little too expensive for a birthday present?” Vika mumbled, already knowing what her mother would say. And she almost guessed word for word.
“No, it is not too expensive! The boy is turning twenty-five! That’s practically an anniversary! A quarter of a century! I don’t understand why you’re being so stingy. How many brothers do you have, anyway?” Tatyana Alexeyevna’s indignation knew no bounds.
“All right. I’ll contribute,” Vika agreed reluctantly.
“Wonderful! I’ll call your father too! He can cough up some money as well! A grown son deserves grown-up presents!” her mother said happily.
“This is complete insanity,” Maks stated when Vika mentioned the gift for her brother.
“But it’s only once in his life…” Vika tried to justify herself.
“I seriously doubt that,” Maksim replied.
And he was right.
After Vitalik’s birthday, once her mother realized that Vika earned quite well, she practically climbed onto her daughter’s shoulders and settled there.
“Vikusya, I really need your help! I want to renovate the apartment. It’s practically indecent to live in conditions like this! Will you help?”
“Vika, I’ve somehow accumulated these insane utility debts… I have no idea how it even happened! Save me!”
“Vik, I haven’t had a vacation in ages. My friend has a trip to the seaside that she can’t use… Well, you understand.”
And Vika helped, rescued, and contributed…
Quietly hating herself for doing it.
Maks, who at first merely grumbled about his mother-in-law’s outrageous greed, eventually began arguing openly. Finally, Vika decided to stand up to her mother.
“Mom, maybe just once, for a change, Vitalik could help you?” she said one day in response to another request for money.
“The boy is having problems right now… He tried to find work as a model, but nothing has worked out yet! I don’t understand—are those people in modeling agencies blind or something?” Tatyana Alexeyevna sounded genuinely outraged.
“As far as I remember, ‘the boy,’ who’s almost thirty, has always had problems finding work. Maybe he should step down from his pedestal for a while and finally do something useful?” Vika snapped.
“All right,” Tatyana Alexeyevna said, lowering her voice. “You don’t want to help your brother. Fine. But what has your mother ever done to you?”
Vika desperately wanted to remind her mother of how she had bullied her throughout childhood and part of her youth, but this time she held back.
“Mom, I’m willing to help. Actually help. Not support you completely or grant every whim like some magical goldfish. So I’m sorry, but today I don’t have any spare money.”
Vika refused—and surprised herself. She had finally managed to do it.
“What a pity…” Tatyana Alexeyevna hung up, but she did not believe for a second that her personal “piggy bank” had truly closed.
“Don’t worry, I’ll call again in a couple of days,” she told Vitalik, who was watching her questioningly from across the table. “You’ll get the money for your new seat covers. Our little ‘fright’ has decided to show her teeth. But it won’t last.”
“Let me call her myself,” Vitalik suggested. “Otherwise those seat covers might get sold.”
“Go ahead.”
Vitalik, confident in his charisma, dialed Vika’s number.
That was when the “big scandal” finally erupted.
“I am not going to sponsor a parasite and a lazy bum who thinks he’s irresistible!” Vika snapped.
“You… What would you know?! Another couple of months and I’ll get my dream job!” Vitalik nearly choked with indignation.
“Sure. Tell that to Mom. She’ll believe you! But don’t try feeding me that nonsense! You haven’t worked even two full years in your entire life! You’re still searching for yourself and somehow never managing to find anything!”
All the anger Vika had accumulated over the years finally burst free.
“To hell with you, then! I don’t need your handouts! Greedy, materialistic, self-absorbed…” Vitalik paused, trying to think of the most painful insult he could use against his sister.
Finally, he found one.
“Ugly freak! Don’t ever call us again! Ever!”
“I won’t,” Vika promised, although she could not even remember the last time she herself had called her relatives.
Six months passed.
Vika did not know how her mother and brother were doing, and the question did not trouble her very much. If they were not calling and demanding money, then apparently everything was fine.
Maybe Vitalik had finally found a job.
Maybe Mom had started taking more clients.
But then, one night, a call came from the past.
“Vika!” a male voice sobbed. “Come quickly!”
“Who is this?”
“You don’t recognize me?! Think faster!” the voice snapped angrily. “It’s your brother, Vitalik! Something happened to Mom! An accident! She’s in the hospital! And I have absolutely no idea what to do!”
There was such panic in Vitalik’s voice that Vika woke up completely.
An accident…
She had to go.
When Vika and Maks rushed to the hospital, a pale Vitalik met them at the entrance.
“This is a nightmare!” he wailed, grabbing his sister by the sleeve.
“Stop panicking!” Vika ordered. “Can you clearly explain what happened?”
“I don’t know exactly. Mom was on her way home, and the taxi driver drove into a ditch! I think she has a concussion and something is broken. I didn’t really understand!” Vitalik rattled off rapidly. Then he looked hopefully at Vika. “You know what to do in situations like this, right?”
Vika sighed heavily.
And this was a grown man…
“Hello, Vikusya,” Tatyana Alexeyevna said with a pale little smile when her daughter entered the hospital room. “I didn’t think you would come.”
“Hello, Mom. How are you?” Vika smiled back.
“How am I? Terrible. And then there’s this hysterical idiot!”
At first, Vika did not realize that her mother was talking about Vitalik.
“What do you mean, hysterical?”
“Oh, Vika, it took breaking a couple of ribs and hitting my head properly for me to finally realize that I didn’t raise a man. I raised some kind of hysterical child!” Tatyana Alexeyevna said sadly.
As it turned out, after Vitalik learned about the accident, he had rushed to the hospital and staged a one-man theatrical production.
First, he nearly fainted right beside the admissions desk when he was told that his mother’s condition was moderately serious. Then, when Vitalik was finally allowed into her room, it took him a long time to gather enough courage to go in. He even managed to cry while sitting on a bench in the corridor.
A nurse had later told Tatyana Alexeyevna about it. Apparently, the nurse had been forced to comfort Vitalik and convince him that his mother was not about to die.
“I witnessed the next act of the performance myself!” Tatyana Alexeyevna continued. “Instead of feeling sorry for me, my son spent ages feeling sorry for himself while sitting beside me in a chair. He kept whining that he couldn’t live alone. And then he ran off to call Vika!”
“Well… a real man indeed,” Vika said, shaking her head. “Although he was actually telling the truth. He really doesn’t know how to live on his own. You’re the one who taught him to be that way, Mom.”
“I was stupid!” Tatyana Alexeyevna declared.
She paused briefly, lowered her eyes, and continued.
“Stupid, cruel, and ungrateful. Your father once called me narrow-minded, and he was right. Forgive me, Vikusya. And if you can, give me a second chance.”
“We can try, Mom,” Vika said with a nod. “And what are you going to do with the ‘real man’?”
“I’m sending him to work!” Tatyana Alexeyevna’s eyes flashed.
“Let him finally grow up. At thirty years old, it’s about time.”
