“Don’t bother unpacking the suitcase, Natasha. We’ve already checked everything ourselves,” Lyudmila Sergeyevna said, standing in the bedroom doorway with one shoulder against the frame.
I lowered my hands. An empty brass luggage-tag token remained in my palm. The numbers of my flight gleamed faintly on its polished surface.
“What did you check?” I asked. My voice sounded dull after spending twelve hours working on an audit report.
“We went through your things.” My mother-in-law slowly entered the room. A new wide-brimmed hat made of pale straw sat on her head. “We put everything you don’t need on the sofa. That sunscreen is good and expensive, so Svetlana and I are taking it. You won’t need sunscreen in your dusty office.”
I turned toward my desk. The solid ash drawer stood slightly open. Its lock, covered with fresh scratches, hung forlornly from a single screw. The thick plastic envelope containing my printed airline tickets, insurance documents, and voucher for a private bungalow in Belek was gone.
“Why did you tamper with the lock?” I spoke evenly, even though blood was pounding painfully in my temples.
“You shouldn’t lock your own mother out,” Lyudmila Sergeyevna said, curling her coral-painted lips contemptuously. “A mother isn’t a stranger. Or have you forgotten who helped you three years ago when my Vadim ran away from you? Who brought you jars of preserves while you were fainting from hunger?”
“Your daughter brought those jars, and I paid her fifteen hundred rubles for every one of them,” I reminded her. “Where are my travel documents?”
A faint rustling came from the hallway. Sveta squeezed sideways into the room. My thirty-five-year-old sister-in-law hid her eyes behind her bangs, but both hands were clutching my new leather carry-on bag. The pistachio-colored one I had bought at the shopping center a week earlier for twenty-six thousand rubles.
“Mom, just tell her,” Sveta squeaked quietly without looking up from the floor. “The taxi is downstairs with the meter running. Every minute costs eighteen rubles.”
“I’ll tell her.” My mother-in-law drew herself up to her full height. “You’re not flying anywhere today, Natasha. You can stay in Moscow and check your spreadsheets—you enjoy that. Svetlana and I are going to the seaside.”
“The tickets are in my name.” I took a step toward the desk, but my mother-in-law did not move. “The hotel is also booked under my passport. Put the envelope back.”
“They used to be in your name. Now they’re in ours.” Lyudmila Sergeyevna pulled a sheet of paper folded into quarters from the pocket of her light linen jacket. “You gave me the password to your email yourself. Remember? When you were looking for a cherry-pie recipe on that cooking website.”
I froze. My throat went dry.
“You accessed my private email?”
“I didn’t ‘access’ it. I made use of your trust,” my mother-in-law replied with a triumphant smirk. “There was an email from the travel agency. It clearly said that passenger details could be changed through the link up to twenty-four hours before departure. Svetlana and I sat down yesterday, entered our passport information, and paid the fee to change the names. It took five minutes.”
“Whose money did you use to pay the fee?” I asked.
“Yours, of course,” she answered casually. “Your bank card was linked to the account. The code came to your old phone, which was lying on the nightstand with the screen unlocked. It’s not going to bankrupt you. You earn one hundred and forty thousand a month, while Sveta makes thirty-two thousand at the optical shop. You should have a conscience, Natasha.”
The Family Account
“Give me the bag, Sveta,” I said, turning to my sister-in-law.
Frightened, she pressed the pistachio-colored leather against her chest and stepped backward into the hallway.
“Don’t you dare order her around!” my mother-in-law barked. “Sveta never sees the light of day. She works six days a week for next to nothing, while you live alone in luxury. No children, no husband, no responsibilities. All you do is file your nails and wander around restaurants.”
“I work fourteen hours a day,” I replied, looking directly into my former relative’s cold gray eyes. “Seven days a week. I’ve been doing it for three years. This vacation cost four hundred and twenty thousand rubles. I put money aside from every audit report.”
“As if pressing buttons on a calculator is such hard work!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna folded her arms across her chest. “Have you ever painted a single fence at our country house? Have you ever weeded even one plot of potatoes? My daughter and I crawl around the greenhouse on our hands and knees. Every spring, my blood pressure rises to one-sixty over one hundred, and you just dismiss our complaints!”
“I transferred eighty thousand rubles to you in May to repair the terrace,” I reminded her. “And another forty-five thousand to replace the well pump.”
“That’s a drop in the ocean!” she snapped. “We’ve wasted three years on you while you spent your nights adding up other people’s numbers. And what has the family seen of your millions? Not even a single nail for the country house! You owe us for everything. My Vadik wasted ten years of his life on you and left you this apartment, even though he could have gone to court and taken half of it!”
“My parents bought this apartment five years before I met Vadim,” I said, my voice deceptively calm. “And he left me for his secretary after taking the car we bought together—the one whose loan I had been paying.”
“Stop throwing that in our faces!” My mother-in-law stamped her foot in a new leather sandal. “Vadik was entitled to compensation. You’re shameless. You sit on bags of money and hoard it all. Do you know how much two weeks at a decent health resort in Kislovodsk costs? Seventy thousand rubles per person! Where are we supposed to get that kind of money? I can barely survive on my nineteen-thousand-ruble pension. Six thousand goes toward utilities and another four thousand toward my heart medication. Sveta can’t even afford winter boots!”
“And that’s why you decided to steal my vacation?”
“We didn’t steal it. We redistributed it fairly,” Sveta interjected from the hallway. Her voice trembled, but stubborn greed shone in her eyes. “You’re still young. You’ll earn more. Mom is sixty-six. She has never traveled farther than Anapa, sleeping on a train berth beside the toilet! She sacrificed her entire youth for my brother and me. Her hands are twisted into knots, and she has spent her whole life wearing other people’s castoffs. And you think you should be the one lying on silk sheets? Mom wants to enjoy life while she can still walk! Her cardiologist prescribed sea air!”
“At my expense?”
“At the family’s expense!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna declared. “You joined our family and still carry our surname. That means you’re not a stranger. And if you’re not a stranger, you have to share. We’re flying business class, drinking expensive wine, and warming ourselves in the sun. You can stay here and think about your behavior. Perhaps you’ll become kinder to people.”
She turned around and wheeled my large gray polycarbonate suitcase out of the bedroom as if it belonged to her. The torn strap from the brass luggage token dangled from its handle.
The Screen in My Hand
“Put the suitcase down,” I said, following them into the hallway.
“As if I would,” my mother-in-law scoffed, unlocking the front door with the key she had secretly copied long ago. “Sveta, stop standing there like a statue. Grab the beach bag and get into the elevator. The driver has already called three times. He’s getting impatient.”
Sveta hurriedly put on her worn-out sneakers, trying not to bump me with her elbow. She was clutching my bag, and one corner of a designer silk scarf protruded from it.
The phone in my trouser pocket vibrated briefly. Once, then a second time.
I took it out. A notification from my mobile-banking app glowed on the black screen.
“Transaction: Change of booking contact information. Attention! A service fee of 18,000 rubles is awaiting confirmation from the primary account holder within fifteen minutes. If you do not authorize this transaction, tap Cancel or contact the premium support line.”
I lowered my eyes to the message. My fingers touched the screen almost instinctively.
The travel agency had indeed changed the electronic tickets following a request sent from my compromised email account. However, the premium-rate payment gateway required final authorization from the primary cardholder. Without payment of the eighteen-thousand-ruble service fee, the airline still listed the new itineraries as “awaiting payment.” The five-star hotel reservation also remained connected exclusively to my telephone number, with an option allowing instant cancellation without penalty up to two hours before check-in.
They had not even understood what they had done. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law believed that a preliminary form with their new names, printed on a home printer, was already enough to board the airplane. To them, the world of digital finance consisted of transfers by telephone number and withdrawing cash from the ATM outside the grocery store.
I slowly raised my eyes.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna stood in the doorway, her chin raised triumphantly beneath the brim of her straw hat. Her entire posture expressed the absolute, unshakable satisfaction of someone who had seized another person’s share and believed herself victorious.
“What are you staring at?” she snarled when she noticed my calm expression. “Jealous? You’ll survive. In three years, you’ve never said one kind word to your husband’s mother. You’ve always looked down on us, you pathetic excuse for an auditor. Did you think that shuffling papers around meant you had God by the beard?”
“You are committing a criminal offense,” I said quietly. “Article 158 of the Criminal Code. Burglary and unauthorized access to computer information.”
“You don’t scare me!” my mother-in-law shrieked with laughter so loudly that it echoed through the building. “You’re going to run to the police and report your own mother? Any neighborhood officer would laugh at you! I’ll say that you gave me the vacation as a gesture of reconciliation and then changed your mind because you’re greedy!”
Sveta tugged on her mother’s sleeve.
“Mom, let’s go. The elevator is here.”
Counter Number Forty-Two
“You’ll have to do without, while we’re flying to the seaside, you broke loser!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna stepped onto the landing, spun around, and spat loudly onto the polished oak floor at my feet.
The saliva landed two centimeters from the toe of my house slipper.
I did not move. I made no attempt to wipe it away or block their path.
“Close the door behind us, servant,” my mother-in-law said.
The heavy metal door slammed shut. The old elevator rumbled somewhere in the building.
I stood in silence for exactly forty seconds. Then I walked over to the cabinet, took out a tissue, bent down, and wiped the floor dry. I threw the soiled tissue into the bin beneath the sink and carefully washed my hands with soap.
Then I sat on the hallway ottoman and opened my banking app.
First, I tapped the red button marked: “Reject transaction and block compromised access.” The eighteen-thousand-ruble service fee returned to my available balance.
Next, I opened the hotel-reservation section. The premium rate allowed me to cancel the accommodation up to one hundred and twenty minutes before check-in and receive a complete refund to the payer’s card. My finger touched the “Cancel reservation” button.
A short message appeared:
“Bungalow reservation successfully canceled. The amount of 260,000 rubles will be returned to your account within three business days.”
After that, I called my personal airline representative.
“Good afternoon, Natalya Viktorovna,” a gentle female voice answered after the third ring. “How may I help you?”
“Hello. My personal account has been accessed without authorization. Someone attempted to fraudulently replace the passenger information on booking number seven-zero-four-two without the cardholder’s consent.”
“I can see the request status, Natalya Viktorovna. The service-fee payment was unsuccessful. The system is awaiting confirmation.”
“Cancel the tickets completely,” I said clearly. “Issue a refund under the flexible-booking fare because of the attempted data theft. Also block the issuance of boarding passes under the names Lyudmila Romanova and Svetlana Romanova.”
“One moment… The request has been processed. The seats have been released, the boarding passes have been revoked, and the names have been added to the departure airport’s stop list. The money will be returned to your account, minus a five-percent commission.”
“Thank you. I need one more service. Book me one business-class ticket on the 9:40 p.m. flight to Dubai, as well as a single room at a seaside hotel for eight nights.”
“One moment. I’m processing the payment through your loyalty program and card… Done. The itinerary receipt has been sent to your new telephone number.”
I ended the call. It was shortly after five in the evening. Their flight to Antalya was scheduled to depart from Sheremetyevo Airport’s Terminal C at eight. My new flight was leaving from the same airport ninety minutes later.
I took an old waterproof canvas travel bag from the wardrobe and tossed in a change of underwear, my domestic passport, my second international passport with a valid visa, a charger, and a first-aid kit. I slipped the brass token into the pocket of my light jacket.
The taxi reached Sheremetyevo in forty-five minutes, traveling along the toll road without encountering traffic.
After entering Terminal C’s spacious, brightly lit departure hall, I rode the glass escalator to the second-floor balcony. From there, the economy- and business-class check-in desks could be seen clearly below.
They were standing at counter number forty-two.
Lyudmila Sergeyevna had already pushed her straw hat to the back of her head and was noisily fanning herself with documents printed on a home printer. Sveta shifted nervously from one foot to the other, holding the handle of my gray plastic suitcase. My pistachio-colored bag hung from her shoulder.
I approached the barrier and leaned against the cold metal railing.
“Are you deaf, young lady?” my mother-in-law’s voice rose above the noise of the crowd near the luggage conveyors. “I’m giving you an official Russian document! Here are our passports, and here is our reservation! We’re flying to Turkey!”
For the third time, the employee behind the counter, dressed in a formal blue vest, scanned the barcode on my mother-in-law’s paper and shook her head.
“Ma’am, I am telling you again: these boarding passes are invalid. The reservation was canceled by the owner of the payment method because of suspected fraudulent activity.”
“What owner?! I’m her mother!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna shrieked. “Everything has been paid for! Let us board the plane. We have a heavy suitcase!”
“Ma’am, step away from the counter and stop holding up the line,” the employee replied coldly, pressing a button beneath the counter. “Your names are not on the flight’s passenger list. The tickets have been revoked. If you continue shouting, I will call security.”
“Sveta, show her the receipt!” my mother-in-law exclaimed, grabbing her daughter by the arm. “Show her that we paid!”
“Mom… it says ‘payment incomplete,’” Sveta whimpered in a thin voice while staring at her inexpensive smartphone. “Look, it’s written in red… ‘Transaction declined by issuing bank.’”
“What do you mean, declined?!” Lyudmila Sergeyevna’s face turned crimson and became covered with ugly dark blotches. “Natashka! That bitch arranged all of this! I’ll tear her hair out!”
She drew back her arm and hurled the printed forms into the check-in employee’s face with all her strength. The pages scattered like a fan across the gray floor tiles.
At that very moment, two transport-police officers in dark blue uniforms stepped out from behind a column, radios attached to their shoulders.
“Ladies, present your identification. You will come with us to the station while we investigate this disturbance of the peace.”
“Do you know who I am?!” my mother-in-law screamed, but the large sergeant had already taken her firmly by the elbow. “I’ve been robbed! My daughter-in-law stole my suitcase! I mean, I stole it… Sveta, call Vadim! Call your brother and tell him to raise hell with the police!”
Sveta stood as white as chalk. She let go of the handle of my polycarbonate suitcase, dropping it directly onto the foot of a passing traveler. The suitcase toppled onto its side with a crash.
The High Ceiling
I stepped away from the glass barrier without speeding up or slowing down.
The business lounge was quiet. There were no announcements over the loudspeakers, no rattling luggage carts, and no irritated passengers shouting over crying children. Glassware clinked softly, and the air smelled of freshly ground coffee beans and the dry coolness of a powerful ventilation system.
I sat in a deep, dark-gray leather armchair beside the panoramic windows. Beyond the glass, an enormous white airliner with a silver tail slowly taxied toward the illuminated runway.
A waiter in a white apron silently placed a tall glass of ice-cold sparkling wine on the round table made of dark granite. Tiny bubbles rose in an even chain from the bottom toward the delicate glass rim.
I took the brass token from my pocket and ran my thumb across the engraved numbers. Then I called the waiter over and silently placed the small metal plate into the empty tray used for receipts.
“Please throw this away. I don’t need it anymore.”
“Of course, madam.” The young man inclined his head slightly and carried the tray away.
The telephone on the table lit up softly. There were nine missed calls from Svetlana and six voice messages from my former husband, Vadim, all beginning with the same note of bewildered anger.
I did not open the messages.
Using my right thumb, I entered the SIM-card settings, selected the option to block incoming calls from numbers outside my contact list, and slid the virtual switch to the right.
The screen went dark.
The last golden bubble in my glass burst quietly. On the information display, the status of my boarding pass for the flight to the Persian Gulf turned green.
I took one small sip of the icy, tart wine, stood up, picked up my light canvas travel bag, and walked toward the jet bridge.
Had enduring three years of humiliation been worth this single cold gesture at the airport, when the price of such peace was finally understanding that there had never truly been a family beside me?
