«Mom’s already promised people, so don’t embarrass me in front of the family!»
«The appraiser is coming tomorrow at noon,» Gena said.
He set his fork down at the edge of his empty plate.
Nina looked up from the stove.
«What appraiser?»
«For grandma’s apartment,» her husband wiped his chin with the back of his hand.
He pulled the mug of cold fruit drink closer to him.
«I’ve arranged it. The guy will check the walls, the wiring, and give us the real price.»
«What price, Gena?»
«Market price, Nina. By the end of next week, we’ll get the deposit sorted out.»
In the hallway, right on top of the shoe shelf under some flyers, a courier receipt stood out white. Nina had noticed it half an hour ago when she came back from her shift. The form showed the morning date and her husband’s bold signature.
Nina slowly set the ladle onto the stand.
«We haven’t talked about any of this.»
«What’s there to talk about?»
Gena leaned his elbows on the vinyl table cover.
«It’s a matter of life or death.»
«Whose life?»
«Danya’s!» her husband raised his voice. «My brother’s in deep trouble.»
«Again?»
«Not again, out of stupidity! He wrecked someone else’s work Gazelle van and even the welding machine inside.»
Gena let out a loud breath through his nose.
«The boss made it clear: either pay up by Friday, or he’s going to the police.»
«And what does grandma’s apartment have to do with it?»
«Everything! Do you want the guy to end up in jail?»
They’d lived together for eleven years.
Eleven long years in a nine-story panel building on the outskirts of town. God hadn’t given them kids. First, they squeezed in with his parents, then took out a loan for their own two-bedroom, spent money on private clinics. By forty-four, Nina realized she just didn’t want to go home after her shifts at the pump station.
Every family holiday was overshadowed by Gena’s younger brother. Danya was always searching for himself: opening a car wash with someone else’s startup money, delivering sports supplements, borrowing trailers on a handshake.
And every time, Gena’s mother, Tamara Vasilievna, ran the show in the kitchen. Gena would frown, dig into their savings, or work night shifts installing plastic windows. Meanwhile, Nina spent months mending work uniforms and counting every ruble until her paycheck.
But the apartment on Pokrovskaya was a completely different story.
Grandma faded for eight difficult months. After long shifts at the heat plant, Nina would run through three neighborhoods: washing floors, cooking thin porridge, turning her frail body. Not once did Gena give her a ride in the company UAZ. «Gas is company property and I’m not interested in anyone else’s diapers,» he’d snapped in March.
Only last Thursday did Nina pick up the deed from the registration office. The two-room Stalin-era apartment with decorative moldings had been left to her by will. It was the only place on earth that smelled of dried linden, old books, and peace.
«I’m not selling the apartment,» Nina said.
Gena stopped chewing his bread crust.
«What?»
«I’m moving to Pokrovskaya.»
Her husband pushed his plate away, making the fork clang as it rolled across the table.
«Are you completely out of your mind?»
«I’m speaking perfectly clearly.»
«My brother’s facing charges! He’s thirty-two, his whole life will be ruined!»
«He’s a grown man, Gena. Took someone else’s van without asking, so let him deal with it himself.»
«He just made a mistake!»
«He’s been making mistakes since he was twenty. And you’ve been cleaning up after him the whole time.»
Her husband suddenly stood up from his chair.
He smelled sharply of burnt metal from the grinder and of old sweat.
«I’m spending my own money on him! Everything I earned fixing those windows, I gave straight to Mom!»
«Your money last week wasn’t even enough to replace the riser pipe,» Nina reminded him.
She didn’t raise her voice, but inside, she felt like a wire pulled tight.
«You sent your whole quarterly bonus to Tamara Vasilievna. And I paid for the pipe repair myself with the guys from our emergency crew.»
«Don’t you dare hold a few coins over my head!»
«I’ve stayed quiet for eleven years, Gena. Enough.»
Suddenly, her husband’s phone started vibrating insistently on the microwave.
Gena glanced at the screen, rejected the call, and immediately turned on the speakerphone.
«Genochka?» echoed his mother’s trembling, sly voice throughout the kitchen.
«Yes, Mom.»
«Did you talk? Did Nina understand the situation?»
Gena shot his wife a heavy, brooding look from under his brow.
«Well, Mom… She’s being stubborn. Says she won’t lift a finger to help the family.»
There was a moment of silence on the line, then a sharp breath, and Tamara Vasilievna dropped the gentle tone. She spoke loudly, her voice high-pitched and piercing.
«How can you be so heartless?! Nina, are you even wearing your cross?!»
Nina stood at the sink, her hands lowered.
«Hello, Tamara Vasilievna.»
«Don’t give me your ‘hello’! Danichka hasn’t slept for two nights, his blood pressure is hitting two hundred! There are serious people involved; the owner of that depot won’t take this as a joke!»
Her mother-in-law took a breath and started talking even faster:
«We’ve already found a buyer! The foreman’s friend is taking it, no discounts! It’ll be just enough to pay off the van debt, cover the equipment, and I’ll still have enough left for a new fence for the village house since the picket one is completely rotten!»
Nina let out a bitter smile.
«So, it’s about the fence?»
«And why not?!» her mother-in-law snapped. «Are you really that stingy?!»
«And what will be left for me from Grandma’s old corner, Tamara Vasilievna?»
«Why would you need anything?! You’ve got a husband to take care of you!»
There was some rustling through the speaker, as if her mother-in-law had grabbed the phone with both hands.
«You have a roof over your head, clothes, food on the table! Why hold onto empty square meters? Just to pay taxes out of Gena’s pocket? A family is supposed to pull together!»
«I’ve been the only one pulling this cart for eleven years,» Nina replied.
«Gena!» his mother screamed. «Tell your wife to stop acting crazy! I’ve promised people already, don’t embarrass me in front of the family!»
«I’ll handle it, Mom,» Gena muttered.
He ended the call.
The kitchen was filled with the hum of the old fridge. Her husband stepped forward, looming over Nina.
«Alright then, my little genius.»
«Don’t come any closer.»
«Tomorrow morning, take a day off at the boiler room. We’re going to the notary.»
«Why?»
«You’re going to sign a general power of attorney for me. To handle the sale and gather all the paperwork.»
«No.»
«I said, you’re going to do it!»
Gena slammed his palm down on the kitchen table, making the salt shaker jump.
«You got that place for free! You didn’t pay a single penny for it!»
«Grandma worked forty years at the knitwear factory for that place.»
«Our family is falling apart!» he barked.
«Our family started falling apart the moment you started treating me like an empty nightstand.»
«If I thought you were just a piece of furniture, I’d have thrown you out!» her husband growled. «Tomorrow you’ll sign the papers, like it or not. You don’t have a choice.»
Nina looked him straight in the face.
It was as if a veil had finally been lifted from her eyes. All the illusions disappeared—any hope for a peaceful old age, any trace of pity for his perpetually aching back. All she saw now was a stranger, a spiteful man willing to strip her of everything just to help his good-for-nothing grown brother.
She rubbed her temple with her fingers. Her hand trembled slightly from the oncoming weakness, but her voice was steady:
«I’m not going to any notary.»
Gena twisted his lips into a sneer.
«Oh, you’ll go. In fact, you’ll be running there yourself.»
«Highly unlikely.»
«Where are your documents? You really think they’re still in the dresser?»
Nina froze next to the kitchen counter.
«What did you do?»
«Did exactly what I needed,» her husband smirked, taking his work jacket off the hook by the door. «I took your property certificate and the will this afternoon. They’re in the car, locked up.»
«You went through my things?»
«I took what I needed to save my brother! Without those papers, you can’t even change the lock there. Enjoy the darkness and think about it. I’m heading to the garage for an hour. When I get back, make sure you’ve wiped away those tears.»
The door slammed so hard that old chunks of plaster fell from the frame.
Nina was left alone in the kitchen.
At first, a wave of emptiness hit her so hard her knees buckled. She lowered herself onto the edge of the stool, gripping the tabletop. Eleven years. She’d washed his work clothes, cooked him soups, endured endless criticism from his mother, stayed silent when he gave away their last pennies to other people. And in the end, he’d just broken into her personal papers and stashed them in the car’s trunk.
The feeling of confusion lasted only a couple of minutes.
Then the emptiness was replaced by anger—pure, cold, and sobering.
Nina stood up and walked over to the dresser in the hallway. She tucked a loose strand of hair back up and fastened it with a pin.
On the key shelf hung a bundle with a plastic tag: the spare electronic key for the work UAZ. Gena himself had put it there in the spring, when he was down with back pain and asked her to move the car by the fence.
She took the key off its hook.
She pulled on a thick wool sweater and slipped into her boots. Silently, she slipped out onto the stairwell, carefully closing the door behind her.
Outside, it was damp and dark. The October wind chased wet maple leaves across the asphalt. Her husband’s work pickup sat by the transformer house, under a crooked birch. At the far edge of the yard, among the garage row, a dull window glowed—Gena was already with the guys.
Nina approached the car from the passenger side.
She pressed the button on the electronic key. The locks clicked.
She swung open the cabin door. Under the seat were rolls of electrical tape, dirty gloves, and empty plastic bottles. Nina reached deeper, past the jack bag.
Her fingers found a thick brown paper envelope.
She pulled it out under the beam of the streetlight. Inside were the blue official inheritance certificate and a fresh document in her name—Nina Alexandrovna. The sole adult owner.
Nina tucked the envelope under her sweater, slammed the pickup door shut, and pressed the lock button again.
She ran up to her fourth-floor apartment without even losing her breath.
As soon as she entered the apartment, she locked the heavy inside bolt. Her late father had installed it—a sturdy steel bar that slid five centimeters into its slot. There was no way to open it from the outside, not even with a key.
Nina walked into the bedroom.
She took an old canvas travel bag out of the closet. No extra belongings: just a change of warm underwear, wool socks, her passport, insurance card, and her work record book. From her nightstand, she grabbed a carved wooden jewelry box—her late grandmother’s gift for her twentieth birthday—and tucked it at the very bottom of the bag, between her sweaters.
She sat on the edge of the couch and unlocked her phone.
She quickly found the applications section in the app. Her fingers were steady. It took just two minutes to fill out the divorce form—no children together, no disputes over registration. The state fee was taken from the remainder of her salary card.
She heard heavy footsteps from downstairs.
A key scratched in the lock. It turned once, then again. The door wouldn’t budge.
The handle rattled down with a crash.
«Nina!» Gena bellowed from the hallway. «What did you do in there? Open up!»
Nina calmly put on her jacket, zipped up her bag, and walked to the threshold.
«I’m not going anywhere with you, Gena.»
A heavy thud sounded as someone hit the door with their shoulder from outside.
«You slid the bolt?! Have you completely lost your mind, you idiot?! Open up right now!»
«I took my documents from your UAZ,» Nina said clearly through the crack of the door.
Silence fell outside. Gena was probably processing what he’d just heard.
«You… what were you doing over there?! You broke into someone else’s work car?!»
«That car had my things in it—the things you stole,» she replied.
«Open up, I said!» Gena pounded the door with both fists. «Danya will be in jail tomorrow! Do you know what you’ve done?! Mom’s going to have a heart attack!»
«Let your mother sell her plot with the apple trees,» Nina retorted. «Or let Danya carry bags at a construction site. You’re not getting another penny from me.»
«Who would want you, you fruitless thing?!» her husband roared, his voice cracking. «You’ll be alone at fifty! You’ll crawl back on your knees, and I’ll board up the threshold!»
A door creaked on the third floor. Uncle Tolya from apartment forty-two poked his head onto the landing.
«Gena, have you lost your mind?!» a deep male voice barked from below. «It’s midnight! Bang on that door one more time and I’ll call the patrol from the station to knock the sense into you in the drunk tank!»
Gena cursed loudly, spat, and stomped his boots down the stairs.
Nina stood by the door for another five minutes. Her heart was pounding right by her collarbone, but her mind was clear and sharp, like a winter morning.
She slid back the bolt, grabbed her canvas bag, and stepped into the dark stairwell.
A fine, grainy snow was falling outside. At the corner of the building, a nearly empty night minibus was waiting to go downtown. Nina climbed on board, dropped her change in the fare box, and sat by the window.
The apartment on Pokrovskaya greeted her with the scent of dry wood, old newspapers, and linden blossoms.
There were no plastic windows or trendy wallpaper here. The floor was made of painted wooden boards, a round oak table stood in the middle of the room, and the cast-iron radiators hummed with hot water. Nina set her bag on a chair, took out her grandmother’s jewelry box, and ran her hand gently across its smooth lid.
«Well, grandma. I’m home now.»
Two and a half months have passed.
By January, the city was blanketed with dense, crunchy snow. The temperature had dropped to nearly twenty below.
Nina transferred to the central substation and switched to a day shift. Not only was the pay higher, but the best part was her shift ended at 5 PM. She managed to put up new light wallpaper in the kitchen, replaced the old brass faucet, and scrubbed the cast iron grates until they gleamed.
Gena reappeared a month after he ran off.
At first, he sent voice messages: cursing, threatening that he’d show up with a crew of installers and break down the doors, promising to hire a lawyer and prove that Grandma wasn’t in her right mind. But a friend who worked at the heating company just laughed it off: «Let him waste money on lawyers if he’s that stupid. The will was done at a state office three years before she got sick. No judge will even listen to him.»
Then his tone changed.
Gena started sending photos of his mother with a blood pressure monitor strapped to her arm. He wrote long, sorrowful messages: saying that Danka took a job as a loader at a wholesale warehouse, had strained his back, the van owner was taking almost all his salary, and they didn’t have enough for food. «Nina, after all these years, don’t you feel sorry for us? Why not rent out that Stalin-era apartment, and we’ll use the money to pay off Mom’s debt? We’re not strangers, after all.»
Nina didn’t reply to a single message. She simply placed his number on her blacklist.
They bumped into each other on Saturday at the entrance of the hardware store, next to the old bridge.
Gena was carrying a canvas tool bag. He wore an old work jacket dotted with an oil stain on the sleeve and missing its top button. His face looked thin, and gray shadows had settled under his eyes.
When he saw Nina in her new, warm, baked-milk-colored down coat, he slowed down and scowled.
«So, Queen?» he tossed out with a twisted mouth. «Enjoying your palace?»
Nina paused on the steps, adjusting her cozy knitted scarf.
«I live in peace, Gena.»
«Danka is slaving away at two jobs, only sleeping four hours a night! Mom’s hooked on heart meds! And you’re strutting around, all proud of yourself!»
«Your Danka’s finally learning what it means to earn a living,» she replied evenly. «It’s good for the mind.»
«You’re a cold woman, Nina. Always were, always will be. Let’s see who brings you a glass of water in ten years.»
Nina looked him straight in the eyes—without anger, without old guilt, and without fear.
«It certainly won’t be your family, Gena. I can take care of myself.»
She walked around him along the clean-cleared path and headed towards Pokrovskaya.
Under her feet, the fresh January snow crunched cheerfully and dry. There was a whole day ahead: hot thyme tea, a bright, quiet kitchen, and a life of her own—one where no one else could decide her fate anymore.
