The key turned twice in Larisa’s apartment lock, and she’d long noticed: the second turn always sounded louder than the first. Especially on evenings when she returned from visiting friends.
That November evening, she’d come back from her brother’s place. She took off her boots, hung her coat on the hook, and walked into the kitchen without switching on the hallway light. The refrigerator hummed steadily, just as always. On the windowsill sat a snake plant, a gift from her coworkers for some milestone birthday—the only living thing in the apartment that never asked anything of her.
Larisa switched on the kettle and only then let herself remember how Vitaliy had gotten up from the table, glass in hand, and announced to the whole room:
“Well, little sister, here’s to your fifty-five! Still waiting for your prince? You know, at your age, people don’t fall in love anymore. At your age, you pull grandkids on sleds.”
Everyone burst out laughing. Her sister-in-law Inna nudged her husband in the side, but she smiled, too. Nephew Danylo didn’t even look up from his phone. And Larisa laughed the loudest—she was good at that. Thirty years in management positions had taught her exactly when and how long to laugh, right on cue.
They were celebrating her birthday. At Vitaliy’s place, because, “Where else would you celebrate alone? At a restaurant, by yourself at a separate table, like in the movies?” She had agreed at the time. Now she wondered if maybe the separate table wouldn’t have been so bad after all.
The kettle clicked off. She poured boiling water into a cup, dropped in a bag of mint tea, and sat by the window. Down below, someone was having a hard time parking, and headlights swept across the ceiling again and again.
Honestly, she had nothing to complain about. Financial director at a construction company that’s built four residential complexes in Vinnytsia over twenty years. A spacious apartment overlooking the Southern Bug, bought with her own money.
Vacations twice a year: the Carpathians in the winter, the sea in summer, and once even Lisbon, where she traveled alone and didn’t regret it for a second. Colleagues called her Larisa Mykolayivna even at office parties, when everyone else was already on a first-name basis.
But her personal life never quite worked out. There wasn’t any dramatic backstory to share with a friend over a glass of wine. At twenty-five, she was writing her thesis and working two jobs. At thirty-five, she was closing annual reports till three in the morning. And at forty-five, she suddenly noticed the men her age were all long married, and those who weren’t only saw her as the boss.
She was the boss.
Vitaliy had been teasing her about a prince for twenty years. At first, it was even sweet. Then it became just routine. And in recent years, Larisa had caught herself sitting long after each family gathering just like this, holding a cup in both hands, even though her tea was long cold.
* * *
Her boss sent her to the construction forum in Lviv. He didn’t want to go himself: “It’ll be three more days of talks about energy-efficient facades, and Larisa Mykolayivna, you’ll still take better notes than I ever could.”
Lviv greeted her with wet snowflakes that melted before they could even touch the cobblestones. The hotel was right in the city center, the conference hall sat on the first floor, and the coffee during the break turned out to be bitter and was served in paper cups—even though everyone had paid a hefty participation fee.
That coffee was where it all began.
Larisa stood by a table with thermoses, trying to figure out which was cream and which was just regular milk. Next to her, a man in a dark blue sweater was also studying the same pitchers, just as focused.
«For the record, the one on the left tastes suspiciously like kefir,» he said, without turning his head. «I checked. On myself.»
Larisa stifled a laugh, though she really tried to hold it in.
«And?»
«Alive, as you can see. But my mood is ruined at least until lunchtime.»
His name was Yaroslav. He was a design engineer who built bridges and overpasses, and he’d come to the forum to give a talk about load calculations. His talk was scheduled for three o’clock, and, as he put it, he was as nervous as a student before a thesis defense—»even though I last defended mine in the previous millennium.»
She attended his presentation. Sat in the fifth row, by the aisle. Yaroslav spoke calmly, his voice a bit muffled, and threw in such dry jokes that the room sometimes took a while to realize he was actually joking. Larisa caught them instantly. When he finished and started gathering his papers, their eyes met, and he gave a barely noticeable nod: I see you, thank you for coming.
That evening, they had dinner together. They hadn’t planned it—just happened to end up at neighboring tables in the hotel restaurant. For about ten minutes, they exchanged remarks across the aisle, and then Yaroslav said:
«Look, this is kind of silly. Come sit with me. Or I’ll join you, you have the window seat.»
They talked for a long time. About Chernihiv, where he’d spent his whole life. About Vinnytsia, which he barely knew. About how building regulations had changed, and how the people who skirted them hadn’t changed at all. When the waitress asked for the second time if they wanted the check, Yaroslav twisted a napkin between his fingers and said:
«I’m a widower. Six years now. I’m telling you right away because it always gets awkward otherwise.»
«I’m very sorry,» Larisa answered quietly.
«Thank you. Galya and I were together for thirty years. My daughter is an adult, lives in Kyiv, I have a granddaughter. And me…» he shrugged. «To be honest, I don’t expect much anymore. I come to forums like this because Maryana scolds me: ‘Dad, you only ever leave the house for work or to go to the supermarket. You need to see people.’ So, here I am, seeing people.»
«And how do you find the people?»
«One person is just fine,» he said, and for the first time that evening looked a little embarrassed.
Larisa felt her cheeks getting warm and got annoyed at herself. Fifty-five years old, a financial director, and blushing like a schoolgirl at graduation.
* * *
They exchanged phone numbers at the train station. Her train left at seven in the morning, his at nine, but Yaroslav arrived on the platform at half past six—»because you’re supposed to see someone off right to their car.»
The first message came that evening: «Did you make it home? It’s so foggy here now that you can’t even see the nine-story building next door. And you wouldn’t believe how I feel about kefir now.»
She replied. Then he did. Then she wrote again.
Over the winter, they wrote each other so much that one day Larisa, just for fun, started scrolling up through their messages and gave up somewhere halfway through December. He sent her photos of the frozen Desna River. Then his balcony with pepper seedlings growing in cut plastic bottles.
Then there was a lopsided pie he baked using Halya’s recipe—»well, it almost tastes like hers, if you close your eyes and have a good imagination.» She sent him views from her office window, tickets to the theater where she went alone, and once, a photo of her kitchen at two in the morning, with a cup of cold tea.
«Why aren’t you sleeping?» he wrote.
«Habit,» she replied.
«Bad habit. Let me call you—we’ll talk until you feel sleepy.»
They ended up talking until five in the morning. For the first time in years, Larisa went to a meeting with dark circles under her eyes—and for the first time in years, she didn’t care what anyone thought about it.
In March, Yaroslav came to Vinnytsia. He got off the bus holding a mimosa branch wrapped in newspaper: the flower stalls at the station weren’t open yet, so he’d bought it from an older lady near the entrance. Larisa noticed the newspaper, the yellow fluffy balls, his nervous face—and for some reason, her nose started to sting.
They walked along the waterfront, watched the first ducks gathering near Kempa Island, and sipped coffee from paper cups. This time, the coffee was delicious.
Larisa told no one—neither her brother nor her mother. It wasn’t that she feared their jokes—she was used to those. She worried that saying it out loud would make everything melt away, like the wet Lviv snow that never quite reached the ground.
* * *
In the summer, they went to the Carpathians. Turned out, Yaroslav woke up at six every morning just to watch the fog slide down the mountains, only waking her once the coffee was ready. And Larisa discovered she could hike twelve kilometers up to a mountain meadow without complaining once—though the next morning, she could barely make it down the stairs for breakfast.
«I thought financial directors only walk from their car to the elevator,» he teased.
«And I thought engineers could estimate distances. You said, ‘It’s close, about an hour.’»
«I measured as the crow flies.»
In the fall, he said there was nothing really keeping him in Chernihiv anymore, except for his apartment. And, as every engineer knows, apartments exist in other cities too. Larisa was silent for a while, then replied that she had three rooms—and one of them had long been waiting for a drawing desk covered in blueprints.
* * *
Vitalii was about to turn fifty, and he decided to celebrate in style—with a restaurant party for forty guests and an emcee. A week before the celebration, he called his sister.
«You’ll be by yourself, right? Inna wants to know for the seating arrangement.»
«There will be two of us,» Larisa said.
«Oh! Who? Natalka from your accounting department?»
«You’ll see.»
Vitalii chuckled and, it seemed, didn’t really expect an answer.
On the day of the big birthday, he stood in the restaurant lobby in a new suit, welcoming guests. Inna, fresh from the hairdresser and makeup artist, was arranging flowers on the gift table while also instructing the waiter about where to put the cake. The doors opened, letting in a gust of cold air, and Vitalii turned with a welcoming smile.
His smile froze on his face.
Larisa wore a deep green dress he had never seen before. Standing beside her, holding her arm, was a tall, silver-haired man in a well-tailored jacket. He held the door open for her, helped her take off her coat, whispered something into her ear—and Larisa laughed. Not the way she did at holiday dinners. This was different.
Vitaliy’s mouth dropped open. He closed it. Opened it again.
Inna was the first to regain her composure:
«Larisa! You look… Wow, you look so beautiful!»
«Yaroslav,» the man said, extending his hand to Vitaliy. «Congratulations on your anniversary. Larisa told me you like the strong stuff, so we picked something out. If we guessed wrong, that’s on me, she suggested something else.»
«Uh… thanks,» Vitaliy shook his hand, still staring at his sister. «So, Yaroslav, is it?»
«That’s right, Yaroslav,» Larisa confirmed calmly.
While Inna led their guest to the coat check, Vitaliy pulled his sister aside, over to the window.
«Why didn’t you say anything?» he whispered. «How long has this been going on?»
«A year.»
«A year?! An entire year, and not a word?»
«And what would you have said, Vitalik?» She looked him straight in the eyes. «That people don’t fall in love at fifty-five?»
His face flushed—a deep red, probably as red as he’d gotten since his school days when his mom found a report card full of bad grades in his bag. He was silent for a moment. Then quietly said:
«Sorry. I didn’t mean any harm. I just thought you were fine as you were.»
«I was fine,» Larisa touched his sleeve. «But now I’m happy. That’s not the same thing.»
She glanced toward the coat check, where Yaroslav was patiently listening to Inna explaining how hard it was these days to find a decent event host, and she smiled.
«See, little brother, princes can be late too. Snowstorms, roadwork, the trip from Chernihiv isn’t short. The important thing is he made it.»
Vitaliy laughed—for the first time that evening, really laughed—and suddenly gave his sister a big, awkward hug, almost knocking her purse off her shoulder.
At the table, when the host raised a toast to the guest of honor for the third time, Vitaliy stood up with his glass and, stammering a bit, said he wanted to toast not to himself, but to his sister. For knowing how to wait better than he could. And for the twenty years of nonsense he’d said—and now officially took back.
The guests didn’t really understand what he meant. But Larisa did. And so did Yaroslav, who found her hand under the table.
* * *
The key turned twice in the lock. The second turn, as usual, sounded louder than the first, but Larisa didn’t even notice anymore.
In the kitchen, Yaroslav switched on the kettle, took out two cups, and in a way that felt right at home, as if he’d lived there all his life, watered the sansevieria on the windowsill.
«You know it only needs watering once a month?» Larisa said.
«I know. But today’s a special day.»
She sat by the window. Down below, someone was parking again, and the headlights drifted slowly across the ceiling. They finished their tea while it was still hot.
