Here is the English translation of the continuation of the story:
I Gathered My Children to Announce My Will: To Almost All of Them, I Bequeathed an Empty Envelope Containing a Mirror. But One of Them Received Something Completely Different…
— «Mom, can we start? I have a meeting downtown in an hour. You understand, right?»
Olga adjusted her silk blouse, and her bracelet sparkled boldly under the lamp light.
Anna Pavlivna looked over her children. There were five of them. Four looked back with poorly concealed impatience, like at a train station, waiting for the train that would take them to a new, prosperous life.
Only Kyrylo, the youngest, remained slightly apart, not looking at her, simply present.
She remembered that three years ago, after her heart surgery, Olga hadn’t come.
«Mom, it’s impossible. We have an appointment at the embassy, everyone will be there. You wouldn’t want me to lose those contacts, would you?» her voice chirped on the phone, while Anna tried in vain to reach her glass of water by herself. Contacts, indeed.
— «Everyone has meetings, Olga,» Petro intervened, adjusting his tie. «I have an important contract. But for something so crucial… Mom, you know we all love you very much.»
He gave her a wink. The same one he had given her a year earlier when he brought her his «foolproof business plan» for snail farming.
He was asking for a lot of money. And when she refused after reading the draft, he yelled that she understood nothing about modern business and was maliciously stifling his creativity.
— «Yes, of course, I know, Petro. I’ve always felt it.»
Iryna, sitting in the corner of the sofa, let out a dramatic sigh.
— «I wish I had your worries… Meetings, contracts… Me, I have a mortgage, my children are constantly sick, my husband earns peanuts. I don’t even know how we’ll last until the end of the month.»
Anna Pavlivna looked at her. And immediately remembered: last winter, Anna had broken her leg. Plaster cast, helplessness. She begged Iryna to bring her groceries every week.
«Mom, I would love to! But can you imagine how hard it is for me? I’m in the middle of a depression, I can’t even leave the house. I just lie down and cry.»
Two days later, Anna saw a picture of Iryna on social media at a restaurant with her friends. Radiant, rosy-cheeked. Depression, indeed.
Dmytro, the eldest, remained silent. He had always been that way. His indifference was solid as a wall. He didn’t ask for anything, didn’t demand anything, but didn’t offer anything either. When his father, Anna’s husband, died, Dmytro only came to the funeral for one day. He attended the ceremony, his face like marble, then left, citing a «project.» He didn’t even ask how she was doing.
Anna Pavlivna ran her hand over the smooth surface of the five thick envelopes laid out before her on the table.
— «I will not read long legal formulas,» her voice declared, surprisingly firm and clear, without the tremor of old age. «I decided to keep it simple. For each of you, there is a personal message here. My last wish.»
She picked up the top envelope.
— «Olga, this is for you. Start, please.»
Olga, wearing a victorious smile, snatched the envelope. Her nails, covered in a perfect cherry varnish, slid over the paper. She expected to feel the weight, the thickness of a bank check. But the envelope felt almost light.
Her smile froze. She tore it open abruptly, impatiently. Inside, nothing but a small cardboard rectangle. She dropped it into her palm. It was a cheap, hand-held mirror in a plastic frame.
— «What is this?» she whispered, her voice cracking. She looked at the envelope, turned it over. Empty. «Is this a joke?»
In the mirror, her own face was reflected—distorted by surprise, then by growing anger.
— «Mom, what does this mean? Where are the papers?»
— «Everything I wanted to bequeath to you, my daughter,» Anna Pavlivna replied softly.
The memory of another evening came back to her, six months earlier. Anna had suffered a seizure. The paramedics, after an injection, advised that someone stay with her for the night. She called Olga: «Mom, I will send you the best nurse from a private clinic, certified. It will be more convenient for everyone, trust me. A professional will do better than me.» She wanted no discomfort. She didn’t want to see her mother weak, sick, imperfect. She wanted to pay and keep her distance.
— «More convenient?» Anna Pavlivna had asked. «For whom, my daughter?»
Olga jumped up, her face suddenly crimson.
— «You… you’re making fun of me? You just decided to humiliate us? After everything we have…»
— «Everything we have?» Petro cut in, standing up, trying to calm his sister while assessing the situation. «Mom, Olga didn’t mean that. We must surely misunderstand. Is it a symbol? Is the main bequest… somewhere else?»
He looked at his mother with a syrupy smile, but his eyes were already flashing cold. Fear.
— «There is no other place, Petro. Everything is here, on this table. Olga has received her share. Everything she deserved. The chance to look at herself.»
— «How dare you!» Olga shrieked, throwing the mirror onto the table. It fell onto the varnished wood with a pitiful little sound. «I dedicated my best years to you!»
Anna Pavlivna gave a small, bitter smile.
— «That’s not true, Olga. You dedicated them to yourself. Now, sit down.»
Her tone was so icy and commanding that Olga stumbled and, against her will, sat down. All eyes shifted between her and her mother. Iryna bit her lips, Dmytro didn’t move, and only Kyrylo raised his head for the first time and met his mother’s gaze. His eyes were filled with pain.
Anna Pavlivna took the second envelope.
— «Petro. Your turn.»
Unlike his sister, Petro stood up slowly, displaying ostentatious dignity. He walked over to the table, took the envelope delicately, as if it were an important contract, and returned to his seat. Every one of his movements showed he was in control of the situation.
He opened the envelope carefully, like a scalpel, his fingernail along the seam. He pulled out an identical mirror. For an instant, his face showed the same surprise as Olga’s, but he immediately regained his composure. He turned the mirror in his hands and frowned:
— «Original. Very theatrical, as always, Mom. And now? Are we supposed to solve a riddle?»
— «No riddle, Petro. That’s all,» Anna Pavlivna replied calmly.
Petro forced a smile.
— «I see. You’ve decided that we are worthless. Your right. But the law is different. There’s something called forced heirship. And your spectacle…»
— «The law?» the mother interrupted, looking him straight in the eyes. «Fine, let’s talk law. Do you remember Dad’s ‘Volga’?»
Petro stiffened.
— «What Volga? Ah, the wreck. Yes, I helped you sell it so it wouldn’t rot in the garage.»
— «You said we would only get fifty thousand for it. That it was worthless. You brought me the contract, I signed it.»
A flash of memory: Petro standing over her, persuading her. «Mom, who drives that today? Nobody wants it. I found a fool who agreed to a price. You need money for your medication. Take it while you can.»
— «And a week later, I ran into the neighbor from the garage. He told me he saw your friend take the Volga to a dealer. He sold it to a collector for one and a half million.»
Petro’s face changed, the smile vanished.
— «That’s slander. The neighbor is senile.»
— «He showed me the ad,» she explained, pulling out a photo. «With the price. Medication, Petro? You stole not only the money but also your father’s memory. Look at yourself in the mirror. You might see not an entrepreneur, but a common thief who robbed his own mother.»
Petro lunged forward. His face contorted.
— «You’re crazy! I’m calling the lawyers! We’ll have you declared unfit! You won’t get anything! None of us will!»
— «Are you threatening me?» Anna Pavlivna asked calmly. «Is that all you’re capable of?»
Iryna, who had been observing in silence until now, suddenly began to sob. Loudly, openly, as if on cue.
— «My God, why all this… We are family… Mom, why are you doing this? We love you… We…»
She cried, hiding her face in her hands, but watching her mother’s reaction carefully. Her shoulders trembled. This was her main asset: the role of the poor victim, outraged by the world.
Anna Pavlivna looked at her without the slightest pity. She waited for the first wave of tears to subside, then took the third envelope.
— «Iryna. Your turn to really cry.»
Iryna’s crying stopped instantly. She stared at her, her eyes still damp, wide open in astonishment.
She slowly, as if afraid of burning herself, took the extended envelope. Her fingers trembled. Inside, the familiar mirror.
— «I… I don’t understand, Mom,» she whispered. «Why? I was always there for you! I always felt sorry for you!»
— «You never felt sorry for me, Iryna. You felt sorry for yourself.»
Anna Pavlivna leaned back against the armchair.
— «Do you remember when you asked me for money for your son’s ‘treatment’? He supposedly had a rare allergy, requiring costly injections from Germany. I gave you everything, my savings.»
«Then I saw on social media your in-laws on holiday in Spain. The whole family. And your ‘dying son’ happily eating oranges—the very things that were supposed to be fatal to him.»
Iryna turned pale.
— «It was… remission! The doctors advised a different climate!»
— «The doctors? Or your desire to live in luxury at my expense? You made poverty your profession, your excuse. You don’t need help, Iryna. You need an audience for your drama. Look at yourself in the mirror. You won’t see a victim. You’ll see a lazy liar, choosing the easiest path.»
Anna Pavlivna didn’t wait for a response. She took the fourth envelope and turned to her eldest son.
— «Dmytro.»
Dmytro, the only one who hadn’t spoken yet, slowly raised his eyes. They expressed neither greed nor fear. Only a cold, detached curiosity. He took the envelope, opened it, looked at the mirror, and placed it back on the table without a word.
— «And what is my crime?» he asked in a calm, unemotional voice. «I didn’t ask you for anything, I didn’t lie or steal.»
— «Exactly,» Anna Pavlivna agreed. «You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything at all. When your father was dying, you called once a week: ‘How is he?’ Not ‘How are you, Mom?’ but ‘How is he?’. As if you were talking about the weather. And after his death, you disappeared. For you, I am a void. The invisible. You never lied to me, Dmytro. You simply erased me. So I erase you in return. It’s fair.»
She turned to Kyrylo. Only he still had his head down. Olga, Petro, and Iryna looked at him with hatred. A traitor. Mommy’s darling. He too was going to receive his mirror.
— «Kyrylo,» Anna Pavlivna said softly.
He looked up at her, tears welling in his eyes.
— «Mom, please don’t do this.»
— «I have to, my son.»
She handed him the fifth and final envelope, much thicker than the others. Kyrylo took it, surprised, and tore it open.
Inside, instead of a mirror, was a blue folder adorned with stamped letterhead: the will.
Olga was the first to understand what had just happened.
— «What?!» she shrieked like grinding metal. «What is that?!»
— «That is my will,» Anna Pavlivna replied calmly. «All my assets—the house, the accounts, the properties—go to Kyrylo, my only son.»
— «And us?!» Petro roared. «And us?!»
— «You,» Anna Pavlivna replied, sweeping the room with a long, final gaze, «you received what you deserved. The opportunity to finally look at yourselves. And to understand why there is only emptiness for you.»
She fixed her eyes on Kyrylo, who was stunned, staring at the folder. He brought groceries not out of pity, but because she was his mother. He stayed with her in the evening not for an inheritance, but so she wouldn’t feel alone. Only he saw her not as a wallet, nor as a burden, nor as a shadow. But as a person.
— «Justice does not exist,» Anna Pavlivna declared, looking at the faces of the four remaining children contorted with fury. «It is established. Today, I established mine. And now, leave. All of you. Except Kyrylo.»
