Marina lay on the sofa, wrapped in a scratchy woolen blanket, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her head throbbed, her throat burned, and her whole body ached as though she had been run over by a truck. For the third day in a row, she could barely get to her feet. An ordinary autumn cold, […]
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“Well, since you have plenty of money now, you’ll buy me an apartment,” Tamara Sergeyevna said without the slightest hint of embarrassment, pushing her cup of tea aside. Olga froze with a folder of documents in her hands. Just a few minutes earlier, she had simply shown Maxim a bank statement—they had been discussing their […]
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A light September rain was drizzling outside the window, tapping against the cornice, and the monotonous sound made her want to howl. Elina stood at the stove, stirring a chicken casserole with a wooden spatula, feeling the dull ache in her lower back. After a twelve-hour shift in the treatment room of the city hospital, […]
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“Open the banking app and transfer your bonus to Vera,” Igor said, pushing Natalia’s phone toward her. “I already promised her. She paid a deposit on the premises. There’s no turning back now.” Natalia stopped beside the kitchen table. Three people were sitting there: her husband, his sister Vera, and her mother-in-law, Zinaida Leonidovna. Vera […]
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“Walk with confidence, dear people. Everything will be done our way here now, without all those merchant airs,” Elena Vasilyevna’s loud, ringing voice cut through the silence of the half-empty sales floor. I flinched and dropped a box of new creams. The tubes, priced at 450 rubles apiece, rolled across the laminate floor with soft […]
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“Don’t shove those blue folders under my nose, Natasha. Just looking at all your hospital stuff makes my blood pressure shoot straight up to one-eighty.” Valentina Petrovna demonstratively pushed away the edge of the blue plastic folder with a hand adorned with a neat burgundy manicure. A heavy leather handbag the color of ripe cherries […]
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For seven years, Natasha believed she was lucky. Her husband, Anton, was the kind of man people described as “reliable”—not because he actually did anything, but because he was always there. Always at home. Always on the sofa. Always with the remote control in his hand and a ready opinion on how everyone else should […]
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“Mom called,” Vitya said without looking up from his plate. “She says her blood pressure keeps fluctuating. She’s asking me to transfer three thousand rubles for medicine.” Rita put the frying pan down on the stove with such a loud bang that Barsik the cat jumped off the windowsill in fright. “Three thousand,” she repeated […]
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“Clear the veranda! We’ll be there in twenty minutes! Ella wants the hammock in the shade, the grill lit, and the sauna heated up!” the voice of my husband’s older brother, Vladislav, boomed cheerfully from the phone speaker, like a general taking a city without a fight. He spoke with such confidence, as though our […]
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“Withdraw the deposit. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to the bank. Mom found somewhere to invest the money,” Roman declared flatly, without even taking off his work jacket. He stood in the hallway of my two-room apartment, which I had inherited from my parents before we had even met. He squared his shoulders and put on […]
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