The courtyard hummed with the sound of warmed-up engines. Near the second entrance, someone was scraping ice off an old windshield with a plastic ruler. Ilya stood beside his car, staring at the dashboard as though it had personally let him down. The fuel gauge rested on zero like a cat sprawled across a windowsill … Read more
— This is for Stasik, this is for me, — Tamara Ilyinichna tore off a strip of masking tape and slapped it onto the vegetable drawer. — And this one is for you, Ulyana. My name was written on the strip in black marker. In neat block letters, careful and precise, like a label on … Read more
After the first call, I still hoped my work number had somehow ended up with them by accident. But then someone else’s debt reached the main office phone, and I decided to find out through official records who had given the debt collectors my address and contact information. The phone on my desk rang at … Read more
Four of the six stylists moved to Lyudmila Pavlovna’s new salon, and some of the regular clients followed them. People suggested that I urgently counter her salary offer, but the numbers were more stubborn than my wounded pride: my salon simply couldn’t survive that kind of bidding war. “I poached your employees,” Lyudmila Pavlovna said, … Read more
You know, my father repeated one phrase all his life. It was simple: “Trust people, but keep the documents in your own name.” When I was twenty-five, I thought it was just an old man’s paranoia. At thirty-four, I realized my dad was a genius. My name is Marina. I was married to Kostya Zavyalov … Read more
Marina accidentally found a note in her husband’s jacket. For seven months, he had been living a double life, and she had never suspected a thing. But instead of causing a scene, she prepared a surprise he never expected. The note fell out of the inside pocket of his winter jacket. Marina had been looking … Read more
Liza turned off the oven and carefully pulled out the baking tray with potatoes and chicken. The kitchen smelled of garlic, dill, and roasted meat—exactly the way Oleksii Stepanovych liked it. “Taras, call your father to dinner,” she said to her husband. “Otherwise he’ll complain again that everything is cold.” “Coming,” he called from the … Read more
Margarita Opanasivna stepped out onto the porch to fasten the shutter—and froze with the hook still in her hand. Across the road, where all that remained of Orysia’s house was a blackened shell and a heap of broken bricks, three people were standing. A woman, a teenage boy, and a little girl. Beside them, on … Read more
The phone chimed just as Liza was standing ankle-deep in the Prut River, trying not to cry out from the cold. Even at the end of August, mountain water was so icy that your toes went numb within a minute. She climbed onto a warm rock, wiped her hands on her shorts, and looked at … Read more
On the top shelf of Iryna Tymofiivna’s pantry stood fifteen jars of cherry jam. On every lid was a little square of graph paper tied on with string, bearing the same inscription in ballpoint pen: “For Mariana.” Beneath it was the year. The oldest jar had already darkened, and the jam inside had turned almost … Read more