Irina stood in the middle of the room, holding the receipt for the first mortgage payment. The figures seemed perfectly clear to her. She and Anton had gone over them dozens of times. They had signed the papers together. They had made the agreement together.
Anton was sitting on the sofa—the very one his mother, Valentina, had brought over when they first moved into the two-bedroom apartment. He scrolled through his phone as though he had not heard the question.
Irina repeated it, louder this time.
“Anton, I’m asking you. Are you serious?”
He looked up, and there was not a trace of doubt in his eyes.
“Ira, the apartment is registered in your name. So you pay for it. What does it have to do with me?”
“What does it have to do with you?” Irina placed the payment notice on the table. “It has everything to do with the fact that we had an agreement. Do you remember the word ‘agreement’? Or has it disappeared from your vocabulary?”
Anton stood and paced across the room. His voice became sharper, as though he had rehearsed this speech in advance.
“Listen, I’ve calculated everything. It makes no sense for me to invest in property that doesn’t legally belong to me. It’s irrational. It’s a financial loss. I can give you ten reasons why it would be wrong.”
“Ten reasons,” Irina said with a dry smile. “Go on, then. Surprise me. Name at least three.”
“First,” Anton said, raising a finger, “if we get divorced, the apartment stays with you. Second, I already pay for groceries. Third, the furniture belongs to my mother.”
“What flawless logic,” Irina said, slowly nodding. “Do you know what that sounds like? A man comes to dinner, sits down at the table, and says, ‘I brought my own fork, so the meal should be free.’”
Anton flinched.
“Stop twisting my words! I’m being serious!”
“So am I, Anton. My grandmother sold her house so that we would have a roof over our heads. Not so that I would have one. So that we would. The house she had lived in for forty years. She can barely walk now. She gave up everything she had, and you’re standing here telling me it would be ‘irrational’ for you to contribute?”
Anton looked away, but only for a second.
“Your grandmother is your family’s business. I’m your husband, not your sponsor.”
“Your husband?” Irina raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Husbands usually keep their promises. You didn’t even hold on to yours long enough to break it properly. You dropped it immediately.”
Anton grabbed his phone and called his mother. Irina did not stop him. Instead, she turned on the speaker herself.
Valentina answered at once.
“Antosha, what happened?”
“Mom, tell her. Tell her I’m right. The apartment is in her name, so she should pay for it. I’m not obligated.”
There was a pause on the other end. Exactly two seconds—the amount of time Valentina needed to choose a side.
“Irochka, sweetheart, Anton is right, you know. Why should he pay for something that belongs to someone else? You’re young. You’ll work it out.”
“Valentina Pavlovna,” Irina replied evenly, “I respect you. But this ‘someone else’s property’ is the apartment where your son lives, sleeps, eats, and, forgive me, changes his underwear. For free. It is not someone else’s home. It is his home. Or at least it was, until he decided to become a guest.”
“There’s no need to be so rude, Irochka…”
“Rude is giving your word and taking it back the very next day. I’m simply calling things what they are.”
Anton snatched the phone away and turned off the speaker.
“That’s enough! Leave my mother out of this!”
“I’m not doing anything to your mother. I’m speaking to her. Do you understand the difference?”
Anton clenched his jaw. Unable to think of a reply, he stormed out and slammed the door.
Irina sat down at the table and stared at the payment notice.
Sixty-seven percent of the apartment’s value had come from her grandmother’s house. The house with carved wooden window frames, an apple tree by the gate, and a front porch where Zoya Andreyevna had fed pigeons every morning. All of it had been transformed into figures on a bank contract, and now Anton had decided it had nothing to do with him.
The following morning, Irina made breakfast.
Anton came out of the bedroom as though nothing had happened and reached for a plate. Irina slid a sheet of paper toward him.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“A bill. Five hundred rubles a day for accommodation. Renting an apartment like this costs thirty thousand a month. I’m covering half because I live here too. Your share is fifteen thousand. That comes to five hundred a day. I rounded it down in your favor, by the way.”
Anton stared at the paper as though it were written in a foreign language.
“Have you lost your mind? I’m your husband!”
“A husband who refuses to pay for the roof over his head? Then you’re not a husband. You’re a tenant. And tenants pay rent. I’ve even given you a family discount.”
“We sleep on my mother’s sofa! She could charge you for that too!”
“She can,” Irina said with a shrug. “Tell her to send me an invoice. How much is a used sofa worth? Five thousand? Ten? I’ll transfer the money today. And you can pay me fifteen thousand for the month. In advance.”
Anton pushed back from the table. His face had gone pale with anger.
“You’re mocking me!”
“No, Anton. I’m applying your own logic. You said it was irrational to pay for something that wasn’t yours. I agree. It is irrational for me to support a grown man who has decided that his responsibilities belong to someone else.”
He left without eating breakfast. At the door, he turned around.
“You’ll regret this, Irina!”
“Possibly. But not today.”
An hour later, Irina called Valentina Pavlovna for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. Her voice was completely calm.
“Valentina Pavlovna, Anton refused to pay rent. I offered him a symbolic amount—five hundred rubles a day. He insulted me and left.”
“Irochka, what rent? He’s your husband! He buys groceries, he…”
“Valentina Pavlovna, groceries are groceries. Housing is housing. When you buy bread at a store, they don’t give you an apartment for free. Anton has decided the mortgage is not his responsibility. Fine. But then having a roof over his head is not his entitlement.”
“You should be grateful for the sofa! I gave you an entire furniture set. A sofa, an armchair, a chest of drawers…”
“Grateful?” Irina replied. “My grandmother gave us her house. An entire house. With land, a garden, and forty years of memories. You gave us furniture you were planning to replace anyway, and now I’m supposed to treat those things as equal? That’s like exchanging a gold ring for a candy wrapper and saying, ‘But the wrapper is pretty.’”
Valentina Pavlovna hung up.
Irina called a moving company.
“Good afternoon. I need two movers. A sofa, an armchair, a chest of drawers, and several bags of personal belongings. I’ll give you the delivery address. Leave everything outside the entrance. Yes, outside. Call me when it’s done.”
She carefully packed Anton’s belongings into large construction bags. Shirts, trousers, jackets, shoes. She folded everything neatly, without anger, as though she were preparing a parcel. She tied every bag with a double knot.
The movers arrived forty minutes later. Two strong young men silently carried out the sofa, armchair, and chest of drawers. Then they loaded the bags.
Irina gave them Valentina Pavlovna’s address and asked them to call after unloading everything.
An hour and a half later, her phone rang.
“Everything’s there,” one of the movers said. “Outside the building. Some woman ran out and started shouting. We explained that the delivery had already been paid for.”
“Thank you,” Irina replied. “Have a good day.”
Valentina Pavlovna was at the hair salon when a neighbor called her. She jumped out of the chair with foil covering half her head. The stylist had only just begun applying the dye.
Valentina ran three blocks.
Her sofa stood outside the entrance. Bags were piled beside it, and the armchair had been pushed against the wall as though it were trying to hide.
She called Anton.
“Anton! Anton, get over here immediately! Your wife threw out all your belongings! And my sofa! My sofa is standing outside! Right in front of the building!”
Anton arrived twenty minutes later. He rushed into Irina’s building and burst into the apartment. In his fist was a crumpled pile of banknotes.
He threw them onto the table.
“Here! Take it! Fifteen thousand! Take the money and bring my things back!”
Irina calmly counted the notes. She smoothed each one and arranged them into a neat stack.
“Fifteen thousand. Exactly. Good, Anton. Payment for one month in advance accepted.”
“Now let me come home.”
“No.”
Anton froze.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no, Anton. One word, one meaning. I accepted the rent. Thank you. But you are not going to live here. Not today. Perhaps not tomorrow either. And I’ll tell you why.”
She stood and walked toward him. She had to look up at him, yet somehow it seemed as though he were the one looking up at her.
“You gave me your word. We sat down, calculated everything, and decided to buy a two-bedroom apartment and repay the loan together. My grandmother sold her home for it. Do you know she cried when she signed the papers? Do you know what she told my mother? She said, ‘At least let Irochka finally live a decent life.’ And at the very first payment, you decided contributing was not profitable for you. Not profitable.”
“Irina, I overreacted…”
“Overreacted? No, Anton. You did not overreact. You calculated. You said you had ten arguments. People who lose their temper do not count arguments. They shout. You analyzed everything. You even brought your mother into it to strengthen your position. That was not emotion, Anton. That was a decision.”
“I want to come home!”
“Home? This is my home. It is my grandmother’s home, transformed into numbers in a mortgage agreement. You called it someone else’s property. So how can you call it home now?”
Anton sat down on the small stool in the hallway. Irina did not invite him any farther inside.
“Irina, enough. I understand now. I was wrong.”
“You understand now because your sofa is outside and your belongings are in bags by your mother’s building. Yesterday, you were completely certain you were right. Your mother was certain too. The two of you were so confident that I began wondering what floor your confidence lived on, because it clearly had no foundation.”
“Stop making jokes!”
“I’m not making jokes. I’m speaking honestly. Some people confuse an honest conversation with an attack. Usually, they are people who are not used to being challenged.”
Anton rubbed the back of his neck. He looked confused and angry at the same time.
“So what now? Am I supposed to live on the street?”
“You have a mother with an apartment of her own. Go and stay with her. Renting a one-bedroom apartment in this area costs twenty to twenty-five thousand. That is more than the five hundred rubles a day you found so offensive. Mathematics can be merciless.”
“You threw my belongings out onto the street!”
“I returned your mother’s furniture. Together with her son. She wanted the two of you to stand united on this matter, didn’t she? So be united. On her sofa.”
Anton fell silent.
“If you raise your voice at me one more time,” Irina said, pronouncing every word distinctly, “I will file for divorce. The apartment is mine. I will repay the mortgage myself, since you consider contributing irrational. But you will only come back when I believe you have truly understood what you did. Not now, when the situation is inconvenient for you. You can return when you genuinely realize that my grandmother did not give up her home so that you could sit here counting arguments.”
She opened the door.
“Go, Anton. Think about it. You have time. My grandmother does not. She will never see her house again. She will never step onto her porch again. And you are standing here bargaining over a payment we both promised to make together. You should be ashamed, Anton. Truly ashamed.”
Anton stepped outside.
The door closed softly behind him, without a slam.
He stood on the landing and wondered why on earth he had started the entire argument. They had agreed. They had calculated everything together. They had discussed every number.
His phone rang.
It was his mother.
Valentina Pavlovna screamed into the phone that the movers had charged her two hundred rubles to carry the sofa inside the entrance. The neighbors had seen everything. She was humiliated. She had not finished dyeing her hair and now looked like a clown.
Anton listened and began calculating in his head.
Transporting the sofa back, assuming Irina allowed it, would cost another three thousand. Renting a one-bedroom apartment would cost twenty-five thousand. Utilities would be extra. Then there would be groceries.
At Irina’s, he would have paid only fifteen thousand.
She had even rounded the amount in his favor.
He was furious with himself.
Not with Irina—with himself.
With his own greed, which had seemed so reasonable at the time. With his mother, who had confirmed exactly what he wanted to hear instead of telling him the truth. With his foolish, petty fear of losing money—a fear that had caused him to lose something far more valuable.
Back in the empty apartment, with no sofa, no armchair, and no chest of drawers, Irina sat down on the floor.
She looked at her phone and called her grandmother.
“Hi, Grandma. How are you?”
“Irochka, my dear. I’m fine. How are things with you?”
“Everything is in order, Grandma Zoya. Completely in order.”
She placed the phone beside her and looked around the empty room.
Perhaps an empty room was not such a terrible thing after all.
The important thing was that whoever entered it next understood the value not only of square meters, but of promises.