Only one of the three lightbulbs in the hallway was working—the others had been unscrewed back in summer to save on electricity. Vera took off her boots, lined them up neatly with the toes facing the wall. Galina Sergeevna stood in the middle of the corridor, arms folded, waiting as if she’d been keeping watch since morning.
“You’re back,” she said instead of greeting her.
“I’m back,” Vera replied, hanging her bag on a hook. “How’s Denis today?”
“How? Not good. He missed his session because, surprise, they want money for a session,” her mother stepped closer. “Vera, let’s skip the introductions. Your brother is struggling, I need the money now, he needs help to get better.”
“I already give you half of my pay.”
“Half is a drop in the ocean. He needs massages three times a week, he needs a specialist, we have to rent equipment for him,” Galina Sergeevna ticked each thing off on her fingers as if counting up someone else’s sins. “You’re young, healthy, your whole life is ahead of you. And he—remember he had that tube in his nose? Or did you forget?”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Then why do you have a new scarf?”
“It was a birthday gift,” Vera answered quietly.
“A gift,” her mother echoed. “So, you have people giving you scarves. Who’s going to give your brother working legs?”
Vera stayed silent. She understood long ago that arguing with her mother was like trying to push a wall with your shoulder: the wall doesn’t move, but your shoulder hurts.
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll give you more.”
“That’s my good girl. That’s the right thing to do.”
From the other room came the sound of a cane tapping against the doorframe. Denis was learning to walk again, and every step of his echoed through the apartment like a countdown.
“Vera, is that you?” he called out.
“It’s me, Den.”
“Come by later, I want to show you—I made it to the window on my own today.”
“I’ll be there,” she answered, smiling into the darkness of the hallway.
Her mother’s voice came from behind, calm and steady:
“And stop changing your phone every year. Yours works fine.”
“I haven’t changed it in two years.”
“Then it’ll last another two, won’t it.”
***
That’s how a year went by. Then another began to roll onto the same spool.
Vera woke up at six, got home at nine, ate whatever was left, and handed over her money the very night it came in. Her mother accepted it without a “thank you,” checking the sum right away.
“This is less than last time,” her mother pointed out.
“There was no bonus this month.”
“And why wasn’t there a bonus?”
“Because a bonus is a bonus, not my salary.”
“So you’re not working hard enough, then,” her mother concluded, slipping the bills into the inside pocket of her robe.
Vera’s friends would invite her out—sometimes to a cafe, sometimes to the skating rink, just to take a walk. At first, she turned them down regretfully, then automatically, and eventually the invitations stopped coming.
“Anya’s getting married,” she mentioned at dinner one night. “She wants me to be her maid of honor.”
“You’ll need a dress,” her mother chimed in immediately. “Shoes, too. And a gift. How much will all that be?”
“I could wear my old dress.”
“And how are you getting there? To another part of town? That means a taxi. Vera, your brother’s in rehabilitation, and you’re off to weddings.”
“I’m just asking for one evening.”
“One evening,” her mother set down her spoon. “And for Denis? He’s here round the clock. He doesn’t get a day off.”
“Galya,” her father Andrey spoke up without looking up. “Let her go.”
“You’d do better to just keep quiet,” her mother snapped back. “You’re generous when it’s not your money.”
Vera didn’t go. Anya got upset and stopped writing to her.
The ticking of the wall clock filled her brother’s room—the same clock he had fixed himself once, before the accident. Denis lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“Vera, do you ever actually go anywhere?” he asked.
“I do. I go to work.”
“That doesn’t count.”
“It does count, Den. I even have my own chair there.”
“Funny,” he replied seriously. “Look, is it because of me?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am lying,” she admitted. “But it isn’t your fault.”
He was silent for a long time, flexing the fingers on his left hand, the ones that didn’t work as well as his right.
“Then whose fault is it?”
“No one’s,” Vera answered. “That’s just how things are sometimes.”
***
That December, everything changed in a single week.
First, Vera got a promotion—the salary they offered was almost double her old one. She stepped out into the hallway, pressed her phone to her chest, and stood there for a minute, not thinking of anything at all.
Then Maxim invited her for a walk along the embankment, where a decorated Christmas tree stood. He pulled a small box out of his pocket.
“Vera,” he said. “I’ve been preparing for this for a long time.”
“I can see that—your hands are freezing.”
“Everything about me is freezing except my intentions,” he said as he opened the box. “Will you marry me?”
“Maxim…”
“Just don’t say you need to think it over. You’ve been thinking for two years and never letting yourself do anything.”
“Yes,” she said quickly, before she could get scared. “Yes.”
He exhaled, his breath turning to clouds in the air, and slipped the ring over her glove, because she never thought to take it off.
“I’ll wear the ring on a chain,” Vera said that same evening.
“Why?”
“Because there will be questions at home.”
“Vera, you’re twenty-four.”
“I’m twenty-four and I live in a nine-square-meter room,” she replied. “Give me a bit of time.”
At home, she told no one about the ring or the promotion. And for the first time in a long while, she did something that surprised herself: she opened a separate account and started saving the extra money.
Not for a fur coat. Not for a holiday somewhere warm. For a modest wedding, a dress, and four days by the sea—that was the plan, short and simple as a shopping list.
Two weeks later, her mother called her into the room and shut the door.
“Sit down.”
“Is something wrong with Denis?”
“Denis is the same as always—and that’s exactly the problem,” Galina Sergeevna took a seat across from her. “Your father and I talked it over.”
“And?”
“You live here. You eat here. You do laundry here. Basically, you don’t need money.”
“I do need money.”
“For what?” her mother tilted her head. “Say it out loud.”
Vera looked at her, realizing that whatever answer she gave would be picked apart, weighed, and deemed unnecessary.
“For life.”
“Your life is taken care of,” her mother said. “Give over everything. All of it. I’ll give you just your fare for the commute.”
“Everything?”
“All of it. I’m tired of begging you for money every month like you’re a stranger.”
Vera paused. Through the wall, Denis was tapping his cane again, pacing out the steps from bed to the door.
“Alright,” she said.
“Good. That’s better.”
“Just so you know, I need a bit more for transport now—I have to transfer.”
“We’ll discuss that,” her mother said with satisfaction, getting up. “See how simple things are when you’re not being difficult.”
Vera left for the hallway and leaned the back of her head against the wall. The ring beneath her sweater was cold on her skin.
She handed over “everything” for exactly as many months as it took the difference to add up to something. And not once did she make excuses.
***
One Second Changed Everything a Month Before the Wedding
Vera stood in the fitting room wearing a dress the color of baked milk, with a simple bodice and an unadorned skirt. The shop assistant adjusted her shoulder, Vera snapped a photo of her reflection and sent a caption: “Anya, what do you think? Or should I take the second one?”
She hit ‘send.’ Only then did she look up at the name at the top.
Her phone rang forty seconds later.
“What is this?” her mother’s voice was calm and chilling.
“It’s a dress.”
“I can see it’s a dress. I’m asking: what is this?”
“I’m getting married,” Vera said. “Next month.”
“To whom?”
“To Maxim.”
“Who is Maxim?”
“The person I’ve been with for a year and a half,” Vera said, sitting down on the dressing room bench, still in the dress. “You know his name. I’ve told you.”
“I don’t remember the names of all the people passing by,” her mother took a breath. “Whose money are you using to buy this… rag?”
“Mine.”
“You don’t have your own. You give everything away.”
Vera stayed silent for three seconds. Then, in an even voice, she said:
“I got a raise six months ago. I gave the same amount as before. I saved the difference.”
The silence on the line was thick, like cotton.
“Repeat that.”
“I got a raise. I saved the difference.”
“So you’ve been robbing us,” her mother said quietly. “All this time.”
“I haven’t robbed anyone. I gave exactly what we agreed on.”
“You lied!”
“I kept quiet.”
“It’s the same thing!” her mother’s voice shot up. “Your brother is climbing the walls, and you’re saving up for lace? You’re selfish! You’re a hypocrite!”
“For two years, I haven’t been anywhere except work and this apartment.”
“Oh, poor you!” her mother nearly gasped. “She suffered! She didn’t even go to the movies! And Denis, what, was relaxing at a resort?”
“Denis isn’t to blame. You are.”
“Me?!”
“You never once asked how I was really doing,” Vera said. “Not once. You only ever asked ‘how much.’”
“Because there’s nothing else in you!”
Vera pulled the phone from her ear, looked at the screen, and hung up. The shop assistant pretended to be arranging the hangers.
“I’ll take this one,” Vera said. “The first.”
That evening, she went to Maxim’s with just one bag.
“You look pale,” he told her.
“She found out.”
“How?”
“I sent the photo to the wrong person,” Vera gave a wry smile. “All my clever secrecy was undone with one tap of my finger.”
“Did she yell much?”
“She doesn’t yell. She sentences.”
Maxim poured her a glass of water and sat down across from her.
“What are we going to do?”
“Tomorrow I’ll get my things,” Vera said. “I’ll go in the morning before they set out for their appointment.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Maxim…”
“I’m coming with you,” he repeated. “No arguments.”
***
They arrived at eleven. The door was unlocked.
In the hallway, right at the entrance, lay a heap of clothes. Sweaters, jeans, underwear—everything tossed onto the floor and trampled, like things that no longer counted as belongings.
“Vera,” Maxim said softly. “Go ahead, I’ll pick it up.”
She didn’t answer, stepped into the room—and stopped.
Her winter coat was on the bed, ripped open down the back. The lighter jacket was slashed from corner to corner. Her work laptop sat on the table, the lid smashed, the screen inside covered in black stars.
Galina Sergeyevna appeared in the doorway, calm, with a towel over her shoulder.
“Come in,” she told Maxim. “Since you’re here.”
“Hello,” he replied. “What happened here?”
“Punishment,” the mother shifted her gaze to her daughter. “For selfishness.”
“You cut up my things,” Vera said.
“I got rid of the extra stuff.”
“You broke my laptop. It’s not even mine, it’s for work.”
“Then buy a new one,” her mother shrugged. “You’re the rich one now, aren’t you? You made it big behind our backs.”
Vera slowly turned to look at her.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“I know perfectly well—I raised you,” Galina Sergeevna said distinctly. “Fed you, took care of you, made you well. But you were stealing money from your sick brother right under my nose.”
“I gave you half my salary, then all of it.”
“Not all of it!”
“I gave you more than you ever asked for out loud.”
“Galya,” the father came out from deeper inside the apartment. “What was the point of ruining the jackets…”
“There was a point.”
“Dad,” Vera looked at him. “Did you see her do it?”
Andrei rubbed his hands together.
“Vera, try to understand—she’s under a lot of stress. Denis needs care, our finances are in the red every single month…”
“Did you see?”
“I saw,” he said. “But you have your faults too, daughter. Hiding things isn’t right. You should’ve just come to us and said, ‘I’m getting married.’”
“And what would have happened then?”
“We would have worked it out together.”
“You would have taken everything—together,” Vera said.
“Don’t speak to your father like that!” her mother stepped forward. “He carried you in his arms!”
“And then he put me down and never noticed me again.”
Maxim stepped between them, calm and without raising his voice.
“Galina Sergeevna, we’re going to pack our things now and leave.”
“Nobody’s asking your opinion, young man.”
“You don’t need to ask me,” he replied. “I’m just letting you know, so there won’t be any surprises later.”
“Surprises!” the mother waved her hands. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen you in my life!”
“That is rather surprising.”
Vera squatted down next to the pile of clothes, picked up a sweater and looked at its stretched-out collar. Suddenly, she said loudly without looking at anyone:
“Denis is to blame himself.”
Suddenly, the whole apartment went quiet.
“What did you say?” her mother whispered.
“You heard me,” Vera lifted her head. “No one forced him to get on a motorcycle at night without a helmet. No one chased him out onto the road. He’s an adult, he made his choice. But I’ve been paying for that choice for two years—with every month, every evening.”
“You…” Galina Sergeevna turned pale. “You’re talking about your own brother?”
“I’m talking about honesty—the honesty you claim to value so much.”
From behind the wall, the sound of a cane could be heard. Denis stood in his doorway, holding onto the frame, looking at his sister.
“Vera,” he said.
“Den, I’m sorry,” she turned away. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Who were you talking to, then?”
“Her.”
Maxim grabbed two large bags from the floor, stuffed everything in sight into them, and nodded toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
“Leave the jackets,” Vera said. “They aren’t jackets anymore.”
They walked down the stairs in silence. Only when they reached the car did Vera stop, set her bag on the asphalt, and say:
“I’m not going to invite them.”
“To the wedding?”
“Anywhere,” she lifted her bag. “Not to the wedding, not to anything else.”
“Are you sure?”
“Maxim, she cut up my things with a knife,” Vera said as she opened the car door. “No yelling, no tears—just cutting. Calmly. That’s not a breakdown. That’s who she is.”
A month later, they got married. They skipped the seaside trip—the money went instead to a new laptop and the first payment for a rental apartment clear across the city.
The wedding was small, just eleven people, in a cozy hall with a single long table and a string of garlands. Vera wore that very same milky-white dress.
“Don’t you regret not having your family here?” Maxim asked her as they danced.
“My whole family is right here,” she nodded toward the table. “Eight people and your sister, who’s already asked me for seconds twice.”
“That’s her for you. She loves it when people eat.”
“I love it when people show love like this,” Vera smiled. “With food, not with bills.”
***
Galina Sergeevna found out about the wedding through acquaintances, eleven days later.
She tried calling her daughter seventeen times in a row. There weren’t even any rings—just a brief message that the number was unavailable.
“Andrey!” she called into the room. “She’s changed her number!”
“Well, she changed it.”
“What do you mean ‘well’? What do you MEAN ‘well’?! She got married, do you understand? In secret!”
“Not in secret,” her father said. “Just without us.”
“That’s the same thing!”
She called everyone whose numbers she still had from her daughter’s college days. Anya answered politely, but coldly:
“Hello. No, I don’t know where she lives.”
“Anya, I’m her mother.”
“I understand,” Anya replied. “But I don’t have the address.”
“You’re lying.”
“All the best.”
Galina Sergeevna didn’t know her son-in-law’s number. She hadn’t remembered his last name either—back then, in the hallway, it just didn’t seem important.
A year passed.
By then, Denis no longer needed a cane, although he still dragged his left leg a bit on the stairs. He got up on his own, made his own breakfast, and left the house by himself every day until evening.
“Where are you going again?” his mother would ask.
“Out on business.”
“What kind of business do you have?”
“My own kind,” he’d reply, closing the door behind him.
Then, in March, on a Tuesday, at half past nine in the evening, Galina Sergeevna received a message from an unknown number.
A single photo. A black-and-gray screen image, with white letters around the border and a tiny profile inside.
No words. No signature. Not even a period.
“Andrey!” Galina Sergeevna burst into the room. “Look!”
“What is it?”
“It’s an ultrasound! It’s HER ultrasound! She’s pregnant!”
“How do you know it’s hers?”
“Whose else would it be?!” She sat down on the edge of the sofa. “Whose else, Andrey?!”
“Could be a wrong number. Happens.”
“Twice?” She held the screen up to his face. “Twice in a row, to the same number?”
“Well…”
“No ‘well’ about it! She wrote herself! She was the first one! That means she understands now!”
Denis walked in, drying his hands on a towel, and glanced over his father’s shoulder at the screen.
“It’s Vera’s,” he said.
“How do you know?” his mother asked sharply, whirling around.
“I just know.”
“Are you talking to her?”
Denis was silent for a moment.
“I am.”
“How long?”
“A year.”
Galina Sergeevna stood up. The towel in her son’s hands suddenly seemed indecent to her.
“You’ve been talking to her for a year and not telling me?”
“She asked me to.”
“She asked you! What about your mother?! Did your mother say not to?!”
“You cut up her jackets,” Denis said. “I was standing in the doorway. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I was just nervous!”
“You were calm,” he replied, hanging the towel over the back of a chair. “I remember your face.”
“So, you’re blaming me for this? Me? After everything I’ve done for you?”
“I’m not punishing you,” Denis said as he sat down. “I’ve just stopped lying.”
Galina Sergeevna pressed her phone to her chest.
“Give me her number.”
“No.”
“Denis.”
“No.”
“I carried you! I pulled you out from under IVs!”
“Strangers were the ones who helped me out,” he replied quietly. “You just stood by and counted.”
She got the number herself three days later, through her cousin’s wife, whose daughter worked next to Vera in the same building.
She wrote it down on a scrap of paper. Memorized it by heart.
She called in the morning, Saturday, at ten o’clock.
“Yes,” answered a calm female voice.
“Vera,” the mother said. “It’s me.”
Pause.
“I’m listening.”
“Why are you acting like a stranger? Listening, huh,” Galina Sergeevna fixed her hair, even though no one could see her. “I got the photo.”
“Good.”
“So you do remember you have a mother.”
“I remember.”
“That’s my girl,” her mother sat up straighter. “Vera, here’s the thing. We owe back rent, and Denis needs another round of treatment, they said it’s necessary to reinforce it. Twenty thousand. Better if it’s thirty. Now that you’re married, you both work…”
There was a click on the line.
“Vera?”
Dial tone.
“Vera!”
Galina Sergeevna dialed again. The automated voice said the subscriber was unavailable. She tried a third time, then a fourth.
She set the phone on her lap and looked over at her husband, who sat motionless in his chair across from her.
“She hung up,” she said. “Just like that. Not even a ‘hello’, not even a ‘how are you’. She just hung up.”
Andrei stayed silent.
“Andrei, say something! What did I do wrong this time?!”
“You asked her for money,” he replied. “That was the very first thing you said.”
“Not the first! I mentioned the photo first!”
“You said, ‘I got the photo,’” her father repeated. “Not ‘I’m glad.’ Not ‘Congratulations.’ Just ‘got it.’”
“It’s all the same thing!”
“No, Galya.”
The door opened. Denis walked into the room with a large travel bag slung over his shoulder and set it down by the door.
“Where are you going?” his mother jumped up.
“I’m moving out.”
“Where are you moving to?! You can barely walk!”
“I can walk,” he replied. “I’ve been walking for a year. I get up at six every morning and leave until evening, and every day you ask where I’m going, and every day you don’t listen to my answer.”
“Are you going to her?!”
“Near her. Two blocks over.”
Galina Sergeevna opened her mouth to protest, but at that moment Denis reached into his jacket pocket and set a small metal tin, the kind used for candies, on the table.
“What’s that?” his mother asked.
“This is yours. Well, actually it was Vera’s.”
“You were rummaging through my things?!”
“I was looking for a charger in the closet,” he said. “I wasn’t snooping. I just found it.”
Galina Sergeevna lunged for the tin, but Denis put his hand on it.
“How much was in there, mom? I counted. One hundred ninety-four thousand.”
“That’s for a rainy day!”
“That was Vera’s money,” Denis said. “I checked with the doctors. My treatment those two years was covered by the quota. The only things we paid for were massage and therapy, which was thirteen thousand a month. I saw the receipts myself, they’re all in dad’s drawer.”
“So what?”
“And she was giving you twenty-five. Then forty. Then everything.”
The father slowly got up from his chair.
“Galya,” he said. “What hundred ninety-four are you talking about?”
“It’s mine! I was saving it!”
“Saving on what?” Denis asked. “On her jackets?”
“I had the right!”
“You had a daughter,” Denis said. “Now you don’t anymore.”
He picked up the box from the table and slipped it into his pocket.
“I’ll give this to her. Every last penny. And I’ll tell her who it’s from.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“I dare,” he replied, lifting his bag. “And one more thing, Mom. She wrote to me yesterday, explaining why she sent that photo. Want to know?”
Galina Sergeyevna didn’t answer.
“She said, ‘I gave her one chance. One question. Any question.'” Denis slung the strap over his shoulder. “She waited for you to ask: ‘How are you feeling?'”
He left. The door closed quietly, without a sound.
Andrey went into the bedroom and came back to the hallway twenty minutes later, dressed and carrying a smaller bag.
“Where are you going?” his mother asked.
“To my brother’s. I’ll stay there for a while.”
“Because of the money?”
“Because I just stood by and watched,” his father answered. “I stood by for two years, and the one time I opened my mouth, I took your side. Now I can’t even look our daughter in the eye.”
“You’ll come back,” Galina Sergeyevna said. “Where else would you go.”
Andrey gave her a long look, adjusted his collar, and walked out.
She was left alone in the apartment, with only one of the three lights shining.
She picked up her phone and opened that same photo—the gray-black image with a small profile—and hovered her finger over the screen, unsure whether to zoom in or delete it.
Then she dialed her daughter’s number. A mechanical voice told her the subscriber had blocked her calls.
Galina Sergeyevna lowered her hand and said loudly into the empty hallway, almost offended:
“So what did I do wrong this time? Again it’s Vera’s fault.”
And there was no answer for her.
***
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Denis placed a tin box on the table in the small kitchen of a rented apartment.
“What’s that?” Vera asked.
“It’s yours.”
“Den, I don’t want it.”
“You need to take it,” he said, sitting down and stretching out his left leg. “It’s not a gift. I’m giving it back.”
Maksim set a plate in front of him.
“Eat first,” he said. “Count later.”
“Maksim,” Vera put her palm on the lid of the box. “I don’t want this money.”
“Then we’ll spend it on a stroller and a crib,” her husband answered calmly. “And we’ll tell our child it’s from an uncle.”
“From an uncle,” Denis repeated. “I like that.”
Vera laughed and immediately covered her mouth with her hand.
“She called,” she said. “This morning.”
“I know. And what did she ask?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“And what did you do?”
“I hung up,” Vera shrugged. “You know, Den, I’m not angry. I just finally know exactly how much I’m worth to her. Thirty thousand. Better it’s thirty.”
“And how much are you really worth?”
Vera looked at her husband, then her brother, then the candy tin.
“As much as I decide,” she said. “From now on, I set my own price.”