Part 1. Depreciation of Family Ties
Nonna sat at a broad table made of solid oak, refining a blueprint. The pencil’s graphite slid over the paper with a dry, satisfying rasp—like sand whispering along glass. The apartment was impeccably arranged, the kind of order achieved not with frantic cleaning but with an engineer’s mathematics of space. Every object had a designated place, chosen by ergonomics and plain logic.
The doorbell broke that symmetry. Nonna didn’t like unexpected visitors. She glanced at the clock: 7:43 p.m. Oleg would be home from work in seventeen minutes.
At the door stood Tamara Ilyinichna with her daughter, Larisa. The mother-in-law looked ceremonial and victorious, like a general accepting surrender before the first shot. Larisa—a woman of unclear age with perpetually restless eyes—chewed at her lip.
“We’ve decided to sell your apartment,” the mother-in-law announced to her son and daughter-in-law the moment Oleg crossed the threshold, before he’d even taken off his shoes.
The sentence hung in the air—heavy and wildly out of place, like a concrete slab dropped onto a crystal chandelier. Oleg froze with his briefcase in hand. His face settled into the expression Nonna mentally labeled “awaiting instructions.”
“Come in,” Nonna said colorlessly, turning back to her table. “Shoes on the rack. The laminate doesn’t like moisture.”
Tamara Ilyinichna marched into the living room without removing her heels. The sharp clicking made Nonna’s jaw tighten. Larisa shuffled after her, scanning the walls with greedy interest—Venetian plaster, expensive and flawless.
“What do you mean, ‘decided’?” Oleg finally forced out, sitting on the edge of the sofa.
“Exactly what it means, sweetheart,” Tamara Ilyinichna replied, settling herself in the armchair as if it were her rightful throne. “Larochka needs money. She’s been offered a chance to invest in a unique eco-products supply business. A once-in-a-million opportunity. Your apartment is the only real asset. We’ll sell it, invest the money, and in a year we’ll buy you two apartments like this. Or one—downtown. And for now you’ll live at our dacha. Fresh air. Good for you.”
Nonna placed her pencil down with care. She didn’t feel what people usually call heartbreak. Instead, a clean, powerful analysis started running in her mind.
Known facts: the apartment was legally in Tamara Ilyinichna’s name (an old inheritance from a grandmother that had been “forgotten” and never transferred to Oleg ten years ago).
Variables: six million rubles of Nonna’s personal savings invested in renovations.
Key risk: a husband with no backbone whatsoever.
“Mom, but we renovated everything…” Oleg began, and his voice sounded pitiful. “Nonna designed it.”
“Renovation is wallpaper and whitewash,” the mother-in-law waved him off. “Don’t make me laugh. That’s not worth stealing your sister’s future. Besides, the apartment is mine. I have the documents. The realtor will be here tomorrow at ten. Be so kind as to have the place ready. Leave work early if you need to.”
Larisa’s smile sharpened as she dragged a finger along the pricey tabletop.
“And you can leave the furniture,” she added. “It sells for more furnished.”
Nonna turned toward them. Her face looked like a mask carved from pale marble.
“So you want to sell the walls?” she clarified, her voice smooth and steady.
“We’re selling the apartment!” Tamara Ilyinichna snapped. “And my decision is not up for discussion. Oleg, tell your wife to stop being clever. We’re family. We’re supposed to help each other.”
Oleg looked at Nonna, then at his mother, then down at the floor.
“Nonna… maybe… maybe she’s right? The dacha is nice right now. We’ll heat the stove. Lara says the money will come back—with interest.”
At that moment, the equation balanced. Nonna understood: the margin of error in her life project titled Marriage had hit critical levels. The system required immediate dismantling.
Part 2. Ledger of Investments and Losses
The night passed without sleep, and without tears. Nonna sat at her laptop, lining up debits and credits. She liked numbers. Numbers didn’t lie, didn’t betray, and didn’t demand you “be understanding.” Numbers were pure truth.
Oleg kept shifting, trying to wrap an arm around her, but Nonna moved away as if from radiation.
“You do get it,” he whispered into the dark. “Mom will eat me alive if I refuse. Larisa’s never had luck in life. She needs a start. And we… we’re young. We’ll earn it back. You’re smart—you’ll figure something out.”
“I already have,” Nonna replied without turning her head. “Sleep. Tomorrow will be difficult.”
Morning didn’t start with coffee. It started with an inventory.
When the realtor—an agile little man with darting eyes and the smell of cheap tobacco—stepped inside with Tamara Ilyinichna, Nonna greeted them with a folder in her hands.
“We begin the viewing in the entryway,” the realtor said briskly. “Oh, great tile! Spanish? That bumps up the price.”
“It’s porcelain stoneware from a limited collection,” Nonna corrected, dry as dust. “Receipt No. 45-B, dated September 12 last year. Eight thousand rubles per square meter, plus two thousand per meter for installation. The floor in this corridor alone is worth one hundred and twenty thousand.”
Tamara Ilyinichna snorted. “Who cares about your papers? The look is what matters.”
“Exactly,” Nonna nodded. “Oleg, bring the stepladder.”
Out of habit, obeying her decisive tone, Oleg brought it over. Nonna climbed up and calmly unscrewed a costly designer bulb, then removed the handmade shade.
“What are you doing?!” Larisa shrieked, rushing in to “supervise.”
“Collecting my personal property,” Nonna said evenly as she climbed down. “Under civil law, removable improvements belong to the person who paid for them unless a contract says otherwise. We don’t have a contract. We do have receipts in my name.”
“Put that back!” Tamara Ilyinichna went red.
“No,” Nonna said simply. “Next. The smart-home system: leak sensors, lighting controllers, battery servo drives. Total equipment cost—four hundred thousand rubles. Removal takes two hours. Without it, this place becomes a plain concrete box with compromised wiring, because the entire electrical layout was built around automation.”
The realtor stopped smiling. His professional gaze recalculated.
“Tamara Ilyinichna, if there are wires sticking out, we’ll lose at least fifteen percent on the price. Buyers want ‘move in and live.’”
“She won’t take anything!” the mother-in-law screamed. “Oleg, control your wife! This is my home! Anything that’s nailed down is mine!”
Oleg stood hunched, shoulders tight.
“Nonna… why are you doing this? Just leave it. We’re…”
“We’re what?” Nonna looked him in the eyes for the first time. A cold, surgical glint sat in her stare. “We’re family? No, Oleg. Family means shared interests. What’s happening here is a hostile takeover of my investment.”
She opened the laptop on the table.
“I prepared an estimate. Either you pay me six million three hundred forty-two thousand rubles in compensation for permanent improvements and depreciation of equipment, or I return the apartment to its original state—the state it was in when Grandma left bare walls and rotten floors.”
Larisa burst out laughing.
“Are you insane? What millions? Go to hell with your calculations! Mom, throw her out—let her crawl away with one suitcase.”
“Then negotiations have reached a dead end,” Nonna stated calmly. “Fine. I’m moving to Protocol B.”
Part 3. The Technical Dismantling of Illusions
The next three days ran like a special operation. Nonna took time off work. She didn’t scream. She didn’t smash plates. She methodically packed her life into boxes.
But the real work wasn’t in the boxes. It was in the infrastructure.
Do you know the difference between an ordinary tenant and a professional design engineer? An engineer knows where the weak point is in any structure.
Nonna dismantled the built-in kitchen—cabinet fronts, Blum soft-close hardware, the engineered stone countertop—everything disassembled neatly. Behind it, an uneven wall with crumbling plaster was revealed, perfectly hidden until now.
Workers removed the air conditioners. Ugly holes remained where the lines had run.
She took out the water filtration system. Now the faucet produced rusty, cloudy sludge—the neighborhood’s constant problem, solved only because Nonna had installed an expensive main filter.
But the most painful strike landed in the electrical system. Nonna didn’t just take the outlets and switches (replacing them with the cheapest ones—fifty rubles each—so no one could accuse her of making the apartment unsafe). She removed the voltage stabilizer.
In this old building, power surges were normal. Without the stabilizer, bulbs flickered like a horror movie and expensive appliances could burn out at any moment.
When Oleg came home that evening, he didn’t recognize the apartment. It looked like the scene of a crime—where comfort had been murdered. Empty rooms echoed, reflecting off stripped walls (the decorative panels came down too; at Nonna’s request, the workers unhooked them from their clips).
“You destroyed everything…” he whispered.
“I took what was mine,” Nonna corrected. “Everything strictly by receipts. Check the inventory list if you want. And yes—I took your gaming computer. It was purchased with my card two years ago. The receipt’s in the box.”
“But how am I supposed to play?” His voice carried a childlike outrage.
“At your mother’s dacha. In the fresh air,” Nonna cut in. “And, Oleg— I filed for divorce. The application is already submitted through the government portal. We have nothing to divide: no children, and you’ve kindly admitted the property is your mother’s. So it’ll be quick.”
“Over an apartment?” he tried to grab her hand.
“Over betrayal,” Nonna stepped away. “You sold me and my work for your sister’s imaginary promises. That’s a bad investment. I’m closing the asset.”
Part 4. The Greed Coefficient
Day X arrived.
Buyers appeared surprisingly fast—people from outside the city who’d fallen in love with the listing photos, where everything still gleamed with cleanliness and warmth. Tamara Ilyinichna purposely didn’t let them inside until the preliminary agreement was signed, claiming she was busy.
Nonna moved out that same morning the keys were meant to change hands. Movers carried out the last boxes. The apartment looked like a crypt: dim light from a flickering bare bulb, stains on the walls, exposed pipes in the bathroom (the Grohe faucets had gone to Nonna’s new life; in their place were temporary cheap Chinese taps that hummed like a plane taking off).
Tamara Ilyinichna burst in, ready to celebrate victory—and froze in the doorway.
“What is this?..” she rasped, clutching her chest.
“Your real estate in its original legal condition,” Nonna said, checking the delivery form. “I left the toilet. It was here when we moved in. The tank leaks, though—I removed my shutoff hardware.”
“You… you vandal!” Larisa shrieked, rushing in behind her mother. “I’ll sue you! We already took a deposit! They’re coming any minute!”
“Good luck,” Nonna replied, indifferent. “By the way, I informed the housing authority about the illegal renovation you did ten years ago—combining the balcony with the kitchen. The fine will arrive by mail. I also withdrew my signature as the lead engineer on the structural reinforcement project for the widened opening. Now you’ll need a new expert report. That’s about a hundred thousand.”
“Damn it!” Larisa spat. The words sounded vulgar and dirty in the hollow room.
“And one more thing,” Nonna paused at the door. “The tax service has been notified that you rented this apartment out off the books for five years. I attached statements showing my transfers to your card labeled ‘for the apartment.’ Taxes, penalties, and fines will run roughly twenty percent of the home’s value. Mathematics is a cruel science, Tamara Ilyinichna.”
Oleg sat silently on his mother’s suitcase in the hallway. He understood his life had just collapsed—yet, somehow, he blamed Nonna instead of his own spinelessness.
The doorbell rang. The buyers.
“We’re here for the keys!” a cheerful voice called.
Nonna opened the door and let a young couple in.
“Come in,” she said politely. “The owners will show you everything in a moment. Careful in the corridor—the parquet board wobbles. The joists are rotten there. I simply didn’t have time to replace them at my expense.”
She stepped out into the stairwell. Behind her, the buyers’ happy chatter turned into dead silence—then angry shouts:
“What did you sell us?! Where’s the renovation from the photos?! Give back the deposit! We’re calling the police—this is fraud!”
Nonna called the elevator. She didn’t care. She felt light. The balance sheet finally matched.
Part 5. Final Balance
Three months passed.
Nonna sat in a café with panoramic windows—yes, she could afford it now—scrolling through the news on a tablet. In front of her lay a signed contract to design a large shopping complex. Her precision and refusal to compromise were worth their weight in gold to clients.
Her phone vibrated. An unknown number. But Nonna knew exactly who it was. She always did.
“Hello?” Her tone was calm.
“Nonna… it’s me,” Oleg’s voice sounded dull, like it came from inside a barrel. “Listen… we’ve got problems.”
“You have problems, Oleg. I have tasks,” she corrected.
“The buyers canceled the deal through court. We had to return double the deposit. Mom took out a loan to pay it back. Larisa put money into that pyramid with other funds—also borrowed… everything’s gone. We… we have nothing. No one will buy the apartment in that condition, the wiring shorted, there was a small fire…”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said with zero emotion. “Why are you calling?”
“Nonna, maybe… we can start over? I’ve changed. I understand who was right. Mom too… she regrets it. She says she overreacted. Can we… can I move in with you? Just for a while. Until we fix the place. You know how… you know everything.”
Nonna took a sip of green tea. Jasmine leaves drifted in the cup, drawing strange geometry.
“Oleg, write this down,” she said.
“What do you mean, a formula?” he didn’t understand.
“The probability of me coming back is zero divided by the infinity of your audacity. And you can’t divide by zero—it crashes the system. You are the error, Oleg. And I correct errors by removing them.”
“But we’re not strangers! Aunt Lyuba from Saratov said—”
“END OF CALL,” Nonna said, and pressed the red button. Then she blocked the number.
She looked out the window. The city lived on in its chaos, but inside her world there was now a perfect, calibrated order. She paid the bill—exactly what was printed, plus ten percent for impeccable service.
Somewhere on the other end of the line, in a smoke-stained concrete box that reeked of burnt wiring, Tamara Ilyinichna screamed at her son, Larisa sobbed over overdue loan payments, and Oleg stared at the black phone screen—still unable to understand that life isn’t a draft, and you can’t erase cruelty with a rubber. Numbers don’t forgive.
Nonna stepped outside, drew in the cool air, and smiled. For the first time in years, that smile didn’t cost her a single ruble—yet it was the most valuable thing she owned.