Vera sat at the old wooden table in her mother’s kitchen, peeling potatoes. The knife moved quickly in her hands, almost on autopilot — she’d gotten used to pitching in whenever she came to visit. A pot of chicken soup bubbled on the stove, and a comforting warmth spread through the room: rich broth with a faint bay-leaf note she’d added at the very end.
Outside the window, dusk had already settled. A November evening had crept in without warning, and the courtyard streetlights flicked on, splashing yellow pools across the wet asphalt. Vera glanced at the clock above the door — 6:30. She wanted to make it home by eight so she could rest at least a little before the workweek: her legs throbbed after a full day at a desk, and her head felt as heavy as an old iron.
The door banged open, and her younger sister, Nadya, tumbled into the kitchen with two children. Five-year-old Kolya immediately dashed for the toy drawer — their mother kept little cars and blocks there just for the grandchildren — while two-year-old Masha clutched at her mother’s skirt and began to whine, smearing snot across her sleeve.
“Ugh, Mom, I barely made it,” Nadya panted, flinging her coat onto the chair by the entryway. “I waited for the bus for half an hour, and these two complained the whole way like alarms.”
Anna Vasilievna appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on an apron embroidered with daisies — old, but spotless, exactly how she liked it.
“About time you showed up,” she smiled. “Sit down, we’ll eat in a minute. Vera made soup — with noodles, just like you wanted.”
Nadya dropped onto a stool without even looking at her sister and started untying Masha’s pom-pom hat. Vera kept peeling potatoes in silence, though something prickly was already stirring inside her — that familiar irritation. Nadya always arrived like a storm, loaded with complaints, acting as if everyone around her owed her a bow.
“So, Vera… you came alone again?” Nadya asked at last, lifting her eyes while Masha fiddled with her fingers. “I thought you’d at least bring someone with you. It must be boring, always on your own.”
Vera only snorted and tossed another peeled potato into the bowl of water. She was thirty-two and had long since grown used to the teasing. Nadya, five years younger, loved rubbing it in that she had a “proper family,” while Vera had only work and an empty apartment.
“I’m fine by myself,” Vera said shortly, not turning around.
Anna Vasilievna set out the plates — old ones with darkened rims, but clean as always — and began ladling soup. Kolya ran up, grabbed a spoon, and started banging it on the table until his mother hissed at him. Masha quieted down, leaning into Nadya’s arm, blinking sleepily.
“Alright, girls, let’s eat,” Anna Vasilievna said, taking her seat at the head of the table. “I’ve been on my feet all day. I’m worn out.”
They sat down, and for a few minutes there was peace — just the clink of spoons and Kolya sniffing, wiping his nose with his sleeve. Then Nadya put her spoon down, tugged at the edge of the tablecloth stained from last year’s fruit drink, and looked at Vera.
“Listen, Vera… I need to talk to you,” she began, lowering her voice as if it were something important. “You know how hard it is for Sasha and me. The kids are growing, prices keep rising, and he’s barely managing at that factory of his.”
Vera went tense. She already knew where this was headed. They’d had conversations like this before, and they always ended the same way.
“So?” Vera asked, staring into her bowl where noodles floated in the golden broth.
“Help us out,” Nadya blurted. “Money. You earn well, and you don’t really have anyone to spend it on. But we have children — they need food, clothes, daycare…”
Vera slowly raised her head and looked at her sister. Nadya wore the expression of someone asking for something completely natural — like a cup of tea or an extra spoonful of sugar. At that moment, Kolya dropped his spoon on the floor, and Anna Vasilievna hurried to pick it up, muttering about how restless he was.
“I’m not going to pay for your children,” Vera said quietly but firmly, meeting Nadya’s eyes. “They’re not my responsibility.”
Nadya froze. Then her face flushed red, as if she’d been slapped.
“Are you serious?” Her voice trembled, close to a shout. “So that’s how it is now? Some sister you are!”
“Girls, don’t start,” Anna Vasilievna tried to intervene, but it was too late. Dinner was ruined, and Vera knew it.
Vera remembered exactly how it had all begun. She was the eldest, and from childhood she’d been trained to carry the weight. When she was ten and Nadya was five, their mother often left them home together — Anna Vasilievna worked double shifts at a sewing workshop to feed her daughters after their father walked out for another woman. Vera would stand at the stove — old, with chipped enamel — frying eggs in a pan with a scorched bottom, making sure Nadya didn’t poke at sockets, and even teaching her to draw with pencils the neighbor, Aunt Lyuba, had given them.
“You’re my clever girl, Verочка,” their mother used to say when she came home late and stroked Vera’s hair. “I can always rely on you.”
Nadya was different. She knew how to whine until she got what she wanted, and Vera often gave in — handing over her candy, sacrificing the doll she cherished like treasure. Once, when Vera was twelve, an aunt gave her a beautiful notebook for her birthday — flowers on the cover, bright as poppies. Vera hid it in her desk drawer so she could write her thoughts inside, but Nadya spotted it and threw a tantrum.
“Mo-om, I want one too!” she wailed, stamping her feet. “Why does Vera get it and I don’t?”
“Vera, give it to your sister,” their mother said tiredly, wiping her hands on her apron after laundry. “You’re the older one — don’t be greedy.”
Vera handed it over, though inside she boiled like a kettle. A week later she found the notebook in the corner of the room — torn, covered in crooked scribbles. Nadya had already forgotten about it, distracted by something new.
As they grew older, the difference only sharpened. After school, Vera went to college to become an accountant — studying until midnight, taking a part-time job stocking shelves in a store. Later she found work in an office, calculating salaries and taxes, and started saving for her own place. It was a small two-room apartment on the outskirts — peeling wallpaper she replaced herself, squeaky floors she dreamed of fixing someday. Nadya barely scraped through school — chatting more than studying — and married Sasha almost immediately, a factory guy who was kind but not exactly ambitious. A year later Kolya was born, and three years after that, Masha.
“You should think about having a family too,” their mother would tell Vera when she arrived with a bag of groceries. “It’s nothing but work with you — like an old woman.”
“I’m fine as I am,” Vera would answer, though sometimes, watching happy couples in the park or children running with balloons, she felt a strange little pang. But she pushed it away quickly — she liked being her own boss, liked that no one drained her money and nerves.
Nadya and Sasha lived crammed into a tiny one-room rental they’d gotten through acquaintances. Sasha worked at the factory, but money never stretched — he’d get sick and take unpaid days, a machine would break, management would cut bonuses. Nadya didn’t work: first she stayed home with Kolya, then with Masha. And every time Vera came to their mother’s, Nadya would start complaining.
“Vera, can you lend me a couple thousand?” she asked once, sitting on the couch with Masha on her lap. “Our fridge broke, and we can’t afford repairs.”
Vera gave it to her, even though she’d just paid to fix her own stove — ancient, with only one burner working. Then Nadya asked again: for Kolya’s winter boots, for cold medicine, for something else. Vera kept handing over money, but each time it felt heavier. She could see that her sister wasn’t trying to change anything.
The final straw had been last New Year’s. Nadya arrived at their mother’s with the kids and announced they couldn’t afford gifts.
“Vera, maybe you could chip in?” she asked while Anna Vasilievna fussed over the salad in the kitchen. “Just a thousand per kid, so there’s at least something under the tree.”
That was the first time Vera refused.
“I have my own expenses,” she said, looking Nadya straight in the eye. “I’m not a bank.”
Nadya pouted like a child, and later their mother reproached Vera in a whisper.
“Verochka, you could’ve helped. They’re your niece and nephew — don’t you feel sorry for them?”
“They’re her kids, not mine,” Vera snapped, and the conversation died like a kettle going cold.
After the scene at dinner, Vera got ready to leave quickly. She finished her soup, though it had cooled and tasted thin, washed her bowl, and put it away in the cupboard where her mother kept the old dishes with darkened patterns. Nadya sat opposite her with tight lips, staring away as if Vera didn’t exist. Kolya had run off to play with toy cars, and Masha had fallen asleep on the couch, wrapped in an old blanket with faded rabbits — Vera remembered it from her own childhood.
“I’m going, Mom,” Vera said, pulling on her coat in the hallway. “I have to get up early for work.”
“Stay for tea at least,” Anna Vasilievna pleaded, stepping out with a dish towel in her hands. “I’ll bring out the apple pie.”
“No. I’m tired,” Vera replied, and stepped outside. Cold air slapped her face, and she tightened her scarf — a gray knitted one she’d bought at a street market last year. As she walked down the stairs, she heard Nadya speaking to their mother — loud, offended — but she couldn’t make out the words. And she didn’t want to.
At home, she stood under a hot shower for a long time, washing off the heavy residue of the evening. Water ran down the white tile she’d chosen herself two years earlier — she’d even haggled with the salesman to lower the price. Vera suddenly thought she liked this life — her life. Her apartment, though small, was her own corner. No children screaming, no smell of burnt porridge, no one asking for favors. She stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in an old robe with faded daisies, brewed mint tea from a packet she’d bought at the market, and sat down on the couch with a book. But she couldn’t read — her thoughts kept returning to Nadya, to her flushed face and wounded voice.
The next day, her mother called. Vera was peeling potatoes for dinner — in her own kitchen, where everything was exactly the way she liked it.
“Vera, why did you leave so abruptly yesterday?” Anna Vasilievna asked. Vera could hear dishes clattering in the background — her mother was probably washing pots.
“I was tired, Mom,” Vera repeated, though she knew her mother wanted something else.
“Nadya’s upset,” her mother went on. “She didn’t ask out of malice. They really are struggling, Verochka. Couldn’t you help a little? You do have a good salary.”
“I have my own expenses too,” Vera said, looking out the window where the neighbor’s cat lounged on the sill, warming itself under the streetlight. “I can’t carry them.”
“But it’s family,” her mother’s voice softened, almost pleading. “Don’t you feel sorry for your sister?”
“I do,” Vera admitted, dropping another potato into the bowl. “But I can’t live her life for her. They need to figure it out themselves.”
Her mother sighed and fell quiet. Then she said:
“Alright. Think about it again. They’ll come tomorrow too — talk calmly this time.”
Vera hung up and stared at the kettle humming softly on the stove. She didn’t want any more talks. She knew Nadya wouldn’t back off, and their mother would take her side — she always had, as far back as Vera could remember. But Vera wasn’t going to give in anymore the way she had as a child with that notebook.
The next day Nadya really did show up again. She came in with the kids like a whirlwind. Kolya immediately started tearing around the room, racing toy cars across the carpet, while Masha whined, demanding to be carried. Vera sat on the couch with a mug of still-warm mint tea, watching in silence as Nadya took off her coat and tossed it over a chair.
“So, Vera — did you think about it?” Nadya began, sitting across from her and pulling Masha onto her lap. “I’m not asking for no reason. Sasha and I genuinely don’t have enough. Kolya goes to daycare, Masha needs diapers, and I don’t even have money for a winter jacket.”
“And how is that my problem?” Vera asked, setting her mug down with a small clink.
“Because you’re my sister!” Nadya’s voice rose, and Masha jerked in her arms. “You don’t have kids — it’s easier for you. And we’re out here trying to survive, do you get it?”
“I’m not obligated to support you,” Vera said, looking straight at her. “That’s your family, not mine. Your children have a father — let him step up.”
Nadya sprang to her feet, nearly tipping the chair, and her face turned red again.
“You’re serious?” she shouted. “I come to you as a sister, and this is what you say?!”
“Enough, both of you!” Anna Vasilievna rushed in from the kitchen, hands wet, towel in hand. “Sit down and talk like adults!”
But Nadya wasn’t listening. She grabbed the kids, snatched her coat, and stormed out, slamming the door so hard the glass in the cabinet rattled. Vera stayed where she was, staring at the cooling tea, thinking she was simply done with all of it.
A month passed. Vera sat in her own kitchen, sipping tea with honey and looking out the window. Snow had finally fallen — light and fluffy — covering the courtyard like a white rug. Kids from the neighboring building were already building a snowman, laughing and pelting each other with snowballs. Vera smiled. She liked this season, when everything felt cleaner, quieter, as if winter washed old grudges away. She warmed her hands around her mug — an old one with a painted cat — and thought life seemed to be moving along.
Nadya hadn’t called since the fight, and Vera was glad for it. A couple of times their mother tried to bring it up when Vera came by with bags of potatoes and grain so her mother wouldn’t have to spend her pension.
“Vera, you should make peace with Nadya,” Anna Vasilievna would say, wiping her hands on her apron. “She’s not a stranger.”
“Mom, I’ve said what I needed to say,” Vera would reply, cutting the topic short. “Let them solve their own problems.”
Anna Vasilievna would sigh, but she didn’t argue. Vera knew her mother was still helping Nadya anyway — buying groceries, handing down an old sweater, slipping her money from her pension. Vera felt sorry for her mother, but not enough to get pulled back into that mess.
Work was going well. Vera got a small bonus — a thousand rubles, not much, but it felt good — and decided to spend it on herself. She bought a coffee grinder — small, black, something she’d wanted for a long time. Now her apartment smelled of freshly ground coffee in the mornings, and she drank it from the same cat mug while watching the city wake up outside. She loved the feeling of it — that she was in charge, that no one was pulling even a single coin from her.
One evening her friend Sveta called — they’d studied together at college. Her voice was as lively as ever.
“Vera, want to go out of town on Saturday?” Sveta предложила. “My brother’s dacha is free. There’s a sauna, we’ll grill шашлыки, hang out.”
“Sure,” Vera agreed, and her voice sounded lighter than it had in a long time. Suddenly she wanted to break out of the routine, clear her head.
They went as a trio — Vera, Sveta, and Sveta’s brother Dima. The dacha was old, with a crooked fence and peeling paint, but it felt cozy. The sauna smelled of birch branches, and Vera sat there a long time, feeling the heat seep into her bones. Later they went outside, where Dima lit the grill. Snow crunched underfoot, and the meat sizzled over the coals. They sat by the fire wrapped in blankets, eating шашлыки with bread and sipping hot tea from a thermos, faintly herbal.
Dima turned out to be a веселый guy — he told stories about once fixing a tractor in a field in the rain, then spending half an hour drying his socks by a fire. Vera laughed until tears came, holding a wooden spoon she used to stir the coals.
“You did the right thing, Vera,” Sveta said later, when they were alone on the porch and Dima went to fetch more wood. “You didn’t let them push you around. I would’ve broken under that pressure ages ago.”
“Oh, come on,” Vera shrugged, watching the smoke rise into the dark sky. “I’m not brave. I’m just tired of being everyone’s спасательная жилетка.”
“And that’s exactly why you’re right,” Sveta nodded, pulling her blanket closer. “Let them figure it out.”
Nadya still didn’t show up. Vera heard from her mother that Nadya and Sasha had taken out a loan for a new washing machine — the old one had finally died — but they quickly fell behind on payments. Anna Vasilievna complained that she now had to give up her savings to bail them out, but Vera only stayed quiet. She pitied her mother, but not enough to dive back into that swamp.
Vera got home late, her hair smelling of smoke, her heart surprisingly light. On the table stood the coffee grinder, and beside it a jar of beans Dima had given her, saying, “This is for you — so your mornings are kinder.” Vera brewed herself a coffee, sat down on the couch, and thought, maybe life really was getting better. Let Nadya live however she wants, let their mother keep helping — that was their choice. Vera had chosen herself.
And for the first time, that choice felt absolutely right — like the scent of coffee that now filled her small, beloved home every single morning.
Thank you for reading my stories! I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts, and I hope to see you again soon!