Anastasia bought her apartment at thirty, entirely on her own—no help from anyone, no money from her mother, no connections from her father. A two-bedroom place on the third floor in Balashikha, just outside Moscow: a quiet neighborhood, a decent courtyard with real trees instead of concrete flowerbeds. She had saved for five years, worked as a senior manager at an insurance company, given up trips abroad, and ridden around in an old car borrowed from a friend instead of taking taxis. When she signed the papers at the notary’s office, her hands did not shake—Anastasia was not the kind of woman whose hands shook—but inside her there was something warm and solid, like a foundation. There it was. Mine.
She met Sergey a year after buying the apartment. They were introduced through mutual friends at a birthday party. He made her laugh with some story about a work trip to Ryazan, and she got him back with a story of her own about a client who had tried to insure a car that did not even exist. Sergey worked as a process engineer at a small manufacturing company and earned an average salary—about sixty thousand rubles, no more. Anastasia made eighty-five. It was never really a topic of conversation, just numbers and nothing more.
They got married a year and a half later. Sergey moved in with her, which made perfect sense: he had only a room in his parents’ apartment, while she had a home of her own. Their first year together was good. They adjusted to each other without drama, learned how to share a space, and figured out how not to irritate one another over small things. Anastasia valued the fact that her husband did not pry into her affairs or ask unnecessary questions. Sergey appreciated that his wife could keep a home running smoothly without turning every inconvenience into a crisis.
Anastasia saw Sergey’s family about once a month, usually at Sunday dinners in his parents’ apartment in Lyubertsy. Ivan Petrovich, his father, was a large, booming man who spoke as if he were addressing a political rally—even when he was talking about the weather. Darya Nikolaevna, his mother, was quieter, but behind that quietness there was something dense and unyielding, like a wall covered in soft wallpaper. She always smiled, but in a way that made Anastasia wonder whether her mother-in-law was truly pleased to see her or not.
Money often came up at those dinners. Ivan Petrovich loved the subject. He liked to talk about investments, about how foolish it was to keep money sitting in a bank account, about acquaintances who had started businesses and now wanted for nothing. Darya Nikolaevna nodded along. Sergey listened with interest. Anastasia ate her salad and stayed quiet—not because she did not care, but because it all seemed like harmless talk.
It turned out it was not harmless at all.
One October day, when the rain outside had already made it clear that summer was truly over, Ivan Petrovich called Sergey and said the whole family needed to get together—there was an important matter to discuss. Anastasia overheard this at breakfast and asked,
“Did something happen?”
“No,” Sergey said. “Dad wants to talk over some idea. Some kind of business.”
“I see,” Anastasia replied, pouring herself more coffee.
That Sunday they drove to Lyubertsy. Around the table sat Ivan Petrovich, Darya Nikolaevna, Sergey’s brother Roman with his wife Sveta, and the two of them. The borscht remained untouched—it seemed the discussion was supposed to come first.
Ivan Petrovich began from afar, talking about the construction materials market, about how the district was expanding, new apartment buildings were going up everywhere, and people needed tile, dry mixes, metal profiles, all of that. He spoke confidently and threw around numbers, though Anastasia could not understand where exactly those numbers had come from.
“So,” Ivan Petrovich said, slapping his palm against the table, “the location is there, the arrangement is there, the landlord is waiting. What we need is start-up capital. One and a half million rubles for the first batch of inventory and the equipment.”
“Where is that money supposed to come from?” Anastasia asked plainly.
Ivan Petrovich looked at her. Darya Nikolaevna folded her hands on the table.
“Anastasia, you and Sergey have an apartment,” her mother-in-law began softly. “If you used it as collateral for a loan…”
“It’s my apartment,” Anastasia said. “Bought before the marriage, with my money.”
“But you are a family now,” Darya Nikolaevna continued, her tone unchanged. “Everything is shared.”
“Not everything,” Anastasia replied.
The table fell silent. Roman coughed. Sveta stared at her plate. Sergey looked at his wife with the exact expression Anastasia understood immediately: please, not now.
“Anastasia, I know this is a serious step,” Ivan Petrovich said, lowering his voice and making it almost confiding. “But we are family. We are not strangers. The business will be on its feet in a year, we will pay off the loan, and that will be the end of it.”
“Ivan Petrovich,” Anastasia said, “I respect you. But I am not going to put my only home up as collateral for someone else’s business. Not anyone’s. Even if it’s called a family business. That is not open for discussion.”
“Someone else’s?” Ivan Petrovich raised his voice. “This is our family!”
“I have said what I needed to say,” Anastasia answered evenly. “Let’s eat the borscht before it gets cold.”
They ate in silence. Ivan Petrovich looked at her several times as if he wanted to say more, but held himself back. Darya Nikolaevna chatted about nothing in particular—the weather, the neighbors, some television series. Sergey said nothing.
The drive home was silent too. Only once they were back in their apartment, while Anastasia was taking off her coat in the hallway, did Sergey finally speak.
“You could have at least been less harsh.”
“How exactly?” Anastasia asked.
“Well… you could have thought about it. Not cut them off so quickly.”
“Sergey, I did think about it. The answer is no. It’s my apartment, and I am not going to risk it.”
“That’s selfish.”
Anastasia hung up her coat and turned to look at him.
“No. Selfish is demanding that someone risk their only home for a business in which they have no ownership, no guarantees, and no written agreement. That is selfish.”
Sergey went into the other room and shut the door. Anastasia put the kettle on.
The following weeks were unpleasant. At family dinners Ivan Petrovich and Darya Nikolaevna barely spoke to her—answering direct questions, but never addressing her on their own. Roman and Sveta stayed neutral, but it was obvious they knew what had happened and had chosen not to get involved. At home Sergey kept returning to the subject, not through open fights, but through quiet little reproaches that were, in a way, even worse.
“They are not millionaires, Nastya. They just need help.”
“That is not help, Sergey. Help is giving money or time. Putting an apartment on the line is a risk.”
“So you do not trust my family at all?”
“I trust your family as people. But business is something else. Even good people fail in business.”
“You’ve already decided they’re going to fail.”
“No. I have simply decided I am not willing to test that on my apartment.”
The same argument came back in different versions every few days. Anastasia held her ground—never shouting, never crying, simply repeating the same answer in slightly different words each time. In the end Sergey fell silent. Ivan Petrovich and Darya Nikolaevna took out a loan against their own apartment in Lyubertsy. Sergey added all his savings—around three hundred thousand rubles, money he had been setting aside for several years. Roman invested less, about one hundred thousand.
The store opened in February. Anastasia saw photographs: a small space, shelves lined with tile and dry mixes, a sign with the name Ivan Petrovich had придумал. She was not invited to the opening. She heard about it from Sergey, who came home full of enthusiasm.
“The store looks good,” he said.
“I’m glad for them,” Anastasia replied.
“You could have been part of it, by the way.”
“Sergey, don’t.”
For the first three months, whenever they met, Ivan Petrovich looked at Anastasia with open superiority. Darya Nikolaevna made little comments—see, this is what happens, you did not believe it was a serious business, family is supposed to stand together. Anastasia nodded and did not argue. She knew how to wait.
By summer, something started to shift. Sergey began coming home with a different look on his face—not angry, but tense, like someone whose mind was grinding away at a worry that never stopped. Anastasia noticed it, but she did not ask. She waited for him to speak first.
He finally did, in August. They were sitting after dinner, Sergey turning his phone over in his hands without looking at her.
“Things aren’t going well,” he said at last.
“At the store?”
“Yes. A chain competitor opened nearby. StroyDvor. Their prices are lower, their selection is twice as big. Customers are leaving.”
Anastasia said nothing.
“Dad says they need to buy more stock, expand the range,” Sergey continued. “But there’s no money. And the loan payment is due every month.”
“How much longer do they have to pay?”
“About a year and a half.”
“Does the revenue cover the payment?”
Sergey hesitated.
“Not always,” he said quietly.
Anastasia got up and carried the plates to the sink.
“Sergey,” she said without turning around, “if you need advice, I can help you go over the numbers. I do work in insurance; I understand the financial side. But I’m not giving money. I’m saying that now so there is no misunderstanding.”
“I’m not asking for money,” Sergey replied.
“Good,” Anastasia said.
In autumn the store closed. Anastasia did not hear it from Sergey. She saw the message in the family chat that Darya Nikolaevna had created in the spring. Ivan Petrovich wrote it briefly: closing the store, paying off the debt, selling the apartment. Anastasia read the message twice.
That evening Sergey came home late, took off his jacket in silence, and sat down in the kitchen. Anastasia poured him tea, put it in front of him, and sat across from him.
“Tell me,” she said.
“What is there to tell?” Sergey said quietly. “The debt is more than a million. There’s no revenue. The only option is to sell my parents’ apartment. They’ll pay off the loan, but then they’ll have nowhere to live.”
“How much will be left after the debt is paid?”
“Maybe two hundred thousand. Maybe three. Depends on the sale price.”
“That’s enough for rent for a while.”
“Nastya.” Sergey looked up at her. “They need somewhere to live. Properly. Not from one rented place to another.”
Anastasia looked at her husband and already knew where the conversation was going. She felt it as clearly as one feels a train beginning to brake—before it has stopped, but already certain that it will.
“Sergey,” she said slowly, “you’re about to tell me they can move in with us.”
He did not answer at once. He picked up the mug, held it in both hands, then set it back down.
“We have a two-bedroom apartment,” he said. “Just temporarily, until they get back on their feet.”
“No,” Anastasia said.
“Nastya…”
“No.” She said it without raising her voice, but with complete clarity. “Sergey, this is my apartment. I did not buy it so that people who spent a year pointedly ignoring me, implying I was selfish, and taking every opportunity to enjoy the idea that I had been wrong, could come live here.”
“They’re in a terrible situation.”
“I know they are. I’m not indifferent to that. But that does not mean I am obliged to let them move into my home.”
“They’re not strangers, they’re my parents!”
“I understand that they are your parents. And that is exactly why I’m telling you directly instead of stringing you along. The answer is no. Not temporarily, not for a month, not until they get back on their feet. No.”
Sergey stood up from the table. He paced across the kitchen and stopped by the window.
“So the apartment matters more to you than family.”
“My home matters more to me than someone else’s comfort,” Anastasia answered. “That’s the truth.”
“Someone else’s? They are your family!”
“Sergey. A year ago they wanted me to mortgage this apartment. I refused. They made their decision, took their own loan, and started their own business. I had nothing to do with that.”
He turned sharply from the window.
“Do you understand they have been left with nothing?”
“Yes, I do. I’m sorry for them. But those are the consequences of their decisions, not mine.”
“If you had agreed back then—”
“If I had agreed back then, Sergey,” Anastasia cut in, “we would both be without a home right now. Because the business failed regardless of whose apartment was used as collateral.”
Sergey stared at her. Something was struggling inside him—she could see it, see him searching for words that would break through her logic and failing to find them. So he reached for something else instead.
“Have you forgotten who you owe that apartment to?” His voice broke, rising into something sharp and unfamiliar. “My family ended up with nothing because of you! You refused, and this is the result! If all of us together had just—”
“Stop,” Anastasia said.
“What do you mean stop? If they had mortgaged your apartment instead of my parents’, there would have been more money to get the business going—”
“I owe no one anything for this apartment.” Anastasia’s voice stayed level, but there was such firmness in it that Sergey fell silent. “I bought this apartment myself. Before we met. Before you ever came into my life. I saved for five years, gave up vacations, took buses and trains to work so I would not spend money on taxis. Not one person in your family contributed a single ruble to this apartment. Not one. So tell me—who exactly do I owe? Name one person.”
Sergey opened his mouth and then closed it.
“Their business failed,” she went on, “because a chain store opened nearby with prices a small shop could never compete with. That would have happened no matter whose money went into it. Mine too. The only difference is that I am standing in my own apartment right now instead of out on the street.”
“You’re heartless,” Sergey said.
“No,” Anastasia replied. “I just see things for what they are.”
He said nothing else. He went into the room, grabbed a jacket and a bag, and stuffed a few things into it without bothering to sort them. Then he came back into the hallway.
“I’m going to my parents’. They need support,” he said.
“All right,” Anastasia answered.
“This isn’t the end of the conversation.”
The door closed. It did not slam—just shut with the click of the lock.
Anastasia cleared away the two mugs, wiped down the table, and walked to the window. She stood there for a moment, looking down into the courtyard. The streetlamps were already on. Someone was walking a dog. Two elderly people were sitting on a bench near the opposite entrance. An ordinary evening.
For the next few days Sergey did not come back. He called once. Anastasia answered, and they spoke calmly, without arguing. Sergey said his parents were temporarily renting a room from acquaintances while they looked for a cheaper option. He himself was staying with a friend. Anastasia said she was glad they had found somewhere to live. Sergey went quiet, then asked:
“You really won’t let them stay with you?”
“No, Sergey.”
“Not even for a month?”
“Not even for a week. I know it’s hard for you to hear that. But it’s honest.”
He was silent a while longer.
“Then I don’t know what happens to us now,” he said at last.
“Neither do I,” Anastasia replied.
It was probably the most honest conversation they had had in months. Perhaps in the entire last year.
Two weeks later Anastasia booked a consultation with a lawyer. Not because she had already made a final decision, but because she wanted to understand where she stood if it came to divorce. The lawyer was young and businesslike, speaking quickly and without unnecessary words.
“The apartment was purchased before the marriage?” she asked.
“Yes. Here are all the documents.”
“And there were no shared investments in repairs or furniture through a joint account?”
“No. We never had a joint account.”
“Then the apartment is entirely yours. Your husband has no legal grounds for any claim to it.”
“And his parents? Can they try something? They say they’re going to hire a lawyer.”
The lawyer looked at Anastasia with mild surprise.
“His parents? No. They have no grounds whatsoever. They are not parties to your marriage, they did not invest money in the property, and there are no agreements or receipts?” She listed each point calmly. “Then these are empty threats.”
“Good,” Anastasia said. “I just wanted to make sure.”
She filed for divorce in early November. Sergey received the papers and called her. His voice sounded confused, not angry.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Nastya, maybe we could talk one more time. Properly.”
“Sergey, we already have. I said everything I think. So did you. We see this situation differently, and I don’t believe that is going to change.”
“So it’s all because of my parents?”
Anastasia paused.
“Not only because of your parents. Because for a year you pressured me, called me selfish, and never once supported me. Because when they yelled at me over dinner, you said nothing. Because your first reaction to their crisis was to demand that I solve it, without even asking how I felt. It’s because of that too.”
Sergey did not answer right away.
“I didn’t realize that was how you were experiencing it,” he said at last.
“I know,” Anastasia replied. “That’s why we are where we are.”
The court hearing was in February. Ivan Petrovich and Darya Nikolaevna really did hire a cheap lawyer—an older man with a briefcase and tired eyes, who seemed to understand from the start that the case was hopeless, but was obligated to earn his fee. He argued that Sergey had lived in the apartment for three years and therefore had a right to a share. The judge asked for documentation of any joint investments. There were none. The judge asked for proof that the apartment had been acquired during the marriage or with shared funds. There was none.
Anastasia sat at the table and looked at the judge calmly. Sergey sat opposite her, staring down. Ivan Petrovich and Darya Nikolaevna did not even attend the hearing—and that was probably wise, because the outcome was obvious from the first minutes.
The court ruled entirely in Anastasia’s favor. The apartment remained her personal property, purchased before the marriage. Sergey received nothing from her assets.
After the hearing, they stepped out into the courthouse corridor—Anastasia, Sergey, and his lawyer. The man muttered something to Sergey under his breath and left. Sergey stayed where he was. Anastasia was buttoning her coat.
“Nastya,” he said.
She fastened the last button and looked up.
“I never wanted it to turn out like this,” he said. Not as an excuse—just as a fact.
“Neither did I,” Anastasia answered.
“They never should have started the lawsuit. I told them it was pointless. They’re desperate and grabbing at whatever they can.”
“But you didn’t stop them.”
“No,” Sergey admitted. “I didn’t.”
Anastasia tied the belt of her coat.
“Sergey, I don’t wish you harm. Honestly. I hope things work out for them.”
“And for you too,” he said.
Then they walked away in opposite directions down the corridor.
The February air outside was sharp and clean. Anastasia walked to her car, unlocked the door, and got in. She took out her phone and texted her friend Oksana: everything went fine. Oksana answered within a minute: on my way with wine. Anastasia texted back: I’ll be home in an hour.
At home, while waiting for Oksana, Anastasia walked through the apartment—from the room to the kitchen, from the kitchen back to the room. She stopped in the middle of the living room. The apartment was the same as it had always been: the same walls, the same parquet floor, the same window overlooking the courtyard where the trees turned green in spring. Nothing in the apartment had changed. What had changed was something else.
Oksana arrived with a bottle of red wine and a bag of cheese and grapes. They sat in the kitchen, and Oksana asked about the hearing—how it had gone. Anastasia told her everything in detail, plainly, without unnecessary emotion.
“They really thought they could win?” Oksana asked.
“Maybe they thought they could scare me,” Anastasia replied. “Or hoped for a settlement—that I would offer something myself just to avoid going to court.”
“But you didn’t.”
“There was no point.”
Oksana poured more wine.
“Tell me, Nastya, do you regret any of it? I mean, overall?”
Anastasia thought about it. Not for show—truly thought, giving herself a full minute.
“The marriage? A little. The first year was good.” She turned the glass slowly in her hand. “But the fact that I didn’t mortgage the apartment and didn’t let them move in? No. Not for a second.”
“And if you had mortgaged it and the business had survived? If it hadn’t failed?”
“You know, I’ve thought about that too.” Anastasia set her glass down. “Even if it had survived, I still would have ended up in a situation where strangers were paying the loan on my apartment while I had no control over anything. That in itself is not normal, regardless of the outcome.”
“That makes sense,” Oksana said.
“That’s what I thought then. And that’s what I think now.”
Outside, night had fallen. They sat talking for a long time—drinking wine, chatting about work, about the vacation Oksana was planning for the summer, about the new restaurant nearby they had been meaning to visit for two months already. An ordinary conversation between two friends on an ordinary evening.
After Oksana left, Anastasia washed the glasses, put the leftover cheese away in the refrigerator, turned off the kitchen light, and went into the room. She lay down and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow she had to go to work. The day after that, a meeting with a client. Friday, the quarterly report deadline. Life moved on with its usual schedule, never pausing for divorce or court hearings.
Anastasia closed her eyes.
The apartment was quiet. Exactly as an apartment should be when one person lives in it and owes nothing to anyone.