Vera stood by the kitchen table, arranging slices of cold cuts onto plates. Maxim had promised to be home by seven, but the clock was already showing a quarter to nine. She was not angry anymore. She was used to it. Three years of marriage had trained her in patience the way a trainer teaches an animal to accept its cage.
The door clicked open. Maxim came in, tossed his jacket onto the hook, and walked straight past the kitchen into the living room. Vera waited a minute, then picked up a plate and followed him.
“I made dinner. Your favorite—baked cod with lemon.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Maxim was lying on the sofa, buried in his phone. Vera placed the plate on the coffee table and sat down beside him. She gently stroked his shoulder, carefully, as if touching something fragile and no longer hers.
“Max, I did the calculations. If we don’t slow down before March, we’ll have enough for the down payment. Three rooms, Max. A real home.”
“Yeah. Good.”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“I’m listening. Three rooms. March. Got it.”
Vera sighed and stood up. She cleared the table, washed the dishes, laid out two sets of clothes for the next day—hers and his—and sat down at her laptop. The reports were waiting. They were always waiting.
When she finally looked up from the screen, it was two in the morning. Maxim had been asleep for a long time. The television was mumbling some talk show, blue reflections flickering across his face. Vera turned it off, covered her husband with a blanket, and went to the bedroom.
In the morning, she woke up at five-thirty, as usual. Coffee, sandwich, bag, keys. At the doorway, she turned around. Maxim was still lying on the same sofa, in the same position. The blanket had slipped onto the floor.
“Have a good day,” she said into the emptiness.
No one answered.
At work, Vera slipped into the numbers as she always did. Two jobs, two salaries, sixteen hours a day. She had long stopped counting weekends. They had become something abstract, like vacations or hobbies. The only thing keeping her afloat was the number in their savings account, growing month after month.
That evening, her mother called.
“Verochka, did you eat lunch today?”
“Of course, Mom.”
“You’re lying. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Well, I had a snack. A sandwich.”
“Vera. A sandwich is not lunch. You are running yourself into the ground.”
“Mom, just six more months. Six months, and we’ll submit the paperwork. Then I can finally breathe.”
Tatiana Borisovna was silent for a moment. Then she asked quietly, without pressure, the way only she knew how.
“And Maxim? Is he working two jobs too?”
Vera closed her eyes.
“He’s… tired.”
“He got tired a year ago, Vera.”
“Mom, don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m asking. Where do his evenings go?”
“He’s recovering. He needs time.”
“Time. You’ve given him a year. How much more?”
“Mom. Please.”
Tatiana Borisovna sighed and changed the subject. They talked about the weather, about seedlings, about the neighbor’s cat climbing onto the balcony again. Vera hung up and smiled. Her mother knew when to stop. Unlike some people.
Saturday came. Vera allowed herself to get up at seven—real luxury. She was cooking porridge when the doorbell rang. Maxim was still asleep, so she opened the door herself.
Nina Vladimirovna stood on the doorstep. Behind her was Liza, Zhanna’s daughter, an eight-year-old girl with braids and an endlessly hungry look in her eyes. Nina Vladimirovna stepped into the apartment, looking Vera up and down.
“Good morning, Nina Vladimirovna. Come in.”
“We’re here to see Maxim. Lizonka misses her uncle.”
“He’s still sleeping. Would you like some tea while you wait?”
“What kind of tea do you have?”
“Black, green, sea buckthorn.”
Nina Vladimirovna grimaced as if she had been offered swamp water.
“No, thank you. We’ll wait for Maxim. Liza, sit down. And don’t touch anything.”
Vera stood at the stove and felt her mood slowly sink to the floor. Her mother-in-law sat at the table, took out her phone, and began scrolling through something. Liza quietly drew in her notebook. The silence was full of discomfort, like a room full of drafts.
Twenty minutes later, Maxim appeared, sleepy, wearing a wrinkled T-shirt.
“Oh, Mom! Lizka! Hi!”
“Maximushka, you’ve lost weight.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“No, you’re not. Someone should be looking after you.”
Her mother-in-law threw a quick glance at Vera—small and sharp, like a pin.
“I do look after him,” Vera answered evenly.
“Sure you do.”
Maxim picked Liza up and spun her around. The girl laughed. Vera watched them and thought that if he put the same energy into their shared goal, the apartment would already be real.
Nina Vladimirovna led Maxim into the other room. Vera stayed in the kitchen with Liza. Muffled voices came through the wall. She was not eavesdropping, but certain phrases pushed through on their own.
“…Zhanna is struggling, you know that…”
“…how much? Mom, I don’t have that kind of money…”
“…you’re her brother, Maxim.”
Vera squeezed the spoon in her hand. Then she loosened her grip. Then she carefully placed it on the table. The porridge was getting cold, and there was no metaphor in that—just porridge, just morning, just another visit.
When Nina Vladimirovna came out, she was smiling warmly. Maxim followed behind her, and his face looked guilty. Vera knew that look. She had seen it after every visit.
“Mom, I’ll walk you out.”
“Of course, son.”
Nina Vladimirovna passed Vera and tossed out casually:
“Your porridge burned.”
Vera looked at the stove. The porridge was perfect. Nina Vladimirovna knew that. That was the whole trick.
When Maxim returned, Vera was sitting at the table. Liza had left with her grandmother. The apartment felt empty, and in that emptiness it was easier to speak.
“How much did you give her?”
“Ver…”
“How much?”
“Fifteen thousand. Zhanna needed it for Liza.”
“Zhanna gets alimony. Zhanna gets money from renting out the apartment her ex-husband gave her. Zhanna lives better than we do. Why does she need our money?”
“She’s my sister, Ver.”
“And I’m your wife. We have a goal. We have a plan. Every ruble matters.”
“It’s only fifteen thousand.”
“This month, fifteen. Last month, twenty. The month before that, ten. I count, Maxim. That’s my job—to count.”
Maxim looked away.
“I can’t say no to my mother.”
“You can’t say no to your mother. But you can easily say no to me every evening when you lie on the sofa while I work until two in the morning.”
“That’s different.”
“No. It’s the same thing. It’s called a choice. And it’s disgusting.”
Maxim said nothing. He picked up the remote and turned on the television. Vera looked at the screen, then at her husband, then at her hands—dry and red from constant washing. Then she quietly left the room.
A month passed. Vera came home from work later than usual. She had stayed behind to check some documents. On the bus, she decided to look at the balance in their savings account. She opened the app. The number hit her straight in the eyes.
Twelve thousand four hundred rubles.
There should have been four hundred eighty thousand.
Vera reread it three times. Closed the app. Opened it again. Twelve thousand four hundred. She got off at her stop and went home quickly, almost running. Something dark and hot was rising inside her, and she did not try to stop it.
Maxim was sitting on the sofa. The television was on. Everything was as usual. Vera stood in front of him and held out her phone, screen facing him.
“Explain.”
Maxim looked at the screen. Then at her. Then back at the screen.
“Ver, I wanted to tell you…”
“Where is the money, Maxim?”
“I gave it to Mom. Zhanna urgently needed…”
“Four hundred sixty-eight thousand. Urgently. For Zhanna.”
“Well, it all added up…”
“Added up? I saved that money! With my own hands! With my nights! Eighty percent of that money was mine! And you took it and gave it to your mother without even asking me!”
“Ver, please understand, Zhanna really needed it. Liza’s birthday is coming up, and Zhanna wanted…”
Vera laughed. Short, sharp, angry, without the slightest trace of amusement.
“A birthday. Four hundred sixty-eight thousand for an eight-year-old girl’s birthday. Do you even hear yourself?”
“Well, not only for the birthday. There was also renovation, and Zhanna wanted to change her car…”
“Change her car. Should I cry or laugh?”
“Vera, don’t yell.”
“I am not yelling. I am speaking in a normal voice. You’re confusing a normal voice with the one you’re used to hearing—quiet, obedient, convenient. Well, Maxim, convenient Vera is over. Return the money.”
“From where? Zhanna has it already.”
“I don’t care from where. Let Zhanna return it. Let your mother return it. Let Santa Claus bring it for all I care. The full amount has to be back in that account by the end of the week.”
“Or what?”
“Or I file for divorce. And I go to court for theft.”
Maxim stood up from the sofa. He looked at his wife as if he were seeing her for the first time—and this new Vera frightened him.
“You’re not serious.”
“I am absolutely serious.”
“Over money?”
“Over respect. Over the fact that you stole my labor and handed it to people who look at me like I’m a servant.”
“No one looks at you that way.”
“Your mother walks into my home and tells me my porridge is burned. Your sister hasn’t once said hello to me on the phone in three years. And you lie on the sofa and allow it. That is exactly how they look at me.”
Maxim sat back down. He stared at the floor, and Vera could see it was not shame, not remorse. Irritation. He was uncomfortable because his wife was not backing down. He was used to a different script: Vera would grumble, cry a little, and keep working. But today, the script had changed.
“End of the week, Maxim. I am not joking.”
She went into the bedroom and closed the door.
Three days later, the full amount appeared in the account. Vera checked it—four hundred seventy thousand. She called Maxim.
“I see the money. Where did it come from?”
A pause.
“I took out a loan.”
Vera sat down on a chair. Slowly, carefully, like someone whose legs had suddenly weakened.
“What loan?”
“A personal loan. A year and a half. Twenty percent interest.”
“You took out a loan at twenty percent instead of making your sister return the money.”
“She can’t return it. She already spent it.”
“In three days. Four hundred sixty-eight thousand. In three days.”
“Vera, I solved the problem. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I wanted you to return my money. Instead, you took out a loan, and I’ll be the one paying the interest. Because you don’t work two jobs. Because you quit your side job a year ago. Because you do nothing, Maxim. You just exist next to me and take.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Unfair is when a wife breaks her back working two jobs, while her husband hands her money out to his relatives. That is unfair.”
She hung up.
Two weeks later, the first loan statement arrived. The monthly payment was thirty-nine thousand. Vera placed the printout on the table in front of Maxim.
“This will be your payment. From your salary.”
“Ver, I make fifty-two. If I pay thirty-nine, I’ll have thirteen thousand left.”
“Then find a second job. Like I did. Like I’ve been doing for two years without weekends or holidays.”
“I can’t do what you do.”
“Can’t, or don’t want to?”
Maxim was silent. Vera looked at her husband and tried to see the man she had married three years ago. The one who had promised that they would build everything together. The one who had drawn the layout of their future apartment on a napkin in a café. She could not find him.
“Ver, maybe you could help for the first couple of months? Then I’ll adjust.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your ‘then’ never comes. ‘Then’ is the word you use to cover every hole. Then I’ll find extra work. Then I’ll wash the dishes. Then I’ll talk to my mother. Then I’ll stop giving our money away.”
“Vera…”
“No, Maxim. I will not pay for your cowardice.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Vera opened the door. Nina Vladimirovna and Zhanna were standing there. Zhanna looked tanned and rested—apparently, four hundred sixty-eight thousand had done her good.
“We need to talk,” her mother-in-law said, stepping inside.
Zhanna followed her. They sat at the table as if they owned the place. Vera remained standing. Maxim came out of the room and stood in the doorway.
“Maxim told me you caused a scandal over money,” Nina Vladimirovna began.
“Not a scandal. I demanded the return of what was taken from me without permission.”
“‘Taken from me.’ Such pretty words. The money was in a joint account. That means it was shared.”
“I earned eighty percent of that money.”
“When you got married, did you count who earned how much? Or is family a shared matter?”
Vera turned to Zhanna.
“Zhanna, you spent almost half a million rubles in three days. On what?”
Zhanna leaned back in her chair and shrugged.
“What difference does it make? My brother gave it to me. Voluntarily. It’s our family business.”
“Family business. Interesting. You receive alimony, you get rent money from your ex-husband’s apartment. You live comfortably. Why did you need someone else’s money?”
“You’re not my mother. You don’t get to ask me.”
Nina Vladimirovna raised one hand like a conductor.
“Vera, you’re taking too much upon yourself. Maxim is my son. He decides for himself whom he helps.”
“He makes those decisions with my money. That is the difference.”
“Your money, his money—you are one family unit. Stop dividing everything.”
“You were the ones who started dividing things when you began pulling everything out of that family unit.”
Zhanna stood up and came right up to Vera. She was taller, broader in the shoulders, and used to pushing people down.
“Listen, you. My brother was a normal person before he married you. You turned him into a slave. Work, work, save, save. When is he supposed to live? When is he supposed to breathe?”
“He’s been breathing on my sofa in front of the television for two years. Very deeply.”
Zhanna leaned toward her.
“Maybe you should be easier to live with. Then maybe your husband wouldn’t be running from you.”
Vera looked her straight in the eyes. Three years. Three years of silence, patience, swallowed insults, and polite smiles. Three years—and now this woman, tanned on her money, was standing in her apartment, teaching her how to live.
Vera swung her arm and slapped Zhanna across the face. The sound was sharp and dry, like the click of a switch. Zhanna stumbled back, clutching her cheek, her eyes wide. Nina Vladimirovna gasped. Maxim froze in the doorway.
“Get out of my home,” Vera said. Her voice was steady, quiet, without hysteria. “Both of you. Now.”
“You… you hit me!” Zhanna stared at her in such astonishment, as if a cat had suddenly spoken.
“Yes. And I’ll hit you again if you’re still standing in the same place in thirty seconds.”
Her mother-in-law jumped to her feet.
“Maxim! Do you see what your wife is doing?”
Maxim stood silently. He looked from his mother to his wife, and in those glances was everything—his whole life, all his choices, all his cowardice.
“Maxim, say something to her!”
“Mom… maybe it really is better if you leave…”
“What?! You’re defending her?! She hit your sister!”
Vera walked to the door and opened it.
“The exit is here. You know the way.”
Nina Vladimirovna grabbed her bag and headed toward the door. On the threshold, she turned around.
“You will regret this, Vera. You have no idea how much you’ll regret it.”
“Maybe. But not today.”
Zhanna left silently, pressing her palm to her cheek. The door closed. Vera turned to Maxim.
“Divorce.”
“Vera, wait…”
“No. I am done waiting. For three years, I waited for you to become a husband. You didn’t. You remained a son and a brother. And I needed a husband, an equal, someone beside me. You are not beside me. You never were.”
“You can’t just…”
“I can. And I am. I’m filing the papers this week. The loan you took out is yours. You signed it in your name. The apartment is rented; there is nothing to divide. I’ll pick up my things tomorrow while you’re at work.”
“Where will you go?”
“To my mother’s. And then—to my own place. I should have gone back to myself a long time ago.”
Maxim sat down on the sofa. His face showed nothing—not pain, not anger, not relief. Emptiness. Vera thought that this must be what a person looks like when he has no arguments left, because there were never any arguments to begin with.
“You’ll change your mind,” he said quietly.
“No, Maxim. I won’t.”
He stood up. Silently, he packed a bag—phone, charger, jacket. At the door, he turned around and looked at her for a long moment, heavily, as if trying to remember her. Or frighten her. Vera stood by the wall and said nothing. Not one word after him. Not one step toward him.
The door slammed.
Vera was left alone. She stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening to the silence. Then she picked up her phone and called her mother.
“Mom, I’m leaving Maxim.”
“When are you coming?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll pack my things and come.”
“All right. Your room is ready. Fresh sheets. And, Verochka?”
“Yes?”
“Well done. It was long overdue.”
Vera smiled for the first time in many months.
She placed the phone on the table, took apples out of the fridge, and began making shangi according to her grandmother’s recipe. Her hands moved confidently, naturally—butter, flour, sugar, cinnamon. While the dough was rising in the oven, she brewed sea buckthorn tea. She poured it into a large mug—the very one Nina Vladimirovna had once called “peasant-looking.”
The shangi came out golden and fluffy. Vera sat on the sofa—Maxim’s sofa—and took a bite. The apples were sweet and tart, the pastry crumbling on her tongue. Outside the window, the autumn sun was setting, its rays stretching across the floor in long warm stripes.
The phone rang. Unknown number. Vera thought for a moment, then answered.
“Vera? Hello. This is Oleg. Zhanna’s ex-husband.”
“Hello. What can I do for you?”
“Maxim called me. Said you’re getting divorced. I… want to tell you something. Consider it a farewell gift.”
“I’m listening.”
“Zhanna did not spend a single ruble of the money Nina Vladimirovna supposedly gave her.”
Vera froze with the mug near her lips.
“What do you mean, she didn’t spend it?”
“Nina Vladimirovna never gave her the money.”
“Wait. Maxim said he gave it to his mother for Zhanna.”
“That’s right. He gave it to his mother. But his mother kept all of it. I know for certain because Zhanna asked me last month for twenty thousand to buy Liza winter clothes. She wouldn’t have asked if she had half a million.”
Vera slowly put the mug down.
“Wait. Nina Vladimirovna took the money from Maxim, said she would give it to Zhanna, but kept it for herself?”
“Exactly. I’m an ex-husband, but Zhanna and I communicate normally for our daughter’s sake. She told me her mother has been saving for a long time. She wants an apartment in Anapa. A small one by the sea. And she isn’t saving from her pension. She’s saving from what she pulls out of Maxim.”
“Does Zhanna know her mother has been asking for money in her name?”
“She does now. I told her yesterday. She’s furious. Her mother used her name to pressure Maxim. ‘Zhanna needs help, Lizochka needs help, they’ll be lost without support.’ But Zhanna had no idea her mother was making those requests. She truly thought Maxim was occasionally giving her fifteen or twenty thousand out of brotherly kindness. But this—half a million.”
Vera was silent. Then she asked quietly:
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because Maxim once helped me. A long time ago, before the divorce. He’s a decent guy, just weak. But his mother is a manipulator. I wanted you to know the truth. What you do next is your business.”
“Thank you, Oleg.”
“You’re welcome. Good luck to you, Vera.”
She ended the call and sat motionless for a long time. Then she picked up her phone and opened her chat with Maxim. She wrote one message:
“Call Zhanna. Ask her whether she received the money from your mother. All the money. Not fifteen thousand, but the entire amount. Ask directly.”
The reply came two hours later. Three words:
“She didn’t receive it.”
Then another message:
“Mom isn’t answering.”
Vera took another bite of shangi. The sea buckthorn tea was warm, tart, pleasantly sour. She finished the mug and leaned back against the pillow.
The phone rang again. Maxim. She declined the call.
A minute later, a message arrived:
“Vera, I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know. Mom said Zhanna needed money. I believed her. I’m an idiot. Vera, please, let’s talk.”
She read it. Then she put her phone on silent. Through the wall, the neighbors turned on music—something slow and jazzy, with a saxophone. Vera closed her eyes.
The next morning, Zhanna called her. Her voice was different—no challenge, no arrogance. Quiet and shaken.
“Vera, it’s Zhanna. Don’t hang up.”
“I’m listening.”
“I talked to Mom. Or tried to. At first, she denied everything. Then she said it was ‘for a rainy day.’ Then she said we, her children, owed her for our whole lives.”
“And where is the money?”
“In her account. All of it. She’s been saving for four years. Not only from Maxim—she pulled money from Dad before the divorce too, and from Aunt Sveta. I calculated it. There’s more than a million there.”
“The apartment in Anapa?”
“You know? Yes. She already paid the deposit. Vera, I… I didn’t know. I truly didn’t know she was using my name. I’m ashamed.”
Vera was silent for a moment.
“Zhanna, and the slap?”
“I deserved it. I behaved horribly. Not because Mom set me against you—I did it myself. I was angry that Maxim had a wife who was fighting for him, while I had an ex-husband and an empty apartment. Stupid, but honest.”
“All right. I can’t take the slap back, but I accept your apology.”
“Thank you. And one more thing, Vera. Maxim is in a terrible state. He’s sitting in Mom’s kitchen and can’t get up. She locked herself in the bedroom and won’t come out. When he asked about the money, she said, ‘It’s my money. I earned it by raising you.’ It’s like he woke up for the first time in years.”
“That is his awakening, Zhanna. Not mine.”
“I understand. But maybe…”
“No. I’ve made my decision. I sincerely wish Maxim well. But we will not be together.”
“I understand.”
Vera ended the call. Then she opened her notebook and wrote down the number: four hundred seventy thousand. Money in the account. Her money, returned through a loan that now belonged to Maxim. She crossed out the number and wrote underneath:
“New life. Beginning.”
That evening, Tatiana Borisovna met her daughter at the door. She hugged her tightly, without words. Vera entered her old room—clean sheets, a soft pillow. On the nightstand stood a photo: Vera at five years old, with braids and ice cream, laughing.
“Mom, I baked shangi. Want some?”
“Grandma’s recipe?”
“Grandma’s.”
“Then put the kettle on. Sea buckthorn?”
“What else?”
They sat in the kitchen—mother and daughter, two cups, one pie. The autumn sun had already set, but the kitchen was warm and bright. Vera ate the shangi and thought that three years was a long time. And at the same time, it was nothing. An entire life was still ahead.
And somewhere on the other side of the city, Nina Vladimirovna sat in her locked bedroom, rereading messages from her son and daughter. Both were the same: short, final.
“We know. Return the money.”
The deposit for the apartment in Anapa would burn out in three days according to the contract terms. It could not be returned. Her own children were no longer answering her calls. Nina Vladimirovna dialed Maxim’s number again. Ring. Ring. Ring. Silence.
Vera finished her tea, washed her mug, and smiled.
Everything had happened for the best.