Nastya hated Mondays, especially ones like today—when the printer jammed an important report, the coffee machine decided to strike, and her boss nitpicked every comma. “A typical day in the life of typical office plankton,” she thought, inserting the key into her apartment lock.
“Why wasn’t I born a millionaire?” Nastya muttered, kicking off her shoes in the hallway. “Or at least with a talent for programming…”
The old floor lamp in the corner blinked a friendly hello as she flipped the switch. The clock struck seven, its melodic chime echoing through the empty apartment. Nastya tossed her bag on the couch and reached for the refrigerator, where her faithful friend—a container of yesterday’s lasagna—awaited.
Her phone chimed quietly. Nastya glanced at the screen mechanically and froze, fork in hand. The message was from “Grandma.”
“What the…” She blinked several times, but the text didn’t disappear.
“Nastya, you need to know that our family had more secrets than you think. Look for the old jewelry box with the mirror at my place. Sorry I kept silent.”
The lasagna was forgotten on the table. But Grandma had been gone for two years. She shook her head, dispelling memories. The smell of Grandma’s cabbage pies, the clink of knitting needles as she made endless socks, the quiet whispers behind closed doors: “No, the children don’t need to know…” Of course, no one responded to the message. The number had already been disconnected.
Half an hour later, Nastya was ringing the doorbell of her parents’ apartment.
“Nastenka?” her mother peered out, surprised. “Is something wrong?”
“No, just… missed you,” Nastya tried to smile as naturally as possible. “Can I look at Grandma’s albums?”
“At nine in the evening?”
“Why not? I’m feeling nostalgic.”
Her mother shrugged: “They’re in the storeroom, in boxes. Just don’t make a mess.”
Nastya nodded and dove into the dim storeroom. Dust, old magazines, a box of Christmas decorations… Ah, there! The jewelry box was on the bottom shelf, wrapped in an old scarf.
“What are you rummaging through?” her mother’s voice made her start.
“Just looking…”
“Nastya,” her mother stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “You never just visit. What’s going on?”
“Nothing! Really! Just… remembered Grandma.”
“Don’t dig up the past,” her mother’s voice hardened. “It’s never brought happiness to anyone.”
“What are you talking about?” Nastya clutched the jewelry box to her chest. “What about ‘history teaches us’ and all that?”
“Nastya…”
“Can I take it? Just to look at the photos.”
Her mother paused, then waved her hand: “Take it. Just bring it back later.”
At home, Nastya spilled the contents of the jewelry box onto the couch. Old photographs, postcards, some notes… One photo caught her attention: Grandma, very young, smiling at the camera, and behind her—a woman, strikingly similar to Grandma, but… different. Nastya turned over the photo. On the back, faded ink read: “Summer 1965.”
The phone chimed again. Nastya jumped, but it was just a weather notification. She looked again at Grandma’s message. Something told her—this was just the beginning. Perhaps the message didn’t get through a couple of years ago and somehow made it now. There could be no other explanation; Grandma wrote it before she passed away.
“Well then, Grandma,” she muttered, examining the mysterious woman in the photo. “You always said I was too curious. Seems like it’s time to see how right you were.”
For the next three days, Nastya lived as if in a fog. At work, she mechanically nodded when her boss went on about the importance of the new presentation, smiled absently at colleagues’ jokes, and nearly sent a client an email with the subject “Who is this woman in the photo?”
“Earth to Nastya!” Lena, her office neighbor, waved a hand in front of her face. “Are you okay? You’ve poured coffee into a full cup for the second time.”
Nastya blinked and looked at the overflowing cup. The coffee slowly spread across the table, nearing the keyboard.
“Damn!” she grabbed some napkins. “Sorry, I… was lost in thought.”
“About what? Or whom?” Lena winked. “Has the right one finally appeared?”
“No such luck,” Nastya sighed. “It’s something else… Lena, can I show you something?”
She pulled out her phone and the old photograph.
“Look. This is my grandma, and this… I don’t know who. And this,” she showed the message.
Lena whistled:
“Hold on. A message from your grandma, who…”
“Yes, who passed away two years ago. The message was sent the day before she died but only arrived now.”
“That’s creepy,” Lena shivered. “So, did you find anything in that jewelry box?”
“Besides the photo—nothing special. Some old letters, postcards…” Nastya fell silent. “Wait. Letters. I haven’t really read them!”
In the evening, she spread all the finds on the floor, creating a kind of detective scheme from TV series. Photographs, envelopes, postcards—all required thorough examination.
The first letters were ordinary—holiday greetings, stories about the weather and the harvest. But then… Nastya froze, reading the yellowed lines:
“Dear Vera! I can no longer hide, but I hope you will never tell the children the truth. Let everything stay as it is. We have already lost too much…”
The letter was addressed to her mother. Date—1989.
“Mom,” Nastya dialed the number without thinking about the time. “We need to talk.”
“Nastya? It’s almost midnight!”
“Who is Anna?”
Silence fell on the line.
“Where did you…” her mother’s voice trembled. “What did you find?”
“A photograph. And letters. Mom, who is this woman next to Grandma?”
“I asked you not to dig into the past!”
“And I asked for honesty! Just once in your life, can you just tell the truth?”
Silence again. Then a soft sigh.
“Come over. Now. Since you started digging—you’ll find out everything.”
The city at night was unusually empty. Nastya drove her car through the sleeping streets, fragments of memories spinning in her head. Grandma’s unfinished phrases, strange looks between adults when she, as a little girl, asked “inconvenient” questions…
Her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen, a half-empty bottle and two glasses set out in front of her.
“Sit down,” she motioned to a chair. “I thought I’d never have to tell this.”
“What do you need to tell?”
“About Anna. About why we all kept silent. About how one mistake can ruin not just one life.”
She poured into both glasses.
“Anna was your grandmother’s older sister. They were very close. So close that when Anna…,” her mother paused, “when she did something unforgivable, your grandmother couldn’t betray her.”
“What did she do?”
“In the ’60s, she worked at a savings bank. And one day… a large sum of money went missing. A very large sum. And so did Anna.”
Nastya felt a chill run down her spine.
“Did Grandma know where she was?”
“Yes. Anna was hiding with distant relatives in Siberia. She sent letters, sometimes even photos. And then…” her mother downed her drink, “then the arrests started. Someone tipped off that the money was part of a big criminal scheme. They began checking everyone who could be involved. And Grandma…”
“Lied to the investigators?”
“Not just lied. She took the blame upon herself.”
Nastya felt the ground slip from beneath her feet.
“What?!”
“They didn’t imprison her—someone influential stepped in, and they managed to pull some strings in the end. But she was fired, and the stain on her reputation remained forever. And Anna… Anna never came back. She couldn’t confess, even when she learned that her sister had suffered because of her.”
Her mother pulled an old tin box from a cabinet.
“Here, take this. Everything’s here—letters, documents, even old newspaper clippings. I’ve kept it all in case the truth ever surfaced.”
“Why did you keep silent all these years?”
“Because your grandmother asked me to. She said, ‘Let the children live in peace. They don’t need to know their grandmother was a thief’s sister.'”
Nastya opened the box. On top was a small key labeled “home.”
“And this…”
“It’s for the cottage. The old one. We sold it after Grandma died, but the new owners haven’t moved in yet. If you want to learn more—go there. There’s an old chest left in the basement.”
Nastya clenched the key in her hand. It was as cold as ice.
“You know,” her mother poured more, “sometimes I think she was right. Maybe some secrets really should die with those who kept them?”
“Or maybe the truth is the only thing that can set us free?”
Her mother smiled sadly:
“You’re so much like her. Just as stubborn.”
The next morning, Nastya took a day off. The early winter sun barely lit the road as she drove out of the city. The old cottage community greeted her with the creak of frozen gates and silence broken only by the cawing of crows.
Grandma’s house stood at the edge of the street—small, leaning, with boarded-up windows. Nastya struggled to open the creaky door. Inside, it smelled of damp and old wood.
The stairs to the basement creaked dangerously under her feet. A flashlight beam caught the outline of a large chest. The lock was old, but the key fit perfectly.
Inside were albums, some papers, and… a diary. A thick notebook bound in leather. Nastya opened the first page:
“Dear Anna! I write these lines knowing you will never read them. But maybe someday, someone will read them who understands…”
Nastya sat down right on the dusty floor and began to read. The story that unfolded before her was more than just a tale of theft. It was a story of love and betrayal, loyalty and cowardice, a family saga where each carried their own burden of guilt.
Anna had fallen in love with a married man. He promised to leave his wife but instead lost a huge sum in a card game. And Anna, trying to save him, committed a crime. When she realized he had used her, it was too late.
“I couldn’t betray her,” Grandma wrote. “Not because she was a criminal. But because she was my sister. My only sister, who sacrificed everything for love. Foolish, blind, but real…”
The last lines were written quite recently, with a trembling hand:
“I know I won’t be around much longer. And I know that the truth will come out eventually. Nastya, if you’re reading this… forgive me. Forgive the silence, the lies, for all these years of pretense. But know this: sometimes silence is also an act of love. We wanted to protect you from pain, from shame, from judgment. Maybe we were wrong. Now it’s up to you to decide what to do with this truth.”
Nastya closed the diary. It was cold in the basement, but she didn’t feel it. Her grandmother’s face was before her eyes—the way she remembered it: kind, wise, with a concealed sadness in her eyes.
Now she understood the reason for that sadness.
Climbing out of the basement, she looked around one more time. The old walls held so many secrets… How many conversations had they heard? How many tears had they seen?
Her phone in her pocket vibrated. A message from her mother:
“How are you? Did you find anything?”
Nastya looked at the diary in her hands and slowly typed a reply:
“Yes. It seems now I understand much more than I wanted to…”
Returning home, Nastya felt like a different person. As if in one night, she had lived an entire life—a life full of secrets and pain, which had now become part of her own story.
She didn’t go to work. She called in sick, and for the first time in five years at the company, no one doubted her words—her voice really did sound broken.
“Maybe bring you some chicken soup?” Lena asked caringly. “You sound off…”
“No, thank you,” Nastya almost smiled. “I just need to… think.”
She sat in a chair, wrapped in her grandmother’s old blanket, and reread the diary. Over and over. Each page revealed something new—details, hints, echoes of long-past days.
“Today I saw someone who looked like Anna,” her grandmother had written in one entry. “My heart nearly leaped out of my chest. But it wasn’t her. Anna never dyed her hair red. And didn’t wear red lipstick. That woman… you know, sister, sometimes I think—maybe you’ve been living nearby all along, and I just don’t recognize you?”
Nastya set aside the diary and approached the window. Wet snow was falling outside, turning the city into a blurred watercolor.
“You never told me about Anna,” she whispered, as if her grandmother could hear her. “Why? Were you afraid I’d judge? Or that I’d slip up?”
The phone rang so unexpectedly that she jumped. It was her mother.
“I’ve been thinking all day,” her mother’s voice sounded unusually soft. “Maybe come over? We need to talk.”
“About what?” Nastya felt a tightness inside. “You’ve already told me everything.”
“Not everything. There’s something else.”
An hour later, they sat in the kitchen. Only now, instead of glasses, there was a teapot and an old cookie box on the table.
“I didn’t show you these photos,” her mother pulled out a stack of pictures. “Look.”
Anna at a playground with a little girl. Anna by the sea. Anna in some garden…
“Wait,” Nastya peered at the dates on the back. “These are from the nineties? But you said she disappeared in the sixties!”
“She sent photos. Every year—a new one. No return address, just in an envelope. Grandma never showed them to anyone, only to me.”
“And you kept quiet?”
“What was I supposed to do?” her mother turned to the window. “Go to the police? Say—look, here’s my aunt who stole money thirty years ago, she’s alive and, apparently, happy?”
Nastya laid out the photos in chronological order. A life story in pictures—from a young woman to an elderly lady with kind eyes.
“Who’s that girl with her?”
“Possibly her daughter. Or granddaughter. We’ll never truly know.”
“And the last photo? When did it come?”
Her mother paused.
“A week before Grandma died. On the back, it read: ‘Goodbye, sister. Thank you for everything.'”
Nastya felt a lump rise to her throat.
“Did she know? Knew that Grandma was dying?”
“Possibly. Or just sensed it. They were always strangely connected—like twins, though they were born three years apart.”
Nastya got up and paced the kitchen. Stopped by the window, looking at the swings in the yard—the same ones she once played on as a little girl.
“You know what I’m thinking?” she turned to her mother. “We all lie. Constantly. Say everything’s fine when it’s not. Pretend we don’t notice someone else’s pain. Hide the truth, thinking we’re protecting others…”
“Nastya…”
“No, listen. I’m just like that too. How many times have I told you everything’s fine? That I like my job? That I’m happy?”
“Are you not happy?”
Nastya gave a bitter smile:
“I don’t even know what it means to be happy. I just exist. Like a robot: get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep. Day after day.”
She approached the table and picked up the last photo of Anna.
“But she was happy. Despite everything. See how she’s smiling? She made a choice—horrible, wrong, but her own. And lived her life the way she wanted.”
“And broke your grandmother’s life.”
“No,” Nastya shook her head. “Grandma made her choice too. She could have turned in her sister, but she chose to take the blame. That was her choice too.”
Her mother poured more tea. Her hands were slightly trembling.
“And what now? What will you do with this truth?”
Nastya took out her phone and opened that very message from her grandmother.
“You know, I think she sent it for a reason. She wanted me to know. Not just about Anna—about everything. About how sometimes you need to make a choice. How sometimes the right path isn’t the easiest. How love can be different…”
She fell silent, looking at the phone screen. Then resolutely pressed ‘delete.’
“What are you doing?” her mother was surprised.
“Letting go of the past,” Nastya smiled. “It’s time to start living my own life, not someone else’s secrets.”
In the evening, returning home, she sat down at her laptop and opened the ‘Drafts’ folder. There was a letter she had written to herself a year ago but never sent:
“Dear Me! If you’re reading this, it means a year has passed. I hope you still remember who you are. Not who others want to see. Not who you pretend to be. But the real you—with all the fears, dreams, and crazy ideas. Live the way you want, not as circumstances dictate. And remember: sometimes you need to lose something to find yourself.”
Nastya smiled and pressed ‘send.’ Let this be her own little secret—a letter to the future, a reminder of the past.
Outside, the snow had stopped, and a gap between the clouds revealed the moon. The old floor lamp in the corner cast warm shadows on the walls, and the clock methodically counted time—not the past, but the future. Her future.
Nastya approached the window and whispered:
“Thank you, Grandma. For the lesson. For the truth. For everything.”
Somewhere in the city, bells chimed. A new day was beginning.
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