Dmitry stood in the middle of the room with his feet planted wider apart than usual, as though he were about to deliver a speech to a packed auditorium.
Anna sat on the sofa with an open book resting on her lap. Without looking up, she turned a page.
“I want a divorce,” Dmitry said. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. So now I’m saying it.”
Anna lifted her eyes.
She looked at him calmly, without surprise or hurt, and gave a single nod.
“All right.”
Dmitry blinked.
He had expected anything—tears, shouting, a long speech about all the years she had wasted on him.
But not that quiet, effortless “all right.”
 
“That’s it?” he asked challengingly.
“What exactly do you want to hear?” Anna carefully slipped a bookmark between the pages. “Do you want me to cling to you? Beg you? Crawl around on the floor?”
“I just thought you’d say something that actually matters.”
“Something that matters,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Fine. What about the apartment?”
Her voice trembled ever so slightly.
She leaned forward, and Dmitry saw exactly what he wanted to see in that movement: fear, dependence, weakness.
He straightened even more.
“Stop whining. You’re not getting the apartment anyway,” he said threateningly. “Don’t even think about it. It’s mine. It always has been, and it always will be.”
Anna fell silent.
The pause lasted three seconds. Maybe four.
Then she shrugged, opened her book again, and continued reading.
Dmitry remained standing there, waiting for a reaction.
None came.
Anna kept turning the pages, producing that soft rustling sound that suddenly made his stomach twist.
 
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you,” she replied without looking up. “The apartment is yours. If you want a divorce, then we’ll divorce.”
“And you’re fine with that?”
“Dmitry, you just announced that you want to divorce me. I agreed. What else do you need?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Something was wrong.
Something was definitely wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
Anna sat there composed and collected, with the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.
“Fine,” he muttered, and left the room.
Fifteen minutes later, he came back.
Anna had not moved.
The book was open to a different page, which meant she had actually been reading instead of merely pretending.
“I need to go out,” he said.
 
“Of course,” she replied. “I’ll lock the door.”
He grabbed his car keys and left.
His mother opened the door almost immediately, as if she had been standing right behind it.
Dmitry went inside, sat down in the kitchen, and remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he exhaled.
“I need to check something.”
“What happened?” Tamara Sergeyevna asked, placing a cup in front of him.
“I told Anna I wanted a divorce. She agreed. Just like that. She didn’t even cry.”
“And what exactly is bothering you?”
“She asked about the apartment. I told her she wasn’t getting it. She nodded and went right back to reading her book. She was sitting there smiling like I’d just told her the weather forecast.”
Tamara Sergeyevna frowned, then waved her hand dismissively.
“The apartment is registered in your name. It was yours before, and it’s yours now. What can she possibly do?”
“I don’t know. But that calm expression of hers is driving me crazy.”
“Dmitry, you’re a man. You made your decision. The apartment is yours. End of story.”
He nodded.
Then he pulled out his phone and checked the property registry.
Owner: Dmitry.
No encumbrances.
No liens.
No seizures.
 
Everything was clean.
“You see?” his mother said, leaning over his shoulder. “Stop working yourself up. Let her go wherever she wants.”
“You sold your two-bedroom apartment back then, remember?” Dmitry suddenly asked. “The money went into Artyom and Kira’s construction project.”
“Of course I remember. They were building the house. They promised me a room there. Everything’s fine.”
“Fine,” Dmitry repeated. “All right. I’m going home.”
He returned an hour later.
Anna was still sitting in the same place with the same book.
This time she was drinking tea, turning the pages with an even more peaceful expression.
Her serenity infuriated him.
“What are you grinning at like an idiot?” he spat.
Anna raised her eyes.
She looked at him the way an adult might look at a child throwing a tantrum over a broken toy.
Slowly, she put the book aside.
“I’m smiling because I’m in a good mood. As far as I know, that isn’t illegal yet.”
“You should at least be upset. We’re getting divorced.”
“I know. You told me. I heard you.”
“So you really don’t care?”
“Dmitry, you want to leave—leave. You want the apartment to stay yours—keep it. I’m not going to convince you of anything.”
He sat down across from her and clenched his jaw.
 
“The apartment is mine,” he repeated, as though it were a spell.
“You’ve already mentioned that.” Anna picked up her book again. “But if I were you, I’d think very carefully. While I’m still in a good mood.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No. It’s advice. Free of charge.”
Dmitry stood and started pacing around the room.
Then he stopped and turned toward her.
“What could you possibly threaten me with? You have nothing.”
“I’m not threatening you,” Anna replied. “I’m asking you to think. Those are two different things.”
He barely slept that night.
He lay awake thinking.
He checked the property registry again.
Nothing had changed.
Everything was clean.
The apartment belonged to him and only him.
All the documents were in order.
But Anna’s smile would not leave his mind.
There was something behind it.
He could feel it.
He just couldn’t figure out what.
Two weeks passed.
Anna packed her belongings into two suitcases, one travel bag, and six boxes.
Not a single argument.
Not a single accusation.
She folded her dresses and packed her books with the same calm precision she brought to everything else.
Dmitry watched her from the doorway.
“And where are you going?”
 
“To people close to me. I have somewhere to stay.”
“Great.”
“Great,” she agreed. “Dmitry, I’m not going to block your number. If you need to talk, call me.”
“Why would I ever call you?”
“You will. You definitely will. I’ll be waiting.”
She zipped up her suitcase, straightened, and looked directly into his eyes.
There was no anger in her expression.
No pity either.
She simply looked at him like someone who knew slightly more than she was willing to say aloud.
“Good luck,” she said, and walked out.
The door closed softly behind her.
Dmitry stood in the hallway for a moment, turning his keys in his hand.
Then he smirked, took out his phone, and called his sister.
“Kira, she left.”
“Thank God,” Kira replied. “It was about time. You lived with her like you were sitting on a powder keg.”
“She told me to call her if I needed anything.”
“So?”
“Nothing. It’s just strange.”
“Forget it. You’re free. You still have the apartment. Live your life.”
Meanwhile, Anna arrived at her friend’s place.
Vera met her at the door, silently hugged her, took one of the suitcases, and carried it inside.
They sat down in the kitchen.
“So he’s divorcing you?” Vera asked.
“He is. Says the apartment stays with him and I’m out.”
“Predictable. What are you going to do?”
“Remember what I told you once? My father loaned money to Artyom—Kira’s husband—for the construction of their house. Everything was notarized. A formal loan agreement, interest, late-payment penalties.”
Vera leaned forward.
 
“And?”
“My father died. The claim passed to my mother as part of the inheritance. The collateral passed to her too. Artyom never repaid anything. Not a single ruble.”
“How long has it been?”
“Long enough for the interest and penalties to grow into a very serious amount.”
“Anna, have you known about this all along?”
“I knew. I just never touched it. As long as things were normal between us, why stir everything up? They were family, after all. But now things are different.”
Vera was quiet for several seconds.
Then she nodded.
“My Oleg went through a property dispute a couple of years ago. He still has the contacts of some excellent lawyers who specialize in cases like this. I’ll call him now.”
An hour later, Oleg arrived.
He sat at the kitchen table and listened to the entire story without interrupting.
“How much was the original loan?” he asked.
“Five hundred thousand.”
“And with interest and penalties for all those years?”
“I made a rough calculation. It’s… a lot.”
 
“Do you have the notarized agreement?”
“My mother does. She kept all the documents.”
Oleg leaned back in his chair.
“Anna, you need a notarized power of attorney from your mother allowing you to pursue the claim. Then you go to the lawyers. I’ll give you the contact details. They’re serious people. If everything is exactly as you’ve described, this can be handled.”
“The land and the house are registered in Artyom’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Then it can definitely be handled.”
Anna called her mother that same evening.
“Galina Petrovna, I need to talk to you.”
Anna had always addressed her mother by her first name and patronymic. It was an old habit between them.
“I’m listening, sweetheart.”
“Do you remember the loan Dad gave Artyom? Kira’s husband? For building the house?”
“Of course I remember. Pyotr Ivanovich said at the time that he wanted everything notarized so there would never be any confusion. Artyom never paid it back. I didn’t ask him for the money. It felt awkward. Then eventually I forgot about it.”
“Do you still have the documents?”
“They should be somewhere. Let me look… Hold on.”
Anna waited twelve minutes.
Then Galina Petrovna returned to the phone.
“I found them. Everything is here. The agreement, the notary certification, the repayment schedule. All of it.”
“I need you to give me power of attorney. A notarized one. Specifically for collecting this debt. Can you come tomorrow?”
“I can. What happened?”
“Dmitry is divorcing me. He’s keeping the apartment. He threw me out.”
“I see.”
Her mother’s voice hardened instantly.
“Fine. I’ll be at the notary’s office at nine tomorrow morning. Tell me where to go.”
The lawyers moved quickly.
Four days after Anna left Dmitry’s apartment, she handed them all the documents.
Six days later, the necessary claim was filed.
 
Before the proceedings even began, the court imposed a precautionary freeze on Artyom’s land and the house under construction.
Kira was the first to find out.
She called Dmitry at six-thirty in the morning.
“Dmitry, we have a disaster.”
“What happened?”
“Our land has been frozen. The house too. Because of some loan. Artyom is running around like a madman, shouting that it’s impossible.”
“What loan?”
“Some old one. Anna’s father gave it to Artyom for construction. Did you know anything about this?”
Dmitry fell silent.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
But he had forgotten about it so thoroughly and conveniently that it had almost ceased to exist in his mind.
Pyotr Ivanovich had lent Artyom money.
Half a million.
Everything had been formally notarized.
Artyom used the money to build a house on twenty sotkas of land. It was a beautiful project, Dmitry had to admit. Artyom had good taste.
Their mother had sold her two-bedroom apartment and invested the proceeds into the same house.
The house went up.
The debt remained.
“Dmitry, are you listening?”
“I’m listening. How much?”
“The original loan was five hundred thousand. But with the interest and penalties… Artyom says it could have grown into enough to pay for two houses like this.”
“It’s Anna,” Dmitry said quietly. “She did this.”
 
“Of course she did! She got power of attorney from her mother. Everything is legal. The lawyers filed the claim. The property is frozen. We can’t do anything with it—sell it, transfer it, mortgage it. Nothing.”
Dmitry ended the call and sat motionless for a long time.
Then he called Artyom.
“Artyom, explain something to me. Why didn’t you repay the money?”
“What money? They were relatives!” Artyom shouted into the phone. “Pyotr Ivanovich himself told me not to rush, that I could repay it when I was able. Then he died, and I figured…”
“You figured what?”
“That it didn’t matter anymore. Galina Petrovna never asked for it. I thought everyone had forgotten.”
“Forgotten? You signed a notarized loan agreement. With interest. With penalties. And you thought it was simply ‘forgotten’?”
“And whose fault is this?” Artyom snapped. “Yours! You decided to divorce her. If you had just lived normally with your wife, nobody would ever have dragged this loan out.”
“Are you seriously saying this to me?”
“I’m completely serious! You were family. Then you went and started a divorce, and now all of us are burning because of it.”
Dmitry hung up on him.
An hour later, his mother called.
Her voice sounded dry and brittle.
“Son, Kira told me everything. I sold my apartment and put the money into that house. If this goes to court, what happens to me?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
“What do you mean, ‘figure something out’? I’ll have nowhere to live if they take that house!”
“Nobody is taking anything.”
“Are you sure?”
He wasn’t.
Not at all.
 
The following day, Kira went to see Anna herself.
No call.
No warning.
Anna opened the door to Vera’s apartment and found Kira standing there with an envelope in her hands.
“There’s five hundred thousand here,” Kira said.
Her eyes were red.
“It’s the original amount of the loan. Take it, give me a receipt, and remove the freeze.”
Anna looked at the envelope.
Then at Kira.
“Kira, five hundred thousand is only the principal. There’s also interest. And penalties for every month the payment was overdue. For all those years.”
“How much?”
“That’s a question for the lawyers. Not for me.”
“Can’t you just take the money and close the case?”
“No. I can’t. And I won’t.”
“Do you even understand what you’re doing? You’re destroying a family.”
“Your family was put at risk by your husband, who borrowed money from my father and never repaid it. And by your brother Dmitry, who threw me out of his apartment. I haven’t destroyed anything. I’m recovering what legally belongs to my family.”
Kira stood there holding the envelope, not knowing what to say.
Anna gently but firmly closed the door.
Dmitry called two weeks later.
Exactly two weeks after Anna had left the apartment.
Just as she had promised, his number had not been blocked.
She answered after the second ring.
“Anna, I need to see you.”
“Come over. You know the address.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
Vera opened the door, silently led him into the kitchen, and disappeared into another room.
Anna was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.
“Sit down,” she said.
Dmitry sat.
 
He looked as though he hadn’t eaten in three days.
His hands rested on the table, and his fingers trembled slightly.
“Anna, I’m asking you. Remove the freeze. Take my apartment.”
“As payment for the debt?”
“Yes. Against the loan, the interest, the penalties—whatever you want. Just get the freeze lifted from the land.”
“Dmitry, you understand that your apartment is worth significantly more than the debt, even including all the interest and penalties.”
“I understand.”
“And you’re willing to give up an apartment worth more than what is owed?”
“Yes. Artyom is willing too. We discussed it. He agrees. It would be a three-party settlement: I’m the owner of the apartment, you control the claim, and Artyom is the debtor. My apartment settles his debt in full.”
Anna took a sip of coffee and set the cup down.
“You stood in front of me and said, ‘Stop whining. You’re not getting the apartment.’ Do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“And now you’re asking me to take it.”
“Anna, don’t make this worse. I’m asking you. Take it.”
“I’m not making anything worse. I’m stating a fact. You had the chance to behave like a decent human being. You could have offered to divide the apartment. We could have reached an agreement. I asked you to think while I was still in a good mood. You assumed I was bluffing.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew about the loan. You knew Artyom never repaid my father. You simply decided it didn’t matter.”
“Anna…”
“Fine. I’ll accept the apartment. But on my terms. You pay all the transfer costs. We use my lawyers. And all documents are signed before a notary.”
“I agree.”
“One more thing. Once this is over, you never call me again. Ever.”
“Agreed.”
Anna stood, walked into the hallway, and returned carrying a folder.
She placed it on the table in front of Dmitry.
“This is a draft settlement agreement. Three parties—you, me, and Artyom. Show it to him. Let him read it. If he accepts the terms, we’ll meet at the notary’s office.”
Dmitry took the folder.
 
He looked at Anna for a long time, heavily, like a man who had finally realized who he had been living with all those years.
He had simply realized it far too late.
“You planned all of this,” he said.
“No,” Anna replied. “I didn’t plan anything. I simply don’t throw away documents. I don’t forget debts. And I don’t forgive betrayal.”
He stood and walked toward the door.
Then he stopped.
“Tell me one thing. If I had offered to divide the apartment fifty-fifty back then, would you have agreed?”
“Yes,” Anna said without hesitation. “I would have agreed. And that loan would have stayed in the drawer for another ten years. Maybe twenty. But you chose differently.”
Dmitry left.
The door closed behind him.
Vera appeared a minute later and looked at Anna questioningly.
“That’s it?” she asked.
“That’s it,” Anna replied. “Call Oleg. Tell him to inform the lawyers that we’re settling the case. The freeze will be removed after the apartment is transferred.”
“Are you okay?”
“Completely.”
Anna picked up her cup and took the final sip of coffee.
For a moment, she stared at the wall without really seeing it.
Then she smiled.
“You know, Vera, right until the very end I kept hoping he would say, ‘Let’s divide it.’ Just one sentence. Two words, really. But he couldn’t do it.”
“Greed,” Vera said.
“Not only greed. Contempt. He was convinced I was nobody. That I had no strength, no resources, no rights. He wasn’t divorcing me. He was erasing me.”
“And you wrote yourself back into the story.”
 
“No. I simply refused to let him erase me.”
A month later, the apartment was transferred into Anna’s name.
The freeze on Artyom’s land was lifted the following day.
Tamara Sergeyevna continued living in her daughter’s house, just as before.
Artyom never thanked Anna, but she hadn’t expected him to.
Kira stopped replying to messages.
Dmitry moved in with his mother.
Anna opened the door to her apartment—her apartment now.
She placed her suitcases in the hallway and walked into the living room.
Then she sat down on the sofa and picked up her book.
She opened it to the bookmarked page.
The very same page where she had stopped reading that evening when Dmitry announced that he wanted a divorce.
Anna turned the page.