— The situation is serious: we’ll sell your apartment and move in with my parents, — her husband said with a frown. — No complaining!
But there were still two weeks before that sentence—two weeks during which life seemed completely normal.
Veronika walked into her new department on Monday morning and stopped in the doorway like someone who had accidentally opened the wrong door. There were a lot of desks and even more people. Every head turned toward her at once, almost as if on command.
An elderly woman with short gray hair and glasses hanging from a chain approached her. She confidently took Veronika by the elbow and led her deeper into the room with the air of someone who belonged there. It was the way you might guide a child across a busy street—quickly and without discussion.
— My name is Nina Pavlovna. Sit here by the window; it’s warmer, — she said. — And don’t be afraid of anyone. They’re all tame here.
— Thank you. I thought they were going to eat me right there at the entrance, without even adding salt, — Veronika breathed.
— Eat you? Here? At most, someone might yawn in your direction. All our predators are on diets.
Veronika laughed and sat down. The chair was comfortable, the monitor was clean, and Nina Pavlovna brought her a stack of papers and patiently explained everything twice, slowly. By lunchtime, things felt easier. By evening, they almost felt good.
At home, however, Veronika still poured out everything that had accumulated during the day to her husband.
— Artyom, you have no idea. Twenty desks, forty people, and everyone was staring at me as though I’d stolen their lunch from the refrigerator.
— Classic. You’re my little sheep that wandered into a pack of wolves, — Artyom smiled as he pulled off his work jacket. — Give it a week and you’ll be leading the pack yourself. I know you.
— A sheep. Thank you, darling. Very supportive. Should I start bleating during meetings now?
— Bleat confidently. Wolves respect confident bleating.
Everything was going smoothly for Artyom as well. His construction project was on schedule, his salary arrived on time, and he was in a good mood. He was even whistling while changing clothes.
Then his phone rang. He looked at the screen and hurried.
— It’s Mom. I’ll run over there for an hour. She’s having some issue with her blood pressure.
— Go. Just don’t run around waving your jacket. It’s cold outside.
He left. Veronika remained alone, and almost immediately, Alisa called.
— Well, tell me everything! How’s the new job? Are they treating you badly? — her friend rattled off.
— Terribly. With their eyes. First the women—Larisa, Tonya, and two others whose names I didn’t remember. They stared so hard that I almost rubbed my neck afterward.
— And?
— And they’re all well over forty. So it wasn’t competition—it was an inspection. They were evaluating me like produce at a market: checking whether I was fresh or already spoiled.
— And the men? — Alisa was already laughing.
— The men were raising their heads like ground squirrels in a field. One of them even turned his chair around. Another adjusted his collar and sucked in his stomach. I could practically hear the sound.
— That’s it, I’m quitting my job and joining your department. I urgently need coworkers who suck in their stomachs.
— Come over. There’s Nina Pavlovna. She’ll adopt you within fifteen minutes.
They laughed for nearly twenty minutes. The evening felt light, silly, and warm.
Artyom came home a different person.
He took off his shoes, walked into the room, and sat on the edge of the sofa, staring straight ahead. He stayed silent for a long time, heavily, like someone trying to calculate something in his head and constantly losing count.
— Okay. Either you tell me what happened, or I start inventing theories, — Veronika said. — And I have a very vivid imagination. I read a lot as a child.
— Nika, not now.
— Exactly now. You’re sitting there like a monument to yourself. What happened?
He rubbed his palms together.
— Sveta’s parents’ house in the settlement burned down. Last night. Everyone survived, but the house is completely gone.
— Oh God. Are they okay? Definitely okay?
— They’re alive. The neighbors pulled them out. They’re moving in with Sveta and Kirill now, into their one-room apartment. And Kirill, his wife, and their two children are moving in with my parents.
Veronika lowered herself into an armchair.
She pictured the two-room apartment where Artyom’s father lived after his stroke, where everything had been arranged to make it easier for him to move around, and where six people would now be living.
— That’s horrible. A house is your whole life—all your photos, everything. We need to help them with clothes and things. I’ll collect some.
— Things are nothing, — Artyom said sharply. — You don’t understand the main problem. Kirill’s apartment has been mortgaged for a long time. He took out loans against it.
— Wait. Kirill was working. Sveta wasn’t sitting around doing nothing either. Why would they mortgage their only home?
— For the children. Activities, medical treatment, trips. He wanted them to have everything.
— Usually, if you want your children to have everything, the first thing you make sure they have is a roof over their heads. Not a roof that belongs to the bank, — Veronika said. — That isn’t caring. That’s pretending to be prosperous on borrowed money.
A week passed quietly.
Then Artyom came home one evening and announced, without even taking off his work jacket:
— Kirill missed a payment. They hit him with penalties and late fees. Mom hasn’t slept for two nights. Her apartment is chaos, the children are screaming, and Dad is getting nervous.
— I’m sorry. I really am. Your father must be suffering the most right now.
— And that’s it? — he stared directly at her.
— What else? I’m not a bank, Artyom. I’m not even a local bank branch.
He waited.
He simply stood there and waited, as though she was supposed to say something—some predetermined words he had already heard inside his own head.
Veronika shrugged.
— Do you even understand what’s happening? — his voice twitched. — If Kirill loses the apartment, Sveta’s parents will be left homeless! People without a home, do you understand?
— I understand. And it’s terrible. But their disaster didn’t happen because I failed to do something.
— So you don’t care about my family?
— I do care. I offered clothes, groceries, help with the children. But for some reason, you’re looking at me like I have a spare piece of real estate sitting in my pocket getting bored.
— Nika, you’ve become kind of heartless.
— I’m not heartless. I know how to count. It’s a rare quality, I know. It irritates a lot of people.
He went into the room and slammed the door. Not very hard, but hard enough to make a point.
Three more days passed.
Artyom came home in the evening, stopped in the middle of the hallway, and finally said that sentence in a flat voice, as though he had memorized it beforehand.
— The situation is serious: we’ll sell your apartment and move in with my parents, — her husband said with a frown. — No complaining!
Veronika slowly placed her handbag on the cabinet.
— Repeat that, please. I want to hear it a second time so I don’t later convince myself that I imagined it.
— You heard me. Kirill will rent a place for his family. The money from your apartment will be used to pay off his debt and buy materials to rebuild Sveta’s parents’ house. They’ll pay it back later.
— Pay it back. When? After they rebuild the house, harvest the apples, and wait for the Second Coming?
— That’s not funny.
— I don’t find it funny either. No.
— What do you mean, “no”?
— “No” is a complete sentence, Artyom. It doesn’t require any additions.
He snatched out his phone, dialed a number, and shoved it toward her.
— Here. Mom wants to talk to you. At least listen to her!
Veronika took the phone, raised it to her ear, and without waiting for the woman to say a single word, said:
— Good evening. I am not selling my apartment. Goodbye.
And she ended the call.
— You… you didn’t even listen to her! — Artyom was almost shouting now. — She’s an elderly woman!
— Being elderly doesn’t make her the owner of my home. Age is not a power of attorney.
— You’re a monster.
— I’m a woman who refuses to hand over what belongs to her while everyone applauds. Those are different diagnoses.
The next morning, Artyom woke up late and walked into the living room.
There were about ten cardboard boxes standing neatly in the middle of the floor, each labeled with a marker.
He exhaled in relief. He even smiled.
He immediately went into another room and called his brother.
— Kirill, that’s it, breathe easy. Nika agreed. She’s already packing the boxes. We’ll sell the apartment, pay off your debt, and pull you out of this mess.
— Artyom, are you serious? — his brother’s voice trembled. — I’ll owe you for the rest of my life… You have no idea what you’ve just done for us!
— We’re family. Everything will be fine.
Half an hour later, Veronika’s phone rang.
Kirill spoke quickly and breathlessly, thanking her and promising to repay every last kopeck.
— No need to thank me, — she replied calmly. — I’ll give it back. I don’t mind anymore.
— Nika, you’re just… you’re saving us!
— I’ll give it back, — she repeated. — And that will be the end of it.
She didn’t specify exactly what she was planning to give back.
Kirill didn’t notice.
Then Tamara Igorevna called.
Her voice was soft, honeyed, and drawn out.
image
— Veronichka, sweetheart, I always knew you had a good heart. I told Artyom, “She’s a smart girl, she’ll understand our situation.” You know, family reveals itself in moments like these, not when everything is going smoothly…
Veronika listened for a long time.
Nearly three minutes, without interrupting, until the stream of gratitude started repeating itself.
— Tamara Igorevna, — she finally said. — Are you thinking about the money right now?
— Well, of course, because we’re talking about—
— I’m not giving you money. I’m giving you your son back.
The other end of the line went silent.
Veronika put down the phone, walked into the bedroom, and opened the wardrobe.
She removed a stack of Artyom’s shirts from the shelf and placed them into one of the boxes.
Then his sweaters.
Then his books, one by one, arranged in neat rows.
Artyom rushed out of the hallway, grabbed the phone from her hand, and disconnected the call.
— What kind of circus is this? What are you doing?
— Packing. You wanted a move. I’m arranging one. Just not mine.
— Are you… are you serious?
— Completely. I am not selling the apartment. And a man who suddenly develops an interest in my property is no longer a husband. He’s an interested party.
— I’m saving my family! — he shouted.
— No. You’re saving someone else’s family. My family is you and me. Everyone else is relatives. There’s a separate word for them specifically so people don’t get confused.
— Kirill is my brother!
— Kirill is a grown man who mortgaged his only home and then missed a payment. I’m not going to use the roof over my head to rescue him from his stupidity. And I’m not going to rescue Sveta’s parents either. I sympathize with them, but I have no obligations toward them.
— How can you say something like that?
— Easily. Your parents have a two-room apartment too. Let them sell theirs and save their son. But no. They won’t sacrifice their own property. Sacrificing the daughter-in-law is much more convenient.
Artyom stood there opening and closing his mouth.
He had already told everyone.
His brother. His mother. Even Sveta.
He had told all of them that his wife had agreed and was already packing.
And things really were being packed.
His things.
An hour later, the doorbell rang.
Tamara Igorevna came in quickly. Her face was dark, her lips compressed into a thin line.
She had already understood everything—from Veronika’s tone on the phone, from the disconnected call, from the silence.
— So that’s how it is, is it? — she began right from the doorway. — Your precious square meters matter more to you than living people? Do you even understand—
— Be quiet, — Veronika said softly, but in a tone that made the woman stop mid-sentence. — Not one word about my apartment. Not one. That word is no longer spoken in this home.
— How dare you speak to me—
— I dare. I have every legal right and full mental capacity to do so.
Artyom rushed between them.
Suddenly, he saw the situation clearly: one more sentence, and he would be standing on the landing beside his boxes.
He took his mother by the shoulders and turned her toward the door.
— Enough! — he shouted. — Kirill got himself into debt! Himself! Nika has nothing to do with it! Nothing at all!
— Artyom, sweetheart, what are you—
— And Sveta’s parents have plenty of relatives in their village! Let them help each other! My wife and I are the last people on that list, do you hear me? The last!
He pushed his mother outside and shut the door.
His hands were shaking violently.
He leaned his forehead against the doorframe and stood like that for a while, breathing through his mouth.
Muttering could be heard from the other side of the door, followed by footsteps going down the stairs.
Artyom returned to the room and announced loudly, as if addressing an audience:
— That’s it. No apartment is being sold. I’m an idiot. Something short-circuited in my head. I lost my bearings. I completely stopped understanding who was who and what mattered. Nika, forgive me and change your mind.
Veronika silently closed the first box containing his books.
She ran her palm across the cardboard, smoothing it.
Then she took the second box, opened it, and continued packing.
One sweater.
Another sweater.
A shirt.
Tears were running down her face by themselves.
She didn’t wipe them away.
Artyom came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her hands gently against her sides.
— You don’t really want to pack those.
— I don’t, — she nodded, sobbing. — My husband is an idiot.
— An idiot, — he agreed. — A complete, hopeless, absolute idiot. But I understand now. And I’m grateful that you showed me this way, because now I understand exactly where all of this would have ended. I don’t want to be without you.
— I don’t want to be without you either, — she said.
They stood silently for a long time.
— I’m guilty, — he finally said. — I promise nobody will ever touch your apartment. If you can, forgive me.
Veronika didn’t answer immediately.
She freed herself from his arms, wiped her face with her palm, and looked directly at him.
— If you ever go against the family again—against our family—I will leave you. It will hurt. I’ll howl from the pain, but I will leave. You know me. I’ve never tolerated anything for years.
— I know.
He took out his phone, called his brother, and put the call on speaker.
— Kirill. The apartment isn’t being sold. None of them are. Find another solution—restructuring, refinancing, whatever you can.
— Artyom, what are you talking about?! You promised! We’ve already—
— It isn’t being sold, — he repeated and ended the call.
Then he called his mother.
She talked for a long time, loudly, full of reproaches and dramatic sighs.
He listened for about forty seconds.
— Mom. No. That’s it.
And he hung up.
Veronika looked at him and understood something.
He wasn’t a scoundrel.
He had simply gotten tangled up, the way a person does when everyone is pulling him in different directions at once. He had sincerely wanted to save everyone.
The only problem was that he had planned to save them at her expense.
She walked over and rested against his shoulder.
The boxes remained on the floor, some empty and some half-full.
They decided they would unpack them tomorrow.