Galina lent her brother-in-law her car for two weeks. Four months later, she understood that neither the car nor an apology was coming back. But she had one advantage nobody knew about.
Galina placed the car keys on the table and slid them toward Pavel. They whispered across the plastic tablecloth and stopped beside his elbow.
“Just until payday, Galya. Two weeks at most. I need to travel back and forth to the job site, and mine is in the repair shop.”
“Two weeks, Pasha. No longer.”
He nodded, swept the keys into his fist, and left without even finishing his tea. His mug remained on the table. Galina carried it to the sink, rinsed it, and turned it upside down on the towel. Looking through the window, she saw Pavel climb into her silver Lada and adjust the mirror to suit his height.
Her husband, Kostya, was sitting silently in the next room. He always became silent whenever his brother was involved.
“You should at least ask him for a written receipt,” Galina said when she returned.
 
“What kind of receipt, Galya? It’s Pasha. He’s my brother.”
She wanted to answer. Then she looked at Kostya’s hunched back beneath his stretched-out T-shirt and watched him scroll through his phone without lifting his head. She said nothing. Arguing with Kostya about Pavel was pointless. Twelve years of marriage had taught her that much.
During the first week, Pavel called on his own. He said everything was fine, that he had filled the tank and checked the oil. Galina listened and nodded even though he could not see her. In the second week, his calls became less frequent. In the third, she called him herself.
“Pasha, when are you bringing the car back? I need to take Alyosha to the clinic.”
“Galya, there’s been a problem. They’ve delayed my pay. Can I keep it for one more week?”
“What does your pay have to do with returning my car?”
“Well, I have to fill the tank and change the tires. I can’t give it back empty, can I?”
She stood by the kitchen window, staring at the vacant parking space in the courtyard. A neighbor from the third floor had begun leaving his black Renault where her car normally stood. He had claimed the spot on the second day.
Galina called a taxi to the clinic. Six-year-old Alyosha sat in the back seat, swinging his feet above the floor. To him, the world was simple: Mom made a call, a taxi arrived, and a doctor examined his throat.
Galina, meanwhile, calculated every ruble. Three hundred each way. Twice a week because Alyosha had been prescribed a course of treatments. Then there were the groceries she used to buy at the hypermarket outside the city. Without the car, she had to shop at the expensive little store near their apartment.
A month passed. Pavel stopped calling. Whenever Galina tried him, he rejected the call and texted, “Busy. I’ll call you back.” He never did.
One evening, Kostya ate dinner in silence. Galina set a plate of pasta and a cutlet in front of him and sat across the table.
“Call your brother.”
“Why?”
“Because he has been driving my car for a month.”
“Our car.”
“My car, Kostya. I bought it with my own money before we were married.”
He raised his eyes. There was no anger in them, only the same tiredness that had become as familiar as the kitchen wallpaper they had planned to replace four years ago.
“Don’t make such a big deal out of it, Galya. Pasha will return it. Where could he go?”
 
“Where could he go? Where is he now? He won’t even answer the phone.”
“Maybe he’s at the job site. The reception is bad there.”
Galina stood, took her untouched plate to the sink, and went out onto the balcony. She pulled out her phone and called her mother-in-law.
“Hello, Zinaida Petrovna. Have you spoken to Pasha?”
“Oh, Galya, has something happened?”
“He borrowed my car a month ago, supposedly until payday. He still hasn’t returned it.”
“You know what Pasha is like. He’s absent-minded. I’ll speak to him.”
Absent-minded. Galina gripped the balcony rail until her knuckles turned white. Pavel was forty-two years old, six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and wore the reddish beard he had grown the previous year, which made him resemble a lumberjack from an advertisement. Absent-minded. Of course.
Zinaida Petrovna called her son. Pavel visited his mother, drank tea, and promised to return the car “one of these days.” Galina learned this from her mother-in-law, who called with a report.
“He said he’ll bring it back soon, Galya. Don’t worry.”
“Thank you, Zinaida Petrovna.”
Galina ended the call and opened the calendar on her phone. She marked the date: October fifth. Thirty-eight days had passed since Pavel took the keys.
“One of these days” did not arrive in three days, seven days, or fourteen.
At the beginning of November, Galina spotted her car by chance. She was riding a minibus past a shopping center on the edge of town when she saw a silver Lada with the license plate she knew by heart. It was parked outside, and the left fender was scratched. A long white scrape ran from the bumper toward the door.
Galina got off at the next stop and walked back along the muddy shoulder. It was November, and fallen leaves had mixed with wet clay beneath her shoes. When she reached the parking lot, she slowly circled the car. Besides the scrape on the fender, there was a small but obvious dent in the rear bumper. A woman’s yellow hooded jacket lay across the back seat.
She photographed everything: the scratch, the dent, the jacket, and the license plate. Her hands did not shake. There was no anger inside her. Instead, she felt something dense and cold, like a stone carried in a winter coat pocket.
She called Pavel. He answered on the fourth ring.
“Oh, hi, Galya.”
“Pasha, I’m standing outside the shopping center, looking at my car. The fender is scratched and the rear bumper is dented.”
Silence. One second. Two. Three.
“Oh, that. It’s nothing. Someone clipped it in a parking lot. I didn’t even notice at first.”
“Whose jacket is on the back seat?”
“What jacket?”
“The yellow one.”
“Oh. I gave a coworker a ride.”
“Pasha, when are you returning the car?”
“Very soon, Galya. Next week. Honestly.”
She did not argue. She ended the call, stood beside the car for another minute, and then walked back to the bus stop. The minibus took twelve minutes to arrive. She counted every one of them.
At home, she told Kostya what she had seen. He listened without taking his eyes from the television.
“There’s a scratch, a dent, and some woman’s jacket inside.”
 
He did not turn around.
“Things like that happen. Cars are always getting clipped in parking lots.”
“Kostya.”
“What?”
“It is my car. Mine, not Pasha’s. It’s sitting damaged outside a shopping center with someone else’s belongings in it.”
“It isn’t damaged beyond repair, Galya. It’s one scratch and a little dent.”
“How would you feel if my brother borrowed your tools for a month and returned them chipped and broken?”
“You don’t have a brother.”
“Imagine that I did.”
He shrugged.
Galina went to the kitchen and switched on the kettle. It rumbled, then clicked off. She poured boiling water into a mug, dipped the tea bag once, pulled it out, and dropped it back in. Then she opened the photographs on her phone: scratch, dent, jacket.
Alyosha ran into the kitchen barefoot, wearing dinosaur pajamas.
“Mom, are we going in the car tomorrow?”
“No, sweetheart. The car is being repaired.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
He ran away. Galina finished her tea and opened the notes app. She typed: “Scratch on the left fender. Dent in the rear bumper. Photos taken November 7. Call with Pavel recorded.”
She had enabled automatic call recording back in September. It was not because of Pavel. The habit remained from a dispute with a contractor at work, when someone else’s false account had nearly cost her a bonus.
December arrived. The car was still gone. Pavel no longer answered at all. Galina sent him a message: “Pasha, return the car or let’s settle this properly. I am serious.” He read it and did not reply.
Then Zinaida Petrovna called.
“Galya, stop putting pressure on Pasha. He’s going through a difficult time.”
“Zinaida Petrovna, he has my car.”
“But you’re family. Family members are supposed to help one another.”
“It has been four months.”
“Oh, why are you counting? Is that any way to behave with relatives?”
Galina sat on the edge of the bed and listened. Alyosha was watching cartoons in the next room, and a squeaky character’s voice filtered through the wall. Kostya was working his shift.
“Zinaida Petrovna, I’m not waiting any longer.”
“What do you mean?”https://blog.news92daily.com/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=12494&type=image&TB_iframe=1
“I want Pavel to return the car. Otherwise, he can pay for the repairs and compensate me for using it all this time.”
“Compensate you? Galya, have you lost your mind? He’s family!”
Galina ended the call. She lay facedown on the bed, breathing in the clean scent of laundry detergent from the pillow. Alyosha’s cartoons murmured beyond the wall while she thought—not about the car, but about the country house.
The dacha had once belonged to her mother-in-law. It was a six-hundred-square-meter plot in Malinovka, forty minutes outside the city by commuter train. The old wooden cottage had a veranda that Kostya had spent two summers rebuilding. There were apple trees, raspberry bushes, and a greenhouse. Zinaida Petrovna rarely went there anymore because her legs and back hurt, and the bus ride from the station was too rough. Everyone used the property. Kostya and Galina took Alyosha there during the summer. Pavel came with friends for barbecues and sometimes stayed overnight.
But there was one detail not everyone knew.
In 2022, Zinaida Petrovna had asked Galina for help with the paperwork. Four years of unpaid community fees had accumulated, and the chairman was threatening legal action.
Galina paid the entire debt—forty-seven thousand rubles from her own savings. Frightened by the situation and grateful for the help, her mother-in-law suggested transferring the property to her.
“Let’s register it in your name, Galya. I can’t afford to maintain it anyway, and you know how to take care of things.”
Galina did not object. She went to a notary with Zinaida Petrovna, and the deed of gift was signed in March 2022. Galina then registered her ownership with Rosreestr. Everything was legal and properly documented.
Kostya knew. Pavel apparently did not—or, if he did, he had never considered it important.
In January, Galina called Pavel from an unfamiliar number. He answered.
“Hello?”
“Pasha, it’s Galina.”
 
“Oh. Hi, Galya.”
“Return my car.”
“Galya, I told you. Soon.”
“It has been four and a half months.”
“Things are complicated. I can’t manage without a car right now. The job site is far away.”
“But it’s fine for me to take our child to his medical appointments on a minibus?”
“Well, you’ve been managing somehow.”
Galina closed her eyes. The fingers of her right hand found the seam of her jeans and rubbed it back and forth.
“I’m giving you one week, Pasha. If the car is not back in seven days, I’m closing the dacha.”
“What dacha?”
“The place in Malinovka.”
“What do you have to do with that?”
“It belongs to me.”
Another silence followed, longer this time. On his end of the line, something hummed steadily—perhaps ventilation or a portable heater.
“What do you mean, it belongs to you?”
“Zinaida Petrovna transferred it to me three years ago. There is a deed of gift, and the property is registered with Rosreestr. It’s official.”
“Wait. Mom never told me that.”
“I don’t know what she told you. The dacha is mine. If I don’t see my car in its parking space within a week, I’ll change every lock.”
“Galya, are you serious?”
“Completely.”
She ended the call and placed her phone facedown on the table. Her arms ached as though she had spent two hours carrying heavy shopping bags.
Pavel called Kostya twenty minutes later. Galina could hear their conversation from the hallway.
“Do you know your wife is threatening me?” Pavel demanded.
“Threatening you with what?”
“She says she’ll take away the dacha.”
“Pasha, the dacha really is hers.”
 
“And you never told me?”
“When are you giving her car back?”
“What does the car have to do with the dacha?”
“Everything.”
Kostya’s voice was calm. Galina stood behind the door and heard every word. For the first time in four months, her husband was not taking his brother’s side. Or perhaps he was but had finally stopped showing it.
The conversation ended quickly. Kostya came into the hallway and looked at her.
“Are you serious about the dacha?”
“Do you honestly think I’ll wait another six months?”
He rubbed the back of his head, a habit left over from childhood. Galina knew he did it whenever he could not see a way out.
“Galya, he’s my brother.”
“And I am your wife. Alyosha is your son. We have spent four months without a car. I’ve paid more than twenty thousand rubles for taxis and minibuses. The fender is scratched, the bumper is dented, and he has not even apologized.”
Kostya remained silent. Then he nodded and walked into the other room.
Zinaida Petrovna called the next day. Her voice had changed; there was nothing sweet or conciliatory in it now.
“Galina, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Hello, Zinaida Petrovna.”
“I gave you that dacha, and now you’re blackmailing my son with it?”
“I am not blackmailing anyone. I am asking him to return my property.”
“The car?”
“The car.”
“Then ask Pasha properly instead of making threats.”
“I did ask properly. For four months I called, wrote messages, and pleaded with him. Now he won’t answer.”
“Then he must be busy.”
“Then the dacha will be locked.”
“I’ll take my gift back!”
“A deed of gift cannot be canceled unilaterally, Zinaida Petrovna. That is the law.”
There was silence. Galina heard her mother-in-law breathing rapidly and heavily into the phone.
“You’re a snake, Galina.”
“I am the person who paid your debts and has maintained that property for three years. Good evening.”
She ended the call. Her hands were steady. Inside, she felt empty, like a room after someone moves away: bare walls, dust on the floor, daylight through the window, and nothing else.
The week passed. The car did not appear.
Galina took a day off work and traveled to Malinovka. First came the commuter train, then a bus, then a walk along the road beside the forest. The January air was so dense it seemed solid enough to cut. Snow crunched beneath her boots, the only sound on the entire street.
The dacha greeted her with silence. The gate had frozen shut, and she had to yank it open. Inside the cottage, the air smelled of cold timber and old apples. She had stored the fruit in a crate on the veranda in autumn; now it was partly frozen and dusted with frost.
She walked around the building, checking the windows, doors, and the padlock on the shed. Everything was intact. Pavel’s rubber boots were still on the veranda, where he had left them during the summer. Size forty-four. Beside them sat an empty beer bottle and a bag of charcoal for the grill.
Galina collected his belongings in a sack: boots, bottle, charcoal, and the cap he had forgotten on a nail. She carried everything outside the gate and left the bag by the fence.
Then she called a locksmith. He arrived two hours later in an old Gazelle van, an older man in a padded jacket with drill bits in his pockets and the faint smell of yesterday’s alcohol on his breath.
“You want the locks changed?” he asked.
“All of them. The gate, the house, and the shed.”
“That makes three.”
“Change them.”
He worked for forty minutes. Galina stood on the veranda, drinking hot tea from the thermos she had brought and watching the apple trees. Their bare black branches held strips of snow. In summer they would be covered in white blossoms. Alyosha would run between them and gather fallen apples from the grass.
When the locksmith finished, he handed her three new keys. Galina paid him, walked him to the gate, and locked it behind him. Then she stood alone for a moment.
Everything was quiet. Somewhere a crow called, and the sound hung in the frozen air like a musical note no one had remembered to end.
Pavel went to the dacha the following weekend. Galina knew because he immediately called Kostya in a rage.
“She changed the locks! I can’t get inside!”
“Pasha, it’s her property.”
“It’s Mom’s dacha!”
“The documents are in Galina’s name. You know that now.”
“I’ll take her to court!”
“Go ahead.”
Kostya told Galina about the conversation that evening. Alyosha was already asleep. They sat at the kitchen table with two mugs of tea and a plate of cookies she had bought on the way home from work.
“Will he really sue?” she asked.
“No, Galya. Lawyers cost money, and Pasha doesn’t have any.”
“He has no money, yet he has driven my car for four months.”
“Five.”
“What?”
“It’s been five months.”
Galina counted: August, September, October, November, December, January. Kostya was right. Almost five months.
“So what do you suggest?”
 
“Nothing. You did the right thing.”
She stared at him. He did not look away, which felt strange. For twelve years, whenever his brother came up, Kostya had lowered his eyes, hunched his shoulders, retreated into his phone, and muttered that they would sort it out. Now he sat upright and met her gaze.
“Kostya.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
He nodded and reached for a cookie.
Three days later, Pavel returned the car. He did not call or warn anyone. Galina stepped onto the balcony that morning and saw the silver Lada in its usual parking place, as though it had never left.
She dressed and went downstairs. The scratch on the fender had been painted over badly. It was obvious that Pavel had used a spray can instead of taking the car to a repair shop. The bumper had been pushed back into shape, though the damage was still visible. The interior had been cleaned, and the yellow jacket was gone. On the dashboard lay a torn piece of notebook paper.
“Galya sorry. Pavel.”
No comma after her name. No punctuation. Two words and a signature.
Galina settled behind the wheel and readjusted the mirror Pavel had moved for his height. She turned the key. The engine started immediately. The fuel gauge showed a quarter of a tank.
For five minutes, she sat without driving anywhere. Her hands rested on the steering wheel, which was icy after spending the January night outside. She tightened her grip, then released it and turned on the heater. Warm air flowed from the vents, slowly clearing the windows.
The engine sounded familiar and steady, like a heartbeat—her heartbeat.
That evening, Zinaida Petrovna called. Her voice was quiet and cautious.
“Galya, did Pasha return the car?”
“He did.”
“See? And you were so worried.”
“Zinaida Petrovna.”
“Yes?”
“I am not giving the dacha back.”
Silence.
 
“But Pasha returned your car.”
“The dacha is legally mine. I pay the fees and maintain the property, and I have changed the locks. If you want to visit, call me in advance and I’ll give you a key.”
“You mean I have to call you before going to my own dacha?”
“Before going to my dacha, Zinaida Petrovna.”
“Galina…”
“Good night.”
She ended the call. Kostya was standing in the kitchen doorway and had heard everything.
“That was harsh, Galya.”
“Was leaving a mother and child without their car for five months gentle?”
He had no answer. He walked into the kitchen, poured a glass of water, drank it, and set the glass on the table.
“Mom will be offended.”
“Let her be offended.”
“Pasha will be too.”
“He can be offended as well.”
 
Galina took the three new dacha keys from her pocket and placed them on the shelf in the hallway beside Alyosha’s mittens and her transit pass. They lay in a neat silver row, each still carrying the locksmith’s label.
Kostya looked at them.
“Will you give me one?”
“Of course. You’re my husband.”
She smiled for the first time in five months. It was not the reassuring smile people use to keep the peace. It was something different—the smile that comes when something has finally fallen back into its proper place.
In February, Galina drove Alyosha home from the clinic. They were in her own car, the heater running while the radio murmured something about the weather. Alyosha sat in the back seat, drawing pictures with his finger on the fogged window.
“Mom, are we going to the dacha this summer?”
“Yes, we are.”
“What about Uncle Pasha?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
 
“Is he a good person?”
Galina glanced into the rearview mirror. Alyosha was looking back at her, waiting for an answer. His eyes were gray, just like Kostya’s.
“He’s complicated, Alyosha.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone may not be a bad person, but he does things that make life difficult for other people—and doesn’t even notice.”
Alyosha thought about it.
“Like Vitka at kindergarten?”
“Maybe.”
He returned to drawing on the glass. He sketched a house, a tree, and something round.
“That’s an apple tree, Mom.”
“I can see that.”
 
As Galina drove, she thought about how the apple trees in Malinovka would bloom in May. She would put a new lock on the greenhouse too, since Pavel kept some of his fishing rods there. Alyosha would run barefoot around the property; the grass would be wet with morning dew, and he would squeal from the cold and from sheer happiness.
Whether Pavel came again was his decision.
Galina had already made hers.
The car moved smoothly along the road. Outside, snow fell in sparse, lazy flakes. The windshield wipers brushed them aside in a steady rhythm—back and forth, back and forth.
In the parking lot outside their building, Galina switched off the engine and remained in her seat for another minute. She rested both palms on the steering wheel, now warm from the heater.
That was all.