Elena had bought the apartment before she even met Kirill. It was an ordinary two-bedroom apartment in a nine-story building, purchased with a mortgage that Elena had paid off entirely on her own, without anyone’s help. She worked as a purchasing manager for a wholesale company and earned a steady seventy-five thousand rubles a month, sometimes more when she received bonuses. Kirill installed ventilation systems, made around sixty thousand, and occasionally took on private jobs. All in all, they lived comfortably enough. They did not indulge in luxuries, but they did not have to count every ruble either.
During their five years of marriage, the apartment had simply become their home. They never had unnecessary conversations about whose name was on the deed. Kirill moved in with his belongings, stored his tools in the utility closet, and put up a shelf in the kitchen. That was all. It was enough. Elena never emphasized that the apartment legally belonged to her, and her husband never challenged it. They were adults and saw no reason to discuss the obvious.
Nina Semyonovna and Leonid Fyodorovich lived in a detached house in the suburbs, about a forty-minute drive from the city. The house was large, old, and seemingly sturdy—but only on the surface. Inside, nearly everything had needed repairs for years. The roof leaked in one corner, the boiler worked only intermittently, and the ceiling plaster in the hallway had begun to crack three years earlier.
 
Nina Semyonovna first mentioned the problem at someone’s birthday party. Elena could no longer remember whose. Her mother-in-law casually remarked that the roof needed to be replaced and that the workers had quoted at least eighty thousand rubles. Elena nodded, said she understood, and did not pursue the subject. She did not offer any money. It was not because she was stingy. It was simply someone else’s house and someone else’s expenses, and she did not see why she should interfere.
Kirill said nothing after that gathering. Leonid Fyodorovich merely nodded beside his wife and added that the boiler would soon need replacing as well, which would cost another forty thousand at the very least. Elena remained silent again. It was not out of coldness. It simply was not her responsibility.
But the subject of the roof and the boiler did not disappear. Nina Semyonovna returned to it whenever she had an opportunity. Every time they visited, she inevitably brought up something about the house. During phone calls, she would mention that the plaster in the bathroom had almost completely crumbled. The first couple of times, Elena nodded sympathetically. By the third, she began thinking about something else while her mother-in-law spoke. By the fifth, she caught herself staring out the window and counting the seconds.
“Lena, you understand that all of this costs money,” Nina Semyonovna said one evening as they drank tea after dinner. “The roof, the boiler, the hallway. Lyonya and I can’t afford it ourselves.”
“I understand,” Elena replied evenly. “Those are major expenses.”
Nina Semyonovna waited. She seemed to be expecting Elena to add something, but no further comment came.
 
At that moment, Kirill stood up and went to fetch the kettle. Leonid Fyodorovich scrolled through something on his phone. The awkward silence lingered for a moment before slowly dissolving.
Kirill never asked Elena to invest in his parents’ house either—not directly or indirectly. Perhaps he understood that it would be inappropriate, or perhaps the thought had simply never occurred to him. Elena never found out. But she understood one thing perfectly well: adults who owned property were responsible for dealing with its problems themselves. That was not cruelty. It was common sense.
Several more months passed. In the spring, Elena’s second cousin, Zinaida Konstantinovna, died. She was an elderly woman who had lived alone all her life in a one-bedroom apartment in a neighboring district. Elena did not visit her often, but she did so regularly. She brought groceries, helped arrange medical appointments, and once organized the replacement of a radiator. Her aunt was always grateful. She spoke little but observed everything carefully.
When Elena learned about the inheritance, she did not immediately understand what it meant. The notary explained it calmly: the apartment now belonged to her. It was a twenty-eight-square-meter one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor. The paperwork was completed within a month.
Kirill accepted the news without much emotion.
“That’s good,” he said over dinner. “So now you have two apartments.”
“Apparently I do,” Elena agreed.
They did not return to the subject—at least not that evening.
Her aunt’s apartment needed a little attention. It did not require a complete renovation, only some freshening up. The wallpaper in the main room needed replacing, the kitchen faucet had to be changed, and the bathroom floor needed leveling. Elena visited several home-improvement stores, chose the materials, and hired workers. Kirill accompanied her a couple of times to check the progress and once helped move some old furniture.
Elena paid for everything herself. In the end, it cost around one hundred and twenty thousand rubles. Kirill offered to contribute, but his offer sounded halfhearted, and he did not insist. She declined. It was easier to handle it herself.
The renovation was finished in mid-May. The apartment looked pleasant. It was not a newly built property, of course, but it was clean and no longer felt neglected. Elena had the lock replaced.
 
“When are you going to start looking for tenants?” Kirill asked as they drove home after their final visit.
“I don’t know. I want to catch my breath first. Maybe I’ll deal with it in June.”
“How much are you planning to charge?”
“About twenty-five thousand. Maybe twenty-seven. I’ll see what the market is like.”
Kirill nodded and asked no more questions.
Elena planned to keep the rental income in a separate savings account. No one knew what the future might bring, and an emergency fund was never a bad idea. Kirill knew about her plans and raised no objections.
At the end of May, Elena’s manager called her into his office.
“You need to go to Yekaterinburg,” he said. “We’re launching a project with a new supplier, and someone from our side needs to oversee it. It’ll take about a month, perhaps a little longer.”
Refusing was not really an option. Elena understood that. She had a good relationship with management, the travel allowance was reasonable, and the project was important. She agreed.
The search for tenants had to be postponed. There was no time for it amid packing, preparing paperwork, and handing her responsibilities over to a colleague. Her aunt’s apartment remained empty.
Before Elena left, Kirill helped her pack her suitcase. She reminded him that utility bills would now arrive for both addresses. He nodded and said he would take care of them. They did not discuss the second apartment. Neither Elena nor Kirill seemed to think there was anything to discuss. The apartment was locked and waiting for its owner to return.
Elena left during the first few days of June.
 
Her first two weeks in Yekaterinburg were intense. There were negotiations, paperwork, trips to the warehouse, and then more negotiations. She and Kirill spoke on the phone every evening. Elena told him about the weather and her hotel, while Kirill briefly assured her that everything at home was fine. Sometimes he asked when she would return. She always gave him the same answer: as soon as they finished launching the project with the supplier.
During the third week, their calls became slightly less frequent. It was not because they had argued. They were simply both tired. That was normal during a long business trip.
One evening, near the end of that third week, Elena’s phone began to vibrate. She was expecting a call from a colleague, so she answered immediately without looking at the screen.
But it was not her colleague. It was Nina Semyonovna.
“Good evening, Lenochka. Are you busy?”
“No, it’s fine.” Elena sat down on the edge of the bed in her hotel room. “Has something happened?”
“Nothing has happened,” her mother-in-law replied. Her voice sounded unusual—almost cheerful, with a certain lightness that immediately struck Elena as strange. “I just wanted to tell you… Lyonya and I talked things over with Kirill. He gave us permission to stay in that apartment for a while. You know, the one-bedroom place you renovated. We’ve already moved in. There’s no point in letting a perfectly good apartment go to waste while it’s sitting empty.”
Elena did not answer immediately. She looked at the wall opposite her. A painting hung there—a neutral landscape depicting mountains or perhaps hills. It was difficult to tell.
“Wait,” she finally said. “Please repeat that.”
“We’ve moved into your one-bedroom apartment,” Nina Semyonovna repeated as casually as if she were talking about something completely ordinary. “Kiryusha gave us permission. The apartment was empty anyway, and the situation with our roof has become terrible. The bedroom started leaking so badly that we had to put buckets everywhere. So we decided to stay here temporarily.”
“Kirill gave you permission,” Elena repeated.
“Yes. He’s our son, so he understood our situation. Don’t worry. We’ll be careful and won’t touch anything unnecessarily.”
Elena did not reply. She said goodbye, ended the call, and sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes, staring at a single spot.
Then she called Kirill.
 
Her husband answered after the third ring.
“Listen,” Elena began without any introduction. “Your mother just called me. She said she and your father are living in my apartment. Is that true?”
There was a pause. It was short but unmistakable.
“Well… yes. I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When you got home. I thought I’d explain everything calmly.”
“Kirill, you gave your parents the keys to my apartment without telling me while I was away on a business trip.”
“Lena, their roof started leaking. And I don’t mean a few drops. An entire corner of the bedroom was flooded. Where else were they supposed to go?”
“That is not my problem,” Elena said. “And you know it.”
The conversation ended quickly. Kirill started trying to explain, while Elena listened in silence. Then she told him she would return in ten days and that they would talk then. She ended the call.
Over the next ten days, Elena completed everything she needed to do in Yekaterinburg, signed the remaining documents, and returned her work pass. On the train home, she watched fields rushing past the window and thought about the fact that she had never given Kirill keys to the second apartment. They had never discussed who might live there or under what conditions. There had been no reason to discuss it. The apartment belonged to Elena, and the decision was hers. She had assumed that went without saying.
 
Or so she had thought.
She arrived home in the evening. Kirill met her in the hallway and helped with her suitcase. He looked tense. Elena removed her shoes, walked into the kitchen, and poured herself a glass of water.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
Kirill sat down across from her at the table.
“Lena, they really were in a difficult situation. The roof started leaking a week after you left. Dad called and said the bedroom was getting soaked. I drove over to look, and it was serious. No one could sleep in there.”
“So you decided they could move into my apartment.”
“I thought you’d understand. The place was sitting empty. You hadn’t found tenants yet. It’ll only be for a month at most, until they patch the roof.”
“You thought I’d understand.” Elena set her glass down on the table. “Is that why you didn’t call and ask me?”
Kirill fell silent.
 
“I knew you would say no.”
“Exactly,” Elena said. “That is precisely why you should have asked.”
The following day, she went to the one-bedroom apartment. Nina Semyonovna opened the door herself, wearing a housecoat with a towel wrapped around her hair.
“Lenochka! You’re back. Come in. I’ve just put the kettle on.”
Elena stepped inside and looked around. Other people’s belongings had appeared in the room: an old floor lamp with a fabric shade, several boxes stacked in a corner, and pots of geraniums lining the windowsill.
“Nina Semyonovna,” Elena said, “I came to tell you this in person. You need to vacate the apartment. I’m giving you two weeks.”
Nina Semyonovna lowered the hand that had been adjusting her towel.
“What do you mean, vacate it? We’ve only just settled in. Besides, the apartment was standing empty, and the renovation was already finished. Why let a perfectly good place go to waste?”
Leonid Fyodorovich came out of the kitchen and stopped in the doorway with his arms crossed.
“Lena, try to understand our situation. We didn’t come here to cause trouble. We had nowhere else to go. The roof is leaking, and the repairs are expensive. Kirill gave us permission. We thought we could settle this as a family.”
“This apartment belongs to me,” Elena said evenly. “It is not family property, and it does not belong to Kirill. It is mine. He had no right to give you the keys without my permission. I’m giving you two weeks. Please return to your house by then.”
Nina Semyonovna straightened.
“Two weeks? And where are we supposed to go? Back to a house with a hole in the roof?”
“That is an issue concerning your house, not my apartment,” Elena replied before saying goodbye.
That evening, she and Kirill had a long, difficult conversation. At first, he pleaded with her to be understanding. Then he explained that the roof truly was in dangerous condition, that his parents were no longer young, and that two weeks was not enough time. Elena listened without interrupting.
“Kirill,” she said when he had finished, “I understand that your parents are having problems with their house. This isn’t new. They’ve been talking about those problems for three years. But the condition of their house does not entitle them to use my apartment as temporary accommodation—especially without my permission.”
“You want to throw two elderly people out.”
 
“I want my apartment back.”
“That’s the same thing!”
“No,” Elena objected calmly. “Those are two different things. If you had called and asked me, I would have said no, and that would have been my answer. But you didn’t call. You made the decision for me. That is the real problem.”
Kirill fell silent. Then he stood up and went out onto the balcony.
Nina Semyonovna and Leonid Fyodorovich did not quietly accept the two-week deadline. Nina Semyonovna called several times. Sometimes she explained that it was impossible to repair the roof in two weeks. At other times, she accused Elena of destroying the family. She also asked for at least a month.
Leonid Fyodorovich came to speak to Elena in person. He stood in her hallway and spoke in a restrained but forceful manner. He said that people had not behaved this way when he was young, that parents deserved respect, and that he and his wife were not strangers.
“I respect you,” Elena said. “That is exactly why I’m being honest instead of dragging this out. The deadline remains unchanged.”
By then, Kirill had firmly taken his parents’ side. He urged Elena to reconsider, saying the situation could be resolved quietly and that there was no reason to turn it into a scandal. Elena replied that there was no scandal—only a clear demand and a clear deadline.
Three days before the deadline expired, Nina Semyonovna and Leonid Fyodorovich packed their belongings. Her mother-in-law spent the most time dealing with the geraniums on the windowsill. She carefully placed the pots in a box, wrapping each one in newspaper. Leonid Fyodorovich carried out the floor lamp and then returned for the boxes in the kitchen.
Elena came to collect the keys herself. Nina Semyonovna handed them over in silence without saying goodbye. Leonid Fyodorovich nodded from the hallway and turned away.
Elena placed the keys in her purse beside the keys to her primary apartment.
That same evening, she told her husband they needed to talk.
Kirill was sitting on the sofa with his phone in his hands. He looked up.
“Kirill, I’m not going to continue living with you,” Elena said. “You made a decision about my property without my knowledge. You knew I would refuse, and that was precisely why you didn’t ask. This is not a minor issue to me.”
“Lena, I was only trying to help my parents.”
“I understand. But you helped them at my expense. Those are two different things.”
Kirill remained silent for a long time.
 
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
He moved in with Nina Semyonovna and Leonid Fyodorovich two days later. He packed his belongings slowly and in silence. Elena did not interfere. When the door closed behind him, she walked through the apartment and opened the window in the main room. It was early August, and the street outside was quiet.
She filed for divorce a week later. There was nothing to divide. Both apartments had been legally acquired by Elena outside the marriage, and the couple had accumulated almost no jointly owned property. Kirill signed everything without objection.
Elena found tenants for the second apartment in September. They were a young working couple with no pets. They initially offered twenty-six thousand rubles, but they eventually agreed on twenty-seven. Elena signed a formal rental agreement and handed the keys over personally. She kept one set for herself.
Kirill remained at his parents’ house.
Nina Semyonovna never called again.