The teapot quietly whistled on the stove as Elena sorted through tea bags. Chamomile, mint, black with bergamot… Vika had brought them from her last business trip to London. Elena smiled, remembering how her daughter had solemnly handed her these keys five years ago.
“Now, Mom, you’ll have your own home,” Vika had said then, handing over the keys. “No more rented rooms.”
The old kitchen had long become her favorite place. Everything here breathed comfort: the worn linoleum on the table, the pots of geraniums on the windowsill, even the crack in the tile by the stove felt familiar. Elena was just about to pour herself some tea when the doorbell rang.
Vika stood on the threshold – in a strict business suit, with perfect hair and an utterly icy expression on her face.
“Mom, we need to talk.”
Elena stepped aside, letting her daughter in. Something in her voice made her heart tighten.
“Come in, dear. I just made some tea. Your favorite, the one you brought.”
“No, thank you,” Vika remained standing in the middle of the kitchen. “I won’t stay long. Mom, you need to vacate the apartment. By tomorrow.”
Elena froze with the teapot in her hand. It seemed she had misheard.
“What, sorry?”
“The apartment needs to be vacated. Tomorrow. I can’t delay this any longer.”
Hot tea spilled on her hand, but Elena didn’t even feel the pain.
“Vika, I don’t understand… This is my home. You yourself…”
“It’s just an apartment, Mom,” Vika took out her phone, quickly checked something on the screen. “You’ve lived here, but I can no longer support you.”
“Support?” Elena laughed nervously. “Dear, I pay for the utilities myself, I clean…”
“Mom, let’s skip that,” Vika grimaced. “The decision is made. Leave the keys on the table.”
She turned to leave, but Elena grabbed her by the arm:
“Wait! At least explain – why? What happened?”
“Nothing happened. Just business, Mom. The apartment can be rented out for more.”
The door slammed shut, and Elena was left alone. Her ears rang. She slowly sat down on a stool, looking at a puddle of spilled tea. In its reflection, the glints of the evening sun danced.
As if in a dream, she got up and went to the room. On the wall hung photographs: here was Vika at her graduation, glowing in a white dress. And here they were together at the sea – her daughter building a sandcastle, while Elena laughed, trying to protect it from the incoming waves. Back then, she had just sold their summer house to pay for Vika’s education. But was that a sacrifice? No, just… love.
“My little girl,” Elena whispered, running her finger over the photograph. “How could this be?”
Evening slowly turned into night. Elena mechanically packed her things in an old suitcase, pausing now and then to look at familiar details of the apartment: the peeling paint in the corner she had always planned to touch up, the warm light of her favorite lamp, the shadow of the geranium on the wall… Suddenly, every little thing became unbearably precious.
Somewhere deep inside, hope warmed that in the morning the phone would ring and Vika would say it was a mistake. A silly joke. Anything. But the phone remained silent, and the clock hands relentlessly counted the last hours in the place she considered her home.
The first night was stifling. Elena sat on a park bench, clutching her worn suitcase, and stared at the stars. Somewhere there, in warm apartments, people slept in their beds, and she… Lord, how did it come to this?
She had left the keys on the kitchen table, carefully wiped them with a napkin. For some reason, it seemed important that they shine. Perhaps Vika would notice and remember how her mother always cared about the little things.
“Good evening,” a raspy voice sounded nearby. Elena flinched. A bearded man in a tattered jacket sat down at the other end of the bench. “Don’t be scared, I’m just sitting down. Are you spending the night too?”
Elena instinctively clutched the suitcase closer.
“No, you see… I’m just… walking.”
The man chuckled:
“At three in the morning? With a suitcase?”
“Yes, imagine,” Elena tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “I love… night walks.”
“Got it,” he pulled an apple from his pocket and offered it to her. “Want some? Clean, just washed it in the fountain.”
Elena shook her head, but her stomach traitorously growled. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning.
“By the way, my name is Semyon,” the man bit into the apple. “I’ve been on the street for three months. Wife kicked me out. And you?”
“My daughter,” Elena quietly replied, surprised at her own candor.
“Hm,” Semyon shook his head. “Kids, they grow up… different nowadays. My son’s been in America, haven’t heard from him in two years.”
By morning, it had grown colder. Elena dozed off, leaning against the bench back. Semyon had left long ago, leaving her a second apple and the address of a shelter. “It’s warm there, and they sometimes feed you,” he had said.
As dawn broke, she got up, stretching her numb legs. Where to go? She wasn’t ready for the shelter, no… Maybe… Anna? The neighbor had always been welcoming, sometimes coming over for tea…
Ringing the familiar doorbell on the fifth floor was hard. Elena raised and lowered her hand several times before she decided.
“Lenochka?” Anna appeared at the threshold in a floral robe. “Lord, what happened? You look awful!”
“Anya…” Elena’s voice trembled. “Can I stay with you… for a couple of days?”
In Anna’s small kitchen, the smell of powdered sugar lingered. She was baking buns – she liked to treat herself to fresh pastries in the mornings.
“Well…” Anna shook her head, listening to her friend’s disjointed story. “I always said – you spoiled her. Remember how she was rude to you on your birthday? And you kept saying ‘my little girl, my little girl’…”
“Don’t, Anya…”
“We have to, Lena!” Anna slammed her cup on the table. “How long can you deceive yourself? She’s always been like this. Remember how you gave her all your savings for her wedding? And she didn’t even say thank you!”
Elena looked out the window, where the city slowly awakened. Somewhere there, people rushed to work, having homes, families, and confidence in tomorrow…
“You’ll get back on your feet, Lena,” Anna placed her hand on her shoulder. “You’ve always managed.”
Three days flew by unnoticed. Elena tried to be useful – she cooked, cleaned, even fixed Anna’s broken faucet. But with each day, she felt more and more like a burden.
“Vladimir!” she suddenly remembered, flipping through an old address book. An old family friend, once worked with her husband. A few years ago, he had offered help…
Dialing his number was terrifying. What if he didn’t remember? Or worse, remembered but refused?
“Hello, Volodya? It’s Lena… Yes, Lena Petrova…”
An hour later, she was sitting in his office – a small, paper-cluttered nook at the city shelter where Vladimir worked as the manager.
“So, you say, your daughter kicked you out?” he tapped a pencil on the desk. “Well… you know, our cook in the cafeteria just quit. Temporarily, of course, but still… Can you cook?”
“I’ve been cooking all my life…” Elena hesitated. “But where will I live?”
“You’ll live here,” Vladimir smiled. “There’s a service room, small, true… But it’s yours. You’re stronger than you think, Lena. You’ll manage.”
In the evening, she crossed the threshold of the shelter for the first time as a worker. The smell of borscht mixed with the smell of bleach. Voices buzzed in the dining hall – different people gathered here. An intellectual-looking old man in a worn jacket was passionately telling a young woman with a child something. Semyon (what a meeting!) was helping to set the tables.
“Elena Sergeyevna!” a middle-aged woman called out to her. “I’m Tamara, I’ll be showing you the ropes. Don’t worry, we’ve all been through something…”
In the small service room, it was clean and unexpectedly cozy. Elena sat on the bed, took out her phone. Her finger hovered over Vika’s number… No. Not now.
“Well,” she said to her reflection in the window, “life goes on?”
Three months flew by like one day. Elena quickly adapted to the work – it turned out that cooking for a large company was even more fun than for two. And with constant busyness, there was less time for bitter thoughts.
“Elena Sergeyevna,” Tamara peeked into the kitchen, “there’s a new girl, quite young. Maybe make her some tea?”
“Right away, just a minute,” Elena wiped her hands and reached for a hidden pack of cookies on the upper shelf.
In the dining hall, a skinny girl in her twenties nervously fidgeted with the sleeve of her stretched sweater.
“Want some tea?” Elena placed a cup in front of her. “With bergamot. From London.”
The girl lifted tear-filled eyes:
“Thank you. And you… have you been here long?”
“Three months,” Elena sat down next to her. “You know, I also thought – it’s the end of the world. But it turned out to be the start of something new.”
In the evenings, she began to write. At first, she simply recorded thoughts in an old notebook, then poems began to form. Clumsy, naive, but so honest that Tamara, to whom she dared to show them, cried.
“Keep writing, Elena Sergeyevna,” she said. “Your soul sings.”
One evening, Elena took out a clean sheet of paper and wrote: “Hello, Vika.” The letter was long. She told her daughter everything: about the night in the park, about the apple from homeless Semyon, about fear and loneliness. And about how she then learned to live anew.
“You’ll always be my daughter,” she wrote, “but I won’t live just for you anymore. You know, I’ve started writing poems. Remember how I read you my first attempts as a child? You laughed and said I was just like Pushkin. Now I write for myself. And live for myself. I hope one day you’ll understand – it’s the right thing to do.”
She didn’t send the letter, but it made her feel lighter. As if she had let go of something that had been holding her all this time.
“Elena Sergeyevna!” Tamara burst into the kitchen, waving some paper. “I have news for you! Remember Mariya Stepanovna, who comes to our literary evenings? She’s renting a room, not expensive. She says she likes you – you cook well, and you write poems…”
A week later, Elena was moving her few belongings into a bright room on the second floor of an old building. Mariya Stepanovna, a slender woman with wise eyes, helped her hang curtains.
“You know,” she said, handing Elena nails, “I’ve been through it too. My husband kicked me out after thirty years of marriage. I thought I wouldn’t survive. And then… then I started painting. Can you imagine?”
In the evening, Elena stood by the window, watching the first snow fall. Fluffy flakes swirled in the light of street lamps, covering the city with a white blanket. Somewhere there, in another part of the city, was Vika. Perhaps she was also looking out the window now?
On the table lay an open notebook. “I hold no grudges,” Elena wrote. And for the first time in a long time, it was the pure truth. Life indeed continued – and now she knew for sure that she would live. Not for someone else, but for herself.
Write what you think about this story! I would love to hear your thoughts!