— “And what is this supposed to be?”
Alexey’s voice—steady and cold as a scalpel—sliced through the cozy evening quiet. Larisa, absorbed in her reading, didn’t look up right away. He stood in the living-room doorway, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze fixed on a small paper bag with a bookstore logo lying on the coffee table. In the tension of his posture, in the way his thin lips tightened, there was already an accusatory verdict that required neither jury nor defense.
“It’s a book,” Larisa replied calmly, deliberately returning her eyes to the page. She knew the draining, methodical interrogation was about to begin, and the predictability of it stirred a dull, long-standing irritation in her.
“I can see it’s not a sack of potatoes. I’m asking why. You’ve already got a whole cupboard full of those dust collectors—you don’t reread them anyway. How much did it cost? Five hundred rubles? A thousand?”
He stepped closer, his shadow falling over the armchair, covering her and the book. He didn’t touch the bag, didn’t look inside. He stared at it as if it were evidence in a case of embezzling public funds. Alexey worked as a systems administrator at a small firm and earned an unremarkable salary, yet when it came to the family budget he behaved like a financial inquisitor. Or rather, when it came to Larisa’s budget. Her income was nearly twice his, but it was her spending that underwent the most humiliating audits.
“It’s my money, Lyosha, and I don’t see why I should report back over a book,” she said, her voice still even, though inside the familiar cauldron of thick, hot tar had begun to boil.
“Your money?” He smirked, and that quiet, condescending smile was worse than any slap. “In a family, Larisa, there is no ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ There’s a common budget. And I, as the head of the family, am obliged to ensure that budget isn’t squandered on nonsense. Today a book, tomorrow a handbag, and the day after—what? A resort trip with your girlfriends? I saw the breakdown of your expenses last month. Manicure—two thousand. Meeting with Olya at a café—fifteen hundred. Don’t you think you’re living beyond your means?”
He used his signature lecturing tone, as if explaining the basics of survival to a wayward, spoiled child. His weapon wasn’t a raised voice but a methodical, icy pressure, forcing her to feel like a guilty spendthrift, an ungrateful fool throwing money to the wind—money he supposedly safeguarded for their common good. But something broke today. Perhaps the last straw was this very book—the small thing she allowed herself, for her soul, for herself.
Larisa slowly closed the novel. The snap of the cover sounded unusually loud in the room’s silence. She set the book on the table beside the damned bag and stood up. She looked him straight in the eye, and in her gaze there was no trace of apology, no weary submission. Only cold rage, accumulated over years.
“Fine. Let’s talk about the budget. Show me your breakdown. Right now. Where do you spend your salary? I don’t see anything from you in this house besides a pack of cheap dumplings once a week and your endless moralizing. Where does your money go, Lyosha? You don’t buy yourself clothes, you don’t pay for the apartment. What do you spend it on?”
He was caught off guard. It was a low blow, a move he could never have predicted. She had never gone on the offensive. He was used to her pouting, making excuses, and ultimately giving in.
“That’s none of your business!” he snapped, but for the first time in many years a note of panic slipped into his voice. “A man shouldn’t have to account to his wife for every penny!”
“Oh, is that so?” Larisa laughed bitterly, and the laugh grated like metal on glass. “So I must, and you don’t? How convenient. Very convenient. You know what, I’m tired. I’ll take a look myself.”
She turned sharply and headed to the bedroom, where her laptop lay on the nightstand. He rushed after her, his face twisted with poorly concealed dread.
“What are you going to do? Don’t you dare! Larisa!”
But she had already lifted the lid, her fingers flying by habit into online banking. She didn’t need his password. She simply switched accounts; his password was saved there anyway. She had never done this before, blindly trusting him. Her fingers danced over the trackpad, scrolling through the long list of transactions from recent months. And there they were. Small, almost invisible transfers of two, three, five thousand rubles. Every few days. Recipient—Alexey Viktorovich K. Memo—“for household needs.” He had been skimming money from her bit by bit like a back-alley rat. And there were larger sums, too. Thirty, forty, fifty thousand. Every month, on the same day—the day after his salary came in. Recipient—Margarita Alexeyevna K. His sister. The picture snapped into place with blinding clarity.
“So you’re going to support your sister while living at my expense? And you’re going to demand reports on every purchase I make? Haven’t you got a hell of a nerve, my dear? You won’t see another kopeck of my money!”
Alexey looked at the numbers, the names, the dates, and his face turned as white as a hospital sheet. His carefully constructed world of total control and lies collapsed in a second. The game was over.
For the first few seconds after her outburst, the room was a thick, viscous vacuum. Alexey stared at the laptop screen, at the streaming lines of figures that mercilessly dissected his double life. He felt no remorse. He felt the animal, icy fear of a thief unmasked. His face, just pale from shock, began to flush with an unhealthy, dark red.
Larisa didn’t wait for explanations or excuses. She sat in the chair before the laptop, her back perfectly straight, like a steel rod. Her movements were swift, precise, and utterly merciless. Click after click, she changed passwords. Online banking, the mobile app, personal accounts. Each keystroke was the sound of another nail driven into the lid of his coffin. He stood staring at the back of her head, at the way her fingers fluttered across the keyboard, and understood that he was losing not merely access to her money. He was losing power—the sweet, intoxicating power of a petty tyrant he had so long and carefully constructed.
“What are you doing?” he croaked when at last the full scale of the catastrophe hit him. “You’re destroying the family!”
“The family?” She didn’t turn around. Her voice was cold and detached, as if she were commenting on the weather forecast. “You destroyed the family when you decided you could live off me while simultaneously sponsoring your overgrown sister. You don’t have to worry about a common budget anymore. It’s gone. Now there’s your budget and mine. Let’s see how you manage on your forty thousand.”
She snapped the laptop shut. The sound was dry and final. She stood, walked around him the way one goes around an unpleasant obstacle, and left the bedroom. He remained alone in a room that suddenly felt foreign. He felt naked, gutted. His scheme—so simple and “brilliant,” working for years—had crumbled to dust because of some stupid book.
The evening passed in silence, denser and heavier than any shout. Larisa ate dinner alone, reading her new book. She no longer looked in his direction. He was nothing to her now, a piece of furniture soon to be hauled to the dump. Alexey drifted around the apartment, unable to settle. His phone vibrated in his pocket. “Rita” flashed on the screen. His heart plummeted into his stomach. She was expecting the monthly transfer. Today was the day.
He went into the kitchen, closing the door tightly behind him, and pressed “answer.”
“Yeah, Rit.”
“Hi, Lyoshenka!” Her voice, as always, was coy and cajoling—the voice of a woman used to getting what she wants. “I’ve been texting and texting—why aren’t you answering? Did you send it? I found a pair of boots, and there’s a sale.”
Alexey pressed his forehead to the cold windowpane. It was dark outside; lights burned in the windows across the way—somewhere out there, normal life flowed on.
“Rit, there are… some minor financial difficulties,” he forced out, trying to keep his voice steady.
The pause on the other end was short but ringing.
“What do you mean, ‘difficulties’?” The sweetness vanished from her voice, leaving only cold, demanding metal. “You got your paycheck yesterday. What difficulties can there be?”
“Larisa… she found out,” he blurted, shifting the blame onto the only person he could. “About the transfers. About everything. She changed all the passwords, I can’t do anything.”
“So what?!” Rita screeched so loudly he had to pull the phone from his ear. “Are you a man or what? You can’t put your own wife in her place? What do you mean ‘found out’? You’re my brother! You promised you’d help me! Mom’s pension is peanuts—do you want me to go to work? As a cashier at Pyaterochka?!”
Her words slapped his face one after another. There was no sympathy. She didn’t care about his problems. She cared only about her boots and her comfort, which he was obliged to provide.
“Rit, I can’t right now! I barely have any money myself! She’s cut me off from everything!” His voice broke into a pitiful, helpless whisper.
“So you’re just ditching me? Because of that shrew of yours? You let her do this? I’m disappointed in you, Lyosha. I thought you were the only real man in our family. Turns out you’re just another henpecked weakling. Sort it out with your harpy. But I want the money. I’m waiting.”
Short, angry beeps. He lowered the phone. He hadn’t sacrificed his sister’s happiness. He had sacrificed the last scraps of her respect for the sake of his own survival. And now he was trapped in a vise. On one side—a wife who despised him. On the other—a sister who saw him not as a brother but a broken ATM. And he no longer had the money to buy even a brief reprieve from this nightmare.
For two days the apartment existed in a state of frozen war. They didn’t speak, only occasionally passing in the hallway like two ghosts condemned to share the same space. Larisa was pointedly calm and busy with her own affairs. She worked, she read, she cooked dinner for one, and this deliberate ignoring ate at Alexey worse than any scandal. He, on the contrary, deflated. Deprived of access to her money, he also lost his swagger. He crept around the house meek as a mouse, shoulders sagging, with the hunted look of a man driven into a corner. He feverishly tallied the remnants of his meager salary, realizing that after paying the phone loan and a couple of small debts he would barely have enough for bus fare and the cheapest pasta.
On Saturday afternoon, as Larisa, back from the gym, was unpacking her bag in the entryway, the doorbell rang. The ring was impatient, almost hysterical—a short, angry trill, repeated twice. Without turning around, Larisa tossed over her shoulder to Alexey, who was sitting in the living room:
“Open it. It’s surely for you.”
He rose from the sofa but didn’t manage a step. Larisa herself turned and yanked the handle. Rita stood on the threshold. She was in full battle dress: bright makeup that in daylight looked like war paint, cheap but gaudy jewelry, and an expression of extreme indignation. She had clearly come for war.
“I’m here to see my brother,” she threw out, trying to push past Larisa into the apartment.
“And his wife doesn’t mind?” Larisa didn’t budge; her body had become an insurmountable barrier. She gave Rita a cold, appraising once-over from head to toe, letting her gaze linger on the chipped nail polish.
Alexey appeared from the living room. Seeing his sister, he paled even more.
“Rita? What are you doing here? I told you…”
“Told you what?” Rita screeched, ignoring him and addressing only Larisa, as the chief enemy. “To wait while you sort things out with your shrew? This is all your fault! You turned him against me, against his own sister!”
She made another attempt to push into the entryway, but Larisa merely angled her shoulder a fraction, and Rita collided with it like a wall.
“First of all, it’s ‘you,’ not ‘thou,’” Larisa said in a glacial tone. “We haven’t drunk bruderschaft. Second, I didn’t turn anyone against anyone. I simply stopped paying to maintain a grown, able-bodied woman. Your brother decided he could buy himself a pet that needs food, water, and pampering. Only he for some reason paid for this show out of my pocket. The show is over.”
Alexey, standing between them, looked pitiful. He tried to say something, but couldn’t get a word in edgewise amid the sharp, stinging back-and-forth.
“Girls, let’s calm down…” he bleated.
“Shut up!” both women barked at him in unison.
Realizing she couldn’t force her way in, Rita switched to direct demands.
“This is his apartment too! I have a right to be here! Lyosha, tell her! You promised you’d help me! I’ve got an interview coming up—I need money for clothes, for transportation! You can’t just abandon me!”
She looked at her brother with a plea laced with command. She still believed her tame, obedient brother would now stomp his foot and put “that bitch” in her place. But Alexey only shifted his gaze helplessly from sister to wife.
Larisa smirked. It was a cruel, contemptuous smirk.
“An interview? Where do they take you without experience or education? Although I hear the Pyaterochka across the street needs a cashier. They issue the uniform for free, so you won’t have to spend money on clothes.”
It was a punch to the gut. Rita gasped with outrage, color flooding her face. What she had shrieked at her brother over the phone in hysteria, this woman now flung in her face as a fait accompli, a brand.
“Lyosha! Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she pleaded, turning to him one last time.
Alexey stood with his head down. He couldn’t meet either his sister’s or his wife’s eyes. His silence spoke louder than any words. It was an admission of complete and final defeat.
Rita understood. The plea vanished from her eyes, leaving only pure, concentrated hatred. She measured them both—the traitor brother and his triumphant wife—with a long, venomous look.
“May you both drop dead,” she hissed.
She pivoted and clattered down the stairs. Larisa watched her go in silence, then closed the door calmly, without a slam. The lock clicked with the finality of a guillotine. She turned to her husband, who stood frozen in the entry like a pillar of salt.
“You can pack your things and go to her. I’m not feeding the two of you.”
He flinched as if slapped. He had expected anything—shouting, reproaches, gloating. But this calm, methodical relegation of him to the category of trash was the scariest of all.
“We were a family, Lara. We loved each other. What happened to you? Where did all this bile come from? All this malice? Is some book, some money really worth destroying everything?”
He tried to appeal to the past, to those feelings he hoped still smoldered in her. It was his last, weakest card.
Larisa looked him straight in the eyes, her gaze hard as a diamond.
“Family? Love? Lyosha, wake up. Family is when you look in the same direction, not into someone else’s wallet. Love is when you care, not when you use. You didn’t love me. You loved my income, my apartment, my comfort that you appropriated. You built yourself a convenient world where you’re the benefactor spending my money on your sister, and the stern master counting my pennies. That isn’t love. It’s parasitism. And I don’t intend to be a donor.”
He stepped closer, his hands clenching into feeble fists. A final spark of anger flickered in his eyes.
“And what now? You’ll throw me out on the street? Think I’ll just leave? You’ll be alone. With your money, with your books. And you’ll die here alone, because no one needs a woman like you!”
It was his last shot. The threat of loneliness. The only thing he could still try to scare her with.
But Larisa only smiled. Quietly, almost tenderly—and that tenderness sent a chill racing down Alexey’s back.
“Loneliness is living with someone who doesn’t respect you, robs you, and despises you. So I’ve been alone for many years, Lyosha. It’s just that you were always there beside me. Now you won’t be. And that isn’t loneliness. It’s freedom. You’re no man. You’re no husband—you’re just an appendage to your sister! Her sponsor! Only now no one from your clan, including you, will get another kopeck out of me. And as for you—I’m divorcing you.”
She said it as simply as if she were talking about uninstalling an unnecessary program from a computer. And in that simplicity lay the final, crushing cruelty. She wasn’t just throwing him out. She was annulling him, erasing him from her life, denying him even the right to call himself a person. She reduced him to the level of a mistake to be corrected.
Alexey stared at her, and his face slowly hardened. He understood it was over. There were no words, no threats, no manipulations left that could affect her. He had lost. Not just the battle over money. He had lost himself.
Silently, without looking at her, he turned and went to the bedroom. Larisa heard him open the wardrobe, heard clothes thud into a sports bag. The sound of the zipper closing rang loud and final in the quiet room. A few minutes later he emerged, already dressed, bag in hand. He didn’t look at her. He walked past like a stranger. In the entryway he stopped, pulled a key from his pocket, and set it on the console. Then he opened the door and left.
Larisa was alone in an absolutely silent apartment. She sat in her armchair staring out the window, where evening was beginning. There was no joy or sorrow on her face. Only emptiness. A huge, clean, sterile emptiness where a life had been scorched to ash. The war was over. Everyone was dead. And she was the only one left alive to go on living upon this wasteland.