Mom, it’s urgent. I need all the money.”
Her son Vadim’s voice was dull, tight.
Galina Sergeyevna froze with the dish towel in her hands. She felt trouble at once, but her face stayed calm. Habit.
“What happened, Vadik?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. His fingers were nervously twisting his car key.
“It’s Sveta. Surgery.”
For a moment, Galina Sergeyevna couldn’t breathe.
“My God. What? What kind of surgery? Is it serious?”
“What difference does it make, Mom?” He finally raised his heavy gaze to her. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
He spoke in short bursts, as if forcing the words out.
“I need money. A lot. Everything you have.”
Everything.
That word hung in the tiny kitchen. “Everything” meant her savings. What she had been putting aside for ten years, denying herself vacations, new clothes, repairs at the old dacha.
Her safety cushion. Her small, carefully guarded fortress.
Money that guaranteed she would never become a burden. That she’d be able to afford a caregiver if needed, instead of hanging around Vadim’s neck.
“Vadim, but how… That’s…”
“Mom, there’s no time!” He slapped his palm on the table. “The clinic is private. We can’t wait. Do you want her to die?”
It was a blow below the belt. She knew he was manipulating her, but her mother’s heart shrank with fear.
She had always been the one others leaned on. The one who solved problems. The one who held up the sky while everyone else panicked.
She nodded slowly.
“How much?”
“Everything,” he repeated. “To the last kopeck.”
She didn’t remember how she got dressed or how she walked to the bank.
Her hands were trembling slightly as she signed the papers to close her account. The pen in her fingers felt cold and smooth.
The bank employee, a very young girl, watched her with sympathy. She probably decided some scammer had tricked the old woman.
Galina Sergeyevna gave a bitter inward smile. If only.
She received the heavy bundle of cash. She didn’t bother to count it.
Vadim was waiting by the entrance. His hand was damp and clammy as he snatched the envelope from her.
“Thanks, Mom. I… I’ll pay everything back. I promise.”
He turned and almost ran to his car.
Galina Sergeyevna remained standing on the bank steps. Inside, there was nothing left. Her account was empty. Her ten years of life, her insurance, her future—gone.
The week passed like a fever dream.
Vadim didn’t call.
When she timidly texted, “How’s Sveta? How did the surgery go?” he replied hours later, in one word: “Fine.”
“He doesn’t have time for me,” she assured herself. “He’s saving his wife. Everything’s fine.”
She forbade herself to think about the money. It wasn’t like she gave it for nonsense. She’d given it for a life.
On Thursday she went to the Magnit supermarket near her home. She needed milk and bread.
She wandered between the aisles, mechanically putting things into her basket.
And in the household chemicals section, she saw her.
Sveta.
Absolutely alive, rosy-cheeked, healthy.
She was standing half-turned, laughing loudly, contagiously, discussing some new fabric softener with a friend.
“…and the smell! Lenka, you can’t imagine! ‘Alpine Freshness’!” Sveta was holding a big pink bottle.
She was wearing a light dress, with no trace of hospitals. No weakness.
Galina Sergeyevna dropped the basket.
The plastic milk bottle hit the floor with a dull thud.
Sveta turned at the sound.
Their eyes met.
The laughter cut off. The smile slowly slid from her daughter-in-law’s face.
Sveta blinked. Once, twice.
Her friend Lena, not noticing anything, kept chirping:
“…so I took this one, with lavender. Svetik? What’s wrong?”
Sveta wasn’t looking at her friend. She was looking at Galina Sergeyevna.
There was no shame, no remorse in her eyes. Only a cold, instant irritation. As if her mother-in-law hadn’t caught her in a monstrous lie, but had stuck her nose where it didn’t belong.
Galina Sergeyevna swallowed. Her mouth was dry, as if she’d eaten dust.
“Sveta…” she whispered. “The surgery…”
The spilled milk was spreading across the linoleum in a white, indifferent puddle.
“Oh, hello, Galina Sergeyevna,” Sveta suddenly pasted on a brisk, businesslike smile. “You dropped something.”
She turned to her friend:
“Len, go ahead to the checkout, I’ll catch up. I forgot to look at the salt.”
The friend, after a surprised glance at Galina Sergeyevna and the milk puddle, shrugged and pushed her cart away.
As soon as she disappeared behind the shelf, Sveta’s face turned hard again.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
The question was so absurd in its brazenness that it scalded Galina Sergeyevna.
“I… I live here. I came for bread. Sveta, what’s going on? You… you’re supposed to be in the hospital.”
Her daughter-in-law rolled her eyes. She always did that when, in her opinion, Galina said something “old-fashioned.”
“For God’s sake. First of all, stop shouting, people are looking at us.”
Galina glanced around. The security guard at the entrance had indeed turned his head towards them. She hadn’t even raised her voice. She was whispering.
“Second,” Sveta stepped closer, lowering her voice to an angry hiss, “it’s none of your business.”
“How… is it not my business?” Galina felt the floor sliding out from under her feet. “Vadim said… he took…”
“Vadim said everything right. You gave him the money yourself. All of it. I don’t have time.”
She moved to walk past her.
Galina instinctively stepped sideways, blocking her path. She hadn’t expected such firmness from herself.
“Where did the money go, Sveta?”
Her daughter-in-law’s gaze turned icy.
“I’ll repeat it. Not. Your. Business. Vadim will explain if he thinks it’s necessary.”
She sharply walked around her, almost bumping her shoulder, and headed towards the checkouts with quick, springy steps without looking back.
Galina remained standing over the white puddle.
The security guard approached.
“Ma’am, are you all right? Let me clean this up.”
She only nodded, unable to speak.
She left the basket with the rest of the groceries where it was. She forgot why she’d come.
She didn’t remember how she left the store.
The cold October wind hit her face, but she barely felt it. Her world had narrowed.
She walked home on autopilot.
One thought beat in her head, pushing out all the others: “They lied to me.”
Not “made a mistake.” Not “left something unsaid.”
They lied.
Cynically, deliberately, looking her straight in the eye.
Her son. Vadim.
She entered the apartment.
Familiar things seemed foreign. The sofa where he had sat while asking. The table he had hit with his palm.
It had all been a set for a cheap, disgusting play.
Her fingers, still trembling, found her phone.
She had to call Vadim.
She had to hear his voice. He had to explain everything.
Maybe Sveta had run out of the hospital? Maybe this was some kind of remission? Maybe the surgery had been yesterday and today they let her out?
Her brain desperately clung to the most absurd excuses.
Ringing. Long, indifferent tones.
“Yes, Mom.” His voice was impatient. Music played in the background.
“Vadik…” Her own voice sounded strange to her, creaky.
“Mom, I’m busy, is it urgent?”
“Yes. I… I just saw Sveta.”
There was a short pause on the other end. The music grew quieter.
“So? And?”
His tone was wary.
“She’s… at the store. With a friend. She was laughing.”
Galina fell silent, giving him a chance to… what?
She didn’t even know what she was waiting for. Remorse? Fear?
Vadim let out a heavy sigh. The sigh of a man pulled away from something important for some nonsense.
“Mom. I asked you not to get involved.”
“Vadim, what’s going on? You said—surgery.”
“Yes, surgery!” he suddenly raised his voice. “But everything changed!”
“What changed?”
“They found another doctor! Another method! Without… without a knife. Yeah. A new treatment. That’s where the money went! It turned out to be even more expensive!”
He spoke fast, stumbling over words, but pushing hard.
“What treatment, Vadim?”
“Oh, Mom, you won’t understand anyway! Complicated terms! The main thing is—Sveta’s healthy, right? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I… yes, but…”
“Well, that’s that! You helped, thank you. I can’t talk.”
And he hung up.
Galina stared at the phone in her hand.
“New treatment.”
“Complicated terms.”
“You won’t understand anyway.”
He hadn’t even tried to tell a convincing lie.
He hadn’t bothered.
Because he was sure she’d “swallow” this too.
Her son thought she was an idiot.
That was more terrifying than the loss of the money.
She put the phone on the table.
Her fortress had fallen. Her safety cushion, which she’d built up for ten years, had not just been stolen.
She had handed it over voluntarily.
And not to save a life.
For what, then?
For fabric softener? For a new dress? For something that, with her “old-fashioned” views, she wasn’t supposed to know about?
She sat down on the hard kitchen chair.
Her hands no longer shook.
She felt something heavy and cold sinking to the very bottom inside her.
It wasn’t anger.
It was a full stop.
She didn’t sleep that night.
She didn’t cry. She sat in the kitchen and stared into the dark window.
She didn’t rewind the ten years she had spent saving. She rewound the thirty years she had spent raising her son.
Where?
At what point had he decided she wasn’t a person, but a function? A resource. An ATM you can hack if you know the right code.
And the code was called “a matter of life and death.”
In the morning she didn’t go to work. For the first time in fifteen years she called in and said she was taking a day off.
She didn’t wait for them to come “manage” her.
She got dressed. Called a taxi.
She went to them. To their new apartment in a brand-new building, the one they had taken a mortgage for, the one she had also helped with.
She needed to see them. To see where her ten years of life had gone.
She went up to their floor. Vadim opened the door.
He was in a home T-shirt, looking flustered. He hadn’t expected her.
“Mom? What are you… Is something…”
She silently pushed past him into the apartment.
The hallway smelled of new appliances and cardboard.
Sveta stepped out of the room.
She was wearing that same beige cashmere loungewear set. It fit perfectly. Expensive.
“Galina Sergeyevna?” she was genuinely surprised, but quickly pulled herself together. “Oh, and we were just about to come see you! We bought chocolates!”
In the living room that opened off the hallway, Galina saw it.
A huge TV, taking up the entire wall. She’d only seen ones like that in commercials. Beside it stood boxes from a new gaming console.
“Chocolates,” Galina repeated dully.
“Yes!” Sveta nodded enthusiastically. “You just misunderstood everything. Vadim mixed it up when he told you.”
“Mixed it up,” Galina echoed.
She looked at her son. He was still standing by the doorway, not knowing what to do.
“Vadik, Sveta says you ‘mixed it up.’”
Vadim flinched and gave her a hunted look.
“Mom, well… It’s complicated.”
“The money,” she said simply. “Where is it?”
Sveta took over. She smiled. Condescendingly.
“Galina Sergeyevna. We’re so grateful to you. You literally saved us. But you have to understand, this is… business.”
“Business?” Galina repeated.
“Well, yes. Vadik had… temporary difficulties. And then a project came up. A hot one! He needed to invest fast. And there was no other way to get the money.”
She talked as if she were explaining to a child why you can’t eat snow.
“And the surgery?” Galina asked.
Here Sveta gave a theatrical sigh.
“Oh. That was Vadik’s idea. He’s so impressionable. He knew you wouldn’t give it otherwise. He worries about me so much, about our future!”
She looked at her husband with tender eyes.
Galina followed that look.
Vadim. Her son. Standing there with his head down. Not impressionable.
Weak.
And led by the nose.
“And what project is this?” Her voice stayed even.
“Oh, it’s complicated!” Sveta waved it off, walking over to the new coffee machine in the kitchen. “It’s connected with… cryptocurrency. You wouldn’t understand. The important thing is we’ll give everything back soon! With interest! Coffee?”
She was glowing.
And in that glow, in that expensive outfit, in the smell of new plastic, in that patronizing “you wouldn’t understand,” lay the real thing.
The last straw.
Not the lie itself.
But the ease with which they lied. The contempt behind it.
They hadn’t just stolen her savings.
They had devalued her life. Her ten years of frugality. Her maternal feelings.
All of it had been trampled for the sake of “cryptocurrency” and a new TV.
“I see,” said Galina.
Vadim raised his head. He was expecting tears, screaming, reproaches.
He saw none of that.
Only his mother’s calm, tired face.
“Mom, you’re… you’re not mad?” he asked hopefully, taking a step towards her.
Galina looked at him.
Inside, nothing else was sinking. She had hit the bottom.
She slowly walked towards the door.
“Mom, where are you going?” Vadim grabbed her by the arm. “Wait, Sveta will…”
Galina looked at his hand on her sleeve.
Then at him.
“Vadim,” she said quietly, but in a tone that made Sveta stop rattling the coffee machine. “You had a mother.”
He froze.
“You traded her. For…” she nodded at Sveta, “…for this. And for a TV.”
“How dare you!” shrieked Sveta, flying out of the kitchen.
“You didn’t give it up voluntarily,” Galina said. “I did. To you. I gave myself up.”
She shook his hand off.
Vadim stared at her, and at last there was fear in his eyes. Not for Sveta.
For himself. He understood he’d broken something.
Irreparably.
“Mom…”
“You’re no longer my son.”
She said it.
And felt no pain. Only relief.
“Live your life.”
She opened the door and stepped out onto the landing.
Sveta was shouting something after her.
Vadim stayed silent.
Galina pressed the elevator button without looking back.
The first thing she did was change the lock.
The locksmith came, grunted, removed the old mechanism and put in a new one, with shiny, complex keys.
Then the calls began.
The first few days—furious. Mostly from Sveta. Messages full of insults and threats.
“…you’ll regret this!”
“…ungrateful cow!”
“…Vadim won’t forgive you for this!”
Galina didn’t reply. She just blocked the numbers. One by one.
Then Vadim started calling.
First—pressure. “Mom, open the door, we need to talk.”
Then—pity. “Mom, why are you acting like a stranger? We’re family.”
Then—anger again. “You have no right! I’ll take you to court!”
She didn’t block his number. She just stopped picking up.
The calls became less frequent.
The apartment felt strange. The air seemed cleaner.
Earlier she hadn’t noticed it, but Vadim and Sveta always left a heavy atmosphere behind. The smell of someone else’s perfume, tobacco, some constant rush and demands.
Now her home smelled only of her. Hand cream and a faint scent of cleaning products.
She went back to work. Her colleagues asked what had happened.
“Blood pressure,” she answered briefly.
No one pried further.
She opened a new savings account. In another bank.
She deposited her first three thousand.
It was ridiculous compared to the old amount. But it was hers.
It was her first little brick in a new fortress.
She began to sleep. For the first time in many years she slept through the night without listening for the phone, without waiting for another “Mom, it’s urgent.”
By the end of winter, about four months later, she was coming home from the library—she’d picked up a detective novel.
He was standing by her building.
Vadim.
Galina stopped dead.
He wasn’t in cashmere now. He was in an old, crumpled jacket.
Unshaven, with red eyes.
He saw her and rushed towards her.
“Mom!”
Her first reaction was to flinch. He noticed the movement.
“Mom, wait!”
He stopped a couple of steps away.
“Mom, I…”
She stared at him silently.
“That project… that cryptocurrency… it’s all gone,” he said quickly, swallowing words. “Sveta… she… she said I’m a loser.”
He sobbed.
“She filed for divorce. Mom, I… I understand everything now.”
He waited.
He waited for her to gasp, to pull him into her arms, to take him home. To feed him. To save him.
Like she always had.
Galina looked at him. At this beaten, pitiful man.
And she felt nothing.
No anger. No love.
Only a dull, cold fatigue.
“Mom, forgive me… I… I don’t know what to do… I have nowhere to go!”
He stepped closer, trying to hug her.
Galina raised her hand, palm out.
“No, Vadim.”
Her voice was quiet, but he stopped as if he’d run into a wall.
“But I’m your son!” His voice broke into a sob.
“You were my son.”
She repeated the phrase.
“The boy I loved would never have killed his mother for money for some…” she winced, “…‘project.’ And you”—she ran her eyes over him—“I don’t know you. And I don’t want to.”
“But where am I supposed to go?!”
“That’s no longer my concern.”
She walked around him.
He shouted something after her. Threatened. Begged.
She didn’t turn around.
She reached the entrance door, took out her new, shiny key. It went into the lock with effort, but it went in.
The door closed behind her, cutting off his cries.
Going up to her apartment, she took off her coat.
On the kitchen windowsill stood a small pot with a cyclamen. She had bought it for herself the week before.
She took the watering can and gently moistened the dry soil.
The bright pink flowers, like little butterflies, trembled toward her.
A year passed.
Spring that year came early and was surprisingly warm.
Galina sat on a bench in the park, squinting into the sun. She was on her way home from work.
She no longer rushed home to have dinner ready “for Vadik, in case he drops by.”
Now she often sat like this. Just watching the children playing by the fountain.
Her new bank account had grown. The amount was already respectable. Not what it used to be, but enough that she no longer feared tomorrow.
She allowed herself something she had long dreamed of but always postponed “for later.”
She enrolled in courses on furniture repair and restoration.
She liked taking an old, creaky chair, stripping off the peeling varnish, sanding the wood, feeling its living texture, and coating it with fresh wax.
There was something right about it.
Restoring things to their dignity.
She thought about Vadim.
No longer with pain. She thought of him the way you think of someone you knew a very long time ago, someone who has died.
She’d heard things about him.
A distant relative, Aunt Vera from Tver, had called once—he’d tried to “borrow” from her too.
Vadim had never gotten back on his feet.
He survived on odd jobs, lived in some hostel. He wrote her letters.
Galina received three.
The first was full of remorse and pleading.
The second—full of reproach. “If you’d helped me then, I would’ve won it back.”
The third—self-pity again. “I’m sick. I have no one.”
She read them.
And saw only words. Woven into familiar, manipulative patterns.
She didn’t answer any of them.
After the third letter she stopped checking the mailbox.
She knew he hadn’t changed. He was just searching for a new “hook.”
He still hadn’t understood that she was no longer the fish that would bite.
She saw Sveta once.
By chance, in the city center.
She hopped out of a shiny black SUV.
In a new, even more expensive coat, with perfect hair, laughing as she spoke to an older, heavyset man.
She looked absolutely happy.
Sveta didn’t notice her. She walked past, leaving behind a cloud of sharp, fashionable perfume.
Galina watched her go.
For the first time, she didn’t feel a stab of envy or injustice.
Only a light, almost disgusted curiosity.
“I wonder,” she thought, “if they’ll be asking him for money for surgery soon, too?”
She smiled at her own thoughts.
She finished her small cup of cappuccino, which she now bought for herself every Friday.
It was time to go home.
At home, an old dresser she’d found online was waiting for her. It needed a lot of work.
Galina rose from the bench and slowly walked towards the bus stop.
She no longer saved anyone. She no longer held up the sky.
She was simply walking home.
To her own.
Fortress