The office air was thick and stale, smelling of old papers and of dust that had settled on the system units. The rays of the setting sun timidly filtered through the blinds, laying long golden stripes across the threadbare carpet. In this silence, disturbed only by the steady hum of the computers, there sounded the words that would forever change Anna’s familiar world.
“You’re an old nag, Somova!”
The employment record book, hurled with inexplicable force, hit the edge of the old wooden desk, knocked over a neat stack of fresh papers, and landed with a heavy slap on the worn carpet. It fell open on its yellowed pages, as if showing everyone the story it had accumulated over the years.
Pyotr Sergeyevich Belozerov, owner and permanent director of the small logistics firm “Veles,” leaned back in his massive leather chair. The chair squealed loudly and piercingly, as if protesting against what was happening. His face shone with unrestrained, self-righteous anger; in his eyes danced nasty sparks of rage.
“Twenty years! Twenty long years you’ve sat here! Enough. We need fresh blood, new ideas, not old ballast no one needs.”
Anna stared silently, unable to tear her gaze away, at the record book lying on the floor. Her whole life, neatly written out in the careful handwriting of various HR clerks, was now lying there unceremoniously at his highly polished shoe. This “tiny department,” as she lovingly called it, had been her personal kingdom. Five computers, the server in the corner that hummed constantly, and three managers, including herself. But Belozerov ran things with such an iron grip that the company prospered steadily. He was the absolute master of this little world, and everyone here trembled before him.
“Pyotr Sergeyevich, I… I literally just closed the quarter. All the reports are submitted, all the figures match,” her voice sounded quiet and uncertain, but she forced herself to raise her eyes and meet his cold gaze.
“I’ve already said everything. Inefficient!” He chopped the air with his hand, as if cutting off any objections. “You’re slow, Yelena Petrovna. Sluggish. You can’t keep up with the times. It’s time you finally admitted that.”
Anna was fifty-three. She did not consider herself “old.” She knew every cog in this well-oiled mechanism, remembered how Belozerov himself, back when he was still young and ambitious, had rented this very office—then completely empty and cheerless. She was the living history of this company.
Slowly, forcing herself to overcome the numbness, she bent down and picked up the employment record book. The cheap faux-leather cover was warm and damp from his nervous hands.
“You know perfectly well that this is illegal, don’t you? A layoff has to go through a proper procedure, with severance…”
“What layoff?” He gave a nasty, silent smirk. “Resignation of your own free will. Here’s your letter. Already with your signature.”
He threw another sheet of paper onto the desk. On it, her signature flaunted there, crudely and carelessly forged by someone else’s hand.
Anna said nothing. Arguing with Belozerov at times like this was like trying to shout down a raging thunderstorm. He was reveling in this humiliating scene, savoring his absolute, petty, and pathetic power.
“The door’s that way,” he nodded toward the exit. “Don’t dawdle. New, promising people are already waiting for their interviews.”
Anna walked out into the reception area with her head held high. Svetlana, their young secretary, shrank back into her chair, her fingers frozen above the keyboard. She had heard everything through the thin wall. Anna silently, without looking around, went to her desk, picked up her old leather handbag and the only houseplant she kept there—a small but stubborn ficus she had grown for years from a cutting. She had nothing else here. Nothing personal.
She got home on autopilot, seeing and hearing nothing around her. Her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped her keys twice at the entrance of her high-rise. The apartment greeted her with a hollow, ringing emptiness. She sat down on the little stool in the hallway without even taking off her coat. She set the ficus on the floor beside her; it looked just as lost and unwanted as she felt.
“Old nag.” Fifty-three. Twenty years of continuous service. And now—thrown out like used-up trash.
Suddenly the phone rang. Anna flinched, her heart twisting painfully. Her daughter’s name was glowing on the screen. Katya.
“Mum! Hi! Are you busy?” Her voice rang with genuine happiness, and that bright, joyful sound cut Anna to the heart.
“No, sweetheart, I’ve just finished up,” Anna said. “Did something happen?”
“Oh, it did! That’s putting it mildly! Andrey… he… Well, we’re having dinner with his parents tonight! Finally! A proper family introduction!”
Anna sank down onto the hallway stool again, still without taking off her coat. A heavy, solid lump rose in her throat.
“I see… That’s… that’s wonderful, Katyusha. I’m very happy for you.”
“Mum, I’m so nervous! They’re so… you know, serious. His father’s some big boss, has his own business. Andrey says he’s strict but fair.”
Anna swallowed the lump in her throat. “His own business.” “Strict.” Those words echoed dully, painfully inside her.
“You just have to be there with me,” Katya burst out quickly, conspiratorially. “It’s such an important family meeting. Seven o’clock, at the restaurant ‘Provence.’ Please! Mum, you’ll come, won’t you?”
“Provence.” One of the most expensive, pretentious restaurants in the city. A place where she’d felt out of place even in her best days.
“Of course, darling,” her voice sounded muffled and distant. “I’ll definitely be there.”
The rest of the day went by as if in a thick, viscous fog. She mechanically took her one decent evening dress out of the wardrobe—a dark blue one, simple and strict, without any extra detail. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes: tired, reddened, with dark circles beneath them. “Old nag.” The words echoed in her mind. She shook her head sharply, trying to drive away the intrusive thoughts. She couldn’t. Tonight was important for Katya. She had no right to spoil her daughter’s celebration with a sour face and crushed look. She put on heavier makeup than usual, trying to cover the traces of humiliation and confusion. She put on her best, almost unworn shoes.
She arrived at “Provence” by taxi. Getting out, she paid and paused in front of the entrance for a moment, feeling her heart start to race. The doorman in a fancy livery opened the heavy door for her with an indifferent expression. Inside, soft warm light poured through the tall windows, glinting on crystal glasses. The air smelled of expensive perfume, money, and exquisite food. She felt like an outsider at this feast of life.
“I’m here for the Somov table,” she said quietly to the approaching hostess.
The elegant young woman with a professional smile nodded and led her deeper into the hall, where, at a table by a huge window, Katya and Andrey were already sitting. Her daughter shone like a diamond in a costly setting. Seeing her mother, she jumped up and rushed to meet her.
“Mum! You came! I’m so glad!”
She hugged Anna tightly, and Anna felt her daughter’s slender body trembling with excitement.
“You look wonderful,” Katya whispered, lying just a little as she searched her mother’s face. “But what’s wrong? You look so pale. Is everything okay?”
“Of course, love, everything is fine,” Anna forced a strained smile. “I’m just a little tired, we were closing the quarter—total crunch at work.” The lie came surprisingly easily.
Andrey, tall, fair-haired, an incredibly pleasant young man, also rose from the table. She had always liked him for his calmness and reliability. The complete opposite of his father… The thought broke off on its own.
“Good evening, Yelena Petrovna,” he said. “I’m very glad you were able to come.”
He gallantly kissed her hand, in an old-fashioned way. The gesture seemed to have come from another, more noble world—from a world where bosses didn’t throw employment books at their subordinates.
“I’m glad to see you too, Andrey.”
They sat down. Katya chattered nonstop, stumbling a little, about how wonderful the restaurant was, how nervous she was, how important this was to her.
“My parents are running a little late,” Andrey said politely, glancing at his phone. “My father… he had a very important business meeting today. He can be… a bit harsh sometimes. Please don’t mind him, he’s actually very kind.”
“Don’t worry,” Anna tried to make her voice soft and encouraging. “Everything will be fine.”
Her own heart was pounding somewhere in her throat, beating a dull echo in her ears. She felt like an impostor who had wandered into the wrong circle. The waiter brought water in elegant glasses. Anna took a large, greedy sip, hoping the cool liquid would steady her.
“Oh, I think that’s them!” Katya tensed like a pulled string and jumped up.
Andrey rose quickly too, straightening his tie.
Anna slowly turned her head toward the entrance to the dining room. The hostess was leading to their table an older but very elegant woman and… her boss. Pyotr Sergeyevich Belozerov. He strolled along with an easy, proprietary air, looking around the hall and saying something to his wife as they walked. Then he raised his eyes to their table. On his face, like on a screen, there first appeared bewilderment. It was almost immediately replaced by his usual irritation. And then he saw her.
The air around Anna seemed to freeze, turning into thick, viscous, impenetrable glass. She couldn’t move.
Belozerov stopped halfway to the table. His gaze slid over his son and Katya, then locked on her, on Anna. There was everything in that look. Shock. Bewilderment. And then—the familiar cold, contemptuous rage. He had no doubt decided this was some cunning trap. That she, the fired and humiliated one, had somehow engineered this meeting to take revenge, to stage a scandal.
His wife, Alina Zakharovna, a well-groomed woman with perfectly styled silver hair, looked at her husband in surprise, then at Anna.
“Petya? What is it? What’s wrong?”
Andrey, unaware of the rising tension, beamed with happiness.
“Dad, Mum, come here! I’m so glad to finally introduce you!”
Katya, his poor, unsuspecting girl, was also shining like the sun.
“Mum, these are Andrey’s parents! Pyotr Sergeyevich and Alina Zakharovna!”
She happily took Anna by the hand; her palm was hot and damp with excitement.
“And this is my mother, Yelena Petrovna Somova!”
Belozerov slowly, like a mannequin, approached the table. He did not look at Anna. He stared at his son.
“Andrey,” he rumbled in a low, threatening voice, “what is this supposed to mean? What kind of show is this?”
“What do you mean, Dad?” Andrey faltered, his smile dimming. “This is… this is Katya’s mum. We agreed to meet.”
“Good evening,” Anna forced herself to say, standing up. Her voice sounded to her foreign and shaky. “Pyotr Sergeyevich.”
“What an… unexpected meeting,” he ground out through clenched teeth, not offering her his hand.
Sensing the brewing storm, Alina Zakharovna politely but coolly extended her elegant, ring-covered hand to Anna.
“Very pleased to meet you, Yelena Petrovna. Please forgive my husband, he’s had a very hard, stressful day.”
“You two know each other?” Katya looked from one to the other in happy puzzlement. “What a small world! Mum, do you work with Andrey’s dad?”
Anna didn’t have time to open her mouth.
“Worked,” Belozerov enunciated, sitting down heavily. “Past tense. Today, Yelena Petrovna… successfully ended her career with our company.”
The smile on Katya’s face trembled, shook, and slowly, like a wilting flower, faded away.
“Ended? What do you mean, ended?” she repeated, staring first at her mother, then at Belozerov. “Mum? What is he talking about?”
“We… we’ll talk about it at home, sweetheart,” Anna tried to reassure her, but her cheeks were burning with shame. She felt completely naked, put on display for everyone’s amusement. And this time the audience was her future son-in-law and her own daughter.
“What is there to talk about?” Belozerov looked at Anna with open, contemptuous scorn. “Just a routine workplace situation. An employee can’t cope with her duties. I was forced to let her go. I fired her.”
“Dad!” Andrey’s face changed, his eyes widening in disbelief. “What are you saying? What firing?”
“I’m telling the plain truth!” Belozerov barked so loudly that for a moment the chatter at the neighboring tables fell silent. “I always tell the truth! I simply freed the company from dead weight. From someone who slows everything down.”
“Petya, stop it, I’m begging you!” Alina Zakharovna tried fearfully to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook her off sharply, almost roughly.
“And you—” he jabbed a short finger in Katya’s direction, though he was looking at Andrey, “decided to tie yourself to… this? To the daughter of this…”
“Pyotr Sergeyevich!” Anna couldn’t take it any longer; her voice finally found firmness. “Stop. Please.”
“Or what?” he squinted mockingly, relishing his power. “What can you do to me, Somova? File another complaint? Let me tell you something—you’re nothing. Zero. A nobody.”
Katya gave a loud gasp, covering her mouth with her hand. Big, scalding tears sprang from her eyes.
“Mum… he… he fired you? Today? Actually today?”
She looked at her mother, and in her eyes there was such deep, childlike pain and disappointment that Anna’s heart folded into a tight knot.
“Katyenka, darling, not now…”
“Dad, have you lost your mind?” Andrey jumped up, his face white. “How can you talk to Katya’s mum like that? In that tone?”
“And how can you?!” roared Belozerov, slamming his fist on the table hard enough to make the dishes rattle. “Dragging here the daughter of this… this old nag! Are you doing this on purpose, mocking me? Throwing down a challenge?”
“Old nag.”
He had repeated the insult. Here. In front of everyone. In front of his son. In front of her daughter.
The whole restaurant seemed to freeze in anticipation. Even the quiet background music fell silent.
Katya looked at her fiancé, then at his enraged father, then at her mother. Her pretty face had gone as white as the fresh tablecloth on the table.
And Anna… suddenly felt how all the humiliation, fear, and shame that had been boiling inside her all endless day long slowly but surely drained away. In their place came something else. Solid. Cold. Unyielding. She looked straight into Belozerov’s shiny face, glistening with unjust anger.
“Are you finished, Pyotr Sergeyevich?” she asked. Her voice came out surprisingly steady, calm, and deep. Without a single quiver.
He clearly lost his footing. He had expected tears, hysterics, pleading humiliation. He had not expected this icy calm.
“I… what?” he stammered, thrown off balance.
“I’m asking if you’ve said everything. Got everything off your chest?”
She didn’t wait for his answer. She turned gently but firmly to her daughter.
“Katyusha. Let’s go home. Right now.”
Katya nodded like a sleepwalker. Tears were silently streaming down her cheeks, and she didn’t even try to wipe them away. She looked at Andrey. That was the main, unspoken question of the evening. The question she was afraid to voice aloud.
Andrey didn’t hesitate for even a second. He stepped over to Katya and took her hand in a firm, manly grip. Then he lifted his head and looked straight at his father.
“Dad. You didn’t just humiliate Yelena Petrovna just now. You humiliated me. My feelings. My choice.”
“Andrey!” squealed Alina Zakharovna. “Don’t you dare talk to your father like that! Sit down this instant!”
“And I…” Andrey swallowed hard, but his gaze was steady. “I will never let you treat me like that again. Or my future family. Ever.”
He looked at Anna, and in his eyes she saw apology and pain.
“Yelena Petrovna, Katya. I’m coming with you.”
He resolutely led Katya away from the table. Anna picked up her handbag and, with her head held high, followed them.
The three of them walked in silence across the restaurant, under the deafening quiet of the hall and the stares of dozens of people.
“Sit down! I order you to sit down!” she heard Belozerov’s enraged, out-of-control bellow somewhere behind her. “Andrey! Come back this minute! You’ll regret this! You’ll be left with nothing!”
They stepped out into the cool evening street. The fresh air hit their faces, and Anna drew a deep breath of relief.
Andrey immediately hailed a passing taxi. They climbed in without a word. Katya slumped at once, burying her face in her mother’s shoulder, and began to sob—quietly, but bitterly and inconsolably.
Anna stroked her soft hair, and Andrey sat opposite, looking at them. His face was pale but determined, his features sharpened, carved by inner strength.
“Yelena Petrovna,” he said quietly as the taxi neared their building, “forgive him. No. Don’t forgive him. I… honestly didn’t know. I didn’t know he was capable of… of such inhuman behavior.”
“He wasn’t always like that,” Anna answered just as quietly, staring into the dark window. “Power, even a little power, often corrupts people. Makes them cruel.”
“But he has no right!” Andrey clenched his fists, his voice trembling with anger and hurt. “He had no right to treat you that way… or shame me like that…”
They got out of the car. Andrey walked them up to the apartment door.
“Katy,” he said there in the corridor, taking her face in his hands. “I love you. Only you. I’ll come by tomorrow morning. We’ll talk everything through.”
He hugged her tightly, like a man, then looked at Anna.
“I’ll fix this, Yelena Petrovna. I promise.”
Anna only nodded in silence. She understood that no words were really needed now.
That night Andrey didn’t go home. He got a room in the nearest hotel and called his father from there. What they said, what words they threw at each other, Anna neither knew nor wished to know. But the next morning, at exactly nine o’clock, the doorbell rang hard and insistently.
On the doorstep stood Pyotr Sergeyevich Belozerov. He wasn’t wearing his expensive, perfectly pressed suit, but a crumpled, unwashed shirt. He was unshaven. His eyes were red and sunken. He wasn’t a boss. He was just a crushed man, aged overnight.
“Yelena Petrovna…” he croaked. “May I come in? Just for a minute.”
Without a word, Anna stepped aside to let him pass.
He walked into the kitchen and sank heavily onto a chair. The very chair where she had sat yesterday when Katya called.
“Andrey…” he began, then broke off, staring at the floor. “He said that… he’s not coming back. To the family. That he has another family now. That he chooses them.”
He lifted his eyes to Anna—eyes heavy, hunted, full of despair.
“He said… that until I… until I fix the situation…”
He couldn’t get the word “apologize” out. It stuck in his throat.
“Yelena Petrovna. Forgive me. I… I don’t know what came over me yesterday. The devil tempted me. Blinded me.”
He spoke without lifting his gaze from the table, as if searching the tabletop for answers.
“I was wrong. I made a gross mistake. I lost my temper. You… you have always been a good, responsible employee. You’ve spent twenty years…”
Anna was silent. She looked at this man she had feared for twenty long years. And she felt nothing at all. No anger, no triumph, not even pity. Only emptiness.
“I’m reinstating you,” he blurted, tripping over his words when he finally met her eyes. “No! Not ‘reinstating’… It’ll be a promotion. You’ll be my deputy. Head of the whole department. Your salary… whatever you name! Just… please…”
He stumbled again, looking at her pleadingly.
“Talk to Andrey. Convince him… tell him… that I…”
Anna walked slowly to the window. Outside in the courtyard children were playing carelessly, their happy shouts drifting in from the street. Life was going on as usual.
“Pyotr Sergeyevich. This is not about position. Or salary.”
“I know, I know!” He almost jumped up from the chair. “I understand perfectly! I…”
“You don’t,” Anna interrupted quietly but very clearly, turning to him. “Yesterday you publicly humiliated me. That hurts, but I could have lived with it. But you trampled my daughter. You insulted her feelings, her love. And with your behavior you pushed away and lost your own son. For good.”
He shrank as if from a blow, his shoulders slumping.
“I’ll come back,” Anna said, surprising even herself. “But not as your deputy. I’ll come back to my old position. And I’m not doing it for you.”
She looked him straight in the eye, putting all her will into her gaze.
“I’ll come back for Katya and Andrey. So they can have a real, solid family. So your son doesn’t hate you for the rest of his life. And you… you will greet me every morning. And you will remember this day. Every minute of it.”
He stared at her as if she were a ghost, as if she were a completely unfamiliar person. He understood everything. This was not her capitulation. These were her terms. Her victory.
Ten years later.
Sunday lunch in the large bright country house of Andrey and Katya. Gentle summer sunlight poured into the spacious living room through panoramic windows. The air was filled with the aroma of meat roasted with herbs and freshly baked bread. Around the big wooden table, groaning under the food, the whole extended family was gathered. Anna, long since retired, but radiant with serene wisdom. Pyotr Sergeyevich, noticeably heavier, almost completely gray, retired from business. His wife, Alina Zakharovna, still impeccably dressed and as quiet as ever. Katya and Andrey—happy, loving spouses, sitting in the center of the table. And the main center of gravity of this little universe—their nine-year-old son, restless and inquisitive Mishka.
All these years, the fragile peace between Anna and Belozerov had never become a true reconciliation. The war had simply shifted into a sluggish, cold phase. For ten years they had scrupulously observed an unspoken nonaggression pact. For the children’s sake. For their shared grandson’s sake. But the boy’s soul had become their invisible battlefield.
“Misha, don’t slouch at the table!” barked Belozerov from one end. “Sit up straight! A real man doesn’t push his food around like a little kid!”
Mishka, a lively, fidgety child, flinched at his grandfather’s booming voice and instinctively hunched his shoulders, trying to make himself smaller.
“Dad, please, stop, don’t start again,” Andrey said wearily but firmly, exchanging a meaningful look with Katya.
“I’m not starting anything! I’m raising a man! Otherwise he’ll grow up into a complete…” Belozerov broke off sharply, but everyone at the table knew exactly which word he’d meant. “Wimp.” That was what he always called Andrey in his outbursts, for his softness and willingness to yield.
“Mishenka,” Anna said gently, “don’t pay attention. Eat calmly, however is comfortable for you.”
At once Belozerov’s eyes fixed on her, full of smoldering irritation.
“There! Again, you! There you go! You’re always spoiling him, Somova! Forever interfering with your harmful ‘softness’! You’ll spoil the child completely!”
“And you with your excessive ‘hardness,’ Pyotr Sergeyevich,” Anna answered just as calmly, “I simply don’t want our grandson to be afraid of his own grandfather. True love is not fear, but trust.”
“Love?” he snorted, pushing his plate away. “Love is discipline above all! Strict order! I’ll make a real man out of him, not some…”
“Grandpa, I don’t want to be like you,” Mishka suddenly blurted out, openly and without embarrassment, lifting his big, clear eyes to him. “You’re always really loud and angry.”
A crushing, suffocating silence fell over the table. Katya gasped quietly. Alina Zakharovna went pale and lowered her gaze.
Slowly, like a ripening apple, Belozerov’s face flushed a deep crimson.
“What… did you… just say?” he hissed, barely holding back his fury.
“Dad, he’s just a kid! He didn’t mean to hurt you!” Andrey sprang up, his face contorted with distress.
“Silence!” Once again, Belozerov slammed his fist on the table, making the plates clink. “This is the result of your so-called parenting, Somova! Your idiotic, harmful ideas! You’ve been a nobody your entire life, an empty shell, a loudmouth—and you still are! All you’re good for is serving others! First me at the office, now them here, in this house!”
He was so blinded by his rage that he neither saw nor heard anything around him.
Anna slowly raised her eyes to him. And all the weariness that had been building in her over ten long years of cold war suddenly vanished, replaced by a strange, clear calm.
“I did serve,” she said, enunciating each word. “That’s absolutely true. I was your employee.”
She turned her keen, knowing gaze to Alina Zakharovna. The latter sat clutching the edge of the table with her thin fingers, her eyes fixed on her glass of water.
“But you, Pyotr Sergeyevich… are you absolutely certain that all these years people were serving you? That you were the real master?”
He froze, not understanding where she was going with this.
“What nonsense are you spouting now? What rubbish?”
“I’m saying that you’re shouting again. You always shout when you feel unsure. You shout because it’s the only thing you truly have left. Your voice.”
“This is my house! My family! My own grandson!” he roared, but for the first time there were notes of uncertainty in his voice.
Anna slowly, with dignity, shook her head.
“I’ve been watching you for thirty years now. First twenty years in the office, and then ten years at this family table. And you’ve always, always been… very loud.”
She looked again at his wife. At Alina Zakharovna.
“And Alina Zakharovna has always been so… quiet. Calm. Reserved.”
With growing bewilderment, Belozerov turned to his wife, as if seeing her properly for the first time.
“Only that firm you were so proud of… our ‘Veles’… ” Anna paused briefly, for effect, “it was hers from the start, wasn’t it? Her lawful inheritance after her father’s death. And you… you were just the manager. Loud, domineering—but only a manager.”
He turned pale. Exactly as he had that morning ten years ago in her kitchen. It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
“Mum… what are you saying?” Katya whispered, confused, looking from her mother to the stunned Belozerov.
“You’ve always been terrified of ‘wimps’ and weaklings, Pyotr Sergeyevich,” Anna finished, looking straight into his eyes, into his very soul. “Because deep down you’ve always feared that your own son takes after her. After the real, quiet, and strong master of the house. After the woman who allowed you to play the role of the master.”
Anna rose slowly from the table. Her movements were smooth and filled with an inexplicable dignity.
“Mishenka,” she called softly to her grandson. “Come with me. Let’s show Grandma Alina your new drawing. I think Grandpa and Grandma need a long, serious talk alone right now.”
Belozerov said nothing. Slowly, with effort, he turned his head towards his wife. He looked at her—and she was not looking at him. Alina Zakharovna was looking at Anna. And in her eyes, always tired and frightened over forty years of marriage, there was not a trace of fear or subservience. Only a strange, ineffable calm and quiet, sorrowful gratitude.
Anna took Mishka by the hand and led him out of the living room into the garden. She didn’t look back. She knew that what she was leaving behind was no longer a battlefield, but a place where a real, difficult, but desperately needed conversation had finally begun. And ahead of her lay apple trees in bloom, her grandson’s laughter, and a long, peaceful, well-earned autumn of life, full of warmth and light