— “Lena, dear… so have you already signed the deed of gift over to Petenka? For the inheritance, I mean?”
Lena froze mid-watering the plants. Her mother-in-law, Olga Igorevna, hadn’t even taken off her coat, which smelled of naphthalene and stale theatre velvet. She stood in the hallway of their tiny two-room flat, surveying the modest furnishings as if she hadn’t come for a visit, but for a sanitary inspection.
— “Hello, Olga Igorevna. What deed of gift?” Lena set the watering can down. Her hands trembled slightly. Aunt Valya—her second cousin once removed from Murmansk—had died only ten days earlier.
— “What do you mean, what deed? A normal one!” the mother-in-law flung up her hands indignantly, nearly dropping her little handbag. “For the apartment! Or whatever she left you. Millions? It’s improper for a woman to own that kind of money. The husband is the head. Petenka is the head. Which means all assets must be in his name. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Lena looked at her husband. Petya, the forty-five-year-old “head,” sat in the kitchen in stretched-out sweatpants, happily finishing yesterday’s borscht—cooked by Lena after a twelve-hour shift. He tore himself away from the bowl, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and nodded with his mouth full.
— “Mom’s right, Lenusya. It’s… more solid that way. I’m a man. I should manage the finances.”
Lena’s eye twitched. She worked as a sales consultant. Thanks to her wit, charisma, and an almost uncanny “nose” for people and perfumes, she single-handedly kept an elite department afloat in a shopping mall. Oligarchs and their bored wives called her “Elena the Beautiful” and asked her advice. With one phrase she could sell a fifty-thousand-ruble bottle of perfume.
Petya worked at a poultry plant—senior foreman in the cutting shop. He genuinely admired himself and demanded the same admiration from everyone around him. Every evening he came home exuding a complex “bouquet” of chicken down and feed, and demanded “praise” for “providing for the family.” The fact that his salary barely covered utilities and his own cigarettes was something he preferred not to notice.
— “Petya, it’s my inheritance,” Lena tried to speak calmly, in that very tone that made customers melt. “Aunt Valya left it to me. Personally.”
— “So what!” Olga Igorevna finally tugged off her ridiculous hat. “You’re married! Which means there is no ‘yours.’ There is ‘ours.’ And ‘ours’ is Petya’s. You can’t have a wife richer than her husband, Lenochka. It ruins families! A man feels… inadequate.”
As if he could get any more inadequate, Lena thought venomously, but out loud she said, “Olga Igorevna, let’s not do this right now. I haven’t even come to my senses yet.”
— “And you don’t need to come to your senses!” her mother-in-law plopped onto a stool that squealed pitifully. “You have to strike while the iron is hot. Petenka and I talked it over… We decided that Murmansk apartment should be sold. And the money invested.”
— “Where?” Lena already knew the answer.
— “Into Petenka!” Petya declared proudly. “I’ve picked something out… a jeep. A UAZ Patriot. Black. Can you imagine me driving into the plant in that? Instead of like some loser on the bus.”
Lena closed her eyes. The inheritance wasn’t just an apartment. It was a huge Stalin-era flat in the center of Murmansk, plus a decent bank account. Aunt Valya had been the widow of a long-distance sea captain. The total came to around fifteen million.
— “Petya, we’ll discuss this. Later,” Lena cut him off.
— “What is there to discuss?” Olga Igorevna flared up. “So you’ve decided to go against the family? Been reading your… internet? Lena, you have to understand—this is for your own good. A man with money is confident. He brings everything into the house. But a man whose wife is richer… he…” she searched for a word, “he’ll start cheating! Out of resentment!”
That was a blow below the belt. Petya had already “started cheating” two years earlier—with a young packer from the same poultry plant. Back then Lena had almost filed for divorce, but Petya had grovelled, sworn that “the devil led him astray,” and “you’re my queen.” Olga Igorevna had come then too—and blamed Lena. “You stopped taking care of yourself, so your man withered. You have to inspire him!”
Lena had “inspired” him—by kicking him out for two weeks. He lived with his mother. And ran back because his mother, unlike Lena, demanded he wash his own dishes and take out the trash.
Now the story was repeating—only the scenery was more expensive.
— “Mom, don’t pressure her,” Petya said unexpectedly, putting on a “noble” tone. “Our Lena is smart. She understands what a ‘family budget’ is.” He stressed family. “Just give me a general power of attorney to manage the accounts. That’s it. I’ll handle everything myself.”
There it is, Lena thought.
— “I’ll think about it,” she said coldly.
— “Mm-hmm. Think,” Olga Igorevna pursed her lips. “Just don’t end up like Vera from the third entrance. Always ‘mine, mine’… and her husband couldn’t stand the shame—left for a younger woman. And the younger one was smart: she immediately had everything transferred into her own name!”
The circus finally left an hour later. Lena washed the dishes, scrubbing at the greasy prints from Petya’s plate with vicious intensity. The children came into the kitchen: Lena Junior, a nineteen-year-old medical student, and Sergey, twenty, an IT specialist working remotely. They lived in the same tiny room in that same “two-room.” Aunt Valya’s inheritance was their chance to finally move out.
— “Mom,” Sergey put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t you even think about it.”
— “Think about what?”
— “Giving them the money,” Lena Junior said harshly. She took after her mother—just as sharp and charismatic. “That ‘head of the family’ already ‘invested’ your bonus last year. In a ‘super-profitable startup’ of his friend’s. A beer kiosk. It went under in a month.”
— “That was different!” Petya’s voice came from the room—he’d clearly been eavesdropping. “That was business! Men’s business! And this is… an inheritance!”
— “Exactly!” the daughter yelled back. “It’s Mom’s inheritance!”
— “Quiet, you youngsters!” Petya came out into the hallway, already pulling on his jacket. “I’ve got the evening shift. Lena, by the time I’m back, I expect a decision. The right one. You don’t want to destroy the family, do you?”
He slammed the door.
Lena sat down on the stool. Destroy the family. She’d heard that phrase for twenty years. She wasn’t allowed a promotion—Petya would “feel diminished.” She wasn’t allowed to vacation with friends—“a real wife rests only with her husband” (meaning: at Olga Igorevna’s dacha, digging potatoes). She wasn’t allowed to buy herself expensive perfume—“why, you sit at home, and for the plant I’ll just splash on some Shypr.”
All her life she’d lived under the weight of that’s how it’s supposed to be. And now that “supposed to be” demanded she hand fifteen million to a man who believed the pinnacle of masculine achievement was buying a UAZ Patriot.
She called Raisa—her cousin. Raya worked at the public service center and was divorced, sarcastic, and unbelievably wise.
— “Raya, hi. Need a circus?” Lena asked wearily.
— “A touring one?” Raya snorted on the other end. “Judging by your voice, it’s the Olga Igorevna Big Top?”
Lena told her everything. Raya listened in silence, breathing heavily into the receiver.
— “Lenka,” she said at last, “I’ve got a story for you. A lesson. We had a clerk, Antonina—quiet as a mouse. And her husband… basically your Petya, just in a different wrapper. Another ‘head.’ She inherited a little house outside Moscow from her grandma. Tiny, but hers.” Raya paused, probably lighting a cigarette. “And her ‘head’ started singing the same song: ‘Not allowed, put it in my name, I’m a man, I’ll expand it, build it, invest it.’ Tonya… signed. Want to know what happened half a year later?”
— “What?” Lena whispered.
— “He sold the house. Bought a one-bed in Bibirevo and—correct—registered it in his mother’s name. Then he kicked Tonya out. Told her: ‘You’re not my equal, you’re poor.’ She came to me to file for divorce, hands shaking so badly she could barely hold a pen. ‘How could he do it?’ she says. ‘Raya, he’s the… “head”?’”
— “And what did you say?” Lena asked.
— “I told her: Tonya. A head is someone who brings things into the home. And someone who drags things out of the home is called something else. Starts with a “T.” A thief.”
Lena fell silent.
— “Len,” Raya said, now serious. “That’s your money. Your chance. For you and the kids. And Petya… If he’s a man, he’ll survive his wife having money. And if he’s… well, a poultry-plant worker… why do you need an ‘asset’ like that? Throw him out. He’s non-performing.”
Lena hung up. She went to the mirror. A forty-five-year-old, beautiful but exhausted woman stared back. She lifted her wrist and inhaled. Her любимый Amouage—frankincense, roses, and independence. She’d bought it with her last bonus, secretly, hiding it from Petya.
That evening Petya came back angry. The shift had been rough. He smelled as if he’d been hugging the entire flock of broilers.
— “Well?!” he barked from the doorway. “When are we going to sign the power of attorney?”
Lena sat in an armchair. Calm. The children, sensing the tension, froze in their room.
— “Never, Petya,” she said quietly.
— “Whaaaat?!” He practically jumped. “What are you doing, you idiot?”
— “What I’m doing, Petya, is buying the kids their own apartments—so they can live like normal people. And myself… a small studio.”
— “And me?!” he roared. “What about me?! And the jeep?!”
— “And you, Petya,” Lena stood up. The same steel rang in her voice that her clients adored. “You’ll get your share of this apartment. In the divorce.”
Petya choked. His face flushed.
— “Divorce? You… you… You…! Over money?!”
— “No, Petya. Not over money. Over a UAZ Patriot.”
He didn’t catch the sarcasm. He grabbed his phone. “Mom! Mom, she’s betraying us! She… she’s decided to divorce me!”
What followed over the next half hour looked like a bad production in a provincial youth theatre. Olga Igorevna arrived forty minutes later (thankfully she lived far). She burst into the flat like a fury.
— “Shameless!” she screamed, ignoring the kids who’d come out at the noise. “You’ve decided to rob my son? Leave him with nothing?!”
— “Olga Igorevna, I’m leaving him half of what we earned together—that is, this apartment,” Lena replied calmly. “And my inheritance…”
— “What inheritance is ‘yours’?” Petya had regained his voice and went on the attack. “You got it during the marriage! That means it’s joint!”
— “Dad, open the Family Code,” Sergey cut in, already standing with a laptop. “Article 36. Property received by one spouse during the marriage as a gift or by inheritance… belongs to that spouse. To Mom.”
Olga Igorevna stared at her grandson as if he were a traitor.
— “Got smart, did you? Took after your mother. The apple from the apple tree…”
— “Thanks for the compliment,” Lena smiled.
— “Lena!” Petya tried his last argument—pathetic. “I… I love you!”
Lena laughed—quietly, almost soundlessly.
— “Petya, love isn’t ‘give me.’ Love is ‘here, take this.’ Have you ever given me anything ‘here, take this’—besides problems from your poultry plant?”
It was a knockout. Petya clutched his chest. Olga Igorevna instantly fussed, searching for valocordin.
— “You’ll put him in the grave!” she hissed, dripping drops into a glass. “He’s… he’s sensitive!”
— “Sensitive,” Lena nodded. “Petya, I’m filing for divorce. And for division of property. This apartment.”
— “I won’t give you a divorce!” Petya howled, instantly “cured.”
— “You will,” Lena shrugged. “Where will you go?” She glanced at her watch. “And now… I’ve got a hard day tomorrow. I need rest. Olga Igorevna, I won’t see you out—am I right in assuming Petya sleeps at your place tonight?”
Olga Igorevna froze with the glass. She understood the performance was over. Intermission.
— “You… you’ll regret this,” she spat.
— “We’ll see who regrets what,” Petya snapped, grabbing his jacket. “Without me you’re nothing! A shopgirl! You’ll rot with your perfumes!”
They left, slamming the door so hard plaster fell from the wall.
Lena Junior came out and hugged her mother.
— “Mom, you’re a badass.”
— “No,” Lena shook her head, feeling the tension drain away. “I’m just tired. Tired of living ‘the way it’s supposed to be.’”
She picked up her phone and dialed Raisa.
— “Raya, Plan B. We need to pull off a… deal. With an apartment. And I need a surprise. A big one. For my… still-husband.”
On the other end, Raya laughed like a devil.
— “I adore surprises, Lenka…”
Two months passed. Two months of deafening, intoxicating silence. Lena divorced Petya. As she’d expected, once it came down to it, Petya deflated. He showed up in court rumpled, angry, smelling of yesterday’s booze and chicken-plant hopelessness. Olga Igorevna lurked in the corridor shooting lightning at Lena, but they didn’t let her into the courtroom.
Their little Khrushchyovka flat—the only joint property—was ordered divided. The place was in such condition it could only be sold at a huge discount. Lena, without blinking, agreed to buy out Petya’s share. She paid his portion out of the inherited money.
Petya, clutching the check in his sweaty fist, was sure he’d “punished” her.
— “Fine, sit in that hole!” he yelled after the hearing. “And I… I’m starting a new life! I’m a catch now!”
Lena only smiled.
Olga Igorevna hissed at Lena’s back as she saw her son off:
— “You’ll be biting your elbows! He’ll find someone— you’ll choke! Not like you, you old… perfume peddler!”
Lena “choked” that same evening—on laughter. She opened a bottle of expensive champagne (also from the inheritance) and celebrated her freedom with the kids and Raisa.
As for Petya, his “new life” didn’t go well. He moved back in with his mother. Olga Igorevna, deprived of an “enemy” in Lena, redirected all her theatrical fury onto her son.
— “Petenka, why are your socks everywhere? Lenochka spoiled you!”
— “Petenka, you snore like an elephant! Disgraceful!”
— “Petenka, you stink of the plant again! March to the bath! And don’t rub against my carpet!”
Petya, used to Lena quietly cleaning, washing, and providing “admiration on schedule,” found himself in hell. His mother demanded attention, care—and money. And the one and a half million he’d gotten from Lena melted fast. He was a “catch,” after all: he bought a new phone, a gold chain (that looked like a bicycle chain), and started “investing” in those same young packers.
A month and a half later, the money was gone. The UAZ Patriot remained a dream. Petya was once again just a poultry-plant worker living with his mother. And he began to yearn.
Not for Lena—no. He yearned for comfort: for the way she silently solved every problem. For her borscht. For the fact that home was always clean and smelled of French perfume, not the plant and his mother’s valocordin.
Meanwhile Lena acted. She sold the Murmansk apartment quickly and at a good price. She took care of the kids first—bought Lena Junior and Sergey each an excellent one-bedroom in a good neighborhood. For herself she chose a cozy “Euro two-room” in a newer, already lived-in building.
She quit the perfume counter, rented a small space, and opened her own boutique: “Intonation.” Her old clients followed her. Business took off.
But one task remained unfinished: the “surprise” for Petya.
— “Raya, did you find it?” Lena asked over the phone, stocking new bottles on the shelves.
— “Found it, Lenka!” Raya’s voice was conspiratorial. “Just like you asked. A concrete trap. Eighteen square meters. But hey— a ‘studio’! And you know where? In Kukuevo-Novoye!”
— “Where’s that?”
— “It’s that place your Petya would take two hours to reach even in a UAZ Patriot… if he had one. New build. Hand-over in a week. Bare walls. View from the window—another identical block. Perfect.”
Lena laughed.
— “We’re taking it. Do the paperwork.”
And then the Day X came. Petya—driven to despair by his mother’s nagging and his lack of money—decided on an “act of generosity.” He called Lena.
— “Lenusya…” he began whimpering like a beaten dog. “Hi.”
— “Hello, Petya,” Lena said evenly.
— “I… I understood everything. I was a fool. Mom… she didn’t mean it. It’s all… jealousy. That you’re so beautiful.”
Lena rolled her eyes.
— “Petya, what are you getting at?”
— “I… I missed you. And the kids… Len, we’re family. Maybe we should get back together? Huh? I’ll forgive everything!”
Lena nearly choked on her coffee.
— “You’ll forgive? You’ll forgive me? Petya, you’re incomparable.”
— “Well…” he hesitated. “I mean… we’ll start from scratch! You’re alone and I’m alone. But together we’re a force!”
Especially when I have money and you have an appetite, Lena thought.
— “Petya, I was actually going to call you. I moved out of our old apartment. I sold it.”
Panic hit the line.
— “How… sold it? And… me? And… us?”
— “Don’t worry, Petya. I told you I’m thinking about the future. I… bought us new housing. Or rather…” she paused, “I bought you an apartment. Like I promised—there was a surprise.”
Petya exhaled. He hadn’t heard you. He’d heard bought. She’d caved. She’d understood.
— “Lenka! My gold!” he shouted. “I knew it! I knew you couldn’t do without me! Where? Where’s our new place? I’m coming right now!”
— “Write down the address,” Lena dictated. “Kukuevo-Novoye, Svetlogo Budushchego Street, Building 1, Block 3…”
Petya barely listened. He was already racing around his mother’s flat, pulling on his “dress” sweatpants.
— “Mom! Mom! She caved! She bought us a palace! I told you! I’m a man! I broke her!”
Olga Igorevna—who had been eavesdropping at the door—bloomed too.
— “I’m coming with you!” she announced. “I have to see how that… perfume woman… bent! I have to evaluate the renovations!”
An hour and a half later they arrived. “Svetloe Budushchee, 1” turned out to be a twenty-five-story concrete monster on the edge of a construction pit. A blizzard howled around them. It smelled of стройка and hopelessness.
— “This… isn’t right,” Petya muttered, checking the address.
— “Maybe it’s… an elite complex?” Olga Igorevna suggested doubtfully, wrapping her old theatrical shawl tighter.
They found the right unit on the thirteenth floor. The door was cheap cardboard covered in fake leather. It wasn’t locked.
Petya pushed it open.
They stepped inside. If you could call it a room. Eighteen square meters of naked concrete. Wires stuck out of the wall. In the corner, where the bathroom would be, a lonely white toilet bowl sat—the cheapest possible. In the middle stood a folding cot covered with a child’s blanket with little cars, and a plastic stool. On the stool: a bottle of the cheapest “Sovetskoye” sparkling wine and two plastic cups.
On the crooked wall hung a single A4 sheet. In handwriting it read: “Happy housewarming!”
— “What… is this?” Petya stared. “Is this a storage closet? Lena! Where are you? What kind of joke is this?”
The door behind them opened. Lena walked in. She wore an elegant coat; she smelled of Joy by Patou—the scent of success and expensive flowers. In her hands was a folder with documents.
— “Surprise,” she smiled.
— “What… what is this?!” Olga Igorevna shrieked.
— “This, Olga Igorevna, is an apartment. A studio.”
— “For who? For a maid?!” Petya was starting to grasp that his “triumph” smelled like cement.
— “For you, Petya.” Lena set the folder on the cot. “It’s yours.”
Petya grabbed the papers. Purchase contract: buyer—Lena. Next sheet: deed of gift. Owner—Petr… him.
— “How… mine? And… ours?”
— “There is no ‘ours,’ Petya,” Lena said calmly. “There’s mine. And there’s yours. You got your share from the old flat, didn’t you? One and a half million. You… invested it. As I understand.”
— “I invested it!” he howled. “But you said—”
— “And I decided that the ‘head of the family’ can’t live with his mother. It’s… not respectable.” Lena’s tone stayed even. “So, from my inheritance money you wanted so badly, I bought you separate housing. Like you wanted. You’re the owner. You’re a ‘catch.’ You can bring your packers here.”
Then Petya exploded.
— “What have you done?!” he lunged forward, red-faced, frightening. “You… you… shoved me into a kennel? While you live in a palace? You… con artist!”
— “Careful with your words, Petya.” Lena didn’t step back. Her charisma worked like body armor now. “I gifted you this apartment. Legally, I didn’t owe you anything except that one and a half million. But I decided… to make a grand gesture. You like grand gestures, don’t you?”
— “I’ll sue!” Olga Igorevna gasped. “She robbed you, son! She—”
— “Go ahead, Olga Igorevna. Under what claim? ‘Force my ex-daughter-in-law to gift my son a penthouse instead of a studio’?” Lena gave a small smile. “You worked in theatre, didn’t you? Then picture it. Final scene: you and your son—in your own home. Curtain.”
Petya looked from the bare walls to Lena. He understood he’d lost. Not just lost—he’d been humiliated. Elegantly. Expensively. With a trail of French perfume.
— “I… I…” he couldn’t find words. He grabbed the bottle of “Sovetskoye,” tried to open it—the cork wouldn’t budge. In fury he hurled it at the wall. The bottle shattered, spraying him with sticky foam.
— “There,” Lena said. “That’s your housewarming. Manage it, Petya. Own it. You wanted that, didn’t you? You’re the ‘head’? Here’s your ‘state’—eighteen square meters.”
She turned to Olga Igorevna.
— “And you, ‘director,’ special thanks. You wanted Petenka rich and independent. Well—he’s independent. From me. Completely.”
Lena walked out and closed the door from the outside. The keys she left in the lock—on her side.
As she rode down in the elevator, she laughed for the first time in many years—not cruelly, but freed.
Petya and Olga Igorevna stayed in the concrete trap.
— “You fool!” Olga Igorevna sobbed, collapsing onto the cot—which immediately snapped under her. “Idiot! You lost everything! I told you—you should’ve put it in my name! I would’ve… I would’ve—”
— “Mom, shut up…” Petya groaned, wiping sticky champagne off his face. He crouched by the wall. He smelled of the plant, cement, and total defeat.
…A year passed. Lena’s boutique “Intonation” flourished. The kids were happy in their apartments, but every weekend they gathered at their mom’s. Raisa married a decent widower and now worked at the service center “for fun.”
Petya still lived in his studio. He did some sort of renovation with leftover materials scavenged from dumpsters. One of those packers moved in with him. They fought so loudly the whole floor could hear. Olga Igorevna never visited. She told the neighbors her “Petenka went to America, into big business.” But the neighbors saw Petya every morning at the bus stop to the poultry plant.
Sometimes Lena drove past that “Kukuevo-Novoye.” She looked at the gloomy concrete tower and thought…
Life was strange. All it took was stopping once—just once—doing things “the way it’s supposed to be,” and starting to do them “the right way,” and justice immediately found the correct address.
Even if that address was the thirteenth floor on Svetlogo Budushchego Street.