“We’re splitting Mom’s millions!” Yegor scoffed, eyes fixed on the closed living-room door.
He and Sveta were in the kitchen. Their mother, Elena Sergeyevna, had shut herself in there with a notary half an hour ago.
“Lower your voice,” Sveta hissed, nervously turning her phone over and over. “She’ll hear.”
“Let her. Today everything gets settled anyway. She said it herself: ‘I’ll give everyone what they’re entitled to.’ About time.”
Sveta made a face.
“Not millions. She has this apartment, the dacha, and a bank account. It’s not exactly lavish, but…”
“But it’s better than nothing,” Yegor cut in. “My loan payment’s due in a month.”
“And my mortgage,” Sveta added quickly. “Good that she at least helps with that. But it’s time for something bigger.”
“The main thing is she doesn’t do something stupid,” Yegor muttered. “With her… funds for homeless cats. She sees one flea-bitten mutt and signs everything over.”
The living-room door swung open.
Elena Sergeyevna stepped out—composed, straight-backed, in a severe dress. Not sick. Not even close.
“Kids, come in. Pyotr Ivanovich is ready.”
The living room was stifling. The notary, a dry man in glasses, sat at the head of the table. In front of him lay a single thick white envelope.
Yegor and Sveta sat down. Their mother took the seat opposite.
“Mama,” Sveta turned on her sweet concerned daughter voice, “are you sure? We’re so worried…”
“Worried,” Elena Sergeyevna nodded. “I can see that.”
She studied them for a long time, quietly, as if cataloging insects pinned to a board.
“I called you here,” she said evenly, “because I’m tired.”
Yegor’s shoulders tightened.
“Tired of what, Mom? Do you need help? Want us to send you to a sanatorium?”
“I’m tired of you.”
The words hung in the stale air.
“Mom!” Sveta blurted, offended.
“I’m tired of the waiting. You wait for me to trip. To forget the gas. To lose the use of my legs.”
“That’s a lie!” Yegor jumped up.
“Sit,” their mother ordered. “You call every Sunday at exactly twelve. You have a reminder: ‘Mother. 5 minutes.’ Want to know how I found out? I saw your phone when you went to the bathroom.”
Yegor sank back down, face burning.
“And you, Sveta. You bring me fruit paste you know I can’t eat with diabetes. And while I’m in the kitchen, you check whether Grandma’s earrings are still there. You think I don’t notice how you wipe the dust in the jewelry box with your finger?”
Sveta drew her head into her shoulders.
“You both don’t see a mother,” Elena Sergeyevna said. “You see a resource. An asset. Something to be divided.”
She nodded to the notary.
“Pyotr Ivanovich.”
The notary picked up the thick envelope.
The two of them went silent.
Their kitchen jokes, their smug anticipation—collapsed instantly. What remained was fear.
They were waiting for a will. For proof she was finally sick.
Pyotr Ivanovich carefully slit the edge with a letter opener.
He pulled out… not a legal document.
He pulled out a stack of thin notebook pages, filled with tight, compact handwriting.
Yegor and Sveta glanced at each other.
“Expense Notebook,” the notary read from the header.
“What?” Yegor frowned.
“This isn’t a will,” Elena Sergeyevna said calmly. “I’m not dying yet. To your disappointment.”
She looked at the notary.
“Read it, Pyotr Ivanovich. From the beginning.”
The notary cleared his throat.
“‘September 1, 2005. Payment for an English tutor for Yegor. Fifty dollars.’”
Yegor froze. He’d been fifteen.
“‘September 3, 2005. New shoes for Sveta—‘for the school dance.’ Forty dollars.’”
Sveta went pale. She’d been twelve.
“‘January 20, 2006. Settled Yegor’s debt. Broke a store window. One hundred twenty dollars.’”
“Mom… what is this?” Yegor whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Me?” Elena Sergeyevna smiled. “Nothing at all. I’m simply… adding things up. I said you’d get what you’re due. To know what’s due, you balance the books.”
The notary continued, expressionless.
“‘May 15, 2007. Sveta’s summer camp trip. Two hundred dollars.’”
“‘September 2008. Yegor’s first year of college. A bribe for a passing grade in Strength of Materials. Three hundred dollars.’”
“‘Sveta’s wedding. Restaurant. Two thousand dollars.’”
“‘Yegor’s first car. A used Lada. One thousand five hundred dollars.’”
“‘March 2010. Laptop for Sveta. “For school.” Six hundred dollars.’”
“‘July 2012. Last-minute vacation package for Yegor. “He needs to clear his head.” One thousand dollars.’”
“‘January 2015. Buying the “right connections” for Yegor to land a “job.” Two thousand dollars.’”
The list just kept going.
Every amount they’d squeezed out of her over the years. Every “help.” Every “Mom, please, you have to understand.”
Elena Sergeyevna had written it all down.
“‘Sveta’s abortion at a private clinic. Seven hundred dollars,’” the notary read, flat as a metronome.
Sveta let out a cry and covered her face with both hands.
“Stop! Enough!”
“‘Covered Yegor’s gambling debt. Three thousand dollars.’”
“Mom!” Yegor bellowed. “Stop this circus! You’re humiliating us!”
“I’m humiliating you?” Elena Sergeyevna lifted an eyebrow. “I’m simply reading a list of your accomplishments. Paid for with my money.”
She rose.
“Pyotr Ivanovich, thank you. You can leave it here.”
The notary neatly slid the pages back into the envelope and set it in the center of the table.
He stood, nodded, and left—quiet as a shadow.
Yegor and Sveta sat, flattened.
“Why…” Sveta’s eyes were red. “Why would you do this?”
“That, sweetheart, was Act One,” Elena Sergeyevna said. “Accounting.”
She went to the cabinet, took out two more envelopes—thin this time—and returned.
“And now—Act Two.”
She placed one envelope in front of Yegor, and one in front of Sveta.
“Open them.”
Silence.
The slim white envelopes lay on the polished wood, heavy as iron weights.
Sveta’s hands shook. She stared at hers without touching it.
Yegor looked at his mother, blotches of dark red spreading across his face.
“I’m not doing it,” he forced out. “I’m not taking part in this… this masquerade.”
“Afraid?” Elena Sergeyevna asked, calm as ever.
“I’m not afraid of anything!” Yegor shouted. “You should be afraid! Ending up alone!”
“I’m already alone. I was alone when your father left. I was alone when you, Yegor, got buried in debt, and when you, Sveta, sobbed over your married boyfriend. I was a mutual-aid fund. An ATM. But I was always alone.”
Sveta sniffled.
“Mama, how can you say that? We love you! That list… that was… that was your responsibility! You’re our mother!”
“Responsibility,” Elena Sergeyevna nodded. “Yes. My responsibility was to raise you. To educate you. To set you on your feet.”
She swept her gaze around the room.
“I did that. Yegor is thirty-four. Sveta is thirty-one. You’re adults. And you’re still not standing on your own.”
She looked at her son.
“You’re hanging off my neck. Kicking your legs.”
“That’s not true!” Yegor slammed his fist on the table. The envelope jumped. “I have a job!”
“You have the appearance of a job. ‘Project manager’ with not a single project. I know what you asked me for last month—money ‘to grow the business.’ You gambled again.”
Yegor choked on air. He hadn’t known she knew.
“And you, Sveta?” their mother turned to her daughter. “Your husband who sits at home? Your mortgage that I pay?”
“Oleg’s having a hard time right now!” Sveta shrieked.
“For three years,” Elena Sergeyevna snapped. “He’s lazy. And you enable it. Both of you live on my dime.”
She pointed at the envelopes again.
“You came here to divide. You were cheerful. ‘We’re splitting Mom’s millions.’ Fine. Divide.”
“What’s in there?” Sveta whispered. “A bank account? Do you want us to repay… that list?”
Her eyes widened in terror.
Yegor let out a brittle laugh.
“Oh, come on. Where would we get that kind of money? She’s messing with us.”
He glared at his mother.
“So you’re kicking us out? Taking the apartment back?”
Elena Sergeyevna said nothing. She only looked at them—and that silence was worse than any lecture.
There was no anger in it. No wounded pride.
Only finality—like a surgeon deciding an amputation is necessary.
“You thought I owed you,” she said softly. “Owed you for giving birth. Owed you because you exist.”
She picked up the first thick envelope—the expense notebook.
“I’ve paid my debts,” she said, patting it. “With interest. Bribes. Abortions. Crashed cars. I paid for everything.”
“And now,” her voice turned to ice, “let’s see what’s owed to you.”
Yegor stared at his envelope. A realization flickered.
“There’s nothing in there, is there?” he rasped. “You’re wiping us out. Leaving us with nothing.”
“And what do you have, Yegor,” she asked, “without me? The apartment you live in? Mine. The car? Mine. Even the food in your refrigerator—mine.”
“You… you can’t do this,” Sveta stammered, clutching her chest. “We have… kids. Your grandkids!”
“Grandkids,” Elena Sergeyevna gave a humorless chuckle. “The ones you bring once a month. Exactly three hours. So you can ask for money. Then you take them away because ‘Grandma spoils them.’ No, Sveta. The grandkids are your last trump card. And it won’t work.”
She stood. The children flinched.
“I’m going to make myself tea.”
She headed for the door.
“When I come back, I want those envelopes opened. By you. If you don’t, you’ll leave without them. And you… you really need to know what’s inside.”
She paused in the doorway.
“You don’t know the main thing yet.”
“What?” Yegor asked.
“You think that notary came only to read a list?”
Elena Sergeyevna smiled.
“Open them.”
She left, closing the door softly behind her.
The kitchen light clicked on. The kettle began to roar.
Yegor and Sveta sat motionless, staring at two white rectangles.
“She’s… she’s insane,” Sveta broke first, voice raw from swallowed sobs. “She’s lost her mind.”
Yegor exhaled slowly.
“No. Worse. She’s perfectly sane.”
He looked at his sister. His rage was gone—only sticky, cold fear remained.
“What did she mean—about the notary?”
“Yegor… what if… what if she really…”
“What—really?” he snapped.
“…signed everything over. To cats. To… I don’t know! To that Pyotr Ivanovich!”
Yegor rubbed his face.
“Expense list… do you get it? She’s been collecting leverage. For years.”
“Why?” Sveta whimpered. “She’s… our mother.”
“She’s an accountant,” he said bitterly. “She’s always been an accountant first. Everything’s tallied.”
From the kitchen came the rising whistle of the kettle.
That ordinary, peaceful sound in the dead silence of the living room felt sinister.
“We have to do something,” Sveta whispered. “We have to… stop her. Tell people she’s…”
“Tell them what?” Yegor looked at her with contempt. “That she’s not in her right mind—after she just laid out our entire lives by date? Who’s going to believe us?”
The kettle shrieked and then clicked off.
“She’s coming,” Sveta gripped the armrests.
“Open it,” Yegor ordered.
“I can’t! Yegor, please—don’t. Let’s just… let’s leave.”
“Leave?” He laughed, sharp and hysterical. “Leave? And where will you go, Sveta? Back to your Oleg? Remind him how many days you have until the mortgage payment she’s been covering?”
He jabbed a finger at his own envelope.
“And me? I walk out of here and tomorrow people show up. People I owe.”
He glanced toward the door.
“She didn’t give us a choice. She never gives a choice.”
“She said we have to open them,” Sveta stared at the envelopes as if they were snakes.
“Yeah. She wants to watch. She wants to enjoy it.”
Yegor grabbed his envelope.
His fingers wouldn’t cooperate. He couldn’t catch the flap.
“Come on,” Sveta urged when she heard footsteps in the hallway. “Hurry!”
Yegor tore the paper.
He ripped it clumsily, nearly in half.
Watching him, Sveta slid her fingernail under her own flap.
The living-room door began to open.
Yegor shook the contents onto the table.
Sveta pulled out a folded sheet.
It wasn’t money. And it wasn’t a deed.
Elena Sergeyevna walked in, carrying a mug of fragrant tea.
She stopped two steps from the table.
And watched their faces.
Yegor sat staring at his sheet, drained of color, mouth slightly open. Slowly he lifted his eyes to his mother. There was no hatred in them—only shock and bafflement.
Sveta did the opposite.
She looked at her mother first, then down at the paper in her hands.
She read it.
Then looked up again.
She didn’t cry.
Her mouth opened, but what came out was only a small strangled groan, like she’d been hit in the gut.
“Well,” Elena Sergeyevna took a calm sip of tea, “did you read?”
Yegor said nothing.
His gaze was nailed to the page.
It wasn’t a deed. Not a will.
It was a copy of a sales contract.
“What is this?” he whispered, disbelieving. “Mom, what is this?”
“This, Yegor, is called liquidating assets.”
Elena Sergeyevna set her mug down.
“The apartment you live in—the one you’ve already mentally renovated…”
“…I sold it.”
The words landed like stones.
“Sold it?” Yegor’s eye began to twitch. “To who?”
“To people. Good people. This morning. Pyotr Ivanovich notarized everything.”
She nodded to the paper in his hand.
“That’s your copy. Official notice. You have thirty days to move out.”
“Thirty… days…” Yegor crushed the useless contract in his fist. “You… you threw me out on the street?”
“Me?” their mother sounded genuinely surprised. “I sold my property. You’re a grown man with ‘projects.’ You’ll find somewhere to live.”
She turned to Sveta.
Sveta sat curled in on herself, motionless.
“And you—why so quiet, sweetheart?”
Sveta slowly raised her sheet.
It trembled.
“I have…” she whispered. “I have an account here.”
“Not exactly,” their mother corrected.
Sveta stared at her in horror.
“‘Mortgage payment—overdue.’ Mom, but… you always paid on the tenth.”
“I did.”
“But today is… the eleventh.”
“Yes.”
Yegor blinked, lost.
“What? What mortgage?”
“That, Yegor, is Sveta’s ‘dowry.’”
Elena Sergeyevna addressed her daughter.
“I made the last payment last month, Sveta. Just like I promised when you took that mortgage. ‘For the first year, until Oleg finds work.’”
“But… but he didn’t find work!” Sveta screamed.
“I noticed,” their mother said dryly. “But my year is over. Yours has begun.”
“We don’t have money!” Sveta sprang up. The paper fluttered to the floor. “The bank will take the apartment!”
“That’s your risk. Yours and your husband’s.”
“Mom!” Sveta wailed. “But you… you have money! You… you sold his apartment!”
A realization hit her.
She looked at Yegor. He looked back.
Their shock shifted into a new shared thought—
the same one they’d arrived with.
“The money,” Yegor said hoarsely, rising.
“Yes,” Elena Sergeyevna replied. “You’re right, Sveta. I have money now.”
“From selling Yegor’s apartment. And…”
She walked to the cabinet.
Took her purse.
“…from selling the dacha.”
“What?!” they cried together.
“The dacha?” Yegor grabbed the table edge. “Our dacha? Grandpa’s?”
“It was in my name too.”
Elena Sergeyevna opened her purse.
Pulled out a passport.
Pulled out a ticket.
“You came to split millions. You’re late.”
She placed the ticket on the table, right on top of the expense notebook.
A flight. Today. Evening.
“You waited for me to die so you could inherit. I decided not to wait.”
“You’re… leaving?” Sveta sank back down. “Where?”
“What does it matter?” Elena Sergeyevna shrugged. “Somewhere warm. Somewhere no one is waiting for me.”
“And us?” Yegor asked. His voice was hollow. “What about us?”
Elena Sergeyevna looked at him for a long time.
Then she stepped closer, picked up the thick envelope with the list, and held it out to him.
“And you…” she said. “You can keep this. As a souvenir.”
Yegor recoiled like it was burning.
“That’s all you’re entitled to. A memory of what you cost me.”
“But… you can’t!” Sveta started crying again, but now it was angry, helpless crying. “You’re our mother!”
“I was a mother. Now I’m just a woman who has a plane in three hours.”
She walked into the hallway.
“Close the door behind you when you leave. And, Yegor.”
He lifted dead eyes to her.
“Don’t forget to hand the keys to the new owners. Or they’ll change the locks. I gave them your number. Told them you’re my nephew who’s been staying there temporarily. Deal with it.”
Epilogue
The lock clicked in the hallway.
Yegor and Sveta didn’t even turn around. They heard the front door open and close. Heard the key twist.
Their mother was gone.
They sat in ringing silence.
The room still smelled of her perfume—Red Moscow—and cooling bergamot tea.
Sveta stared at nothing. Her sheet lay on the floor: an overdue notice.
Yegor stared blankly at the ticket she’d left on the table.
Flight: Moscow — Buenos Aires.
She hadn’t even been afraid to leave it. She knew they wouldn’t make it to the airport. Knew they wouldn’t dare.
“She left,” he repeated. Not a question.
Sveta nodded.
“She… she really did it.”
Yegor stood up. His legs felt like cotton, like he’d been sick for a long time.
He went to the window.
Down in the courtyard, a yellow taxi waited. He watched his mother come out of the building.
She didn’t look back. Not once. Didn’t lift her head.
She got into the car calmly, and it rolled away, whispering over wet leaves.
“That’s it,” Yegor said. “She’s gone.”
Sveta looked up at him slowly. All her anger, all her hurt—washed out. What remained was thick, gray panic.
“What…” she whispered. “What do we do now, Yegor?”
Yegor stared at her.
“What do we do?”
“Oleg… he’ll… he’ll kill me. The bank. The apartment…”
“And what am I supposed to do?” he cut her off, and for the first time in years his voice held not cynicism but real, animal fear. “I’ve got one month.”
He looked at the expense notebook his mother had shoved at him.
“She didn’t even leave money. Not a cent.”
“She left you an apartment,” Sveta suddenly said.
“What?” Yegor didn’t understand.
“She sold your apartment. And our dacha,” Sveta’s mind was scrambling, clinging to the last injustice. “The money. She has all the money. And we…”
She looked down at her overdue notice.
“And we have… debt.”
They stared at each other.
For the first time in their lives, they weren’t competitors for their mother’s resources.
They were both… nothing.
“She crossed us out,” Yegor said.
He stepped to the table.
Picked up his ripped envelope and the sales contract.
Picked up Sveta’s overdue notice.
Picked up the plane ticket.
Then looked at the thick envelope with the list.
“She was right,” he said quietly.
“About what?” Sveta barely recognized his voice.
“She’s an accountant.”
Yegor opened the expense notebook.
“She didn’t just run.”
He looked at the first entry.
“Yegor’s tutor. $50.”
“She…” He gave a bitter half-smile. “She wrote us off. Like a loss-making asset.”
Sveta stood.
“I have to go… I need to go to Oleg. We have to… we have to figure something out.”
“Figure something out?” Yegor looked at her. “What can you figure out, Sveta? What do you know how to do besides ask Mom?”
“And you?” she snapped, out of habit.
“Me too,” he nodded. “Me too.”
Sveta went to the hallway, put on her shoes.
She was already opening the door when Yegor called after her.
“Sveta.”
She turned.
He stood in the middle of the living room—in that expensive apartment that now felt чужая, чужая. Not theirs.
In his hands he held that humiliating list.
“She’s not…,” he said, looking down at the floor. “…she’s not even sick.”
Sveta didn’t answer. She closed the door behind her.
Yegor left an hour later.
He didn’t take the list. He left it on the polished table, beside the plane ticket and two torn, empty envelopes.
He went down to the courtyard.
Sat on a bench—the very one where they used to play knives as kids.
He took out his phone.
“Mother. 5 minutes.” The reminder wouldn’t have gone off until Sunday.
He deleted it.
Then opened his contacts.
“Nikolai. Debt.”
He stared at the number and didn’t know what to say.
Only now did he understand: when his mother had paid his debts, she hadn’t saved him. She’d only delayed the inevitable. And now it had arrived.
Sveta rode the bus.
She watched her reflection in the dark, dirty window.
Thirty-one years old. A husband who wouldn’t work. Two kids at her mother-in-law’s.
And a mortgage.
For the first time in ten years, she realized she had no safety net.
No “backup plan.”
No “Mom.”
She was scared.
And then—angry.
Not at her mother.
At Oleg. At herself.
She got off at her stop and went upstairs.
Oleg was sprawled on the couch watching TV.
“So? Did she pay?”
Sveta looked at him.
“Get up,” she said.
“What?” he frowned. “Quiet down, I’m watching my show.”
“Get up. Go find a job. Right now.”
Oleg blinked and sat up.
“What’s gotten into you, Svet?”
“Mom isn’t paying anymore.”
And eight hours later, high above the clouds, a woman was flying.
Elena Sergeyevna reclined in her business-class seat.
She ordered a glass of champagne.
A smiling flight attendant brought it.
“Celebrating something?”
Elena Sergeyevna watched the bubbles rise.
She remembered her children’s faces—shock, confusion, fear.
She remembered the expense notebook.
“Yes,” she said, smiling at the attendant. “I am.”
She took a sip.
“Today I quit,” she said softly, “a very heavy job.”
She turned toward the window.
Down below were her debts, her duties, her past.
She closed her eyes.
And for the first time in thirty-four years, she felt warmth—not from champagne.
Just… release.