Friday evenings at Olga and Viktor’s house always flowed slowly, like thick honey. Their country home smelled of fresh bread, baked by Olga from her grandmother’s old recipe. Viktor had spread his tools across the table. All his life, he had restored and tuned rare mechanical orchestrions, and now, bent over a brass cylinder, he was quietly whistling to himself.
The phone rang, crashing rudely into the peaceful silence.
“Olya, sweetheart, you have to do something,” her mother said, her voice trembling and breaking. “Otherwise, we’re all going to be ruined.”
“All right, calm down. What happened?” Olga put down the kitchen towel. “Are you crying again? I can hear it in your voice.”
“Kirill has nowhere to go! He and Dasha are being evicted! And he says we have to exchange the apartment. Our three-bedroom apartment!”
“Wait, wait. Why on earth should you exchange your apartment?”
“Well, he’s going to be homeless, sweetheart,” her mother sniffled. “Talk to your husband. Ask him to make Kirill a director at his company. Or give him some money. You can see how difficult things are for the poor boy.”
Olga closed her eyes and slowly exhaled.
Viktor looked up from the brass cylinder and raised an eyebrow questioningly. She covered the receiver with her hand and silently mouthed, “Kirill.”
“Mom, let’s take this one step at a time,” Olga said gently. “How old is your ‘poor boy’? Thirty-four. His arms, legs, and head are all perfectly functional.”
“Don’t speak about your brother like that! He’s talented. He’s just been unlucky!”
“Unlucky eight times in seven years?” Olga gave a dry laugh. “That’s no longer bad luck. That’s a special talent.”
“Olya!” her mother gasped indignantly. “How can you say such a thing?”
“All right, Mom. I heard you. Let me think. And please, don’t sign anything or agree to exchange the apartment. Promise me.”
There was heavy breathing on the other end, followed by an uncertain reply.
“I promise.”
Olga placed the phone on the table and stared at it for a long time.
Viktor set down his tool, wiped his hands, and sat opposite her. He knew exactly how long to remain silent.
“Still suffering from the aftereffects of that inheritance?” he finally asked.
“Yeah.” She nodded. “It’s been a year, and it’s still coming back to haunt us.”
Their grandmother had died a year earlier. She had left her old wooden village house equally to Olga and Kirill. It was warm, creaky, and always smelled of dried herbs.
By then, Olga had already built her life brick by brick: ten years with Viktor, their own house, and a peaceful existence earned through years without vacations or complaints.
Kirill, meanwhile, owned nothing except his eternal “brilliant project” that was supposedly about to become a huge success.
“Olya, just give him your half,” their mother had pleaded at the time. “He needs the money more than you do. He’s planning to get married and start a business.”
“Mom, why should I give up my share?”
“Because you already have everything, and he has nothing! Don’t you have a heart?”
Olga remembered sitting at that very same table, nervously twisting the edge of the tablecloth.
Her father had remained silent, his eyes lowered. Her mother had pressured her skillfully and persistently, approaching the matter from every possible angle.
“If you give up your share, there will be peace in the family,” she had said. “But if you refuse, it means you’re greedy and jealous of your brother.”
“I just don’t understand why I’m the only one expected to pay for peace in the family.”
“You see? You’re already counting every penny! Your brother would never begrudge you anything!”
Olga had eventually surrendered.
She signed away her claim, sold her half of the house, and gave every last coin to her brother, simply to end the endless emotional siege.
She thought she was buying peace.
In reality, she had bought Kirill a one-way ticket straight into disaster.
“You know what hurt me most back then?” Olga said to Viktor, stirring her cold coffee. “It wasn’t the money. It was how easily they turned me into the guilty one. I gave him everything, and somehow I was still the one who owed everyone.”
“A classic situation.” Viktor shrugged. “The person who carries everyone is the one everyone keeps loading up. The problem is, the horse is usually the last one to realize what’s happening.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?”
“Nothing yet. First, let’s see how far our young dreamer has managed to go.”
Kirill had gone very far indeed.
After receiving the money, he began spending with all the confidence of a man who had never earned any of it himself.
There was an extravagant wedding in a restaurant with panoramic windows and armfuls of orchids. Then came an office in a glass tower, where Kirill loved taking photographs of himself sitting behind an executive desk.
After that, he bought a shiny black SUV on credit because, as he explained, “Business partners need to respect you.”
There were no business partners.
There were no clients either.
Kirill did not know how to work, nor did he want to. The only thing he knew how to do was appear successful.
Within eight months, the money disappeared. Payments became overdue, and the landlord first politely, then not so politely, asked the young couple to leave.
At precisely that moment, Darya announced that she was pregnant.
When Olga and Viktor arrived at her parents’ apartment, Kirill had already occupied his childhood bedroom and behaved like a general ruling over captured territory.
“Oh, look who finally showed up!” he said, sprawled across the sofa without bothering to stand. “The rescuers have arrived. Go ahead, tell me how I’m supposed to live.”
“Hello, Kirill,” Viktor said calmly, taking a seat. “It’s nice to see you too.”
“Listen, I’m not in the mood for your sarcasm.” Kirill waved him away. “The situation is simple. Mom and Dad don’t need a three-bedroom apartment. The two of them are just rattling around in all that space. We exchange it for something smaller, they give me the difference, and I restart my business. Everyone wins.”
“Kiryusha,” his mother began timidly, “we’ve lived here our entire lives…”
“Mom, don’t you start too!” he snapped. “You don’t need this much space. Where am I supposed to live with a baby? At the railway station?”
“And why exactly should our parents be responsible for solving your problems?” Olga asked, her voice as level and sharp as a blade.
“Then who should?” Kirill demanded. “You? You already refused to give me your share once, remember? I certainly do!”
“I didn’t refuse. I gave you every last penny.”
“And where are those precious pennies now?” He jumped to his feet. “Gone! The business failed! Is it my fault the market is like this? That these are difficult times? I just need new starting capital, and then everything will take off!”
“Kirill,” Viktor said mildly, “have you heard the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different result.”
“What?” Kirill stared at him. “Are you calling me insane?”
“I was quoting someone. Intelligent people figured these things out a long time ago. All we have to do is avoid repeating their mistakes.”
“Go to hell with your quotations!” Kirill slashed his hand through the air. “My life is falling apart, and you’re giving me a philosophy lecture!”
Their father, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, slowly rose to his feet.
“Son, let’s leave the apartment alone. It’s the last thing we have.”
“Dad, not you too!” Kirill grimaced. “What are you planning to do, live to be a hundred? The apartment will belong to me eventually anyway. Give it to me now, while I actually need it!”
His mother gasped and clutched her chest.
Olga stood so abruptly that her chair slid backward.
“Repeat what you just said,” she said slowly.
“What did I say that was so terrible?” Kirill frowned, although fear flickered in his eyes. “I’m just stating the facts. Why is everyone acting as if I’m a stranger?”
“Kirill, sit down and listen,” Olga said. The first crack of ice appeared beneath the softness of her voice. “You are thirty-four years old. You have a wife and a baby on the way. Yet you’re sitting here trying to sell our parents’ apartment as if it were stock in your warehouse.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he shouted. “Go begging in the street? I have an education! I have ambition! I wasn’t born to break my back for pennies!”
“What were you born to do?” she asked. “Please, enlighten us.”
“Something great!” Kirill jabbed a finger into his chest. “I think on a grand scale! All of you are small-minded people who are too afraid to take risks!”
“We’re the small-minded people currently feeding you,” Viktor observed without hostility. “You have to admit, that’s quite a generous catch for such insignificant people.”
“Shut up!” Kirill spun toward him. “Nobody asked you! You’ve barely been part of this family for five minutes, understand? Sit down and keep quiet!”
“Ten years is five minutes?” Viktor smiled. “In that case, you’ve been an adult since yesterday.”
Kirill choked with anger, failed to find a reply, and turned to his mother.
“Mom!”
“Sweetheart, why are all of you treating him like this?” their mother wailed. “He’s upset. He’s going through a difficult time…”
“Mom.” Olga turned toward her. “Enough. I love you very much. But if you say one more time that Kirill is having a difficult time, I’m going to ask you something. Do you think the rest of us have it easy? Does Dad have it easy when Kirill’s ‘ambitions’ make him clutch his heart?”
Her mother broke off and fell silent.
Kirill stared at his sister, confusion and fury chasing each other across his face.
“All right,” he said, swallowing. “So my own sister is against me. Understood. I’ll remember that.”
“I’m not against you.” Olga shook her head. “I’m against what you’re doing. Those are two different things.”
“They seem exactly the same to me!” His voice rose to a shriek. “You’re too stingy to give me money, so just admit it! All of you are greedy! You sit on your possessions and tremble with fear! At least I’m not afraid to dream!”
At that moment, Darya stepped out of the hallway.
Pale-faced, she stopped in the doorway and slowly looked around the room.
“Kirill,” she said quietly. “Stop shouting. You’re going to wake the neighbors.”
“Dasha, at least make them understand!” He rushed toward his wife. “They refuse to exchange the apartment! Can you believe it? We have nowhere to live, and they’re too selfish to help!”
“I heard everything,” she said without moving. “I’ve been hearing everything for a long time.”
Viktor rose, straightened his sleeves, and spoke as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
“Kirill, I have a business proposition for you. No orchids or panoramic windows, I’m afraid.”
“What kind of proposition?” Kirill asked suspiciously.
“I know someone who needs an employee for inventory management and receiving. It’s a warehouse. Everything is monitored by cameras, and all deliveries require signatures. Five days on, two days off. The salary isn’t impressive, but it’s honest. It will be enough to rent a small apartment and slowly repay your debts.”
Kirill was silent for several seconds.
Then he burst out laughing. It was loud, nervous laughter that left him breathless.
“Are you making fun of me?” he finally managed. “Me? Working in a warehouse? Counting boxes?”
“Not boxes. Inventory. It’s responsible work.”
“I used to hire people to do that!” Kirill shouted, saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth. “I’m a director! I sat in an executive chair! And you want me guarding some storeroom?”
“You sat in an executive chair for eight months using someone else’s money,” Viktor corrected him calmly. “That doesn’t make you a director. It makes you a tourist.”
“Olya!” Kirill spun toward his sister. “Do you hear the way your husband is humiliating me? And you’re saying nothing?”
“I agree with him,” Olga replied simply.
Kirill froze.
Then his face twisted, and he hissed through clenched teeth.
“Oh, you agree with him. Of course you do. You’ve always hated me. You were jealous because I was free while you were rotting away in your little swamp. Now you’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You’re happy your precious brother has fallen.”
“I’m not happy,” Olga said, looking straight into his eyes. “I feel sorry for you. But I almost helped you drown once because I felt sorry for you. I won’t do it again.”
“Kiryusha, perhaps you should listen,” their mother suggested timidly. “It is a job, after all…”
“You too?” He turned on her. “You’re happy to send your own son to a warehouse? What am I to you, nothing?”
“Enough,” Darya said suddenly and clearly.
Everyone turned toward her.
She stepped forward, folding her hands over her stomach, and began to speak slowly and carefully, as though she had rehearsed the words many times.
“Kirill, I have been listening to you for eight months. I listened to your promises about panoramic restaurants, expensive cars, and how everything was about to ‘take off.’ I stayed quiet while you spent the money your sister gave you. And now you’re trying to take the last thing your elderly parents own.”
“Dasha, you don’t understand. This is a business strategy…” he muttered.
“I understand one thing,” she interrupted. “Tomorrow, you are going to that warehouse. If you don’t go, I’m leaving for my parents’ house. I’ll take the baby with me, and you will never see either of us again.”
Kirill went pale.
“You… you can’t do that,” he stammered. “You’re pregnant. You’re supposed to support me.”
“I did support you.” Darya smiled without amusement. “Right up until today. I thought you had stumbled. But you didn’t stumble. This is simply who you are.”
“Dasha, listen to me!” He stepped toward her and reached out his hands. “I did all of this for us! I wanted us to have a beautiful life!”
“A beautiful life isn’t orchids,” she replied sharply. “A beautiful life is when a man gets up in the morning and goes to work. Any work. For his family. That is beautiful. Not all of this.”
Kirill looked around the room like a trapped animal.
His sister stood calm and firm. Viktor wore a faint smile. His father had finally straightened his shoulders. His mother, for the first time, had not rushed to rescue him.
And Darya radiated the cold certainty of a final decision.
“So everyone is against me,” Kirill rasped. “Everyone. I’m completely alone.”
“We’re not against you,” Viktor said gently. “We’re on your side. You simply don’t know the difference yet.”
“To hell with all of you!” Kirill screamed. “You know-it-alls! Saints! You’ll all leave, and I’ll be stuck in this dump! I’m a genius, understand? I was not made for a warehouse!”
“Kirill,” Olga said, “tomorrow at eight in the morning, the address will be sent to your phone. The rest is your decision. But understand this: there will be no more money. Not from me and not from our parents. Never again.”
“Is that your final word?” he asked, staring at her with hatred.
“Yes.”
“And if I die in the street, how will you live with yourself?” he shrieked. “Won’t your conscience torment you?”
“You won’t die in the street,” Viktor replied calmly. “You’ve been offered a job, a warm place to sleep, and a salary. People who live in the street are often those who have been offered nothing at all. You are simply being selective. That, my friend, is a luxury.”
Darya silently picked up her coat.
“I’m going to my parents’ place for a few days. You need time to think without me. If you decide to take the job, call me. If you don’t, don’t call.”
“Dasha, wait!” Kirill rushed after her. “You can’t leave me! You’re my wife!”
“I am your wife,” she said, pausing in the doorway. “That is why I’m giving you one last chance. Use it wisely.”
Then she left.
Six months passed.
Kirill took the warehouse job.
He did not do it because he had suddenly become wise. He did it because he was afraid of being left alone.
During the first few weeks, he hated everything: the boxes, the invoices, the early mornings, and his own reflection beneath the cold fluorescent lights.
He counted inventory, cursed silently, and sometimes rested his head on his hands in the back room.
But he got up.
Every morning, he got up.
The SUV was repossessed because of the unpaid debt. Kirill began taking the bus. At first, he kept his head down, terrified that someone he knew might see him.
Eventually, he stopped worrying.
It turned out that his acquaintances did not care about him nearly as much as he had imagined.
Darya returned.
Their daughter was born.
One evening, Olga stopped by her parents’ apartment. Her father was calmly drinking tea, while her mother sat knitting.
The apartment was still theirs. It was quiet, safe, and untouched.
“How is Kirill?” Olga asked.
“He’s working,” her father said, smiling beneath his mustache. “He’s lost some weight. He called yesterday and said they promoted him to a higher grade. He sounded as proud as a schoolboy.”
“Is he still angry?”
“Sometimes,” her mother sighed. “But it’s different now. He isn’t angry with us anymore. He’s angry with himself.”
At that same moment, Kirill sat at the kitchen table in their tiny rented one-bedroom apartment, holding a calculator.
His daughter was asleep, and Darya was making noise in the bathroom.
He was calculating how much debt remained, his lips moving silently as he worked.
“Idiot,” he whispered to himself. “What an idiot I was. There was a house. There was money. I had everything.”
He rubbed his palm across his chin, over the rough stubble and the deep line that had not been there six months earlier.
“Orchids,” he said with a bitter smile. “An executive chair. I bought a car. And what did I give them in return? What did I give my sister? What did I give my parents? What did I give Dasha besides stress and misery?”
The water stopped running in the bathroom.
Kirill stared at the column of numbers.
They were a sentence with no right of appeal, imposed not by someone else, but by himself.
“I had everything,” he repeated in a barely audible voice. “I had everything, and I destroyed it myself. With my own hands. How did this happen? How did I manage to waste it all?”
He tightened his grip around the calculator and remained there for a long time, staring into the distance.
Again and again, he whispered into the empty room:
“How could I have done this?
How could I have done this?”
