Marina carefully wrapped a porcelain figurine in an old newspaper—the same one her grandmother had once brought back from Kislovodsk. A neat row of cardboard boxes stood in the hallway, each labeled in black marker: “Kitchen,” “Books,” “Memories.”
She had circled the last word twice.
The doorbell rang sharply and impatiently.
Marina wiped her hands on her apron and went to answer it. She was not expecting anyone.
Viktor Sergeyevich stood on the other side of the door. He looked older than she remembered, with dark circles beneath his eyes and a wrinkled jacket hanging loosely from his shoulders.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
“Dad?” Marina stepped aside to let him in. “Two years. Not a single call or message for two years. Come in.”
“I see you’re going somewhere.” His eyes traveled over the boxes, and something flickered in them.
It was not concern.
It looked more like interest.
“Yes. I’m moving to a village outside Voronezh. I was offered a position there, and I accepted.”
“A village?” Viktor Sergeyevich froze. “Are you serious? You own an apartment in the city, and you’re moving to the countryside?”
“I’ve never been more serious.” Marina smiled, trying not to reveal how tense she had become. “Would you like some tea? I haven’t packed the kettle yet.”
She filled the kettle and took out two cups. Her hands moved with practiced calm, but inside, something had tightened like a stretched wire.
Her father never came without a reason.
And behind every unexpected visit from him, there was always Galina Petrovna.
“I’m glad you opened the door,” Viktor Sergeyevich said as he lowered himself onto a kitchen stool. “I thought you might refuse to see me.”
“You’re my father.” Marina placed a cup in front of him. “I never closed the door on you. You were the one who said you wanted nothing more to do with me. Remember?”
“Well, I lost my temper.” He looked away. “It was a difficult time. Kristina had lost her place at the university, everyone was under pressure…”
“Kristina lost her state-funded place because she stopped attending classes. That had nothing to do with me, Dad. It was her decision.”
Viktor Sergeyevich said nothing. He stirred sugar into his tea while Marina waited.
She knew the real reason for his visit was still coming.
“Listen, sweetheart,” he finally began, his voice suddenly soft and ingratiating. “Since you’re moving to the countryside, you won’t really need this apartment anymore.”
“What are you getting at?” Marina set down her cup.
“Kristina has nowhere to live. Galina Petrovna thinks it would only be fair…”
“Fair?” Marina interrupted, her voice becoming quieter. “My grandmother—my mother’s mother—left this apartment to me. To me. Not to Kristina. Not to Galina Petrovna.”
“You’ve been given a house in the village, so go and live there and transfer the apartment to your sister!” Viktor Sergeyevich suddenly raised his voice, as if someone had pressed a hidden button inside him. “That would be the right thing to do.”
“It isn’t a house, Dad. It’s housing provided by my employer. And Kristina is not my sister. We have different mothers, different grandmothers, and judging by everything else, we may as well have different fathers too.”
“How dare you speak to your father like that?” He half rose from the stool.
“How are you speaking to your daughter?” Marina did not move back. “You didn’t come here to see me. You came for the apartment. Galina sent you, didn’t she?”
Viktor Sergeyevich’s face turned red. He began fumbling through his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper folded into quarters.
“Here. Everything is already written down. It’s a deed of gift. All you have to do is sign it.”
“You brought a completed document?” Marina took the paper, unfolded it, and read it. “You prepared everything already. Without telling me. Without asking for my consent. You simply showed up with a document and expected me to sign.”
“Kristina is twenty-three years old! She has nowhere to live!”
“And I was fourteen when I left your house because my stepmother fed me scraps and locked me in the storage room whenever Kristina got bad grades. Where was your concern then, Dad?”
Viktor Sergeyevich remained silent.
Marina slowly and carefully tore the document in half.
Then she tore it again.
And once more.
She placed the pieces on the table in front of him.
“Tell Galina Petrovna that this apartment belonged to my grandmother. It belongs to me now, and it will continue to belong to me. End of discussion.”
The doorbell rang again.
Marina opened the door and found Galina Petrovna standing there in person, with Kristina hiding behind her.
The older woman entered without waiting for an invitation, pushing Marina aside with her shoulder.
“Well?” Galina Petrovna asked, looking around the apartment as though she already owned it. “Did you speak to your father? I knew that spineless fool wouldn’t be able to manage it. I had to come myself.”
“Get out of my apartment,” Marina said calmly, every word clear and firm.
“Your apartment?” Her stepmother smirked. “Look at yourself. You’ve packed your boxes and decided to run off to some village, yet you want to leave a perfectly good apartment standing empty. You have no conscience.”
“My conscience is perfectly fine. You, Galina Petrovna, seem to have replaced yours with a calculator.”
“Mom,” Kristina murmured, tugging at her sleeve. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
“Be quiet!” Galina snapped. “I put up with this ungrateful girl for twelve years! Twelve years of feeding her and buying her clothes!”
“Feeding me?” Marina stepped toward her. “You made me eat whatever Kristina left on her plate. You took away the spending money Grandma gave me. You ripped books out of my hands and said I was only pretending to be intelligent while ruining my eyesight. Is that what you call feeding and clothing a child?”
“You insolent little brat.” Galina Petrovna jabbed a finger into Marina’s chest. “That old woman filled your head with nonsense! That miserable old hag…”
Marina caught her wrist.
She gripped it so firmly that Galina Petrovna gasped in surprise.
Then Marina slapped her.
Once.
Hard, sharp, and precise.
“Do not ever speak about my grandmother like that,” Marina said, pronouncing each word separately. “Never.”
Her stepmother staggered backward, clutching her cheek. Her eyes widened like saucers.
In all the years she had known her stepdaughter, Marina had never once fought back like this.
Kristina pressed herself against the doorframe.
“You… you hit me?” Galina Petrovna cried. “Viktor! Viktor, did you see that?”
“I saw it.” Viktor Sergeyevich stood in the hallway, staring at the floor. “I saw it, Galina.”
“Then why are you just standing there? Say something!”
“What am I supposed to say?” He raised his eyes, and for the first time in many years, Marina saw something other than weakness in them.
She saw shame.
“She’s right, Galya. You started it.”
“Take your deed of gift with you.” Marina pointed toward the torn pieces on the kitchen table. “And leave. All three of you. Now.”
Galina Petrovna backed toward the door, still holding her cheek. Kristina rushed out first.
Viktor Sergeyevich hesitated on the threshold.
“Marina…”
“Go, Father. You made your choice a long time ago. Today I made mine. She was right about one thing—you really are spineless.”
One week later, Marina handed the apartment keys to her friend Olesya.
They were sitting in a café across the street from the building. Olesya turned the key ring over in her hand, examining the small wooden owl attached to it. Marina had carved it herself while she was still at school.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sell?” Olesya asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a good neighborhood, and property prices have gone up.”
“No. Rent it out and transfer the money into a separate account. This apartment is all I have left from Grandma. I will never sell it.”
“And what happens if they try something again?”
“Let them try. You’re officially registered as my representative, the apartment belongs to me, and all the documents are in order.”
“Marina.” Olesya leaned closer. “I’ve known you for fifteen years. You’ve never been a hard person. What happened?”
“I slapped my stepmother.”
Marina said it so casually that Olesya began coughing.
“And I realized I should have done it ten years earlier.”
“Wow. You really went for it.”
“She insulted Grandma. In front of me. Inside Grandma’s apartment. That was the last time I would ever allow her to open her mouth in my presence.”
Olesya silently hugged her friend.
Then she pulled away, placed the keys in her handbag, and said, “I’ll find reliable tenants. A married couple, no pets and no unpleasant surprises. I’ll send you a report every month. Go and start your new life without worrying.”
Marina left the following morning.
The bus bounced along uneven roads. Beyond the city, open fields stretched toward the horizon, and even the air seemed different—thicker, cleaner, more real.
The school director met her in the village, showed her the house, and gave her the keys.
Her life was beginning again with a blank page.
She met Dmitry three months later.
He delivered groceries to the school cafeteria, and one afternoon, he stopped near her gate after seeing Marina planting wild rose bushes along the fence.
“You’re digging crooked,” he remarked.
“Thank you for your valuable criticism,” she replied without turning around.
“I’m not criticizing. I’m offering to help.”
Marina looked back.
He was tall and sun-tanned, with the hands of a man who clearly knew how to use a shovel. He was smiling, but there was nothing arrogant or patronizing in his expression.
It was simply a smile.
“Then help,” Marina said.
A year and a half later, they were married.
The wedding was quiet and intimate. There were twenty guests, a long table in the yard, and strings of lights hanging between the apple trees.
Olesya came too. She brought the porcelain figurine from Kislovodsk—the one Marina had accidentally left behind during the move.
“Your grandmother would have approved of him,” Olesya said, looking toward Dmitry.
“I know.” Marina smiled. “She would have said, ‘Finally, my dear girl. At last, you have a real human being beside you.’”
Another year passed.
One evening, Marina and Dmitry were sitting on the veranda when her telephone rang. The number was unfamiliar.
“Hello?”
“Marina… it’s Kristina.” Her voice was quiet and unsteady. “Please don’t hang up.”
“Speak.”
“Mom… Mom left Viktor Sergeyevich. She emptied all the bank accounts and transferred the car into the name of her… of another man. They left together. Your father is alone. Completely alone. He has nothing left, Marina. Nothing at all.”
Marina remained silent.
Dmitry lifted his head, noticing the change in her expression.
“And what about you?” Marina asked.
“Mom said she was going to take me with her. But she didn’t. She sent me a message saying I was twenty-five and it was time for me to support myself. Then she changed her number.”
“That sounds familiar,” Marina replied without satisfaction or mockery. “She told me the same thing when I was fourteen.”
“Marina, I understand I have no right to ask you for anything…”
“No, you don’t. But go ahead.”
“Your father… he isn’t eating. He sits alone in an empty apartment. Galina took all the furniture. Every piece of it. While he was in the hospital having tests, she hired movers and cleared out everything, down to the last stool. She even removed the curtains.”
Marina closed her eyes.
“Kristina, listen carefully. I have no obligation to help him. He earned what happened to him. He chose Galina every day, every month, every year. He always chose her instead of me.”
“I know…”
“But he is still my father. And I am not Galina Petrovna. Send me his address. I’ll come the day after tomorrow.”
Dmitry placed his hand over hers.
He did not say anything.
He was simply there.
Marina ended the call and sat silently for a long time. Then she turned toward her husband.
“She took everything from him. Completely cleaned him out. Why should I be the one to carry him now, after everything?”
“That decision belongs to you,” Dmitry said, gently squeezing her fingers. “But I’m beside you. Whatever you decide.”
“I’ve made my decision. I’ll bring him here temporarily. Let him see how people live when they’re not being controlled like animals on a leash.”
Two days later, they drove to the city.
Viktor Sergeyevich’s apartment was truly empty. The walls were bare, and electrical wires hung from the places where the ceiling lights had once been.
Her father sat on the hallway floor with his back against the wall. Beside him stood a plastic bottle of water and a piece of bread.
“Dad.” Marina crouched in front of him. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
“Where?” he asked without looking at her.
“To my house. In the village. Temporarily.”
“You said I had made my choice…”
“You did. And that choice brought you here, sitting on the floor of an empty apartment. But I am your daughter, and now I’m making my own choice. Get up.”
Dmitry helped him to his feet.
Viktor Sergeyevich remained silent throughout the entire journey.
It was only when they entered the village and Marina pointed toward the house with the wild rose bushes growing along the fence that he finally spoke.
“Your mother used to love planting wild roses too. We had one growing under our window. Do you remember?”
“I remember, Dad. I remember.”
He lowered his head.
“Forgive me. I know those words aren’t enough. But I have nothing else to give you.”
“They aren’t enough,” Marina agreed. “But at least they’re a beginning.”
A month later, a letter arrived from Olesya.
It turned out that before leaving the city, Galina Petrovna had tried to rent out Marina’s apartment through another agency while pretending to be the owner.
Olesya discovered the scheme, stopped the transaction, and filed a formal complaint with the property registration authorities. Galina was facing a substantial fine.
But the most surprising news came at the end of the letter.
The man Galina Petrovna had run away with turned out to be just as dishonest as she was.
Three weeks after they left, he disappeared with the money, the car, and everything else Galina had so carefully stolen from Viktor Sergeyevich.
She was left in an unfamiliar city with no money, no home, and not a single person willing to answer her call.
Marina finished reading the letter, folded it, and placed it inside her desk drawer.
Dmitry entered the room carrying an armful of firewood.
“What does Olesya say?”
“Justice,” Marina replied, looking at her husband. “Sometimes it arrives all by itself. Without anyone’s help.”
“And your stepmother?”
“She isn’t my stepmother anymore. She’s just a stranger who received exactly what she deserved.”
“What was that?”
“Emptiness.”
On the veranda, Viktor Sergeyevich was peeling potatoes.
He was clumsy and slow. He had already cut one of his fingers, but he continued working.
For the first time in twenty years, he was doing something for himself.
Marina stepped outside, bandaged his finger, and sat down beside him.
“Dad, you’re holding that knife like a fountain pen. Let me show you.”
“All right.” He smiled.
It was a timid smile, still full of guilt.
But it was a smile.
The wild rose bushes along the fence had begun to bloom—thick, stubborn, and covered in pink flowers.
Her grandmother would have approved.
