“Are you really that stingy?”
Darina kept her eyes on the laptop screen. Her fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as she filled in cells in the project estimate. After three hours of working at the kitchen table, her back had already begun to ache, but she tried to ignore it.
“It’s not that I’m stingy, Syoma. I simply don’t have the money.”
Semyon noisily dragged a stool away from the table and sat down opposite her. He tapped his fingers impatiently against the plastic tabletop.
“What do you mean, you don’t have it? You got an advance payment yesterday for that project outside the city. I saw the notification on your phone.”
“That money is set aside for the dentist. I need an implant. I told you about it a month ago. The doctor already made a treatment plan.”
“The implant can wait. It’s a back tooth. Nobody can even see it when you smile! But I need winter tires now, before prices shoot up for the season. Don’t you understand that this is about my safety on the road?”
 
Darina stopped working. Slowly, she closed the laptop and looked at her husband.
“Your safety problem has a very simple solution, Syoma. Find a job with a salary that actually covers the cost of maintaining your car instead of asking your wife for money when she’s been paying for groceries and utilities by herself for the last six months.”
“I’m not asking for money. I’m suggesting we redistribute the family budget! Sales at the dealership are unstable right now. That’s the market, Darina. One month is good, the next is bad.”
“For you, it’s been bad for eight months.”
“Don’t start.”
Semyon leaned back irritably.
“We were talking normally. Why do you immediately get defensive? I’m not asking for money to party. This is practical. The car feeds both of us.”
“The car takes you from home to the dealership and back. It doesn’t feed me at all. I work remotely.”
“Exactly! You sit at home in the warmth while I’m out driving around all day. Fine, forget it. What are we having for dinner?”
Darina glanced toward the empty stove.
“Nothing. I didn’t have time to cook. I have a project deadline tomorrow morning.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” Semyon protested. “I come home from work starving and there’s no food? You were home all day!”
“I was working, Syoma. On my computer. Earning the same advance payment you’ve already decided to spend on your tires. If you’re hungry, boil some pasta. There are sausages in the fridge.”
 
Semyon snorted.
“Pasta. Am I married or living in a student dorm? Mom always said freelancing isn’t real work. It’s just an excuse lazy women use when they don’t want to take care of the house.”
“If Klara Tikhonovna misses domestic life so much, you can go to her place for dinner. I’m sure she has a pot of borscht waiting for her exhausted little boy.”
“Leave my mother out of this. Besides, she’s coming tomorrow.”
Darina froze.
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Uncle Zhenya died three weeks ago. We haven’t even been to his apartment since then. It’s time to see what condition the place is in and figure out how much work it needs.”
“How much work?” Darina repeated quietly.
“Yeah. The apartment hasn’t been renovated in forty years. Mom wants to invite an appraiser this weekend, but first we need to inspect everything ourselves. Decide what gets thrown away and what can stay.”
“You’re planning to evaluate Zhenya’s apartment already? Before forty days have even passed?”
Semyon waved dismissively.
“What difference does forty days or six months make? The paperwork is already being processed. At least we won’t waste time. The real estate market is down right now, so we need to move fast. We’ll sell that wreck, buy me a decent Japanese car at auction, and put the rest in the bank to earn interest.”
Darina stared at her husband as a strange numbness slowly spread through her.
Five years.
 
For five years, she had crossed the entire city every day to visit that “wreck.”
“So, a Japanese car from an auction,” she said flatly.
“Exactly! I’ve already looked at a few options. Mom agrees. She’s the only first-line heir, after all. She’s his sister. I’m his nephew. It all stays in the family. Just do one thing tomorrow—help clean the place up before we get there. Mom can’t tolerate dust. Her allergies flare up.”
“She can’t tolerate dust,” Darina repeated.
“Darinochka, why are you repeating everything like a parrot? Yes, she can’t tolerate dust. That’s why she barely visited Uncle Zhenya during the last few years. Why should she destroy her health? That’s what caregivers are for. Besides, you volunteered to look after him.”
“I volunteered?”
Darina’s voice trembled, but she quickly regained control.
“Syoma, I asked you to hire a professional caregiver when Zhenya stopped being able to get out of bed. We were living in a rented studio, and we didn’t have much money. Your mother said seeing sick people raised her blood pressure, and you said professional care was too expensive.”
“Well, we saved money.”
 
“You saved money. I spent five years emptying his bedpan.”
“Oh, stop acting like Mother Teresa!” Semyon raised his voice. “You cared for him, so what? We’re family. That’s what families do. Besides, you stayed there three days a week. You got a break from me.”
Darina slowly stood up from the table.
“A break.”
“Yes! Uncle Zhenya had a three-bedroom apartment downtown. You could sit there and draw your little projects. Sounds pretty nice to me. Anyway, enough of this. Tomorrow at ten, Mom and I will be there. Come earlier, air out the rooms and put the old junk into garbage bags.”
“I’m not going there tomorrow to throw away his things, Syoma.”
“And why not?”
“Because I have work. And because it isn’t your apartment to dispose of however you want.”
Semyon laughed.
“Then whose is it? Yours? Darinochka, you know absolutely nothing about inheritance law. Mom is the direct heir. So tomorrow, be nice and show up to help. Otherwise she’ll get offended, and you know how she can make everyone miserable.”
He stood, stretched, and headed toward the bathroom.
 
“I’m not boiling sausages. Order a pizza with your dentist money if you’re too lazy to cook.”
Darina remained standing in the middle of the kitchen.
The following morning, at exactly ten o’clock, Semyon and Klara Tikhonovna stood in the spacious living room of the late Uncle Zhenya’s apartment.
Klara Tikhonovna moved the red beam of a laser measuring device along the walls, making notes in a thick notebook.
“We won’t touch the load-bearing wall here,” she told her son without looking up. “We’ll just widen the doorway. Obviously, all this furniture goes to the dump. Nobody would take that cabinet for free, even online.”
Semyon lazily nudged the old carpet with the toe of his shoe.
“Mom, why widen anything? Buyers won’t care. They care about the location. The neighborhood is great. Let’s sell it as-is instead of wasting money on renovations.”
“You don’t understand real estate,” Klara Tikhonovna replied, writing something else down. “If we remove all the junk and do some cosmetic work, we can raise the price by fifteen percent.”
Footsteps sounded from the hallway.
Darina entered without immediately taking off her shoes. She walked straight into the living room. She was wearing the same clothes as the day before.
Her mother-in-law lowered the laser device and turned.
“Oh, Darinochka. You finally showed up. We’ve already been working here for an hour. I specifically told Syoma to tell you to come early and collect my brother’s personal belongings.”
“Good morning, Klara Tikhonovna,” Darina said, stopping at the entrance. “I arrived when I was able to.”
“Irresponsible,” her mother-in-law snapped, putting the measuring device into her bag. “Nothing new there. Fine. There are garbage bags in the hallway. Start with the dresser. It’s full of old clothes and medication. Everything needs to be thrown out today.”
“I’m not throwing anything away.”
Klara Tikhonovna went still. Slowly, she adjusted the collar of her perfectly pressed blouse.
“Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly?”
 
“You did. Yevgeny’s belongings will stay where they are. At least until I decide to go through them myself. Slowly. Without garbage bags.”
Semyon rolled his eyes.
“Here we go again. Darinochka, is this PMS or something? Stop making a scene. We have things to do. Mom came here to assess the apartment.”
“There’s nothing to assess,” Darina said, taking a step forward. “This apartment is not being sold.”
Her mother-in-law gave a short, barking laugh.
“Sweetheart, who exactly asked you? You are nobody here. You don’t even have proper registration here. Legally, you’re an outsider who merely provided services to my brother. And while doing so, you lived here for free.”
“For free,” Darina repeated with a small nod. “Is that really how you see it?”
“Absolutely,” Klara Tikhonovna declared. “It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. You looked after him, and he gave you a roof over your head in the city center. You’re even. I’m even willing, out of generosity, to give you some compensation from my own money after the sale. For the time you spent here.”
“How generous. And when he needed a pressure-relief mattress that cost forty thousand, where was that generosity?”
 
“I didn’t have spare money!” her mother-in-law snapped.
“Syoma did. He spent it on new alloy wheels.”
Semyon’s expression hardened.
“Are you seriously bringing up those wheels again? Yes, I bought them. I’m a man. I need status. And you paid for the mattress yourself, so what was the big deal?”
“Yes, I did. With the advance payment that was supposed to pay for my medical treatment.”
Klara Tikhonovna slapped her palm against the table.
“Enough! Counting someone else’s money is vulgar. The apartment is mine. I’m his biological sister. I’m inheriting it. You can pack up your little drawings and go back to your studio.”
“She’s not going back to the studio,” Semyon added spitefully. “She’ll make my life miserable with all her sulking. Let her go stay with her mother outside the city for a while. She can cool down there.”
Darina reached into her jacket pocket and took out an ordinary sheet of paper folded in half.
 
“I’m not going to my mother’s, Syoma. And I’m not going back to the studio either.”
She held the paper out to her mother-in-law.
“What is this?”
Klara Tikhonovna took it between two fingers as though it were dirty.
“Read it.”
She put on her glasses and began scanning the document. With every passing second, her perfect posture became more rigid.
Semyon lost patience, walked over, and looked over his mother’s shoulder.
“What is it? Utility bills? I told you she should be paying them herself.”
“Shut up,” Klara Tikhonovna whispered hoarsely.
She lifted her eyes toward Darina. The commanding expression was gone. Now she looked confused.
“This… this is fake.”
“It’s a will,” Darina replied calmly. “A genuine one. It was notarized a year ago. Yevgeny had the notary come to the apartment.”
“What will?” Semyon snatched the paper from his mother. His eyes darted across the lines. “To whom? You? You’re nobody to him! You’re a stranger!”
“A stranger,” Darina agreed. “And his own sister came here twice in five years. Once for his birthday to eat salad, and now to measure his walls.”
“He had no right!” Klara Tikhonovna shouted. “He was sick! He didn’t know what he was doing! You drugged him with pills and forced him to sign it!”
“He knew exactly what he was doing, Klara Tikhonovna. His legs stopped working. His mind didn’t. And he saw everything. He saw who stayed awake with him at night and who hid behind an allergy to dust.”
“We’ll challenge it!” Semyon shrieked. “I’ll hire the best lawyers! We’ll prove he wasn’t mentally competent!”
“Good luck,” Darina said with a shrug. “There’s a medical evaluation attached to the will. He underwent a full assessment on the same day. He did it specifically so you wouldn’t have a chance to overturn it.”
Semyon stared blankly at the paper.
 
He couldn’t process the fact that the shiny new SUV he had already imagined owning had just disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a ridiculous sheet of paper.
“Darinochka…”
He immediately changed his tone. His voice became soft and flattering.
“Come on. Why be so harsh? We’re family. Fine, Uncle Zhenya left it to you. Good for him. Fair enough. We’ll sell it together. We can buy me the car, and for you… well, we’ll buy you some clothes. We’ll even fix your tooth!”
Darina looked at her husband with open disgust.
“Syoma. Take your mother. Take her measuring device. And get out.”
“What do you mean, get out?” Semyon snapped. “I’m your legal husband! I have the right to live here! This is marital property!”
“It’s inherited property. You have no claim to it.”
“You’re throwing your husband into the street?” Klara Tikhonovna clutched her chest. “Over a few square meters? Do you have no conscience?”
“My conscience is in the same place as your contribution toward that pressure-relief mattress. Now leave.”
Semyon clenched his fists.
“When we divorce, I’ll take everything from you! You’ll walk out of that studio with nothing but the underwear you’re wearing!”
“You can keep the studio,” Darina answered calmly. “I don’t need it anymore. I’ll file for divorce tomorrow.”
She stepped aside, clearing the way to the hallway.
 
“Out.”
Her mother-in-law opened her mouth, clearly preparing another speech about courts and justice, but then met Darina’s eyes.
There was no fear in them.
No uncertainty either.
Klara Tikhonovna grabbed her bag and headed for the door. Semyon followed behind her, muttering threats under his breath.
Two months later, Darina stood in the living room of the apartment.
The air smelled of primer and fresh paint. She had eventually decided to get rid of the old cabinet, but she left the structural openings exactly as they were.
New construction tools were stacked in one corner.
Darina ran her hand over the smooth, freshly plastered wall.
Mutual acquaintances occasionally brought her bits of gossip.
Semyon was living with his mother.
 
Klara Tikhonovna had quickly brought her son under control and forced him to pay exactly half of the household bills. Now Semyon complained to anyone willing to listen that his life was unbearable and that every woman around him was greedy and only cared about money.
Darina paid no attention to any of it.
She had to finish the renovation before winter.
She took out her phone and called the contractor to discuss the delivery of building materials for the following day.
For the first time in a very long while, she truly did not care what anyone thought of her.
