The phone vibrated as if someone was trying to punch a hole in the table with it. I looked at the screen — «Mom.» The fourth missed call in half an hour.
Usually, she didn’t pressure me like this, unless she wanted to discuss how I had forgotten to congratulate our cousin aunt on her birthday again.
Yesterday, I finally got confirmation: I’m going to California. Three months at the headquarters of our IT company to launch a new product. A chance I had dreamed about for three years while coding until midnight and learning English from videos on the metro. I hadn’t even told anyone yet — I wanted to gather friends in the evening and open a bottle of wine.
But it seemed Mom found out first.
“Anya, why aren’t you answering?” Her voice sounded like I had already betrayed the homeland three times.
“Mom, I’m at work. What’s wrong?”
“We need to talk. Urgently. Your father and I decided that you should give up this America of yours.”
I almost choked on my coffee. Give up? Give up what I had been working my ass off for? It was so unexpected that I couldn’t find words immediately.
“Wait, how do you even know? And why give it up?”
“Lena told us. She said you called her yesterday, bragging. Anya, this is selfishness. We have our own plans here, and you’re going to leave the family for some career.”
Lena is my sister. Of course, I had spilled everything to her in a euphoric state yesterday, and apparently she ran to tell the parents. I gripped the phone so hard my fingers turned white.
“Mom, let’s talk tonight, I’m busy now.”
“No, Anya, this is not up for discussion. But we’re expecting you home today.”
And she hung up. I sat staring at the black screen, trying to understand what had just happened. Family against my trip? This was not just a call — this was an ultimatum.
By lunchtime, I had already run through every possible scenario in my head. To give up the trip would mean burying three years of work, hundreds of nights with the laptop, and that moment when my team lead said: “Anya, you’re really killing it.” But if I go, judging by Mom’s tone, I’m in for a family boycott. And I know them: they know how to pressure.
I grew up in a typical Moscow suburb family where “stability” is a sacred word. Dad worked as an engineer at a factory for thirty years, Mom was an accountant at the local clinic. They were always proud of me: “Anya is our smart girl, got into university, works in Moscow.” But their pride ended where my ambitions began.
When I moved to the capital, they grumbled: “Why do you need Moscow? It’s quiet and calm here.” When I started staying late at work, Mom called with lectures: “You’re pushing yourself too hard, find a normal job closer to home.” And now, when I finally clawed my ticket to the future, they decided it was too much.
At lunch, I went outside to clear my head. Moscow buzzed: cars, people, the smell of shawarma from the kiosk on the corner. I called Lena.
“Lena, did you really spill everything to Mom?”
“What’s the big deal?” Her voice was light, as if discussing the weather. “I just said you were going to America. And they immediately said: ‘How can she leave us?’”
“Leave? Lena, I’m going to work, not to live there permanently!”
“Well, you know Mom. She thinks you should be nearby. Besides, they want you to help with Dimka this summer.”
Dimka is my nephew, Lena’s son. Five years old, energy like a nuclear reactor. Lena and her husband are always busy, and the parents decided long ago that I’m the perfect free nanny.
In summer, they usually shipped him off to the country house with me, and I sat there with him instead of coding or at least sleeping. And now that became an argument against my trip.
“Lena, I don’t have to sacrifice everything for Dimka. You have your life, I have mine.”
“Oh, Anya, don’t start. You’re always so independent, and here it feels like we’re not even family.”
She hung up, and I was left standing with the thought of “not family” in my head. In the evening, I went to my parents. I had to figure this out.
At home, it smelled of rassolnik soup. Mom was sitting at the table, Dad flipping through a newspaper, though I knew he wasn’t really reading it — just a ritual. I threw my bag on the couch and started:
“So, tell me about these plans that mean I have to give everything up?”
Mom sighed as if I had already given her a heart attack.
“Anya, your father and I are old, it’s hard for us. Lena and Dimka can’t manage alone, and you’re always somewhere else. We decided you should come back home. Enough of Moscow, these computers. Find a job here, be close. Otherwise, you’ll go to America, and what, will we be alone here?”
Dad put down the paper and added:
“You only think about yourself. Family is more important than any abroad.”
I looked at them and realized they really believed this. To them, my career was some whim, a selfish fancy. And I thought they were at least a little proud of me.
“So you want me to give up everything I worked for and come back here to cook borscht and watch Dimka?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Mom raised her eyebrows. “You don’t have your own family? Don’t want children?”
“Mom, I’m 29. I still have time. But this chance to go to the States — it’s now or never.”
Dad shook his head:
“You were always stubborn. But this is no longer stubbornness, this is selfishness.”
I left, slamming the door. In the car, I sat for ten minutes just staring into the dark. They don’t understand. And they won’t. But somehow inside it still hurt — as if I really was betraying them.
The week passed like in a fog. I worked, prepared for the trip, but every evening the phone blinked with new messages from Mom: “Think about us,” “You don’t love us at all,” “Lena cried, said you abandoned her.”
Lena, by the way, also got involved: calling, whining that I was “too cool for the family.” I tried to explain that it wasn’t about them, but about me — about who I want to be. But they only heard themselves.
On Friday, I stayed late at the office. The team had already left, and I was staring at the email with the tickets. Departure in two weeks. And then I realized: if I stay, it will not just be giving up the trip. It will be giving up myself. The Anya who at 18 left for Moscow with one backpack, who learned to code from scratch, who dreamed one day to see Silicon Valley not just on a screen.
I called Mom.
“Mom, I’m going. It’s my decision. I love you, but I can’t live your life.”
“Anya, you’re killing us,” her voice trembled.
“No, Mom. I’m just living.”
She was silent for about ten seconds, then said:
“Well then live. Without us.”
The call ended. I sat staring at the screen and felt something inside break. But along with that — it felt easier to breathe.
The next two weeks I packed my suitcase, finished work tasks, and tried not to think about the silence at home now. Lena messaged a couple of times — something about me “choosing money over family,” but I didn’t answer. My parents didn’t call.
I knew they were waiting for me to change my mind, crawl back with apologies. But I didn’t crawl.
At the airport, before check-in, I suddenly caught myself smiling. For the first time in a month. People buzzed around, suitcases rattled, and I stood there with my ticket in hand thinking: “This is mine.” Not some “should,” not “family is more important,” but mine.
On the plane, I opened my laptop and began sketching ideas for the project. A flight attendant brought coffee, clouds floated beneath us, and I realized this was not the end, but the beginning. Family might thaw with time — they’re not made of steel. Or maybe not. But I’m no longer going to prove I have the right to be myself.
In California, a new office, a new team, and, damn it, a new life awaited me. And I was ready for it.
