The mother stood perfectly still. Only her lips were trembling.
“Y-you… you’re throwing me out? Your own mother?”
Tatyana nodded silently.
And then something changed in her mother. Her face twisted, and her eyes flashed with something dark.
“You’ll regret this,” she hissed. “You’ll regret it, Tanya.”
She grabbed her old scarf from the back of the chair and darted into the hall. The suitcases that had been standing there for three weeks looked as if they’d been waiting for this very moment.
When the door slammed shut, silence settled over the apartment—deep, thick, like a whirlpool.
Tatyana sank onto the floor and pressed her face into her knees.
But there were no tears now. Only a strange feeling—as if she had burned something old down, and the smell of ash still hung in the air.
Tatyana hadn’t slept for a second night in a row. Three days had passed since her mother slammed the door, but her scent still lingered in the apartment—the kind you can’t air out: a mix of cheap face cream and old tea. It felt like it had soaked into the walls, the curtains, the pillow. Into her head, too—leaving a residue, thick and sticky like warm honey. She wandered around in her robe, drank water straight from the tap, sometimes talked to herself. She wanted to call Lena, but the words wouldn’t come.
At work everything fell apart: she missed deadlines, forgot to send emails, mixed up details with clients. Her manager—a thin woman with a permanently exhausted look—called her into her office.
“Tanya, where are you?” she asked without looking up from her laptop. “It feels like you haven’t been here at all these past few days.”
“I’m sorry, Marina Lvovna. I have… problems at home.”
“Problems?” She looked up. “Serious ones?”
Tatyana nodded—and then, without noticing, she started talking. No details, no accusations, just as it was: her mother, the wedding, the suitcases, how she’d stood on the landing and couldn’t believe any of it was real.
Marina Lvovna listened without interrupting. Then she sighed, took off her glasses, and said,
“You know, Tanya… I once threw my mother out, too. After that I kept going back to her for a long time. Not physically—mentally. I kept thinking who was to blame. And then I realized: no one. It was just time.”
Those words stuck in her head. She walked home under a fine drizzle and thought—maybe no one really was to blame. Maybe every family has its own wars. And someone always ends up the last one standing on the field.
That evening, around eight, there was a knock at the door. At first Tatyana didn’t believe it—she thought it was the mailman again, or the downstairs neighbor complaining about the faucet. She went over, looked through the peephole—and her blood ran cold.
Andrey was standing there. In his hands was a bag with something heavy; under his eyes, dark shadows. He looked older. Not just more grown-up—as if time had carved him down, made him rougher, more angular.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi,” she replied, not opening the door all the way. “What do you want?”
“Can I come in?”
She hesitated. Then she stepped back.
He came in, took off his shoes, set them neatly by the wall. He looked around as if he’d never been here before. And in a way, that was true.
“Your mom’s not here?” he asked after a pause.
“No. And she won’t be,” Tatyana said calmly.
“She’s living with us now,” Andrey rubbed the back of his neck. “Olya isn’t thrilled, but we don’t really have a choice.”
Tatyana sat on the edge of the couch. Inside, everything turned cold.
“So what do you want?”
“She’s crying,” Andrey lowered his gaze. “Says you threw her out like a dog. Says you’re cruel and ungrateful.”
Tatyana let out a quiet, joyless laugh.
“Of course. And you believed her.”
“I don’t know, Tanya,” he spread his hands. “We’re family. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Family…” she repeated. “Funny hearing that word from someone who didn’t remember I existed for ten years.”
Andrey froze. Then he sat down across from her and leaned forward slightly.
“You were always… different,” he finally said. “Closed off. You were hard to deal with. Mom isn’t made of iron, Tanya. She tried as best as she could.”
“She tried?” Her voice rang with steel. “When I slept in the kitchen and you had your own room? When I didn’t get new shoes because you were ‘more important’? When she screamed that I was a mistake?”
Andrey turned away. A shadow of guilt flickered across his face—weak, barely there, but real.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “Maybe I didn’t want to know.”
“Too late,” Tatyana said.
They sat in silence. Rain fell outside. Somewhere far away a door slammed—someone coming home from work. For the first time in a long while, Tatyana felt a strange calm. As if after a long run she had finally stopped.
“She won’t stay with us,” Andrey suddenly said. “Olya can’t take it. Mom… she scares me. She dreams you cursed her. Says she can hear you knocking on the wall.”
Tatyana lifted her head. In her brother’s eyes was something she’d never seen before—fear.
“Andrey,” she said slowly, “I didn’t curse her. And I’m not knocking on any walls.”
He nodded, but his gaze stayed wary.
“You know,” he added, “when I left today, she was standing at the window whispering that she’d come to you. With a suitcase. Again. She said: ‘Tanya has to take me in—I’m her mother.’”
A chill ran down Tatyana’s spine. Her chest felt tight.
“Let her try,” she said softly. “I changed the locks.”
Andrey got up without another word and walked to the door. On the threshold he stopped, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words. He only breathed out,
“Take care of yourself.”
The night was windy. Outside, the wind howled, stirring the curtains. Tatyana lay awake, listening. Somewhere a clock was ticking. Then—the doorbell. One short ring, as if someone had brushed the button by accident. She flinched, got up, went to the door. Through the peephole—darkness. Empty.
But there was a note on the doormat. A small piece of paper torn from a notebook. Her mother’s handwriting—recognizable, crooked.
“You have to listen to me. It’s important. I’m sick.”
Tatyana crumpled the note in her fist, feeling anxiety rising inside her.
Doubt. Pity. Anger. All at once.
In the morning she called Lena.
“She came back,” she said.
“Who?”
“Mom. She wrote that she’s sick.”
“Maybe she really is sick?” Lena asked carefully.
“Even if she is… I can’t. I’m tired, Lena. Of her, of this endless game.”
“Then don’t open the door.”
But that evening it happened again. First—footsteps in the stairwell. Then a soft knock.
“Tanya…” her mother’s voice behind the door. “Tanya, open up. I can’t anymore.”
Tatyana stood without moving.
“Mom, go,” she said through the door. “Please.”
“I’m not well,” her mother answered quietly. “My head is spinning. I’m tired, Tanya. Let me in just for the night.”
Silence.
Inside, everything shook.
She opened the door—for a second, just to make sure it wasn’t a trick.
Her mother stood pale in her coat, bareheaded. Her face was gray, her lips bluish. In her hands—an old suitcase.
“You won,” she rasped. “I’m leaving forever. Just drink tea with me one last time.”
Something snapped inside Tatyana. She took her mother by the arm and led her into the apartment. Sat her down on a chair. Poured tea.
Her mother was trembling, as if shaking from the inside.
“Tanya…” she whispered. “Forgive me.”
And then she slowly lowered her head onto the table.
The cup tipped over, tea spilled.
Tatyana screamed and rushed to her. Her heart pounded in her temples, but there was no breath anymore.
She called an ambulance, but her words tangled. Someone on the line shouted instructions—CPR. She did it. Until her palms bled.
When the doctors arrived, it was too late.
The funeral was quiet. Andrey stood nearby in silence. Olya held a child wrapped in a blanket. Lena came last and held Tatyana’s hand as she watched the coffin being lowered into the ground.
No one said anything unnecessary. Only the wind rustled in the treetops.
After the funeral Andrey came up to her.
“She asked for you to take her ring,” he said, holding out a small box.
Tatyana opened it. A simple gold ring with a dark dent on the side. Old. Nearly worn smooth.
“I don’t need it,” she said. “Let it stay with you.”
He nodded.
A week passed. Silence moved back into the apartment, but now it was different—not cozy, but empty, cold.
Tatyana sat in the kitchen, staring out the window. On the windowsill stood the same flower—the one that had almost died once, but survived.
She poured herself tea, and it felt as if her mother was still somewhere nearby. Not like a ghost, not like an accusation—just like a breath that never disappears completely.
The phone rang. Lena.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m living,” Tatyana replied. “Little by little.”
“Come over tomorrow. I’ll make your favorite pie.”
Tatyana smiled.
“Not pie, Lena. Just tea.”
She looked out the window. The rain had stopped. In the sky—a pale strip of dawn.
And for the first time in a long while, it seemed to her that life was ahead. Empty, yes. But hers.
The End.
