Olya pushed the apartment door open with her shoulder, a bag full of notebooks in her hands. She had been grading geometry tests until eight in the evening—thirty-two papers, and only about five were done well. The rest were nothing but failing and barely passing marks. Her eyes ached, and her temples throbbed.
“Dim, hi,” she called into the empty hallway.
No answer. From the room came the usual sounds: tapping on a screen and the muffled audio of a video. Dmitry was sprawled on the couch with his legs spread out. On the little table in front of him sat an empty plate from dumplings, potato chip crumbs, and an empty beer can.
Olya went into the kitchen and looked in the fridge—empty. Just mayonnaise, ketchup, and a jar of pickles. But yesterday she had asked him to at least buy milk, eggs, bread!
“Dim, did you forget to stop by the store?”
“Didn’t have time. A meeting dragged on until evening.”
Olya sighed. A meeting—again. For three months straight, every Thursday he’d had a “meeting” until nine p.m. Only for some reason he didn’t smell like vending-machine coffee—he smelled like sweet, expensive women’s perfume.
But Olya didn’t say anything. She took the last pack of dumplings out of the freezer and put a pot on the stove.
“Maybe we could go visit Aunt Zina this weekend?” she asked, stirring with a spoon. “She called—she wants help with her computer. She wants to learn how to video call the grandkids. They live in Samara—they never see each other.”
Dmitry didn’t even look up from the screen.
“Again to that old lady? I’ve got football on Saturday with the guys.”
“But she’s all alone… She’s seventy-eight!”
“Then go by yourself. Why drag me along?”
“Dim, we haven’t been in a month…”
“Listen, I’m tired! You get it? Tired! I spend all day calling clients, hitting targets, and you’re talking to me about some old woman! Go if you want. Just don’t bother me!”
Olya swallowed the lump in her throat and stayed quiet. She was quiet a lot—it was easier that way, without scandals and shouting.
On Saturday morning she got ready, bought Aunt Zina her favorite “Kartoshka” pastries at a bakery, and took the bus. For an hour and a half she rattled across the whole city until she reached a far-out neighborhood of Khrushchyovka blocks and leaning garages—gray five-story buildings, peeling paint on the entrances, grandmas on benches cracking sunflower seeds.
Aunt Zina met her at the door—small, thin, wearing a flowered apron.
“Olechka, my dear! Come in, quickly! I baked a fish pie—your favorite!”
The little apartment was tiny—twenty-eight square meters—but impossibly cozy. Lace doilies everywhere on the dresser tops, flowers on the windowsills: violets, geraniums. The smell of baking, cinnamon, fresh laundry.
“Auntie Zina, you’re the same as ever!” Olya smiled and hugged the fragile old woman.
They sat at the table. Olya showed her how to turn on the camera on the laptop, dial her granddaughter in Samara, adjust the sound. Zina watched closely and wrote everything down step by step in a notebook in large, shaky handwriting.
“Olechka, you’ve lost weight, and you’ve got circles under your eyes. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, Auntie Zina. I’m just tired from work.”
“From work… or from home?” the old woman squinted slyly and sipped tea from a cup with little roses.
Olya gave a small, bitter smile but looked away. She was used to not complaining—why upset people? Everyone has their own problems.
“It’s fine. Dima gets tired, I get tired. Normal life.”
“Normal…” Aunt Zina repeated thoughtfully. “You know, Olechka, I’ve lived my whole life. And I’ll tell you one thing: normal life is when you feel good. When you feel bad—that’s already not normal.”
Olya stayed silent and finished her tea. Aunt Zina didn’t ask again—she just looked straight through her, seeing everything Olya hid behind her smile, and poured more tea.
“Take some pie with you,” she said at the door, packing half the pie into a bag. “Treat your husband. Let him know you’ve got a caring aunt.”
Olya got home around seven. Dmitry was at the computer, playing some shooter game. Dirty dishes in the kitchen, crumbs on the table.
“Dim, I brought pie. Aunt Zina baked it.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted without taking his eyes off the screen.
Olya set the pie on the table and started washing the dishes. Outside the window, it was getting dark.
A month passed.
One evening Aunt Zina called. Her voice was weak and trembling.
“Olechka… I fell last week. Not too badly, but I scraped my knee. The doctor says I should get checked out—go to the hospital, make sure it’s not a fracture. But I’m scared… It’s scary there alone, all those IVs, injections…”
“Of course, Auntie Zina! When are you going in?”
“On Monday. But Olechka, I don’t want to burden you… You’ve got work, a husband…”
“It’s no burden! I’ll come every day—right after work, straight to you!”
“You’re my golden girl. Thank you.”
At home she told Dmitry. He looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Again that old lady? Does she have no relatives? Only you?”
“Dim, she’s my aunt. Distant, but still family. There’s no one else. The grandkids are in Samara, her nephews and nieces are scattered everywhere.”
“Let her lie in the hospital. They’ve got doctors and nurses. Why do you have to run there every day? Do you even think about yourself?”
“I can’t leave her.”
“And you can leave me? Am I some stranger to you? I work all day, I come home—and there’s no wife! No dinner!”
“Dim, I’ll be quick. I’ll sit with her for an hour and come right back. I’ll cook dinner.”
“I don’t care! Do whatever you want!”
He slammed the bedroom door. Olya clenched her teeth. She didn’t want a fight. She was going anyway.
Every evening after work she went to the hospital on the other side of the city. She brought Aunt Zina apples and cookies, read newspapers aloud—her eyes could barely make out small print anymore. They talked about everything: the weather, the neighbors, old times.
“Olechka, you know,” Aunt Zina said once, “I’m lying here thinking… Life is short. It feels like yesterday I was young and men were courting me, and today—here I am, stuck with bad knees. The main thing is not to miss your happiness, not to trade it for something pointless. Do you understand?”
Olya nodded, not catching the hint.
And Dmitry started coming home later and later—talking about negotiations, clients, corporate parties. Sometimes he didn’t come home at all, saying he’d stayed at his friend Sasha’s, they’d gotten drunk, and he didn’t want to spend money on a taxi.
Two weeks later Aunt Zina was discharged. The doctor said строго:
“You need rest. No heavy lifting. Lie down more. And come back in a month for a follow-up X-ray.”
But a week after that, Aunt Zina’s neighbor, Vera Ivanovna, called.
“Olya, your aunt is really bad. She barely eats, just lies there. I cook soup and bring it—she takes two spoonfuls and that’s it. Maybe you could take her in for a while? I’m afraid something might happen…”
Olya rushed over that very evening. Aunt Zina lay on the couch, pale and thin in an old robe. She gave a weak smile.
“Don’t worry, my dear. I just don’t have the strength. Old age is no joy.”
“Auntie Zina, come stay with me! I’ll take care of you, feed you!”
“Olechka, your place is already small—and you rent it. Where would you put an old woman? Will Dmitry mind?”
“We’ll make it work! There’s a couch. Just agree, please!”
The old woman nodded. Olya packed her things—robe, nightgowns, medicine, framed photos—and called a taxi.
At home Dmitry met them at the door with the kind of face you’d make if someone brought a homeless person in from the trash bins.
“What the hell are you doing?! You dragged an old woman in here! Where am I supposed to sleep?!”
“Dim, she’s sick. She has nowhere to go.”
“And what, I have to put up with it now?! She snores at night, she stinks of medicine! What is this, did I move into a hospital?!”
Aunt Zina looked at him and didn’t say a word. She just went into the room and lay down on the couch, turning her face to the wall.
And the very next day Dmitry started sleeping at his friend’s.
“I want to actually get some sleep. It’s impossible with that old woman—stink, moaning, pills!”
Olya didn’t argue. It didn’t matter anymore. She understood it was the end—she just didn’t want to admit it.
Three weeks passed.
Olya cooked, washed laundry, bought medicine. Aunt Zina barely got up, only sometimes saying:
“Olechka, thank you… I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re the only one who didn’t leave.”
“Auntie Zina, don’t say that. You’re like a mother to me. My mom died when I was fifteen—remember?”
“I remember, my dear. I remember. Your mother was a good woman. It’s a shame she left so early.”
Then one morning Olya came into the room with breakfast and knew immediately. Aunt Zina lay quietly, peacefully, with a faint smile. She wasn’t breathing—she had gone in her sleep.
Olya sobbed, hugging her cold hands.
Dmitry came to the funeral. He stood in the back, staring at his phone. And when they lowered the coffin into the ground, he leaned toward Olya and asked softly:
“So… can we live normally now? Without all these hospitals and old people?”
Olya looked at him and saw the coldness in his eyes—emptiness and indifference.
A week passed.
Olya moved through life like in a dream: work, home, work, home. Dmitry acted as if nothing had happened.
Then a notary called.
“Are you Olga Sergeevna Petrova? Zinaida Fyodorovna Kovalyova left you her apartment. Come pick up the documents—and don’t forget the death certificate.”
Olya couldn’t believe it.
At home Dmitry was waiting for her. He already knew—Olya’s friend Katya had let it slip after Olya called her in shock.
“So here’s how it’s going to be,” he began briskly, not even saying hello. “We sell the apartment. I already found a realtor—Sasha’s acquaintance. He says we can get about three million. That’s enough for a three-room place in a new building!”
“Dim, I don’t want to sell it. It’s Aunt Zina’s memory.”
“What memory?! It’s money! Real money! How much do we spend on rent? Thirty thousand every month! And here—an apartment ready to go. We sell and buy something better!”
“But it’s on the outskirts… Far from work…”
“We’ll sell and buy in the center! Or we’ll take a mortgage on a good apartment, and that money will be the down payment! Are you completely stupid?!”
Olya clenched her fists. She wanted to shout—but swallowed it. She asked for time to think.
“Think?! There’s nothing to think about! Tomorrow we sign the contract!”
“Dim, give me a week.”
“A week! No more!”
On the weekend Olya went to the apartment to sort through things. She sat on the floor among boxes and cried, remembering Aunt Zina’s words:
“Olechka, the main thing in life isn’t things—it’s people. Real people. The ones who stay when it’s hard.”
Olya opened closets, sifted through old dresses, scarves, photos. Here was Aunt Zina young and beautiful with her husband. Here she was at a wedding holding her granddaughter.
When Olya came back home, the phone on the table suddenly rang. Dima had forgotten it when he rushed out. A message popped up on the screen:
“Kitten, hold on just a bit longer. Soon we’ll sell that wreck and buy ourselves an apartment in Sochi. I already picked one: two rooms, sea view, a huge balcony! Sveta.”
Olya felt everything inside her go still. Her hands trembled. She opened the chat. Dmitry had been seeing Svetlana for six months—since February. He promised her a new life after selling the apartment. He wrote that his wife was a “dreary schoolteacher,” that he’d “get rid of her soon—just hold on a little.”
She locked the phone and looked out the window. Outside: gray buildings, blue sky, trees.
And she felt a strange relief. Now it all made sense. Everything fell into place.
That evening Dmitry sat at his laptop, scrolling real estate listings.
“Look, a three-room place downtown. We can take it if we sell yours. Or look—two rooms in Sochi. Cool, right? By the sea!”
“Just like Sveta wants an apartment in Sochi?”
“Who’s Sveta?” he went pale.
“The one you promised an apartment with a sea view and a balcony. The one you call ‘kitten.’”
Silence.
Dmitry realized he’d been caught, but instead of apologizing, he attacked:
“You went through my phone?! What are you, sick?!”
“You left it at home—and it showed who you really are.”
“Yes, I have Sveta—so what?! Because you’re boring and gloomy! It’s impossible to live with you! Always your old women, hospitals, tests! Are you even a woman?”
“Got it. Then divorce.”
“Divorce?!” he laughed hysterically. “Fine! But after the divorce, the apartment is mine! Joint marital property! By law! You’ll get nothing!”
Olya smiled.
“Dim, you hired a bad lawyer. I inherited that apartment during our marriage, but it’s not joint property. It’s my personal asset. You have no claim to it.”
Dmitry went white.
“What?! But I… we’re married! I have a right!”
“You don’t.”
“Get out of the rented apartment, Dima. I don’t want to see you.”
He packed his things, throwing them into a bag, stormed out, and called Sveta.
“Sveta, we’ve got a problem. The apartment can’t be divided.”
“How can it not be divided?! You promised! You said we’d buy an apartment in Sochi!”
“I didn’t know! It’s inheritance! My wife tricked me!”
“So there won’t be money?”
“Well… no. But we can go to Sochi on vacation! I’ll save up!”
“Vacation?! I don’t need a vacation—I need an apartment! Are you a man or a rag?! Bye, loser!”
Dmitry stood there with the phone in his hand, crushed. Olya stood in the doorway; the whole stairwell could hear his conversation. She laughed softly and called after him:
“That’s how it is, Dima. You thought you’d fool me? Thought a silly girl wouldn’t notice? I was just quiet. Waiting for you to expose yourself—and you did.”
A week later Olya moved into Aunt Zina’s apartment. At first it was hard—everything reminded her of her. She cried in the evenings, stared at the photos.
But gradually she got used to it. She started renovations—painted the walls light, changed the wallpaper, hung new curtains. The neighbor, Vera Ivanovna, helped with advice.
“Olechka, let me bake you some pies! You’re working yourself to the bone! You’ve gotten so thin!”
“Thank you, Vera Ivanovna. You’re very kind.”
“Oh, it’s not kindness. Zinaida asked me to look after you. She said, ‘Vera, keep an eye on Olechka. She’s the only one I’ve got.’”
One day Olya found a box of Aunt Zina’s letters. At the very bottom, under yellowed postcards, there was an envelope with Olya’s name on it. The handwriting was shaky but clear:
“Olechka, my dear! If you’re reading this, it means I’m no longer here. Don’t grieve. I lived a long, good life, and I was happy because I had you. I’m leaving this apartment to you not for nothing. You earned it with your kindness, care, and love. Don’t be afraid to start over. Don’t be afraid to be alone—it’s better than being with someone who doesn’t value you. Remember: real people are the ones who stay when it’s hard. Not the ones who are there only when everything is good. And don’t worry—you will find your happiness, I believe it. Your Aunt Zina.”
Olya cried, pressing the letter to her chest—but not from pain anymore. From gratitude. From the warmth that stayed behind.
A month later she got a job at a nearby school, closer to her new home—fifteen minutes by bus instead of an hour and a half. There she met a history teacher, Andrei. Thirty-eight, divorced, raising a ten-year-old daughter, Masha.
Andrei was calm and attentive. He helped Olya with repairs: fixed outlets, hung shelves in the kitchen, assembled a new wardrobe. In gratitude Olya cooked lunches and invited him and his daughter over on weekends. Masha took to Olya right away.
“Dad, Olya Sergeevna is so kind—and she cooks delicious food! And she helps me with math! Maybe she could be my mom?”
Andrei got embarrassed, blushing, but he looked at Olya warmly.
“Masha, what are you saying…”
“So what? She’s good!”
Olya laughed. Being with them felt easy—for the first time in many years, truly easy.
A year passed. Olya and Andrei were dating, but they didn’t rush. They were simply there for each other—went to the movies, walked in the park, had dinner together. Masha called Olya “Aunt Olya” and always lit up when she came.
One day they were walking in the park, the three of them, eating ice cream and laughing. Masha ran ahead, collecting yellow leaves.
Dmitry was coming toward them—older, gaunt. He saw them and stopped.
“Olya, hi. Can we talk?”
“Hello, Dim. About what?”
“I wanted to apologize. I was a real idiot. Forgive me. Maybe we… could try again?”
Olya looked at him.
“Dim, I forgave you a long time ago. But go back? No. I’m truly happy now—for the first time in my life.”
“But we were together for so many years…”
“We were. Let it stay that way.”
Dmitry nodded, lowered his head, and walked away. Andrei came closer and put an arm around Olya’s shoulders.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes. Everything’s great.”
Masha ran back with an armful of leaves.
“Aunt Olya, look how pretty! Let’s make a herbarium!”
“Let’s, Mashenka. We definitely will.”
Two years later they got married.
A modest wedding—only close friends, colleagues, neighbors. Masha carried the rings, serious and happy, in a little white dress.
And Olya thought silently:
“Thank you, Aunt Zina. You taught me the most important thing—to value real people, and not be afraid to start again. You didn’t just give me an apartment. You gave me freedom.”
One evening Vera Ivanovna came to visit. They sat in the kitchen drinking tea.
“You know, Olechka,” Vera Ivanovna said, “Zinaida told me: ‘Vera, I see how Olya’s husband is tormenting her. I have to help her. I’ll leave her the apartment, and she’ll handle the rest. She has a steel backbone—she just doesn’t know it yet. But she will. She definitely will.’”
Olya laughed through tears.
“What a sly one. She saw everything—but stayed quiet. Waiting for me to understand on my own.”
“She was wise.”
Andrei walked into the kitchen and hugged Olya.
“What are you talking about?”
“Life and happiness.”
“And what are the conclusions?”
“That happiness is when real people are рядом. The ones who won’t betray you. The ones who stay when it’s hard.”
He kissed the top of her head.
“I’m with you.”
Masha ran in from the other room.
“Dad, Mom—can I invite my friend over?”
Olya froze. “Mom.” It was the first time Masha had called her mom.
“Of course, Mashenka. Invite her.”
And in that moment Olya understood: she was home
