The key turned with a familiar click, and I shoved the door open with my shoulder, dragging my suitcase behind me. Turkey had been exactly the way I’d pictured it—heat, sea, buffet lines, and Andrey glued to his phone on a sun lounger from morning to night. Still, two weeks flew by, and now we were finally home.
“Svet, take your shoes off right away,” Andrey muttered behind me, wrestling the second suitcase into the hallway.
I stepped into the entryway—and stopped dead.
My favorite mirror in a bronze frame, the one that used to hang opposite the front door, was gone. In its place was a bare wall with two screws sticking out like little accusations. The small console table where I always kept a vase of artificial flowers had disappeared too.
“Andrey…” My throat tightened. “Andrey, look.”
“What?” He squeezed past me with the suitcase and lifted his eyes. Confusion flashed across his face, instantly replaced by something close to fear. “Oh—damn…”
I ran into the living room. The TV was still there, thank God. The sofa too. But the coffee table was missing. So was the floor lamp. And—my eyes squeezed shut, then opened again because I refused to believe what I was seeing—my chair.
My emerald velvet armchair, the one I’d chosen for three months and ordered from Italy.
“Andryusha,” I spun toward my husband, who stood in the middle of the room with a strange, frozen expression. “We’ve been robbed. We need to call the police. Now.”
“Wait,” he said, lifting a hand. “Svet, just—wait a second.”
“A second?!” I was already flying into the bedroom, and what I saw there made me cry out.
The wardrobe was standing wide open. My mink coat—gone. The Gucci bag Andrey had given me for our anniversary—gone. The second bag, Prada, the one I’d bought for myself in Milan—gone as well. I yanked open the dresser drawer where I kept my jewelry. The gold chain with the pendant was still there. The diamond earrings from my mom were still there. But my grandmother’s bracelet, the pearl necklace, my favorite silver rings—everything had vanished.
“What is happening?” I rushed back into the living room. Andrey hadn’t moved—he was staring at his phone like he was trying to disappear into it. “Andrey, I’m calling the police. Right now.”
“Don’t,” he said without looking up.
“How can you say ‘don’t’?” I snapped. “Do you not see this? We’ve been cleaned out—and they even left some things behind! Like someone scared them off. They took my stuff—my coat that cost three hundred thousand, my bags!”
“Svet… we weren’t robbed.” He finally looked at me, and there was so much guilt in his eyes that my whole body went cold.
“What?”
He drew a deep breath and dragged a hand down his face.
“It was Lena.”
“Lena?” My mind refused to cooperate. “What Lena? Your sister? What does she have to do with anything?”
“I gave her a key.”
For a few seconds I just stared at him, trying to make the words fit inside my head. Lena. His younger sister. The eternal student—twenty-three years old and still living off their parents. Lena, who was always “borrowing” things from us and mysteriously “forgetting” to return them—cosmetics, clothes, money “just for a little while.”
“You gave her a key,” I repeated slowly. “To our apartment. While we were on vacation.”
“Yeah. She asked. Said she and her friends needed somewhere to gather—her place is cramped…”
“And?” Rage started rising in me, hot and unstoppable. “So what—she threw a party here? Walked out with half the apartment?”
“Not exactly,” Andrey said, clenching his phone. “She messaged me a couple days ago. Said she decided to ‘help’ us get rid of extra junk. Listed some things online. Like… it’s good for us, and she earns a percentage.”
I sank onto the sofa because my legs suddenly refused to hold me up.
“So,” I said very slowly, as if speaking to a child, “we weren’t robbed. Your sister held a clearance sale in our home?” I couldn’t believe my own words. I couldn’t believe any of it.
“Well… yes,” Andrey admitted, avoiding my eyes. “But listen—she’s transferring the money! Look.” He shoved his phone in front of my face, showing the transaction history. “Forty-five thousand for some bag, thirty for the chair, twenty for the mirror…”
“Some bag?!” I shouted. “That was a Gucci that cost one hundred and twenty thousand! And the other one was ninety! Andrey, are you out of your mind?”
“Svet, I didn’t know how much they cost…”
“You didn’t know? I told you!” I jumped to my feet, unable to sit still. “And the coat? Where is my mink coat that cost three hundred thousand?”
Andrey dropped his gaze back to the phone.
“She wrote… eighty thousand for the coat.”
“Eighty thousand.” I laughed—sharp, hysterical, furious. “Eighty! For the mink I spent six months choosing! The one that cost three hundred at the boutique! Your sister sold it for eighty!”
“Well, she’s not a professional—” he tried.
“A professional?!” I was shaking now. “Andrey, she sold MY things. Not yours, not shared—mine! Where are your suits? Your watch? Your laptop?”
Silence.
Andrey didn’t answer.
“I thought so,” I muttered, and walked into the kitchen, praying at least that room had been spared.
It hadn’t.
The coffee machine I’d begged Andrey to buy for two years—gone. No blender. No multicooker. Only the microwave was still there for some reason. And the kettle.
“She sold the appliances too,” I said when I returned, the anger now filling me completely. “Coffee machine. Blender. Multicooker. What else?”
“Svet, listen,” Andrey reached for my hand, but I stepped back. “I didn’t think she’d go that far… I thought maybe she’d sell a couple old things…”
“Old?” I snapped. “What of mine is old? I bought the coat last year! The bags were two years ago! The chair was six months ago!”
“I don’t understand any of that,” he said, spreading his hands. “Lena told me she wanted to help. Said there’s too much stuff, the apartment’s cluttered, and we could buy something useful with the money.”
“Something useful,” I repeated, voice flat. “Like what?”
He hesitated, then muttered, “Well… I thought maybe an ATV for the dacha. I’ve wanted one for a while, and this would kind of—”
I just stared at him. My husband of eight years. The man who had just confessed he gave his sister permission to sell off my life so he could buy himself a toy.
“An ATV,” I said, nodding slowly. “With my money. Instead of my coat, my bags, my jewelry.”
“Svet, technically it’s shared property…”
“Shared?!” I exploded. “I bought that coat with my money—money I inherited from my grandmother! Some of those bags were gifts, yes, but some I bought myself! That chair—I chose it, ordered it, waited three months for it to come from Italy! That’s MINE!”
“Okay—okay,” he backed up. “I get it. I’ll call Lena right now. She’ll bring everything back.”
“How?” My voice rose, close to breaking. “She sold it—to different people—through listings! Do you think she wrote down who bought what? Does she even have their contacts?”
Andrey grabbed his phone and started typing rapidly. I watched him send a message and wait. A minute passed. Then another.
“She says,” he mumbled, “she has some of it written down. We can try contacting the buyers.”
“Try,” I echoed with a bitter laugh. “Wonderful. And what are you going to say? ‘Sorry, my sister accidentally sold someone else’s belongings—could you return them’?”
“We’ll offer to buy them back,” Andrey’s voice got quieter and quieter. “For the same amount they paid.”
“For the same?” I stepped close, nearly face-to-face. “Andrey, do you understand my coat was three hundred thousand and your sister dumped it for eighty? Even if we find the buyer, even if they agree to return it—we’ll pay more and still lose money. And the bags? The chair?”
“I’ll make it right,” he blurted. “I’ll cover it. I’ll replace everything.”
“With what?” I felt hysteria climbing into my throat. “With the money your sister transferred you—from selling my things? Do you hear how insane that sounds?”
“Svet, what do you want me to do?” he spread his hands again. “I didn’t know! I thought she was listing some junk!”
“You didn’t ask!” I shouted, no longer holding anything back. “You gave your sister a key to our apartment and didn’t even tell me! You didn’t even think you needed to talk to me first!”
“I was trying to do the right thing…”
“The right thing—for whom?” My voice went razor-sharp. “For you? For your sister? And what about me—am I not family? Does my opinion not matter?”
He stayed silent, and that silence said more than words ever could. In that moment it hit me, clean and clear: it never even occurred to him to ask. He simply didn’t consider it necessary. Because Lena was his “real” family—blood—and I was “just” his wife. A wife who was apparently expected to smile and be grateful that her belongings had been sacrificed for a “good cause.”
“You know what,” I said calmly, and the sudden coldness in my voice made him flinch. “Pack your things.”
“What?”
“Pack and leave. Go to your parents, go to your brilliant sister—I don’t care. I just don’t want to see you right now.”
“Svet, you can’t be serious…”
“I’m completely serious,” I said, opening the door. “Go. And don’t come back until you’ve bought my things back. All of them.”
“That’s impossible!” he threw up his hands. “People are already using them! They won’t give them back!”
“Then you buy new ones,” I said, each word like a nail. “The same ones. A three-hundred-thousand-ruble coat. A Gucci for one hundred and twenty. A Prada for ninety. That custom Italian chair. The coffee machine. The blender. The jewelry. Everything your sister sold.”
“There’s almost a million rubles’ worth!” He went pale.
“Exactly,” I nodded. “A million worth of my property. The property you allowed to be sold off for your stupid ATV.”
“Svet, be reasonable…”
“I am being reasonable,” I said, my hands trembling despite the steadiness in my voice. “So reasonable I understand this: if you can do this to my things, then you don’t respect me—my work, my money, my boundaries. And I need time to decide if I want to keep living with a man who didn’t even ask before letting someone into our home to run a sale.”
“She’s my sister!” he almost shouted.
“And?” I met his eyes. “Does that erase what she did? Or what you allowed her to do?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.
“Where am I supposed to live?”
“With your parents,” I said evenly. “They love when you come over. Or with Lena. She’s so entrepreneurial—let her host you too. On the money she made selling my things.”
“Svet…”
“Go, Andrey. Please.”
He stood there another minute, then turned and went into the bedroom. I heard drawers opening, a bag being dragged out, things being shoved inside. Then he came back with a duffel slung over his shoulder, looking lost and pathetic.
“I’ll call,” he said at the door.
“Call when you’ve fixed it,” I replied, and shut the door behind him.
I leaned my forehead against the frame and closed my eyes. The quiet in the apartment was deafening. Slowly I walked through the rooms again, staring at the empty spaces. No mirror. No chair.
I dropped onto the sofa and pulled out my phone. Opened Avito, started scrolling listings. Maybe someone bought to resell. Maybe I could track something down. Coats, bags… unlikely, of course. They’d already scattered. My things—my savings—pieces of my life.
A message popped up. From Andrey: “Lena says she didn’t save all the contacts. But she’ll try to find the buyers.”
I snorted and didn’t respond. Another message followed: “Mom asked what happened. She wants to talk to you.”
Of course she did. To protect her precious son and beloved daughter. To explain that family is sacred, that I should forgive, that they were “just things.”
I set the phone face-down and looked around again. The apartment felt чужая—foreign. Hollowed out. As if it wasn’t burglars who’d been here, but something worse: people who believed they had the right to manage my life.
Maybe this is for the best, I thought. Maybe this ridiculous situation was a sign. A sign that I’d spent too long closing my eyes to how decisions were made in this family—how Andrey always consulted his parents but never me, how Lena constantly “forgot” to repay debts, how my mother-in-law was always hinting that I wasn’t a good enough homemaker.
I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on—at least that was still here. I sat at the table and stared out the window. Evening was falling, city lights blinking on. Somewhere out there, someone was wearing my coat. Someone had my Gucci bag on their arm. Someone was thrilled with a “great deal,” never suspecting it wasn’t just an item, but a piece of someone’s life.
And I sat in a half-empty apartment thinking that losing things might be the lesser evil. The bigger loss today was an illusion—my illusion that there are lines you don’t cross in a marriage, that “ours” doesn’t mean “anything goes,” that there’s still “mine” and “yours” even inside “we.”
My phone buzzed again. Andrey: “Lena found the contact for the woman who bought the coat. We can try to negotiate.”
I stared at the message and typed back: “Fine. But you’re the one negotiating. And you’re paying—out of your own money, not what Lena got for selling my things. And you come back only when everything is returned. I’m serious.”
I sent it, turned the sound off, and set the phone down. And for the first time all day, I felt something that almost resembled relief.
An empty apartment. A quiet emptiness where you can start again—think clearly about what you really want, and who you want beside you.
And Andrey can learn what boundaries mean—hands-on. Let him track down buyers, buy things back, explain to his sister that someone else’s property is not “junk” for a quick profit.
I took a sip of tea and gave a humorless smile. An ATV. He wanted an ATV.
Well. We’d see if he still wanted it after he understood what his sister’s “help” actually cost him.
I finished my tea, got up, and went to the bedroom. The suitcases still needed unpacking. Life kept moving.
And strangely—despite all the absurdity and anger—I felt a little freer than I had that morning.
