Natasha discovered it by accident—she was simply checking the balance of their shared account, the one she and Misha had been building up for apartment repairs and unexpected expenses. Their aging washing machine had been threatening to die for three months now, making noises during the spin cycle like someone trapped inside the drum was trying to claw their way to freedom.
Forty-two thousand.
Not eighty-seven, which was what should have been there.
Natasha stared at her phone, rereading the transfer line: “To Yulia S. 45,000.” The date was the day before yesterday—when she’d been at work, and Misha had been home with a cold.
She didn’t need to guess who “Yulia S.” was. She knew exactly.
Yulia had been in their lives even before the wedding—Misha’s younger sister, constantly in some kind of trouble, with fawn-like eyes and a remarkable ability to find men willing to rescue her. At first, Natasha had even been charmed. She was young, only twenty-four—what could you demand? She worked sometimes as a makeup artist, sometimes as a salon receptionist, sometimes nowhere at all, yet she always looked as if she’d just stepped off a glossy magazine photoshoot.
“Yulka’s a creative type,” Misha would explain with a condescending tenderness. “Office life just isn’t for her, you know?”
Natasha did know. Every morning she got up at 6:30 to be at her accounting job for a construction company by eight. Somehow, her own “creative type” had managed to survive the office format for six years straight.
The first real warning came half a year after the wedding. Yulia broke up with yet another boyfriend—Dima or Tolya, Natasha couldn’t even remember—which was when it turned out he’d been paying for Yulia’s rented apartment.
“Mishuu… I can’t live on the street,” Yulia sobbed into the phone. Misha sat in the kitchen with the receiver pinned between ear and shoulder, and his face slowly hardened into stone. “Just for a month, until I find something, I swear.”
A month became three.
Natasha kept quiet. It was his sister, his family. And besides, back then they were doing okay—one small apartment bought before the marriage, modest but steady salaries.
Then there was Andrey the photographer, who was “developing Yulia’s creative potential” and, at the same time, developing a taste for spending on her installment card in electronics stores. When the relationship ended, the debt—one hundred and twenty thousand—remained. Misha took out a loan.
“She’s my sister,” he told Natasha, the first time in their life together she’d raised her voice. “I can’t just abandon her. You know how fragile she is.”
Natasha understood. She understood that “fragile” Yulia was twenty-six, with no savings, no real job—and the worst part, not even a serious attempt to change anything. But she did have a brother who would always step in.
And there were their parents too—Svetlana Ivanovna and Nikolai Petrovich—who had long since stopped expecting anything from their youngest daughter, yet still tossed her money for “little expenses.” Svetlana Ivanovna would sigh sometimes: “Mishka takes after his father—responsible. And Yulka…” She never finished the thought, because there were no words that could sound like both an excuse and a sentence at the same time.
Misha came home around six-thirty, tired, with grocery bags in his hands. Natasha let him take off his coat, wash his hands, even poured him tea. Then she set her phone in front of him, the bank statement open on the screen.
“Explain,” she said quietly.
Misha glanced at the transfer. Natasha watched a shadow pass over his face—recognition, then guilt, then stubbornness.
“Yulka’s in a bad situation,” he began, not looking her in the eyes.
“Yulka is always in a bad situation,” Natasha cut in. “Explain why you touched our joint account without asking me.”
“I didn’t ‘touch’ it. I transferred the money. And I earn money too, you know.”
“We were saving for repairs and a washing machine. Together. Seven months, little by little—remember? I gave up manicures, you stopped going out with your friends. We had an agreement.”
“Natash, just try to understand.” Misha dragged his hands down his face. “That guy—what’s his name—Maxim… moved out. He promised he’d help her start a small business, selling cosmetics online. She already rented a space to use as storage, bought inventory. And then he disappeared. Now the landlord wants the money, or he’ll take everything she has stored there.”
Natasha breathed out slowly.
“And you believed that?”
“It’s not a story—it’s true!” Misha snapped, raising his voice. “What, you think she’s lying?”
“I think your sister is twenty-seven and still doesn’t know how to take responsibility for her own life, because she knows she has you.”
“She’s my family!”
“I’m your family!” Natasha burst out, her voice cracking into a shout. “Me—the one who lives with you, washes your socks in that dying machine, eats buckwheat with you at the end of the month, sets money aside from my salary! And she—she just shows up, holds out her hand, and you, like an idiot, hand over the last of what we have!”
“Don’t you dare call me an idiot!”
“Then what do you call it?” Natasha stood and paced the kitchen. “Misha, open your eyes. She’s using you. She’s using your parents too. She’s found the perfect way to live without effort: there’s always some boyfriend paying for everything, and if there isn’t—there’s always you.”
“You’re jealous,” Misha said unexpectedly, and something sharp flashed in his voice. “Jealous that she can afford to be free, not grind away in that miserable office…”
Natasha stopped. She looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.
“Free?” she said slowly. “You think bouncing from one man to another and begging relatives for money is freedom?”
“That’s not what I meant…”
“That’s exactly what you meant. You romanticize her irresponsibility. You always have. ‘Yulka’s creative, Yulka’s fragile, Yulka can’t.’ And the fact that I can—apparently that doesn’t count. The fact that I get up before dawn every day so we can have this apartment, this life—gets treated like it’s just automatic.”
Misha said nothing, staring into his cooling tea.
“If you want to support your sister, do it out of your own paycheck. I’m not giving a single penny to that freeloader,” Natasha said, finally losing control. “The joint account stays joint, but you don’t touch it again without my consent. Open your own separate account and save for Yulia using your own money. Whatever’s left after you contribute to utilities, groceries, and everything else.”
She took her phone and walked into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.
For three days they barely spoke. Misha slept on the couch. Natasha made meals for one on purpose. At work she told her friend Olga everything; Olga shook her head.
“Listen… maybe it really is time to set boundaries. Go over there and talk seriously. Not with Misha—with his sister.”
“What does she have to do with it? Misha is the one who can’t say no.”
“Because she doesn’t let him,” Olga said. “You know how it works. She’s a professional manipulator if you think about it. Tears, stories about awful men, about unfair life. And what’s he supposed to do? He’s the older brother—he’s been carrying responsibility since he was a kid.”
Natasha thought about that. She remembered Yulia coming to Misha’s birthday last year—beautiful, in a new dress, chirping about some new man, “a serious guy with a business.” And then, out of nowhere, in the middle of the evening, she’d started crying, saying she was terrified of ending up alone, that all men were terrible. Misha had hugged her, whispering comfort. And Natasha had seen Yulia look at her over his shoulder—an assessing look, almost victorious.
Or maybe she’d imagined it.
On the fourth day, Yulia called. Natasha saw the name on Misha’s phone lying on the table, and something inside her snapped into place.
“Can I answer?” she asked.
Misha, sitting at his laptop, flinched.
“Why?”
“To talk. Really talk.”
“Natasha, don’t…”
But she had already picked up.
“Yulia? Hi, it’s Natasha.”
A pause. Then a careful voice:
“Hi… where’s Misha?”
“Misha’s here. But I want to talk. Tell me—this story about the storage space… is it true?”
Another pause, longer.
“Listen, that’s none of your business…”
“It is absolutely my business. That was our money—mine and Misha’s. From our joint account. For repairs. So yes, it’s my business.”
“How was I supposed to know about your repairs?!” Yulia’s voice slid into those familiar hysterical notes. “What, do I need permission now just to ask my own brother for help?”
“Not permission. But basic honesty would be nice. Yulia, tell me the truth: was that story real? Was there a Maxim? Was there a storage space?”
Silence.
“It doesn’t matter,” Yulia said at last, and her voice turned hard. “What matters is I needed money. And Mishka helped because he loves me. Unlike some people.”
“I’m not obligated to love you,” Natasha said evenly. “But I am obligated to protect my family. And my family is Misha—and what we’re building together.”
“I’m his family too!”
“You were,” Natasha replied. “Until you grew up. Yulia, you’re twenty-seven. At your age, I’d already been living away from my parents for three years, renting a place, working. You’re still jumping from one set of hands to another—from boyfriend to boyfriend, from parents to brother.”
“So I’ve just been lucky in life!” Yulia sniffled loudly. “I just haven’t met a decent man who won’t leave, who’ll help me get on my feet!”
“Or maybe you don’t want to stand on your own feet, because this way is easier.”
“How dare you! You don’t know me at all! You don’t know what I’ve been through, what my relationships were like, how I was used, how—”
“Stop,” Natasha cut her off. “Do you hear yourself? You were used. You were left. You were unlucky. It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it? Never you. Never your own choice—choosing those people, taking their money, refusing to work a real job.”
“Put Misha on!”
“No. Listen to me for one more minute. I’m not your enemy, Yulia. Truly. But I’m tired of watching you drain him. Watching him wear himself down, take out loans, deny himself everything because he has a sister who always needs something. I’m tired of watching him being pulled apart between us.”
“It’s his choice to help me!”
“Because you never give him any other choice. You always show up with a disaster that ‘only he can fix.’ With tears. With stories about how everyone around you is cruel. And he can’t refuse—because he was taught from childhood that he’s the older one, the support beam, the responsible one.”
Yulia didn’t answer.
“It’s time you started living your own life,” Natasha said quietly. “A real one—where you’re responsible for yourself. You earn your own money. You solve your own problems. That doesn’t mean we’ll abandon you if things are truly bad. But stop pretending it’s always truly bad.”
“You don’t have the right…”
“I do. I’m his wife. And we’ll have children. And I don’t want them growing up watching their dad hand over the last of our money to Aunt Yulia for another ‘impossible situation.’ I don’t want them thinking that’s normal.”
She ended the call. Her hands were shaking.
Misha sat still, pale and silent.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said at last.
“Maybe,” Natasha replied. “But I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.”
That night Misha didn’t sleep. Natasha could hear him turning over on the couch, sighing. Around four in the morning she finally got up and went into the living room.
“Can’t sleep?”
He looked up at her from the darkness, sitting on the couch.
“I’m remembering…” he began. “You asked me once why I always help her.”
Natasha sat beside him.
“I was nine. She was three. Our parents had a huge fight back then—Dad left for a week and nobody knew where he was. Mom cried every day. And Yulia… she was so little, she didn’t understand anything. She’d come to me, climb into my lap, ask why Mom was crying, where Dad was. And I lied to her. I told her everything was fine, that Dad would come back soon, that she didn’t need to be scared.”
He stopped, swallowing hard.
“And when Dad returned, Mom took my hand and said, ‘You’re the man of the house now. You have to look after your sister, protect her.’ I was nine, Natasha. Nine. And I promised. And all these years… I’ve just been keeping that promise.”
Natasha took his hand.
“You were a child. You never should’ve carried that weight.”
“But I did,” he whispered. “And I got used to it. And now I don’t know how to do anything else.”
“And she got used to receiving,” Natasha said softly. “And she doesn’t know another way either. But Misha… you both grew up. You’re adults now. That promise a nine-year-old boy made shouldn’t be running your life today.”
Misha was quiet for a long time. Then he asked, almost in fear:
“What if she really falls apart? What if she… can’t handle it?”
“Then we’ll help,” Natasha answered. “Together. We’ll talk about it and we’ll help. But we can’t live her life for her, Misha. We can’t solve everything for her. Otherwise she’ll never learn.”
He pulled Natasha close and buried his face in her shoulder.
“I’m scared,” he confessed.
“Me too,” she admitted.
They sat in the dark, holding each other, until the sky outside began to lighten.
Two days later they went to Misha’s parents. Natasha insisted—this conversation had to involve everyone. Svetlana Ivanovna set the table and fussed around, clearly sensing this wasn’t a casual visit. Nikolai Petrovich sat silent, frowning.
Yulia arrived later, deliberately avoiding Natasha’s eyes.
When they all sat down, Misha started talking. He spoke in a rush, stumbling over words, going on too long. He told them about the loans, about the money meant for a washing machine, about how exhausted he was. About loving his sister—but no longer being able to be her only support.
Yulia listened with a stone face. Svetlana Ivanovna cried into a handkerchief. Nikolai Petrovich’s brow furrowed even deeper.
“So you’re abandoning me,” Yulia said when Misha finally stopped. “All of you. Together.”
“We’re not abandoning you,” Natasha spoke up for the first time. “We’re just stopping the habit of solving every problem in your life for you.”
“Easy for you to say! Everything worked out for you—you married well…”
“I got up at six in the morning, went to work, spent eight hours staring at documents, got my paycheck, and put half of it aside for our shared needs,” Natasha said sharply. “That’s how I ‘married well.’ I make choices every day—work or don’t work, save or don’t save, be responsible or not. You can make those choices too.”
“I can’t,” Yulia said stubbornly. “I’m not like that.”
“Yes, you can,” Nikolai Petrovich cut in unexpectedly. “You just don’t want to. Your mother and I spoiled you. Misha spoiled you. We thought—she’s a girl, let her live easily, she’ll have time to work later. And you got used to it.”
“Dad…”
“Enough. I’ve wanted to say this for years, but I kept backing down. Old foolish pity. I shouldn’t have pitied you—I should’ve raised you. But we woke up too late.”
Svetlana Ivanovna sobbed louder.
“Here’s how it’s going to be, Yulechka,” Nikolai Petrovich said, looking straight at his daughter. “You’re twenty-seven. When I was twenty-seven, I was already getting two people on their feet—you and Misha—and I didn’t whine. Enough. Start thinking for yourself. We won’t live forever, and Misha isn’t your safety cushion. Get a real job. Rent a small, cheap apartment you can afford on your own. Pay for your own life. And we… we’ll help if you’re truly desperate. Truly. Not because you want a new handbag or because another jerk left you.”
Yulia sat there white-faced, lips pressed tight.
“I hate all of you,” she forced out at last, and ran out of the kitchen.
Her bedroom door slammed.
They drove home in silence. Halfway back, Misha suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine.
“Do you think we did the right thing?” he asked.
Natasha looked out the window. Gray panel buildings stood under a cold October sun.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But we couldn’t go on like before. You know that.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “Natash… what you said about kids—were you serious?”
She turned to him and smiled.
“Sooner or later. If you want that.”
“I do,” he said quietly. “I’ve wanted it for a long time. I just thought… we weren’t financially ready yet.”
“We’ll never be perfectly ready,” she replied. “But we have to live. Our life. Not Yulia’s. Not your parents’. Ours.”
Misha started the car again.
“Let’s go home. And let’s finally buy that washing machine. The old one is basically dying.”
“We don’t have enough money now.”
“We will,” he said. “I’ll take extra work on weekends. Finish one more project. In a month we’ll have it.”
“Together?”
“Together.”
Yulia didn’t call for three weeks. Then she sent Misha a message: she’d gotten a job as a sales manager in a cosmetics shop. She was splitting rent with a friend. It was hard, but she was managing.
Natasha saw the message by accident—Misha’s phone was on the table and the screen lit up.
“Should we call her?” Natasha asked. “Support her?”
Misha thought for a moment.
“Maybe later,” he said. “Let her get used to doing it herself. If we call now, she’ll start complaining again, asking again. It’s a reflex for her: if Mishka calls, it means she can ask for help.”
“You’re right.”
He hugged her from behind and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “For not letting me keep living on autopilot. For pushing for that conversation. I know it was hard for you. And scary, probably.”
“It was,” Natasha admitted. “I was afraid you’d choose her. That you’d say, if you don’t like it, leave.”
“I would never say that.”
“How could I know?”
Misha turned her toward him and looked into her eyes.
“I chose you three years ago. And I choose you every day. I just… sometimes I forgot that choosing isn’t only words. It’s actions too. Decisions. And the ability to say ‘no.’”
Natasha leaned into him.
From the bathroom came a steady, gentle hum—the new washing machine they’d bought last week was running. It worked quietly, without struggle, without banging or rattling. It simply did its job.
Misha’s phone lit up again—this time it was a call from Svetlana Ivanovna. He looked at Natasha for permission.
“Answer,” she nodded. “That’s your mom.”
He picked up.
“Mom? Yeah, we’re fine… What? Yulia called? And what did she say?” His face shifted, attentive. “Really? Makeup courses? With her own money? She’s saving? Mom, that’s… that’s great. No, I’m happy. Really happy. Tell her… actually, you know what, I’ll message her myself. Later. Yeah. Thanks for calling.”
He ended the call and stared at the screen for a long moment.
“She signed up for courses,” he said finally. “Wants to improve her skills. She’s saving from her paycheck. Mom says she’s lost weight, looks tired, but… satisfied. Like it’s the first time in years.”
Natasha smiled.
“Maybe we really did the right thing.”
“Maybe.”
Outside, night settled in completely. The city lit up with millions of windows—each one glowing with its own life. And behind every window people were solving their own messy, complicated, deeply personal problems. Learning when to say yes and when to say no. Learning to love without losing themselves. Learning to be a real family—one where everyone has the right to their own life, their own mistakes, their own path.
Misha poured tea. Natasha pulled yesterday’s pie from the fridge. They sat at the table together—just the two of them—in their small apartment, in a life that wasn’t easy, but was honest.
