“Olga, dear, you built your success on our bones,” Zinaida Karpovna declared with heartfelt conviction, carefully pushing away the cup of my finest jasmine oolong. “If my Vasya had not nobly stepped aside back then, we would be sitting in this beautiful apartment now as its rightful owners.”
I stared silently at my uninvited guests.
Working as chief accountant at the circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard had taught me one golden rule long ago: if someone walks into the ring wearing ridiculous shoes and a red nose, do not expect a lecture on quantum physics. Expect them to trip.
On my computer screen, the depreciation schedule for the Ussuri tiger enclosure was still open. And in my kitchen, ten years after his spectacular escape from our wedding, my former fiancé Vasya had materialized with his mother.
Vasya sat across from me, lounging with his arms spread over the back of my expensive kitchen chair. He looked like the typical graduate of free online courses titled “How to Become a Millionaire in Three Days”: a worn-out blazer pretending to be casual style, eyes shining with forced confidence, and a stubborn cloud of cheap cologne meant to imitate the scent of success.
“Mom is right, Olya,” Vasily added gravely, folding his fingers into a steeple. “I didn’t come here for no reason. I have gone through a long path of spiritual transformation, and I realized I need to close this chapter. You married Mishka far too quickly. Literally six months after I left. That raises certain questions. You two planned everything behind my back, didn’t you?”
I calmly took a sip of coffee.
Nothing moved inside me. No hurt. No old bitterness. Only a faint, almost athletic curiosity about how far human arrogance could stretch before snapping.
“What questions, Vasya?” I asked politely. “Let me remind you of the timeline. You disappeared one week before the wedding. You left me with an unpaid banquet hall bill, a sobbing mother, and a wedding dress I later had to sell online. And Misha, who, by the way, was your best friend at the time, simply came to help me move my things out of that rented little dump you proudly called ‘our nest.’”
“There!” Zinaida Karpovna triumphantly raised one finger, flashing a gold crown on her tooth. “He took advantage of your vulnerability! And my Vasya suffered! He went to another city so he wouldn’t interfere with your… your treacherous happiness! He sacrificed himself!”
“We, men of the new generation, think in terms of resources!” Vasily announced pompously, adjusting the lapel of his blazer as if it had been custom-made on Savile Row rather than bought on sale in a mass-market store. “Back then, I delegated responsibility for your emotional state to Mikhail because my inner investor demanded personal scaling, not immersion in domestic routine!”
“Your inner investor, Vasya, demanded that you urgently pay off two microloans and a loan for a gaming console,” I replied evenly, resting my elbows on the table. “And the only thing you delegated was your dirty cups, which Mikhail quietly washed the day he helped me pack my boxes.”
Vasily choked on his prepared speech. His Adam’s apple jerked nervously, and then he stretched his lips into a smile so hurried and pitiful that even his mother looked at him with disgusted confusion.
He began fidgeting on the chair, turning red and puffing like a carp thrown onto the shore and suddenly asked to give a lecture on macroeconomics instead of returning to its familiar muddy pond.
“Don’t twist his words!” Zinaida Karpovna squealed, rushing to defend her son. “The fact remains: Mikhail stole Vasya’s destiny. And now Misha owns a construction company, while my boy is forced to rent a room in Mytishchi! It’s unfair! Mikhail owes Vasya compensation for stealing the idea of marrying you!”
I raised an eyebrow.
The circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard could take the day off. The clowns were nervously smoking backstage.
“Compensation? For the idea of marriage?” I laughed sincerely. “Zinaida Karpovna, are you aware that under the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, ideas, concepts, and intentions are not protected by copyright and are not subject to legal protection? Article 1259, by the way. So you won’t be able to sue Misha for stealing the idea of marrying me.”
“What does court have to do with it?” Vasya finally slapped his palm on the table. “Olya, open your eyes! Your Misha is a cynical manipulator! You think he comforted you out of the goodness of his heart? He bought me!”
Silence fell over the kitchen.
Zinaida Karpovna froze with her mouth open.
I stopped smiling.
“Bought you?” I asked quietly.
“Yes!” Vasya, sensing that he finally had my attention, grew excited, deciding he had finally cracked my armor. “A week before the wedding, he and I were sitting in a bar. I was complaining that I wasn’t ready, that marriage was a prison. And he offered me a deal. He said, ‘If you don’t value Olya, give her up to me.’ And he gave me two million rubles. In cash! Can you imagine what a scoundrel he is? He took advantage of my weakness!”
I looked at Vasily and felt the puzzle from ten years ago click into place in my head.
Misha had never told me the details of their final conversation. He had only said, “Vasya decided to move on, and I decided to stay.”
Two million.
Back then, that was the price of a decent one-room apartment.
“Wait a minute, Vasenka…” Zinaida Karpovna’s voice suddenly trembled. She slowly turned toward her son. “What two million? You told me you left with nothing but one sports bag, out of nobility! You spent ten years borrowing my pension ‘to grow your business’! Where is the money, Judas?”
Vasya went pale.
Apparently, in the heat of his accusations, he had forgotten that his mother did not know certain financial details of his “spiritual transformation.”
“Mom, those were investments!” he muttered, sliding away from her on his chair. “I invested in a crypto farm! Our partner turned out to be a fraud… I wanted the best for the family!”
I watched the scene and felt a deep, incredible satisfaction.
“By the way,” I interrupted, cutting into their budding family drama, “you know, Vasya, finance has a basic rule called the Rule of 72. If you divide 72 by the average annual interest rate, you can estimate how many years it takes for your capital to double. If you had simply put Misha’s two million into an ordinary bank deposit at modest interest instead of getting involved with crypto, you would have more than five million by now. Instead, all you have is a room in Mytishchi and debts.”
Vasya stared at me with open hatred.
Zinaida Karpovna stared at Vasya as if calculating which part of his body would be the most convenient target for the rest of her hot coffee.
“You came here demanding justice?” I stood up, making it clear that the audience was over. “Well, justice has already been served. You, Vasya, valued me at two million and flushed the money down the toilet. Misha paid that money because he believed I was worth more than any investment. And he was right. We built a home, had two children, and opened a business. He wasn’t a manipulator. He was a brilliant strategist who bought out a problematic asset in the form of you and cleared toxic waste out of my life at exactly the right moment.”
“To hell with you!” Vasya barked, jumping to his feet. His “successful man” blazer wrinkled miserably across his back.
“Come on, Mom! We’re not welcome here!”
“I’ll show you ‘come on,’ you parasite,” Zinaida Karpovna hissed, grabbing her fake leather handbag. “You’ll be running all the way to Mytishchi on foot! Two million! I covered the roof at the dacha with roofing felt because of you, while you were throwing millions around!”
They argued all the way down the corridor.
The front door slammed, cutting off their absurd little life from my perfect apartment.
I returned to the kitchen, loaded the cups into the dishwasher, and wiped the dirty table. Then I picked up my phone and called my husband.
“Yes, darling?” Misha answered through the sound of hammer drills at the construction site.
“Misha, tell me honestly,” I smiled, looking out the window at the sunlit courtyard. “If Vasya had asked for five million ten years ago, would you have negotiated?”
There was a one-second pause on the other end of the line, followed by my husband’s low, velvet laugh.
“I would have taken out a loan, Olya. With inflation, you’re priceless now. Did Vaska come by?”
“He did,” I said, leaning against the windowsill. “And he left. Deep in the red. Come home earlier tonight. I’ll make your favorite roast. Investors should be well fed.”
