“Mom, I’ll call you back. We’re loading the car right now.”
Oleg held the phone between his shoulder and ear as he tossed a toolbox into the back of the pickup. Tanya was packing bags into the car, glancing at her husband from time to time. Nastya was spinning around nearby, trying to drag her huge stuffed rabbit into the vehicle.
“Mom, is Bunny coming with me?”
“He’s coming, he’s coming. Put him on the seat for now.”
One look at Oleg’s face told Tanya the conversation was not simple.
“Yes, I understand, I understand. Is Marina there? Put her on.”
Tanya froze with a bag in her hands. Whenever her sister-in-law’s name appeared in a conversation, it usually meant someone was about to ask for something.
“Hi, Marina. Yes. Well…” Oleg rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Listen, I’ll talk to Tanya and call you back, all right? Yes, I got it. Bye.”
He ended the call and looked at his wife.
“So, here’s the thing. Natasha is going to apply to university, but she has nowhere to stay. Marina is asking if maybe she could live at our place for a while. We’re leaving for the whole summer anyway.”
Tanya slowly placed the bag on the seat.
“Natasha? The one who was in ninth grade?”
“She’s in eleventh now. She’s applying somewhere, I didn’t really catch the details. She needs to prepare, take exams, all that. And Mom says she can keep an eye on the flowers too.”
“Oleg, we haven’t seen her in ages. What is she even like?”
“She’s a normal girl. Quiet. She’s from the village, not some city party girl. She’ll sit there, study, prepare for exams. What could happen?”
Tanya folded her arms across her chest.
“I don’t know. It feels risky leaving the apartment to someone we barely know.”
“What do you mean someone? She’s my niece.” Oleg stepped closer and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Tanya, what could possibly happen in a couple of months? The girl needs help. Marina promised to send vegetables and fruit from the garden. Berries, preserves, all that. And besides, I’m her uncle. I should help, shouldn’t I?”
“Your mother thinks so too, I suppose?”
“Mom reminded me how I once lived with Uncle Kolya when I was applying to university. He helped me a lot back then. God rest his soul.”
Tanya sighed. The argument about Uncle Kolya landed exactly where it was meant to. Oleg really had lived with him for two years and still remembered that help with deep gratitude.
“All right,” she said at last. “But if anything goes wrong…”
“Nothing will go wrong. I told you, she’s quiet. She’ll sit with her books, water the flowers. It’s perfect.”
Oleg kissed her forehead and reached into his pocket for his phone to call his sister back.
He gave Natasha the code to the key safe while they were already on the road out of the city. Natasha listened carefully and asked him to repeat it.
“Did you write it down? Good. There’s some food left in the fridge, finish it if you want. Water the flowers every three days, they’re on the windowsill. And keep the place clean, okay? The apartment is on a mortgage. We still have ten years to pay for it.”
“Of course, Uncle Oleg, don’t worry. I’ll be quiet. I need to study anyway.”
“Good. If anything happens, call.”
Oleg hung up and turned to Tanya.
“She’s a normal girl. Says she’ll be studying.”
Tanya nodded, but the unpleasant chill inside her did not go away. Nastya was watching cartoons on the tablet in the back seat, and Tanya did not want to argue about Oleg’s niece in front of her.
The village where Tanya’s mother lived was eighty kilometers away. The road was familiar, worn smooth by years of trips — every turn, every gas station, every road sign. Oleg drove confidently, steering with one hand and changing the radio station with the other.
Tanya’s mother met them at the gate, wearing a flowered apron with a towel thrown over her shoulder.
“At last! Nastya, come to Grandma, my sunshine!”
The little girl jumped out of the car and rushed into her grandmother’s arms. Tanya smiled. That scene warmed her heart every time.
“Oleg, come inside, I made borscht,” her mother said, already pulling her son-in-law by the sleeve. “You can look at the roof later. It’s not going anywhere.”
“Lyudmila Petrovna, at least let me unload the car.”
“You’ll unload it after you’ve eaten. Come on, come on.”
After lunch, Oleg finally escaped to inspect the work ahead of him. Tanya went with him because she wanted to understand how bad things were. The house was old, inherited from her father, and over the years the problems had piled up.
Oleg climbed the ladder, tapped the rafters, and shook his head.
“Tanya, this isn’t just a matter of replacing the covering. Part of the sheathing has to be changed. See there? It’s rotten.”
“Will it take long?”
“Three weeks for the roof, if it doesn’t rain. Then the siding — about the same. But I’ll make it look good, don’t worry.”
Tanya watched her husband examine the boards, touch them, estimate the work. In moments like that, she loved him especially — for his calm confidence, for those hands that could fix anything. Oleg could repair whatever needed repairing, from a leaking faucet to an engine. Her mother called him her “golden son-in-law” and never tired of saying how lucky Tanya was.
By evening, Nastya had already made friends with the neighbor’s cat, explored the entire garden, and covered herself in dirt from head to toe. Tanya’s mother was washing her in a basin in the summer kitchen, muttering about city children who had never seen real grass.
“Mom, she goes to kindergarten. They have a playground there too,” Tanya laughed.
“A playground! Is that what you call a playground? Look at all this space here. Let her run, get sun, get some color in her cheeks.”
Oleg sat on the porch, drinking tea from a huge mug with strawberries painted on it and squinting at the sunset. Tanya sat beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“It’s nice here.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Do you think Natasha will manage? I mean with the apartment.”
“She’ll manage. She’s almost grown, nearly eighteen. What’s there to manage? Water the flowers, keep things tidy. She’s not a child.”
A week later Natasha sent a photo of the watered flowers with a short message: “Everything’s fine. Studying.”
Tanya showed it to Oleg. He only shrugged, as if to say, See? I told you.
Summer stretched on slowly and sweetly. Oleg worked on the roof from morning till night, getting so tanned he was almost black, his hands covered in small cuts and scratches. Tanya helped her mother in the garden, made jam, and preserved compotes. Nastya ran around the yard, fed the chickens, and collected beetles in a jar.
In the evenings they sat on the veranda, ate watermelon, and watched the sun sink behind the distant forest. Her mother talked about the neighbors, village gossip, and how Mikhailych had gotten drunk again and sung songs until midnight. Oleg smirked. Tanya shook her head.
Natasha sent messages every few days — short and practical. “Everything is fine.” “Flowers are okay.” “Passed the first exam.” Tanya gradually calmed down and stopped thinking about the apartment. Everything was fine there. A quiet girl was sitting there, studying. What could possibly go wrong?
By mid-August the roof was almost finished. Oleg completed the gable siding and started on the veranda as a bonus, as he put it. Tanya’s mother walked around the house, unable to contain her joy.
“Look at this beauty! It’s like a brand-new house. Oleg, you’re a magician.”
“Lyudmila Petrovna, I’m just doing my job.”
“Your job! I would have paid strangers at least two hundred thousand for this kind of work!”
“Well, I’m not a stranger,” Oleg smiled. “Materials plus a family discount — that’s fair.”
“A family discount, he says! You could have charged twice as much and it still would’ve been a gift.”
Tanya stood nearby, looking at the renewed house and thinking: soon they would go home. Another week, maybe two, and they would return to their apartment. To their own life. To their own walls.
She had no idea that those walls had already become strangers to her.
A few days later Tanya was scrolling through her phone while Nastya played with the neighbor’s cat in the yard. Oleg was up on the roof, hammering away — the sound echoed through the whole village. Her mother had gone to a neighbor’s place to get seedlings.
Tanya opened the building chat. She had not checked it in a long time; usually it was nothing but notices about water shutoffs and complaints about parking. She scrolled down and froze.
“Apartment 325, can you finally stop making noise at night? It’s two in the morning, music is blasting, people are running around the stairwell. Do you have any conscience at all?”
The message was from the upstairs neighbor, Valentina Grigoryevna. Tanya felt her back go cold.
She scrolled farther. Another message, from a different neighbor: “I agree. They were making noise until three yesterday too. Time to file a complaint with the management company.”
And another: “Who even lives there now? It used to be quiet.”
Tanya read it three times. Apartment 325 was their apartment. Quiet Natasha, who was preparing for exams and watering flowers.
She stood up, walked out to the house, and lifted her head.
“Oleg! Come down!”
“What?” he called from behind the roof ridge.
“Come down, I said. It’s important.”
Oleg climbed down the ladder, wiping his hands on his pants. Tanya silently handed him the phone. He read, frowned, and scrolled.
“Are they definitely talking about our apartment?”
“Three twenty-five, Oleg. Ours.”
“Maybe they made a mistake? Maybe it’s the neighbors?”
“The neighbor on the right is an eighty-year-old grandmother. On the left is a family with a newborn. Which one of them would be blasting music at two in the morning?”
Oleg took out his phone and called Natasha. It rang and rang. She declined the call.
He called again. On the third attempt, she answered.
“Hello, Uncle?”
“Natasha, the neighbors are writing in the chat that there’s noise at our place at night. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she said calmly, even a little offended. “A friend came over once, that’s all. We sat for a bit. The neighbors are exaggerating. That old lady upstairs is crazy anyway. She thinks everything is noisy.”
“Once?”
“Well, maybe twice. Uncle Oleg, I’m not in a monastery. I need to relax sometimes too. I’m studying, I get tired.”
Oleg looked at Tanya. She stood with her arms crossed.
“All right,” he said. “But this stops now. Do you understand? This is our home, not a hostel.”
“Yes, I understand, I understand.”
He hung up and spread his hands.
“She says a friend came over. She’s young, it happens.”
“It happens?” Tanya took her phone back. “Oleg, they’re writing about nights, music, people in the stairwell. That is not ‘a friend came over.’”
“So what do you want me to do? Drive there right now because of this?”
“Maybe we should.”
“Tanya, I still have a ton of work here. I’ll finish, and then you can go check it every day if you want.”
Tanya went inside and sat down in the kitchen. One thought kept turning in her head: she had felt it. She had felt from the very beginning that they should not agree. But she had stayed silent. She had given in to avoid a fight.
That evening her mother-in-law called.
“Tanya, why are you making such a panic?” Zinaida Fyodorovna’s voice was calm, almost gentle. “She’s a young girl. She sat with a friend once. What’s so terrible about that?”
“Zinaida Fyodorovna, the neighbors are talking about filing a complaint with the management company.”
“Oh, stop it. Neighbors are always unhappy. Natasha is a good girl. She’s from the village, modest. She’s just getting used to the city.”
There was a rustle on the line, and then the voice changed — Marina had taken the phone.
“Hi, Tanya. Listen, don’t exaggerate, all right? Natasha called me crying. She says you’re making her out to be some kind of criminal.”
“Crying?” Tanya felt herself boiling inside. “Marina, we have a mortgage. If the neighbors file a complaint, we’ll have problems.”
“What problems? They made a little noise once, that’s all. Oleg was young too, remember. I’m sure he had fun sometimes.”
Tanya wanted to answer, but she held herself back. It was pointless. They had their own version of the truth, and words would not break through it.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll deal with it.”
The next few days passed in tension. Oleg kept working on the roof, and Tanya checked the building chat every morning. There were no new complaints, and she almost relaxed.
Almost.
A couple of days later, Tanya could not stand it anymore. She decided to drive there herself and see what was happening. Oleg stayed behind to work. She took the car and left.
The eighty kilometers flew by quickly. She parked near the entrance, went up to their floor, took out her keys, and inserted one into the lock.
It would not turn.
She tried again. The key went in, but the lock would not open.
Tanya stepped back and looked at the door. Their door. Their doormat. Their apartment number.
But the lock was not theirs.
She called Natasha. It rang. Declined. Again. Rang. Declined.
She called Oleg.
“Tanya, what happened?”
“The lock has been changed.”
“What?”
“The lock, Oleg. I’m standing in front of my own door and I can’t get in. Natasha isn’t answering.”
“Wait, I’ll call her.”
Five minutes passed. Ten. Oleg called back.
“She’s not answering. I’ll call Marina.”
Another twenty minutes. Tanya sat on the stairs, staring at her own door and feeling something heavy and dark rise inside her. Her home. Her apartment. And she was sitting there like a beggar.
Oleg called again.
“Marina says Natasha is at classes. She’ll call back when she’s free.”
“What classes? What classes are there now?”
“I don’t know, Tanya. Wait a little.”
Wait. She had already been waiting for two months. Waiting while the niece stayed as a guest. Waiting while the neighbors calmed down. Waiting while her husband finished the roof. And now she was sitting on the stairs outside her own door, waiting again.
By evening Tanya had moved to a bench near the building entrance. The sun had gone down, and the streetlights had come on. She drank coffee from a vending machine and watched the entrance door.
Around nine, a group appeared. Three guys, two girls, laughter, music playing from a phone. Natasha walked ahead of them in a short skirt and bright makeup, looking nothing like the modest village girl they had been told about.
Tanya stood up. Natasha noticed her and stopped. The smile slipped from her face.
“Aunt Tanya? What… what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Tanya stepped toward her. “What are you doing here? With a group of friends at nine in the evening, after changing the lock on my door?”
Natasha took a step back. Her friends exchanged glances behind her. One of the boys snorted.
“Aunt Tanya, I’ll explain everything…”
“Upstairs. Now. And you,” Tanya looked at the group, “can leave.”
The boys and girls hesitated, glancing at one another. Natasha nodded to them, and they turned toward the exit. Someone giggled behind Tanya’s back.
They went upstairs. Natasha opened the door with her own key, and Tanya entered her apartment.
The smell hit her first — stale, trapped air mixed with tobacco. Tanya flipped the light switch and froze.
In the hallway there were other people’s sneakers, random bags, and a crumpled jacket. In the kitchen, a mountain of dirty dishes filled the sink, the table was sticky, and empty bottles lined the wall. Tanya walked into the room and stopped.
In the corner stood a ring light on a tripod. Next to it was a microphone stand and a tangle of wires. A bright poster that had never been there before hung on the wall.
“What is this studio?”
“I do streams,” Natasha shrugged. “Online. You can make money there.”
“Streams. With groups of people at night. In our apartment.”
“It’s just content, we weren’t…”
Tanya raised her hand, and Natasha fell silent.
There was a dark mark on the sofa — burned, with torn edges. Someone had put out a cigarette right on the fabric.
“What is that?” Tanya’s voice was quiet, almost calm.
“That… that wasn’t me. Arsen did it by accident. He fell asleep with a cigarette. I put it out right away…”
Tanya did not answer. She walked to the window where her ficus stood — the same ficus she had brought from her mother’s place three years earlier and raised from a tiny cutting. Its stem was broken. The leaves had turned yellow and curled.
“And this?”
“It fell by itself. I don’t know how…”
Tanya opened the balcony door. On the balcony were beer cans filled with cigarette butts. Apparently, an ashtray had not been enough. There were hookah marks on the railing.
She returned to the room and looked over the shelves. Something was missing.
The vase.
The blue vase with the gold rim that Oleg had given her on March 8 during their first year of marriage.
“Where is the vase?”
Natasha lowered her eyes.
“What vase?”
“The blue one. It stood right here.”
“Oh… that one. We accidentally dropped it. I wanted to buy the same one, but I couldn’t find it…”
Tanya turned to Natasha.
“Why did you change the lock?”
“The key disappeared. One of the guys probably took it. I don’t know who. I had to change the lock, just in case…”
“Just in case,” Tanya repeated. “And calling me to tell me about it wasn’t part of that ‘just in case’?”
Natasha stayed silent, picking at the wallpaper with her fingernail.
“You’ve made quite a mess,” Tanya said, gesturing around the room. “You burned the sofa, killed the plant, broke the vase. Is this your way of saying thank you?”
“I didn’t mean to… I’ll fix everything, I…”
“Do whatever you want. Call your mother, call whoever. But I want you out of here today. Do you understand?” Tanya could barely hold back her anger.
Natasha nodded quickly, grabbed her phone, and rushed onto the balcony. Through the glass, Tanya could see her talking, waving her hand, almost crying.
Twenty minutes later Oleg called.
“Tanya, what did you do there? Marina and Mom have been blowing up my phone.”
“Have you seen what your perfect niece did?”
“What do you mean?”
“The sofa is burned. The plant I brought from Mom’s is broken and dried up. The vase you gave me is smashed. There are cans and cigarette butts all over the balcony. The whole place stinks like a dormitory. Have you seen that?”
Oleg went silent.
“Exactly. So tell them to come get her. She is not staying here anymore.”
“Got it. I’ll call you back.”
Half an hour later he called again.
“I talked to Marina. She’s hysterical. Says you attacked a child.”
“A child? She’s almost eighteen. What child?”
“You know what I mean…”
“I do. Tell her to come and clean up after her child. Tell your mother the same thing.”
Before Tanya could even finish, her phone rang again. Her mother-in-law.
“Tanya, what have you done?” Zinaida Fyodorovna’s voice rang with outrage. “The girl called in tears, says you’re throwing her out!”
“Zinaida Fyodorovna, maybe first you should see what that girl has done to our apartment.”
“What could she have done? She’s young. So she made a little noise…”
“She burned the sofa, broke the vase, destroyed the plant, and changed the lock without permission. The balcony is a dump, the apartment stinks. Is that ‘a little noise’?”
Her mother-in-law went quiet for a second.
“Well… these things happen. It was probably an accident.”
“An accident. Fine, Zinaida Fyodorovna. Come here and clean up after your granddaughter. I’ll watch.”
“Tanya, how are you speaking to me…”
“The way you deserve.”
She hung up. Marina called immediately.
“Tanya, have you completely lost your mind? You’re throwing a child into the street?”
“Marina, I helped your child. I let her into my home. And in return she wrecked my apartment. And I haven’t even sent you the bill for the damage yet.”
“What bill? Are you insane?”
“The sofa is at least fifty thousand. The vase was a gift from my husband, priceless. Do you want me to count everything?”
Marina gasped and hung up.
Natasha stood in the hallway with a bag, red eyes, and a runny nose.
“I’ll go,” she said quietly.
Tanya looked at her, then at the window. It was already dark, close to ten.
“Where are you going at this hour? Stay until morning.”
“Really?”
“Really. But first you’re helping me clean up what you’ve done.”
They scrubbed the apartment together until midnight. Natasha washed the floors, took out the garbage, and wiped down the stove. She said nothing and did not raise her eyes. Tanya cleaned the balcony, threw out cans full of cigarette butts, and wiped the railing.
By one in the morning the apartment looked like itself again. It smelled of bleach and fresh air from the open window. Tanya covered the sofa with a throw blanket. She would deal with it later.
In the morning Natasha stood at the door with her bag.
“Tanya,” she said, staring at the floor. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean for it to happen. I thought you wouldn’t find out… Stupid, right?”
“Stupid,” Tanya agreed. “But at least that’s honest.”
Natasha nodded and left. The door closed behind her.
Tanya sat down in the kitchen and poured herself tea. The phone was silent. Neither her mother-in-law nor Marina called anymore.
They were offended.
Fine, then.
By lunchtime she reached her mother’s house. Nastya ran out to meet her and threw her arms around her neck.
“Mom, Mom! Grandma and I baked a pie!”
“Well done, sweetheart.”
Oleg stood on the porch, looking guilty.
“Well?” he said when Nastya ran back inside. “Tell me.”
Tanya told him everything. The sofa, the vase, the lock. The calls from his mother and Marina. Oleg listened, growing darker with every word.
“And that’s not even all. She was streaming from our room, can you imagine? Ring light, microphone, people coming over at night. So much for quiet Natasha.”
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “It’s my fault. I should have refused from the start.”
“Yes, you should have. But I’m not leaving it like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Marina can pay for the damage.”
Oleg raised his eyebrows.
“Tanya, come on… Really?”
“Yes, really. What are we, charity workers for other people’s mistakes? They burned the sofa — they can pay. They broke the vase — they can pay. I want justice.”
“They’re family…”
“Family that wrecked our apartment and then got offended because we weren’t grateful for it.”
Oleg fell silent. Then he sighed.
“Do what you think is right.”
That evening Tanya sat down at the table and made a list. Sofa — sixty thousand. Lock — two thousand. Carpet cleaning — three thousand. Vase — priceless, but let it be ten. Total: seventy-five thousand rubles.
She took a photo and sent it to Marina with one line: “This is the minimum. Waiting for the transfer.”
Marina read it immediately.
Typing…
Typing…
Then silence.
Tanya refreshed the chat. The message had been delivered, but there was no reply. She opened Marina’s profile.
Blocked.
Ten minutes later her mother-in-law called. Tanya looked at the screen, at the name “Zinaida Fyodorovna,” and declined the call.
She called again.
Declined.
Again.
Declined.
Then silence.
Tanya put the phone aside and went out onto the veranda. Oleg was sitting on the steps, looking at the sunset.
“So?” he asked.
“Marina blocked me. Your mother called. I declined.”
“And what now?”
Tanya sat beside him and looked at the pink sky above the forest.
“Nothing. That was the whole conversation.”
Oleg was quiet for a moment, then put his arm around her shoulders.
“You know what hurts?” Tanya said. “We wanted to help. Like family. Like decent people. And in the end, somehow we became the guilty ones.”
“We’re not guilty.”
“To them, we are. Because we didn’t let them walk all over us and didn’t say thank you for it.”
Somewhere inside the house Nastya laughed, and her grandmother answered her. The air smelled of freshly cut grass and smoke from a neighbor’s grill.
“All right,” Tanya stood up. “Let’s go have dinner. Enough of this.”
She went inside, and the door closed behind her with a quiet creak. Her phone remained on the railing — dark and silent.
No calls.
No messages.
So much for family.
