“Put that cutlet down right now!” Irina snapped at her husband the moment he sat down to eat. “Where is the money we saved for Masha’s braces?”
Alexei froze with the fork halfway to his mouth. The greasy edge of the fried cutlet trembled, slipped off the fork, and fell back onto the mashed potatoes, splattering cloudy oil across the tablecloth. Slowly, he raised his eyes to his wife.
Irina stood in the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She was wearing the old house robe she had wanted to replace for ages, but every spare ruble had gone into that same box with the blue lid — the box that now lay empty on the dresser.
“Ira, can you at least let me eat like a human being?” he muttered. “I just got home from work. I’m exhausted. And you’re already interrogating me.”
He tried to sound like a tired martyr, but his eyes kept darting away. He grabbed a piece of bread and began nervously rolling the soft inside into a little ball.
“I already told you. The money is being used. It’s in circulation. It’ll come back. It’s not going anywhere.”
“What circulation, Lyosha?” Irina took a step forward, and the small kitchen seemed to shrink around them. “You’re a warehouse clerk in a plumbing supply store. The only ‘circulation’ in your life is rolling from one side of the couch to the other on weekends. I went to count the money today before booking Masha’s appointment with the orthodontist. There were one hundred and thirty thousand rubles in that box. One hundred and thirty thousand, Lyosha. We saved it for a year. I didn’t take our daughter on vacation. Masha still walks around with that old phone with the cracked screen. Where is the money?”
Alexei exhaled loudly, pushed his plate away, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He knew there was no point lying anymore, but dodging the truth had become second nature to him.
“I lent it to someone,” he grumbled, staring out the window at the gray evening pressing against the glass. “They needed it urgently. You could say it was a matter of life and death.”
“To whom?” Irina’s voice dropped, and somehow that made it even more frightening. She came right up to the table. “Your buddy Stasik, who lost money betting again? Or your mother, for another miracle water filter that costs a fortune?”
“To Zhanna,” he blurted out, as if the name burned his tongue. “My sister. She really needed it. She had… a situation.”
Irina felt the floor disappear under her feet. She grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself. Her knuckles turned white.
Zhanna.
His older sister. A forty-year-old woman with the demands of a queen and the salary of a librarian, forever pretending to be some great businesswoman.
“Zhanna?” Irina repeated, feeling a cold fury begin to boil inside her. “Did Zhanna’s house burn down? Did she need emergency surgery? Did her kidneys fail? What did you give away the money meant for your daughter’s health for?”
Alexei shifted in his chair, making the old seat creak. At last he looked at his wife, and in his eyes there was guilt — but strangely, also defiance.
“For a fur coat,” he said.
A heavy, sticky silence settled over the room.
“A mink coat. Ira, you don’t understand. She’s a respectable woman, and she’s been walking around in that cheap Chinese puffer jacket like an overgrown teenager. She was embarrassed. All the women at her workplace dress properly, in fur, and she looks like some poor orphan. They laugh at her. She was depressed because of it. She cried to me on the phone for two hours.”
Irina blinked. For a moment, she thought she had misheard him. The world seemed to flip upside down.
“Are you out of your mind?” she whispered, then her voice rose. “The money we saved for our daughter’s braces — you lent it to your sister so she could buy a fur coat because she’s ashamed of wearing a puffer jacket? Are you serious right now? Our child has terrible insecurities. She covers her mouth with her hand when she laughs. Her bite is wrong. Her teeth are wearing down. The doctor said it needs to be done urgently. And your sister is going to strut around in fur at our expense?”
“Oh, her teeth aren’t going to run away!” Alexei jumped up, knocking over the stool. The crash made Irina flinch, but she did not step back. “She can wear a plate for now. Nothing terrible will happen. Or she can wait six months until Zhanna pays it back from her bonus. Why are you turning this into a tragedy? Zhanna is family. She has to maintain her image. She’s trying for a deputy headteacher position. She needs to look the part. It’s an investment, you stupid woman!”
“An investment?” Irina gave a bitter laugh. “Zhanna still owes me five thousand from the year before last for the groceries I bought for her birthday. She doesn’t repay debts, Lyosha. She thinks we owe her simply because she’s related to us. You stole your own child’s smile for the sake of your sister’s cheap vanity.”
“Don’t you dare talk about Zhanna like that!” Alexei’s face blotched red. “She is an educated, respectable woman. Masha can wait. She won’t melt. So what if her teeth are crooked? Mine are crooked too, and I’m alive. I even married you, didn’t I?”
“You married me?” Irina looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time — his puffy face, his belly hanging over his belt, his shifty little animal eyes. “You didn’t ‘marry’ me. I was foolish enough to marry you. And I’m done tolerating this. Either you return that money today, wring it out of your precious sister along with her ‘status,’ or I file for divorce. Tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’m terrified,” he snorted, picking up the stool. “Where are you going to go with a child? Who needs you? Filing for divorce over a rag and some metal brackets. Zhanna will be here in an hour. Say it to her face that she doesn’t deserve a nice thing. Or are you too scared?”
“She’s coming here?” Irina narrowed her eyes.
“Yes, she is. She’s coming to show off her new coat. And we’re going to drink tea and be happy for her. Understand? Because we are family. And you will behave yourself. Don’t you dare ruin her mood with that sour face of yours.”
At that moment, the intercom rang sharply in the hallway. Alexei smiled in triumph and adjusted his T-shirt.
“There she is. Go open the door. And don’t even think about mentioning the money.”
He shoved past Irina with his shoulder and headed into the corridor, changing his expression from aggressive to fawning on the way.
Irina remained standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the cooling cutlet. Something inside her burned out completely, leaving only a cold, calculating emptiness behind.
No one was going to drink tea today.
Today, someone was going to choke on that “joy.”
“Well, come welcome the queen mother!” Zhanna’s voice rang out from the entryway. “Your intercom is a joke, by the way. I nearly broke a nail trying to press the button. Lyosha, why did you take so long to open the door? I’m carrying precious cargo here, and the stairwell stinks so badly of cats it makes your eyes water.”
Zhanna floated into the cramped hallway like an icebreaker entering a harbor, immediately filling every inch of free space. Along with her came the smell of cold air, heavy expensive perfume, and the faint animal scent of fur. She did not hurry to take off her shoes. Instead, she stopped right on the mat and spread her arms theatrically, displaying her new purchase in all its glory.
She was wearing the coat.
Dark brown, almost black in the shadows, with a rich hood that lay over her shoulders like a fluffy collar. The fur gleamed under the dull hallway bulb. Against the peeling wallpaper that Irina and Alexei had been planning to replace for two years, this luxury looked absurd, vulgar, almost obscene.
“Oh, Zhanka…” Alexei fussed around his sister like a servant, afraid to touch the coat but unable to hide his admiration. Relief shone in his eyes. The coat really did look expensive, which, in his twisted logic, meant the crime had been justified. “Look at you! Like a noblewoman! It shines! Is that Blackglama?”
“Of course!” Zhanna smirked proudly, turning in front of the narrow mirror on the wardrobe door. She barely fit into the reflection in her new armor of fur. “Greece, Lyosha. Not some market junk from China. Look at the underfur — thick, dense. When I got on the minibus, every woman nearly twisted her neck staring. The conductor even forgot to ask me for the fare. That’s what status means.”
Irina stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning her shoulder against the frame. She felt invisible. Zhanna had not even nodded to her, as if her sister-in-law were part of the furniture — a coat rack, perhaps, or a shoe cabinet.
Irina looked at the fur and saw not beauty, but one hundred and thirty thousand rubles spread across another woman’s body. She saw her daughter’s straightened teeth transformed into dead animal skins. She saw months of saving on food, a canceled vacation, old boots — all of it now spinning in front of the mirror and demanding admiration.
“Hello, Zhanna,” Irina said dryly. “Congratulations on the new coat. I see a ‘woman of status’ had money for the minibus, but not enough for a taxi to carry such a precious treasure.”
Zhanna froze for a second, catching Irina’s gaze in the mirror. Irritation flashed in her eyes, but she quickly pulled on a patronizing smile.
“Oh, Irisha, always the same,” she said, waving a leather-gloved hand. “What difference does it make what I arrived in? The important thing is what I arrived wearing. Taxi drivers are so rude these days, they might even dirty the seats. Ordinary people on the minibus are more respectful. Lyosha, help me take it off. It’s hot. Why are you standing there like a statue?”
Alexei rushed to unfasten the coat. His fingers trembled. He tried not to look toward his wife, feeling her burning stare on his back.
“Careful, don’t pull! These are hooks, not buttons, you peasant!” Zhanna snapped, slapping his hands away. “Like this. Gently. Hang it on wide shoulders, not in the wardrobe. Let it breathe. Fur needs to settle after being outside.”
When the coat finally took its place of honor on the open hanger, covering Masha’s jacket and Irina’s old coat, Zhanna remained in a tight knit dress that unforgivingly emphasized the rolls at her sides. But her confidence in her own irresistibility was unshakable. She adjusted her lacquered curls and finally deigned to notice the woman of the house.
“Why do you look so sour, Ira?” Zhanna walked into the kitchen, pulled out a chair as if she owned the place, and sat at the head of the table. “People have joy, an occasion, and you look like you swallowed a whole lemon. Is there tea? I brought Prague cake for the occasion. I suppose you only have stale crackers for tea, as usual. Always saving, counting every kopeck… You need to live here and now, my dears.”
Irina silently went to the stove and switched on the kettle. She wanted to strike that woman. Not with her fist. No. She wanted to pick up the kettle and pour boiling water over that smug face.
Instead, she took out cups.
Two cups.
“Cake is wonderful, Zhanna,” Irina said evenly, setting saucers on the table. The ceramic clattered too loudly. “Especially when it’s bought with the change from our money. Did you forget that we were saving that money for Masha’s treatment?”
“Oh, here we go!” Zhanna rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “Lyosha, tell her! Look how petty she is. I told you I’ll pay it back. Once I get the deputy headteacher position, the salary will be different. Bonuses, too. By summer, maybe I’ll return part of it. And your Masha is young. She has her whole life ahead of her. So what, teeth. I’ve lived my whole life with a gap between mine, and men still lined up. Charisma is what matters. These braces of yours are torture and a way for doctors to rip people off. That’s all they know how to do nowadays — empty people’s pockets.”
Alexei, who had already taken the cake out of the box and was slicing it with trembling hands, tried to smooth things over.
“Zhann, the amount really is serious… Ira is worried. We were planning to take Masha to the doctor next week…”
“Your doctor can wait!” his sister interrupted, shoving a piece of chocolate sponge into her mouth. “Delicious. Fresh. Lyosha, don’t be a rag. Are you a man or not? You helped your sister in a difficult moment. You should be proud, not making excuses to your wife. I have a meeting with the director of the education department tomorrow. If I show up in a puffer jacket, even the secretary won’t let me in. People judge you by your clothes, Irochka. That’s the law of life. You could use a wardrobe update too, by the way. That robe… forgive me, but it looks fit only for mopping stairwells.”
Irina slowly turned around. Somewhere deep inside her, a block of ice tightened and hardened.
“My robe, Zhanna, was bought with money I earned myself,” she said quietly, looking straight at her sister-in-law. “Your ‘respectable’ fur coat was bought with my daughter’s health. You’re sitting here eating cake and teaching me how to live while wearing one hundred and thirty thousand rubles that don’t belong to you. Doesn’t it feel tight anywhere? Doesn’t your conscience itch under all that fur?”
“How dare you?” Zhanna choked on a crumb, her face turning red. “Lyosha! Do you hear how she’s speaking to me? I am a guest. I am your older sister. I walked you to school when Mother was working two jobs. And now some… some saleswoman is going to shame me? I earned that coat. I work like a horse.”
“You earned it at your own expense, not at my child’s,” Irina cut in. “And if you think this is an investment, you’re badly mistaken. It’s theft. Ordinary household theft dressed up in pretty words about status.”
“Lyosha!” Zhanna shrieked, jumping up from her chair. “Control your wife! Otherwise I’ll leave right now, and you’ll never see me here again.”
Alexei froze with the knife in his hand, looking helplessly from his sister, red with anger, to his wife, pale as death. He looked like a broken pendulum that no longer knew which way to swing.
At that moment, the door of the child’s room creaked open, and uncertain footsteps sounded in the corridor.
“Mom? Dad? Why are you shouting?”
Masha stood in the kitchen doorway.
She was thirteen — that age when the world feels like a minefield and your own reflection becomes your worst enemy. She wore a stretched-out gray hoodie pulled almost over her eyes and loose house pants. She hunched her shoulders, trying to seem smaller, less visible, as if she wanted to melt into the wall and disappear.
Irina froze, feeling her heart miss a beat. She had not wanted her daughter to see this circus. She had not wanted to drag her into the filth of adult quarrels.
But it was too late.
“Oh, look, our little bride has woken up!” Zhanna’s voice cracked through the room like a starter pistol. She turned fully in her chair, making the boards beneath her complain. “Why are you standing in the doorway like a poor relative? Come in. Do you want cake? Your aunt came to visit and brought treats, and you can’t even say hello?”
Masha shifted from foot to foot, hiding her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. She cast a quick, frightened glance at her father, who immediately lowered his eyes to his plate as though cake crumbs were the most fascinating thing in the world.
“Hello, Aunt Zhanna,” the girl murmured barely audibly.
She tried to smile politely, but out of ingrained habit, her hand flew up to cover her mouth. It was an automatic gesture now — at school, on the street, at home. Any emotion — laughter, a smile, surprise — was instantly hidden behind a palm that concealed the uneven teeth for which her classmates called her “shark.”
“Why are you covering your mouth?” Zhanna grimaced, sipping her tea. “Move your hand. It’s ugly. You’re talking to people and acting like you’re afraid to sneeze. Let me see.”
“Zhanna, don’t,” Irina warned softly, stepping toward her daughter.
But Zhanna could no longer be stopped.
“What do you mean, don’t? I’m telling the truth,” she waved a hand with a fake gemstone ring glittering on her finger. “Masha, move your hand. Let me look.”
Slowly, with visible effort, the girl lowered her palm. Shame flooded her face scarlet. She stood defenseless before them, with the childlike softness still in her cheeks and the very teeth that had caused her so much pain. Her upper canine protruded forward, overlapping the lower row and creating a noticeable asymmetry even when her mouth was closed.
Zhanna looked her niece over without the slightest tact, chewing cake. There was no sympathy in her eyes, only the cold curiosity of someone appraising a thing.
“So what?” she snorted, swallowing. “Normal teeth. A little crooked, that’s all. A feature. Charm. And you’ve turned this into a universal tragedy. ‘Braces, braces’… Ira, with her chin, you could put golden teeth in her mouth and she still wouldn’t become a beauty. That’s genetics.” She gave her brother a meaningful look. “From her father. Heavy bone structure. So stop throwing money away.”
The kitchen became so quiet that the clock ticking in the hallway could be heard.
Nausea rose in Irina’s throat. She stared at her husband, waiting for him to stand up, slam his fist on the table, and throw that shameless woman out. But Alexei sat there with his head pulled into his shoulders, cowardly silent.
“Dad…” Masha’s voice trembled. “We were supposed to go to the doctor tomorrow. You promised. You said the money was there.”
The girl looked only at her father. In her eyes shimmered the last desperate hope of a child who still wanted to believe her parent was honorable.
Unable to withstand that gaze, Alexei began fussing with crumbs on the table, gathering them into his palm as if his life depended on it.
“Masha, well… you see, something came up,” he mumbled, still not raising his eyes. “A force majeure situation. Aunt Zhanna… she had a critical problem. She needed it for work. We’ll move the appointment a little. Just a little. Six months maybe, maybe a year. Nothing terrible, right? Your teeth won’t fall out. They’re not baby teeth anymore.”
Masha looked from her father to her aunt, who sat leaned back in her chair, licking chocolate cream from her spoon with the air of a victor. On the back of the nearby chair hung the fur coat — dark, glossy, predatory. It looked like a living creature that had devoured the money saved for Masha’s health.
“You gave my money… for a fur coat?” the girl whispered.
In the silence, her whisper sounded louder than a scream.
“Dad, it hurts when I chew. You saw the X-rays. The doctor said the joint is being damaged.”
“Oh, stop exaggerating!” Zhanna slammed her cup onto the saucer. “Hurts, hurts. We all endured things. At your age I went to the dentist like I was going to execution, without any anesthesia, and I survived. And you’re twisting your father around your finger. Selfish girl. You couldn’t spare a little help for your own aunt? I am the face of this family. You are nobody yet — just a schoolgirl. Wear a cheap plate for now. Or don’t do anything. Like I said, happiness isn’t in your teeth.”
Zhanna leaned forward, her foundation-shiny face too close to the girl’s.
“And honestly, sweetheart, with that posture and that expression, no braces will help you. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? Hunched, gloomy. You could put a million rubles in your mouth and still be a gray little mouse. A woman has to carry herself. She has to shine. I put on a fur coat and I become a queen. You can shove gold into your mouth and still be… well, you understand. You can’t crush genetics with your finger.”
Masha turned so pale that the freckles on her nose looked almost black. Slowly, she turned her eyes to her father again, waiting for him to jump up, slam his fist down, silence that fountain of poison. Waiting for him to say, “Don’t you dare talk to my daughter like that.”
But Alexei sat with his head buried in his shoulders, cowardly silent, scratching the tablecloth with his fork. He was ashamed, but his fear of his sister and his need to be the “good brother” were stronger than his love for his daughter.
At that moment, something inside Masha broke.
It was visible in her eyes. They became older, colder, emptier. Childish hurt gave way to the realization of betrayal.
“I understand,” she said quietly.
No tears. No shouting. Just a simple statement.
“Thank you for the truth, Aunt Zhanna. And thank you, Dad.”
She turned and left the kitchen.
There was no slamming door, no hysteria. Only the sound of her shuffling steps moving toward her room, followed by the soft click of the lock.
To Irina, that quiet click sounded like a gunshot at point-blank range.
Zhanna snorted and reached for another piece of cake.
“There, you see? I told you. Horrible character, just like her mother. Not a word of gratitude, no respect for elders. Lyosha, you need to be stricter with her. You’ve spoiled the girl. In our day, she’d have gotten the belt for that tone and become sweet as silk at once. And you sit there chewing your own snot. Pour me more tea. Mine’s cold.”
Irina stood motionless, watching her sister-in-law bite into the cake.
A film clouded her vision. She saw how her husband, this man who was supposed to be family, had just allowed their child to be publicly humiliated with extraordinary cruelty. He had not merely stolen the money. He had stolen from his daughter the belief that a father is protection. He had stolen her smile and traded it for the skin of a dead animal for someone else’s arrogant vanity.
“Zhanna,” Irina said in a voice so cold that even the air in the kitchen seemed to freeze. “Put the cake down.”
“What?” Zhanna stopped with her mouth open. “Are you begrudging me a piece now? Lyosha, do you hear this?”
“I said put the cake down and stand up.” Irina took a step toward the table. She had no knife, no rolling pin in her hands, but Alexei instinctively moved farther away. “You are going to stand up now, take your coat, and get out of my home. This second.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Zhanna laughed, but the laugh came out nervous. “Lyosha, your wife is hysterical. I’m not going anywhere. I came to visit my brother. This is his apartment too.”
“This apartment,” Irina said slowly, striking out every word, “was bought with my parents’ money and maternity capital for Masha. Alexei’s share here is one square meter in the bathroom. You may go sit there if you want. But in my home, in my kitchen, your foot will never step again.”
“Lyosha! Do something!” Zhanna shrieked, jumping up. “She’s throwing me out. She’s insulting your sister.”
Alexei lifted panicked, pleading eyes to his wife.
“Ira, stop it… Why make a scandal? We’ll sit, drink tea. Zhanna will leave soon. Why are you starting this in front of people?”
“In front of people?” Irina gave a bitter smile. “There are no people here, Lyosha. There is only me and my daughter behind that wall. And you… you are not people. You are parasites. One steals from his own child to buy his sister’s love, and the other devours it with pleasure and dares to teach a little girl how to live. Get out. Both of you.”
“Both?” Alexei choked. “Ira, what are you saying? Where am I supposed to go? It’s night.”
“I don’t care.”
Irina walked to the hanger, ripped the precious fur coat down, and threw it straight onto the dirty corridor floor where wet snowy boots stood. The fur spread miserably in a puddle of melted snow.
“Ah! My coat!” Zhanna screamed, rushing to her treasure as if it were a living infant. “You’ll pay for the dry cleaning, you filthy woman. Lyosha, she ruined it!”
“That is not a coat, Zhanna,” Irina said, looking down at them with enough contempt to freeze hell itself. “Those are my daughter’s teeth. Her health. Our trust. And you just wiped your feet on it. Get out. Take your spineless brother, take your coat, and disappear. I don’t want your stench in this apartment one minute longer.”
Zhanna clutched the damp coat to her chest and hissed viciously as she backed toward the door. Alexei, confused and pitiful, began grabbing his jacket, struggling to get his arm into the sleeve.
“Ira, you’ll regret this!” he shouted from the threshold, trying to preserve the last scraps of masculine dignity. “I’m leaving. I’ll go to my sister. But you’ll come crawling back. You’ll beg forgiveness for destroying the family over money.”
“I didn’t destroy this family,” Irina replied, looking him directly in the eyes. “You destroyed it when you decided your sister’s showing off mattered more than your child’s pain. Close the door from the other side. And leave the keys.”
Metal clinked against the small hallway cabinet.
The door slammed shut, cutting them off from the outside world.
Irina stood alone in the corridor, breathing in the last traces of Zhanna’s cloying perfume mixed with the smell of betrayal.
But it was not over yet.
She knew the hardest part was still ahead — talking to her daughter.
And she knew one thing with absolute certainty.
There would be no forgiveness for Alexei.
Never.
The silence that settled after the footsteps disappeared down the stairwell felt dense, almost physical. It pressed against Irina’s ears and filled every corner of the apartment, pushing out the smell of Alexei’s cheap tobacco and Zhanna’s suffocating perfume.
Irina slowly turned the lock twice. The clicks of the bolt sounded like final shots into the head of her old life. She pressed her forehead against the cold metal door and closed her eyes.
Strangely, there were no tears.
Instead, an icy, crystalline clarity spread through her.
She went back into the kitchen. The half-eaten Prague cake sat abandoned on the table, its edges already drying. In Zhanna’s cup floated a cigarette butt, swelling in the remains of the tea — apparently, her sister-in-law had managed to throw it there in the heat of the quarrel. On the floor, where the coat had lain, a dark wet stain from melted snow remained.
Irina took a rag.
She scrubbed the floor fiercely, until her knuckles hurt, as if she were trying to erase not just dirty water, but the very memory that those people had been here, breathed this air, trampled through her life.
When the kitchen shone with sterile cleanliness and the cake had flown into the trash along with its box, Irina washed her hands and walked to her daughter’s room.
The door was locked, and no light came from under it.
“Masha,” she called softly, leaning against the doorframe. “Please open. It’s just me.”
There was a rustle behind the door, the creak of the old sofa springs, then the click of the lock.
Irina pushed the door open. The room was dark. Only the streetlamp outside pulled the girl’s curled silhouette from the shadows. Masha lay on the bed facing the wall, arms wrapped around herself, as if trying to hold together a world that was falling apart.
Irina sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under her. She placed a hand on her daughter’s thin shoulder and felt the girl tense, though she did not pull away.
“Did they leave?” Masha’s voice was dull, stripped of all emotion, frightening in its sudden adulthood.
“They left. For good,” Irina answered firmly.
She knew she could not lie now. No “Dad will come back.” No “We’ll make peace.” That would be a betrayal worse than what Alexei had done.
Masha suddenly turned and sat up. Her eyes shone in the darkness — dry, inflamed.
“Did he really trade me for a fur coat?” she asked, looking straight at her mother. “Mom, tell me honestly. Am I really so ugly that there’s no point spending money on me? Aunt Zhanna said…”
“Aunt Zhanna is a fool,” Irina cut her off, taking her daughter’s cold hands into her own. “And your father… he isn’t evil, Masha. He is weak. A cowardly, weak man who has spent his whole life trying to be good for everyone except his own family. He didn’t trade you. He was simply more afraid of his sister than he was afraid of losing us. That was his choice. And his mistake. The biggest mistake of his life.”
“And my teeth?” The girl’s lips trembled, and her hand moved again out of habit to cover her mouth. “Will I keep walking around like a shark? Dima Smirnov calls me that at school.”
Irina gently moved her daughter’s hand away from her face.
“Listen to me carefully. You are not a shark. You are my beautiful girl. You have my eyes and my nose, thank God. And your teeth…” Irina took a deep breath. “We will fix them. Do you hear me? I promise.”
“But there’s no money. Dad gave it away.”
“I don’t care where he gave it,” Irina said, and steel rang in her voice. “I will find the money. I’ll take extra shifts at the store. I’ll sell my share of Grandma’s house in the village — it’s empty anyway. I’ll borrow it if I have to. But in a week, we are going to the orthodontist. And we are getting the best braces. Not metal ones — those ceramic ones, the clear kind. So Dima Smirnov can choke on his own cruelty.”
Masha sniffed. For the first time that evening, something warm and alive appeared in her eyes.
“Really? Ceramic ones? They cost more.”
“Really. It’s just the two of us now, sweetheart. And feeding two is easier than feeding three when the third is an extra mouth and a constant problem. You can’t even imagine how much we’ll save without your father’s beer and his endless ‘lend me until payday.’ We’ll manage. I swear to you.”
Masha sat quietly, looking at her fingers intertwined with her mother’s.
“Mom… are you going to cry? Because of the divorce?”
Irina thought about it. She listened to herself, expecting to find pain, fear of loneliness, grief.
Instead, she found an enormous, unbelievable relief.
As if she had spent years dragging a handleless suitcase full of stones and had finally dropped it by the roadside.
“You know,” she said, smiling sincerely, “I don’t think I’m going to cry. I think, for the first time in many years, I’m going to sleep peacefully. Without snoring beside me, and without the fear that tomorrow I’ll have to blush again because of someone else’s stupidity.”
She hugged her daughter and pressed the girl’s head to her shoulder. Masha buried her face in the robe that smelled of laundry powder and home, and finally began to cry.
But these were good tears — tears of released tension, tears of cleansing.
“Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?” Irina asked, stroking her daughter’s hair. “We’ll have a girls’ night. Tomorrow is Sunday, so we can sleep until noon. And in the morning we’ll make pancakes. Lots of them. With butter and sugar. And no guests.”
“And condensed milk,” Masha sobbed.
“And condensed milk.”
They lay down together in the large double bed, which now seemed spacious and free. Irina stared at the ceiling, where the shadows of passing cars slid silently across the plaster.
Somewhere out there, in the cold night, Alexei was trudging along with his precious sister and her damp fur coat. He was probably complaining to Zhanna about his “hysterical wife,” and she was surely agreeing, telling him he deserved better.
Let them.
Let them go.
Irina turned her head. Masha was already asleep, her hair scattered across the pillow. Even in sleep, she frowned slightly, but the hand tucked beneath her cheek no longer covered her mouth.
Tomorrow would be a new day.
It would be difficult. There would be court, divorce, child support that would have to be fought for. There would be neighbors whispering and calls from “well-wishers.”
But none of that mattered.
What mattered was that beside her slept the dearest person in the world — and soon, that person would have the most beautiful smile on earth.
Everything else was just dust in the wind, so easy to wash away with a wet rag.
Irina closed her eyes and, for the first time in many years, fell into a dreamless sleep — deep, calm, and healing.
