Svetlana placed a plate in front of Anton and sat down across from him. He didn’t even glance at the food. He moved his fork across the table as if drawing some invisible escape route.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “For Regina. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but I kept putting it off.”
Svetlana slowly lowered her spoon. Polina was asleep in the next room, so every word had to be spoken quietly. But that forced quiet made the moment even more unbearable.
“Wait. Are you serious?”
“Completely serious. You’ll leave the apartment to me. The car too. You’ll find something for yourself. You’re strong, aren’t you?”
She looked at the man she had lived with for six years. His voice was flat, as if he were reading out a shopping list. Not a shadow of doubt. Not even a pause.
“Anton, we have a daughter. She’s four.”
“I’ll see her. On weekends. Or whenever we agree.”
“And where are we supposed to live? On a park bench?”
“Don’t exaggerate. You have parents. You can move in with a friend. There are always options if you want to find them.”
Svetlana locked her fingers together under the table. She was not going to scream. Not now. Not with their child sleeping nearby. Not while he spoke in that cold, indifferent tone.
“Do you even understand what you’re saying? Your mother bought this apartment. It’s registered in her name.”
“I’ll handle my mother. She’ll sign it over to me, and that’s that.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“I will. I’m her only son. She won’t refuse me.”
He stood up, went into the room, and started packing his things into a large sports bag. Svetlana remained at the table. In front of her stood the untouched plate, and somewhere behind the wall, four-year-old Polina was breathing softly in her sleep — the same child who would ask in the morning where her daddy had gone.
“Are you not even going to say goodbye to your daughter?” Svetlana asked from the doorway.
“Why wake her? I’ll stop by during the week.”
He slung the bag over his shoulder. At the entrance, he paused and turned around.
“Don’t turn this into a tragedy. We’re adults.”
The door closed.
For several seconds, Svetlana stood without moving. Then she took out her phone and dialed a number.
One ring. A second. A third.
“Marina, are you asleep?”
“No. What happened?”
“He left. Just now. He said I should leave him the apartment and the car.”
There was silence on the other end for exactly three seconds.
“Come to my place. Right now. Bring Polina.”
“No. I’m staying here. This is our home. His mother bought this apartment for the family, as a wedding gift — not for his little adventures.”
“Then I’ll come to you in the morning. And don’t open the door to anyone.”
Marina arrived at eight. She was short, with cropped hair and the sharp gaze of a woman life had knocked down twice — and both times, she had managed to get back up.
“Tell me everything. From the beginning to the end.”
Svetlana poured her tea. Polina sat on the carpet, drawing something bright and orange. For now, they had told her that Daddy had gone away on business.
“He met another woman. Regina. He says it’s been going on for a long time. I didn’t notice. Or maybe I didn’t want to.”
“Whose name is the apartment in?”
“Galina Petrovna’s. His mother’s. She bought it four years ago, right after we got married. She said, ‘This is for you and for my future grandchildren.’”
“And he remembers that?”
“He’s sure his mother will sign whatever he asks her to sign.”
Marina put her cup down on the table.
“Svetlana, I went through the same thing eight years ago. My ex also thought he would take everything — the apartment, the country house, even the dog. Do you know how it ended?”
“I know. You stayed in the apartment, and he ended up renting a room.”
“Because I didn’t sit around waiting. I acted. While he was making plans, I was already locking every door. You need to call his mother.”
“I don’t know how to tell her. She’ll take his side. He’s her son.”
Marina shook her head.
“You don’t know Galina Petrovna well enough. She went through a divorce herself. With little Anton in her arms. She knows what it means to stand there with a child and empty hands. Call her.”
Svetlana picked up the phone. Her fingers found the number automatically, the way they had hundreds of times before — when she asked for a pie recipe, when she asked Polina’s shoe size, when she handed over the phone on holidays.
“Galina Petrovna, hello. Anton left. Last night. He packed his things and went to his mistress.”
A long pause followed.
“He told me I should leave him the apartment and the car. He said you would sign the apartment over to him.”
Her mother-in-law’s voice changed. It did not become sharp. It did not become loud. It became very even — the way a lake becomes still before a storm.
“He said that?”
“Word for word.”
“Svetlana, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in an hour.”
Galina Petrovna entered the apartment quietly. She took off her coat and hung it carefully on the hook. When she saw Polina, she crouched down, hugged her, and kissed the tip of her nose. The little girl laughed. Then Galina Petrovna straightened and looked at Svetlana.
“Tell me everything. Every word he said.”
Svetlana told her. Marina sat beside her and occasionally added details Svetlana had missed — out of shock, confusion, and the anger that was slowly rising from somewhere deep inside her.
“He said, ‘My mother will sign it.’ Just like that, Galina Petrovna. As if it had already been decided.”
Her mother-in-law said nothing. Then slowly, very slowly, she sat down on a chair.
‘
“Twenty-eight years ago, his father said almost the exact same thing to me. ‘I’m leaving. The apartment is mine. Find yourself some corner to live in.’ I was twenty-four. Anton was a year and a half old. I left that apartment with one suitcase and him in my arms. We lived with my aunt. In one room. For four years, until I got back on my feet.”
“I didn’t know,” Svetlana whispered.
“I never told the details. I thought, why? I thought my son was different. I thought that because I suffered so much, he would at least see it and understand. But he didn’t see. He was too young to remember.”
Marina leaned forward.
“Galina Petrovna, the apartment is in your name. You are the only one who decides.”
“I know, dear. And I have already decided. I bought this apartment for my future grandchildren. For Polina. Not for a son who repeats his father’s mistakes. Genetics is a strange thing. I thought he took after me. It turns out he took after him.”
She took a folder from her bag. Inside were the apartment documents — the certificate, the purchase agreement, and the official extract.
“I’ll transfer the apartment to Polina. With restrictions until she comes of age. Svetlana, you will be her legal representative. No one will be able to sell it, mortgage it, or give it away. Polina will grow up and have her own home.”
“He won’t forgive this,” Svetlana said.
“I don’t need his forgiveness. I need my granddaughter to have a warm home and a roof over her head. I once stood at a bus stop in winter with a child and a suitcase. There will not be a second time — not for my granddaughter.”
Svetlana looked at Marina. Marina nodded.
“Agree, Svetlana. It’s the right thing to do.”
“And the car?” Svetlana asked.
Her mother-in-law raised her eyebrows slightly.
“I bought the car too. With my own money. Let him only try to take it. I kept all the payment documents. After my divorce, Svetlana, I learned to keep everything. Every paper. Every receipt. Because I know one thing: in this life, something is truly yours only when you can prove it.”
At that moment, Svetlana’s phone rang. The screen showed Anton’s name.
“Answer,” Galina Petrovna said. “Put it on speaker.”
Svetlana pressed the button.
“Svetlana, hi. I’ll come tomorrow for the car documents. And I’ll need the spare apartment keys too, the ones in the drawer.”
“Anton, the apartment belongs to your mother.”
“I told you, I’ll deal with my mother. Stay out of it.”
Galina Petrovna leaned toward the phone.
“Anton. It’s me.”
Silence.
“Mom? What are you doing there?”
“I’m sitting with my daughter-in-law and granddaughter. In the apartment I bought. With my own money. You said I would sign it over to you?”
“Well… we can discuss it…”
“There is nothing to discuss. The apartment will be transferred to Polina. The car stays with Svetlana. If you have questions, come by. But not tomorrow. I have no time for you today. And if you take the car without permission, I’ll report it stolen.”
She ended the call before he could answer.
Anton sat in Regina’s apartment and stared at his phone. Nearby, on the leather sofa, sat Oleg — heavyset, with his usual cigarette tucked behind his ear, the one he twisted between his fingers whenever he got nervous.
“So what now?” Oleg asked.
“My mother is playing stupid. Says she’s going to sign the apartment over to Polina.”
“Maybe she’s bluffing?”
“You don’t know my mother. If she says she’ll do something, she’ll do it. That’s how she is. Stubborn.”
Oleg spun the cigarette between his fingers.
“Talk to her properly. Like a normal person. You’re her only son. Is she really going to go against you because of some daughter-in-law?”
“She’s not doing it because of Svetlana. She’s doing it because of Polina.”
“Then take Polina.”
Anton looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Where would I take her? Here? To Regina?”
At that moment, Regina came out of the bedroom. Tall, straight-backed, with a phone in her hand — always arranging something, writing to someone, coordinating something. She was a woman used to being in control, and even at home, she could not switch that mode off.
“Anton, I heard your conversation. Let’s make one thing clear.”
“What?”
“The child is not moving in here. I told you that from the beginning.”
“I wasn’t planning to…”
“And second. You told me the apartment was yours. That your mother would sign it over. That you were coming to me with something. Now it turns out you’re empty-handed. That changes things.”
“Regina, wait…”
“I don’t wait. I’m not that kind of woman. You know that. I liked our relationship when it was easy. No obligations. No suitcases in the hallway. You decided to leave your family on your own — I never asked you to.”
Oleg gave a short laugh. Regina turned her eyes on him, and he fell silent.
“Anton, you have one week. Sort out your affairs. Find somewhere to live. But not at my expense. This apartment is mine, and I am not going to share it with anyone.”
She went back into the bedroom and shut the door.
Oleg whistled softly.
“Tough woman.”
“Shut up, Oleg.”
“I’m just saying. Maybe you should go back to Svetlana? Apologize, make peace…”
“After what I said to her? After my mother heard everything?”
“Well, what else can you do? You know my place. It’s a one-room apartment. It’s cramped even for me.”
Anton stood up, walked to the window, and immediately turned away. He began pacing the room.
“I’ll go to my mother. I’ll speak to her one-on-one. Without Svetlana. Without that friend of hers. My mother will listen to me. She always has.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She will. I’m her son. Her only son.”
He dialed the number. Galina Petrovna answered on the fourth ring.
“Mom, we need to meet. To talk. Just you and me.”
“Come over. I’ll be home.”
Anton grabbed his jacket and left. Oleg remained sitting on someone else’s sofa, twisting the cigarette in his fingers and thinking that his own tiny one-room apartment, cramped as it was, at least belonged to him.
Forty minutes later, Anton stood in his mother’s apartment. The small two-room place where he had grown up. The same wallpaper, the same bookcase, the same smell — dried herbs his mother hung in the corners of the kitchen.
“Sit down,” Galina Petrovna said.
“Mom, do you understand what you’re doing? You’re basically choosing your daughter-in-law over your son.”
“I am choosing my granddaughter.”
“Polina is my child too.”
“Then why are you abandoning her?”
“I’m not abandoning her! I’ll see her, I’ll help…”
“Like your father did? He promised too. Do you know how many times he came during the first year? Twice. During the second? Not once. Do you remember him?”
Anton swallowed.
“I’m not him.”
“So far, you are his exact copy. The same words. The same tone. ‘Leave me the apartment.’ He said almost the same thing to me: ‘Leave the apartment, I’ll handle it.’ I was left with you in my arms and a suitcase. In winter, Anton. In February.”
“That was a long time ago…”
“For you, yes. For me, it is every day. I remember every hour of that February. And I will not allow my granddaughter to go through the same thing. The apartment will be transferred to Polina. This is not up for discussion.”
“Mom, you’re leaving me without a home!”
“No. I am not leaving you without anything. You left on your own. You told your wife, ‘Leave me the apartment.’ You simply forgot that the apartment is not yours. It is mine. And I decide who gets it.”
“That’s unfair!”
“What’s unfair is a four-year-old child losing her home because her father cannot control himself. That is unfair, Anton. What I am doing is the only fair thing that can be done.”
Anton stood before his mother — a grown man who, for the first time, had been told “no” in a way that left him with nothing to say. He opened the door and left without saying goodbye.
A month passed.
During that month, several things happened, and Anton had not foreseen any of them.
Regina asked him to move out after nine days. Not after a week, as she had originally said, but after nine — because on the tenth day, a business partner from Saint Petersburg was flying in, and Anton’s presence in the apartment was, in her words, “inappropriate.” She returned his bag, neatly packed, with his shirts washed. She zipped it up and placed it by the door.
“Nothing personal, Anton. We’re both adults. You’re free, I’m free. That was the idea from the beginning. You simply decided otherwise.”
“I thought we were serious.”
“We were good together. That is not the same thing.”
Oleg let him stay for three days, then began hinting that he “hadn’t expected this kind of arrangement.” A one-room apartment that was already too small for one person became a trap with two. Oleg smoked on the balcony every twenty minutes, dropped ash on the linoleum, and complained about life.
“It’s hard for me too, Anton. I understand you, but you need to understand me. There’s no room here.”
Anton began looking for a rental. Prices had risen so much that anything decent was beyond his salary. Without the car — Svetlana had changed the insurance on Marina’s advice — getting around the city became more difficult. The life that had seemed so simple and manageable just a month earlier began falling apart.
He called Svetlana four times. The first two times, she answered briefly and coldly. The third time, she did not pick up. The fourth time, Marina answered.
“Svetlana is busy. Polina is preparing for her kindergarten performance. If it’s urgent, write a message. But calling every three days to complain is not an option.”
“This is my home, Marina.”
“It’s Polina’s home. The documents are signed. The notary certified everything. That train has left, Anton. Choo-choo.”
That was when he decided to go there. He went to the apartment — the very place where Svetlana lived with Polina. He climbed to the third floor and rang the bell.
Silence.
He rang again. Footsteps sounded behind the door. Then Svetlana’s voice.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me. Open the door.”
A pause.
“Why?”
“To talk. Svetlana, I’ve thought a lot. I lost my temper. I did stupid things. I want to fix everything. Let’s try again.”
“Anton, you didn’t lose your temper. You thought everything through. You came home and calmly said, ‘Leave me the apartment and the car.’ You weren’t shouting. You weren’t crying. You simply decided that Polina and I were trash you could throw out and forget.”
“I didn’t think that!”
“You said it. And words, Anton, are actions. Just spoken aloud.”
“Svetlana, open the door. Please.”
“No.”
“I want to see Polina.”
“Polina saw you last a month ago. You promised to come in a week. You didn’t. You promised to call. You didn’t. She waited for you every evening. She stood by the door and asked, ‘Is Daddy coming?’ Every evening, Anton. Fourteen evenings in a row. On the fifteenth, she stopped asking. Do you know what that means? It means a child learned not to wait. At four years old.”
Anton leaned against the wall.
“I’m guilty. I know. Give me a chance.”
“I gave you a chance. Six years was one long chance. You decided what to do with it.”
“My mother influenced you. She turned you against me.”
“Your mother did for me and Polina what you should have done. She protected us. You didn’t.”
Anton stood in the stairwell and heard, on the other side of the door — inside the apartment that had once been his home — the life of a family in which there was no longer a place for him. He heard Polina’s quiet voice asking something. He heard Svetlana answer her gently. He heard the soft clink of a spoon against a cup.
He took out his phone and called Oleg.
“Oleg, can I stay with you for a couple more days?”
“Anton… I can’t. Sorry. My sister is coming. From Voronezh. There’s no space.”
“I understand.”
He sat down on the step. Then he called Regina. Voicemail. He called again. She rejected the call.
A message arrived a moment later: “Don’t call me.”
He put the phone back in his pocket. Sat for another minute. Then he stood up, went downstairs, and stepped outside.
The city was the same as always — huge, noisy, indifferent. But for the first time in that city, Anton had nowhere to sleep.
Across the road, on a bench, sat Oleg. He had come after all, despite his “sister from Voronezh.” He was smoking, hiding the cigarette in his fist.
“Well?”
“She didn’t open the door.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Oleg. For the first time in my life, I don’t know.”
Oleg took a drag and exhaled smoke.
“I told you not to get into this. Didn’t I tell you? Svetlana is a good woman. Your mother is made of stone. And you… you went ahead anyway. This is the result.”
Anton did not answer.
He stood in the middle of the sidewalk — without an apartment, without a car, without a family, without the woman he had left for. Only one sports bag to his name.
Just like his mother twenty-eight years earlier.
Except she had carried a child in her arms — someone worth fighting for.
Anton did not even have that.
Up on the third floor, Svetlana put her phone away. Polina sat at her little table, drawing something orange, as always.
“Who came?” she asked.
Svetlana paused.
“No one, sweetheart. Someone had the wrong door.”
Polina nodded and returned to her drawing. With an orange pencil, she was drawing a house. A big window. A chimney. Flowers on the windowsill. And one figure inside — a woman with long hair.
Nearby, over a cup of tea, Galina Petrovna sat watching her granddaughter in silence. Then she said quietly:
“I called the notary this morning. Everything is ready. The apartment belongs to Polina. I have the documents. Originals and copies.”
Svetlana nodded.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I am doing what his grandmother should have done for him twenty-eight years ago. But didn’t. Because back then, there was no one to stand up for us. Now there is.”
Marina, who had been sitting in the kitchen and heard every word, came over. With one arm, she hugged Svetlana. With the other, Galina Petrovna.
“Do you know what I like about this story?” she said. “That everything was settled in a month. Not in three years. Not in five. In one month. Because you didn’t wait for him to come to his senses. You simply did everything right. And on time.”
Polina lifted her head from the drawing.
“Grandma, look. I drew a house.”
Galina Petrovna looked.
A big window. A chimney. Flowers. A woman inside.
“A beautiful house, Polinka. This is your house. Remember that.”
Polina smiled. She took a red pencil and drew one more figure beside the house. A small one, with pigtails.
Then, in large crooked letters, she wrote:
“ME.”
