“Mom, you’re joking, right?” Vera’s voice trembled, though she was still trying to keep the gentle tone she usually used with older relatives. “The Sokolovs are arriving tomorrow. We’ve had this arrangement since January. They took time off work, bought train tickets to our station. I can’t just call them and say, ‘Sorry, plans have changed.’”
Nadezhda Sergeyevna sat in the deep armchair with her back perfectly straight, as if she were receiving guests at a royal audience. Her fingers toyed with the fringe on a sofa cushion, but her gaze remained firm and demanding. She never accepted objections when the matter concerned “justice” as she understood it.
“Vera, this isn’t about some strangers’ vacation. This is about your aunt’s survival. Tamara has been left on the street. Do you understand what that means? On the street. Nikolai, may God rest his soul, made a terrible mess of things. The creditors won’t care whether she’s a widow or not. They’ll burn her down along with that shack if she stays there even one more day.”
Vera took a deep breath, trying to summon every drop of patience she had. She worked as a tester for virtual-reality sensory systems, a job that required enormous self-control. But talking to her mother drained her more than any twelve-hour shift inside a headset.
“Mom, I understand everything. Uncle Kolya liked taking risks, and we’re all grieving. But our country house belongs to Maxim. He inherited it from his grandmother. And the rental money is what we planned to use to replace the boiler in autumn. We can’t lose that income.”
“Money, money, that’s all you two think about!” Nadezhda Sergeyevna threw up her hands. “What about compassion? What about conscience? Tamara was my brother’s wife. Alina is expecting her third child, they’re squeezed into a two-room apartment with her mother-in-law, and they have nowhere to take her mother in. Meanwhile, your house is basically standing empty. Two floors! Has your heart really become so hard that you would turn away your own blood for the sake of some summer guests?”
“They’re not just summer guests. They’re our friends and regular clients,” Vera replied quietly, feeling her softness begin to give way to a dull irritation. “We’ll be letting people down.”
“People will find another cottage. Tamara will disappear if no one helps her. I’ve already promised her. She’s coming tomorrow morning.”
Vera froze. Whatever hope she had still held on to crumbled into dust. Her mother had decided everything for them without even asking.
Maxim, who created kinetic installations for museums, had the mind of an engineer and the habit of calculating risks in advance. When Vera told him about the conversation, he didn’t shout. But his face took on a cold, distant expression. He paced silently around the kitchen, moving jars of coffee as if they were chess pieces.
“So what you’re telling me,” he said at last, stopping in place, “is that we’re losing one hundred and twenty thousand for the season, refunding the Sokolovs’ advance payment, paying a penalty for a last-minute cancellation, and all of this for a woman who called me ‘a penniless dreamer’ at my own wedding?”
“Maxim, please. Mom says there are threats. Debt collectors. Arson. Aunt Tamara is scared.”
“Vera, your Uncle Kolya was a gambler. That’s a fact. But Tamara has always known how to embellish a story. Are you sure things are really that bad?”
“Mom gave her word. If we refuse now, she’ll make my life unbearable. You know what she’s like. She said we’re the only hope.”
Maxim slammed the cezve down onto the stove.
“Fine. All right. Let her stay. But on one condition: she pays the utilities herself. And only for the summer. In September, she moves out, even if Genghis Khan’s cavalry comes after her. Call the Sokolovs and apologize. I won’t do it. I’m ashamed.”
Vera felt relief mixed with the bitter taste of guilt. She hoped Tamara would appreciate the gesture.
Her aunt moved in with great ceremony. There were clusters of bags, boxes full of kitchenware, and, for some reason, an enormous stand mixer. She did not look like a grief-stricken widow hiding from thugs. On the contrary, she glowed like polished copper and immediately began ordering the living room furniture to be rearranged “so the feng shui could encourage cash flow.”
“Oh, Vera dear, Maxim dear, you two are saints!” she cooed while unpacking baking trays. “I’ll bake gingerbread cookies to order here. I’ll rebuild my business, pay off my debts. You won’t even notice me. I’ll be quieter than a mouse.”
“Quieter than a mouse” turned out to be a lie within a week. The industrial mixer roared from six in the morning. The smell of burnt sugar soaked into the curtains, the sofa upholstery, and seemingly even the wallpaper. But the worst began when the electricity bills arrived. The oven ran nonstop. The meter spun up an amount comparable to launching a small hadron collider.
When Maxim cautiously asked about payment, Tamara rolled her eyes.
“Maxim dear, what money? Everything I have is going back into the business right now. Flour has gone up, and I need imported icing. I’m getting back on my feet! Be patient for a little while. It’s not as if you’re struggling. Vera has such a nice car. And I’m the one in mourning.”
June turned into July. The heat became unbearable, but the air conditioners in the house ran at full power because Tamara needed to cool her gingerbread cookies. The Sokolovs, to whom Vera had struggled to explain the situation, ended up spending the season in the stuffy city, unable to find a decent alternative at a reasonable price.
By mid-July, Maxim had had enough. He drove to the country house without warning and found a mountain of boxes filled with finished products taking over the entire veranda.
“Tamara Borisovna,” he said sharply. “You have one week to pack.”
“What?” She dropped the piping bag. “You’re throwing me out? A widow?”
“I’m evicting an arrogant tenant who doesn’t pay. One week.”
That same evening, Vera’s phone nearly burned in her hand. Nadezhda Sergeyevna screamed so loudly that the speaker crackled.
“You are monsters! Your Maxim is a tyrant! The poor woman had only just begun to recover, and he kicked her down like dirt under his boot! Vera, if you don’t bring your husband to his senses, I don’t know what I’ll do to myself! How can you shame someone over a piece of bread?”
Vera sat in the kitchen of their city apartment, hugging her shoulders. She felt sick. Disappointment in her mother, in her aunt, and in her own spinelessness slowly hardened into a cold, heavy anger.
“Mom, she isn’t paying. We’re losing money.”
“Money is dust! Family is what matters!” her mother snapped and hung up.
To ease at least some of her guilt toward the Sokolovs, Vera decided to find them a house for August herself. Even if it was expensive, she and Maxim would cover the difference. She opened a real estate website. There were few options. Then one photograph caught her eye: “Cozy cottage for rent, fresh European-style renovation, 60,000 a month.”
Something about the fence in the picture looked familiar. Wrought-iron spikes shaped like lilies. She had seen them in only one place. Vera dialed the realtor’s number.
“Good afternoon. I’d like to view the house. Where is it located?”
“Lesnye Dali settlement, Sadovaya Street,” the agent replied cheerfully. “The owner asked me not to give the exact number before the viewing, but the landmark is a blue gate.”
Vera’s breath caught. Sadovaya Street. Blue gate. It was Tamara’s house. The very same house that, according to the story, the creditors were supposedly about to take away at any moment.
Vera did not call her mother. She called Alina, Tamara’s daughter.
“Alina, hi!” Vera’s voice sounded unnaturally cheerful, but her cousin didn’t seem to notice. “Listen, I was going through some old papers and found one of Uncle Kolya’s loan notes. There’s a strange amount written here… eighteen thousand? Was that the whole debt?”
“Oh, Vera, hi!” Alina was chewing something into the phone. “Yes, Dad was always borrowing small sums. Mom paid everything off ages ago, right after the funeral money came in. It was only eighteen thousand, from some microloan place.”
“I thought it was millions… I thought they wanted to take the house.”
“What house?” Alina laughed. “Mom had the whole place renovated in the spring. She said renting it out is profitable now. And she’s living comfortably at your place, saving money. She’s clever, my mom. Why are you asking?”
“No reason. Just admiring her business sense.”
Vera ended the call. Something inside her went still, turning into a block of ice. They had been used. Their kindness, their money, their nerves — all of it had been ground into meat for the sake of greed. Had her mother known? Probably not. Nadezhda Sergeyevna had likely been manipulated too, with her pity used against her. Or perhaps she had known and simply chosen “blood relatives” anyway. It no longer mattered.
Vera stood up and took the car keys.
“Where are you going?” Maxim asked when he saw her face.
“To take out the trash,” she said shortly. “Come with me.”
They reached the country house forty minutes later. Tamara was drinking tea on the veranda, eating it with a fresh gingerbread cookie.
“Oh, my niece! And here I thought you’d be sulking. Maxim dear, have you cooled down?”
Vera silently walked up to the table and placed her smartphone in front of her aunt. On the screen was the rental listing for the house on Sadovaya Street.
“Sixty thousand a month,” Vera said loudly. “Not a bad little addition to your pension, Aunt Tamara.”
Tamara hiccupped. Her eyes darted around, searching for an escape.
“That… that’s old! They simply didn’t take it down! And anyway, I’m doing it all for Alina…”
“Enough!” Vera roared. “Get up and get out of here! This instant!”
“How dare you speak to me like that?” Tamara shrieked, jumping to her feet. “I’m your aunt! I’ll tell Nadya!”
“Call her!” Vera grabbed a box of icing and flung it toward the gate. The plastic cracked, and a colorful mess splattered across the path. “Call Nadya, call the realtor, call the Pope if you want! You have ten minutes to make sure not a trace of you is left here! Otherwise, I’ll call the police right now and report unlawful entry and fraud! And Maxim will back me up!”
“How dare you! I’m a sick woman!”
“You’re a lying, greedy, shameless woman!” Vera advanced on her, no longer afraid to gesture with her hands. “The debt was paid! The renovation was done! And you’ve been living here, burning our electricity, poisoning my parents’ souls and my husband’s, just so you could put a few more coins in your pocket? Get out!”
Maxim stood by the door, watching with vengeful satisfaction as the “poor widow” rushed around the veranda, grabbing her belongings in armfuls.
“I’ll curse you!” Tamara hissed as she dragged her suitcase toward her old car. “You’ve forgotten your own family!”
“We remember!” Vera shouted after her, standing on the porch. “We remember far too well. That’s exactly why we’re throwing you out!”
When Tamara’s taillights disappeared around the bend, Maxim took a screwdriver and a new set of locks from his pocket.
“I always knew you had fire in you,” he said, wrapping his arms around his wife, who was still trembling from the adrenaline.
“Call the Sokolovs,” Vera exhaled. “Tell them August is theirs. Free of charge. Our treat.”
Nadezhda Sergeyevna called for another week, demanding apologies and threatening a heart attack. Vera simply stopped answering. She knew her mother would calm down once she learned the truth about the house on Sadovaya Street. And if she didn’t, that would be her choice.
Peace returned to the country house. The Sokolovs arrived two days later, happy and grateful. And in the corner of the veranda, behind a tub with a ficus, Vera found a sack of flour Tamara had forgotten.
With great satisfaction, she carried it outside and left it beyond the gate, right in the mud by the road.
No one ever mentioned her aunt’s name in that house again.
