“Natasha, just look at the tiles that arrived. I told you they were Italian. You won’t regret choosing them.”
Semyon turned the sample beneath the kitchen light, watching the smooth surface glow with a warm sandy shade. Natalia put down her phone and ran a finger over it.
It was beautiful. She truly did not regret it.
“You act as though you’ve been renovating apartments your whole life,” she said. “I would have drowned in all these shades. Beige, ivory, cappuccino, whatever else they call them…”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you. Trust your husband, and everything will turn out perfectly.” Semyon placed the tile on the table and moved a cup aside so it would not get damaged. “You should concentrate on resting. Your job is stressful enough already.”
Three months earlier, those words had sounded like genuine concern.
Natalia had indeed stepped back and let him handle everything. She came home from work exhausted—she was an accountant at a construction company and understood numbers and budgets better than most people—but she did not interfere with the builders, measurements, deliveries, or contractors.
Semyon took charge of it all.
Little by little, they transformed the apartment Natalia had inherited after the death of her aunt Valya.
Aunt Valya, her mother’s older sister, had lived alone for most of her life. She had never had children, and her husband had died many years earlier. After her death, Natalia learned that her aunt had left everything to her: a two-bedroom apartment in a brick building on a quiet street and nearly two million rubles in savings.
Natalia remembered Aunt Valya taking her to the zoo when she was little and baking cabbage pies that no one else could ever make quite the same way.
Semyon learned about the inheritance the same evening Natalia returned from the notary’s office.
“Wait. An entire apartment? And money in the bank?” he asked.
There was something unusual in his voice, but Natalia could not identify it at the time.
“Natasha, this changes everything. This is a completely different life for us now.”
“What different life? The apartment is in terrible condition. It will take at least six months to renovate.”
“Then we’ll renovate it!” Semyon moved closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll take care of everything. I know some people. There’s a reliable construction crew I can hire. You won’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll arrange it all.”
And he did.
They had been married for five years.
The apartment where they currently lived had belonged to Natalia before she ever met Semyon. She had bought it with a mortgage and made the final payment six months before their wedding.
Semyon had simply moved in with her.
They had never discussed ownership, square meters, or legal shares before. They lived together, and that had seemed enough. Why should it matter whose name appeared on the documents?
Semyon moved from one job to another. For the past year, he had worked as a sales manager at a car dealership. He earned fairly well, but he spent money just as easily.
Natalia saved.
Semyon did not.
That was how their life had always worked.
One evening, shortly after the renovation began, Semyon raised the subject over dinner.
“Listen,” he said. “So I don’t have to keep running back to you every time the workers need a signature or some office asks for paperwork, why don’t you give me power of attorney? Just for matters connected to the apartment. Then I can handle everything myself.”
Natalia stirred her tea, the spoon tapping softly against the cup.
“Power of attorney? Why make it so complicated? I already trust you.”
“That’s exactly why we should do it. There’s a lot of paperwork involved,” Semyon explained in a calm, practical tone that gave her no reason to be suspicious. “I may need certificates, agreements with the management company, changes to the utility accounts, meter documents. Otherwise, I’ll have to drag you around every time someone needs a signature. With power of attorney, I can sign everything myself. It will make your life easier.”
It sounded reasonable.
Natalia worked with documents every day and knew perfectly well how much bureaucracy could be involved.
The following week, they went to a notary, and Natalia signed a power of attorney authorizing Semyon to manage matters related to the apartment.
He carefully folded the document, placed it in a folder, and took the folder with him.
“See how simple that was?” he said with a smile. “And you were worried.”
Natalia had not been worried.
Why would she have been?
Three months passed in the noise of drills and the smell of fresh primer.
Semyon visited the apartment every other day and brought back photographs. The walls had been leveled. The new floor had been poured. The plumbing had been installed.
Natalia was delighted by every new picture.
When the renovation was finally finished and she entered the apartment for the first time, she stopped in the doorway and slowly looked around.
It was bright.
Spacious.
The kitchen was something from a magazine, complete with an island in the center. The Italian tiles formed a warm, elegant floor beneath her feet.
Everything smelled fresh and new.
“Well?” Semyon stood beside her with his hands in his pockets, clearly pleased with himself. “What do you think?”
“Sema, this is…” Natalia walked into the living room, touched the windowsill, and looked outside.
The courtyard was peaceful. Old trees surrounded a children’s playground.
“This is better than I imagined. Honestly.”
At that moment, a simple idea came together in her mind.
“Listen,” Natalia said, turning toward her husband. “Why don’t we move here?”
“Move where?”
“Here. Into this apartment. It’s better than the one we live in now. The neighborhood is quieter, and look at this kitchen. We could rent out my old apartment. I calculated that we could easily get forty thousand rubles a month for it. That would be steady income. Why leave it empty?”
Semyon said nothing.
He stood near the window, and his expression changed as though Natalia had said something completely inappropriate.
“We’re not moving here,” he finally said.
“What do you mean?”
Natalia smiled at first, assuming she had misunderstood him.
“Sema, what are you talking about? This place is beautiful. You spent three months working on it.”
“I said we’re not moving.” Semyon turned away from the window. “And actually, we need to have a serious conversation.”
Something in his tone made Natalia uneasy.
She frowned and tilted her head, studying her husband as though she were seeing him for the first time.
“A conversation about what?”
“The apartment.”
Semyon walked across the empty room, his footsteps echoing against the bare walls.
“I’ve been thinking. It would be better to sell it.”
For several seconds, Natalia simply stared at him, unable to understand what he had just said.
“Sell it?” she repeated. “Sell what? This apartment? The one you’ve just finished renovating?”
“Yes, this one.” His voice grew more confident, as though he had made the decision long ago and was merely informing her. “Think how much we could get for it now, especially with a renovation like this. Why do we need two apartments? Renting one out is a hassle. There are taxes, tenants, repairs. Something will always break. We should sell it and be done with it.”
“Wait.”
Natalia lifted one hand as though trying to stop the stream of words.
“What are you talking about? This is my apartment. It belonged to Aunt Valya, and she left it to me. Why are you deciding whether it should be sold?”
And then Semyon did something that split that peaceful afternoon in the bright apartment into a clear before and after.
He smirked.
It was only a slight twist at the corner of his mouth, the kind of smile worn by someone who believed he had already won.
“We’ll sell the apartment and split the money,” he said. “Having all of this to yourself is a little too generous, don’t you think?”
Heat rushed into Natalia’s face as she fought to contain her anger.
She stood in the middle of her own apartment, the place she had just imagined building a new life in, and listened to her husband divide her inheritance.
“What did you just say?” Her voice was quiet but firm. “Say it again.”
“You heard me.” Semyon shrugged. “We’ll divide it equally. I spent three months breaking my back here too. I supervised the crew. I chose the materials. Do you think all of that work has no value? Half of it belongs to me. That’s only fair.”
“Half?”
Natalia gave a short, bitter laugh.
“You renovated my apartment using my money. Every material was paid for from Aunt Valya’s inheritance. You did not contribute a single ruble. And now you believe half the apartment belongs to you?”
“What about my work? My time?” Semyon raised his voice. “I sacrificed three months for this apartment. I earned my share.”
“You earned a thank-you. Nothing more.”
“Well, we’ll see who earned what.”
Semyon folded his arms across his chest, and that same smug expression returned.
It made Natalia’s stomach tighten.
“I didn’t ask for power of attorney for no reason, Natasha. According to the paperwork, I have full authority over this apartment. If I decide to sell it, I can. I won’t even need your permission.”
There it was.
The real reason behind everything.
Natalia looked at her husband as the pieces finally came together in her mind, one after another, like a puzzle she had been unable to solve until that moment.
His sudden attentiveness had begun the evening he learned about the inheritance.
His insistence on obtaining power of attorney.
His eagerness to handle the renovation and all the paperwork.
He had not done it for her.
He had done it for control.
“So that’s why you wanted the power of attorney,” Natalia said slowly. “It was never about the renovation. It was about controlling the apartment.”
“Call it whatever you like.” Semyon waved dismissively. “The fact remains that I have the document, and I intend to use it. I can find a buyer within a week, especially after a renovation like this. We’ll divide the money equally. And don’t even think about getting in my way. Everything is legal. The power of attorney is valid and notarized. You signed it yourself, remember?”
“I remember.”
Natalia exhaled slowly.
Strangely, her anger was beginning to disappear. In its place came a cold, extraordinary clarity.
That was what happened when uncertainty finally ended and you understood exactly what kind of person stood in front of you.
“I haven’t forgotten anything, Sema. And do you know what? Go ahead. Sell it. Go tomorrow and try.”
Semyon stopped.
That was not the reaction he had expected.
He had prepared himself for tears, pleading, and panic.
Instead, his wife was giving him permission.
“So… you agree?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m telling you to try.”
Natalia walked past him to the window and rested her hands on the sill, turning her back toward him.
Outside, an elderly woman scattered crumbs for pigeons. The birds crowded around her feet.
For some reason, Natalia thought of Aunt Valya. She had loved pigeons too and always carried pieces of bread in her handbag.
“Go to the notary. Contact an estate agent. Find a buyer. Then come back and tell me how it went.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“No.”
Natalia turned around.
“I simply did something about a month ago. You were so obsessed with that power of attorney that I began to suspect something.”
Semyon’s body stiffened.
The smirk slowly faded from his face like frost melting from a window.
“What did you do?”
“I placed a restriction on property transactions,” Natalia replied calmly, explaining it with the same clear tone she used when discussing financial reports at work. “Do you know what that means? A property owner can submit a request to the state property registry stating that no transaction may be registered without the owner’s personal participation. Once that notice is added to the official record, no one can sell the property without me being physically present. Not even someone holding a notarized power of attorney. I must appear in person with my passport.”
Semyon said nothing.
The muscles in his jaw tightened.
“You…” he began, but could not finish.
“Your document is now nothing more than a piece of paper,” Natalia continued. “You can walk into the registration office holding that power of attorney, and they will tell you that the owner has prohibited transactions without her personal participation. Without me, nothing can happen. I could revoke the power of attorney tomorrow, but I do not even need to. The restriction blocks everything. So you have nothing to sell, Sema. Absolutely nothing.”
Silence filled the apartment.
Somewhere behind the wall, a neighbor turned on music so quietly that it was barely audible.
Semyon paced from one side of the room to the other, then stopped abruptly.
“You did it deliberately,” he said through clenched teeth. “You knew from the beginning. You set me up.”
“I set you up?”
Natalia’s eyebrows rose in disbelief.
“Are you serious? You spent three months pretending to be a devoted husband so you could get control of my apartment. You are standing here trying to divide my inheritance. And somehow I’m the one who betrayed you?”
“You didn’t trust me!” Semyon shouted. “A wife is supposed to trust her husband! You went behind my back and filed papers with the registry.”
“I didn’t trust you?”
Natalia stepped toward him, and something in her voice made him instinctively move back.
“I signed a power of attorney for you. I gave you the keys. I allowed you complete access to my apartment, and not once—not one single time—did I remind you that it belonged to me. And what did you do? The moment you smelled an inheritance, you suddenly became the most caring husband in the world. Did you really think I was blind?”
“You’re greedy,” Semyon muttered, looking away. “That’s what you are. Money, apartments, ownership. Your aunt died, and you were probably pleased.”
The words hung between them.
For a moment, Natalia froze.
Then she stepped closer and looked him directly in the eyes.
“Do not speak about Aunt Valya,” she said softly. “Do you hear me? Don’t you dare. You never met her while she was alive. At her funeral, you spent the entire time staring at your phone. She took me to the zoo. She baked pies for me. So don’t accuse me of greed when you are the one standing here trying to claim half of her apartment.”
Semyon had no answer.
He knew it.
After a long silence, he grabbed the folder from the windowsill—the folder containing the power of attorney—and tucked it under his arm.
“We’ll talk at home,” he said sharply.
“We will,” Natalia replied. “We definitely will.”
They traveled home separately.
Semyon drove his car, while Natalia called a taxi. She could not bear the thought of sitting beside him in the same vehicle.
The city passed outside the window as evening settled over the streets and the lamps began to glow.
Natalia watched them and understood that something had ended.
Completely.
At home, Semyon tried a different approach.
“Natasha, come on,” he began as soon as he entered the apartment.
His voice had become gentle, almost affectionate.
“We both lost our tempers. Let’s talk like adults. I didn’t mean anything bad. I honestly thought selling would be more profitable. Fine, we won’t sell it. Forget the whole thing. We can move there like you suggested and rent out this apartment.”
Natalia removed her coat and hung it on the hook.
Her movements were slow and controlled.
“It’s too late, Sema.”
“What do you mean, too late?”
He moved toward her.
“We are husband and wife. We are a family. Are you really going to destroy everything over an apartment?”
“This is not about the apartment.”
Natalia walked into the kitchen and switched on the kettle.
The motions were familiar and ordinary, as though nothing had happened, although her hands trembled slightly.
“It is about you. Do you understand? I’m not devastated because of the square meters. They’re only property. What hurts is realizing that I lived with a man who was apparently waiting for something valuable to fall into my hands so he could take half of it.”
“I wasn’t waiting for anything!”
“You were.”
Natalia turned to face him.
“Sema, I see you clearly now. Given the opportunity, you would divide this apartment too. The one you’re standing in right now. But this one is also mine. I bought it before our marriage. I took out the mortgage, and I made the final payment six months before the wedding. You moved into a completed home. You never paid a single mortgage installment because I had already finished paying it.”
Semyon opened his mouth, but Natalia raised her hand.
“Don’t. Don’t start talking about your labor or your time again. I’m tired. And I’ve made a decision. Pack your things.”
“What?”
Semyon blinked.
“You heard me.”
Natalia spoke without tears or shouting. Her calmness was more frightening than anger.
“This is my apartment, and I want you to leave. Today.”
“You’re throwing me out?” Semyon’s voice rose. “Out of my own home?”
“Out of my home.”
Natalia switched off the boiling kettle.
“Where you go is your concern. Stay with your mother. Stay with your friend Vitya. The two of you are inseparable anyway. I don’t care. But you are not living here anymore.”
Semyon paced around the kitchen, gripping the back of a chair and then the edge of the table.
“You have no right! I’m registered here!”
“No, you’re not.”
Natalia shook her head.
“You never registered, remember? You kept putting it off and saying there was plenty of time. Apparently, there wasn’t. Legally, you have no connection to this apartment at all. You are simply someone who lived here for five years.”
That finally broke him.
Semyon stopped, breathing heavily, as the reality of his position settled in.
He had no share in either apartment.
He had no official registration.
And the power of attorney he had counted on was now useless.
“You’ll regret this,” he hissed. “I’ll file for divorce. I’ll take you to court and claim half of everything. It’s marital property.”
“What marital property, Sema?”
Natalia gave him a tired smile.
“Both apartments are my separate property. One was purchased before marriage. The other was inherited. Neither premarital property nor an inheritance is divided in a divorce. Not under any circumstances. You can go through ten court cases if you like. Even I know that, and I’m an accountant, not a lawyer. Go ahead and file for divorce. In fact, I’ll save you the trouble and file myself.”
The next several days felt like a siege.
Semyon moved in with his mother, Tamara Stepanovna, a woman with permanently pursed lips and a habit of evaluating everything in terms of money.
From her home, the phone calls began.
At first, Semyon tried persuasion.
Then threats.
Then persuasion again.
“Natalia dear,” his mother said in an overly sweet voice.
In five years, Natalia had spoken with her on the phone perhaps three times.
“Why are you behaving like this? Marriage requires patience. Semyon lost his temper. That happens to everyone. He acted out of love. A man is supposed to be the head of the household. Naturally, he should be the one making decisions.”
“Tamara Stepanovna,” Natalia replied calmly, “the person in charge of a property is its owner. And the owner here is me.”
“How can you be so heartless?” her mother-in-law snapped, instantly abandoning the sweet tone. “You threw my son into the street after everything he did for you. He worked so hard renovating that apartment.”
“He was working for himself,” Natalia said and ended the call.
The calls continued day after day.
Semyon sent messages that alternated between anger and self-pity.
One moment he wrote, “You’ll come crawling back.”
The next, “Natasha, I understand everything now. Let’s begin again.”
Natalia read the messages and did not answer.
On the third day, she did something Semyon had never expected.
She filed for divorce herself.
She did not wait for him to gather the courage to “punish” her through the courts.
She prepared the documents—paperwork had never frightened her—and submitted the application.
She also visited the notary and officially revoked the power of attorney.
For complete peace of mind, she confirmed the transaction restrictions on both apartments.
When Semyon learned that she had filed first, he called in a rage.
“What are you doing? I haven’t even decided anything yet, and you’re already submitting documents!”
“Why delay it?” Natalia said with a shrug, though he could not see her. “You wanted a divorce. Now it’s arranged. You don’t even have to prepare anything. Just appear and sign.”
“I’m not coming!”
“Then the court will dissolve the marriage without you. Either way, the divorce will happen, Sema. Two hearings will probably be enough.”
Silence followed.
Then Semyon spoke quietly.
There was no threat in his voice now. Only confusion.
“Natasha, is this really how it ends? Five years, and that’s it? Because of one conversation?”
For a moment, Natalia thought about his question.
Not because she doubted her decision, but because she suddenly felt something close to grief.
Not for him.
For what they had once been.
There had been happy years. They had traveled to the seaside in her car. They had made mulled wine in winter and laughed together at ridiculous television shows.
Those memories were real.
But now another image covered them all: Semyon standing in the empty renovated apartment, smiling like a man preparing to divide something that had never belonged to him.
“It isn’t because of one conversation, Sema,” Natalia finally replied. “It’s because of what was behind that conversation. You didn’t say those things accidentally. You said what you truly believed. And you had probably believed it for a long time. I simply heard it clearly for the first time.”
The divorce was finalized quickly.
They had no children, and strangely enough, Natalia felt almost grateful for that. There was no child to divide between households and no childhood to break apart.
There was no property to divide either.
The court confirmed what Natalia had known all along: the apartment she had purchased before the marriage, the inherited apartment, and the money Aunt Valya had left her remained entirely hers.
Despite all his threats about lawyers, Semyon never filed a single claim.
Any competent attorney would have explained the truth during the first consultation: there was nothing for him to take.
Natalia eventually moved into Aunt Valya’s apartment, the one with the Italian floor tiles and the dream kitchen.
It felt strange at first to live in a place renovated by someone who had become a stranger.
For a while, Natalia kept noticing traces of him.
He had chosen that wall color.
He had brought those tiles.
He had leaned against the kitchen island while telling her that a wife should trust her husband.
But after two weeks, those associations began to fade.
The apartment became simply her home.
Bright.
Quiet.
Entirely hers.
She rented out her old apartment to a young couple who were calm, tidy, and had a cat.
The rent was forty-two thousand rubles a month, almost exactly as Natalia had calculated.
The money arrived in her account each month, and she left it untouched, saving it for something she had not yet decided upon.
One afternoon, while unpacking boxes in the new kitchen, Natalia found an old photograph.
Aunt Valya was still young in the picture, wearing a polka-dot dress and squinting into the sunlight. Beside her stood five-year-old Natasha in a sunhat, holding an ice cream.
The zoo.
That summer.
Natalia studied the photograph for a long time and gently ran her finger along its faded edge.
Then she placed it on the windowsill where the sunlight could reach it.
Outside, pigeons were gathering in the courtyard.
The elderly woman with the bag of crumbs came out every morning at exactly nine o’clock.
The kettle clicked off in the new kitchen, releasing a small cloud of steam.
Natalia poured herself a cup of tea and sat beside the window.
Her phone was silent.
Semyon had finally stopped calling, and Tamara Stepanovna had disappeared from her life as though she had never existed.
The silence around Natalia did not feel empty.
It felt peaceful and lived-in.
Outside the window, crumbs scattered across the pavement, pigeons fluttered around one another, and a warm rectangle of sunlight fell across the Italian tiles.
Natalia took a sip of tea and thought that Aunt Valya would probably have approved.
She would have approved of the apartment.
Of the tiles.
And of the fact that Natasha had not allowed anyone to divide what had never been theirs to divide.
