Galina Petrovna arrived carrying a folder and wearing a smile. She said it was nothing more than a formality. But Rita read every single line, and then her hands did what her voice could not.
Rita heard the doorbell, but for some reason she did not get up immediately. She remained seated on the stool beside the window, holding a mug of cold tea and watching pigeons pace along the ledge of the building across the courtyard.
The bell rang again.
Two sharp, insistent rings.
Only Galina Petrovna rang like that.
Rita opened the door.
Her mother-in-law stood on the landing in a beige blouse tucked neatly into a gray skirt. She held a brown cardboard folder in her hands. Her low-heeled shoes had been polished until they shone. Her lips were freshly colored, and the heavy sweetness of her perfume entered the apartment before she did.
“Rita, dear, I’ll only be a minute.”
She always said that.
Only a minute.
Then she would sit for two hours, drink tea, move her spoon from one side of the saucer to the other, and explain the proper way to cook borscht, even though Rita had been making it for nine years and had never once asked for advice.
“Come in, Galina Petrovna.”
“Oh, I won’t take my shoes off. I won’t be long.”
But she was already removing them.
Already walking toward the kitchen.
Already inspecting the sink, the stove, and the towel hanging from its hook.
Rita closed the door and followed her.
Galina Petrovna sat down at the kitchen table, placed the folder in front of her, and smoothed it with her palm. Her fingers were dry, her nails trimmed short and coated with clear polish. On her ring finger, she still wore the wedding band she had never removed, even after her husband’s death.
“Would you like some tea?”
“I wouldn’t say no. But business first.”
Rita switched on the kettle. The button clicked, and the heating element began to hum. Familiar household sounds were useful. She could hide behind them.
“I’ve brought you a document. A lawyer prepared it, so everything is perfectly legal. I only need your signature.”
Galina Petrovna opened the folder.
Inside lay a printed sheet with a stamp at the bottom and a blank line for a signature.
Rita did not pick it up. She looked down at it from where she stood near the stove.
“What is it?”
“Consent to transfer ownership of the apartment. Nothing important. Just a formality.”
The kettle boiled.
Rita switched it off but did not pour the water. She stood with her back to her mother-in-law, feeling something tighten between her shoulder blades like a drawn wire.
“Which apartment?”
“This one, Rita. This apartment.”
It was a two-room apartment on the fourth floor of a brick building. Thirty-eight square meters, according to the official documents. The balcony overlooked poplar trees and a playground where Rita’s son, Lyosha, stayed on the swings every evening until it grew dark.
Rita and Vadim had bought the apartment six years earlier.
The mortgage had been registered in both their names, and they had split the payments equally. Rita worked as a receptionist at a dental clinic, while Vadim took installation jobs at construction sites. They kept their money in a single envelope on the top shelf of the wardrobe, hidden behind a stack of towels.
Then Vadim left.
Not for another woman. Not after some terrible argument.
One morning, he simply got out of bed, packed a backpack, and said he needed time alone. He was confused, he explained. He would return once he had figured things out.
That had been eighteen months ago.
He never came back.
But he never filed for divorce either.
Once a month, he transferred money for Lyosha to Rita’s bank card without sending a message. Every Sunday, he called his son, spoke to him for three minutes, and asked about school.
He never called Rita.
And she paid the mortgage.
Alone.
Twenty-seven thousand rubles every month.
With each payment, the envelope on the top shelf grew thinner.
Galina Petrovna folded her hands on the table, one over the other, as though she were attending an official meeting.
“Vadim asked me to bring this. He’s in Krasnodar now, working rotational shifts. He needs money for a new home. He wants the apartment transferred to me, and then I’ll decide what is best.”
“What is best for whom?”
“For everyone, Rita. For everyone.”
Rita finally poured the tea.
Two mugs.
A white one with a chipped rim for herself and one decorated with cherries for her mother-in-law.
She placed them on the table and sat opposite Galina Petrovna.
“Galina Petrovna, the apartment belongs to both Vadim and me. I’ve been paying the mortgage by myself for a year and a half.”
“I know, sweetheart. But Vadim paid too. For the first four years. And your father-in-law and I helped with the down payment, remember?”
There it was.
Rita had been waiting for it.
The down payment.
Four hundred thousand rubles that Galina Petrovna and her late husband had contributed toward the purchase.
Galina Petrovna brought up that figure whenever she wanted something, like a winning card she could pull from her sleeve.
“You helped us. I remember. We were grateful.”
“That’s exactly my point. We helped you. Now you should help us.”
She pushed the sheet closer to Rita.
The paper whispered across the plastic tablecloth.
Lyosha came home from school at half past one. He slammed the front door, dropped his backpack in the hallway, and shouted:
“Mom, I’m hungry!”
He was eight years old, thin, with ears that stuck out and a scratch on his chin from falling off his bicycle the day before. His light brown hair always pointed in different directions, no matter how carefully Rita tried to smooth it.
He ran into the kitchen and stopped when he saw his grandmother.
“Hi, Grandma Galya.”
“Hello, Lyoshenka. Look how much you’ve grown.”
She said that every time she visited.
As though he grew in sudden leaps between her appearances.
“Mom, what’s for lunch?”
“There’s soup in the pot. Heat it up. I’ll come in a minute.”
He disappeared into the other room.
There was the clatter of a plate, followed by the hum of the microwave.
Rita watched him go and then turned back to her mother-in-law.
“Galina Petrovna, I’m not signing this.”
Silence.
Her mother-in-law blinked once, slowly. Then she raised her mug, took a sip, and placed it back down precisely inside the damp circle it had already left on the tablecloth.
“Rita, dear, you don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“No, you don’t. You aren’t giving up the apartment. You’re transferring it temporarily, until Vadim gets back on his feet.”
“Vadim left eighteen months ago. He is on his feet. He’s in Krasnodar, working. I’m here with his child, paying the mortgage.”
Galina Petrovna tightened her lips. The corners of her mouth drooped, and the lines around her nose deepened.
Rita knew that expression.
It meant: You are ungrateful.
After Vadim left, Galina Petrovna had visited every week. She brought a pot of borscht, a bag of apples, and advice.
The advice never changed.
Wait for him.
He will come back.
Men need time.
Do not pressure him.
Rita had not pressured him.
Rita had worked.
Every morning, she took Lyosha to school and hurried to the clinic. She spent the day behind the reception desk handling appointments, patient files, phone calls, and demanding clients. In the evening, she collected her son, cooked dinner, checked his homework, washed clothes, and ironed them.
She went to bed at eleven and woke at six.
Sometimes, lying awake in the darkness, she counted.
Not sheep.
Money.
Her salary was forty-two thousand rubles.
The mortgage took twenty-seven.
Utilities took another five and a half.
After food, Lyosha’s activities, and the shoes he wore out every two months, so little remained that every ruble had to be calculated.
Vadim sent fifteen thousand.
Child support, though not ordered by a court. It was simply their informal agreement.
Once, Rita had asked him over the phone whether he could contribute his share of the mortgage.
“Not right now,” he had said.
Then he ended the call.
Not right now.
For eighteen months.
“Rita, try to understand. I’m not your enemy.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“Then why are you being so stubborn? Sign it and let this be finished. Vadim can sell his share, and you’ll keep yours. Or we can buy you out, as a family.”
“As a family?”
Rita stood and paced across the kitchen.
Three steps to the refrigerator.
Three steps back.
The room was barely five and a half square meters. There was nowhere to turn around.
“Galina Petrovna, acting like a family would mean your son helping me pay the mortgage. Or at least calling me himself and explaining what he plans to do, instead of sending his mother with a piece of paper.”
Her mother-in-law straightened in her chair. Her back became rigid.
“He couldn’t come himself. Talking to you is difficult for him.”
“Difficult for him?”
“Yes, Rita. It’s difficult. He’s going through a hard time.”
“He’s going through a hard time in Krasnodar. I’m going through one here, with his son, his mortgage, and the unpaid utility bills he left behind.”
Rita did not raise her voice.
She spoke evenly, as though reading out a grocery list.
But the fingers gripping the back of the chair had turned white at the knuckles.
Lyosha finished his soup and returned carrying his plate.
“Mom, can I go to the playground?”
“Have you finished your homework?”
“Almost. I still have math.”
“Math first.”
“But, Mooom.”
“Lyosha.”
He sighed, picked up the plate, and went away.
Soon, they heard him muttering and turning pages in his textbook.
Galina Petrovna watched him leave.
“He’s a good boy. Exactly like his father.”
Rita did not answer.
She turned on the faucet and rinsed Lyosha’s plate. The water was cold, but she did not wait for it to warm.
“Like his father, you say. I hope not entirely.”
Her mother-in-law pressed her lips together but remained silent.
That was unusual.
Usually, Galina Petrovna always had something to say.
Rita returned to the table and finally picked up the document.
The print was small and tightly packed.
The lawyer had done a careful job.
She began to read.
“I, Margarita Olegovna Zotova, hereby give my consent to the transfer of ownership rights to the residential property located at…”
The address followed.
Their address.
Then came the apartment description, its cadastral number, and its floor space.
“…in favor of Galina Petrovna Zotova.”
Not Vadim.
Galina Petrovna.
Rita read the sentence again.
Then one more time.
The words remained unchanged.
Galina Petrovna Zotova.
“Galina Petrovna.”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“This says the apartment will be transferred to you. Not to Vadim.”
“Well, yes. I already explained. First it goes to me, and afterward…”
“Afterward what?”
“We’ll work something out. As a family.”
There was that phrase again.
As a family.
Like beautiful wrapping paper around an empty box.
Rita placed the document on the table.
She smoothed it with her palm exactly as her mother-in-law had done five minutes earlier.
She felt the roughness of the sheet beneath her fingers, the sharp edge, the faint texture of printer ink.
She remembered standing in this same apartment six years before, when it was still empty. No furniture. No curtains.
Vadim had put an arm around her shoulders and said:
“Ours.”
Rita had rested her cheek against his jacket, which smelled of cigarettes and construction dust, and believed him.
Ours.
Then came the sofa.
Then the kitchen cabinets.
Then the crib.
Then Lyosha.
Then the wallpaper in the hallway, which they had hung together while arguing over air bubbles.
Then the bathroom shelf that Vadim installed crookedly and had to redo twice.
Then came the backpack in the hallway and the word confused.
What had once been theirs became hers alone.
Only the mortgage remained shared.
Galina Petrovna finished her tea, set down her mug, and looked at Rita with the expression she probably considered motherly and kind.
Rita knew there was calculation beneath that softness.
Not cruelty.
Not malice.
Simply habit.
Galina Petrovna had solved problems this way all her life: quietly, sweetly, over tea, calling people sweetheart.
“Rita, I understand that you’re hurt. But think about Lyosha. He needs his father. Once Vadim gets back on his feet, perhaps he’ll return.”
“What does the apartment have to do with that?”
“If you meet him halfway, he’ll see that you don’t hold a grudge. He’ll see that you’re a wise woman. Men appreciate that.”
Rita felt something hot rise from her stomach into her throat.
It was not anger.
It was something older than anger.
Exhaustion.
Eighteen months of exhaustion, accumulated layer upon layer like dust on a high shelf.
“Galina Petrovna, Vadim left. I didn’t throw him out. He stood up one morning and walked away. I don’t hold a grudge because I don’t have time for one. I work, pay for the apartment, and raise our child. And now you’ve come here asking me to surrender the home where my son and I live so that your son can buy himself another place in Krasnodar.”
“Not surrender it. Transfer it.”
“To you. Not to me. Not to Lyosha. To you.”
A pause followed.
The refrigerator began to hum.
A dog barked behind the neighboring wall and then fell silent.
Galina Petrovna lowered her gaze for the first time since the conversation began. Her fingers found the edge of a napkin and began to twist it.
“Boris Ilyich left me nothing but my pension. You know I sold my one-room apartment to help Vadim with that business venture. The one that failed. Now I live with my sister in a walk-through room, and every day she reminds me of it.”
Rita said nothing.
“I’m sixty-two years old, Rita. I have nowhere to go. If this apartment were registered in my name, even if only on paper, I could… I don’t know. I could feel that I still had something.”
Her voice broke slightly on the final word, as though it had caught against something sharp.
Rita looked at her.
At the dry hands.
The wedding ring.
The beige blouse buttoned all the way to the neck.
The painted lips that now trembled almost imperceptibly.
And Rita felt something.
Not pity.
Something else.
Understanding.
Heavy as a stone in a pocket.
She understood loneliness.
She understood the fear of being left with nothing.
She understood what it meant to lie awake at night and count, count, count.
But understanding did not change the facts.
“Galina Petrovna, I am sorry for you. I truly am. But this document was not prepared to help you. It was prepared so that I would lose my rights to the apartment where I live with my child.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I read it. It says full transfer of ownership. There are no conditions, no deadline, and no procedure for transferring it back. The lawyer who drafted it was not working in my interests.”
Her mother-in-law lifted her head.
“Since when are you a lawyer?”
“I’m not. I’m a dental receptionist. But I know how to read.”
Galina Petrovna stood.
The chair scraped against the linoleum.
“Vadim will be disappointed.”
“Vadim can call me himself. I’ve been waiting for eighteen months.”
“He’ll call.”
“Maybe he will. Or perhaps he’ll send you with another document.”
Her mother-in-law froze.
Rita saw the muscles in her jaw tighten beneath the thin skin.
“You’ve become hard, Rita.”
“I’m not hard. I’m tired. Those are different things.”
Galina Petrovna went into the hallway and put on her shoes, fastening the straps.
Rita stood near the door with one shoulder against the wall.
“You’re forgetting the folder.”
“Keep it. Perhaps you’ll change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
Her mother-in-law looked at her for a long time.
So long that Rita could hear Lyosha reciting multiplication tables in the other room.
“Seven times eight is fifty-six… seven times nine…”
“You’re abandoning my son,” Galina Petrovna said.
“Your son abandoned me, Galina Petrovna. Eighteen months ago. With a backpack and the word confused.”
The door closed behind her.
A cloud of heavy perfume remained in the hallway.
Rita stood there breathing it in for a moment. Then she opened the kitchen window.
The brown folder remained on the table with the document inside.
Rita sat down.
She removed the sheet and read it again.
Slowly.
Line by line.
“I, Margarita Olegovna Zotova, hereby give my consent…”
Her fingers tightened around the paper.
At first gently.
Then harder.
She was not thinking.
She was not making a decision.
Her hands simply did what her mind could not yet put into words.
The sound was quiet.
The page tore neatly in half.
Then in half again.
And once more.
Four pieces fell onto the tablecloth beside the mug, where a wet ring remained.
Lyosha called from the other room:
“Mom! What’s seven times nine?”
“Sixty-three.”
“Right! That’s what I thought!”
Rita gathered the torn pieces, stacked them neatly, and placed them inside the empty folder.
She closed it, carried it into the hallway, and left it beside the door.
Then she returned to the kitchen and poured herself fresh tea.
Hot tea.
The sun was setting, filling the room with orange light that spread over the plastic tablecloth, the mug, and her hands.
Her hands were not trembling.
That evening, after Lyosha fell asleep, Rita sat alone in the kitchen and thought.
Not about the document.
Not about her mother-in-law.
About other things.
She needed to pay the electricity bill in the morning.
Lyosha had a parent-teacher meeting on Thursday.
His winter boots were already too small, even though winter was still four months away, so she needed to look for a discounted pair.
She thought about the fact that Vadim still had not called.
She remembered the four hundred thousand rubles that her in-laws had contributed.
She remembered them and always would.
But four hundred thousand rubles did not equal the two rooms where her child slept.
Then the phone rang.
Unknown number.
Rita answered.
“Rita, it’s Vadim.”
His voice was quiet.
Distant.
It was not the voice that had said ours six years earlier.
“Mother told me you refused to sign.”
“I refused.”
“Why?”
“Because the apartment belongs to me too. And to Lyosha.”
Silence.
She could hear footsteps at his end, the slam of a door, and the muted sound of a television.
A different life.
His life.
“Rita, I need money.”
“So do I.”
“I can’t keep doing this. The mortgage is crushing me.”
“You aren’t paying the mortgage, Vadim. I am.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
Rita counted the seconds.
She reached fourteen.
“I want to sell my share.”
“Then sell it. Legally. Get it valued, notify me properly, and follow the required procedure. I have the first right to buy it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read about it.”
He gave a small, surprised laugh.
Not cruelly.
More as though he had not expected it.
“You’ve changed.”
“No. I simply started reading the things people ask me to sign.”
She ended the call.
The screen went dark.
For a second, her reflection appeared in the black glass: a thin face, dark circles under her eyes, and hair tied into a ponytail that had slipped sideways.
Thirty-one years old.
Eight years of marriage.
Eighteen months of a loneliness that did not entirely feel like loneliness because Lyosha was beside her.
She stood, went to the window, and closed it.
The evening air was growing cold. Autumn was already approaching, though the calendar still said August.
The poplar trees rustled in the courtyard.
The swings on the playground creaked even though no one was using them.
Only the wind.
Rita washed both mugs.
The white one with the chipped rim and the one decorated with cherries.
She placed them side by side in the drying rack.
Then she changed her mind.
She left her own mug where it was and put the cherry-patterned one inside the cupboard, behind a stack of plates.
Not deliberately.
It simply felt right.
She wiped the tablecloth.
The damp ring disappeared.
The table became clean and empty, as though no one had ever sat there.
The following morning, Rita walked Lyosha to school.
On the way, he told her that Dima from another class had brought a hamster to school. It had escaped, and everyone searched under their desks until the cleaner found it inside a bucket.
Rita listened and nodded.
She held his hand.
It was small and warm, with an ink stain on the index finger.
At the school entrance, she crouched down and straightened his collar.
“Mom, what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Go on. Don’t forget your backpack.”
He ran away.
His schoolbag bounced against his back, and Rita watched until he disappeared through the doors.
Then she went to work.
She followed her usual route through the courtyard, past the pharmacy, and toward the bus stop.
The bus arrived four minutes later.
Rita sat beside the window and took out her phone.
She opened the notes app.
For the past month, she had been keeping a list there:
“Lawyer — free consultation at the public services center.
Property registry extract.
Statement of remaining mortgage balance.
Apply for child support if he stops paying voluntarily.”
Four items.
Two had already been crossed out.
Rita crossed out the third.
She had collected the mortgage statement the previous day. It was folded into quarters and tucked inside the side pocket of her bag.
Only one item remained.
The bus swayed as it turned.
Outside the window passed a billboard, trees, and someone’s balcony with laundry hanging from a line.
Rita put away her phone and rested her forehead against the glass.
It was cold.
That felt good.
The clinic was quiet that morning.
Two patients canceled their appointments, and another rescheduled.
Rita sat behind the reception desk filling out medical records when Natasha, the second receptionist who worked alternating shifts with her, arrived.
“Rita, you seem different today.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know. Calm. As though you finally got some sleep.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then you must have fallen in love.”
“Natasha.”
“All right, all right.”
Natasha was seven years older than Rita. Divorced, with two children, an elderly mother to support, and a mortgage she paid by working two jobs.
On weekends, she also did manicures from home.
Her hands always smelled faintly of acetone.
“Yesterday, I tore up a document my mother-in-law brought for me to sign,” Rita said.
“What kind of document?”
“Consent to transfer the apartment into her name.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“What did your mother-in-law do?”
“She left. She said I might change my mind.”
“And will you?”
“No.”
Natasha remained silent for five seconds.
Then she gave a low, approving laugh.
Not like Vadim had over the phone.
This sounded different.
Respectful.
“Well done, Zotova.”
“I didn’t do anything impressive. I simply read what was written.”
Rita’s mother called that afternoon.
Rita stood in the clinic corridor with the phone pressed against her ear and listened.
“Rita, Galina Petrovna called me. She was crying. She said you refused to help her.”
“Mom.”
“I’m not taking her side. I only want to understand.”
“She brought me a document that would transfer the apartment to her. Not to Vadim. To her. No conditions. No deadline.”
“My God.”
“That was my reaction too.”
“And Vadim?”
“He called last night. He wants to sell his share.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him to do it legally. I have the first right to buy.”
“How do you know all this?”
Rita smiled for the first time in two days.
“I read, Mom. I simply read.”
Her mother was silent for a moment.
Then she said softly:
“Your father would have been proud of you.”
Rita did not answer.
She pressed the phone more tightly to her ear and closed her eyes.
Behind her eyelids, everything was dark, warm, and very quiet.
On Friday, she went to see a lawyer.
It was a free consultation at the public services center, booked in advance.
The lawyer was a man of around forty-five with a receding hairline and a wrinkled jacket that smelled of coffee and paper.
He read the documents Rita laid out before him.
“You’re in a strong position. The apartment is jointly owned, and you are making the mortgage payments. If your husband wants to sell his share, you do indeed have the first right to purchase it.”
“What if I can’t afford to buy it?”
“Then he may sell it to someone else, but only after he formally notifies you in writing and you either decline or fail to act within one month.”
“What if he tries to transfer it through his mother?”
“That would be impossible without your notarized consent. The document she brought you would have no legal force without notarization. A signature made at your kitchen table would mean nothing.”
“So even if I had signed it…”
“It would not have completed the transfer. But it would have been the first step. Later, they might have brought you another document, this time at a notary’s office.”
Rita nodded.
Her hands rested calmly on her knees.
“What should I do next?”
“File for division of marital property and an official divorce. Have your ownership share formally established and document that you have been paying the mortgage. You should also apply for court-ordered child support if the voluntary payments are insufficient.”
“They’re enough.”
“For now. Your son is growing. His expenses will grow too.”
The lawyer was right.
Rita already knew it.
Boots.
School activities.
Textbooks.
A winter coat.
Everything grew along with Lyosha.
Early Saturday morning, Rita sat on the balcony drinking coffee.
Lyosha was still asleep.
It was shortly after seven, and the courtyard was empty. Only a cat ran along the path and disappeared beneath a parked car.
Her phone rang.
Galina Petrovna.
Rita watched the name flashing on the screen.
She did not have to answer.
She could let it ring.
But she answered.
“Rita, I want to apologize.”
Silence.
Rita said nothing.
“I shouldn’t have come with that document. Vadim asked me to, and I… I didn’t think.”
“You did think, Galina Petrovna. You thought about Vadim. And about yourself. That’s natural.”
“Are you angry?”
“No. But I won’t change my decision.”
“I know.”
Silence again.
Rita could hear a clock ticking in the background.
An old clock with a pendulum, the same one that had hung in Galina Petrovna’s apartment before she sold it.
“Rita, may I still come and see Lyosha? Like before. On Saturdays.”
“Yes. You’re his grandmother.”
“Thank you.”
The call ended.
Rita’s coffee had gone cold.
She drank it anyway, down to the last drop.
The folder still stood in the hallway beside the door.
Brown cardboard, with the torn pieces inside.
Rita had not thrown it away.
Not intentionally.
She simply had not gotten around to it.
On Monday morning, before leaving for work, she finally opened it.
She removed the four pieces of paper and arranged them on the table like a puzzle.
“I, Margarita Olegovna Zotova, hereby give my consent…”
The words were divided by the torn edges.
The word consent was on one piece.
The word give was on another.
Rita gathered the fragments carefully, the same way she collected Lyosha’s drawings whenever he crumpled them because they had not turned out the way he wanted.
She dropped the pieces into the trash beneath a pile of potato peelings.
Then she washed her hands.
Thoroughly.
With soap, all the way to her elbows.
Lyosha came out of his room looking sleepy, one cheek creased from the pillow.
“Mom, what’s for breakfast?”
“Fried eggs. Sit down.”
She cracked two eggs into the pan.
The oil hissed.
A warm, simple morning smell filled the kitchen.
Lyosha sat at the table swinging his legs because his feet did not reach the floor.
Rita placed the plate in front of him, sat opposite, and looked out the window.
The poplar trees moved in the courtyard.
Pigeons sat on the ledge of the neighboring building.
Perhaps they were the same pigeons from the week before.
Perhaps they were different.
It did not matter.
Rita picked up her fork and began to eat.
Just eat.
Fried eggs in her own kitchen, in her own apartment, beside her son.
Outside the window, September was beginning.
