Vadim didn’t come into the apartment alone. Behind his broad back, as if hiding and peeking out at the same time, stood a young girl. Her hand clenched the strap of an unnaturally bright bag, and her eyes drank in the details of our entryway with greedy curiosity — the massive mirror in an oak […]
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When the housemaid arrived at her only son’s wedding, she never imagined she would be treated as if she didn’t count—least of all by the bride. Linda Brown stood just outside the glass doors of the Royal Garden Hotel, smoothing the skirt of the best dress she owned: a cream-colored gown she had mended by […]
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“Switch apartments with your brother—he has a family, and you don’t need such a big place!” Maria Viktorovna stirred her instant coffee briskly without looking at her son. Andrei tore himself away from his phone. From the next room came the crash of cartoons and shrieking children. The air was saturated with the smell of […]
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“Let the one you gave the apartment to take care of you.” The words hung in the cramped kitchen like shards of broken glass. Yulia slowly set her phone on the table beside an untouched mug of cooling tea. For a few seconds the screen still glowed with the contact “Grandma,” then went dark. She […]
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Ethan went rigid. Through the SUV’s tinted glass, his seven-year-old, Lily, stared back at him, face ashen, her small fists thudding weakly against the window. The heat outside hovered near 100°F; the air felt like it could scorch a lung. Maria Lopez, the housekeeper, cried out, “She’s not breathing!” and hurled a rock again. The […]
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— Come on, Anya, you’re like a child. My money is mine. Yours is yours. Totally fair, — Dima leaned back on the sofa and laughed loud and heartily. That laugh, which a year ago had seemed genuine and infectious, now clanged in my ears like cheap metal. He looked down at me, and in […]
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— Redo it. I want it on my desk by morning,” my boss Tamara’s voice clanked like a bolt being drawn. She tossed a folder with the report onto my desk. The corner of the pricey leather jabbed unpleasantly into my stack of papers. “Tamara Igorevna, but we submitted this project last week. Everything was […]
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— “So this wreck is all you’ve managed to earn!” — those words lashed at Zhenya the whole way. — “What were you expecting, Zhenka? A happy life? Well done, you got what you deserve!” She dropped her heavy bags and sank onto an old stump. It had all started so well… Or had she […]
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Elizaveta Prokhorovna Vorontsova swept the table with a heavy, all-knowing gaze. Her whole family was gathered. Her son, Vsevolod Prokhorovich, with his wife Larisa. Her daughter, Irina Prokhorovna, with her husband Boris. And Yekaterina Borisovna, her granddaughter Katya—slender as a reed, with quiet, observant eyes that adults mistakenly took for frightened. The air smelled of […]
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Elena Vladimirovna was standing at the stove, stirring soup, when her husband walked into the kitchen and tossed an invitation onto the table. “Your class reunion,” Sergei said without looking up from his phone. “This Saturday.” She glanced at the invitation. Thirty years since graduation. A pretty card with gold lettering. “You’re going, right?” she […]
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