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— “Al, I’m coming from Mom’s. She’s decided to start a renovation,” Igor tossed his keys onto the hall table and walked into the kitchen, where Alla, bent over a large sheet of drawing paper, was meticulously sketching with a fine mechanical pencil. The air smelled of freshly brewed coffee and graphite. “She wants everything […]

Julia straightened the tablecloth and moved a plate two centimeters to the right. For the eighth time in the last ten minutes. The perfect dinner just wasn’t happening. She heard the front door slam. “Pasha, is that you?” she called from the kitchen. “No, it’s the robbers!” her husband smirked, walking into the kitchen. “What’s […]

Karina lingered by the mirror, straightening the collar of her blazer. The latest project had brought her not only a solid fee, but new clients as well. The design studio was thriving, and her name had already become a recognizable brand in professional circles. Her phone buzzed again—another request to redesign a major company’s office. […]

Marina shoved the dirty plates into the dishwasher and set it to express wash. The Friday dinner had gone well; Igor was wolfing down her signature mushroom pie. Even Nastya—who always wrinkled her nose at anything cooked by “that upstart,” as she called Marina behind her back—ate two slices. “I’m jumping in the shower,” Igor […]

“Be grateful that after thirty years of marriage I’m coming back home and not docking in some foreign port,” the husband said. “And what if I had cheated on you too?” Marina asked. “For a woman, cheating is abnormal; for a man, it’s natural. Besides, who needs you at fifty-something?” Marina had long suspected that […]

The air in their apartment had grown thick and heavy, as if saturated with the dust of unrealized hopes. Veronika and Andrey, once inseparable and full of laughter, now moved through the rooms like shadows, afraid to brush against each other with a careless word. Years of waiting, endless doctor visits, and negative pregnancy tests […]

Music thundered, drowning out the clink of glasses and the cheerful buzz of voices. A hundred guests raised toasts to the happiness of the newlyweds, not suspecting that one of them had already trampled that happiness. Sophia, in a billowing white dress like a cloud, was running herself ragged looking for her brand-new husband. Valery […]

When Vera Nikolaevna received a message that her third cousin Tatyana, who lived somewhere deep in the Urals, was asking to stay with her in Moscow with the kids for a couple of weeks, her first reaction was to refuse. What could they possibly have in common? The last time they’d seen each other was […]