“I’m pregnant,” I said, and a smile spread across my face on its own. Kirill, who was standing by the window, froze. He didn’t even turn around, but in the glass I saw his shoulders tense. I was waiting for a hug, for joyful shouts—anything but that strange, motionless pose. “I am too,” came Lena’s […]
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“Mom, hi, I urgently need your help.” Her son’s voice on the phone sounded like he was talking to a bothersome subordinate, not to his mother. Nina Petrovna froze with the remote in her hand, never turning on the evening news. “Hello, Kirill. Did something happen?” “No, everything’s fine,” Kirill exhaled impatiently. “It’s just that […]
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“Why did you come home so early?!” her husband blurted, instinctively trying to shut the door in his wife’s face. “What do you mean?” Sveta managed to wedge her bag into the doorway so the door wouldn’t slam. The scene felt like a cheap joke—only this time the “husband back from a business trip” was […]
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The autumn air in the settlement of Lesnaya Sloboda was thick, sweet, and searingly cold. It smelled of rotting leaves, smoke from stove pipes, and that special, timeless silence that wraps the soul like a good old blanket. Olga had come here, to the nest she’d left long ago, to visit her parents—or rather, their […]
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— “The apartment obviously stays with me. The cars too,” my husband Kirill’s voice cut like a knife, bouncing off the polished walls of the lawyer’s office. He wasn’t talking to me, but to my representative—a young guy in a perfect suit who, until then, had only been nodding silently. “I’ll toss you a little […]
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“This area is for VIP clients; you’re not allowed in here,” Igor hissed at me, his fingers digging into my forearm. They were cold—like the look he’d been giving me for the last ten years. I silently stared at the heavy velvet rope blocking the entrance to the fireplace lounge. There, in the soft light […]
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