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“Galia, where’s my gray turtleneck? And why is there no cottage cheese in the fridge? Mom specifically told you to buy it yesterday.” Galina Sergeyevna stopped mid-motion at the sink, a plate still in her hands. Viktor Nikolayevich stood in the kitchen doorway, already dressed to head out to a job site, irritated and rushed. […]

“Who’s going to roast the goose—me?” Galina Ivanovna’s voice crackled through the phone, demanding and wounded at the same time, with those familiar notes that had worked on her son for forty years straight. “My blood pressure’s been jumping for two weeks, and you want to run your own mother ragged at the stove?” Marina […]

“Where’s the money we’ve been saving for the New Year’s table?” Olga asked, peering into the tin tea can that sat on the very top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. She rose onto her toes and stretched her arm as far as it would go, but her fingers met only the cold metal bottom. Her […]

“ Tanya, can you believe our luck? Absolute jackpot—I’m still stunned. Vika called me half an hour ago, screaming into the phone like she’d been hit by a train. At first I thought something awful happened, I couldn’t even understand her. But then she told me what it was—and wow!” Sergey stormed into the kitchen […]

Yana was climbing the stairs with a bag of groceries in her hands. The workday had been exhausting—she wanted nothing more than to get home, take a shower, and sink onto the couch. She unlocked the door and stopped dead on the threshold. Voices floated in from the kitchen. Igor—and his daughter, Anya. Yana quietly […]

The holiday spread was laid out in Oksana’s apartment—the very place she had bought and turned into a home herself long before she ever married Igor. That tiny one-bedroom on the eighth floor of a gray nine-story panel building was, to her, the proudest achievement of her life. For three exhausting years she had saved […]

Svetlana lived with her husband, Artyom, in a house that belonged to her—neat, well cared for, and legally registered in her name long before she ever married. The home stood in the suburbs, in a quiet neighborhood with paved streets and tidy yards. A two-story cottage with gray walls, white trim around the windows, and […]

“You can see I’m losing strength, and you can’t even fix my pillow?” Valera’s voice sounded like he was dictating his last will to a notary. Even though the digital thermometer betrayed him shamelessly: 37.2°C. I fluffed the pillow without a word. Valera suffered on a grand scale. If a man’s temperature creeps past thirty-seven, […]

In a village where everyone knew each other—not only by name, but by whose yard was whose—Olga had been living with her husband, Ivan, for nearly six years. The village was called Sosnovka. Tiny—maybe fifty people, no more. Everyone had grown up together, remembered who was related to whom, who kept what kind of household, […]

Valentina Nikolaevna held the doorbell down for a long, stubborn moment. Olga opened up, wiping her wet hands on a towel. Her mother-in-law stood on the doorstep with shopping bags and a big, beaming smile. “Olechka, hello! I came to deliver the invitation in person. I’m hosting something on Saturday—Aunt Zina’s birthday. Remember I told […]