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My mother was the chief engineer of my existence, the quiet drafter of every blueprint I ever followed. When my father vanished from our lives—leaving behind a six-year-old boy and a woman suddenly carrying the weight of a collapsing world—she became everything celestial to me: sun for warmth, moon for tide, constellations to steer by. […]

Alice pressed her forehead to the cool glass of the hospital room window, feeling under her fingers the steady, lulling breath of her newborn son, nestled against her chest. Her third son. Outside, under the streetlights, thick March snow swirled as if in slow motion—just as blind and hopeless as it had been six years […]

Silence in her soul was her very first memory. Not the silence of peace, but the silence of an emptied nest, the echo of which remained forever. Alisa didn’t remember faces, didn’t remember voices. Only scraps of notions: “geologists,” “mountains,” “rockslide.” And an endless, piercing sense of loss, absorbed with the very milk she’d also […]

Olga was rearranging the photos on the shelf, admiring the sunbeams streaming through the windows of their two-room apartment. Two and a half years ago her parents had given their daughter this place as a wedding present—a cozy home in a quiet part of the city. Her mother had said then, “May you have a […]

A black car came to a silent stop by the massive wrought-iron gates. Beyond them began a short dead-end street of eight identical, solid houses, cut off from the rest of the world by a high brick wall. A small, self-contained kingdom. The security guard in a uniform jacket, bored in his glass booth, sauntered […]

“You must be joking,” Tatyana said, staring at Ivan Petrovich with her eyes wide. He shook his head. “No, I’m not. But I’ll give you time to think. Because the offer really isn’t a usual one. I can even guess what you’re thinking right now. Weigh everything, think it through properly—I’ll come back in a […]

In the atrium of the city’s mightiest corporate tower—the flagship lobby of one of the nation’s largest conglomerates—life moved with its usual ceremonial rush. Morning flipped an unseen switch: as the first sunlight slid through the wall-high panes of glass, a fresh tide of ambition, transactions, and ego spilled across the space. The marble didn’t […]

— “Maksim, when are you finally going to start looking for a job?” Raisa Vasilyevna asked her son-in-law, who was lying on the little couch in the living room in front of the TV. The man only looked at his mother-in-law condescendingly and snorted, as if a pesky mosquito had bothered him. He didn’t like […]

Irina straightened the kitchen curtains and looked around her creation with satisfaction. The small rented two-room flat in an old building had been transformed thanks to her efforts. Fresh flowers on the windowsill, handmade cushions on the sofa, neatly arranged knickknacks—all of it turned an ordinary space into a cozy home. “How beautifully you’ve arranged […]

Nastya and the Other “Lady of the House” The Door That Won’t Close Nastya was tired. Not so much from work, or the renovation, or daily routine, but from this invisible intrusion that had gone on far too long. In her own apartment she felt like a guest—and all because of one person. Or rather, […]