“— Dividing mom’s millions!” Jegor snorted, staring at the closed living room door.
He and Sveta were sitting in the kitchen. Their mother, Elena Sergeyevna, had locked herself in there with the notary half an hour ago.
“Lower your voice,” Sveta nervously twisted her phone in her hands. “She’ll hear you.”
“So what. It all gets decided today anyway. She said it herself: ‘I’ll give everyone what they’re entitled to.’ Finally.”
Sveta grimaced.
“Not ‘millions.’ There’s this apartment, the dacha, and a bank account. Not much, of course, but…”
“But better than nothing,” Jegor finished. “I’ve got a loan payment due in a month.”
“And I’ve got a mortgage,” Sveta added. “Good thing she’s at least helping with that. But it’s time for something bigger.”
“The main thing is that she doesn’t do anything stupid,” Jegor muttered. “With her… funds for homeless cats. She sees some flea-ridden creature and signs everything over to it.”
The living room door opened.
Elena Sergeyevna came out. Calm, straight-backed, in a strict dress. Not sick. Not even a little.
“Children, come in. Pyotr Ivanovich is ready.”
The room was stuffy. The notary, a dry man with glasses, sat at the head of the table. In front of him lay a single, thick white envelope.
Jegor and Sveta sat down. Their mother sat opposite them.
“Mommy,” Sveta switched on her “caring daughter” voice, “are you sure? We’re so worried…”
“You’re worried,” Elena Sergeyevna nodded. “I can see that.”
She looked at them for a long time. Studying them. Like an entomologist examining insects pinned to a board.
“I called you here,” she began evenly, “because I’m tired.”
Jegor tensed.
“Tired of what, Mom? Do you need help? Should we send you to a sanatorium?”
“Tired of you.”
The words hung in the heavy air.
“Mom!” Sveta protested.
“Tired of you waiting. Waiting for me to trip. To forget to turn off the gas. For my legs to give out.”
“That’s slander!” Jegor jumped up.
“Sit down,” his mother ordered. “You call me on Sundays exactly at noon. You have a reminder. ‘Mother. 5 minutes.’ Guess how I know. I saw your phone when you went to the bathroom.”
Jegor sat down, flushed.
“And you, Sveta. You bring me marshmallows I’m not allowed to eat with diabetes. And while I’m in the kitchen, you check whether Grandma’s earrings are still there. Do you think I don’t see you wiping dust out of the jewelry box with your finger?”
Sveta shrank into her shoulders.
“You both don’t see a mother in me. You see a resource. An asset. Something to be divided.”
She nodded to the notary.
“Pyotr Ivanovich.”
The notary picked up the thick envelope.
The children fell silent.
Their cheerful anticipation, their kitchen cynicism—all of it collapsed. Only fear remained.
They expected a will to be read. That she was sick after all.
Pyotr Ivanovich carefully slit the edge with a paper knife.
He pulled out… not a document.
He pulled out a stack of thin notebook pages, covered in tight handwriting.
Jegor and Sveta looked at each other.
“‘Expense Ledger,’” the notary read the heading at the top.
“What?” Jegor didn’t understand.
“This is not a will,” Elena Sergeyevna said calmly. “I’m not dying yet. To your disappointment.”
She looked at the notary.
“Read, Pyotr Ivanovich. From the beginning.”
The notary cleared his throat.
“‘September first, two thousand five. Payment for an English tutor for Jegor. Fifty dollars.’”
Jegor froze. He had been fifteen then.
“‘September third, two thousand five. New shoes for Sveta, ‘for the school dance.’ Forty dollars.’”
Sveta went pale. She had been twelve.
“‘January twentieth, two thousand six. Repayment of Jegor’s debt. Broke a shop window. One hundred twenty dollars.’”
“Mom, what is this?” Jegor whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Me?” Elena Sergeyevna smiled. “Nothing. I’m just… counting. I told you—you’ll get what you’re entitled to. And to know what you’re entitled to, the balance has to be settled.”
The notary continued, unflappable:
“‘May fifteenth, two thousand seven. Sveta’s summer camp trip. Two hundred dollars.’”
“‘September, two thousand eight. Jegor’s first year of university. Bribe for a materials science exam. Three hundred dollars.’”
“‘Sveta’s wedding. Restaurant. Two thousand dollars.’”
“‘Jegor’s first car. Used Lada. One thousand five hundred dollars.’”
“‘March, two thousand ten. Laptop for Sveta. ‘For studying.’ Six hundred dollars.’”
“‘July, two thousand twelve. Discount vacation for Jegor. ‘Needs a break.’ One thousand dollars.’”
“‘January, two thousand fifteen. Purchase of ‘necessary connections’ for Jegor to get a ‘job.’ Two thousand dollars.’”
The list went on and on.
Every sum they had pulled from her over the years. Every “help.” Every “Mom, please understand.”
Elena Sergeyevna had written it all down.
“‘Sveta’s abortion at a private clinic. Seven hundred dollars,’” the notary read emotionlessly.
Sveta cried out and covered her face with her hands.
“Enough! Stop!”
“‘Payment of Jegor’s gambling debt. Three thousand dollars.’”
“Mom!” Jegor roared. “Stop this circus! You’re humiliating us!”
“I’m humiliating you?” Elena Sergeyevna raised an eyebrow. “I’m just reading the list of your achievements. Paid for with my money.”
She stood up.
“Thank you, Pyotr Ivanovich. You may leave this here.”
The notary neatly put the pages back into the envelope and placed it in the center of the table.
He stood, nodded, and left the room quietly, like a shadow.
Jegor and Sveta sat crushed.
“Why…” Sveta lifted her red eyes. “Why did you do this?”
“This, my dear, was act one. Accounting.”
Elena Sergeyevna went to the sideboard. Took out… two more envelopes. Thin ones.
She returned to the table.
“And now—act two.”
She placed one envelope in front of Jegor and the other in front of Sveta.
“Open them.”
Silence.
The thin white envelopes lay on the polished wood. They seemed heavier than cast-iron weights.
Sveta’s hands were shaking. She stared at her envelope but didn’t touch it.
Jegor stared at his mother. His face was blotched with red.
“I won’t,” he forced out. “I won’t take part in this… this masquerade.”
“Are you afraid?” Elena Sergeyevna asked calmly.
“I’m not afraid of anything!” Jegor shouted. “You should be afraid! Ending up alone!”
“I’m already alone. I was alone when your father left. I was alone when you, Jegor, got into debt, and you, Sveta, were crying over your married lover. I was a mutual aid fund. An ATM. But I was always alone.”
Sveta sobbed.
“Mommy, how can you? We love you! That list… that was… that was your duty! You’re a mother!”
“Duty,” Elena Sergeyevna nodded. “Yes. My duty was to raise you. Give you an education. Put you on your feet.”
She looked around the living room.
“I did that. Jegor is thirty-four. Sveta is thirty-one. You are adults. But you’re not standing on your own feet.”
She looked at her son.
“You’re sitting on my neck. Kicking your legs.”
“That’s a lie!” Jegor slammed his fist on the table. The envelope jumped. “I have a job!”
“You have the appearance of a job. ‘Project manager’ without a single project. I know you asked me last month for money for ‘business development.’ You were gambling again.”
Jegor choked on air. He hadn’t known she knew.
“And you, Sveta?” their mother turned to her daughter. “Your husband who stays at home? Your mortgage that I pay?”
“Oleg has temporary difficulties!” Sveta shouted.
“Third year running,” her mother cut her off. “He’s just lazy. And you enable him. And both of you live at my expense.”
She pointed at the envelopes again.
“You came here to divide things. You were cheerful. ‘Dividing mom’s millions.’ Well then—divide.”
“What’s in there?” Sveta whispered. “Is it… an account? Do you want us to pay back… that list?”
Her eyes widened in horror.
Jegor laughed nervously.
“Oh come on! Where would we get that kind of money? She’s mocking us!”
He looked at his mother.
“Did you decide to throw us out? Take the apartment?”
Elena Sergeyevna was silent. She simply looked at them. And that silence was scarier than any criticism.
There was no anger in it. No resentment.
There was finality. Like a surgeon deciding to amputate.
“You believed I owed you,” she said quietly. “Owed you for giving birth to you. Owed you for your existence.”
She picked up the thick envelope with the list.
“I paid my debts,” she tapped it. “With interest. Bribes. Abortions. Wrecked cars. I paid for everything.”
“And now,” her voice turned icy, “we’ll see what you’re entitled to.”
Jegor stared at his envelope. Suddenly he understood.
“There’s nothing in there, right?” he said hoarsely. “You decided to… zero us out? Leave us with nothing?”
“And what do you have, Jegor?” his mother asked. “Without me? The apartment you live in? Mine. The car? Mine. Even the food in your fridge is mine.”
“You… you can’t do this,” Sveta whispered, clutching her chest. “We have… children. Your grandchildren!”
“Grandchildren,” Elena Sergeyevna scoffed. “Whom you bring once a month. Exactly for three hours. To ask for money. Then you take them away because ‘grandma spoils them.’ No, Sveta. Grandchildren are your last card. And it won’t work.”
She stood up.
The children flinched.
“I’ll make some tea.”
She walked to the door.
“When I come back, I want those envelopes opened. By you. If you don’t, you’ll leave here without them at all. And you… you really need to know what’s inside.”
She stopped in the doorway.
“You don’t know the main thing.”
“What?” Jegor asked.
“Do you think that notary came only to read out a list?”
Elena Sergeyevna smiled.
“Open them.”
She left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
The door closed.
A switch clicked in the kitchen. The kettle began to boil.
Jegor and Sveta sat motionless, staring at the two white rectangles.
“She… she’s crazy,” Sveta broke the silence first. Her voice was hoarse from restrained sobbing. “She’s lost her mind.”
Jegor slowly exhaled.
“No. Worse. She’s completely sane.”
He looked at his sister. The anger was gone, replaced by sticky, cold fear.
“What did she mean? About the notary?”
“Jegor… what if… what if she really…”
“What ‘really’?” he snapped.
“…rewrote everything? To the cats. To… I don’t know! To that Pyotr Ivanovich!”
Jegor rubbed his face.
“‘Expense ledger’… do you realize what she was doing? She was collecting leverage. For years.”
“Why?” Sveta sobbed. “She’s… she’s our mother.”
“She’s an accountant,” Jegor said. “She was always an accountant, not a mother. Everything calculated.”
The kettle’s whistle rose in the kitchen.
That ordinary, peaceful sound in the dead silence of the living room felt ominous.
“We have to do something,” Sveta whispered. “We have to… stop her. Say that she…”
“Say what?” Jegor looked at her with contempt. “That she’s not in her right mind? After she just laid out our entire lives by dates? Who would believe us?”
The kettle screamed and then fell silent. A click.
“She’s coming,” Sveta gripped the armrests.
“Open it,” Jegor ordered.
“I can’t! Jegor, please, don’t! Let’s just… let’s leave!”
“Leave?” Jegor laughed hysterically. “Leave? And where will you go, Sveta? Back to Oleg? Remind him how much is due on the mortgage she pays?”
He jabbed a finger at his envelope.
“And me? I walk out of here, and tomorrow people I owe will come to see me.”
He looked at the door.
“She didn’t leave us a choice. She never leaves a choice.”
“She said we have to open them,” Sveta stared at the envelopes like they were snakes.
“Yes. She wants to watch. She wants to enjoy it.”
Jegor grabbed his envelope.
His fingers wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t catch the edge.
“Come on,” Sveta urged, hearing footsteps in the hall. “Come on!”
Jegor tore the paper.
He ripped the envelope clumsily, almost in half.
Sveta, watching him, hooked her fingernail under her flap.
The living room door began to open.
Jegor shook the contents onto the table.
Sveta pulled out a folded sheet.
It wasn’t money. And not deeds.
Elena Sergeyevna entered the room. She carried a cup of fragrant tea.
She stopped two steps from the table.
She looked at their faces.
Jegor sat staring at his sheet, completely pale. His jaw hung open. He slowly raised his eyes to his mother. There was no hatred in them. Only shock and… confusion.
Sveta did the opposite.
She looked at her mother. Then lowered her gaze to the paper in her hands.
She read it.
Then looked back at her mother.
She didn’t cry.
She opened her mouth, but only a quiet, strangled moan came out. As if she’d been punched in the stomach.
“Well?” Elena Sergeyevna calmly sipped her tea. “Read it?”
Jegor was silent.
His eyes were glued to the paper.
It wasn’t a deed. Not a will.
It was a copy of a sales contract.
“What is this?” he whispered, not believing it. “Mom, what is this?”
“This, Jegor, is called ‘liquidation of assets.’”
Elena Sergeyevna set her cup on the table.
“The apartment you live in. The one you were already mentally renovating…”
“…I sold it.”
The words fell like stones.
“Sold it?” Jegor’s eye twitched. “To whom?”
“To people. Good people. This morning. Pyotr Ivanovich certified everything.”
She nodded at the paper in his hand.
“That’s your copy. Official notice. You have thirty days to move out.”
“Thirty… days…” Jegor crushed the useless contract in his fist. “You… you threw me out on the street?”
“Me?” his mother looked surprised. “I simply sold my property. You’re an adult man, you have ‘projects.’ You’ll find somewhere to live.”
She turned to Sveta.
“And why are you silent, daughter?”
Sveta sat motionless, hunched.
“I have…” she whispered. “I have… an account here.”
“Not exactly,” her mother corrected.
Sveta stared at her in terror.
“‘Mortgage payment. Overdue.’ Mom, you always paid on the tenth.”
“I did.”
“And today… is the eleventh.”
“Yes.”
Jegor didn’t understand.
“What? What mortgage?”
“This, Jegor, is Sveta’s ‘dowry.’”
Elena Sergeyevna addressed her daughter.
“I made the last payment last month, Sveta. As I promised when you took it. ‘For the first year, until Oleg gets a job.’”
“But… but he didn’t!” Sveta shouted.
“I noticed,” her mother said dryly. “But my year is over. Yours has begun.”
“We don’t have money!” Sveta jumped up. The paper flew to the floor. “You know we don’t! The bank… the bank will take the apartment!”
“Those are your risks. Yours and your husband’s.”
“Mom!” Sveta howled. “You have… you have money! You sold the apartment!”
It dawned on her.
She looked at Jegor. He looked back at her.
Their shock shifted into a new, shared thought.
The very one they had arrived with.
“Money,” Jegor said hoarsely, standing up.
“Yes. You’re right, Sveta. I have money now.”
“From selling Jegor’s apartment. And…”
She went to the sideboard.
Took her purse.
“…from selling the dacha.”
“What?!” the children said in unison.
“The dacha?” Jegor clutched the table. “Our dacha? Grandpa’s?”
“It was also registered in my name.”
Elena Sergeyevna opened her purse.
Took out a passport.
Took out a ticket.
“You came to divide millions. But you were late.”
She placed the ticket on the table on top of the expense ledger.
A flight. Today. Evening.
“You waited for me to die to get an inheritance. And I decided not to wait.”
“You’re… leaving?” Sveta sank back into her chair. “Where?”
“What difference does it make?” Elena Sergeyevna shrugged. “Somewhere warm. Somewhere no one expects anything from me.”
“And us?” Jegor asked. His voice was empty. “What about us?”
Elena Sergeyevna looked at him. For a long time.
She walked to the table.
Picked up the thick envelope with the expense list.
“And you…” she handed it to Jegor. “You can keep this. As a souvenir.”
Jegor recoiled as if from fire.
“That’s all you’re entitled to. Memories of how much you cost me.”
“But… you can’t!” Sveta cried again, but now it was angry, powerless crying. “You’re a mother!”
“I was a mother. Now I’m just a woman whose plane leaves in three hours.”
She went to the hallway.
“Lock the door behind you when you leave. And, Jegor.”
He raised dead eyes to her.
“Don’t forget to give the keys to the new owners. Or they’ll change the locks. I gave them your number. Said you were my nephew who was staying temporarily. Deal with it yourself.”
Egor and Sveta didn’t turn around.
They heard the front door open and close. The key turn in the lock.
Their mother was gone.
They sat in deafening silence.
The room smelled of her perfume, Red Moscow, and cooling bergamot tea.
Sveta stared at one point. Her paper lay on the floor. The overdue notice.
Jegor stared dully at the ticket left on the table.
Flight “Moscow — Buenos Aires.”
She hadn’t even been afraid to leave it. She knew they wouldn’t make it to the airport. Knew they wouldn’t dare.
“She’s gone,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Sveta nodded.
“She… she did it.”
Jegor stood up. His legs felt like cotton.
He went to the window.
Down below, in the courtyard, a yellow taxi stood. He saw his mother come out of the building.
She didn’t look back. Not once.
She calmly got into the car, and it drove away, rustling over wet leaves.
“That’s it,” Jegor said. “She left.”
Sveta slowly raised her eyes to him. All the anger, all the resentment drained away. Only a thick, gray panic remained.
“What…” she whispered. “What do we do now, Jegor?”
Jegor looked at his sister.
“What?”
“Oleg… he’ll… he’ll kill me. The bank. The apartment…”
“And what am I supposed to do?” Jegor cut in, and for the first time in many years, not cynicism but real, animal fear broke through his voice. “I have a month.”
He looked at the expense ledger his mother had thrown at him.
“She… she didn’t even leave money. Not a cent.”
“She left you an apartment,” Sveta suddenly said.
“What?” Jegor didn’t understand.
“She sold your apartment. And our dacha.” Sveta began thinking frantically, her mind clinging to the last injustice. “The money. She has all the money. And we…”
She looked at her paper.
“And we have debts.”
They stared at each other.
For the first time in their lives, they weren’t competitors for their mother’s resources.
They were both… nothing.
“She crossed us out,” Jegor summed up.
He went to the table.
Picked up his torn envelope with the contract.
Picked up Sveta’s notice.
Picked up the plane ticket.
And looked at the thick envelope with the list.
“She was right,” he said quietly.
“About what?” Sveta didn’t recognize his voice.
“She’s an accountant.”
Jegor took the expense ledger.
“She didn’t just run away.”
He opened the first page.
“Jegor’s tutor. $50.”
“She…” he smiled bitterly. “She wrote us off. As an unprofitable asset.”
Sveta stood up.
“I’m going… I need to go to Oleg. We need to… think of something.”
“Think of something?” Jegor looked at her. “What will you think of, Sveta? Do you know how to do anything besides asking Mom?”
“And you?” she snapped, out of habit.
“And me,” he nodded. “Me too.”
Sveta went to the hallway. Put on her shoes.
She was already opening the door when Jegor called out.
“Sveta.”
She turned around.
He stood in the middle of the living room, in that expensive, now чужой apartment. In his hands he held the humiliating list.
“She…,” he said, looking at the floor, “…she’s not even sick.”
Sveta silently closed the door behind her.
Jegor left the apartment an hour later.
He didn’t take the list. He left it on the polished table. Next to the ticket and the two empty torn envelopes.
He went down to the courtyard.
Sat on a bench. The very one where they’d played knife games as kids.
He took out his phone.
“Mother. 5 minutes.” The reminder was set for Sunday.
He deleted it.
Then he opened his contacts.
“Nikolai. Debt.”
He stared at the number. And didn’t know what to say.
He suddenly understood that his mother, paying his debts, hadn’t been saving him. She had only been postponing the inevitable. And now it had come.
Sveta rode the bus.
She looked at her reflection in the dark, dirty window.
Thirty-one years old. A lazy husband. Two children now with her mother-in-law.
And a mortgage.
For the first time in ten years she understood that she had no “safety cushion.”
She had no “mom.”
She felt afraid.
And then—angry.
Not at her mother.
At Oleg. At herself.
She got off at her stop. Went up to the apartment.
Oleg lay on the couch watching TV.
“So? Did she give it?”
Sveta looked at him.
“Get up,” she said.
“What?” he frowned. “Keep it down, I’m watching a show.”
“Get up. Go look for a job. Right now.”
Oleg sat up, surprised.
“What’s wrong with you, Svet?”
“Mom won’t pay anymore.”
And eight hours later, high above the clouds, a woman was flying.
Elena Sergeyevna reclined her business-class seat.
She ordered a glass of champagne.
The flight attendant, smiling, brought her the drink.
“Celebrating something?”
Elena Sergeyevna looked at the bubbles in the glass.
She remembered her children’s faces. Shock. Confusion. Fear.
She remembered the expense ledger.
“Yes,” she said, smiling at the attendant. “I am.”
She took a sip.
“I quit today. A very difficult job.”
She turned toward the window.
Down below were her debts. Her obligations. Her past.
She closed her eyes.
And for the first time in thirty-four years, she felt warmth. Not from the champagne.
Just… relief.
