The lock wouldn’t budge. Vera breathed onto the frozen keyhole, feeling the February wind sting her cheeks. Strange.
She had only been away for two weeks – caring for her mother, who had suddenly fallen seriously ill – and when she left, the lock had worked perfectly. Maybe Andrei had changed the cylinder? But why would he?
She pressed the doorbell. Heavy footsteps sounded from inside the house, dull and unhurried, yet the door did not open at once. Vera shifted from one foot to the other.
In her shoulder bag, jars of her mother’s homemade lecho clinked softly, and tucked beside them were the carefully knitted wool socks into which the elderly woman had woven all her love.
At last, the lock clicked. The door opened just a crack, enough for a thin strip of warm light and… the cloying sweetness of a stranger’s perfume to slip out. The scent smothered the familiar resinous, cozy smell of the wooden house.
Andrei stood on the threshold. He wore only sweatpants, bare-chested. He was chewing an apple.
“Oh, you’re back,” he said indifferently, not even thinking of stepping aside.
“Andryusha, why did you lock it? And why is the lock different?” Vera tried to smile, though an icy tightness spread through her chest. “Let me in, I’m freezing.”
“There’s nowhere for you to go in, Ver,” he bit into the apple with a crunch. “Other people live here now.”
“What other people? Is this some kind of joke?” She tried to slip past him, but Andrei braced his arm against the doorframe, blocking her way.
A female figure moved in the depths of the hallway, wrapped in a light robe. Vera recognized it instantly — Andrei had given it to her last New Year’s. It had hung loosely on her; on this woman it clung tightly, the seams almost straining.
“Kitty, who is it?” the woman called in a whining voice. “There’s a draft!”
“Andryusha, who is that?” A lump rose in Vera’s throat. “Why is she wearing my robe?”
Andrei sighed as if explaining something obvious to a slow child.
He stepped out onto the porch and half-closed the door behind him, shutting out the warmth.
“Don’t make a scene. Kristina and I love each other. You… well, you brought this on yourself. You’re boring, Vera. You’ve gone sour in your pots and pans.”
“What do pots have to do with this? This is my house! My grandmother left it to me!”
“It was yours,” he scratched his stomach lazily. “Remember the power of attorney? When we were installing the gas? ‘Sign it, darling, I’ll handle everything, you won’t have to stand in lines.’”
Vera remembered. The stuffy notary’s office. Andrei’s gentle voice. The trust.
“And?”
“I sold the house. To a friend. He gifted it to me. On paper, I’m the sole owner now. Kristina is registered here. I deregistered you yesterday.”
The ground seemed to tilt beneath Vera’s feet. The gray sky pressed down on her like a weight.
“You couldn’t… This was my grandmother’s inheritance… Andrei, when we got married you had nowhere to live, I brought you here…”
“Thanks for the shelter,” he sneered. “But things are different now. ‘I sold your house, get lost!’ That’s the situation. Your stuff is in the garage in bags. Take it and go to your mother.”
“I can’t… her heart is weak… she wouldn’t survive it…” Vera whispered as hot tears streamed down her cheeks, freezing almost instantly in the wind.
“Not my problem.”
The door slammed shut. The lock clicked with a metallic finality.
Vera remained on the cold porch. Light flared in the kitchen window. She saw Andrei wrap his arms around the woman, say something, laugh. The woman lifted Vera’s favorite mug — the one with the little hedgehog — and took a sip.
That was the last straw.
Vera didn’t knock again. She went down to the garage. Sweater sleeves and the spines of books stuck out from the bags.
She took only the bare essentials. She called a taxi to the city. On the way, she deleted Andrei’s number. Her hands trembled, but inside her head there was a frozen silence.
The first week she slept in the station’s rest room. The air smelled of chlorine and the bitterness of other people’s misfortune. She had little money left — Andrei had drained their joint account.
With her library science degree, no one needed her. They wanted “young, dynamic” employees. At thirty-five, Vera no longer fit the ads.
The solution came unexpectedly. Standing in line outside a bakery, she struck up a conversation with an elegant, stern-faced woman who was complaining on the phone:
“They can’t cook a proper chicken broth! Konstantin Georgievich wants it crystal clear, like a tear, and they serve cloudy slop!”
Vera spoke without thinking:
“I can make clear broth. Bake fresh pastries. Create dietary menus.”
The woman looked her over.
“Do you have a health certificate?”
“Yes. Recently renewed.”
“Come with me. If the boss doesn’t approve, I won’t pay for your trip back.”
The “Pine Grove” boarding house was a closed, elite establishment. High fences, guards, and the whisper of decades-old pines. Its owner, Konstantin Georgievich, had a reputation for severity.
“There’s the stove. There’s the chicken. You have one hour.”
Forty minutes later, a golden, translucent broth steamed before him. He tasted it. His movement paused.
“The second flavor doesn’t overpower the first. The noodles aren’t overcooked. You’re hired.”
That was how Vera’s new life began.
She worked as if her life depended on it. Within six months, she was designing menus, negotiating with suppliers, refusing to let them pawn off second-rate goods.
She changed. She lost weight, wore elegant blouses. Steel rang in her voice.
A year later, Konstantin Georgievich called her in.
“We’re opening a new wing. I need a director. Can you handle it?”
“Yes. But I choose the contractors.”
“Agreed.”
As she reviewed the bids, the name “Stroy-Lux” caught her eye.
“Send him in,” she told her secretary.
Andrei walked through the door. Wrinkled suit, hollow cheeks. A nervous smile.
“Good afternoon! We have an exclusive offer—”
He stopped. Vera turned her face into the light.
The folder slipped from his hand.
“Vera? You?!”
“Good afternoon, Andrei Viktorovich. Pick up your papers. You’re littering in my office.”
“You… you work here as a cleaner?”
“I am the director.”
Andrei went pale.
“Sign it. I’ll give you a cut. Kristinka drained my money, I need this job…”
Vera skimmed the estimate.
“Cheap paint priced as Italian plaster. Double quantities charged. You haven’t changed.”
“Everyone does it!”
“You never saw me as a person. You thought I’d fall apart without you. But I survived.”
She pressed the button.
“Security? Escort him out. Blacklist the company.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Konstantin Georgievich doesn’t like fraudsters.”
Two guards took Andrei by the arms.
“Vera! I’ll give the house back! At least half!”
Vera walked to the window. She watched him shuffle away between the pines, shoulders hunched.
Her phone chimed. A message from her mother: “My little girl, how are you? I baked, waiting for you this weekend.”
Vera smiled — a light, clear smile.
“I’ll be there soon, Mama. And not alone. Konstantin Georgievich wants to taste your pastries.”
The “Stroy-Lux” folder landed in the trash.
That was where it belonged. Just like the past that no longer had a place for her.
