“The workers have taken out the cement bags, just a little bit left,” Anatoly called out from the hallway.
He angrily pulled on his left shoe.
“Vitka asked if we could come over by nine. She needs the whitewash scrubbed off the walls, the kitchen tiles cleaned, and the windows washed.”
You know, after her divorce, her hands can’t handle anything harsh. Her skin just cracks.
Lydia stood silently by the kitchen counter.
She didn’t pour herself any hot water. She just neatly folded the dry linen towel and put it on the shelf.
“She can clean it herself,” Lydia replied.
Anatoly froze on the doormat.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me, Tolya. Let her clean her own walls in the new place.”
Her husband straightened up with a noisy huff.
“Are you out of your mind? She just got back on her feet!”
She bought the apartment as a bare concrete box and spent all her savings on the crew! Is it really so hard for you to ride four stops on the tram? It would do you good to stretch out a bit.
Lydia turned and looked at him.
For seven years, Violetta always had a good excuse.
Once, after the balcony was glazed, someone needed to scrape the construction foam off the frames, but Vitka had a migraine.
Another time, forty kilograms of cherries showed up for jam—someone had to pit them, but the sister-in-law had a fresh shellac manicure.
Or when the country plot was overgrown with waist-high weeds—but she said her blood pressure spiked from the heat.
“Lidochka’s strong, she’s built for hard work! Sweating outdoors is just what she needs!” the sister-in-law would chime at every family dinner.
Anatoly would solemnly pat his belt. We’re family, you’ve got to lend a hand. We don’t abandon our own.
Of course, for all seven years, it was Lydia alone who ended up doing the heavy lifting.
“I’m not going to her place,” she said quietly. “Not today, not next weekend. Never.”
“Alright, Lida, enough with the theatrics!” her husband barked.
He stepped into the kitchen doorway.
“At least have a conscience! Everyone in this town knows how hard I work for the family. I’m killing myself with shifts at the factory!”
We have a roof over our heads, don’t we? And you’re ready to tear out your own sister’s throat over a couple of buckets of water?!”
“I’ve spent twenty-two years at the design bureau,” Lydia reminded him. “We bought this two-bedroom with my maternity pay and bonuses, pooling our money together.”
“I don’t owe your sister a thing.”
“Don’t get smart with me!” he snapped.
Anatoly yanked his windbreaker off the hook.
“You’d better be at Vita’s by ten. With a bucket and rubber gloves. And no funny business! I’ll check when I get off my shift!”
The door lock clicked. Her husband’s footsteps thundered down the stairs.
Lydia stood quietly in the calm of the morning.
Then she walked to the bedroom and flung open the three-door wardrobe.
The hangers were empty. No winter coat with astrakhan trim, no wool cardigans, no summer dresses.
All Lydia’s things had left two weeks ago in a luggage container, far to the east.
All that remained was an old canvas backpack by the door, packed with a change of clothes, her passport, a bundle of documents, and a ticket for the Aeroexpress.
She changed into comfortable gray pants and tightened the side straps on her backpack.
She left the apartment keys on the table by the mirror. Next to them, she put the spare key ring and the mailbox fob.
The door closed softly, almost without a sound.
Two hours later, Lydia was already sitting in a packed hall at Sheremetyevo.
Passengers bustled around with travel bags, metal carts clattered, and the loudspeaker droned out calls to board for Samara and Petropavlovsk.
Her phone vibrated softly in her pocket. The screen lit up with her sister-in-law’s name: “Violetta.”
Lydia swiped her finger across the screen.
“Where are you, you shameless woman?!” screamed the voice so loudly that Lydia had to move the phone away from her ear.
There was no trace left of Violetta’s usual whining tone.
“I’ve been standing outside the door for forty minutes! The cleaning crew is gone, they left the keys with the concierge! There’s a mountain of dust in the rooms, you can hardly breathe! Why haven’t you brought the cleaning rags yet?!”
“I’m sitting in the terminal, Vita,” Lydia replied.
“What terminal?! Are you messing with me?! The kitchen set is being delivered tomorrow!”
“If the floors aren’t cleaned with alkali, the furniture will go right on top of construction dirt! Get a move on, take a taxi here right now! Give Tolia the receipt, he’ll pay for it!”
“You’ve got hands, Vita, so use them and clean up yourself!”
For a moment, the line went silent with Violetta’s breath caught.
“Whaaat?!”
“Grab a bucket and a scraper,” Lydia repeated. “You’ve been riding me for seven years. Time to get off, this stubborn mare is tired.”
Lydia hit the end call button.
She immediately blocked her sister-in-law’s number.
Exactly three minutes later, the screen lit up again: Anatoly was calling.
Lydia answered the call.
“Lida, have you lost your mind?!” her husband yelled, panting from walking fast. “Vita’s calling in hysterics!”
“She’s sobbing uncontrollably! Yelling that you cursed her out and called her a maid!”
“I didn’t say maid. I said mare.”
“Where are you anyway?! I got out of work to run home — all the closets are open, your things are gone! What did you do, you old fool?!”
“I’m at the airport, Tolia. I’m boarding a flight.”
She heard some kind of commotion on the other end, as if Anatoly had tripped on the stairs.
“Which airport?.. Is this some kind of joke? Where are you going?!”
“To Sakhalin. To Kholmsk.”
“Sakhalin? Are you out of your mind at your age?! What kind of job do you think you’ll get at the end of the world? You’re a married woman, your place is at home! Grab your bags and get back here, now!”
Lydia shook her head, though her husband couldn’t see her.
“Remember Tanya Arkhipova? We used to lug core samples together during our internship when we were young.”
“She runs a survey department on the shelf now. They need an experienced designer. They’re taking me on with a good salary, and they’ll give me company housing near the hills.”
“Who’s Tanya?!” Anatoly shouted, his voice rising. “And what about me?! What about the house?!”
“Who’s going to iron my shirts?! Who’s going to cook my soup?! And who’s going to help Vita with the apartment?!”
“You’ll manage, Tolia. Together. Your sister’s healthy and chubby, you can support each other.”
“Lida, come back!” her husband wailed, and his voice now quivered with fear and greed. “Return the ticket!”
“Do you hear me?! I won’t say another word against you! I’ll forgive this nonsense! We’ll forget everything!”
“But I won’t forget,” Lydia replied. “I’ll never forget how for seven years you forced me to bow down to your sister. How you treated me like free labor.”
“But we’re family! We’re your own people!..”
“Take care, family.”
Lydia pressed the red button.
She pulled a paperclip from the side pocket, slid open the phone tray, removed the SIM card, and tossed it into the trash can beside the information desk.
Above the exit, a green ticker flashed: boarding for the flight to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Lidia grabbed her backpack and headed toward the gate.
By evening, a heavy scent of wet plaster and old dust filled Violetta’s three-room apartment.
In the empty hallway, the owner sat on a roll of thick linoleum.
Her fancy velour pants were covered in a white dust, and her mascara was smudged under her right eye from tears.
Anatoly lingered in the middle of the entryway. His jacket hung open, his hat crumpled in his fist. Gray shadows settled beneath his eyes.
“Why are you just standing there like a statue?!” his sister snapped. “Call someone! Report her missing!”
“Who am I supposed to call, Vita?” he replied softly. “Her SIM card is off.”
“Call the police! Call the ministry! She’s your lawful wife, she abandoned her family, ran away! Tell them to take her off the plane! Bring her back here! Are you a man or a doormat?!”
Anatoly gloomily stared at the dirty floor.
“The plane’s already flying over the taiga. No one’s going to land it.”
“So what am I supposed to do?!” Violetta screeched. “They’re delivering the wall unit tomorrow!”
I checked cleaning services—do you know how much they charge for a hundred square meters? I don’t even have half that amount!
Who’s going to clean?! My back is killing me! My blood pressure is two hundred over a hundred!
She shoved her pudgy hands with long nails right under her brother’s nose.
“Look! My skin burns! I didn’t sign up to scrub off this filth!”
Anatoly remembered his empty bedroom.
He remembered the bare shelves in the closet where neatly pressed duvet covers used to be.
He remembered the cold frying pan on the stove. No borscht. No cutlets. Not even a piece of bread left in the bread box.
Lida hadn’t just left. She carefully erased herself from his life, leaving behind only keys and utility bills on the table.
And nearby, his beloved sister sat, demanding a housemaid.
“There’s a tub in the corner,” Anatoly muttered, waving his hat towards the bathroom.
“What?!” Violetta stuttered.
“A galvanized tub. Take some detergent, put it in the water, and scrub. Yourself.”
“Tolya, are you insane?! I’m your sister! Your own flesh and blood!”
“Help yourself, then,” he snapped. “I’ve got the morning shift tomorrow. I still need to cook and wash my pants. I’m not a noblewoman—do it yourself.”
He turned to the door, yanked the handle, and stepped out onto the landing, slamming the door loudly behind him.
Eight months passed.
By spring, salty, tangy sea air wafted into Kholmsk.
Lidia was walking home from the design office. In her hands she carried a thick bag of fresh flounder and a crispy loaf from the local bakery.
Work was intense, complex, full of blueprints and trips out to the coast, but her mind stayed clear after each day.
She was given an apartment on the third floor of an old cinder-block building. The windows looked out onto a gentle hillside overgrown with bamboo grass.
Lidia barely thought of her old life anymore.
Only once a month did an old colleague from the Moscow suburbs call her, bursting with news.
She’d say that Tolya had let everything go, walked around in wrinkled shirts, and fought with his sister loud enough for the whole settlement to hear.
Violetta never did put the furniture set down on that dirty floor—in the end, she had to go into debt for a cleaning service.
Now my sister-in-law insists that her brother should pay off her loans, and Anatoly is yelling at her right outside the building, threatening to change the locks.
Lidia listened to all this news in silence—without any gloating and without pity.
After that, she’d boil potatoes to go with fish, sit down to dinner at the round wooden table, and think how the hillside outside the window would finally turn green by May.