The smell of Mom’s beef roast was always a sign that something important was about to happen in our family.
Most days we lived on supermarket dumplings and chicken drumsticks, but today the kitchen was filled with the kind of aromas that belonged to childhood.
“Lena, did you set the table?” Mom shouted from the kitchen.
In her voice I caught that familiar tension—the one that appeared every single time the conversation drifted toward Dad.
“Yes, Mom, it’s all ready!” I called back, arranging Mom’s best plates with the thin gold rim, the ones that usually sat untouched and dusty behind the glass cabinet.
Alice kept straightening the tablecloth, checking her phone again and again.
My younger sister was twenty-eight. She worked at an advertising agency, rented a two-bedroom inside the Garden Ring, and today she looked flawless.
“He’s already left the airport,” she said. “He says he’ll be here in thirty minutes.”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t show up late,” Mom grumbled, drying her hands on her apron. “Though with him, who knows.”
I stayed quiet.
In twenty years, Mom still hadn’t learned to speak about Dad without that faint sting in her tone. Once, it had been her who pushed for the divorce, convinced he was a hopeless loser who would never achieve anything worthwhile.
“A dreamer,” she used to tell her girlfriends on the phone.
“Are you sure you don’t want to change?” Alice asked, giving me a critical once-over. “I mean… Dad came from so far away.”
I looked at myself in the mirror: Wildberries jeans, a sweater with elbows stretched thin after three winters, sneakers. The usual look of a usual thirty-year-old woman—an IT manager who spent half her paycheck renting a tiny one-bedroom in South Butovo.
“What’s wrong with it? I’m not going to an audition.”
“Lena, honestly,” Mom said with a disappointed shake of her head. “Couldn’t you make an effort—just once?”
I smiled. It had always been like this. Ever since I was little.
I took after Dad, not just in appearance but in temperament too: stubborn, prone to daydreaming, “impractical,” as Mom liked to say.
Alice, meanwhile, was Mom’s mirror—beautiful, ambitious, able to charm a room. Mom adored her. In me, she saw a constant reminder of her “mistakes when she was young.”
“Oh, come on, Mom, Lena looks fine,” my sister said, defending me, though her voice sounded more polite than sincere. “Leave her alone.”
The doorbell rang at exactly seven, just as Dad had promised. He’d always been punctual. Apparently, years in Europe hadn’t changed that.
“I’ll get it,” Mom said quickly, pulling off her apron and smoothing her hair.
Alice and I exchanged a glance.
It was strange to realize we were about to see a man who, for us, had been little more than a mysterious ghost from childhood.
“My girls!” Dad’s voice sounded just like it had twenty years earlier—only now there was a faint European lilt.
He walked into the living room: sun-tanned, in an expensive but understated blazer, carrying a real leather briefcase. He looked great. His hair had gone gray, yet he somehow seemed younger than his fifty-five years.
“Alice,” he said, hugging my sister, and she immediately lit up. “You’ve grown into such a beauty! And Lena…” His gaze lingered on me, and I saw something warm there—something soft. “You haven’t changed at all. Still the same.”
There was no reproach in his words, no disappointment like Mom’s. If anything… it sounded like tenderness.
“Ivan, sit down, sit,” Mom fussed. “I made so much food…”
Dinner began with careful, cautious questions.
Dad talked about his life in the Czech Republic. After leaving, it turned out, he’d gone into construction—and done well. Mom listened with barely hidden surprise. Her “loser” ex-husband had clearly achieved far more than she’d expected.
“And how have you been?” he asked, genuinely interested.
Alice launched into a story about work, trips, new projects. Mom mentioned her job at a kindergarten, but quickly steered the conversation back to my sister’s successes.
“And you, Lena? How are things?” Dad turned to me and looked straight into my eyes.
“Fine. I work in IT. I rent a place in Butovo.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face, but he only nodded and smiled.
“That’s good. Independence is an important quality.”
The conversation moved slowly, as if we were all carefully feeling out each other’s boundaries.
Now and then Mom slipped in remarks about how hard it had been to raise two daughters alone.
“Do you remember, Lena, how you wanted to be an architect when you were little?” Dad asked suddenly, pouring himself tea.
I was surprised he remembered. When I was ten, I’d obsessed over buildings and bridges, drawing blueprints for houses that didn’t exist.
“I remember. But I ended up in IT. It’s… more practical.”
“Practical is fine. But nothing is more valuable than following your dreams—even if someone doesn’t like it.”
“Lena used to dream,” Alice cut in, “but Mom knocked that nonsense out of her quickly! You have to be realistic.”
Mom nodded approvingly.
“Yes. Alice is right. You need your feet on the ground.”
Dad said nothing, but I noticed the muscles in his face tighten.
“So tell us about your business,” I asked, eager to change the subject.
His eyes lit up.
“We build eco-villages. We started with a single cottage, and now we’ve completed three major projects. The fourth is in the planning stage.”
“That sounds interesting,” I said, and I meant it.
“It’s more than interesting. It’s the future. People are tired of concrete jungles. They want to live in harmony with nature.”
“The prices for that kind of comfort are sky-high,” Alice remarked. “Not everyone can afford it.”
“For now, yes,” Dad agreed. “But technology improves, costs go down. In ten years, eco-construction will be mainstream.”
Mom listened with polite skepticism. I could tell she didn’t really believe him and filed it away as another of her ex-husband’s “castles in the air.”
“Do you have a family?” Mom asked carefully.
“No. After the divorce, I never remarried. Work—and children I needed to support financially…” He looked at Alice and me. “There wasn’t time for a personal life.”
“You were sending us money?” I blurted out. “I thought we lived only on Mom’s salary.”
Mom nearly choked on her tea. Alice froze with a piece of cake in her hand.
“Well… of course your father helped,” Mom mumbled uncertainly. “He sent money for your education, clothes…”
“Every month,” Dad corrected, watching his ex-wife closely. “And not only for everyday expenses. For instance, three years ago I transferred a large sum so you could buy each of them a one-bedroom apartment.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“An apartment?” I whispered.
“Yes. A one-bedroom for each of you. I said then… the girls are grown, it’s time they have homes of their own.”
I looked at Alice. She sat pale, eyes lowered to her plate.
“Alice,” I said quietly. “You’re renting, right?”
She didn’t answer.
“Alice?” I repeated, louder.
“I…” My sister finally lifted her eyes. “Lena, it’s complicated…”
“What’s complicated?” I pushed back my chair and stood. “Complicated is that Dad gave money for both of us—and you and Mom decided I shouldn’t know? That I should keep paying half my salary for a rental in Butovo because Alice needed a two-bedroom downtown. Is that it?”
“A two-bedroom?” Dad repeated softly. “I gave money for two one-bedrooms!”
Mom and Alice exchanged a look.
“Ivan, you have to understand,” Mom began, in the tone adults use when explaining something “obvious” to a child. “Alice works in the center, she needs to live closer. And Lena… well, she’s fine in Butovo.”
“So you bought Alice a two-bedroom downtown with money meant for both daughters?”
“We thought we’d help Lena later,” Mom said defensively.
“Later?” I laughed, sharp and shaky. “For three years I’ve paid rent, saved on everything, and you ‘thought you’d help later’?”
Alice finally raised her head.
“Len, we didn’t want to upset you. You know how hard it is for Mom alone…”
“What does Mom have to do with it? Dad gave the money, and he said to split it equally!”
“Svetlana,” Dad’s voice was quiet, but there was such icy fury inside it that Mom instinctively shrank back. “Explain to me how money for two apartments turned into one.”
“Ivan, I’ll explain everything. Just don’t get worked up. Alice needed to live in the center for work, and the prices there… I even had to add some of my savings…”
“What savings?” I cut in. “Mom, you’ve always complained you have no money. That you’re short on everything.”
“Enough, not enough…” She waved her hand. “What mattered was getting at least one daughter settled properly.”
“One daughter?” My voice cracked. “So I’m not your daughter?”
“Lena, don’t twist my words…”
“How else am I supposed to take them?” I turned to Alice. “And you? You think it’s normal to keep quiet while I spend my last money on rent?”
My sister finally looked at me. In her eyes I didn’t see guilt—I saw irritation.
“Len, why are you making a scene? So what—rent another year or two. We would’ve helped you eventually.”
“A year or two?” I laughed. “And if Dad hadn’t come back, I’d never have known!”
“You would’ve found out,” she shrugged. “When the time was right.”
“What time, Alice? When I’d spent all my savings? When I turned forty?”
Dad slowly set his cup down and looked at me.
“Lena, did you even know I’d been sending money for your support?”
I shook my head.
“No. Mom always said we lived on her kindergarten salary. That you disappeared and didn’t help at all.”
“Disappeared…” He repeated the word, tasting it. “Every month. For twenty years. One and a half thousand euros.”
I went numb. One and a half thousand euros—that was well over a hundred thousand rubles a month. For twenty years.
“Mom… is that true?”
“Well… yes, he helped,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “But it still wasn’t enough for everything growing children needed…”
“It wasn’t enough—one and a half thousand euros a month?” Dad stood. “Svetlana, that’s triple the average salary in Russia.”
“You don’t understand how expensive children are,” she snapped. “Clothes, food, school, activities…”
“What activities?” I asked. “Mom, I only went to the library. For free.”
“Alice did dance classes, English, exam prep with a private tutor…”
“So you spent Dad’s money only on Alice?”
Mom fell silent. My sister stared out the window, pretending none of it involved her.
“Lena, it’s not that simple,” Alice finally said. “I had prospects, plans. And you… you were managing on your own anyway.”
“I managed because I had to!” My voice rose. “Because I was told from childhood there was no money! I started working at sixteen just to buy decent clothes!”
“And it did you good,” Mom murmured. “Work toughens character.”
“Work toughens character…” Dad repeated slowly. “So Alice didn’t need her character toughened?”
“Alice has different abilities, different opportunities…”
“Alice has a different face!” I burst out. “And a different personality. She doesn’t resemble you, Dad, so Mom adores her.”
“Lena!” Mom gasped. “How can you say that!”
“How else should I say it?” Tears flooded my eyes. “You robbed me. Dad sent money for both of us for twenty years, and you spent it all on Alice—and then convinced me I wasn’t wanted by anyone!”
“No one robbed you,” Alice said coldly. “That money went to the family.”
“What family?” I shot back. “You got an education paid for by that money, an apartment, the chance to build a career. What did I get?”
“You got independence. Isn’t that valuable?”
Dad watched our argument in silence, but I saw his expression changing.
“That’s enough,” he said quietly. “I understand everything now.”
He pulled out his phone and started typing.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked.
“Canceling tomorrow’s transfer,” he answered without looking up. “And every transfer after that.”
“Ivan, don’t be so—”
“So what?” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked at her. “So… what exactly?”
“Dad, wait,” Alice jumped up. “You can’t just—”
“Why not?” he asked, studying her with cool curiosity. “I can do anything. For instance, stop supporting grown adults who think it’s normal to deceive and steal from their own sister—and from my own daughter.”
“We didn’t steal from anyone!” Mom protested. “I spent that money on the children!”
“On one child,” he corrected. “And you made the other believe she wasn’t needed by anyone.”
I sat there hugging myself, trying to process it all.
Twenty years of lies. Twenty years of believing Dad had abandoned us and never helped—when he’d been sending money. Big money. Enough for both of us to live without fear.
“Lena,” Dad sat beside me. “Forgive me.”
“For what?”
“For trusting your mother. For not checking where the money went. For not keeping direct contact with you.”
“But you wanted it that way,” I said. “You said you didn’t want to traumatize the kids after the divorce.”
“I did,” he nodded. “And it was my mistake. I thought you’d split everything fairly between the girls. I didn’t think you were capable of this.”
“I raised children alone while you built a new life!” Mom snapped.
“You raised one child,” he replied. “And left the other to fend for herself.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is, Mom,” I said quietly. “You always made it clear I wasn’t ‘right.’ That I looked too much like Dad. That I bothered you…”
“I wanted you to be strong!”
“You wanted me gone,” I said, voice shaking. “Because I reminded you of a marriage you considered a mistake.”
Mom went quiet. In her eyes I saw confirmation.
“Lena,” Dad took my hand. “Do you want to change your life?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me. To Prague. I have several architectural projects. I need someone who understands tech, modern solutions. And your interest in architecture doesn’t have to be wasted.”
“I don’t have an architecture degree,” I said, stunned.
“So get one,” he said simply. “In Europe there are excellent retraining programs.”
I stared at him, hardly believing what I was hearing.
“Dad… I don’t know. This is so sudden.”
“Think about it,” he squeezed my hand. “You have time.”
“And what about us?” Alice cried. “Dad, you can’t just abandon us!”
“Why not?” he turned to her slowly. “You’re doing great. You had plenty of fun on my money.”
“We didn’t mean harm,” she tried to justify herself. “It’s just… circumstances happened.”
“Circumstances?” Dad laughed out loud. “Alice, you’re twenty-eight. You’re an adult. Did it never occur to you—once—that what you were doing to your sister was unfair?”
Alice said nothing.
“I thought I had two daughters,” he said coldly. “Turns out I only have one.”
“Ivan, don’t talk nonsense,” Mom jumped in. “Alice is your daughter too.”
“My daughter wouldn’t stay silent while her sister was hurt. My daughter wouldn’t spend money meant for two people on herself alone.”
Alice went pale.
“Dad, that’s not fair…”
“Enough,” he said, standing. “Lena, decide. If you want, we fly to Prague tomorrow. If not, I’ll accept your choice—but I won’t come back here again.”
“And Mom?” I asked, looking at the woman who had lied to me for twenty years. “And Alice?”
“Alice works and earns money. She has her own apartment. Your mother is an adult with a job. They’ll manage without my money. Just like you managed all these years.”
“But they’re my family,” I said weakly.
“Family?” Pain flashed in his eyes. “In a real family, people don’t steal from each other. In a real family, they don’t lie for twenty years.”
That night I lay in my rented one-bedroom in Butovo and stared at the ceiling. Through the wall, the neighbors had their TV blasting, and I tried to digest everything I’d learned.
Dad had checked into a hotel and given me until morning to think.
“If you decide to go, call me. The flight is the day after tomorrow,” he said when he left.
At three a.m., Alice called me.
“Len, are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Listen… maybe we shouldn’t dramatize this. Dad’s upset. Tomorrow he’ll cool off.”
“Alice,” I cut her off. “Do you really think I should just forget I was deceived for twenty years?”
“No one deceived you!” she snapped. “We just… didn’t tell you everything.”
“Didn’t tell me Dad was sending money for me? Didn’t tell me you had your own apartment? Didn’t tell me I had a right to one too? Alice, do you hear yourself?”
“I hear that because of your principles our family is falling apart!”
“Our family?” I laughed bitterly. “What family, Alice? The one where they lied to my face for twenty years?”
“Lena, stop it! Yes, Mom spent more on me. But I had more needs! I had to look good, develop myself…”
“And I didn’t?”
“You’re different. You were always more… modest in what you wanted.”
“Modest?” I said. “Or did you just decide I didn’t deserve more?”
Alice fell silent.
“If you leave with Dad, Mom will be completely alone,” she finally said.
“And if I stay,” I answered, “I’ll be alone. Just like I’ve been all these years.”
“Len…”
“Good night, Alice.”
I hung up and tried to sleep.
In the morning I looked around my tiny apartment for a long time. Twenty-eight square meters I paid half my salary for. IKEA furniture bought on installments. An old TV that glitched constantly. It all felt like a symbol of my old life—a life of someone trained to settle for scraps because she’d been taught she didn’t deserve more.
At noon I called Dad.
“I’m ready.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. But I need time to quit my job, hand back the apartment…”
“Will a month be enough?”
“It will.”
“Then I’ll see you in Prague in a month.”
Mom and Alice tried to talk me out of it. Mom cried and said I was betraying her, that she’d devoted her whole life to her children. Alice insisted I was selfish, destroying the family.
But I’d made my decision, and I wasn’t going to back down.
A month later I flew to Prague. Dad met me at the airport. For the first time in years, I felt genuinely wanted.
I started at his company as a project coordinator, but I quickly drifted toward the architectural side. Dad paid for courses, and within six months I was helping design an eco-village outside Prague.
“You’ve got talent,” Tomáš, my father’s business partner, told me one day. “And an incredible sense of proportion.”
Tomáš was five years older than me, divorced, with two children. Eight months after I arrived, we started dating.
“Your father is a good man,” he said one evening as we walked through Prague at night.
“Yes,” I said. “I just wish I’d understood that sooner.”
“Better late than never,” he replied.
A year later Tomáš proposed—simple, without drama. One morning at breakfast, he said:
“Lena, what if you married me?”
I laughed.
“And what if I did?”
“Do,” he said seriously. “I love you. And the kids love you too.”
Neither Mom nor Alice came to the wedding. Mom sent a cold telegram: Wishing you happiness. Alice sent nothing.
“Don’t be upset,” Dad said as he walked me to the altar. “You have a new family now.”
“Aren’t you sorry for them?” I asked.
“I am,” he answered honestly. “But I choose the ones who choose me.”
Six months after the wedding, we launched a new project—an eco-village for young families. More affordable, but just as high-quality.
“You know,” Tomáš said, looking over the drawings, “you’re creating homes where people will be happy.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because you know what a real home feels like,” he said. “And what a fake one feels like.”
That evening I called my father.
“Dad… thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not letting me stay in a life that was never meant to be mine.”
“Everyone deserves fairness,” he said. “Especially my children.”
“One child,” I corrected quietly. “You only have one.”
“No,” he said. “I have a daughter. A real one.”
Mom and Alice still didn’t understand why things hadn’t gone the way they’d planned. But that was no longer my story.
My story was only beginning.