“Well, did I surprise you?” Victoria said calmly, pulling back a chair and sitting down across from Alla Nikolaevna. “Didn’t recognize your good-for-nothing daughter?”
Her mother blinked, frowned, then glanced sideways at Pavel Serafimovich, who sat there with the expression of a man whose peaceful viewing of a political talk show had been rudely interrupted by everything going on.
“I recognized you,” Alla Nikolaevna said dryly. “I just didn’t immediately understand who was entering the café with such theatrical flair. Like an actress in a TV series.”
“Well, that makes sense. I was always ‘taking too much upon myself,’” Vika smirked. “Even when I asked you to buy me paints for my birthday.”
The waitress brought the menus. Her father, without looking, pointed at the business lunch. Her mother sighed and carefully folded her glasses on the table. Victoria ordered steamed salmon. A small piece of irony for those who remembered how, as a child, she had been fed semolina and told it was a “healthy diet.”
“So, you’re married now to that… Makarov?” Alla Nikolaevna began. “They say he has three apartments in the center. In Moscow?”
“Yes. And he also has a heart. Can you imagine? Right there in his chest. And it even beats,” Victoria said with fake delight.
Her father snorted.
“Sarcasm is not a sign of intelligence, Vika. Better tell us how you even met him. Did he just pick you up off the street?”
“Almost. Only instead of the street, it was a design studio, and instead of picking me up, I was saving his project. He was an investor, and I was still just an assistant back then.”
“An assistant…” her mother drawled, her face twisting. “You could have been a lawyer. Your father and I dreamed you would work at a notary office. Stability, pension contributions, a proper schedule.”
“And also a nervous breakdown, gray hair by thirty, and endless folders full of other people’s cases. Thank you, but no. I chose something else.”
“Of course you did,” Alla Nikolaevna said. “Because you’ve had a spirit of contradiction since childhood. Now Artyom is different. Calm, balanced…”
“And still living with you in a three-room apartment in Mytishchi,” Vika interrupted, crossing her arms. “With his wife, his children, moths in the pantry, and a new car bought on credit.”
Her mother tensed. Her father coughed. Someone at the neighboring table giggled. But Victoria could no longer stop herself.
“And you know what’s funniest? You never even tried to understand me. Not once. It was always Artyom, Artyom, Artyom… And what about me? With you, there was only one conversation: ‘You’re living wrong, Victoria! You don’t know what you want! You ruin everything!’”
Alla Nikolaevna slowly took a handkerchief out of her purse. Apparently, in case of “sudden tears.” Only the tears weren’t hers. Everything inside Vika was boiling, but nothing spilled outward. Only a steel voice and clear words.
“I worked three shifts to rent a room. I cleaned other people’s toilets. Did you know that?”
“Why are you saying this?” Pavel Serafimovich said quietly. “Why dig up the past?”
“Because you didn’t know how I lived. And you weren’t interested. Not until you found out my husband was rich. Only then did you remember you had a daughter. And decided—why not? Maybe she can help.”
“Help?” Alla Nikolaevna pretended to be offended. “We simply wanted to repair our relationship.”
“After fifteen years of silence?” Vika laughed. “Yes, of course. You simply remembered your child. I’m almost moved to tears.”
“What nonsense are you talking, Vika?!” her father raised his voice. “We don’t owe you anything! You left on your own!”
“Yes, I left. Because it’s impossible to live in a house where only the convenient child is loved. Because no one ever asked whether I wanted to live the way you ordered me to. Because at seventeen, you told me, ‘If you want freedom, go and live however you want.’ So I went. And I lived.”
“We were worried!” her mother shouted, no longer able to hold back. “We just didn’t know where you were! And when Artyom said he saw you on television, I thought…”
“You thought it would be convenient to pretend you cared?” Victoria pressed her lips together. “I’ll tell you honestly right now, Mom. If you came here to ask for money, then just say so. Enough theater.”
Alla Nikolaevna turned pale. Her lips trembled. Her father stood up.
“Let’s go, Alla. You see, she has changed. Money ruins people.”
“No,” Vika replied coldly. “Money doesn’t ruin people. It simply gives them the opportunity not to tolerate things anymore.”
They left without paying. Of course—why would they? Their rich daughter had a businessman husband. She would cover everything.
Victoria sat at the table for another ten minutes. Then she took out her phone and called Sergey.
“It went exactly as I thought,” she sighed. “They didn’t want forgiveness. They wanted access to money.”
“Come home,” he said softly. “I ordered sushi and opened wine. Your favorite. You’re strong, Vika. But you’re not alone. Never again.”
She smiled.
And suddenly, everything felt light.
No pain. No resentment. No parents.
Just light.
“You PROMISED our money to your sister?! For repairs—the money we saved for three years?! And what, I’m supposed to keep living with mold and a dripping faucet?! Doctor of Your Hearts | Igor Masin June 10”
“Well, congratulations,” Artyom’s voice sounded from behind her. “You’re a star now. The whole family is talking only about you.”
Victoria turned around. Her brother was standing in the doorway of her apartment, wearing a jacket he had clearly outgrown, with that same half-smile that had once driven the chemistry teacher mad.
“Who let you in?” she asked, not hiding her irritation.
“Sergey. He went out to the store, and I arrived just then. I said, ‘I’m Vika’s brother,’ and he opened the door.”
“Logical. Now you’re also a family pass.”
“Don’t be sarcastic, Vik. I’m not your enemy.”
“No, you just stayed silent all those years. Sat quietly while I was humiliated at home. When Mother called me ‘the shame of the family,’ you pretended you didn’t hear.”
“I didn’t know you took it all that way,” Artyom spread his hands. “You were always… well, different.”
“Right. ‘Different.’ The one who was easier not to notice. Not to defend. Not to invite to birthdays. Not to ask how she was surviving alone in the city.”
He sat down on the edge of the sofa and looked out the window.
“Listen, well, you’re alive. And judging by things, you didn’t just survive—you landed pretty well. You’ve got…” He looked around the spacious living room. “…everything quite nice here.”
“Did you come to admire the interior, or did you have something to say?”
“Mom and Dad are worried.”
“Worried that my husband isn’t a fool and won’t give them a single kopeck?”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“Of course. With them, it’s always ‘not about that.’ Only somehow, everything always revolves around money, outward success, and nice photos for relatives from Ryazan. They wouldn’t have even come to my funeral if they hadn’t found out my last name was now Makarova.”
“You’re being unfair,” he exhaled. “Mom is just like that. She simply doesn’t know how to be any other way.”
“And I don’t know how to be their convenient daughter. And I don’t want to learn.”
He stood up and walked around the room, as if trying her life on for size.
“I was thinking… since you’re in the capital now, maybe you could help me too. My wife wants to open a nail studio. I can’t take out a loan, and you could…”
“Ahhh… So now we’ve reached the point of the visit,” Victoria smirked. “Not ‘let’s make peace,’ not ‘forgive me for being a coward,’ but ‘give me money.’”
Artyom froze. Then he sighed and raised his hands as if under interrogation.
“Yes! I came to ask. What else was I supposed to do? My parents won’t give me anything, we have a mortgage, two children, and barely any proper work. You’re living the good life, Vik. Your husband has money. You could help. For the sake of family.”
“Did you even understand what you just said? For the sake of family… the family that rejected me. The family where I was a stranger.”
“People change.”
“No. People simply start needing something. That isn’t change. That’s a survival strategy.”
He stepped closer and looked into her eyes.
“And you’ve changed. You’ve become hard.”
“No. I’m simply not stupid anymore. And as practice shows, that can be cured by money and loneliness. Thank you. You cured me.”
He left silently. No shouting. No scene. He simply slammed the door. He was probably hoping she would call him. Say, “Artyom, I’ve thought it over. Here, take two hundred thousand for your Ksyusha’s business.”
No. He could keep waiting.
Ten minutes later, Sergey returned. In the bag were her favorite pasta and wine.
“You look like someone who has just carried out a relative,” he smirked, taking off h
is jacket.
“Almost,” she nodded. “Artyom came by. He’s also ‘worried.’”
“Asked for money?”
“Yes. Brotherly. He probably thought money grows in my pockets like in a greenhouse.”
“Are you okay?”
“More than okay. You know, I suddenly understood one important thing.”
“What?”
“That I don’t owe them anything anymore. Not money, not forgiveness, not kind words. Everything I could survive—I survived. Everything they want—they will never have. It’s called living your own life.”
“I’m proud of you,” Sergey said. “Truly.”
“And I’m finally proud of myself too.”
She took out the glasses.
As she poured the wine, she felt silence bloom inside her chest. Real silence. Without theatrics. Without demands. Without other people’s expectations.
Just her life.
And no one else’s.
The end.