“You’ll Give the Car to Your Sister, and After the Wedding You’ll Transfer the Apartment to Her Too,” Mother Declared
Natasha stayed late at work and arrived home later than usual. The hallway smelled of fried potatoes and onions—her mother, as always, had cooked dinner without waiting for her. Natasha took off her shoes, placed her bag on the cabinet, and sighed deeply.
“Go to the kitchen,” her mother’s sharp voice called out.
Natasha slowly walked into the dining room. Her mother and younger sister, Katya, were sitting at the table. Their plates were already empty, while a cold serving of food waited at Natasha’s place.
“You ate without me again?” Natasha asked as she sat down.
“Were we supposed to wait for you until midnight?” Katya scoffed without looking up from her phone.
Their mother set down her fork and gave Natasha an appraising look.
“By the way, about the car. You’ll give it to Katya.”
Natasha froze with a piece of bread in her hand.
“What?”
“You walk to work anyway. Why do you need a car?” her mother continued calmly, as though discussing the weather forecast. “It’ll be much more convenient for Katya to drive to university.”
“That’s my car! I bought it myself!” Natasha’s voice trembled.
“So what?” Katya finally looked away from her screen. “You’re the older sister. You’re supposed to help.”
“And after the wedding, you’ll transfer the apartment to her too,” their mother added.
A chill ran down Natasha’s spine.
“What apartment?”
“The one Grandma left you. You’re getting married, you’ll live with Igor. Where is Katya supposed to live?”
Natasha jumped to her feet so abruptly that the chair struck the floor.
“Have you both lost your minds? That’s my property!”
“You’re selfish!” Katya twisted her lips. “Everything for yourself, always for yourself!”
Their mother sighed and folded her hands on the table.
“We’re family, Natasha. We have to share.”
Natasha clenched her fists. Her head was buzzing. Suddenly, she understood—this wasn’t a request.
It was an ultimatum.
Natasha spent the night tossing and turning. Her mother’s and Katya’s words replayed endlessly in her mind like a scratched record. Morning greeted her with a gloomy sky outside the window and a heavy feeling in her chest.
She poured herself coffee but didn’t drink it. Her hands were trembling slightly. She switched on her phone and saw a message from Igor.
“Good morning, beautiful. How are you?”
Normally, those words would have made her smile. This time, she only pressed her lips together.
“Maybe he knows…”
The thought seemed absurd, but Natasha couldn’t get rid of it. She dialed his number.
“Hi,” Igor answered cheerfully. “You’re awake already?”
“Yes. Listen, I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Mother is demanding that I give Katya my car and apartment.”
There was a pause.
Far too long a pause.
“Well… what do you think?” he finally asked.
Natasha felt everything tighten inside her.
“You knew?”
“What? No. What are you talking about?”
“Don’t lie to me!” her voice cracked. “You talked to Mother about this!”
“Natasha, calm down. Yes, she mentioned it… But that doesn’t mean I support it!”
“Mentioned it?” Natasha gave a sharp laugh. “So you’ve already discussed everything?”
“You’re making too much of this. Katya really is struggling, while you already have everything…”
“I have everything?” Natasha gripped the phone so tightly that her fingers turned white. “I worked two jobs for three years to buy that car! Grandma left the apartment to me, not Katya!”
“But you’re not the only person in the family…”
“I understand everything now.”
She ended the call.
Her phone immediately began vibrating again—Igor was calling back. Natasha silenced it.
Katya entered the kitchen, stretching.
“Oh, you’re already up. What’s for breakfast?”
Natasha slowly looked up at her.
“Do you talk to Igor?”
Katya froze for a second, then shrugged.
“Well… sometimes. He’s going to be my relative soon, after all.”
“And did you discuss the apartment with him?”
“Maybe. Why?”
Natasha stood up, pushing the chair back with such a loud scrape that Katya flinched.
“Remember this. You’re getting neither the car nor the apartment.”
“We’ll see about that,” Katya sneered. “Igor is on my side.”
Natasha’s phone lit up again with another incoming call.
The screen said: Mom.
Natasha took a deep breath, grabbed her bag, and walked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.
A light rain was falling outside. Natasha walked without noticing either the people or the cars around her.
Only one thought pounded inside her head.
Betrayed. They all betrayed me.
A week passed after that conversation. Natasha lived as though in a fog—work, an empty apartment, sleepless nights. Igor called every day, but she refused to answer. Her mother left five missed calls, and Natasha didn’t even listen to the voice messages.
On Friday morning, she decided to stop by an auto repair shop because the car had started making a strange noise.
The mechanic, a bald man in grease-stained coveralls, whistled while examining the documents.
“You know the car isn’t registered in your name anymore, right?”
“What?”
Natasha snatched the vehicle registration document from him.
Katya’s name appeared in the “owner” field.
“That’s impossible…”
She frantically grabbed her phone and opened the government services app.
A minute later, everything became clear.
Three days earlier, Katya had transferred ownership of the car to herself using a general power of attorney.
Natasha’s hands shook so violently that the phone slipped from her fingers and landed on the pavement. The mechanic was saying something, but Natasha was already running toward her—
No.
Toward Katya’s car.
Her mother opened the door of the family apartment wearing a greasy housecoat.
“Where have you been disappearing to?”
“You knew?” Natasha demanded, waving a printout from the traffic police database in front of her mother’s face.
Her mother frowned, trying to read the small print.
“Knew what?”
“Katya stole my car! A forged power of attorney, a fake signature—this is a criminal offense!”
Katya walked out of her room wearing a new pink robe—a gift from Igor, as Natasha later discovered.
“I didn’t forge anything,” Katya said, chewing gum while examining one of her fingernails. “You signed the power of attorney yourself.”
“When?!”
“Last Thursday. You came home drunk. I gave you the paper, and you signed it.”
Cold sweat ran down Natasha’s back.
Last Thursday, she had been finishing a report until three in the morning.
She hadn’t drunk so much as a glass of wine.
“We’re witnesses,” their mother suddenly said. “Me and our neighbor Nina Ivanovna. You really did sign it.”
The phone in Natasha’s pocket vibrated.
A text from Igor:
“Natash, let’s talk. Katya is worried.”
Natasha slowly raised her head.
Katya was watching her with the faintest smirk.
“Tomorrow I’m going to a lawyer. Then I’m going to the police.”
“So what?” Katya shrugged. “You don’t have money for a lawyer.”
“And you don’t have a conscience.”
Their mother suddenly began coughing and clutching her chest.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack! Over some stupid car!”
Natasha turned around and walked out, slamming the door so hard that an old vase fell from the top shelf.
Once outside, she suddenly realized that she had nowhere to go.
She had no car.
Home?
But home no longer felt like home.
She took out her phone and called her friend.
“Lena, are you home? I need somewhere to stay tonight…”
Her voice broke.
A treacherous tear slid down her cheek.
The wind blew fast-food wrappers along the street.
Somewhere in the city, Katya was probably driving her car.
Or worse—Igor was.
Natasha wiped her face and headed toward the subway.
Tomorrow there would be war.
For two weeks, Natasha stayed with Lena. Every day began the same way—a call from her lawyer, new documents, endless conversations with the police.
The car had not yet been returned, but the investigator assured her that she had a strong case.
On Friday evening, Lena brought home some wine.
“Try to distract yourself for a while.”
Natasha slowly drank the lukewarm rosé while staring out the window.
Down by the entrance stood a familiar black SUV.
“Oh God…”
She recognized Igor’s car.
Katya stepped out wearing a short leather coat—new and expensive.
Igor put his arm around her waist.
Together, they entered the building.
“That’s… your sister, isn’t it?” Lena asked carefully.
Without saying anything, Natasha picked up her phone.
She opened Katya’s Telegram account. It was private, but the profile picture showed someone’s hand wearing an engagement ring against the background of a restaurant.
“Treacherous bitch…”
Natasha opened her conversation with Igor.
His last message read:
“Natash, let’s meet. I’ll explain everything.”
Then Natasha suddenly remembered something.
She still had access to his email.
Long ago, Igor himself had given her the password so that she could check their travel tickets.
Ten minutes of searching—and she found it.
Igor’s messages with Katya.
Photographs.
Plans they had made together.
And most importantly, discussions about Natasha’s apartment.
“Lena, give me a flash drive.”
Natasha didn’t sleep that night.
She sat in the kitchen with her laptop, organizing and editing screenshots.
At six in the morning, she published a post:
“Dear friends. I’d like to introduce you to my sister’s fiancé. Yes, yes—the same man who only a week ago was still mine…”
Text.
Photographs.
Messages.
Everything.
By seven in the morning, Natasha’s phone exploded with calls and messages.
Her mother called first.
“Have you completely lost your mind?! Delete that immediately!”
“It’s already too late,” Natasha replied calmly.
“Katya is hysterical! Igor is furious!”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Natasha hung up.
She turned on the television. Morning news was playing.
The coffee tasted bitter.
But victory tasted sweeter.
An hour later, Igor sent her a message:
“You’re going to regret this. We’re suing you for defamation.”
Natasha laughed.
Let them sue.
She had evidence.
Lena entered the kitchen, looking pale.
“Natash… are you sure you did the right thing?”
“For the first time in the last month—absolutely.”
She finished her coffee.
The war was only beginning.
After publishing the scandalous post, Natasha turned off her phone for three days.
She knew there would be calls, threats, pleas to delete the publication.
But right now, she needed something else.
Silence.
Lena left on a business trip and gave Natasha the keys to the apartment.
The place seemed too large and empty.
Natasha walked barefoot across the cold laminate floor, made tea, and stared out the window.
On Wednesday morning, she finally found the courage to switch her phone back on.
Forty-seven missed calls.
Twenty-three messages from Igor.
Fifteen from her mother.
Several more from old friends.
The first thing that caught her eye was a message from her cousin’s mother:
“Natasha, aren’t you ashamed? Airing the family’s dirty laundry in public! The whole family is shocked!”
Natasha opened the social network.
Her post had been shared hundreds of times.
The comments were filled with both anger and support.
“You’re a hero! People like that need to be exposed!”
“How can you humiliate your own family like this?”
Natasha closed the app.
Her hands were shaking.
Suddenly, she realized that now she had neither a family nor friends.
Only a war.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Natalia Sergeyevna? We’re from the City News editorial office. Could we get a comment?”
“No.”
“But your post has gone viral! It’s practically a ready-made article!”
“Leave, or I’m calling the police.”
The journalists left, but Natasha knew this was only the beginning.
That evening, someone rang the doorbell again.
This time it was Lena’s elderly neighbor.
“Miss, there’s a letter for you.”
The envelope bore the logo of a law firm.
It contained a lawsuit for protection of honor and dignity filed by Igor and Katya.
They were demanding 500,000 rubles in compensation.
Natasha laughed.
Loudly.
Hysterically.
Until tears came.
“Is everything all right?” the frightened neighbor asked.
“Wonderful. Just wonderful.”
Natasha closed the door, sat down on the hallway floor, and for the first time in a long while allowed herself to cry.
Her phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Natasha? This is Nina Ivanovna, your downstairs neighbor. I… I want to talk. About that power of attorney.”
Natasha froze.
“What about it?”
“I couldn’t sleep. What happened was wrong… I didn’t see you sign any papers. Your mother asked me to say that I had.”
Tears continued rolling down Natasha’s face.
But now she was smiling.
“Are you willing to give an official statement?”
“Yes. I’m already seventy-two. I have nothing to be afraid of.”
Natasha looked out the window.
It was raining outside.
But for the first time in a long while, it seemed to her that the clouds were beginning to clear.
She took out a notebook and started writing down a plan of action.
The war continued.
But now she had an ally.
The courtroom resembled a theater of the absurd.
Natasha sat at a table opposite Katya and Igor, who carefully avoided looking at her.
Her mother nervously fiddled with her handbag in the back row.
The judge, a stern-looking woman with tired eyes, read the case in a monotonous voice:
“Plaintiff Katerina Demidova requests that the transfer of ownership rights to the automobile be recognized as lawful…”
Katya’s lawyer, an expensively dressed man with an arrogant expression, spoke first.
“My client acted within the law. There is a signed power of attorney confirmed by witnesses.”
Natasha’s lawyer, a young woman in a strict business suit, stood with calm confidence.
“Your Honor, I request that surveillance footage from the café across the street from the defendant’s residence on the date in question be admitted into evidence.”
A recording appeared on the screen.
Natasha could be seen entering the building at 11:47 p.m., alone, carrying a folder of documents.
Two hours later, she left.
Also alone.
“According to the plaintiff’s documents, the power of attorney was signed at 12:30 a.m. So where is Ms. Demidova? Where are the witnesses?”
Katya jumped to her feet.
“That video is fake!”
The judge looked at her sternly.
“Sit down, Ms. Demidova.”
When Nina Ivanovna was called to testify, Natasha’s mother turned pale.
“I… I really didn’t see Natasha sign anything. Anna Petrovna asked me to say otherwise…”
“Lies!” Natasha’s mother shouted. “You were the one who offered to be a witness!”
The judge struck her gavel.
“Order in the courtroom!”
Igor suddenly stood up.
“Your Honor, I would like to make a statement…”
“You are not a party to this lawsuit,” the judge replied coldly.
The recess felt endless.
Natasha stood by the corridor window, smoking even though she had quit three years earlier.
Igor approached her.
“Natash, can we talk?”
“About what? About how you were sleeping with my sister while you were still with me?”
“It just happened…”
“Just happened?” Natasha laughed. “Like the power of attorney just happened? Like the lawsuit just happened?”
He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away.
“You know what? I’m glad everything happened this way. Otherwise, I would have married a bastard.”
When the ruling was announced, Katya burst loudly into tears.
The car was to be returned to Natasha.
The plaintiff’s claims were dismissed.
In the hallway, her mother intercepted her.
“Are you happy now? You destroyed this family!”
“No, Mom. You destroyed it. The moment you decided one daughter mattered more than the other.”
Natasha walked out of the courthouse.
For the first time in many months, she felt that the truth was on her side.
But the biggest battle still lay ahead.
The apartment.
And Natasha knew that this time she was ready.
Rain tapped against the windowsill of the apartment Natasha now referred to exclusively as “Grandma’s apartment.”
Not “Mom’s.”
Not “the family apartment.”
Not “ours.”
Only hers and Grandma’s.
She sorted through folders of documents, preparing for another court case—this one concerning the invalidation of a supposed deed of gift through which her mother had allegedly transferred the apartment to Katya six months earlier.
The doorbell made Natasha jump.
Through the peephole, she saw Igor standing outside, soaked from the rain.
“Go away,” Natasha said through the door.
“I brought the documents. The ones you asked for.”
“Leave them outside.”
“Natasha, please…”
She abruptly opened the door.
“What documents?”
He handed her an envelope.
Inside were printouts of Katya’s messages in which she bragged about persuading their mother to transfer the apartment to her “just in case.”
“Why are you giving me this?” Natasha asked, squeezing the envelope.
“I… I realized how blind I was. Katya used me. Just like she used your mother.”
“Too late.”
Natasha stepped backward to close the door.
Igor placed his palm against the doorframe.
“I broke off the engagement. I gave Katya the ring back.”
“And I’m supposed to applaud?”
“No. I just want you to know…”
Natasha slammed the door.
The envelope trembled in her hands.
The next day, she received a call from the hospital.
Her mother had been admitted to the cardiology department with a suspected heart attack.
The hospital room smelled of medicine and fear.
Her mother lay pale in bed with an IV attached to her arm.
“You came…” she said with a weak smile.
“How are you feeling?”
“The doctors say I’ll live.”
Her mother turned toward the window.
“Katya came once. She asked whether I had changed my mind about the apartment.”
Natasha silently adjusted her mother’s pillow.
“I… transferred everything back to you. The documents are with the notary.”
Her mother’s hand trembled as she took Natasha’s.
“Forgive me…”
Natasha didn’t answer.
She simply sat there, watching the clear liquid drip slowly from the IV bag.
A month later, she received her ownership certificate.
The car keys.
And the court’s decision awarding compensation for emotional damages.
Standing in the empty apartment, Natasha studied her new haircut in the mirror.
Her phone remained silent.
No calls from Katya.
No messages from Igor.
She picked up the suitcase she had bought the day before.
Berlin—Moscow—Vladivostok.
She had purchased a one-way ticket.
Before leaving, Natasha looked around at the walls that held her childhood memories.
The place where Grandma’s pies had once filled the air with their smell.
The place where they had all once laughed together.
The door closed with a quiet click.
The elevator carried her downward.
Keys jingled in her pocket.
Keys to a new life.
To the unknown.
To freedom.
Outside, the sun was shining.
One Year Later
At a small café on the shore of the Baltic Sea, a waitress in a white apron carried orders between tables.
Her short chestnut hair lifted gently in the sea breeze, and a thin silver bracelet gleamed on her left wrist—the only jewelry she wore.
“Your house-special cherry strudel,” Natasha said, setting a plate in front of an elderly couple.
“Oh, thank you, dear! You look so much like our daughter,” the woman smiled.
The man took out his phone.
“Would you mind taking a picture of us?”
Natasha accepted the device.
For a moment, she caught her own reflection in the screen.
Calm eyes.
Fine smile lines.
A year earlier, she wouldn’t have recognized herself.
That evening, after her shift, Natasha sat alone on the empty beach.
A new message from Lena appeared on her phone:
“Katya came by. She asked how to find you. She says your mother is seriously ill…”
Natasha put the phone aside and watched a wave wash away footprints in the sand.
Inside her jacket pocket lay an unopened letter—a thick envelope with a Moscow postmark that had arrived the previous week.
Suddenly, she remembered her grandmother’s words:
“Wounds heal, sweetheart. But scars remain—to help us remember.”
In the distance, the lights of fishing boats began to glow.
Natasha breathed in the salty air and took out the keys to her apartment—a small place overlooking the sea.
Tomorrow would be a new day.
And that meant new footprints in the sand.