“Pick My Son Up from School and Feed Him,” My Sister Said. Two Days Later, I Received a Notification from the School
“Nina, where are you? I already sent Artyom to you. Pick him up from school,” my sister said over the phone, as if we had agreed on it yesterday.
Nina stopped at the turnstile in the business center and did not even immediately find her words.
“Send who?”
“My Artyom. Who else? I have an appointment with my technician in twenty minutes, I’m not going to make it. You’re just sitting in the office anyway.”
“Lena, I’m at work. And the school is on the other side of the district.”
“Take a taxi. We’ll settle up later. What, you can’t help your own sister with her child?”
The call dropped. Either Lena hung up, or the signal disappeared in the elevator.
Nina stared at the screen for a few seconds. Then she called again. Busy.
Downstairs, near the security desk, there was already the smell of cheap coffee from the vending machine. Behind the glass, a March drizzle was falling. Nina squeezed her access card, sighed, and headed back toward the exit.
She worked at an insurance company in the claims department. Papers, calls, spreadsheets. The work was calm, but not the kind where you could just get up and disappear for two hours. Her boss tolerated a lot as long as Nina did not miss deadlines. And today, the deadlines were exactly what was burning.
But Artyom was not to blame.
The security guard released the boy only after a call from his homeroom teacher.
“Aunt Nina, Mom said you’d take me to your place,” Artyom announced, adjusting his backpack.
“Until evening,” Nina replied dryly.
“Then your mom will pick you up.”
“She said it might be late.”
There it was. Might be late.
Nina took him to the office. The girls from the neighboring room first cooed over him, then started glancing sideways. Artyom quickly got bored, began spinning in the chair, asking for her phone, and dropping pencils. Half an hour later, her boss came out of his office and looked over his glasses.
“Nina Sergeyevna, this is not a kindergarten. You know that.”
“I know. There’s no one to pick him up.”
The boss said nothing.
Lena arrived at nine in the evening. She burst in with a shopping mall bag, wearing a new beige coat and smelling of sweet perfume.
“Oh, you’re still awake? Good. Artyom, put your boots on. Nina, thanks, you really helped me out.”
“You promised to come by seven.”
“Well, it dragged on. First my nails, then I stopped by Lenta. They had a discount on detergent, it would’ve been a sin not to buy it.”
She spoke lightly, as if nothing had happened. Nina looked at the bag.
“You didn’t even warn me.”
“Oh, come on. I didn’t leave him for a week. Why are you making that face right away? What is family for?”
It was not the first time. And not the second.
After the divorce, Lena often said that it was hard for her alone. Although she was not exactly alone: her ex-husband paid child support regularly, their parents helped with groceries, and Nina helped with her time. Pick Artyom up from the clinic, watch him on Saturday, urgently bring him a notebook, go to the technician because a courier was supposed to arrive.
At first, Nina thought it was temporary. Then it became normal.
“You’re freer than I am,” her sister liked to repeat.
“You don’t have a husband or children. It’s easier for you.”
That was always where Lena struck.
One summer, Nina came to her mother’s dacha. A polka-dot oilcloth lay on the veranda table, and old basil was drying on the windowsill. Lena was there too, and right from the doorway she said:
“Ninka, take Artyom to the dentist tomorrow. I have an eyelash appointment.”
“Tomorrow is Wednesday. I’m working.”
“Take a day off. You never use your days off anyway.”
Their mother quietly added then:
“Lena, you could at least ask in advance.”
But Lena only waved her off.
“Mom, don’t start. If not Nina, then who? I’m doing everything alone.”
Doing everything alone. That was another one of her favorite phrases. It fit everything: lateness, forgotten promises, sudden requests.
Nina stayed silent for a long time. She was forty-two. She lived alone in a one-room apartment near the Lesnaya metro station, paid a car loan, and did not like explaining to anyone why she had “no husband and no children.” Over the past years, she had already had enough questions at family gatherings even without anyone else reminding her. So she usually gave in before the conversation went any further.
Once, Lena had even left Artyom with her for the entire May holidays, saying she was going to Sochi “for work.” Later, from the photos, it turned out that the work had been in a heated swimming pool. Nina stayed silent then and only turned off notifications.
But this time, things got even worse.
On Friday, Lena called again.
“Nina, I need a favor. Just for one day.”
“What kind?”
“On Monday, a commission is coming to our salon. I have to be there from opening until closing. Pick up Artyom, take him home, and stay with him until I get back.”
“Until when?”
“Well, whenever. Maybe until nine.”
“No.”
There was silence on the line.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no. On Monday after work, I’m going to the service center to look at a car. I have an appointment.”
“Reschedule it.”
“I won’t.”
“You won’t pick up your own nephew because of a service center?”
“Lena, Artyom has a father.”
“His father is on a business trip.”
“He has a grandmother.”
“Mom’s blood pressure is jumping. You know that.”
“He has you.”
“I’m working!” Lena said sharply.
“I’m not lying on the sofa.”
Nina closed her eyes. There it was, the usual turn: if Lena was refused, she immediately acted as if everyone around her were lazy and she alone was carrying the whole world on her shoulders.
“I work too,” Nina replied calmly.
“Oh, your work… You sit at a computer. Everyone has become so businesslike now, remote work, schedules, and no help from anyone.”
“I said no.”
“I’ll remember that,” Lena said dryly and hung up.
Nina thought the conversation was over. But on Monday at half past three, Artyom’s homeroom teacher called her.
“Nina Sergeyevna? Can you pick Artyom up? His mother is unavailable, and he said you usually come for him.”
Nina got up from her desk so abruptly that her chair rolled back.
“Is he still at school?”
“Yes. Almost everyone has been picked up.”
Nina called Lena. She did not answer. Ten minutes later, a message arrived:
“I’m at work, I can’t talk. Pick him up, I’ll explain tonight.”
That became the final straw. Not a request. Not a conversation. She simply presented Nina with a fact for the second time in one week.
Nina still went. Artyom was sitting on a bench in an empty corridor, scraping the tile with the toe of his shoe.
“Mom said you’d definitely come,” he said trustingly.
Something inside Nina tightened, but only for a second.
At home, she fed him pasta, turned on a cartoon, and called her mother.
“Mom, did you know Lena dumped Artyom on me again?”
“I guessed,” her mother replied tiredly.
“She called this morning and asked if I could. I couldn’t. My fingers ache, I can’t even open jars of jam. But I thought she’d somehow figure it out herself.”
“She can’t figure it out. She uses me to plug every hole.”
Her mother was silent for a moment.
“Nina, just don’t take it out on the boy.”
“I’m not taking it out on him. I just don’t want to live according to her schedule anymore.”
“I understand.”
At nine, Lena did not come. Nor at ten. A little after ten, the doorbell rang.
Lena came in irritated, with the phone pressed to her ear. She quickly finished saying something, ended the call, and immediately went on the attack:
“And why were you calling me at work? Because of you, I had a fight with the administrator.”
“I wasn’t calling you. The teacher called me. Artyom was sitting in an empty school.”
“So what? You picked him up, didn’t you?”
“You didn’t even ask whether I could.”
“Nina, don’t make a tragedy out of it. I didn’t dump some stranger’s child on you.”
“And what if I had left? What if my phone had been on silent?”
“But you didn’t leave.”
That phrase even made Nina smirk. Such a simple, convenient phrase. If everything somehow worked out, then there would have been no problem.
“Listen,” Lena continued, pulling off her boots,
“Honestly, you’ve developed a habit of dramatizing everything. I’m already doing everything alone. You could show some understanding.”
“Have you ever shown any understanding for me?”
“For you?” Lena widened her eyes.
“What kind of situation do you even have? You come home from work and there’s silence. Do whatever you want.”
Artyom went quiet in the room. Nina sensed it and still did not stop.
“So because I live alone, you can manage my life for me?”
“Not manage it. Count on a close person.”
“A close person gives a warning. Say thank you. And doesn’t turn someone else into a free nanny.”
“Oh, here we go. Now you’re going to send me a bill too?”
Lena said it mockingly. And suddenly Nina answered:
“I will.”
Her sister froze.
“What?”
“For six months, you left Artyom with me in the evenings, on weekends, on holidays. I wrote everything down in my calendar. Not for money. For myself, so I wouldn’t lie and pretend it was ‘just a couple of times.’ If it hadn’t been me but a nanny, the amount would have been quite serious.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No. Starting today, I am no longer picking Artyom up. Not from school, not from his activities, not ‘just for an hour.’ And tomorrow, remove me from the school’s emergency contact list.”
Lena turned pale.
“So that’s how it is. Because of one mishap, you’re punishing a child?”
“Not the child. You.”
“Wonderful. You can be proud. His own aunt refused to help.”
“His own mother decided his aunt was obligated to do everything.”
Lena switched to a whisper, angry and prickly:
“Who needs you with that personality of yours anyway? You sit there alone, and that’s why it infuriates you when other people have a life.”
She knew how to do that too: hit exactly where it hurt and pretend she had merely told the truth.
Nina opened the front door.
“Artyom, put your jacket on.”
“Are you kicking me out?” Lena asked.
“I’m ending this conversation.”
“And what if tomorrow I have no one to leave my child with?”
“Then tomorrow you don’t go wherever you can afford not to go. Like all parents do.”
Lena grabbed her son by the hand, yanked up his backpack, and already on the staircase shouted:
“Then don’t be surprised when no one talks to you!”
The door slammed so hard that the mirror in the hallway trembled.
The next day, Lena really did send her version of events to the relatives. Their mother called in the evening.
“She says you presented her with some kind of rates and kicked her out with the child at night.”
“At eleven in the evening. And yes, I told her how much someone else’s convenience costs if you convert it into hours.”
“I figured half of it was her own invention.”
“Mom, I’m not discussing her. I’m simply no longer substituting for her life.”
Her mother sighed.
“Maybe you’re right. I spoiled her myself. I kept feeling sorry for her: the divorce, the child, her nerves. And now she thinks everyone owes her.”
Two days later, Nina received a message from the school: “You have been removed from the list of people authorized to pick up the child.”
She read it and put her phone into her bag.
That evening, she stopped by a hardware store and bought a small key holder for the hallway — the old hooks had long been loose. At home, she removed from the nail the spare key to her apartment that had been lying there for years “just in case” for Lena. She held it in her palm for a moment, then placed it in the kitchen drawer with the spare batteries and warranty cards.
Only her own key remained on the hook by the door.