“Who will pick you up?” the nurse asked, tapping her pen on the form.
She sat sideways to the desk, glasses perched on the tip of her nose, looking not at me but at the empty space on the form.
“After discharge,” she clarified. “We can’t let you go alone, that’s the policy. Someone needs to come and sign.”
“What if there’s no one?”
Olga Vladimirovna—it said so on her badge—looked up at me.
“Everyone has someone. A son, husband, neighbor. Angelina Gordeyevna, I’m not rushing you, but the space needs to be filled in.”
“My sister,” I said. “Write down my sister. Diana.”
She wrote it down and read the number back to me so I could confirm. I knew the number by heart, even though it was already saved in my phone.
I walked home on foot, two bus stops, spending the whole way thinking of what I would say.
On my kitchen cabinet door, there’s a paper taped up with three lines in my own handwriting: Wednesday—Matvey from after-school, Saturday—groceries, Sunday—Alisa’s dance class. The note has been there for three years, since the summer Semyon left the factory and their finances took a hit.
Every Saturday, I’d roll my shopping cart to their place. Four bags fit if you pack them upright: buckwheat, chicken, kids’ yogurts, laundry detergent that always seemed to run out by Friday. Diana would open the door, say, “Oh, you didn’t have to,” and head to the kitchen to unpack. She never once asked how much it all cost.
I called on Monday at eight, after they’d finished dinner.
“Di, I have surgery scheduled for the twelfth of May,” I said. “My back. Doctor says I can’t lift anything heavier than a kettle for a month and a half afterwards.”
“Oh,” Diana said. “That’s terrible. Where are you having the operation?”
I told her the hospital. She let out a little sigh. The TV was on in the background, and one of the kids was laughing at a cartoon.
“I need someone to pick me up,” I said. “And just for the first three or four days, I’d need someone nearby. To bring food, maybe stop at the pharmacy. That’s all.”
The TV volume went down.
“Gel, come on,” she said. “You know the situation. I have my own family. Matvey, Alisa, Semyon’s shifts. I can’t be everywhere at once.”
“There’s no one else I can ask, Di.”
“What about Alisa?” she said. “Alisa’s fifteen, she has exams coming up, I’m not pulling her out of studying.”
“I’m not asking Alisa.”
“Then why me? Hire someone. There are plenty of caregivers out there, you can find one from an ad in a day.”
“I can’t afford a caregiver.”
“Well, that’s not my problem,” she said. “Gel, honestly, I don’t have the bandwidth. I’m at work, then at home, then helping with homework. No one asks me how I’m doing.”
I stood by the cabinet, looking at the tape yellowing at the edges. Then she said what she said.
“And really, Gelya. No one asked you to do all this. It was your choice. You didn’t owe us anything—and now we don’t owe you anything either.”
I didn’t cry. I wasn’t even surprised, and that was the worst part.
“Alright,” I said. “Then I won’t pick up Matvey on Wednesday. And I won’t bring groceries on Saturday.”
She laughed.
“Are you mad now? Oh, come on. You’ll get over it—you’ll call when you’re ready.”
I was the one who hung up first. Then I opened my banking app and found the recurring transfer—the one I’d been sending to her card on the twenty-fifth of every month—and hit ‘cancel.’ The app asked me if I was sure. I pressed again.
On Wednesday, my phone started ringing at a quarter past three.
***
I didn’t answer a single call. Not at quarter past, not at half past, not even at five. Eighteen calls in total, then a message in all caps: ‘WHERE ARE YOU.’ Then another: ‘He’s sitting at school alone, with his backpack on his lap.’
I told her on Monday, out loud, straight up, that I wouldn’t be coming on Wednesday. No hints. She decided she’d check if I was lying.
At six, she texted me that she picked him up herself and that I was crazy. So she was capable after all.
The boy ended up sitting at school for an extra hour because of the two of us. I still dream about it.
She didn’t call again before the surgery.
The surgery happened on schedule. It was Roza Filippovna from the seventh floor who picked me up from the hospital—she called a taxi, came up to the room, packed my things into that same little trolley I’d arrived with. She even signed the register for me. Olga Vladimirovna looked at the signature, then at me, but didn’t say anything.
For the first week, I practically lived on soup: Roza Filippovna cooked it for herself and always poured half into a jar for me. She’d bring it over at ten in the morning, put it on the table, and leave, since I wasn’t able to talk those first days—the pills had everything spinning.
‘Don’t even think about it, it’s no trouble,’ she told me on the fourth day. ‘I’m making it anyway. You just rest and don’t try to be a hero.’
She set the jar down and glanced at my phone, lying screen-up on my pillow, silent since the morning.
‘Does your sister know you had surgery?’
‘She knows.’
She didn’t ask again. Not once, the whole time I was recovering.
During that period, Diana called twice. The first time was on the third day after the operation.
‘Gel, listen, I can’t find Matvey’s PE kit. The blue one. Did he leave it at your place?’
‘He did.’
‘Where is it then?’
I told her where it was. She said, ‘right, thanks,’ and hung up. Didn’t ask about the hospital.
The second time she called was at the very end of May.
‘How are you?’ she asked cheerfully. ‘Are you walking around yet?’
‘I’m walking.’
‘Listen, Matvey’s on break from the first. When are you going to be fully recovered? We’ve got nowhere to send him, the camp only starts in July.’
I was sitting on a stool in the hallway, because I wasn’t allowed to sit on anything soft, and looking at the trolley by the coat rack.
‘Never,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I won’t be taking him in June. Or in July. Or August.’
‘Are you still sulking? Over that nonsense?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’
‘Just no.’
She said I’d become weird, and that mom was right. Twenty minutes later, my mom called.
Serafima Danilovna knows how to start from afar. First, she talks about her blood pressure, then about a neighbor whose daughter-in-law is just not the same, and finally—she gets to the real point.
‘Diana is the younger one,’ mom said. ‘You’re the older. God gave you health and brains, so you carry the load. She’s got two, you have none.’
‘Mom, come stay with me for a few days,’ I said. ‘I’ve never asked you for anything in my life.’
She went silent.
“Gelya, it takes me two hours to get to you with a transfer. You know that.”
“I know,” I said, and hung up first.
That same evening, I gathered up everything left in my apartment from their kids: a blue uniform, sticky-strap slippers, two notebooks, a kid’s umbrella. I carried the bag to the hallway and set it by the door. Then I messaged Diana: “Matvey’s things are in my corridor. Pick them up yourself, I won’t bring them.”
There was no reply.
On Saturday, the doorbell rang. It was Alisa.
***
She stood outside with a backpack over her shoulder and a jar of compote in her hands. Fifteen years old, tall in her father’s windbreaker, and just like when she was six—shifting from foot to foot, not meeting my eyes.
“Mom sent this,” she said. “And she also said you’d help me with my essay. I have to rewrite it, or I’ll get a C.”
I let her in. I put the kettle on and set out some pancakes that Rosa Filippovna had made for everyone.
We spent an hour working on the essay. It was about Chatsky, and why he ended up leaving. Alisa chewed on her pen and said she didn’t feel sorry for Chatsky, but for Sophia, because Sophia spent her whole life in her father’s house and never learned to choose for herself. I thought, this girl is wiser than all of us.
“Are you really never coming to visit us again?” she suddenly asked. “Mom said you’re deeply offended.”
“I’m not offended.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Just tired,” I said. “Eat your pancakes.”
She was quiet for a moment, dipping a pancake in sour cream.
“You’ve been coming to see us since I was a little kid,” she said. “I always thought that’s what all aunts do.”
“Not all of them.”
She poked her pancake with her fork.
“Aunt Gelya, did you give mom money for a tutor in the fall? She said—you gave it.”
“I did.”
“But there wasn’t any tutor,” Alisa said, still not meeting my eyes. “Mom said it was too expensive, so I studied on my own with video lessons. Don’t be mad at her, okay? I tried. It’s just that I’m sinking in literature, not English.”
I told her I wasn’t angry.
Then she reached into her windbreaker pocket.
“This is for you. I completely forgot.”
There was a shell in her palm. Large, pink inside, with a hole for a string.
“Where from?”
“From Kemer. Mom and Dad went there in May. I wanted to bring it straight to you, but Mom said ‘give it to her later.’”
The kettle clicked off. I was standing with my back to it.
“In May,” I repeated.
“Yeah. Ten days. Matvey and I stayed at grandma’s place—she took us to the movies. Twice.”
A car honked below. Alisa grabbed her backpack, took Matvey’s uniform bag from by the door, kissed me on the cheek and ran out. I grabbed a cardigan from the rack and followed her downstairs.
Semyon was sitting behind the wheel, window open, smoking into his fist. When he saw me, he tossed the cigarette and got out.
“Hey, Gelya. How are you?”
“When did you book the trip?” I asked.
He glanced at the car, where Alisa was already sitting in the back wearing headphones, and closed the door gently.
“In March,” he said. “There was a deal for early booking. A discount.”
March. A month before I called her and asked her to stay with me those first days.
“So you already knew everything when I called.”
“Gelya, I told her,” he said, rubbing his neck. “I told her straight up: Gelya’s alone, we should go see her, even just for the weekend. And she told me: ‘Gelya will manage. She always manages.'”
“And you?”
“Well, I’m off,” he said, spinning his keys around his finger. “Don’t think I’m some kind of good guy here. I’m telling you this so you know: I was against it. I’ve got to keep bringing my daughter to you, I have to be able to look you in the eye.”
“We’ll see,” I replied.
He drove away. I stood outside the building and watched someone beating a rug in a third-floor window. I used to bring them groceries because they didn’t have enough, and all these years, I kept telling myself: if my sister isn’t okay, then I can’t be fine either.
Turns out, they actually had enough. They just had other sources.
Last fall, I gave money for a tutor. There was no tutor. But there was a trip to Kemer, ten days long. And a seashell for me as a souvenir.
In the evening, I called Diana.
“I know about March,” I said. “And about the English lessons.”
“So what?” she replied. “I don’t have the right to take a break? I’m a person too, you know. My back hurts, by the way. And the money—it was already mine. I’ll spend it on whatever I want.”
“You do have the right,” I said. “And so do I.”
“Are you hinting at something now?”
“Not at all. Just don’t call me for any more favors. Any kind.”
A week later, Mom called and invited me to Matvey’s birthday.
***
On June 28th, about ten people gathered at Mom’s place. The table was set in the living room with Olivier salad, Mom’s neighbor Aunt Nyura, Mom’s girlfriend with her husband, and Diana’s godmother were all there. Matvey was turning nine.
I brought him a big construction set with a motor—he’d talked about it for half a year. He squealed with excitement and dragged the box into his room.
We all sat down. Raised a toast to the birthday boy. Aunt Nyura asked about my health, and I said I was fine. Meanwhile, Diana was putting salad on her husband’s plate.
“She’s saving up for resorts now,” Diana said. “Our Gelya is keeping tabs now. Turns out we still owe her.”
Everyone laughed—except me.
“Come on, Gelya is the youngest,” said Aunt Nyura. “She’s got two kids on her own, you know. My Lenka lives alone too, no kids, and yet she helps me and takes in her nephews. That’s what family’s for.”
“But what do the kids have to do with it?” Diana’s godmother chimed in. “They haven’t done anything wrong. Why take things out on them?”
Mom was quiet, smoothing the tablecloth with her hand.
I wiped my hands on a napkin and stood up. Not because I’d planned it, but because I simply couldn’t stay seated anymore.
“One hundred eighty thousand,” I said. “Over three years. That’s not my math—the bank says so. I checked my statement in April, when I was looking for money to pay for the health resort and couldn’t find any.”
The room went silent. Even the sound of Matvey playing with his new set stopped coming from his room.
“Besides that, there were the groceries every Saturday, the money for English, jackets for September, and two rounds at summer camp. I didn’t even count those.”
“You’re going to say all that? Out loud?” Diana said. “In front of everyone?”
“I am,” I replied. “On May 12, I had surgery. The same days that you and Senya were in Kemer. Mom was watching your kids and taking them to the movies. Mom, you knew.”
Mom looked up at me.
“I knew,” she said. “What was I supposed to do, ruin your sister’s vacation? Decent people don’t do this kind of thing at the table.”
“Decent people,” I repeated. “Alright then.”
Diana suddenly started speaking quickly, for everyone at the table to hear. She accused me of turning everything upside down, claimed this was the first normal trip in nine years, said I was meddling in other people’s finances, and insisted that she gave me money herself, nobody forced her to do it. I listened all the way through.
“Nobody forced me,” I agreed. “That’s right. I brought it myself. And I was the one who stopped bringing it.”
“No one made you do it,” Diana replied.
“No one did.”
I looked at her across the table.
“I don’t have children of my own, Di. I brought you groceries, and in return I got Wednesdays with Matvey and Sundays with Alisa. I was basically buying my place at your table, that’s what I was doing. I thought it was like putting money into a bank: you keep depositing, and when you need it, you can withdraw something—at least once, just a little. But it’s not a bank. I just gave, and that’s it—nothing comes back.”
“So what now?” she asked. “There’s really nothing left?”
“Nothing at all. Not a ruble. Not a single Wednesday. Not a single Saturday. No jackets by September, no summer camp. I’m not going to explain anymore. And I won’t be doing anything else.”
“You’ll regret this,” Diana said.
“Maybe.”
I walked into the room where Matvey was sitting on the floor among some toys, patted him on the head and told him he was great and happy birthday. He didn’t even look up. Then I took my bag and walked out to the hallway.
“You’re made of stone, Gelya,” my mom said to my back.
At home, I put the kettle on, went over to the kitchen cabinet, and picked at some tape with my fingernail. It came off with a loud crack, peeling off some paint. The paper rolled up in my hand, and I held it for a moment, looking at my own handwriting for no reason. Then I tossed it in the trash and sat down at the table. For the first time in all these years, I didn’t know what my Wednesday would look like.
On August fifth, the phone rang at seven in the morning.
***
“Gelya. Gelya, please don’t hang up.”
Diana spoke quickly, without any of her usual “oh” or “listen” fillers.
“I’m being sent for training in Voronezh. Starting the twelfth, for two weeks. If I don’t go, I’ll be laid off—they’ve already let two people go in our department. Senya is working until September and can’t get away. Alisa leaves for camp that same day—school paid for the spot. Mom’s in Lipetsk with her cousin from the first of the month until September.”
She took a breath.
“There’s no one to stay with Matvey. Please take him in for two weeks. I’m asking you.”
It was the first time in my life she ever used the word “asking.”
I stood by the window. On the windowsill sat an envelope with my own voucher—a health resort near Kislovodsk, checking in the very same day. The doctor had recommended it back in spring, right after I got out of the hospital. I booked it in July—using the same money that I used to hand over on the twenty-fifth, and the rest from my vacation pay.
“I have a train that day,” I said. “Sanatorium. Twelve days.”
“Reschedule it,” she said.
“No.”
“Gelya, he’s a child. It’s Matvey. You carried him in your arms since the day he was born.”
“I did carry him.”
“So what, now you just don’t care?”
“No, that’s not it,” I said. “But I can’t take him.”
“You’re abandoning him!”
“I never claimed him just to abandon him.”
She shouted for another five minutes. That I was vengeful, that I’d spent my whole life holding onto resentment and waiting for an excuse, that I was going to destroy their family. I didn’t defend myself. And that’s when, for the first time, I realized just how simple it is—not having to explain.
At lunchtime, I got a message from Alisa: “Aunt Gelya, please. He’s so little. He’s waiting for you.”
I stared at that message for twenty minutes. Then I typed back: “No, Aliska.” I slipped my phone into the pocket of my robe.
By the evening, Diana had already posted in the family chat: my sister refused to take her own nephew, the child is left alone, this is the kind of help we have in our family. The phone calls started. Aunt Nyura said she never expected this from me. My godmother said that I was absolutely right not to send money—that’s not up for debate—but a child is different. Mom called from Lipetsk, and she sounded like a stranger.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “She’ll come to me now. With two kids, on my pension. Did you even think of that?”
“I did think of it,” I said. “Mom, everyone has the right to look after themselves. Diana had that right—she used it in May. You have it, you’re in Lipetsk. And so do I.”
“That’s not the same thing,” my mom replied.
“It’s exactly the same thing.”
She hung up the phone.
On the tenth, Roza Filippovna came upstairs to see me—she brought a jar of pickles and sat down on a stool in the hallway.
“Take the boy,” she said as soon as she walked in. “They’ll move your vacation to September, it won’t go to waste. And a boy will remember this for the rest of his life.”
“I’m not taking him, Roza Filippovna.”
“That’s harsh of you.”
“Maybe it is harsh,” I said. “But in May, it was you who came for me, not them.”
She waved her hand and left, but that evening she still brought me some cabbage pies for my trip.
On the eleventh, Semyon texted me: he came off his shift and is staying home with his son. He lost all the wages he would have earned in August, and now he even owes money.
On the twelfth at seven in the morning, I entered my apartment building with just one bag slung over my shoulder. My trolley stayed in the storage room, wedged between the skis and the bucket. Roza Filippovna waved to me from her window.
On the train I got the bottom bunk, sipped tea from a glass holder, and watched unfamiliar gardens drift past the window all the way to Mineralnye Vody.
***
Two months went by.
Diana hasn’t called since August. Her message is still pinned in the chat—I don’t go in there. Mom came back home, and now calls me every other week just to ask if I need anything, in that tone people use with neighbors in the stairwell. Alisa doesn’t write at all.
Last week, Mom casually mentioned that Matvey asked her why Aunt Gelya doesn’t come by on Wednesdays anymore. I didn’t bother to find out what she told him.
On Wednesdays at six, I’m at the pool. I was told to start swimming as soon as I felt better, but my Wednesdays were already taken.
Yesterday, I was registering again for day treatment at the same hospital, and Olga Vladimirovna asked who should be listed as my emergency contact. I said Roza Filippovna from the seventh floor. She’d agreed back in May—I just didn’t know back then that you could put down a neighbor.
To say no the very month when everything fell apart for them—did I just pick the wrong moment?
And on Wednesdays at six, I’m back in the water. Forty-five minutes where I don’t exist for anyone. Continued in the comments.