— Sign it! The bank is waiting! Don’t you understand? We’ll be thrown out onto the street!
Andrey was shouting so loudly that the upstairs neighbor seemed to stop stomping around. On the kitchen table lay a sale-and-purchase agreement for my apartment. Next to it was a pen. Behind my husband stood an unfamiliar man in a gray coat. The buyer. Andrey had brought him straight home. Without calling. Without warning.
I poured myself some tea. My hands were not shaking. I had rehearsed this evening in my head for three months.
“Andryusha,” I said quietly. “Sit down.”
“What do you mean, sit down?! Just sign it already! Igor Sergeyevich is a busy man!”
“Igor Sergeyevich,” I turned to the man in the coat, “please have a seat. We’re going to have a small conversation. Ten minutes. Would you like some tea?”
The buyer looked at Andrey. Andrey looked at me. Something in my voice bothered him. He began to guess. Too late.
It had all started eleven months earlier.
My grandmother had left me the apartment. In her will. A year before I met Andrey. A two-room apartment in a residential district. Not in the city center, but it was mine. Completely mine. It had been registered in my name back in 2015, five years before the wedding.
Here is why I am saying this. I am not a lawyer. But when we got married, my mother—my wise mother, may she rest in peace—said:
“Lena, don’t put the apartment into joint ownership. Don’t gift it to him. And don’t do major renovations with shared money. You never know. Life is long.”
I was offended then. Andrey was pure gold. A manager at a large company, with a car, suits, flowers on Fridays. Attentive. Caring. He called my daughter from my first marriage, Sonya, “little daughter.”
For eight years, everything was good. And then he went “into his own business.”
The business was something involving crypto. I do not understand it, and thank God for that. At first, Andrey brought home money. Then he stopped. Then he started borrowing—from friends, from my brother, from some “partners.” Then came loans. One, a second, a third.
I found out about it gradually. From phone calls. From letters. From the way he stopped sleeping.
“Lena, don’t worry. I’ll sort it out. It’s temporary.”
“Andryusha, how much do you owe?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is my business. I’m your wife.”
“Exactly. Wife. Sit quietly and stay out of it.”
The first time he raised his hand at me was in March. He did not hit me. He lifted his hand and lowered it again. But in that second, I understood: that was it. This was no longer him. This was someone else inside his body.
In April, he said the word “apartment” for the first time.
“Lena, I have an option. I sell your place, pay off the debts, and then we take out a mortgage on a new, bigger one. In a year, we’ll be back at the same level.”
“Mine?”
“Ours.”
“Andrey. This is my apartment. My grandmother’s. Premarital property.”
“Are you keeping score? Between husband and wife?”
“Yes, I am.”
That time, he left, slamming the door. Two hours later, he came back drunk.
“You’re a bitch, Lenka. I carried you in my arms for eight years.”
I locked myself in the room with Sonya. Sonya—she was thirteen—hugged me and said:
“Mom. Let’s leave.”
I did not leave. But the next day, I went to a lawyer.
The lawyer’s name was Vera Mikhailovna. Gray-haired, wearing glasses, with a voice like a strict school administrator.
“The apartment is registered in your name and was inherited before the marriage. It is your personal property under Article 36 of the Family Code. Your husband has nothing to do with it, no matter what he says. It is physically impossible to sell it without your consent. In Rosreestr, you are the owner.”
“What about his debts?”
“The debts of one spouse are that spouse’s debts. They can only collect from his property and his share of jointly acquired property. Your personal property is untouchable. Unless you yourself acted as a guarantor. Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you sign anything anywhere?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Then we have three tasks. First, we file for divorce. In absentia, peacefully, without division of property—there is nothing to divide. Second, we prepare a notarized statement that you have not given and will not give consent to any transactions on your behalf. In case he tries to forge something. Third, we change the locks immediately after the divorce. And most importantly: not a word to anyone. Not to him, not to his relatives, not to your friends. Quietly.”
“What if he brings a buyer?”
Vera Mikhailovna took off her glasses.
“Lena. No normal buyer will buy an apartment from someone who is not the owner. And if he brings an abnormal one, that will be your chance.”
I did not understand then. I understood later.
The divorce was finalized in June. Through a magistrate judge, without scandal. Andrey did not even show up at the hearing. I told him, “It’s a formality for tax purposes. I need it for my work.” He brushed it off:
“Sign whatever you want. I don’t have time for you.”
He really did not understand. His head was full of debts and crypto schemes. I received the divorce certificate at the beginning of July. I put it in a little box. I told Sonya. I told my mother. No one else.
We continued living in the same apartment. I stayed because the apartment was mine. He stayed because he had nowhere to go. I waited. I knew he would come up with something.
He came up with it in September.
That evening, he came with this Igor Sergeyevich. With a contract printed at home. With the arrogant face of a man who had decided that a woman would sign anything if he shouted at her.
“Igor Sergeyevich,” I repeated. “Tea or coffee?”
The buyer sat down, confused.
“Uh… coffee, if possible.”
“Lena, are you out of your mind?!” Andrey slammed his hand on the table. “What coffee?! Sign it!”
I put the cezve on the stove. Then I turned around.
“Igor Sergeyevich, tell me, what documents did Andrey show you for the apartment?”
“Well… an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. The certificate.”
“In whose name?”
The buyer hesitated.
“In… in your name. But Andrey Viktorovich said you were spouses, and that you agreed, and…”
“When did he show it to you? What was the date on the extract?”
“From August…”
“Good.” I opened the cabinet. Took out a folder. Placed it in front of him. “A fresh extract. From September. And here is one more thing.”
I placed the divorce certificate on top.
Igor Sergeyevich picked it up. Read it. Once. Then a second time. Then he looked at Andrey.
Andrey was white as a sheet.
“What… what is this?” he whispered.
“This, Andryusha,” I said evenly, “is a certificate proving that you and I divorced three months ago. I am not your wife. I haven’t been for a long time. You have been living in this apartment because I pitied you. That pity ends today.”
“You… you forged…”
“Go to the registry office. Check. At the same time, your lawyer can check what position you are in now. Igor Sergeyevich,” I turned to the buyer, “I hope you didn’t give him a deposit?”
The buyer was silent. Then he said quietly:
“I did. Eight hundred thousand. In cash. Yesterday.”
“Did you take a receipt?”
“Yes…”
“Then you’re lucky. You can demand it back. If he doesn’t return it, go to court. A fraud complaint—Article 159, Part Three, large-scale amount. I am a witness. I am ready to testify.”
Igor Sergeyevich stood up. Silently. He looked at Andrey with a long, unpleasant stare, and a chill ran down my spine. This man, it seemed, was not the type people borrowed from and failed to repay.
“Andrey Viktorovich. The money. Tomorrow. Before twelve.”
And he left.
Andrey sat down on the stool. Right on the contract. Crushed it under himself. It would have been funny if it had not been so terrifying.
“Len… Lenochka… what have you done… they’ll… they’ll…”
“What will happen to you?”
“They’ll kill me.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
He looked at me. And I saw it. There it was. How much he had never told me.
“I… I borrowed from them. Not from the bank. From… well, from people. Against this apartment. I told them I would sell it and pay them back.”
“Against my apartment. Which you had no right to sell. And which you couldn’t have sold even as my husband, because it was premarital and my personal property. Andrey. You lived with me for eight years. You couldn’t not have known.”
“I thought… I thought you would sign…”
“You lived with a person for eight years and thought that person was a thing. You know what’s funniest? Maybe I would have signed. In March. If you had come to me and said like a human being: Lena, I’m in trouble, help me. I would have lent you money. I would have sold the car. I would have thought of something.”
I poured him coffee. Put it in front of him.
“But you chose to scream ‘stupid woman’ instead. Drink. And pack your things. You have one hour. The locks are being changed tomorrow at eight in the morning.”
He left that night. With two bags. Where he went, I do not know, and I do not want to know.
The “debts against the apartment” turned out to be true. A week later, two men rang my doorbell. I did not let them into the apartment. Through the door, I said:
“I divorced this man three months ago. The apartment is mine, premarital property. I have nothing to do with his debts. Take all questions to him. If you bother me again, I will file a police report. There is a camera in the stairwell. Everything is recorded.”
They stood there for a while. One of them said:
“Understood, ma’am. Sorry.”
And they left. Apparently, they found Andrey themselves. I do not know the details. And, again, I do not want to know.
Igor Sergeyevich, it seems, partially recovered his eight hundred thousand through court. I was a witness. Once.
That evening, after we changed the locks, Sonya came to me in the kitchen. She sat beside me. Rested her head on my shoulder.
“Mom. You did well.”
I stroked her hair.
“Grandma did well. She left me the apartment. And my mother did well—she told me not to transfer it into anyone else’s name.”
“And you?”
“And I… this time, I simply listened.”
I poured tea for both of us. Outside the window, the first autumn rain was falling. The apartment was quiet. My apartment.
For the first time in eight years, truly mine