On Sunday evening, after the dishes were done, Mother took a folded notarized document from the sideboard and laid it on the table in front of Iryna. “We talked it over with your father. We’re transferring Grandma’s apartment to Marina. ”
Iryna held her cup with both hands and watched the steam.
“Why her? ”
“You see how it is. ” Mother sat down. “Marina lives with us.
She drives us to doctors, carries groceries. We’ve decided: we’ll live out our days with her. ”
Father, silent until then, looked up from his plate. “She promised we can stay here as long as we need.
It’s better if it’s officially in her name. No extra trouble later. ”
Iryna set down the cup without drinking. “Did anyone ask me?
”
“What’s to ask, Iryna? ” Mother sighed, as if the answer were obvious. “You have your own life. She’s here.
She takes care of us. ”
Iryna looked at the paper for a long moment, then pushed it back. “Fine. Since you’ve decided.
”
She put on her boots slowly, as if studying each movement, and left, closing the door quietly. Her parents had no other housing; they’d lived in that apartment for thirty-two years, first with Grandma Hanna, then without her. For a week, almost no one spoke. Iryna kept dialing her mother’s number and hanging up before the ring.
On the eighth day she called. “Mom, is there any document saying you can stay in that apartment no matter who owns it? ”
“Why would we need that, Iryna? ” Mother’s voice turned hurt.
“We’re family. Could Marina throw us onto the street? ”
“I’m just asking. You know better.
” Iryna hung up first — for the first time in her life. Iryna was thirty-five, an accountant near the railway station, up at six to get the six-year-old twins, Tymko and Ulyana, to kindergarten by eight-thirty. Her husband Taras had spent months hauling generators east with a volunteer group; his jacket smelled of diesel. She told him after a few days, once the children were asleep.
“Mom gave Grandma’s apartment to Marina. ” Taras didn’t ask. He covered her hand with his and held it. Grandma Hanna had died nine years ago.
Marina had moved in with the parents three years after her divorce and, for a time, genuinely helped — doctors, groceries, a share of the utilities. Mother could speak with such certainty because it was all true. Marina was three years younger, traveled often, and her parents always talked about her as something fragile, as if an uncareful word might break her. Two and a half months later, Marina invited everyone to a café.
“I want us to talk normally,” she said. She’d been at a trade fair in Munich and met a partner named Stefan; they were planning a project together. Her cheeks flushed. Mother reached across the table and took her hand.
Iryna said nothing. Over the next two years, Iryna visited once a month or so. Once she walked in on a video call: Marina, three weeks into a Munich stay, was showing a new sofa. “Daughter, wait — Iryna’s here,” Mother said briefly, and turned back to the screen.
Five more minutes passed. Father followed Iryna into the hallway and pressed folded money into her hand — two five-hundred-hryvnia notes. “For the kids. Don’t tell Mom.
” He said it without looking at her. It was the only time he ever did something like that. She carried the notes to the car and sat there a minute before starting the engine. That autumn, a neighbor mentioned at the pharmacy that Father had spent two weeks at home with high blood pressure.
Marina, by then more often away than home, had said only: “Call an ambulance if needed. I can’t get away right now. ” Iryna hadn’t even known about the illness; Mother never told her. When Iryna asked when Marina had last been home, Mother hesitated.
“She promised in summer. Then autumn. Now spring. ”
“Mom, who drives you to the doctors while she’s not here?
”
“Iryna, what a tone! We’re not children. We manage. ” She hung up.
At Easter Iryna brought a paska she’d baked herself, the way Grandma Hanna used to. For the first time, no plate was set for Marina, though for years one had always been put out just in case. “Marina said she’d definitely come this year,” Mother said, pausing with a knife above the bread. No one answered.
That autumn Marina announced she was moving to Munich for good. At the station she hugged Mother: “Everything stays as agreed. We’ll see each other on video. ” Aunt Olha, Mother’s sister, muttered just loud enough: “Easy for Marina.
We’re squeezed in a two-room flat. ” No one reacted. The calls thinned — daily, then Sundays, then barely at all. In November the kitchen faucet leaked, and Father wrapped it in a rag for two weeks because Mother said they should wait for Marina to send money.
Iryna found out during a short call, quietly ordered a plumber, and paid. In winter the flat was cold — they were saving on heating for medicine. “She’ll come in spring. She’s already looking at tickets,” Mother said, playing solitaire on an old laptop.
Iryna had heard about the tickets four times. She left a bag of groceries on the table; Mother thanked her without pride. Then, one Monday evening, Marina called — for the first time in months. Her voice shook, and in the background was a hotel corridor, not an apartment: strange steps, an elevator.
“I’m investing with Stefan. We’re opening a second warehouse,” she said quickly. “I’ll sell Grandma’s apartment and buy you a one-bedroom, around thirty thousand. Temporarily you’ll live with Aunt Olha.
I’ll pay it back. ”
Father was silent so long Marina asked, “Dad, are you there? ”
“Of course, daughter. ” Mother answered for him, without a trace of doubt.
“We understand. The main thing is that you succeed. ”
Three weeks later the apartment sold for sixty-two thousand euros. The promised one-bedroom never appeared — the money, Marina wrote, was tied up in the warehouse.
On moving day, Father kept only his green photo album and a radio he’d owned since his youth. Mother cried quietly, packing plates into a box for the neighbor. Iryna learned about the sale from that neighbor, not from her mother. Aunt Olha put the parents in a room where skis had been stored; the skis went to the balcony to make room for a folding bed.
Weeks became months. Aunt Olha counted utilities aloud so Mother could hear. Sofiika, her son’s fiancée, tried on her wedding dress among the parents’ suitcases. Bohdan asked Father about housing plans.
Father stared at his plate: “Plans exist. Only little depends on us anymore. ”
One evening Father called Marina on speakerphone; she left a voice message instead of answering: “It’s hard now, Dad. Wait a bit.
I’ll call on the weekend. ” Aunt Olha got up; a cupboard door slammed in the kitchen. Then she called Iryna directly, businesslike: “They won’t last much longer. My son’s wedding is in spring.
They need the room. ”
The date was set; Aunt Olha counted days aloud at dinner. Mother nodded and promised they were looking. They weren’t; there was no money for rent.
Father had shrunk, his hands trembling around a cup. When Iryna called one evening, he picked up before Mother, stayed silent a beat, then whispered: “Irynka, it seems nobody needs us anymore except you. ” He passed the phone to Mother before she could answer, and Mother spoke briskly about the weather. That Saturday, at half past seven, the doorbell rang.
Her parents stood on the landing with the worn suitcase and two trolley bags. “We wanted to finally get to know the grandchildren,” Mother began, her voice half a tone too high. Iryna looked at the bags, then at her. “You came to get acquainted, and you brought suitcases?
”
Mother opened her mouth, then closed it. A neighbor cracked her door, measured the luggage with her eyes, and shut it without a word. That small indifference stung more than anything Mother had said. Then Father finally looked at her, and for the first time in years she saw how old he had become — hollow cheeks, trembling hands.
“Aunt Olha said by the end of the week,” he said quietly. Mother tugged his sleeve, but it was done. Then she sat down on the top step, as if her legs had given out, covered her face, and lowered her hand. Her eyes were genuinely wet — not performed.
“Iryna, we have nowhere else to go. We had no right to give away the apartment. I didn’t think it would come to this. ”
“Does Marina know you’re here?
”
“We didn’t call her. What would we tell her? ”
Iryna opened the door all the way, but she didn’t hug either of them. “Come in for a few days.
Until you find something of your own. ” Mother nodded quickly, as if stopping might make Iryna change her mind. Father carried in the suitcases, scraping the doorframe. Taras came out of the children’s room, saw the luggage, and moved it out of the way without a word.
Mother couldn’t untie her shoelace; her hands were shaking. Iryna bent and did it for her. That night Iryna lay awake, Taras’s hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t find a word for what she felt.
Not triumph — too tired. Not pity — she remembered the kitchen table and the notary documents too well. For the first time in her adult life, she alone decided how much, and on what terms, to be convenient for others. There was nothing festive in it.
Only quiet weariness, like after a long road. In the morning, pouring coffee, she told her mother: “This isn’t forever. A few days, then you look for your own place. ” Mother took the cup with both hands and said nothing.
It wasn’t a few days; it was almost a year. The suitcases were unpacked and put on the mezzanine; the fold-out sofa became an ordinary part of the evening. Tymko stopped asking about Aunt Marina. Ulyana no longer remembered anything else.
That year Iryna asked a lawyer whether an adult child could be forced to support elderly parents. Yes, the lawyer said; under the Family Code you can file for alimony for parents, and the court considers the defendant’s income even if she lives abroad. Father hesitated before signing: “Sue our own daughter? ” But he signed.
Marina sent a lawyer; the court ordered monthly payments, plus a contribution toward the time her parents had spent in other people’s corners. When Marina’s first money arrived, Iryna added the savings she’d kept for a new refrigerator. Together, it paid for a small room in a dormitory. Father stood at the doorway with the green photo album.
“At least we have our own corner now,” he said to no one in particular. A month later Mother called, her voice unusually bright. “We went to the notary today. We wrote a will.
After us, the room is yours. ”
“Mom, why now? Live in peace. We already gave something away without thinking, while we were alive.
”
“Now we want it done right. But the roof over our heads is ours while we live. ”
Iryna sat with the phone on her knee, unsure whether to be glad or to feel once more the weight of that kitchen table, two years gone.
