“Pasha, why are you looking so grumpy? The guy is handsome, savvy. And most importantly, he loves our Nadyushka. Look at how she looks at him.”
Nadya really did look at him as if he were a deity. She was 27. The age when loneliness starts to bite at your heels, and all your friends are already posting pictures with strollers on social media. Vitalik became a life raft for her.
They had a modest wedding. Vitalik said, “Why feed the restaurants? Better to put the money into the business.” Galya and I chipped in for their down payment on a mortgage then. That was the first red flag. “Money into the business.” His businesses were always some kind of murky, ghostly things, like fog over a swamp. First, he was selling some dietary supplements, then reselling salvaged foreign cars, then mining cryptocurrency on the balcony, which made the meter spin like crazy and the apartment feel as hot as a sauna.
But Nadya kept quiet. She worked as a chief accountant at a large logistics firm, shouldered the mortgage, bought the groceries. And Vitalik was “finding himself” and building an empire.
And then Galya died. And Vitalik realized: this was it, the main prize. Not bitcoins, not reselling used cars. The main asset of the Astakhov family was our three-room apartment in the center and me, an old fool, grief-stricken.
I drove onto the highway leading to the oblast. The traffic thinned out. The snow stopped falling in a sheet, turning into a sparse, prickly powder. The cabin of the Niva smelled of old leatherette and gasoline. This smell was calming, bringing me back to reality. I remembered exactly how they broke me. It wasn’t violence in the literal sense. No one beat me, no one starved me. It was more subtle. Vitalik used a tactic that I would call replacement therapy. He methodically replaced my will with his own.
It all started with small things. A month after the funeral, when I was still walking around in a fog, Vitalik came to me with a contractor.
“Pavel Petrovich,” he said, still respectfully at that time. “We decided to glaze your balcony. It’s drafty, the frames are old, wooden, all rotten. Galina Sergeevna, may she rest in peace, always wanted plastic.”
I waved my hand listlessly:
“Do it.”
They installed the windows. Expensive, high-quality. Vitalik paid for everything himself.
“Don’t worry, old man,” he said when I reached for my Oschadbank savings book. “We’re family, we’ll sort it out.”
Then he replaced the faucets in the bathroom. Then he brought a new TV, a huge plasma screen that looked like an alien black monolith in our cozy living room with carpets.
“So you can watch the news in high quality,” he winked.
I felt grateful. I thought: look, the guy cares. I was wrong to misjudge him. Nadya also blossomed:
“See, Dad, how caring he is.”
But every gift came with a hook.
“Pavel Petrovich, I got that TV on an installment plan… Miscalculated a bit,” Vitalik would say a week later, avoiding my eyes. “Can you lend me three or four thousand until payday?”
I gave it. And five. And ten. He never paid it back.
“Dad, we’re a family, we have a common budget,” Nadya would say when I timidly reminded him of the debt. “We installed the windows for you.”
By summer, I found myself in a strange position. I was living in my own apartment but no longer felt like the owner. Vitalik could come over without calling, bring some people, show them the layout. Supposedly for renovations, but in reality—realtors were already sizing it up.
He started giving orders:
“This carpet needs to be thrown out, it’s a dust collector. This sideboard is ‘Soviet-era junk,’ takes up space. Books? Why do you need so much paper? Everyone reads on a tablet now.”
He was erasing the traces of my life, the traces of Galya. He was turning our home into a faceless piece of real estate.
One day, I found him in the kitchen with a tape measure. He was measuring the wall.
“Vitaly, what are you doing?”
“Just checking something out,” he muttered. “If we tear down this wall, the kitchen and living room will be combined, it’ll be a studio. The price will immediately go up by five percent.”
“What price?” I was stunned. “We agreed, no sale.”
He looked at me as if I were insane. A snapshot I’ll never forget: his cold, fishy eyes and a crooked smile.
“Pavel Petrovich, you have to understand, the world is changing. You’re sitting on a chest of gold and chewing on dry crusts. It’s foolish. It’s economically unfeasible.”
“Economically unfeasible.” That’s what a person’s life was called now.
That was the first time I tried to rebel. I called Nadya.
“Daughter,” I said firmly, “take his keys away. I don’t want him coming here without you.”
Nadya came over that evening. She was pale, her hands trembling.
“Dad, why are you being like this? Vitaly wants what’s best. He’s trying for our sake. He’s going through a tough period, his business failed, he has debts. If we don’t help him, he could be killed.”
She started crying. And I broke again. The word “killed” had a magical effect. I wasn’t scared for Vitalik; I was scared for Nadya. If something happened to him, she wouldn’t survive it.
“Alright,” I said, hugging her thin shoulders. “Alright, let him do what he wants. As long as you’re both safe.”
That was my surrender, signed not with ink, but with fear and pity. The most dangerous inks in the world.
That year, September was rainy. The apartment sale was scheduled for the 14th. I remember the date because it was Galya’s birthday. She would have been 65. A milestone. Instead of a celebration, I was sitting at the notary’s office, signing the purchase and sale agreement.
The buyer, that bearded IT guy, looked at me with pity. I must have looked completely devastated.
“Are you sure?”
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