Olga nodded gratefully. They sat in the kitchen for a long time, drinking strong sweet tea. Marina told some funny stories from her beauty salon, trying to distract her friend, but Olga listened with half an ear. Thoughts swirled in her head, one more anxious than the other. Where to find a job? How to live on her small salary? Maybe Igor is right, and she really amounts to nothing?
At night, Olga tossed and turned on the pull-out sofa for a long time, staring into the darkness. Rain drummed outside the window, dripping somewhere from the cornice. Marina’s room was small and cozy: mannequins with wigs stood everywhere, bottles of hair dye and professional scissors lay on the shelves. It smelled of hairspray and some chemicals, but Olga didn’t care. The main thing was having a roof over her head.
She thought about Igor. Wonder what he’s doing now? Sleeping peacefully, confident he taught her a lesson? Or does he regret what happened at least a little bit?
Then her thoughts flowed further, into the past. Olga remembered her grandmother, Ekaterina Fedorovna, a tall, stately woman with gray hair braided into a tight bun. Grandmother died five years ago when Olga was thirty. They were very close; Olga often visited her in the summer in a small house on the outskirts of the city, listening to her stories and wise advice.
Ekaterina Fedorovna lived a hard life. Her husband, Olga’s grandfather, died early when grandma was only forty. She was left alone with two children in her arms, without a profession, without money. But she didn’t break. She went to work at a factory, slaved away in three shifts, raised the children, educated them. Then she also babysat her granddaughter when Olga’s parents were busy.
“Remember, girl,” grandma used to say when Olga was still a teenager. They were sitting on the porch of the house, cleaning berries for jam. “A woman must always have something of her own. Her own business, her own money, her own corner. So she doesn’t depend on anyone. Men — they come and go. But you — you are forever.”
Back then, Olga nodded without really thinking about it. She was about sixteen, and such conversations seemed boring and adult. But now, lying in the dark on someone else’s sofa, she remembered these words and felt something click in her chest.
Something of her own. Grandmother left her an inheritance. Small, but still. A bank deposit, saved penny by penny over a lifetime, and a plot of land somewhere in the suburbs, which was once allocated to her grandfather for many years of work at the factory. Olga had almost forgotten about it. Igor knew, of course, but never brought up the subject. The inheritance was registered to Olga personally, before marriage, and by law was considered her personal property.
Olga sat up abruptly on the sofa. Her heart beat faster. Documents. Where were the documents for the deposit and the plot? She remembered putting them in a separate folder, kept in the closet, on the very top shelf, under a stack of old photo albums. Igor never looked there.
In the morning, as soon as it got light, Olga got up quietly so as not to wake Marina. Dressed, went out of the apartment. It was fresh outside, smelling of rain and wet leaves. Olga walked to the nearest bookstore, which opened early, and bought a cheap phone with a prepaid card. She spent almost all the remaining money, but the phone was necessary.
Returning to Marina’s, she found her friend in the kitchen having breakfast.
“Marina, I need to go home,” Olga said. “While Igor is at work. To pick up some documents.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Marina put down her sandwich. “What if he’s there?”
“No, he’s definitely at work. He has an important meeting from ten in the morning, he mentioned it yesterday. I’ll be quick, there and back.”
Marina gave her the keys to her old car; she wasn’t going anywhere today. Olga drove to the familiar building, went up to the fifth floor. Her heart was pounding as if she were doing something illegal, although it was her apartment, her things.
At the door, she froze. What if Igor was home after all? What if he skipped the meeting? But no, no sounds came from inside. Olga took the keys from her bag — Igor hadn’t taken her set yesterday, apparently didn’t think of it in the heat of the moment.
The door opened easily. The apartment greeted her with silence and the smell of stale air. Dirty dishes were in the sink in the kitchen: apparently, Igor had breakfast and didn’t clean up after himself.
Olga went into the bedroom, opened the closet. Everything was in place. Her hands reached for the top shelf, felt the edge of the folder under the photo albums. Pulled it out. Opened it.
The documents were there: a savings book in the name of Ekaterina Fedorovna with a note about re-registration to Olga, a certificate of ownership for a land plot of eight acres in the village of Svetloe, fifty kilometers from the city. Olga quickly flipped through the papers. Everything was in order, everything properly registered. She shoved the folder into her bag, looked around. Should she take anything else? Photos? But why? That life was over.
Olga left the apartment quietly, as she had entered, and closed the door behind her. On the way back to Marina’s, she stopped at the bank. The line moved slowly; Olga was nervous, fingering the strap of her bag. Finally, she was called to the window. The teller, a young woman with bright makeup, accepted the documents and dug into the computer.
“The deposit does indeed exist,” she said. “In the name of Ekaterina Fedorovna Chernova, re-registered to Olga Sergeyevna Chernova. The amount with interest is…” She looked at the screen. “823,000.”
Olga’s breath caught. 823,000. She hadn’t thought there could be that much. Grandmother saved a little bit all her life, and with interest over the years, a decent sum had accumulated.
“Do you want to close the deposit?” asked the teller.
Olga nodded. No, she wouldn’t waste this money. These were grandmother’s savings, her last gift. But now they could become the start of a new life.
Half an hour later, Olga walked out of the bank with a new card and a feeling that solid ground had appeared under her feet. Not riches, of course, but not poverty either. Something to start with.
She spent the next two days searching. First, she found a realtor’s phone number on the internet who specialized in selling land plots in the suburbs. Called, arranged a meeting. The realtor, a woman of about fifty, businesslike, in a strict suit, arrived and inspected the plot.
“The location is good,” she said, walking around the weed-overgrown allotment. “Forest nearby, river not far. Electricity is connected. True, it’s all neglected. But plots sell well here. I think we’ll sell it quickly for one and a half million.”
“I need it urgently,” Olga looked her in the eyes. “Very urgently. A week maximum.”
The realtor thought for a moment…
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