“My daughter, Vika. If you’re reading this, it means I’m already gone. Valerka is not my biological son. We found him in ’86, picked him up like a kitten in the cold. We thought we could raise him to be a good man. It didn’t work out. I guess blood will out. This money is for you. For everything you did for me. For everything he will do to you. I know him like the back of my hand. If he comes to his senses and becomes a better person, share it with him. If not, it’s all rightfully yours. You, my daughter, are dearer to me than my own flesh and blood. Forgive me for raising such a son. Your mother, Nastya.”
Viktoria cried, sitting on the icy steps of the abandoned summer kitchen, for the first time in these terrible weeks, but these were tears of gratitude, not grief.
That evening, after she had returned to the house and lit the stove, her phone vibrated. A message from her husband with a photo: he was in a restaurant, a plate of trout in front of him, and in the background, a huge window with a view of snow-covered mountains. “Partners are treating me after successful negotiations. Miss you.”
Viktoria zoomed in on the picture and in the reflection of a wine glass, she could make out painted lips and drop earrings. Lilia was sitting opposite him, and her blurred reflection was smiling. She typed a reply, weighing every word, considering every comma:
“I’m in the village, sorting through Mom’s things. I found a metal box under the floorboards. Inside are documents in your name, something about an inheritance. A notary from the district says your signature is needed, otherwise, everything will be frozen. Come quickly.”
The phone rang a minute later—she hadn’t even had time to put it down.
“What box?” Valery’s voice was shrill with excitement, with no trace of his feigned grief left. “What inheritance? Mom had nothing but this collapsing shack!”
“I don’t know, Valera.” Viktoria feigned the exhaustion of a grieving widow. “Some papers, official seals. The notary says it’s a couple of million. Maybe the land that was taken for the road, some kind of compensation… Just come, I don’t understand any of this.”
“A couple of million…” He paused, and she could almost hear the gears turning in his head. “Alright. I’ll… I’ll try to get away for a couple of days. I’ll say it’s a family emergency. Just don’t show anything to anyone! Do you hear me? No notaries without me! Wait for me.”
Two days later, a taxi from Dnipro stopped at the crooked gate, splashing dirty snow from under its wheels, and Valery got out in an expensive down jacket, with a trendy haircut and a tan that could not have been acquired in Vietnamese offices but sat perfectly on a face fresh from the Carpathian sun. He hadn’t been at his mother’s funeral, hadn’t seen her coffin go into the crematorium furnace, but the first thing he asked upon crossing the threshold of his childhood home was:
“Where’s the box? Where are the inheritance documents?”
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