I didn’t need to see my reflection to know: my face was as gray and still as the facade of an old building downtown on a cloudy day.
I put on a severe, dark gray dress made of thick wool, buttoned it up to the throat, and took the folder. The city outside was just waking up, but I was already on my way. My old sedan, reliable and unpretentious like me, drove me away from the center, towards the industrial districts. There, among warehouses and concrete fences, was the office of “Second Chance”—a charitable foundation headed by Ignat.
Ignat was a man with a difficult past. In the nineties, he made mistakes for which he paid with ten years of his freedom. When he got out, no one wanted to hire him. No one but me. I was looking for a foreman who could keep his word and make others work.
I took a risk, and he built the best properties in the city for me. Now he was paying his debt to society by helping people like him get back on their feet. His office smelled of cheap coffee and construction dust—a smell that always calmed me more than French perfumes.
“Pelageya Karpovna?” Ignat stood up to greet me, his broad face, etched with deep wrinkles, showing sincere surprise. “So early? Did something happen?” I silently placed the gray folder on his desk, right on top of an estimate for a brick purchase.
“I need your lawyer, Ignat. And I need your seal. Right now.” Ignat frowned but didn’t ask any questions. He had known me for thirty years. If I say “now,” it means time is running out.
He pressed the intercom button, summoned his in-house lawyer, a young guy in glasses, and gestured for me to sit. I opened the folder and unfolded the five-year-old deed of gift. The red pencil circle around the date burned like a warning light.
“I am activating clause 14,” I said in a steady voice. “Revocation of ownership rights on the grounds of a breach of goodwill conditions.” The lawyer took the document and skimmed the text. His eyebrows shot up.
“This… this is impeccably drafted,” he muttered. “But, Pelageya Karpovna, do you understand what this means? You are effectively evicting your own son. The deadline is midnight tonight.”
“I know what time it is,” I cut him off. “Prepare the documents for the transfer of rights.” Ignat sank heavily into his chair.
“Polina,” he called me by the name only my closest friends used, “are you sure? This is war. Trofim will never forgive you for this.”
“Trofim already made his choice,” I looked my old friend straight in the eye. “Yesterday at three in the morning, he informed me that I am not welcome at his new family’s celebration. I paid 12 million for this house, Ignat.”
I put everything into it. And now they tell me I make the guests tense. I paused, feeling the tremor in my hands, which I was trying so hard to suppress, attempting to break free. I clenched my fists under the table.
“But I’m not here to take the house for myself,” I continued. “I don’t need that glass cube. There’s too much echo there. I want to transfer it.”
“Transfer it?” Ignat leaned forward. “To whom?”
“To you. More precisely, to your foundation.” Silence hung in the office. You could hear the hum of the old refrigerator in the corner and the ticking of the cheap plastic clock on the wall.
“You’re kidding,” Ignat breathed out. “Do I look like a person who jokes at eight in the morning?”
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