I took out a second document that I had prepared during the night. A deed of gift. From me to the “Second Chance” foundation. Designated purpose: the creation of a rehabilitation center and dormitory for individuals released from prison who find themselves in difficult life situations.
Ignat took the paper. His hands, accustomed to holding a sledgehammer, trembled slightly. “Polina… It’s a mansion. An elite neighborhood. The neighbors will eat us alive.”
“The neighbors won’t be able to do anything. The land is owned. The zoning allows for social facilities. I checked the urban development plan.” I allowed myself a faint, hard smile.
“Besides, your wards need housing. And my son and his mother-in-law need a lesson. A harsh but necessary one.”
“This is the nuclear button,” Ignat said quietly. “If we sign this, there’s no going back. You’re destroying their world.” I remembered Trofim’s message.
I remembered how Lukerya, that woman with a fake smile and empty eyes, gradually pushed me out of the house I had built. How she changed the curtains I had chosen, rearranged the furniture, disrupting the composition, and forbade my grandson from taking my books. They wanted me to become invisible. A shadow that just transfers money.
“They wanted me to disappear,” I said, and my voice sounded as firm as a hammer blow. “Now I will disappear. But along with the roof over their heads. Where’s the pen?”
The lawyer silently handed me a heavy fountain pen. I didn’t hesitate for a second. A flourish. Another one. The date. The seal. The sound of the seal hitting the paper was like a suppressed gunshot.
Muffled, final. “The transaction is registered,” the lawyer said, quickly typing something on his laptop. “Thanks to the electronic signature, the transfer of rights will occur within a few hours. By evening, the foundation will be the legal owner.”
I stood up. Inside me was a strange emptiness. No gloating, no triumph. Just a sense of a job completed. As if I had demolished a condemned building that threatened to collapse on passersby.
“Thank you, Ignat. Expect guests. Soon they will realize the locks have been changed.” I walked out of the stuffy office onto the street. The autumn air was cold and clear. I took a deep breath, trying to fill the emptiness in my chest with oxygen.
I was already approaching my car when my hand habitually reached into my purse for my phone. Why? Probably a masochistic desire to check if my son had written: “Sorry, I was wrong.” There were no messages. But there was a notification from a social network.
The algorithms had helpfully served me a story from the user Lukerya_Luxury_Life. I clicked on the circle with her photo. The video loaded instantly. On the screen was my garden. The very garden where I had planted rare varieties of hydrangeas, choosing them by shade so the blooms would flow from one color to another, like a watercolor painting.
The camera was shaking; Lukerya was filming herself on the move. She was wearing a loud, tasteless fuchsia-colored coat. “Well, girls, I’ve finally gotten around to it,” she broadcasted in a shrill, affected voice, pointing a manicured finger into space. “Next week, everything here will be different. I’m tired of this boredom, this grandmotherly style.”
The camera turned and stared at my gazebo. My wrought-iron gazebo… I had commissioned it from the best craftsmen, based on nineteenth-century sketches. I loved to sit there in the mornings with a cup of tea, watching the fog over the river. It was my sanctuary. My place of power.
“We’re tearing down this monstrosity first thing!” Lukerya joyfully announced, walking closer and kicking the elegant wrought-iron leg with an expensive boot. “There will be a barbecue area here with a huge grill and a jacuzzi. Because the old owner apparently thought you should read books in the garden, not relax like a normal person. It’s just ridiculous. That’s all, girls, kisses to everyone, get your party outfits ready.”
The video cut off. I stood in the middle of a dirty industrial park parking lot, clutching my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white. The pity that still lingered somewhere at the very bottom of my soul—a tiny, irrational pity of a mother for her child—was extinguished.
Lukerya had just signed her own sentence. She wanted to demolish my gazebo?
