“You Wanted Mom’s Inheritance? Then Take Her In Too,” I Told My Sister as I Locked the Door
March smelled of dampness and melting snow. I stood in the entryway of my mother’s apartment, fastening my jacket with trembling fingers and listening as Mom shouted at Kristina from behind the closed bedroom door:
“How could you let her leave? Ungrateful girl! I raised her, and now she’s abandoning her own mother!”
I smirked. Raised me. How funny.
My last suitcase was already waiting in the hallway. I looked around at the peeling wallpaper and the worn linoleum I had washed every day for the past three years. This hallway remembered me as a little girl. It remembered my tears whenever Mom said, yet again, “Kristina is the beautiful one, and you’re the clever one. Everyone gets something.”
It remembered how I would come home from school and go straight to the kitchen to prepare dinner because Mom was tired after work and Kristina was “too delicate for housework.”
“Lena, are you really leaving?” Kristina peered out of the room. She was wearing a new robe—a turquoise silk one I had ordered for Mom’s birthday, but which, for some reason, my sister was wearing. “Yes,” I replied curtly, lifting my suitcase. “But we had an agreement! You said you’d stay with Mom a little longer!”
I set the suitcase back down and slowly turned toward my sister.
“We had an agreement? Seriously? Kris, I’ve ‘stayed’ with Mom for three years. For three years, I changed her diapers, cooked, did the laundry, and took her to doctors. For three years, I took time off work so I could drive her to medical procedures. For three years, I didn’t go to the movies, meet my friends, or have a personal life. Meanwhile, you came once a month for a couple of hours, kissed Mom on the cheek, and went back to your wonderful life.”
“Well, I have a job!” Kristina folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t abandon everything the way you did.”
“I didn’t abandon everything. I deliberately switched to remote work so I could stay with Mom. You simply didn’t want to visit.” “That’s unfair.” Kristina pouted, and I saw the same spoiled little girl who had always received the best slice of pie, the new doll, and Mom’s attention. “I love Mom too.”
“I know.” I nodded. “Especially her apartment. Two bedrooms, right in the city center. A nice piece of real estate, isn’t it?”
Kristina turned pale.
“What are you talking about?”
I pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from my jacket pocket—a photocopy of the deed of gift I had accidentally found two days earlier among Mom’s documents while searching for her medical records.
“I’m talking about the fact that Mom transferred the apartment to you. A month ago. Everything—the apartment, the country house, even the bank deposit. Congratulations, Kris. You got what you wanted.”
The silence became so dense that I heard Mom move a glass on her bedside table in the next room.
“Lena, I can explain…” Kristina began, but I raised my hand.
“Don’t. I understand everything. You came over in the middle of the week that time, remember? You said you missed her. You brought a cake and flowers. I was surprised. Then you and Mom locked yourselves in the room for two hours. You had already been to the notary, hadn’t you?”
Kristina remained silent, biting her lip.
“And do you know what the funniest part is?” I felt tears burning my eyes, but I forced myself to smile. “I’m not even angry because of the apartment. I would have given it to you without a fight if you had asked. I don’t need that apartment. What I needed was a family. A mother who would say thank you at least once. A sister who would share this burden with me. But instead, the two of you decided everything behind my back.” “Mom made the decision herself,” Kristina said quietly. “She said I was her favorite daughter. She said you were already living here for free, while I… I deserved to receive something in return because I couldn’t be here.”
I laughed. I truly laughed, until tears ran down my face.
“In return for not being able to be here. Brilliant. Kris, do you know how many times Mom called for you during those three years? How many times she cried at night and whispered your name? Were you here even once when she was genuinely unwell?”
“I couldn’t…”
“No. You didn’t want to. Those are two different things.”
I picked up my suitcase and headed toward the door. Kristina grabbed my sleeve.
“Lena, wait! What about Mom? I… I can’t manage on my own. I don’t know how to take care of her. I don’t know which medications to give her, how to speak to her, or what to do when she has an attack…”
“You’ll learn.” I pulled my sleeve free. “I didn’t have an instruction manual either. I simply did what needed to be done. Day after day.”
“But…”
“Kris.” I looked into my sister’s eyes. Blue like Mom’s. Beautiful. “You wanted Mom’s inheritance? Then take her in too.”
I opened the door and stepped onto the landing. The cold struck my face, but I felt lighter than I had at any point during the previous three years. “You can’t just leave!” Kristina shouted after me. “This is inhuman! She’s your mother!”
I turned around one final time.
“She decided a long time ago which one of us was her favorite daughter. Now live with that decision.”
The door slammed shut. I heard Kristina begin to cry behind it, but I did not return. Instead, I started walking down the stairs, counting the steps.
Nineteen.
The same number of years I had lived in that apartment before moving out for the first time.
Back then, I had left for another city and enrolled at a university, believing I was about to begin a new life. But then Mom became ill, and I returned.
Because that was what good daughters did.
Because I thought that, through her illness, she might finally see me. Appreciate everything I was doing. Love me. But she loved Kristina. She always had.
She continued loving her even now, when her favorite daughter visited once a month carrying expensive presents and left an hour later, while I remained behind to wipe the tears from Mom’s cheeks.
Outside, I hailed a taxi. The driver, a kind-faced man in his fifties, helped me load my suitcase.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
I gave him the address of the apartment I had rented a week earlier. It was a one-bedroom place on the outskirts of the city, but it was mine.
Completely mine.
As we drove, I looked through the window at the familiar streets. There was the bakery where I bought Mom’s favorite cabbage pastries. There was the pharmacy where I knew the pharmacist so well that she gave me a discount. There was the park where I took Mom for walks on her better days, pushing her wheelchair in front of me. My phone vibrated.
Kristina.
“Lena, Mom is crying. She says you’re an ungrateful bitch. She says she always loved me more because at least I didn’t try to control her.”
I smirked.
Control her.
So reminding Mom to take her pills was control. Not allowing her to eat greasy or sugary food because her doctor had forbidden it was control. Spending my own money on medication and procedures was apparently control as well.
Another message arrived:
“Do you know that you’re ugly? Mom says she was always ashamed to introduce you to her friends. She says I’m her pride and you’re her disappointment.”
I turned off my phone and placed it in my bag. Enough.
I had read enough of these messages. I had absorbed enough poison.
My new apartment greeted me with silence. An unfamiliar, almost ringing silence.
No one called me from another room. No one asked me to bring water, adjust a blanket, or turn on the television. I stood in the middle of the empty room—the furniture was not due to arrive until the following day—and, for the first time in three years, I had no idea what to do.
Then I sat on the floor, leaned my back against the wall, and began to cry.
Quietly, without sobbing, simply allowing the tears to run down my cheeks.
I wasn’t crying because of the apartment or the inheritance. I was crying because I had spent all that time hoping.
Hoping that one morning Mom would wake up and say, “Lenochka, thank you. I can see how hard you’re trying.”
Hoping that Kristina would visit and say, “I’m sorry I haven’t helped. Let’s do this together.”
I had been hoping for a miracle that never happened. My phone vibrated again, but I didn’t look at it. Instead, I opened the window—the apartment was on the ground floor—and let the spring air into the room.
It smelled of melting snow, damp earth, and something new.
Something that had yet to begin.
I spent my first night in the new apartment on an inflatable mattress. I lay there listening to unfamiliar sounds—the noise of passing cars, someone’s footsteps in the building, music from a neighboring apartment—and felt strange.
Free and lonely at the same time.
In the morning, the doorbell woke me. I pulled on my robe and opened the door. A neighbor stood on the threshold—a cheerful-looking woman in her forties carrying a bag.
“Good morning! I’m Marina. I live right next door. I saw you moving in yesterday, so I decided to bring you a pie. It’s our tradition to welcome new neighbors.”
I accepted the bag in confusion, feeling something warm spread through my chest.
“Thank you,” was all I managed to say.
“If you need anything, just knock. I have a teenage son who can help you assemble your furniture. And anyway”—Marina smiled—“I’m glad we have a new neighbor.”
When the door closed, I opened the bag. Inside was an apple pie, still warm.
I broke off a piece and ate it while standing beside the window. It was delicious. Perhaps even more delicious than the pies I had baked for Mom for so many years.
The furniture arrived that afternoon. Marina’s son, Danila—a tall young man with dreadlocks and kind eyes—really did help me assemble everything. He worked quickly and skillfully while telling me about college, the band in which he played drums, and the girl he had recently started dating.
“Is there someone in your life?” he asked while attaching a leg to the sofa.
I thought about it.
Three years earlier, there had been Andrei. He left six months after I returned to care for Mom. He said he wasn’t prepared to wait until I became available again. He wanted a normal family, not a woman who was constantly occupied with someone else.
“No,” I answered. “I didn’t have time.”
“Well, now you will.” Danila winked. “There’s a nice café nearby where young people hang out. I could show you sometime.”
I smiled.
When had someone last invited me somewhere simply for pleasure?
That evening, I sat on my new sofa, drank tea, and looked out of the window. My phone lay switched off beside me.
I knew there were dozens of messages from Kristina waiting on it. I knew she was panicking, failing to cope, and demanding that I return.
But I didn’t turn it on.
Not that day.
That day, I allowed myself simply to exist. To sit in silence, drink tea, and listen to music coming from the neighboring apartment.
To think about myself.
To think about who I was without the role of permanent caregiver and unwanted daughter.
The following day, I finally turned my phone back on.
Forty-three missed calls from Kristina. Fifteen messages.
I opened our conversation.
The first messages were angry:
“How could you do this?”
“You’re a heartless egoist!”
“Mom was right about you!”
Then came the panicked messages:
“Lena, I don’t know what to do. Mom has a fever.”
“She refuses to eat.”
“Which pills should I give her for the pain?”
The last messages were almost desperate:
“Please answer.”
“I’m scared.”
“I can’t cope.”
I typed a reply:
“The doctor’s number is in the red notebook in the kitchen. The pain medication is in a white box on the second shelf in the bathroom. Give her two tablets after food. If her temperature rises above 38.5 degrees Celsius, call an ambulance.”
A reply arrived a minute later:
“Thank you. Lena, when are you coming back?” I stared at those words for a long time. Then I wrote:
“Never, Kris. This is your life now. You wanted the inheritance, and you got it—along with everything connected to it.”
“But I didn’t want it to be LIKE THIS! I thought we would share the responsibilities…”
“You thought you would receive the apartment while I continued taking care of Mom for free. That’s not how it works.”
“Are you really not coming back?”
“No.”
After that, Kristina didn’t write for three days.
I returned to working at the office. My colleagues were delighted to see me—they knew I had spent the last few years working remotely because of Mom. My boss even organized a small celebration with cake and champagne.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” said Olya, my colleague and the only friend who had not abandoned me during those years. “How are things?”
“I moved out,” I answered briefly. Olya whistled. “Seriously? What’s it like?” “Strange. Good. Frightening. Everything at once.”
“I understand.” Olya squeezed my hand. “But you did the right thing. Truly.”
At lunchtime, we sat in a café opposite the office, and I told her everything. I told her about the deed of gift, Kristina, and Mom’s final words, which my sister had passed on to me.
“And do you know what the worst part is?” I said as I finished my coffee. “I still feel guilty. As though I’m the one who did something wrong.”
“That’s normal.” Olya shook her head. “Years of manipulation don’t disappear in one day. But listen to me: you are not guilty. You gave them three years of your life, and they didn’t even thank you. You have the right to live for yourself.”
I nodded as tears began filling my eyes again.
This time, however, they felt different.
They weren’t bitter.
They were liberating.
A week later, Kristina called. I stared at the screen for a long time before answering.
“Hello.”
“Lena.” My sister’s voice sounded exhausted and almost unfamiliar. “I need your help.”
“I’ve already helped you. I gave you instructions.”
“No, you don’t understand. Mom… she’s very ill. The doctors say she doesn’t have much time left. Maybe a few months.”
Something tightened inside me, but I forced myself to breathe evenly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Lena, she’s asking for you. She wants to apologize.”
I laughed.
“Now, when she only has a few months left to live. How convenient.”
“Don’t be so cruel!”
“Kris, I wasn’t cruel for three years. For three years, I was gentle, obedient, and prepared to do anything. And what did I receive in return? I was kicked out and told I was ugly and ungrateful. So don’t lecture me about cruelty.”
“But she’s dying…”
“We’re all dying, Kris. Some people simply have time to understand what they’ve done. Mom had that time. Three years. She could have thanked me at least once. She could have chosen not to transfer the apartment behind my back. She could have treated me like a daughter instead of an unpaid caregiver.”
“Please…”
“No. And do you know what, Kris? Tell Mom that I forgive her. But I’m not coming.”
I ended the call and switched off my phone. My hands were trembling, and my heart was pounding wildly, but inside me there was a strange clarity.
A month passed.
I started going to the gym—for the first time in my life, I had enough time to take care of myself. I met the neighbor who lived upstairs, Maksim, a programmer with a good sense of humor and kind eyes.
We drank coffee in the evenings and talked about everything imaginable. He didn’t ask about my family, and I appreciated that. He simply accepted me as I was at that moment.
Without my past.
Without my baggage.
Kristina didn’t call again. She occasionally sent short messages about Mom’s condition. I read them but didn’t reply.
It was their life now.
Not mine.
One evening, as Maksim and I sat on the roof of our building looking at the stars, he asked:
“Are you happy?”
I thought about it.
Was I happy?
I was calm, at least.
For the first time in many years, I was simply calm. There was no guilt, no constant anxiety, and no feeling that I owed someone something. “I’m on my way there,” I answered honestly.
He nodded and took my hand.
We sat silently, and I thought about how strangely life worked. Sometimes you needed to leave in order to find yourself. You had to slam one door shut to open another. You had to say no before you could learn to say yes to yourself.
I was at work when Kristina wrote to tell me that Mom had died.
The message was brief:
“Mom passed away this morning. The funeral is on Saturday.”
I looked at the screen, expecting tears to pour from my eyes, but none came.
There was only emptiness and a strange sense of relief.
It was finally over.
There would be no more late-night calls, demands that I return, or accusations that I was heartless.
I attended the funeral.
I stood to one side while Kristina sobbed beside the coffin, accepted condolences, and played the role of a daughter destroyed by grief. Mom’s friends looked at me disapprovingly. Kristina had probably told them how heartless I was.
After the funeral, my sister approached me.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
Her face had become gaunt, and dark circles surrounded her eyes. Three months had taken their toll.
“I came to say goodbye,” I answered. “To Mom. And to you as well.” “Lena, wait. Maybe we could… start over? You and I are all we have left. We’re family.”
I looked at my sister.
Beautiful, exhausted, and lost.
Once, I had dreamed that we would be close. I had imagined that she would become not only my sister but also my friend. But those were the dreams of a little girl who wanted to be loved.
“You know, Kris, family isn’t made up of the people who share your blood. Family is made up of the people who remain beside you when you’re suffering.”
“But…”
“Take care of yourself, Kristina. And take care of the apartment too. It’s all you ever wanted.”
I turned around and walked away.
I didn’t look back.
