Stepan Kharitonovich listened in silence. He rolled a pencil between his fingers, lightly tapping it against the tabletop. The wall clock, which had been four minutes slow for as long as Valeria could remember, seemed to tick especially loudly today.
“So, the groom’s father provides the venue, and the teachers pay for the celebration,” he finally said. “Clever arrangement. I wouldn’t have come up with something like that myself.”
“Stepan,” her mother gripped the edge of the towel. “We had savings. We can sell the summer house… If our daughter truly loves him… What will people say if we can’t arrange her wedding?”
Valeria abruptly lifted her head.
“Mom, what are you talking about? What wedding? They don’t need a family. They just want you to sit in the farthest corner at their celebration and thank them for inviting you at all. And using your own money. And then they’ll send me away whenever they wish. You are not selling Grandpa’s summer house. I won’t allow it.”
Her mother began to cry quietly and turned to look out the window. Then she got up, left the kitchen, and came back with a piece of white fabric folded into quarters.
It turned out to be a wedding rushnyk. Red and black embroidery, clusters of viburnum at the edges, and two birds in the center.
“I embroidered it over three years,” Lidiya Filippovna said. “Little by little, in the evenings. I imagined how the two of you would stand on it during the ceremony. You never knew about this.”
Valeria ran her fingers over the pattern. In some places, the stitches were slightly uneven—most likely, her mother worked on them during evenings when she came home from lessons completely exhausted. Valeria clutched the rushnyk to her chest and finally allowed herself to really cry.
Her father waited for her to calm down a little, then smiled.
“Do you know what I was most afraid of? That love would make you blind to the obvious. But you understood everything. Well done. My daughter.”
He stood up, walked over to the bookcase, moved aside a few volumes of the encyclopedia, and took out a green cardboard folder tied with strings. On the cover, written neatly in a teacher’s handwriting, it said: “For Valeria.”
“What’s inside?”
“Do you remember Aunt Vera, your mother’s relative? She taught at a university and lived in the regional center.”
“Vaguely. I think she gave me a chess set.”
“That’s right. After she passed away, Aunt Vera left her apartment to your mother. We never sold it. For twenty years, we’ve rented it out, and put the rental income into a separate account. We never spent a single hryvnia from it, even though times were tough. Now, the savings are enough to buy a three-room apartment. Right away, no loans or debts.”
Valeria looked helplessly from her father to her mother.
“You kept this a secret for twenty years?”
“We wanted you to grow up as someone who understands the value of hard work,” Mom replied. “Not as a girl who thinks she automatically deserves a big dowry. And we hope you’ll find someone who wants you for who you are—not just for your property.”
“I’m still a mathematician at heart,” Dad said as he untied the ribbons on his folder. “Both sides of an equation have to be equal. They set their terms, now let’s propose a mirrored version. Invite them over tomorrow. Tell them your parents are ready to talk about the wedding finances.”
The next evening, right at 7 PM, a black SUV pulled up in front of the building. First came Eleonora Viktorovna, wearing a light-colored coat and a mink scarf—even though it was twelve degrees outside. Behind her was Igor Valentinovich, heavyset, unhurried, with his phone in hand. Alexei was the last to emerge, looking completely relaxed and slightly smiling, as if he was already sure things would work out in his favor.
On their way up the stairs, Eleonora Viktorovna held her coat so it wouldn’t accidentally brush the railings. In the hallway, she didn’t even remove her gloves.
“I hope this conversation won’t take long,” Igor Valentinovich said as he sank into an armchair without waiting for an invitation. “I have a meeting at nine o’clock. So, Stepan… um…”
“Kharitonovich.”
“Yes, of course. As I understand it, you’ve finally realized the scale of the approaching event. You’ve seen the estimate. For a proper celebration, it’s not a large sum—although for your family, it’s certainly significant. How do you plan to manage it?”
Dad took his place at the head of the round table. He wore a white shirt that Mom had ironed that morning. The table was covered with a festive lace cloth. Stepan Kharitonovich poured tea, then set a blank sheet of paper and a pen in front of the guests.
“We carefully considered your proposal, Igor Valentinovich. And we agreed: the bride’s family really should make a significant contribution.”
Alexei glanced at Valeria and winked. She stood by the cabinet with her arms crossed, showing no reaction.
“Wonderful!” Eleonora Viktorovna exclaimed, clapping her hands, her rings sparkling under the lamp. “I knew you were sensible people. We’ve already found an ideal country venue. We’ll choose a dress for Lera at my boutique. Of course, something modest—so it matches her style…”
“Excuse me, but I haven’t finished yet,” Dad said quietly but with that teacher’s tone that would instantly hush thirty students in a classroom.
Eleonora Viktorovna fell silent as well.
“We’ve decided to go even further. We want to fully relieve your family of any worries about acquiring a home.”
Now, you could hear the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen.
“What do you mean?” Igor Valentinovich leaned forward.
Stepan Kharitonovich placed a certified bank statement and copies of Aunt Vera’s apartment documents in the center of the table.
“We have enough resources to buy a three-bedroom apartment downtown this week. No mortgage—one payment. So we have a counteroffer for you. Exactly the same one your son gave our daughter yesterday.”
Alexey craned his neck, looked at the amount listed on the bank statement, and slowly let his mouth fall open.
“We’re the ones buying the apartment,” dad said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if dictating a math problem to students. “The property will be registered in my name. Your future son-in-law will get no share. Of course he can live there. We’ll even let him choose the curtains. As for the wedding—with the country venue, a famous host, your guests from the department, oysters, and a spectacular fireworks show—that’s all on your side, paid in full down to the last cent. The renovation costs for the apartment are yours as well, using our approved design. How does that sound? I think it’s fair: we provide the walls, you provide the celebration. Both sides of the equation are balanced.”
Igor Valentinovich’s face turned crimson and blotchy. He jumped up suddenly, knocking his cup and spilling tea across the white tablecloth.
“What, is this some kind of performance?! I’m supposed to spend hundreds of thousands on a party, and my son will live as a guest in your apartment, where you can boot him out anytime? Who do you think you are?!”
“It’s amazing how quickly politeness vanishes when you show someone their own reflection,” mom said calmly, though her fingers gripped the edge of her apron tightly. “When those terms were imposed on our daughter, you thought they were wise and fair. But the moment your family got the same conditions, suddenly it’s a circus.”
“Lera!” Alexey rushed to the girl and grabbed her hand. “Lerochka, why did you turn things around like this? It was just initial talks, our parents were negotiating! We love each other! If you want, we’ll split the apartment fifty-fifty. Or skip the celebration altogether and just get married ourselves—just you and me. Dad, say something, please!”
Valeria pulled her hand free. She looked at her bewildered fiancé, at his trembling lips and expensive watch. Yesterday, he tossed his car keys onto the table with confidence and laid out his demands. But today, after seeing her parents’ bank statement, he was suddenly willing to agree to anything.
“You gave me three days, Alexey. Turns out I only needed one evening. There won’t be a wedding—neither by your plan nor by ours.”
She took off the ring and placed it on the table.
Right into the small puddle of spilled tea.
“Let’s go, Alexey!” Eleonora Viktorovna clung to her son’s sleeve. “She’ll regret this! We’ll see who wants a woman with a character like hers! She’ll come crawling back, but it’ll be too late by then!”
The front door slammed so loudly that glasses rattled in the cabinet. Heels echoed on the staircase for a long time, accompanied by a voice full of outrage. Then the car’s engine roared in the yard, and finally, everything went quiet.
Dad silently brought over some napkins and started blotting up the tea on the tablecloth. He did it slowly and thoroughly, as if nothing in the world was more important than that expanding stain.
“Forgive us, sweetheart,” he said without looking up. “It came out pretty harsh. But otherwise, they wouldn’t have understood anything.”
Valeriya walked up from behind, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and pressed her cheek against her father’s rough, bristly face. Tears were streaming down her face—only now, they felt different. They were light, freeing, as if a heavy burden she hadn’t realized she was carrying for months had finally been lifted.
“Thank you, Dad. Thank you both. You really saved me.”
“Alright, that’s enough crying,” her mom said, wiping her own eyes with the corner of her apron. “The tea has gone cold. I’ll make a fresh pot with mint. And the baked apples in the oven haven’t cooled down yet.”
The dark stain on the tablecloth just wouldn’t come out. Lidiya Filippovna had tried salt, lemon juice, and every remedy her neighbor from the fourth floor had recommended. In the end, she simply stopped fighting it.
“Let it stay,” Mom decided. “It’ll remind us what we managed to protect you from.”
The towel with the red viburnum berries and two doves was placed back on the top shelf of the wardrobe. Lidiya Filippovna carefully wrapped it in paper and said it would wait. Waiting was nothing new for it.
One day, the man who would stand with Valeriya on that towel wouldn’t be coming into their home with a list of wedding expenses. He’d bring her mother a bouquet of fall asters, and ask her father if he needed any help painting the fence at grandpa’s dacha.
Outside, an October rain was falling, washing the dust and tire tracks from the asphalt. In the kitchen, a lamp glowed softly under its orange shade.
Ahead was a life where Valeriya would never have to prove her worth to anyone again.