The call came late at night, while Vera was sorting through paperwork in her home office. Beyond the panoramic window, the city glittered—thousands of lights, each one like a small triumph over darkness. She didn’t answer right away. She knew the number by heart, even though it hadn’t appeared on her screen in more than three years.
“Verochka, my girl…” Her mother’s voice trembled, taut as a stretched string. “We need your help.”
Without a word, Vera set her pen down on the desk. Something tightened in her chest—an old, long-forgotten ache she’d learned to bury so deep she’d almost believed it had disappeared.
“What happened?” she asked, calm and professional.
“It’s your father… his heart. He’s having serious problems. He needs surgery. And my arthritis has gotten so bad I can barely walk. Verochka, we need money for treatment.”
Vera closed her eyes. A memory flashed up so sharply it might as well have been yesterday.
She was seven when Liza was born—a tiny red bundle with a piercing cry. And everything changed.
“Vera, bring the bottle!”
“Vera, watch your sister!”
“Vera, help me!”
The girl obediently did whatever she was told. She learned early how to be useful—because there was no other way to earn her parents’ attention. Liza was loved simply because she existed. Vera had to work for love.
When Liza turned three, she threw a screaming fit in a toy store. Their mother immediately bought her a huge doll—one Vera had never even dared to ask for.
“Our little one is so frail, so sickly,” her mother explained when she caught the older girl’s look. “She mustn’t get upset.”
So Vera learned not to ask. Not to complain. Not to cry. What was the point, if no one would hear her anyway?
At ten, Vera began earning money—delivering newspapers in apartment blocks, helping a neighbor in her garden. She handed the cash to her mother, who sighed gratefully.
“At least you’re a helper. Not like Lizochka—she only knows how to spend.”
But she said it with a soft, affectionate glow, as if the younger one’s wastefulness was some charming quirk worthy of admiration.
Liza grew like a greenhouse flower—pretty, pampered, convinced the world existed for her convenience. She pouted at the dinner table—so they cooked something separate. Didn’t want to go to school—so they promised presents. They bought her expensive clothes, enrolled her in dance lessons, music, art.
Vera walked across the city on foot to save bus fare. Teachers praised her dedication—she studied brilliantly because she understood: education was her only chance to break out of that cage of silent servitude.
“Vera’s smart—she’ll get by,” her father used to say. “But Lizonka needs support.”
And they supported her.
When Vera was sixteen and Liza nine, their parents sold the summer cottage to pay for Liza’s participation in a beauty contest.
“It’s her big chance!” her mother insisted, practically glowing. “Imagine if she wins—every door will open for her!”
Vera nodded silently. The cottage had been the only place she ever felt truly happy. Among the old apple trees and tangled raspberries, she could hide with a book and forget she was forever her sister’s shadow.
Liza didn’t even make it past the first round.
Vera got into university on a scholarship—there was no other way. She shared a dorm room with three other students and waited tables in the evenings. Studying came easily; work was exhausting. She endured it anyway. She had a goal.
Meanwhile, Liza attended a prestigious private school that devoured half the family’s budget.
“She’s so beautiful,” her mother repeated like a spell. “She needs the right environment to find a good match.”
Her mother said match with reverence, as if she were talking about marrying into royalty.
When Vera was twenty-three, she received a job offer from a large company in Moscow. The salary was three times what her provincial town could pay.
“You’re leaving?” her mother sounded genuinely shocked when Vera told her. “And what about us? Liza’s applying to university—she needs tutors.”
“I can’t do this anymore, Mom,” Vera said quietly. “I need to live my own life.”
“Selfish,” her mother threw at her, turning away.
Vera left with two suitcases and a firm decision: never look back.
Moscow greeted her with indifference—the kind it gives every ambitious newcomer with an empty wallet. The first year was hell. Vera worked twelve-hour days, rented a room in a communal flat, saved on everything. But she didn’t break.
Three years later she was a junior manager. Five years later—a department head. Seven years later—commercial director. She bought an apartment with panoramic windows overlooking the whole city. Every evening she stood by that glass and thought, I did it. By myself.
Her parents called rarely. Birthday greetings were short and formal. Sometimes her mother complained about life casually, as if it were nothing.
“Liza still can’t get married. Such a beauty, but the men are never right—no money, no decent car. We help her however we can. We traded our apartment for a smaller one, but at least we bought her a place of her own.”
Vera stayed quiet. Her silence was taken for approval.
Liza was already twenty-eight. She had switched universities three times and finished none. She tried working a couple of times—quit after a month because bosses were “rude,” coworkers were “jealous,” and the job was “beneath her.”
“She’s searching for herself,” their mother explained. “A creative spirit.”
That creative spirit lived on their parents’ money, fell in love over and over with “promising” men who turned out to be married, freeloaders, or outright scammers, and between romances demanded resort trips and pretty things.
Her parents sold what they could, took loans—and came back to Vera again.
“Verochka, you know how much we love Liza. She’s so sensitive. Help us support her.”
The first time Vera sent money without a word. The second time too. The third time she texted: This is the last transfer. Don’t contact me again.
And they didn’t. For three years. They went silent, as if she didn’t exist.
And now, this call.
“How much?” Vera asked, staring at the city reflected in the glass.
“Two hundred thousand,” her mother exhaled. “Verochka, I know you have your own life, but we’re your parents. And besides… Liza can’t help right now. She’s having a hard time. She got divorced—she’s all alone…”
“Divorced?” Vera repeated. “I didn’t even know she got married.”
“Well… it didn’t last long. The man wasn’t who he claimed to be. Lizochka is so upset.”
“Understood.” Vera opened her laptop and logged into her banking app. “Send the account details.”
“Sweetheart, you can’t imagine how grateful we are,” relief spilled into her mother’s voice. “You know, I always told your father you were the reliable one…”
“Mom. The details,” Vera repeated in the same tone she used to shut down tedious partners in negotiations.
A minute later, the transfer was complete.
“Vera, thank you, dear. Maybe you’ll come visit? We haven’t seen you in so long…”
“No.”
“But—”
“Mom, listen carefully,” Vera said, slow and precise, weighing every word. She turned away from the window as if she needed something solid behind her. “I sent the money because I don’t want Dad to die. Not because I owe you. Not because we’re family. But because I can afford it.”
“Verochka, what are you talking about?..”
“Wait. Let me finish.” Vera’s voice stayed controlled. “All my life I was your fallback plan. The unwanted child who arrived at the wrong time and ruined your plans. You never said it out loud, but I always felt it. And when Liza was born, I became your free babysitter, your helper—the one you could dump any task on.”
“We loved you…”
“No,” Vera said, though her mother couldn’t see her shake her head. “You put up with me. That’s different. You loved Liza. You bought her toys, dresses, education. For her you sold the cottage, downsized the apartment, buried yourselves in loans. And me… I was supposed to be grateful you didn’t abandon me.”
“That’s unfair! We did everything we could for you!”
“You did what you couldn’t avoid doing,” Vera answered coldly. “You fed me, clothed me, gave me a roof. Those are responsibilities, not love. Love is asking about someone’s dreams, comforting them when they’re hurting, celebrating their success. Did you ever once ask what I wanted? What mattered to me? What I dreamed about?”
The silence on the line was louder than any argument.
“When I got my diploma, you didn’t come because Liza had her school graduation,” Vera continued, and for the first time in years pain slipped into her voice. “When I got promoted the first time, I called you, and you said it was a bad moment because Liza had fought with yet another boyfriend and was crying in her room. When I bought my apartment—with money I earned through sweat and blood—you said, ‘Good job, smart girl,’ and a minute later asked me to lend money for Liza.”
“We didn’t realize… We didn’t mean to hurt you…”
“You didn’t think about me at all. I was a convenient add-on to your life. Need help—Vera will come. Need money—Vera will give it. But calling just to ask how I’m doing, inviting me over, telling me you’re proud of me… that never crossed your minds.”
“Vera…”
“Mom, I sent the money. Get treated. Get better. But never again—do you hear me, never again—call me. Don’t write. Don’t appear in my life. I’ve paid my debt—the debt that never existed, but that you always treated as a given.”
“How can you speak to your mother like that?!”
“And how could you treat your daughter the way you did?” Vera fired back. “Do you know what the worst part is? Not that you didn’t love me. It’s that you still don’t even understand what you did wrong. Even now, in this moment, you’re not thinking about how much it hurt me all those years. You’re only thinking about how unfair I’m being to you.”
She heard her mother’s stifled sob, but she kept going.
“You raised Liza helpless. You taught her the world owes her, that being pretty is enough to get whatever she wants. She doesn’t know how to work, how to set goals, how to survive hardship—because you were always there, ready to lay straw beneath her feet before she could fall. And do you know what happened? She’s miserable. Because the world doesn’t run by the rules you taught her.”
“Don’t you dare talk about your sister like that!”
“And you hardened me,” Vera said. “So thank you—for real, no sarcasm. You taught me not to wait for help, not to rely on anyone but myself, to fight for every scrap of happiness. I became strong because I had no choice. And I’m grateful I was born first. Because I wouldn’t want to be Liza. Thirty years old, her whole life ahead of her—and she doesn’t know how to live. You never taught her.”
“We loved her…”
“You destroyed her,” Vera said firmly. “With blind, suffocating love—love that demands nothing from the person being loved, because everything will be done for them. Love that turns someone into a helpless creature, incapable of living independently.”
A long pause. Then her mother spoke again, quieter now—almost a whisper.
“So what are we supposed to do now?”
“Now you’ve finally asked the right question,” Vera sighed. “But I can’t answer it for you. It’s your life, your choices. I made my choice three years ago when I told you not to contact me. You broke that boundary. I sent the money because somewhere deep inside I’m still that little girl who wants to be needed, who wants to earn love. But that girl needs to grow up. And I need to let you go.”
“You can’t do this…”
“I can. And I must—if I want to save myself. You know, Mom, for a long time I was furious at you. Then I started seeing a therapist—yes, I can afford it—and I understood that anger was eating me alive. So I decided: I’m letting you go. I don’t wait for apologies anymore. I don’t wait for acknowledgment or love. I’m done expecting anything from you. It’s freeing.”
“But we’re family…”
“No, Mom. Family isn’t blood. Family is people who love you, support you, respect you. You and I are connected only biologically. That isn’t enough.”
She could hear her mother’s uneven breathing, could picture her scrambling for words, squeezing the phone with trembling hands.
“And why did you come crawling to me?” Vera burst out suddenly, and in that line everything finally broke through—years of stored pain, the exhaustion of being unloved, the bitterness of hopes that never came true. “You have the one you gave everything to—the one you loved, the one you helped! Liza is your favorite, your princess, the meaning of your life. So go to her for help. Tell her to sell her apartment, get a job, take out a loan. Or am I the only one who’s good enough for that, while she isn’t?”
“Vera… forgive me…”
“Don’t,” Vera cut her off, weary. “Just keep living. Get better. But without me. Goodbye, Mom.”
Vera ended the call first. The phone in her shaking hands felt heavy as stone. She sank slowly into her chair and covered her face with her palms.
No tears came. She’d forgotten how to cry a long time ago.
Morning arrived gray and cold. Vera got up as always at six, went for a run, took a shower. In the mirror she saw a beautiful, well-groomed woman with a steady gaze—successful, self-sufficient, alone.
But not miserable. No—definitely not miserable.
At breakfast she checked her email. Among the business messages was a note from an unfamiliar address. She opened it—and froze.
“Vera, it’s Liza. I got your email from Mom. Don’t be mad. I heard your conversation yesterday—not on purpose, I was just nearby. I need to talk to you. Not about their health or money. About us. Please.”
Vera stared at the screen for a long time. Then she hit Delete.
Some bridges are better left burned. There is no road back—only forward. Into a life she built with her own hands, a life with no room for ghosts of the past and phantom aches from an unloved childhood.
She picked up her bag, looked at herself in the hallway mirror, and smiled. For the first time in years, the smile was real.
The door closed with a soft click.
Outside, a new life was beginning.