“Why did you come to me?! You have your beloved daughter — the one you gave the apartment to!”

“Why did you come to me?! You have your beloved daughter — the one you gave the apartment to!”

Natalia stood by the window of her office on the twenty-third floor, gazing at the city spread out below like a chessboard. From up here, everything seemed small and manageable.

Cars crawled along the avenues like toy models, people were tiny dots, and problems… problems stayed somewhere down there, far away. But not today.

Today, the problem had taken the elevator and was now sitting in the reception area, waiting for the secretary to show her in.

“Natalia Sergeevna, your parents are here,” Alina’s voice sounded polite but tinged with mild bewilderment. In three years of working there, she had never seen anyone’s relatives come to the office.

“I know. Give me five minutes.”

Natalia turned toward her desk, automatically straightened the folders — though they were already perfectly aligned. A deep breath. Exhale. She had learned to control her emotions back in childhood, when she realized that tears and resentment changed nothing — they only made you weaker.

Parents. Funny how that word still sent a faint sting beneath her ribs, like a splinter that could never be pulled out. Natalia had long stopped resenting them. She understood they had tried to do what they thought was best. But some things couldn’t be forgotten.

Her misfortunes began before she was even born.

Her mother rarely told the story — usually after two glasses of wine at some family gathering, when her tongue loosened and her guard dropped.
“We didn’t plan to get married,” she would say, looking off into the distance. “We were just seeing each other.

I was studying at the institute, wanted to become a literature teacher. He worked at a factory, planning to apply to college. And then I found out I was pregnant. Your grandmother said it would be a disgrace if we didn’t register the marriage. So we did — a small wedding at the registry office, twenty guests, cake and champagne. I wouldn’t say we were happy.”

Natalia remembered well the apartment of her childhood — a Khrushchyovka on the outskirts, two rooms, low ceilings, and a constant sense of crowding. Her father worked two jobs, her mother tutored and cleaned. Still, there was never enough money.

She remembered their late-night whispers in the kitchen, her mother’s quiet crying, her father’s frustrated slamming of doors.

“It’s because of you I never finished the institute,” her mother once said when Natalia was about nine. Not angrily — just stating a fact, as one might mention the weather. “I had to drop out in my third year. We didn’t have the money.”

Natalia didn’t understand then why those words burned so much. But she remembered them. And many years later she realized: she was the unplanned child who had drastically changed her parents’ lives.

They hadn’t loved each other but got married because of the pregnancy. Both had to work instead of getting an education.

It had been hard.

But over time, things improved. Her father got promoted, her mother found a job at a factory. They traded their flat for a three-room apartment in a better neighborhood. Natalia was eleven. And that’s when Alisa appeared.

The second daughter was wanted. Planned. They bought toys, decorated her room, picked out a name. When Alisa was born, the parents seemed to forget all past hardships.

Natalia remembered how her father would stroll the park for hours with the stroller, how her mother sang lullabies over the crib. They looked at Alisa with a tenderness they had never shown their older daughter.

“Let her have a better life than we did,” her father would say. “Let her study, become someone. We’ll do our best.”

And they did. Alisa went to music school, English lessons, dance classes. They bought her nice clothes, toys, books. To Natalia they said:

“You’re grown up now, you understand — we can’t afford for both.”

Natalia understood. And stayed silent. She learned to be quiet, invisible, to ask for nothing. After school she cooked dinner, cleaned floors, watched Alisa while the parents worked. By fourteen, she was running the household almost single-handedly.

“Help your sister with her homework. Make dinner. Go to the store.” — that was all the attention she received.

But Alisa was spoiled. She got new dresses while Natalia wore hand-me-downs. Alisa could stay out late, while Natalia had to be home by eight. Alisa grew up surrounded by love and attention, like a greenhouse flower.

The elder daughter, from early childhood, carried anger toward an unjust world. At first, it was childish resentment: why is she allowed, and I’m not?

Why do our parents smile at Alisa but look at me with fatigue and expectation? Later, that resentment turned into a quiet, cold fury — a force that drove her forward.

“I’ll show you all,” Natalia would think, bent over her textbooks past midnight, while in the next room her parents read fairy tales to Alisa. “I’ll prove it to every one of you.”

She excelled at school — not out of love for studying, but because it was her only way out. A gold medal, a tuition-free spot at university, an honors degree.

All of it she achieved on her own — no help, no support. Her parents came to her university graduation, proudly telling acquaintances, “That’s our eldest — see what a success she is.”

Natalia smiled stiffly, thinking: Where were you when I was scared, when I stayed up nights before exams, when I needed just a few words of encouragement?

She landed a good job at a major company. Worked twelve-hour days, took extra projects, never turned down business trips.

She climbed the ladder steadily and relentlessly. At twenty-eight, she became a department head. At thirty-two — a branch director. At thirty-five — head of regional operations.

And Alisa… Alisa grew up beautiful, spoiled, and completely unprepared for real life. She enrolled in college but dropped out after a year. She worked in a trendy boutique, then in a beauty salon, then nowhere at all.

She changed boyfriends like gloves, spent money on clothes and entertainment, and constantly came to her parents with new requests.

“Mom, I need money for a makeup course — it’s only forty thousand.”
“Dad, I want to go to Turkey, all my friends are going.”
“I need a new coat; the old one’s out of fashion.”

And her parents gave it to her. They denied themselves everything, but they gave. Because Alisa was their hope, their favorite, their little princess who somehow refused to grow up.

Natalia watched all of this from a distance. She had long since moved out, bought her own apartment, built a career. She met her parents only on family holidays, gave expensive gifts — but kept her distance. Not cold, but not warm either. Polite. Formal.

She had forgiven them. But there was never closeness.

Her parents kept spoiling the younger daughter. And Alisa grew into a demanding, capricious, selfish woman. She always wanted more — she got older, but she kept taking. Only now, her demands were more expensive.

When Alisa turned twenty-eight, she announced that she wanted her own apartment.

“I can’t live with you forever,” she said over a family dinner. “I need personal space. My own place.”

Natalia said nothing at the time but thought, “At twenty-eight she wants her parents to buy her an apartment? Seriously?”

But the parents took it as natural.

“Of course, sweetheart,” their mother said. “We’ll figure something out.”

And they did. They traded their three-room apartment for two smaller ones. The worse, smaller one — for themselves. A cramped one-bedroom on the outskirts, in an old building with a barely working elevator and a view of an industrial zone. The better one — for their beloved daughter. Alisa got a renovated, furnished one-bedroom in the city center.

When Natalia found out, she simply shook her head.

“Are you serious?” she asked her mother over the phone.

“What could we do?” her mother defended herself. “She asked. She needs a place.”

“And you? What do you need?”

“We’ll manage. We don’t need much anymore.”

Natalia hung up and never brought it up again. What was the point? They had made their choice — as always.

Two years passed. Natalia heard from mutual acquaintances that Alisa was doing well — often posting photos from cafés and beauty salons. Whether she worked, no one really knew. Their parents saw her rarely — it was inconvenient for them to travel across the city.

Then their father got sick.

At first it was just weakness, then shortness of breath, then pain. The doctors couldn’t diagnose him for a long time. When they finally did, it turned out he needed surgery — complex and expensive. A private operation, because through public care they’d have to wait half a year, and there was no time.

Their parents gathered money however they could. They sold their dacha, the one they had saved for ten years to buy. Took out loans. Borrowed from friends. Still not enough.

The surgery was done. The father survived, but needed long rehabilitation — medications, procedures, therapy. They ended up deep in debt. Their pensions were small: half went to medicine, a third to paying loans.

Natalia found out by accident — from her mother’s neighbor.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked, coming to visit.

They were sitting on the old couch in their cramped apartment. Her father looked gaunt, aged by ten years. Her mother looked exhausted.

“We didn’t want to worry you,” her mother said softly. “You already work so hard.”

“And Alisa?”

Her mother looked away.

“Alisa… she’s having some difficulties too.”

Natalia gave a bitter laugh.

“What difficulties? She lives downtown, in your apartment — the one you gave her.”

“She has her own expenses,” her mother said defensively. “Utilities, food. She can’t help.”

Natalia was silent. She wanted to scream, to ask: “And what about me? Was I supposed to fix everything?” But she said nothing. Instead, she opened her banking app.

“How much do you need?”

“Natalia, don’t… we can’t—”

“How much?”

She paid the debts. All of them. Left enough for three months of medicine. Arranged grocery deliveries once a week. Hired a caregiver to help her father.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” her mother said through tears, hugging her. “Thank you.”

Natalia stood with a stone face. She hadn’t helped out of love. Not even out of duty. Simply because she could. And because, like it or not, they were her parents.

But peace didn’t follow.

Six months passed. Her father got better, started walking again. Natalia called occasionally, asked how they were, transferred money. But there was no closeness — only obligation.

And now, today, they had come to her office.

Natalia straightened, smoothed her skirt, and nodded toward the door.

“Show them in.”

Her parents entered timidly, as if afraid they might be turned away. Her father leaned on a cane, her mother clutched a shopping bag. They looked small and lost in the spacious glass-walled office with its sleek furniture.

“Sit down,” Natalia said, motioning to the visitor chairs.

“Natalia, we know you’re busy,” her mother began, nervously twisting her purse handle. “We won’t take much of your time.”

“Go ahead.”

“You see…” her mother hesitated. “We have another problem.”

Natalia clasped her hands on the desk and waited.

“Your father needs another surgery,” her mother said. “The doctors say that without it… well, it’s necessary. It’s expensive. Very expensive. We tried to find the money, but… the bank won’t give us another loan.”

“How much?”

“Almost five hundred thousand,” her mother’s voice trembled. “We know it’s a lot. We’ll try to pay you back somehow…”

“And Alisa?”

Silence hung in the air…

“Alisa…” her mother looked at her father. “We went to her first.”

“And?”

“She said she doesn’t have that kind of money. That things are hard for her right now. She just bought a car on credit…”

“A car,” Natalia repeated slowly. “I see.”

She stood up and walked to the window. The city below went on with its life, indifferent to anyone’s private dramas. Five hundred thousand. For her, it was less than two months’ salary. She could transfer it in seconds. Solve everything with one tap of her finger.

But something inside her tightened into a hard knot.

“Tell me honestly,” she turned to her parents. “Why did you come to me?”

“Natalia, you’re… you’re so successful, you can—”

“Why did you come to me?” she repeated, louder. “You have your beloved daughter — the one you gave an apartment to! The one you spoiled all your life, the one you adored, the one you sacrificed everything for! Why didn’t you go to her?”

“Natalia, please…”

“No!” The years of restraint, of silent endurance, of swallowed pain suddenly broke free. “No, I want to hear it! Why did you come to me?! You have a favorite daughter — the one you bought everything for, the one you gave everything to!

The one, by the way, who lives in your apartment while you squeeze into a one-bedroom on the outskirts! The one who has a brand-new car she could sell!”

“Sweetheart, calm down…”

“I’m not your sweetheart!” Natalia’s voice rang with fury. “Your sweetheart is Alisa! I was the girl who cooked dinner and scrubbed floors! The one you remembered only when you needed help!

Where were you when things were hard for me? When I faced exams alone, looked for work alone, fought my way up alone?”

Her mother was crying. Her father sat with his head bowed.

“We… we thought you were strong,” he said quietly. “That you could manage on your own. And Alisa… she’s so sensitive, so…”

“—Spoiled? Selfish? Helpless?”

“We just wanted the best,” her mother whispered. “We tried…”

“Tried?” Natalia laughed bitterly. “You tried to turn one daughter into a servant and the other into an infantile princess. Congratulations — you succeeded. And now, when the princess won’t help you, you’ve come to the servant.”

“Natalia, we know we were wrong,” her father tried to stand but didn’t have the strength. “We know. Forgive us. But I… I need that surgery. Without it, I won’t live until spring.”

A heavy silence filled the room. Natalia stood motionless, feeling two forces battling inside her — the anger that had built up for years, and something else.

Not love. Not pity. Perhaps just the realization that these two frail, broken old people were all she had left of a family. And that after them, there would only be Alisa — and nothing at all between them.

She returned to her desk, picked up her phone. Entered the amount. Pressed Send.

“This is for the operation and the recovery. Don’t come here again.”

“Natalia…”

“I said — don’t come again. I’ll help Father because I don’t want his death on my conscience. But I don’t want to see you. Not you, not Alisa. I’m done being the backup plan. Done being the one you turn to when there’s no one else.”

“We’ll pay you back,” her father murmured, eyes lowered. “We will.”

“Don’t,” Natalia turned back to the window. “Alina will see you out.”

When the door closed behind them, Natalia sank into her chair. Her hands were trembling. Her chest felt both empty and unbearably heavy.

She had done the right thing, she told herself. She helped because she could. Because she had earned that money through her own strength. Because she wasn’t like Alisa — who only took and never gave anything back.

So why did it hurt so much?

Her phone vibrated. A message from her mother: “Thank you, sweetheart. Forgive us. We love you.”

Natalia stared at the screen for a long time. The city below kept moving. Cars crawled along the avenues; people hurried about their lives.

She had forgiven her parents — long ago. But some things cannot be forgotten. And cannot be undone.

Natalia ran a hand over her face, straightened, and opened her laptop. She had a meeting in an hour, and a project presentation that evening.

Life went on. As always.

She would manage. She always had.

Alone.