Natalia stood by the window of her office on the twenty-third floor and looked at the city spread out below like a chessboard. From up here, everything seemed small and manageable. Cars crawled along the avenues like toys, people were tiny dots, and problems… the problems stayed somewhere down there, far below. But not today.

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

“Natalia Sergeevna, your parents are here,” Alina’s voice sounded delicate, but with a hint of bewilderment. In three years of working here, she had never seen anyone’s relatives at the office.

“I know. Give me five minutes.”

Natalia turned to her desk and automatically straightened the folders, though they already lay perfectly aligned. Deep breath. Exhale. She had learned to control her emotions back in childhood, when she realized that tears and grievances changed nothing. They only made you weaker.

Parents. Funny how that word still sent a prickle somewhere under her ribs, like a splinter she could never pull out. Natalia had long since stopped resenting them. She understood that they had tried to do what they thought was best at the time. But some things simply couldn’t be forgotten.

Her misfortunes had begun even before she was born.

Her mother told that story rarely, usually after two glasses of wine at some family celebration, when tongues loosened and control slipped. “Your father and I hadn’t planned to get married,” she would say, looking off to the side. “We were just seeing each other. I was in college, I wanted to become a literature teacher. He worked at a factory and wanted to apply to college. And then it turned out I was pregnant. Your grandmother said it would be a disgrace if we didn’t get married. So we had a registry-office wedding—maybe twenty guests, cake and champagne. I can’t say we were happy then.”

Natalia remembered well the apartment where she spent her childhood. A Khrushchyovka on the outskirts, two rooms, low ceilings, and that eternal sense of cramped space. Her father worked two jobs, her mother tutored and cleaned. The money still wasn’t enough. She remembered their whispering in the kitchen at night, her mother sometimes crying, her father slamming doors in irritation.

“Because of you I didn’t finish college,” her mother once said when Natalia was about nine. She didn’t say it with anger, just stated it as a fact, the way people mention the weather. “I had to drop out in my third year. We had no money.”

Natalia didn’t understand then why those words burned so much. But she remembered them. And many years later she realized: she had been an unplanned child who had drastically changed her parents’ lives. They didn’t love each other, but they got married when they learned a baby was on the way. They both had to work instead of getting an education.

It was hard.

But over time, things got better. Her father was promoted, her mother got a job at a factory. They traded the apartment for a three-room place in a nicer district. Natalia was eleven then. And that was when Alisa appeared.

The second daughter was awaited. Planned. They bought toys, set up a room, chose a name. When Alisa was born, her parents seemed to forget all their past hardships. Natalia remembered her father pushing the stroller through the park for hours, her mother singing lullabies as she leaned over the crib. They looked at Alisa with adoration—the kind of look they had never given their older daughter.

“Let everything be better for her than it was for us,” her father would say. “Let her get an education, become someone. We’ll do our best.”

And they did. Alisa was enrolled in music school, English lessons, dance classes. They bought her pretty clothes, toys, books. And to Natalia they said:

“You’re already grown up, you understand. There isn’t enough for two.”

Natalia understood. And kept quiet. She learned to be quiet, invisible, to demand nothing. After school she cooked dinner, mopped the floors, watched Alisa while their parents worked. By fourteen, she was practically running the household on her own.

“Help your sister with her homework. Make dinner. Go to the store.” That was the extent of the attention she received.

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

In the elder daughter, anger at an unfair world had lived since early childhood. At first it was a child’s resentment: why is she allowed what I’m not? Why do our parents smile at Alisa and look at me with tired, demanding eyes? Then the resentment turned into a quiet, cold fury. And that anger became the force that pushed her forward.

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

She studied brilliantly. Not because she loved school, but because it was her chance. A gold medal, a state-funded spot at university, an honors degree. She earned all of it herself—no help, no support. Her parents would come to her university graduation and proudly say to acquaintances, “This is our older daughter, look how well she’s done.” Natalia would smile stiffly and think: “Where were you when I was scared, when I stayed up nights before exams, when I needed words of support?”

She got a good job at a large company. She worked twelve-hour days, took on extra projects, never refused business trips. She climbed the ladder doggedly and methodically. At twenty-eight she became a department head. At thirty-two—a branch director. At thirty-five she headed the regional office.

And Alisa… Alisa grew into a beauty, spoiled and utterly unprepared for life. She enrolled in college but dropped out after a year. She worked in a trendy boutique, then at a beauty salon, then nowhere at all. She changed boyfriends like gloves, spent money on clothes and entertainment, and kept coming to her parents with yet another request.

“Mom, I need makeup-artist courses, 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 style.”

And her parents gave. 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 from a distance. She had long since moved out, bought her own apartment, built a career. She met her parents at 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 any closeness.

And her parents went on spoiling the younger daughter. Alisa grew demanding, capricious, and selfish. She needed more and more; she grew up but kept making demands on her parents. Only the demands got pricier.

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

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

Natalia kept silent then, but thought, “At twenty-eight she wants her parents to buy her an apartment? Seriously?”

But her parents took it as a given.

“Of course, dear,” her mother said. “We’ll figure something out.”

And they did. They split their three-room apartment into two. The smaller, worse one—for themselves. A studio on the outskirts, in an old building with a barely working elevator and a view of an industrial zone. The larger, nicer one—for their beloved daughter. Alisa got a renovated one-room flat in the center with new furniture.

When Natalia found out, she simply shook her head.

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

“What else could we do?” her mother defended herself. “She asked. She needs an apartment.”

“And you? What do you need?”

“We’ll manage. We don’t have much time left anyway.”

Natalia hung up and never returned to the topic. What was the point? They had made their choice. As always.

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

Then her father fell ill.

At first it was just weakness, then shortness of breath, then pain. Doctors couldn’t make a diagnosis for a long time. When they finally did, it turned out he needed surgery. Complicated and expensive. A private procedure, because a state-funded slot would take six months to wait for, and there was no time.

Her parents raised money however they could. They sold the dacha they had saved for over ten years to buy. They took out loans. Borrowed from acquaintances. It still wasn’t enough.

The operation was done. Her father survived, but a long recovery was needed. Rehabilitation, medication, procedures. They ended up in debt. Their pensions were small. Half went to medicines, a third to loan payments.

Natalia learned all this by chance, from her mother’s neighbor.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked when she came to see her parents.

They sat on the old sofa in their cramped little flat. Her father had grown gaunt, aged ten years. Her mother looked exhausted.

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

“And Alisa?”

Her mother looked away.

“Alisa… she’s having a hard time too right now.”

Natalia smirked.

“What kind of hard time? She lives downtown, in your apartment that you gave her.”

“She has her own expenses,” her mother defended. “Utilities, groceries. She can’t.”

Natalia was silent. She wanted to shout; she wanted to ask, “And what about me? Was I supposed to?” But she kept quiet. Instead, she opened her banking app.

“How much do you need?”

“Natalya, don’t, we can’t…”

“How much?”

She paid the debts. All of them. She left money for three months of medication. She arranged weekly grocery deliveries. She hired a caregiver to come help her father.

“Thank you, dear,” her mother cried, hugging her. “Thank you.”

Natalia stood with a stony 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 it brought no peace.

Six months passed. Her father improved, started walking little by little. Natalia called now and then, asked how they were, transferred money. But there was no closeness. There was obligation.

And today they had come to her office.

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

“Show them in.”

Her parents entered uncertainly, as if afraid they’d be thrown out. Her father leaned on a cane; her mother held some sort of bag in her hands. They looked small and lost in the spacious office with its glass walls and modern furniture.

“Sit down,” Natalia indicated the guest chairs.

“Natalya dear, we know you’re busy,” her mother began, crumpling the handle of her purse. “We won’t take long.”

“Go on.”

“You see…” Her mother faltered. “We have problems again.”

Natalia clasped her hands on the desk and waited.

“Your father needs another surgery. The doctors say that without it… well, he needs it. It’s expensive. Very. We’ve 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 fell.

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

“And?”

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

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

She stood and walked to the window. The city below went on with its life, indifferent to other people’s dramas. Five hundred thousand. For her, that was less than two months’ earnings. She could just make a transfer. Solve the problem with the tap of a finger.

But something inside her suddenly tightened into a hard knot.

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

“Natalya, you… you’re so successful, you can…”

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

“Natalya, please…”

“No!” She felt the years of restraint, silent endurance, and suppressed hurt break loose. “No, I want to hear it! Why did you come to me? You have your beloved daughter, the one you gave an apartment to! The one you bought everything for! Who, by the way, lives in YOUR apartment while you squeeze into a studio on the outskirts! Who has a new car she could sell!”

“Sweetheart, calm down…”

“I’m not ‘sweetheart’!” Natalia’s voice rang with fury. “‘Sweetheart’ is Alisa! I was the girl who cooked dinner and scrubbed the floors! I was the one you remembered when help was needed! And where were you when things were hard for me? When I took exams alone, looked for work alone, fought my way through alone?”

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

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

“Spoiled? Self-centered? Unable to take care of herself?”

“We wanted what was best,” her mother whispered. “We tried…”

“Tried?” Natalia laughed bitterly. “You tried to raise a maid out of one daughter and an infantile princess out of the other. Congratulations, you succeeded. And now that the princess refused to help you, you’ve come to the maid.”

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

A heavy, ringing silence hung in the air. Natalia stood there, feeling two forces battle inside her: the anger that had built up for years, and something else. Not love. Not pity. Perhaps simply the realization that these two elderly, broken people were all she had in the way of family. And that after them there would only be Alisa, with whom she had nothing in common at all.

She went back to the desk, picked up her phone. Entered the amount, hit “Send.”

“This is for the operation and the treatment afterward. Don’t come again.”

“Natalya dear…”

“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 tired of being the backup option. Tired of being the one you run to when there’s no one else.”

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

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

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

She had done the right thing, she told herself. She helped because she could. Because she had the strength to earn that money. Because she wasn’t like Alisa, who took and gave nothing in return.

So why did it hurt so much?

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

Natalia stared at the screen for a long time. The city below kept moving. Cars inched along the avenues, people hurried about their business.

She had forgiven her parents. Long ago. But some things can’t be forgotten. And can’t be undone.

Natalia ran a hand over her face, straightened up, and opened her laptop. She had a meeting in an hour, and a project presentation in the evening. Life went on. As always. She would manage. She always had.

Alone.