The front door slammed against the wall. Bohdan stood in the kitchen doorway, chest heaving, one shoe still on, the other foot in a torn sock pressing nervously into the linoleum. His face carried the kind of grief you’d expect from someone who had just watched the world end. “I gave her our envelope, Alina.
All of it. Every last kopeck. ”
Two hundred thousand hryvnias. Their car fund.
The money they had scraped together for months, skipping restaurants, taking extra shifts, dreaming about the coast. Alina finished slicing the red pepper. She wiped her hands slowly, then asked, “Which disaster hit Halyna Petrivna this time? ”
Bohdan lit up.
No screaming, no tears, no thrown plates. He took that as a green light. “You don’t understand. Catastrophe.
Biblical scale. The pipes burst, the main sewage riser. Mom called me crying, hysterical. Her German laminate curled up like an accordion.
The wallpaper is falling off. The furniture is floating. The neighbors downstairs have designer repairs and they’re already talking about a million-hryvnia lawsuit. I had to call an emergency crew, private guys, they work around the clock for double rates.
They pumped the water, but they needed materials and cash for the neighbors right away. Their courier met me at work. I ran home, grabbed the envelope, gave it to him. Mom couldn’t leave the apartment, she was there with buckets and rags, alone, fighting the flood.
”
Alina’s eyebrow went up. “A courier picked up two hundred thousand in cash for a plumbing emergency? ”
“The situation was extreme, Alina. She was coughing.
The humidity was terrible. She has asthma. I’m her son. Who else was supposed to save her?
”
Alina did not scream. She did not explain. She just left the kitchen, closed the door behind her, and called her sister-in-law. Kateryna answered over the roar of a hairdryer.
“Did you talk to your mother today? ” Alina asked. “Yeah, a couple of hours ago. Why, is her blood pressure acting up again?
”
“She said she has a flood. ”
The dryer stopped. Kateryna laughed. “A flood?
In that apartment it’s dry as the Sahara. She spent half an hour telling me about her financial flows and ancestral energy. Some internet coach found her, calls himself Svetozar. Real name Eduard.
Claims her money channel is clogged with karmic garbage from toxic relatives. He wants a donation to cleanse it. She already tried to borrow ten thousand from me for chakra work. ”
Alina tightened her grip on the phone.
“And this Svetozar is coming to her place at seven tonight for some initiation. She said she was preparing a rich offering. Alina… don’t tell me my brother gave him your money. ”
“He gave all our money to a courier.
”
Kateryna exhaled hard. “He’s a fraud. She lied to you. Both of you.
”
Alina hung up. She checked the clock. Six thirty. Perfect.
She walked back into the kitchen, put a panicked look on her face, and grabbed Bohdan by the shoulder. “I just called the head of your mother’s building committee. It’s worse than you think. The pipes didn’t just burst.
It’s sewage. Feces, filth, everything. The water is coming up fast. Your private crew abandoned the job.
They can’t handle it. Your mother is standing there alone, up to her knees in it. ”
Bohdan’s face went pale. “Sewage?
She said clean water. ”
“The situation changed. Get up. We’re going.
”
She pulled out two plastic buckets, a mop, a stack of heavy garbage bags, and a huge yellow plunger. She threw rubber gloves at his chest. “Put these on. And your fishing boots.
”
“It’s summer, Alina. It’s twenty-five degrees. ”
“There’s water and filth up to her knees. You want to wade through it in sneakers?
”
Bohdan had no fight left. He pulled on the heavy green rubber boots that reached his knees. She handed him the mop, the buckets, and slid the plunger under his arm. He looked like a survivor from a low-budget disaster movie.
They took a marshrutka through traffic. It took forty minutes. Bohdan sat stiffly, boots pinning him upright, his face losing confidence with every passing block. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in there,” he said weakly.
“We’ll catch something. ”
“We can’t leave your mother in that mess. ”
But inside, Alina was calm. Behind her mask of panic, she was already counting down.
When they reached the old five-story building, the street was silent. No emergency lights. No crowds. No flood victims.
A ginger cat slept on the warm lid of a manhole. Bohdan’s rubber boots slapped against the pavement as they hurried to the entrance. Old women on the bench watched him like he was a visiting alien. Inside, the stairwell was cool and dry.
Bohdan sniffed. “Alina, it doesn’t smell like sewage. ”
“Your mother has reinforced doors with double seals. The smell hasn’t gotten out.
”
On the third floor landing, a neighbor was coming down with his poodle. He stopped and stared at Bohdan in his waders. “Going night fishing, young man? ”
Alina gave a breathless performance.
“Mr. Mykhailo, is there any water coming from the ceiling? Did Halyna Petrivna burst? ”
The neighbor laughed.
“If she burst, the whole building would hear it. Quiet as a church up there. About an hour ago, a courier brought her food from a restaurant. Smelled incredible.
She must be having some kind of celebration. ”
Bohdan’s grip on the buckets went slack. “Celebration? ”
“Move,” Alina whispered, and dragged him up the last flight.
On the landing outside his mother’s apartment, it was dry. No water. No smell of waste. Just incense, warm and sweet, mixing with the smell of roasted meat and rosemary.
Bohdan lowered the plunger. “There’s no water here. Maybe she’s sleeping. Let’s go.
”
“No,” Alina said. “We’re here. Let’s have dinner with your mother. You gave her all our money.
She can feed us. ”
She didn’t knock. The door was unlocked, as always. She pulled Bohdan inside.
The room stopped him cold. Halyna Petrivna sat on the couch like an empress, wrapped in a cheap silk kimono embroidered with golden dragons. Across from her, in a wicker rocking chair, sat a thin man in his forties with a scraggly beard, hair tied into a weak ponytail, wearing a loose linen tunic. He looked like a praying mantis who had wandered into a spa and decided to stay.
Between them, the coffee table was covered in food. A roasted duck glistened with fat. Tartlets with red caviar. A platter of expensive ham.
French cheeses with white mold. Fresh bread and exotic fruit. And leaning against a crystal bowl of grapes, a thick white envelope. Their envelope.
The guru had half a tartlet in his hand. He was chewing with closed eyes. “…and when the karmic knot tightens, we must cut off the toxic people who drain your bloodline. Your daughter-in-law Alina is a classic energy parasite.
She blocks your financial flow. Repeat after me: I forgive Alina for her greed…”
“Enjoying your dinner, Halyna Petrivna? ” Alina’s voice cut through the incense. “I see the new pipes are digesting well.
Elite plumber Eduard did excellent work. ”
Bohdan stood behind her in his ridiculous rubber boots, mop still in his fist, staring at the dry floor, the feast, the envelope. Halyna Petrivna froze with a piece of cheese in her mouth. The guru choked on his caviar.
“My son,” she squeaked, “you didn’t say you were coming. We’re meditating. Cleansing the space. ”
“Cleanse this,” Alina snapped, and grabbed the plunger from Bohdan.
She planted it directly on the glass table between the duck and the ham. The guru tried to regain his authority. He rose with theatrical dignity. “Woman, leave this sacred space at once.
Your dark aura is disrupting our energy balance. ”
“Shut up, Svetozar. My dark aura is about to call the police. Article and fraud.
You’re looking at a real prison term, not a karmic cleanse. ”
She stepped forward, scooped the envelope off the table, and opened it. The stack of thousand-hryvnia notes was still there, but several bills were missing. “Where’s the rest?
”
The guru’s face went pale. “That was a voluntary donation for the development of the family line. ”
“Donation. ” Alina turned to Bohdan.
“Give me the mop. ”
He handed it over like a zombie. She gripped it with both hands like a baseball bat and took a step toward the rocking chair. “I’m giving you three seconds.
If your astral body isn’t on the staircase by then, I’m going to perform a deep tissue treatment on your root chakra. One. ”
The guru grabbed his canvas bag, tripped over Bohdan’s bucket, swore in language that proved his enlightenment was fake, and bolted out the door. It slammed behind him.
Halyna Petrivna pulled her kimono tight and tried to puff herself up. “What? You’re young. You’ll earn more money.
I gave this family everything. My health, my youth. I’m allowed to have some spiritual development. This is all your greedy witch’s fault.
She always drags everything to herself. My wealth channels are blocked because of your selfishness. ”
Not one drop of shame. Bohdan looked at his mother.
Slowly, he pulled off the rubber gloves and dropped them into the bucket. Then he said, “Your wealth channels are blocked. Permanently. You won’t get another kopeck from us.
Not for imaginary pipes. Not for vitamins. Not for fake gurus. Call Katya.
Maybe she’ll buy you bread. ”
He turned and walked out. The rubber boots made heavy, military sounds on the dry laminate. Alina didn’t rush.
She walked to the table, picked up the half-eaten duck, wrapped it in one of the heavy garbage bags she had brought, and placed it in the second bucket. “We’re taking this as compensation for moral damage. Good luck with your spiritual growth, Halyna Petrivna. ”
She closed the door quietly behind her, leaving the old woman alone among the dirty plates and the ruins of her astral schemes.
Outside, the evening air was cool. Bohdan stood by the road, smoking, his face worn out and thoughtful. Alina walked up and handed him the bag with the duck. Hot fat soaked through the plastic.
He looked at the bag. Then he looked at her. And laughed. Loud, honest, relieved.
The sound of a weight finally falling off. “Let’s go home, Alina. We’ll eat the duck. ”
“Let’s go, rescuer.
”
That night, the envelope went back into the shoebox hidden behind the old blood pressure monitor. A month later, they bought the car they had been saving for. And no guru, no invented flood, no karmic vibrations ever stood in their way again.
