Claire carefully pulled the zipper closed on the suitcase that was still empty and pushed it against the hallway wall, as though that small movement marked the first line of a brand-new chapter in their lives. Their recently purchased three-bedroom apartment still carried the faint scent of fresh paint. They had barely bought any furniture, so every voice scattered through the vacant rooms in a bright, ringing echo. Meanwhile, Lily raced from one room to another, excitedly announcing that she had already chosen the perfect place for her future “mermaid bed.”
“We bought this place only three weeks ago, and I still sometimes can’t remember which direction the bathroom is in,” Daniel admitted, pausing in the doorway.
“Somewhere between your pride and my exhaustion. Left of the first and right of the second,” Claire replied calmly. “You’ll find it.”
“Very funny.”
“I have to make an effort. For now, humor is the only thing we received for this apartment completely free of charge.”
Daniel set a folder of documents on the wide windowsill. For a few seconds, the couple looked at it together with that particular expression people wear when they are facing something already decided and no longer open for discussion. The apartment officially belonged to Claire. Daniel himself had insisted on that arrangement after her father inherited an old farmhouse from his own late father, sold it, and gave the proceeds to his daughter.
“Richard called today,” Daniel said. “He wanted to know whether we’d bought Lily a swimming ring.”
“We did. A pink one with little ears. She’s now prepared to sleep with it.”
“Your father really is remarkable. He handed over every penny and never even started questioning what you planned to spend it on.”
“He did ask one thing,” Claire said with a smile. “He said, ‘Did you pay off the mortgage?’ I told him we had. He said, ‘Good.’ That was the entire history of our family’s financial negotiations.”
Lily burst into the room like a whirlwind, clutching a drawing in both hands. A crooked blue sea spread across the paper, while an enormous yellow sun occupied almost half the page.
“This is us,” the girl announced importantly. “In eight days, we’re going there.”
“Nine days,” Daniel corrected her.
“No, eight. I counted on my fingers. Fingers never lie.”
At that moment, Daniel’s phone began to vibrate on the windowsill. He glanced at the screen, and his expression changed immediately, as though the room had suddenly grown darker.
“Margaret?” Claire guessed.
“Exactly.”
Margaret arrived the very next day and, as if deliberately, chose a time when Daniel was away from home. After stepping inside, she slowly examined the nearly empty rooms. She ran her hand over the freshly painted doorframe as though she needed to confirm that all of it was real.
“So it really is a three-bedroom place,” she said slowly. “You certainly settled in quickly.”
“Quickly is when everything happens in a day,” Claire said evenly. “This took us six years, a mortgage, and one canceled vacation. By ordinary human standards, we moved at the speed of a very tired turtle.”
“Speaking of vacations. Daniel said you were going to the seaside.”
“We are. Lily has even drawn her own route there.”
Margaret sat on the only chair in the room, folded her hands over her knees, and arranged her face into the solemn expression of someone about to announce a matter of national importance.
“Claire, you really should reconsider. Calmly, without letting your emotions take over. Sophie has spent the entire summer shut inside with two children. Summer is almost over, and the children have never seen the sea.”
“I do feel sorry for them.”
“Then what would it cost you? Give the money to Sophie. Let her take the children away, get some air, rest, and recover a little. You’re still young. You have plenty of time ahead of you. You can go to the seaside another hundred times.”
Claire unhurriedly picked up a jar of paintbrushes Lily had left nearby that morning and moved it to the windowsill.
“Margaret, let me make sure I understand your proposal. We are supposed to cancel our tickets, unpack everything, explain to our five-year-old daughter that she will not be seeing the sea after all, and give the money to your daughter?”
“Why do you have to phrase it so harshly and make everything sound so ugly?”
“I’m not being harsh. I’m being precise. Harshness is when someone wraps an unpleasant demand in pretty words and hopes the meaning will change.”
“Try to understand me as one woman to another!” Margaret’s voice trembled and rose. “Sophie is having such a hard time! She’s raising two children alone! She’s exhausted, completely worn out!”
“And why have you decided that we must abandon our own plans because of your daughter’s children?” Claire asked with a faint smile.
Margaret straightened at once, and the chair gave a long, protesting creak beneath her.
“What did you just say?”