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The cars ahead finally moved, slowly, like cattle herded toward slaughter. He eased the Lada forward, navigating around a pothole the size of a bathtub.

“I can help out, you know,” I said, watching the steam rise from the heating vents. “If there’s something you need. I’m not afraid of hard work.”

“You’ve done enough,” he said simply.

I turned my head toward him. “What do you mean?”

“You sent your pay home from Afghanistan,” he said, eyes still on the road. “Every month. Your mother didn’t ask you to. But you did it. That helped us more than you know.”

I looked down at my hands, fingers raw from cold and war and everything in between. I hadn’t thought much of it. There was nothing to spend it on over there, and I’d figured my parents needed it more than I did.

He went quiet for a while, then spoke again, softer this time. “I’m glad you’re back from that useless war.”

I turned sharply to him, surprised.

“It was a waste,” he said. “A waste of money. Of boys. An entire generation, gone for nothing.”

I didn’t know what to say. Hearing him speak like that, with actual emotion in his voice, was like watching a marble statue cry.

We turned off the main avenue and into a side street lined with identical concrete apartment blocks, tall and rectangular like prison towers.

Laundry lines flapped weakly in the icy wind.

A drunk man shouted at a cat. Papa pulled the car into a narrow space beside a row of battered garbage bins, killed the engine, and stepped out without waiting for me.

I followed, boots crunching on the frozen slush.

Our building loomed above us—gray and stained, with rust streaks below every windowsill and a flickering bulb above the entrance. A group of children played halfheartedly in the courtyard with a flattened football, their laughter thin and ghostly.

Home.

Whatever that meant now.

We climbed the stairs slowly, the Lada’s smell still clinging to my coat. The stairwell reeked of boiled cabbage and cigarette smoke, the walls a patchwork of peeling paint and water stains.

The elevator hadn’t worked since Brezhnev, Papa said, not that he ever used it. “Breaks your legs or traps you inside,” he muttered as we passed it, as if it were a vindictive beast that needed regular warnings issued.

Our apartment was on the very top floor—seven flights up. I was winded by the time we reached it, my duffel strap digging into my shoulder. Papa jiggled the key in the lock and pushed the door open with his shoulder.

“Elina?” he called out.

And then I saw her.

She burst from the kitchen like she’d been waiting by the stove all day. Her slippers slapped against the wooden floor as she rushed at me, and then I smothered in wool sleeves and the faint smell of onions and rose soap. Her arms clamped tight around me, trembling with the force of held-back sobs.

“Oh, my boy,” she whispered into my coat. “My sweet boy. I thought—I thought I’d never see you again.”

I hugged her back, tighter than I meant to. She felt smaller than I remembered. Her hair had gone almost completely gray, and her face had thinned out. But her eyes were the same—bright and sharp and unbearably kind.

“I missed you, Mama.”

“I made your favorite,” she said, stepping back but still holding my hand. “Kartofel’niki with mushroom sauce, and that honey-cake you like. You’re too skinny, even after all that soldiering.”

I wanted to laugh— too skinny , when my shoulders barely fit through the damn doorway. But I let her fuss, because it felt good. War hadn’t made me soft, but coming home was starting to.

She led me down the short hall and stopped in front of a door at the very end. “Your room now,” she said, her smile proud and a little nervous. “Come, come.”

She opened it with a little flourish, and I stepped inside.

It wasn’t much. But it was mine.

The walls were a faded blue, like they’d once tried to be cheerful and then given up halfway through.

A narrow bed stood against one wall, the mattress bowed in the middle but freshly made with a plain wool blanket.

A small dresser squatted beside it, three drawers deep, the handles mismatched.

And in the corner stood a cracked floor-length mirror, leaning against the wall like a tired sentry.

“I bought all of it on the black market,” Mama said, watching my face. “With the money you sent us. I saved every kopeck, only used what we needed. But this… this was worth it.”

My throat tightened.

She cupped my face with her hand, her fingers cold but gentle. “Go wash up now. Dinner’s almost ready.”

She kissed my cheek, then left, closing the door softly behind her.

I dropped my bag beside the dresser and turned to the mirror.

The crack ran through the glass like a vein, but it didn’t stop me from seeing the truth.

I didn’t recognize myself.

When I left Leningrad two years ago, I’d been a rail-thin kid with too much hair and not enough spine.

Now I stood broader, my shoulders squared, my neck thickened, hands callused and lined with scars.

I’d grown into a man, or at least something that passed for one.

My jaw was harder, my eyes darker. And the scowl—God, when had that settled in?

I reached up and touched my cheek, then dropped my hand. The reflection didn’t move quite fast enough. Or maybe I imagined that.

With a sigh, I sat on the bed and let myself fall back onto it. The springs groaned, protesting. I stared at the ceiling, watching a slow crack inch its way toward the center light fixture like a road to nowhere.

Was this it?

Was I supposed to wake up every day and churn out blankets until I died?

Was I just another cog in the Party machine now? Like Papa?

He lived like a machine that had forgotten it could be turned off.

Work. Come home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Never smiled, never laughed unless vodka was involved.

Not really. He never sang, never danced, never told stories.

Just… moved through the world as though the best thing he could hope for was to not be noticed by it.

I ran my hands over my face, rubbed at my eyes.

The bed creaked again, reminding me it was there.

Reminding me that this room was something. A gift, or at least a brand new start.

I didn’t want that.

God help me, I couldn’t end up like Papa. But what choice did I have?