I asked my son to visit me in the nursing home and simply hold me for a moment. That same evening, I learned he had signed papers that left me feeling like I no longer had a home—or a son.
I’m 72 years old. In this hallway, heavy with the scent of medicine and boiled cabbage, time sticks to the walls like old wallpaper. My name is Anna, but here people mostly ask, “Grandma, did you take your pills?” Today, for the first time, I heard my own name—when a nurse casually said, “Anna Petrovna, your son is here.” Son. That word has warmed me all my life and has torn me apart these past few years.
Seryozha walked into my room wearing an expensive coat that smelled of someone else’s life—fine cologne and rush. He glanced around and winced, as if he’d entered a warehouse full of discarded junk instead of his mother’s room. My eyes flicked to his hands: no flowers, no fruit—just a folder full of papers.
“Mom, hey. You okay… nothing wrong, right?” He sat on the edge of the bed but didn’t come too close, as if afraid to touch my old age.
I smiled the best I could, the way I did when I was young, to make him less afraid.
“I’m fine, son. Just my bones ache. The important thing is you came. Hug me—I barely remember you now…”
He awkwardly pulled me into an embrace, smelling of that expensive life and a stranger’s home. I closed my eyes and, for a moment, saw our little Seryozha as a boy falling asleep in my arms, whispering, “Mom, don’t let go.” Back then, I never imagined that one day he’d be the one to let go first.
“Mom, here…” He pulled away and showed me the papers. “You need to sign these. Just formal stuff. So things will be better for you here, you know? The government will pay more, the care will improve. You said yourself it’s expensive here.”
I had complained on the phone that my pension didn’t even cover diapers, and I was too ashamed to ask for help. He had sighed then and said, “We’ll sort it out.” And now, here was his ‘sorting it out.’
“What are these papers?” I traced the edge of the sheets with my finger, squinting at the small print. The letters danced and my eyes watered from age-related farsightedness.
“Mom, you trust me, right?” He touched my shoulder wearily. “It’s basically you giving up some extra property, to make things easier. We’ll sort out the apartment quickly. Some of the money will go toward taking care of you. I don’t mind paying, but this way it’s simpler. And there’ll be fewer taxes.”
The word “apartment” stabbed me. My two-room flat, where lace curtains I made still hang in the kitchen; where his first construction toy sits in the closet and his diaries are stashed up high. A home where I waited for him at dinner, and he never showed up.
“Are you… moving there?” I asked out of nowhere, not even sure why. Maybe I wanted to imagine that my walls still mattered to someone besides cockroaches and dust.
“Mom, Lena and I decided to sell it. We need more space, closer to the city center. You know… the kid’s growing up. And the place needs repairs – you know how it is.”
I nodded. The kid. I’d seen my granddaughter twice. More often in photos than in real life.
“So you’ll sign?” He pushed the pen toward me. “There’s nothing scary here, honestly. If you want, I can read it out loud.”
The nurse peeked in and, catching sight of the papers, only said briefly, “Well, if it’s your son, they’ll take care of it properly.” Suddenly I felt so foolish: could I really think that my own flesh and blood would bring me harm?
My hands trembled, but I signed my shaky, uneven name “Anna” several times. My son exhaled in relief.
“Thanks, Mom. Don’t worry, I’ll fix everything. I’ll come by again soon.”
He left behind the scent of expensive cologne and an emptiness. That evening, two elderly women, Lyuda and Valya—our local know-it-alls—sat beside me. They knew everything about paperwork, pensions, and other people’s mistakes.
“Anna,” Lyuda squinted, “what were those papers today? Guardianship? Will?”
“Just… to make the care better. For the apartment… to put it in order…” Suddenly, a cold shiver ran through me.
“The apartment?!” Valya laughed hoarsely. “Oh, silly Anna… Sorry. My neighbor signed the same. Gave her son everything. A month later she was moved to the cheapest ward, and six months after, to a common room with six others. The son was told, ‘Since you’re not paying, the state provides minimum care.’ And he was happy. He already sold the apartment.”
I felt sick. I stood up, clutching the bedside table.
“But he said… part of the money would come to me…”
“He said,” Lyuda nodded, “but what about the papers? Did you read them?”
I remembered the dancing letters, my “I trust you,” his weary look. My heart hammered in my chest.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I listened to the cart rattling down the hall with night meds, someone groaning in the next room. I recalled when Seryozha was sick as a child—sitting by his bed, changing the cloth on his forehead, whispering, “Just stay alive, nothing else matters.” How in his school years I gave up a coat to buy him sneakers. How I took extra work so he could go to the seaside with his class.
The next morning, I asked the nurse to call the social worker. She arrived after lunch—flustered and tired.
“What’s wrong, Anna Petrovna?”
“I… signed papers yesterday. Can you check what they really were?”
She left and came back frowning.
“Here, it says you gave up your apartment in favor of your son. Without conditions or obligations. Legally, you’re now low income, with no property. Only he controls the house.”
It felt like someone pulled the chair out from under me. I sat on the bed and stared at the floor.
“But… he promised…”
The social worker shrugged—tired, without malice.
“Promises don’t equal legal obligations. Legally, he owes you nothing.”
That afternoon, I called him. My hands shook; no one answered for a long time. Finally, his familiar, dry, irritated voice:
“Mom, I’m in a meeting. What’s wrong?”
“Seryozha… they said the papers don’t say a word about you… helping me…”
Silence on the other end.
“Mom, here we go again…” He cursed quietly. “I told you: it’s easier this way. You live on state support; I live on my own. We’re adults. I have my family, my expenses. You don’t want to be a burden, do you?”
The word “burden” hit harder than any diagnosis.
“I… I just wanted you to come sometimes…” I whispered.
“Mom, no time. I’ll give money when I can. But legally, yes, it’s simpler now. Don’t overthink it. I have to work. Bye.”
Click. Silence. Before, these talks made me cry. Today, no tears—only a dry, sticky lump inside. Lyuda was right: a fool. Not because I signed. But because I believed paper was stronger than the heart. The heart, it turns out, was empty a long time ago.
That evening, a young orderly named Vitya, about twenty, who always carefully adjusted my pillow, came up to me.
“Anna Petrovna, are you okay? You seem… quiet.”
“Vitya,” I said, “be honest: could you do what my son did—turn on your own mother… for an apartment?”
He paled and shook his head.
“No, ma’am… A mother is… a mother is one of a kind.”
I looked at his embarrassed face and suddenly understood my mistake wasn’t that I raised a monster. I raised a normal person for these times, where “burden” is scarier than the word “mother.”
That night, I pulled out an old photo from my nightstand: a young me with a braid, holding little Seryozha who reached for me with a smiling mouth. Written on the back in his childish hand: “Mommy, I will never leave you.” I ran my finger over the words.
I can’t get my apartment back. I can’t make him love me. But I can stop waiting. In the morning, I asked the social worker to file for needy status. Not for money—but so I won’t have to call him or apologize for existing anymore.
When a woman passed down the hall that evening, loudly saying into the phone, “Mom, I’ll come tomorrow, I’ll bring a cake,” I didn’t flinch for the first time. I just closed my eyes and quietly whispered:
—I already signed away the apartment. My heart signed away the son.
And suddenly, a strange calm settled over me. I no longer had a home. But it seemed I no longer had the one who every day looked to the door and whispered, “Please, just come today.”
