By the age of twenty-nine, I already had a stable job, a car, and this house. Yes, I didn’t have a family yet, but I believed: everything was ahead of me. On the day of the housewarming, I gathered friends, relatives, and even my mother — despite everything in the past, I wanted to show her that I had made it.

But instead of congratulations, my mother pulled me aside and said:

— Son, give this house to your brother. He lives with his wife and child in a rented apartment; they have it harder. And for you, a room at our place is enough. You’re alone, without a family…