— Mom’s been discharged from the hospital. The doctor said she needs home care for at least a week. You’ll go to her tomorrow.
Denis tossed his phone onto the couch and went into the kitchen, already mentally closing the matter. He spoke as if he were announcing a scheduled water shutdown or that they needed to buy bread. The even, matter-of-fact tone of someone issuing an order and not expecting objections. For him, everything was decided.
Katya stood by the stove. Her hand, holding a wooden spatula, froze halfway to the pan where a piece of pork sizzled in hot oil, browning to a golden crust. The aroma of fried meat and onions—so cozy and homely a second ago—suddenly became stifling, oppressive. She didn’t turn around. She stared at the hissing oil, at the tiny bubbles bursting on the surface, and kept silent. Her silence was an answer, but Denis didn’t understand it—or didn’t want to.
— Did you hear me? — he opened the fridge, took out a bottle of mineral water, noisily twisted off the cap, and took several big gulps. — You’ll go around ten. I’ll drop you off before work.
He still wasn’t looking at her. He was sure of her compliance, certain that after a brief pause for processing she would say the usual “okay.” That was how it had gone almost always. He decided; she agreed. But the spatula in her hand didn’t move.
— I’m not going, — she said.
Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper, but in the kitchen’s humming stillness those two words struck like a hammer on an anvil. Denis choked on his water. He slowly screwed the cap back on, set the bottle on the table with a thud as if he meant to split the tabletop, and finally turned to his wife.
— What do you mean “you’re not going”? — he asked again. It wasn’t anger yet. It was sincere, chilly bewilderment. As if a chair had suddenly refused to be a chair and a table a table. He stared at her motionless back, and irritation slowly surfaced on his face. — Katya, I don’t get it. What’s this supposed to be? My mother is sick. She needs help.
He moved closer, closing the distance, invading her personal space by the stove. He smelled of the street and cheap cologne.
— Exactly, — Katya’s voice grew firmer; metal entered it. She finally turned. Her face was calm, but her eyes were cold, detached. — She’s your mother. The one who, at every meeting for ten years, has methodically tried to destroy me. Who tells your own friends what a mistake you made marrying me. When she was healthy and strong, I was nothing to her—an obstacle, a misunderstanding. And now, when she needs a caretaker to change her underwear and bring her the bedpan, suddenly I’m needed? No.
Denis flushed purple. His wife’s arguments meant nothing to him. He saw no logic in them; he saw only rebellion. Direct defiance.
— Are you serious right now? You’re going to dredge up old grievances when someone is unwell? — he threw up his hands, feigning righteous indignation. — Don’t be selfish, Katya! You need to rise above it. Show some compassion, for heaven’s sake! It’s basic human decency!
He spoke loudly, assertively, trying to crush her with his authority, with his male rightness. He looked down at her, and his gaze carried an ultimatum. He wasn’t asking. He was demanding. He expected her to break now, to lower her eyes, to say she was wrong. But she didn’t break. She held his gaze, and the faintest bitter smile touched her lips.
Seeing his pressure fail, Denis made a final move. He stepped closer still, almost up against her, and spat out what he considered the last, decisive word in her face. A word that was supposed to put her in her place once and for all.
— You’re obliged.
Obliged.
That word—short and hard, like a punch with brass knuckles—hung in the kitchen air. It soaked up the smell of fried meat, the hiss of oil, the soft drone of the range hood and poisoned everything around. Katya suddenly laughed. The laugh wasn’t merry or hysterical. It was dry, clipped, like an over-tightened string snapping. A harsh, crackling chuckle full of contempt.
Denis was taken aback. He’d expected tears, pleading, shouting, anything but this. Not mockery.
— What’s funny? — his voice dropped lower; metal grated in it. — Did I say something funny?
— Obliged? Me? — Katya finally set the spatula on its little stand. She turned to face him fully, and there was no trace of submission left in her posture. She stood straight, like a soldier ready for battle. — Denis, have you completely lost your memory? Or do you think I have? Let me remind you. Your birthday, three years ago. Remember? The apartment full of guests. Your mother, Valentina Petrovna, raises a toast. And looking me right in the eye, she says to the whole room: “Deniska, son, you really managed to get yourself into it with this marriage. Well, it happens—men make mistakes sometimes, the main thing is to realize it in time.” Remember?
She stared at him unblinking. Denis looked away, his face twisting. He remembered. He remembered perfectly well. He remembered the dead silence that fell over the table. He remembered the pitying and gloating looks of his friends. He remembered how he, a big strong man, mumbled something about “Mom’s joking” and hurriedly changed the subject. He didn’t stand up for her. He didn’t shut it down. He simply pretended nothing had happened.
— Back then I was the “mistake” you’d “gotten yourself into,” — Katya went on, her voice gathering force but staying even, each word precise. — And six months ago, when we ran into her by the store and she spent half an hour telling me how wonderful her friend’s daughter-in-law Lyuba is—she sews, and knits, and bakes pies every day, unlike some people—what was I then? A nobody. An inconvenient piece of the scenery one has to put up with. And today, now that she’s unwell, suddenly I’m “obliged”? Obliged to forget ten years of humiliation and rush over to hold a bedpan?
She took a step toward him, and now he instinctively stepped back. The kitchen—their cozy, well-lived-in kitchen—suddenly felt cramped, turned into a ring.
— I’m the worst of all your mother’s daughters-in-law, remember? Then you go wipe her drool yourself, and I’m not setting foot in her apartment again!
— That’s not true!
— The clumsiest, the stupidest, the one who “stole her little boy”! She herself pinned that status on me—in front of you! So what do you want from a “bad” daughter-in-law? For her to suddenly become good and convenient? That’s not happening!
She was breathing hard, but her gaze was clear and furious. All the pain, all the swallowed humiliation, all the silent endurance burst to the surface.
— It’s your duty, — she finished more quietly now, which made it even weightier. — And my duty is to take care of myself and not let anyone wipe their feet on me. Not her. Not you.
Katya’s final words hung in the air, definitive and irrevocable, like a verdict. The meat in the pan had long since stopped sizzling and was now slowly cooling, filling the kitchen with the smell of a spoiled dinner. Denis looked at his wife as if seeing her for the first time. He had expected anything—tears, reproaches, more shouting—but not this cold, honed judgment. Her calm infuriated him far more than any hysterics would have. He realized that his direct pressure—habitual and, like a crowbar, usually foolproof—hadn’t worked this time. The wall was too solid. So he decided to come at it from another angle. He decided to strike where it would hurt most.
— I see, — he drawled with a crooked, venomous smile. — I get it. It’s not about Mom. It’s that you’re just callous. Unfeeling. You don’t have a drop of feminine compassion.
He leaned a hip against the kitchen table, arms crossed over his chest. The pose was affectedly relaxed, but his clenched fists betrayed the tension.
— You know, Mom wasn’t always like this. She just wanted the best for me. She saw another woman by my side. A more… gentle one. Homey. Remember Lyuba, her friend’s daughter? She’d go. Without thinking twice. Because she understands what family is. What duty to elders is. She wouldn’t pick over old grievances like some petty shopkeeper. She’d just do what a normal, loving woman is supposed to do.
It was a low blow. Cheap, out of bounds—but Denis knew it hit the mark. He wasn’t just comparing. He was devaluing ten years of their marriage, all of Katya’s efforts, everything she did for him and their home. With a single sweep he crossed her out, setting against her the mythical, ideal image of “good girl Lyuba,” whom his mother had so insistently pushed at him.
Katya slowly turned her head and looked at him. There was no hurt in her eyes. Only icy, all-consuming contempt.
— Then why didn’t you marry her? If she’s so understanding and proper. You’d be living with the perfect wife now, and she’d be happily running after your mother with a chamber pot. What was the problem?
The question was asked quietly, almost indifferently, which made it land even more thunderously. It hung in the air, and Denis had no answer. His face contorted. He realized that this strike, too, had failed to hit. That her armor had become impenetrable. And then everything inside him detonated. All his wounded male pride, all his helplessness turned into pure, undiluted rage.
— Oh, that’s how you want to talk! — he growled, ripping off the mask of calm. — Fine. Fine! If you’re so heartless, if you don’t care about my mother, then my mother will live here. With me. In this house. I’m going to get her right now. And she’ll live in our bedroom, and we’ll move into the living room. If she has a daughter-in-law who can’t give her a week, then her son will take care of her himself. In his own home. We’ll see how you like that.
He looked at her defiantly, triumphantly. He was sure this was a knockout. That now she would crack, terrified at the prospect of sharing her space with the hated mother-in-law, and back down, say she’d gone too far. He expected pleading, shouting, a—
The threat was uttered. Denis stood in the middle of the kitchen, shoulders squared, and stared at Katya with barely concealed triumph. He had laid his last, heaviest trump card on the table and was now waiting for her capitulation. He was absolutely certain he’d cornered her, that now, faced with the real prospect of living under one roof with Valentina Petrovna, she would give in, compromise, admit she’d lost her temper. He waited for her to break.
But Katya didn’t break. She didn’t scream, didn’t cry, didn’t start begging. She simply looked at him. For a long time, intently, as if she were seeing a complete stranger. There was no fear or panic in her gaze. Only a cold, detached curiosity, like an entomologist observing an unpleasant insect. That silence, that complete absence of the reaction he expected, started to get on Denis’s nerves.
— What, cat got your tongue? — he sneered, feeling his confidence begin to crack. — Good. Think. You’ve got exactly one minute while I dial my mother.
He ostentatiously pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked the screen, and found “Mom” in his contacts. He did it all slowly, challengingly, without taking his eyes off Katya, giving her a chance to come to her senses. But she stayed silent. Her face might as well have been a mask.
— Fine. You asked for it, — he spat, and pressed call.
The beeps rang out on speakerphone, filling the kitchen’s taut silence. Katya didn’t move. She just stood and watched as her husband wrecked their life with a single phone call.
— Hi, mom! — Denis’s voice changed instantly: caring, deliberately cheerful, boyish. — How are you feeling? Yeah? That’s great. Listen, I’ve got news. I’m coming to get you. Yes, right now. Pack a few things—you’re going to live with us. There’s plenty of space, don’t worry… Why? Well… — he paused and shot Katya a poisonous look, — Katya’s a bit tied up right now, she’s got things of her own. And I can’t leave you alone. So that’s that. It’s settled. You’ll live with me. Get ready, I’ll be there soon.
He hung up and set the phone down on the table with a victorious air. He’d done it. He’d crossed the line. He braced for an explosion, a storm, anything.
— That’s that, — he said with cruel satisfaction. — I’m going to get Mom.
And in that moment Katya moved. She turned silently and walked to the stove. Denis smirked, convinced she had finally given in and was about to set the table to smooth things over. But Katya picked up the pan. Heavy, cast-iron, with an almost-finished dinner—a browned piece of meat ringed with golden onions. She held it with both hands. For a second she stood motionless, looking at the fruits of her labor. At the dinner she had cooked for the two of them.
Then calmly, without a single extraneous motion, she went to the trash can under the sink. Pressed the pedal with her foot. The lid lifted without a sound. And Katya, tipping the pan, slowly, methodically scraped all its contents into the black plastic bag. The chunk of meat fell to the bottom with a heavy plop; the onions followed. It wasn’t done in a fit of rage. It was a cold, deliberate ritual. A symbolic burial of their shared domestic life.
Denis watched, his face stretching in astonishment. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
— What… what are you doing?! — he finally managed, when the last sliver of onion disappeared into the trash. — Are you out of your mind? That’s food!
Katya set the empty pan in the sink with a soft clink. She didn’t turn around. She looked out the window at the darkening courtyard, and her voice came out absolutely steady, without the slightest tremor.
— Dinner is canceled. You’ve got another woman to take care of now. Feed her…
