Oksana looked up from her laptop and froze. In the kitchen doorway stood Tamara Ivanovna with a huge suitcase and a triumphant smile.
“Oxanochka, hello, dear! Well, I’m here!” her mother-in-law stepped into the apartment without waiting to be invited and began pulling off her coat. “My Yegorushka asked his mom to come help you. He says you’ve gotten completely swamped—no time to get the house in order. So I thought—why should I sit in my own apartment when the children need me?”
Oksana slowly closed her laptop lid. Under the table, her fingers curled into fists. She’d been working from home for three years now, and their small two-room apartment was arranged so it worked for her: a little workspace in the kitchen, quiet, order, her own rhythm. And absolutely no need for any “help.”
“Tamara Ivanovna,” she said evenly, forcing down the irritation rising inside her, “did Yegor actually invite you?”
Her mother-in-law had already marched into the room, loudly commenting on every step.
“Of course! We talked yesterday. He said, ‘Mom, come—stay with us.’ And what, should I refuse my own son? I wanted to come next week, but then I decided—no, I’ll come today. I’ll surprise you!”
Surprise successful. Oksana felt something hot and dangerous begin to boil inside her. Yegor. Her beloved, irresponsible, conflict-avoiding Yegor had done it again—promised his mother something without consulting his wife. Because “it’s awkward to say no,” because “Mom will get offended,” because it’s easier to agree and hope Oksana will somehow handle it.
Tamara Ivanovna returned to the kitchen, looked around with a critical eye, and clicked her tongue.
“Oh, Oxanochka, you’ve really let things go here!” She ran a finger along the windowsill and displayed invisible dust. “Well, never mind—we’ll make everything pretty now! Where do you keep the rags? And actually, let’s rearrange the furniture first. This table is clearly in the wrong place.”
“This table is here because it’s convenient for me to work,” Oksana said firmly.
“Work?” her mother-in-law’s eyes widened. “But you sit at home! What kind of work is that? In my day I worked two jobs—and still the house was perfect!”
Oksana took a deep breath. Arguing was useless. Tamara Ivanovna was from the generation that didn’t consider remote work real work. If you’re home, you’re free. Which meant you should cook borscht, scrub floors, and happily greet guests.
“I have a deadline in two days,” Oksana said dryly. “I need quiet and focus.”
“Oh, I’ll be quiet!” her mother-in-law chirped. “You won’t even notice me!” She was already opening cabinets, pulling out pots and sniffing at their contents. “So, what’s for dinner? Nothing! I’ll run to the store, buy proper food, cook real dinner!”
“Real food,” in Tamara Ivanovna’s mind, meant greasy pilaf, fried potatoes with meat, sweet pies, and three hours at the stove. Oksana and Yegor ate much simpler—salads, baked fish, quick, healthy meals. But try explaining that to a mother-in-law.
That evening Yegor came home from work. Oksana met him in the hallway, arms crossed. Her face was stone.
“Your mother is here,” she said without preamble.
Yegor froze, tugging off his shoes. A whole mix of emotions flickered across his face—from surprise to guilty confusion.
“Oh…” he dragged out. “I thought she was coming next week.”
“You thought?” Oksana leaned in and hissed so his mother wouldn’t hear. “Were you ever going to tell me you invited her to live with us?”
“I didn’t invite her! She said she’d come help, and I… agreed,” he babbled. “Sveta, I couldn’t say no! She would’ve been offended!”
“And it was fine not to ask me?” Every word from Oksana was icy. “I work from home, Yegor! I need quiet! Not a mother-in-law who’ll rearrange furniture all day and teach me how to live!”
“It’s not for long! A week, maybe two max!” He grabbed her hands, trying to soften things. “Please—just endure it. I’ll help, I promise!”
From the kitchen came Tamara Ivanovna’s voice:
“Yegorushka, sweetheart! Come quick—I made your favorite!”
Oksana pulled her hands free and stepped back.
“Fine,” she said so calmly that Yegor tensed. “If your mother is here to help, let her help. And I won’t get in your way.”
She turned and went into the bedroom, locking the door.
The next morning it began. Tamara Ivanovna got up at six and launched into cleaning. Buckets clanged, the vacuum roared, furniture scraped across the floor. Oksana—who usually started work at eight—woke to the racket and realized concentration was a lost cause. She went to the kitchen in headphones, poured herself coffee, and returned to the bedroom without saying a word.
“Oksana!” her mother-in-law knocked on the door. “Come out, I made breakfast! You need to eat properly!”
“Thank you, I’m not hungry,” Oksana answered coldly through the door.
She worked in the bedroom, sitting on the bed with her laptop on her knees. It was uncomfortable, her back ached, but she wasn’t going to come out to her mother-in-law. At lunch Tamara Ivanovna knocked again, this time more insistently.
“Oxanochka, why are you locked in there? Come out, I made soup! Fresh, with meat!”
Oksana opened the door. Headphones on, water bottle in hand.
“I’m working. I need quiet,” she said. “Please don’t distract me.”
“What kind of work is that!” her mother-in-law burst out. “Sitting in a room all day! You should move, breathe air, not waste away inside four walls!”
Oksana shut the door without a word. Inside her everything was boiling. Her mother-in-law didn’t understand—or didn’t want to understand—that remote work was real work. That she had deadlines, clients waiting, bills paid by that laptop.
By evening, when Yegor came home, the atmosphere in the apartment was oppressive. Tamara Ivanovna bustled in the kitchen, setting the table. Oksana stayed in the bedroom, not coming out. Yegor knocked, entered, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“What’s going on with you?” he tried to hug her, but she pulled away. “Mom is trying—cooking, cleaning. At least have dinner with us.”
“Your mother is stopping me from working,” Oksana said. “I can’t focus. She bangs around all morning, barges in at lunch, and in the evening demands I sit at the table and listen to her lectures about how to live.”
“Just endure it,” Yegor pleaded. “She means well!”
“Good intentions don’t pay my rent,” Oksana snapped. “I missed an important meeting today because of her noise. I’m working, Yegor. Do you understand that word? Working. At home. And I need conditions for it—not a circus morning to night!”
“Then tell her!” Yegor spread his hands helplessly.
“I did. She doesn’t listen. Because to her I’m just the daughter-in-law who ‘sits at home’ and should be grateful for ‘help.’” Oksana stood up and grabbed her bag. “I’m leaving. I’ll work at a coworking space. Make yourselves comfortable.”
She left the apartment, leaving Yegor standing there, stunned. Tamara Ivanovna met him in the kitchen, looking concerned.
“Yegorushka, what’s wrong with Oksana? She’s acting strange. All day in her room, not talking to me. Maybe she’s sick?”
“No, Mom,” Yegor said wearily. “She’s working.”
“Working!” his mother snorted. “Sitting at a computer isn’t work! When I was your age…”
Yegor stopped listening. He realized he’d fallen into a trap: on one side, a mother who sincerely believed she was helping; on the other, a wife who had every right to be furious. And him—as always—unable to pick a side, afraid of offending either one.
The next three days were like a cold war. Oksana left early for the coworking space and came back late, when her mother-in-law was already asleep. She greeted Tamara Ivanovna politely but coldly, didn’t engage in conversation, and never sat at the shared table. The mother-in-law sniffed resentfully, complained to Yegor that the daughter-in-law didn’t respect her, that “in our day we didn’t behave like that.” Yegor bounced between them, trying to calm everyone down—and only irritating both.
On Saturday, it exploded. Oksana returned from the coworking space and found her work table in the kitchen was gone. In its place stood an old sideboard Tamara Ivanovna had dragged out of storage. Her laptop, documents—everything—had been neatly packed into a box and shoved under the bed.
“Where is my table?” Oksana asked in an icy tone as she entered the living room, where Yegor was watching TV and his mother was knitting.
“I put it away!” Tamara Ivanovna answered brightly. “It ruined the whole look! I put the sideboard there—much nicer! And I tucked your little computer thing under the bed so it wouldn’t be in the way.”
Oksana closed her eyes. She counted to ten. Then to twenty. It didn’t help. Something inside her snapped.
“You,” she said slowly, “moved my furniture. Removed my workplace. Without asking. In my apartment.”
“It’s not only your apartment!” her mother-in-law shot back. “My son lives here! And I’m his mother! I’m helping you, putting things in order, and you—”
“You are not helping,” Oksana cut her off. Her voice was quiet, but steel ran through it. “You’re taking over. You came into someone else’s space and started reshaping it for yourself. You didn’t ask whether we needed your help. You just decided you had the right. Because you’re the mother-in-law. Because you ‘know best.’”
Tamara Ivanovna turned crimson.
“How dare you talk to me like that! I’m older than you! I—”
“Yegor,” Oksana turned to her husband, who had shrunk into the couch. “You have two options. Either your mother leaves tomorrow morning. Or I do. You let her come without my consent. Now choose.”
Yegor opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. His eyes darted between his wife and his mother. His face was pale.
“Sveta… but she’s my mom. Can’t you just endure—”
“No,” Oksana cut in. “I can’t. I’ve been living in a coworking space for a week because I can’t work in my own home. She moved my furniture, she criticizes my every step, she doesn’t treat me like a person. And you…” Her voice trembled. “You didn’t protect me. Not once.”
Tamara Ivanovna jumped up from the chair.
“Yegorushka, do you hear how she’s talking to me? I’m trying for you! Cooking, cleaning! And she spits in my face!”
Oksana laughed—a short, bitter laugh.
“You cook what we don’t eat. You clean what doesn’t need cleaning. You move what doesn’t need moving. You’re not doing it for us. You’re doing it for yourself—so you can feel needed, important, in charge. And my husband…” She looked at Yegor with such pain in her eyes that he winced, “is too cowardly to tell you that.”
She walked into the bedroom, pulled a bag from the closet, and started packing. Yegor rushed after her.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“To a friend’s,” she said shortly. “I’ll put the furniture back when your mother leaves. If she leaves.”
“Sveta, wait! Let’s talk!”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Yegor. You made your choice a week ago when you agreed without asking me. You made it again today when you didn’t defend me. I’m tired of being the one who always gives in, endures, and adapts. Live with your mother. Enjoy her borscht and her ‘properly arranged’ furniture.”
She left without looking back. The door slammed with a final sound, as if an entire chapter of their life had been shut. Yegor stood in the hallway, lost and hollow.
Tamara Ivanovna came out of the living room, still outraged.
“There you go! That’s your wife—kicking her own mother out of the house!”
“Mom,” Yegor said quietly, staring at the closed door. “Oksana is right. You shouldn’t have come without warning. And I shouldn’t have agreed without asking her. We both crossed boundaries. And now… I don’t know if she’ll come back.”
For the first time all week, his voice carried not self-pity, but realization—cold, unpleasant, and necessary: he had been a coward. He had betrayed his wife to please his mother. And his fear of conflict had led to the worst conflict of all—his marriage falling apart.
For three days Oksana didn’t answer his calls. Yegor didn’t sleep, tormented himself, imagined the worst. Tamara Ivanovna left the next day, offended and unable to understand what she had done wrong. And Yegor sat in the empty apartment, where the furniture stood in all the wrong places, thinking about what mattered more to him—his mother’s approval, or happiness with his wife.
On Sunday evening, the doorbell rang. Yegor flung the door open—Oksana stood on the threshold. Tired, pale, but with a steady gaze.
“Can I come in?”
“Of course,” he breathed.
She walked in, glanced around the living room. The sideboard still stood in the kitchen.
“Did your mother leave?”
“Yes. The same day you left.”
Oksana nodded, then looked at her husband.
“Yegor, I didn’t come back because I forgave you. I came back because I want to try again. But there are conditions. You never—do you hear me, never—invite someone to stay with us without my consent. Not your mother, not your brother, not your third cousin. We make those decisions together. Or we don’t make them at all.”
“Agreed,” he said quickly.
“Second. You learn to say ‘no’ to your mother. Not always, not about everything. But when it concerns our family—our boundaries—you’re on my side. Always. Even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if she gets offended.”
Yegor swallowed. That was harder. But he nodded.
“Agreed.”
“And third,” Oksana stepped closer. “You stop being a boy afraid of upsetting his mom. You’re a grown man. You have a wife. It’s time to choose who you live with.”
He hugged her—tight, desperate.
“With you. I choose you. Forgive me.”
They stood that way for a long time, in the apartment’s silence. Then Oksana pulled back, looked toward the kitchen, and sighed.
“Alright. Let’s put my table back. And, Yegor? Call your mother. Explain calmly why it happened. Don’t accuse—just explain. She needs to understand that we have our own rules.”
He nodded. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel like a lost child caught between two women. He felt like a man who had made a decision—difficult, but the only right one. His family was here, with Oksana. And he had to protect it.
Together they moved the furniture back to where it belonged. And when the work table was once again by the window, Oksana smiled for the first time in a week. Their home was home again—not a battlefield.
