Shut up! Masha, you’d better not make me angry, or you’ll get it! My mom and my sister need a car, and you’re going to buy it!” her husband hissed.
Kirill’s words hung in the kitchen air like a poisonous cloud. Masha stood at the stove with her back to him and felt something inside her turn cold. Not burn, not tear—freeze. Turn into shards of ice. She slowly set the ladle down. The rassolnik still bubbled in the pot, it smelled of dill and garlic, October rain drizzled outside the window, and in her life an invisible tectonic shift had just taken place.
“What did you say?” She turned around. Her voice came out quiet, but firm.
Kirill was sitting at the table, slouched in his chair, scrolling on his phone. He didn’t even look at her. Forty-two years old, a department head at a trading company, a suit worth thirty thousand rubles, and a rude expression on his face. Once, she’d seen this man as support. Now she saw only arrogance.
“You heard me. My mother has been riding the same bus for thirty years. Karina is pregnant—she needs transportation too. You manage the money, so you’ll buy it.”
Masha gave a crooked little smile. Strange—her world was collapsing, and she was smiling.
“What money, Kirill? The money I earn at the salon? Sixty hours a week, my legs aching, picky clients—those are my earnings.”
“Ours,” he finally looked up from the screen. His eyes were cold, like a stranger’s. “We’re a family. Or did you forget?”
Seventeen years of marriage. Two children—Danya at university, Sonya in ninth grade. A mortgaged apartment she’d carried right alongside him. Her size-37 shoes worn down between work and home, her hands smelling of creams and polish, her back hurting every evening. And he sat there and said, “you’ll buy it.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Masha said, turning the stove off. “I just can’t remember your family ever asking what I need.”
Kirill stood up. Tall, broad-shouldered—once, she’d felt protected beside him. Now she only saw how he was trying to press her down with his sheer size.
“Here we go,” he said, walking to the window and lighting a cigarette, even though she’d asked him not to smoke in the apartment. “Your grievances again. My mother is an elderly woman, Karina is about to give birth…”
“Karina’s twenty-eight, she has a husband—let him buy it!” Masha felt something hot start to boil inside her, breaking through the ice. “And I’ve been giving your mother ten thousand a month for ‘medication’ for three years, even though she’s healthier than I am!”
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that!”
That was the turning point. Masha understood it by the way the space in the room changed—as if the air had become denser.
“I’m going,” she said, taking off her apron and hanging it on the hook by the door. “Borscht is on the stove. Heat it up yourself.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Kirill darted toward the hallway, but Masha was already putting on her jacket. Her hands trembled, but she managed the zipper.
“To get some air. To think.”
“Masha!”
She didn’t turn around. The door slammed, the stairs carried her down, and there was the street—wet, dark, smelling of autumn and freedom.
Masha walked quickly, not even knowing where. Past the grocery store where she usually shopped on Fridays. Past the bus stop where tired-faced people crowded every morning. The city looked different in the rain—blurred, unreal, like in a film. Streetlights reflected in puddles, cars hissed over wet asphalt, music drifted from the open doors of a café.
She stopped at the window of a jewelry store. Gold chains, bracelets, rings—everything glittered under bright lamps. When was the last time she’d gotten a gift? For her birthday, Kirill had handed her an envelope with money: “Buy whatever you want.” She’d bought Sonya sneakers and Danya a new backpack.
Her phone buzzed. Kirill. Masha declined the call.
She needed to keep moving. To the mall—warm, bright, somewhere she could sit in a food court with coffee and pull herself together. The minibus got her there quickly. She walked into a huge hall that smelled of popcorn and new clothes, where people hurried around with shopping bags and smiled. Someone else’s life—light, carefree, the way her own hadn’t been for… a long time. A very long time.
She went up to the third floor, bought a cappuccino, sat by the window. The evening city shimmered beyond the glass. Her phone came alive again—now her mother-in-law was texting:
“Mashenka, Kirill told me everything. Why are you acting like a child? We’re family. Karina really needs a car—the little one will be here soon…”
“The little one.” Masha had two children, but no one ever called her children “the little ones.” Her children were her responsibility—her sleepless nights, her money for tutors and activities.
The coffee cooled. A strange picture assembled in her mind: for seventeen years she’d lived “the right way.” Worked, endured, invested, kept quiet. And what had she gotten in return? An order to buy a car for people who never even properly said thank you.
“Oh—sorry!” Someone bumped her bag; it fell. Masha picked it up and smiled automatically at a stranger.
And suddenly she thought: when was the last time I smiled without it being automatic?
Masha came home around ten. The key turned quietly in the lock, but Kirill heard her anyway. He was in the living room. The TV was on, but he wasn’t watching—just waiting.
“Back at last,” he stood up, and Masha immediately understood: this was going to be worse than in the morning.
“Kirill, I’m tired. Let’s talk tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow?” he stepped toward her, his face flushed, eyes blazing. “You made me a laughingstock in front of my mother! She called me—crying! Says you were rude to her!”
“I didn’t even speak to her today,” Masha took off her shoes and placed them neatly by the wall. Her feet throbbed after all that walking.
“Don’t lie! You rejected her call! My mother tried to talk to you nicely, and you…”
“Kirill, stop. Please. We’re both angry. We’re tired. In the morning—”
“No!” He slammed his fist into the back of the couch. “We’ll talk now! You’re taking out a loan and buying a car. Got it?!”
Masha exhaled slowly. She looked at this man—the father of her children, the person she’d lived with for almost twenty years—and didn’t recognize him. Not at all.
“I’m not taking out a loan,” she said quietly.
“What do you mean you’re not?!” Kirill’s face went even redder. “Have you completely lost it?! What did I tell you?!”
“I heard you. But I’m not taking out a loan. I already have a mortgage, and a loan for Danya’s university. I can’t handle another one.”
“You will handle it!” He stepped right up to her, looming. “You’ll work more! You’ll take extra shifts! My mother spent her whole life—”
“Your mother, your mother!” Masha suddenly raised her voice, and Kirill actually faltered for a second. “And who am I?! Am I not a person?! I work sixty hours a week! My back hurts so much by evening I can’t straighten up! My children barely see me because I’m always earning money! For what?! For your mother, your sister, your demands?!”
“Shut up!” he roared. “Don’t you dare talk like that! You’re my wife! You’re obligated!”
“Obligated?” Masha felt something inside her burn out for good—like a wire holding their whole marriage together had simply melted. “Obligated to tolerate rudeness? Obligated to work for your relatives? Obligated to keep quiet?”
“Yes!” he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Yes, you are! Because you’re my wife! We’re family!”
Masha tore herself free. Her heart pounded so hard her temples throbbed.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Or what?” Something new entered his voice. A threat. Real, undisguised. “What are you going to do to me? Masha, I’m sick of you. Last time I’m saying it: tomorrow you go to the bank, take out a loan, and buy my mother a car. If you don’t—I’ll divorce you.”
The word hung between them, heavy and final.
“What?” Masha didn’t believe her ears.
“What you heard.” Kirill crossed his arms. “Divorce. The apartment is mine—it’s in my name. The kids will stay with me. And you can go wherever you want. To your precious job, for example. You can sleep there.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” she whispered.
“No—you’ve lost your mind!” he stepped closer again. “You think you’re indispensable? You think we can’t manage without you? My mother will put this place in order in a week! Raise the children properly—not the way you have, spoiling them! Danya spends all day ‘hanging out’ at university, Sonya with her little friends…”
“Enough,” Masha raised her hand. “Just enough.”
“Not enough!” he was already shouting. “Tomorrow you go to the bank! Do you hear me?! Or start packing!”
Sonya’s door cracked open. Her pale face, tearful eyes.
“Mom?”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Masha pulled herself together instantly. “Go to bed.”
“Nothing is okay!” Kirill yelled. “Sonya, come here! Let the kid see what kind of mother she has—greedy, selfish—”
“Shut up right now!” Masha stepped between him and her daughter. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare drag the children into this!”
Sonya sobbed and shut the door. Music started up behind the wall—she turned it louder so she wouldn’t hear.
Kirill breathed heavily. Masha stood opposite him and, for the first time in many years, saw him for who he really was. No masks, no act of a loving husband. An egoist. A manipulator. A man used to taking everything and giving nothing back.
“So,” she said slowly, pronouncing each word clearly. “I am not going to the bank. I am not taking out a loan. I am not buying your mother a car.”
“Then we’re getting divorced!” he flashed his eyes. “And you’ll end up with nothing!”
“We’ll see.” Masha walked into the bedroom, pulled a bag from the closet, and started packing.
“What are you doing?” Kirill followed her in.
“What I should have done a long time ago. I’m leaving. For a few days. To think.”
“Masha!” New notes appeared in his voice. Confusion? Fear? “Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“Where will you go? You have no one!”
Masha zipped the bag. True—where? Her parents had died long ago, she had no real close friends—there’d never been time, only work and home. But that didn’t matter now.
“I’ll find somewhere to sleep. A hotel, at worst.”
“With what money?” he sneered viciously. “With your pathetic little paycheck?”
“With mine,” she said, picking up her phone and bag. “The money I earned honestly.”
At the door she turned around.
“And one more thing, Kirill. The apartment isn’t only yours. I paid the mortgage fifty-fifty with you for seventeen years. I have every receipt, every transfer. So don’t scare me. And no one is taking the kids from me—you’re at work morning till night, who’s going to watch them? Your mother?”
She left. The stairs, the entryway, the street. The night city met her with cool air and silence. Masha stopped and drew a breath.
For the first time in many years, she was truly scared. But at the same time—light. So light, as if she’d finally dropped a huge sack of stones from her back.
The trial lasted three months. Kirill tried to take the apartment, insisting he’d made the main contribution. He brought his mother as a witness. She cried, swore that Masha didn’t work at all, sat at home spending her husband’s money.
But Masha’s lawyer—an older woman with an iron stare and a steel backbone—laid a stack of documents on the judge’s desk. Bank statements spanning seventeen years. Every mortgage payment—fifty-fifty. Utility bills—paid by Masha. Receipts for groceries, children’s clothes, medicine—Masha. Even that infamous thirty-thousand-ruble suit Kirill showed off at work had been paid for with her card.
“Your Honor,” the lawyer said calmly but firmly, “this is not a housewife supported by her husband. This is a woman who, alongside her spouse, supported the family, raised the children, and endured moral pressure. The documents confirm: she has full rights to half of the jointly acquired property.”
The judge—an elderly man with gray eyebrows—studied the papers for a long time. Then he looked at Kirill over his glasses.
“Do you have objections? Documentary rebuttals?”
Kirill said nothing. Beside him his mother sat with her lips pressed into a thin line.
The decision was unambiguous: the apartment would be split in half. Kirill could either buy out Masha’s share or sell the home and split the money.
He couldn’t buy it out. As it turned out, there was no money. His vaunted salary went to expensive restaurants with coworkers, to his car, to endless “needs” of his mother and sister.
“Then we sell,” Masha said firmly.
Kirill stared at her with hatred.
“You were always a bitch. You just hid it well.”
“No,” Masha smiled at him for the first time after the divorce. “I just stopped being convenient.”
They sold the apartment for a good price. Masha bought a two-room place in the same neighborhood—for herself and Sonya. Danya was studying at university and living in a dorm, but he knew: home was always there for him. There was money left for renovations, and even some to save.
Kirill disappeared from their lives right after the court decision. A week later he called, voice angry.
“I’m going north. Found a job—double the pay. I’ll live there.”
“Okay,” Masha said. “Good luck.”
“The kids…”
“The kids stay with me. But you can visit them. If you want.”
He didn’t want to. He left three days later. And a week after that, his mother and Karina with the newborn went there too. Before leaving, her mother-in-law called Masha.
“You destroyed our family! Because of you my son is going off to the ends of the earth!”
“Because of me?” Masha gave a short laugh. “It’s because of you he lost his family. You raised him this way—a consumer, an egoist. Now go after him. Live on his salary, since it’s so good. Only you know what’s interesting?”
“What?” her mother-in-law hissed.
“Life up north is expensive. Very expensive. Utilities cost a fortune, food costs three times what it does in Moscow. And it’s cold, dark half the year—and terribly boring. Good luck.”
She ended the call and never answered that woman again.
Half a year passed.
Masha stood at the window of her new apartment, drinking her morning coffee. Outside was spring—bright, noisy, smelling of lilac. Sonya was getting ready for school, humming under her breath. Danya had come for the weekend yesterday and brought his girlfriend, a sweet student with intelligent eyes.
“Mom, meet Yulia.”
Masha watched the way her son looked at this girl and saw respect. Care. Equality. Maybe she had raised something right after all.
Business at the salon was going well. Masha even took on two apprentices—girls from a technical college who dreamed of becoming nail technicians. She taught them patiently in the evenings. She passed on not just skills, but faith: you can live by your own labor. You can be independent. You can.
And the day before yesterday, something strange happened. Masha stopped by a bookstore—just to browse. She hadn’t bought books for herself in ages; there was never time. And she came across a poetry collection. She opened it at random and read:
“I thought this was called living. It turned out it was called enduring.”
She stood there in the middle of the store and cried—quietly, so no one would see. Because it was about her. About her whole former life.
She bought the book. Brought it home. Put it on the nightstand.
That evening Sonya asked:
“Mom, are you happy?”
Masha thought. Was she happy? She didn’t have a husband. But she also didn’t have a man who humiliated her every day. She had a modest apartment. But she could hang any paintings she wanted, paint the walls any color, invite guests—or not—as she pleased. She didn’t have an expensive car. But she had the freedom to wake up and know: today belongs to her.
“You know, sweetheart,” she said, pulling her daughter close, “I don’t know if I’m happy. But I know one thing for sure: I’m finally living. For real.”
Sonya hugged her tighter.
And then a message came in from Kirill—the first in half a year: “Masha, I was wrong. Can we talk?”
Masha looked at the screen. Then deleted the message without replying.
Warm wind blew in through the window and ruffled the curtains. Somewhere below, children were playing, laughing. Life hummed, moved, beckoned forward.
And Masha thought: how good it is that she finally learned to say “no.” That small word had opened up a whole world for her—a world where she could breathe deeply.
She finished her coffee and smiled. Just because. Not automatically, not out of politeness—because she wanted to.
And that was a real miracle.
