“Have you completely lost your mind?” Taisiya Petrovna slammed her palm on the table so hard that the cups rattled on their saucers. “What divorce? What on earth are you talking about?”
Her son Viktor sat across from her, crushing a pack of cigarettes in his hands and staring anywhere but at her — at the wallpaper with its faded roses, at the dim chandelier, at anything that would spare him from meeting his mother’s eyes. He was thirty-eight, yet in this apartment, in this sagging old armchair, he still felt like a schoolboy being called in for punishment.
“Mom, I’ve already made up my mind,” he muttered at last. “Dasha and I… we just didn’t work out. We’re too different.”
“Too different!” Taisiya Petrovna threw up her hands, her heavy gold bracelets clinking loudly. “You lived together for five years and now suddenly you’re too different? What, were your personalities hiding before? I told you from the start — you should have married Katya. A nice girl from a respectable family, and her father is a department head. But no, you had to fall in love with that… music teacher!”
Viktor winced. He had heard this song countless times ever since the day he first brought Darya home to meet his parents. His mother had greeted her with a forced smile, looked her up and down — the simple dress, the inexpensive shoes — and immediately placed her in the category of “unsuitable.” Dasha was quiet, intelligent, loved Chopin and old French films. Taisiya Petrovna called it pretentiousness.
“Mom, stop,” he said, rubbing his face tiredly. “I only came to tell you. We’ve already filed the papers.”
His mother froze. Her face, red with outrage only a moment ago, suddenly turned pale. Slowly, she lowered herself back into her chair.
“You filed the papers,” she repeated quietly, as if testing the words. “So it’s serious. And she agreed to this?”
“She didn’t object.”
Taisiya Petrovna narrowed her eyes. Her mind immediately began working — fast, methodical, calculating every angle. The apartment was in Viktor’s name, though they had lived there together. The car was his too. The dacha… well, that old place had come from her own parents anyway. There wasn’t much to divide there.
“And the property?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“What property, Mom?” Viktor gave a dry little laugh. “There’s barely anything to divide. The apartment was mine before the marriage, the car is mine too. Dasha only has her piano and her books.”
Inside, Taisiya Petrovna breathed a sigh of relief, though she did not show it. So at least there would be no real losses. That upstart with her airs and graces would leave, and then it would be possible to find Viktor a proper wife. Someone from the right circle.
Three weeks passed.
Three weeks of relative calm, during which Taisiya Petrovna had already begun mentally sorting through possible brides — Irina, her friend’s daughter who worked at a bank, or Lena… no, not Lena. Zhenya. Zhenya Soboleva — pretty, practical, domestic.
And then the phone rang.
“Did you hear?” her friend Lyudka’s voice trembled with excitement. “Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” Taisiya Petrovna adjusted her robe and walked into the kitchen, pinning the phone between her shoulder and ear.
“About your daughter-in-law! That… what’s her name… Dasha!”
“What about her?” Taisiya Petrovna stiffened. There was something in Lyudka’s voice — something nasty, triumphant.
“You don’t know? Oh, I can’t! Her aunt died — the one who lived in Germany. Had no children. And she left everything to her! An apartment in Berlin, a bank account… they say it’s a million euros, maybe more!”
A ringing filled Taisiya Petrovna’s ears. She lowered herself onto a stool, suddenly weak in the legs.
“What… what did you say?”
“A million!” Lyudka practically purred with delight, clearly enjoying the effect. “Can you imagine? And your Vitya just divorced her! What a disaster!”
Taisiya Petrovna ended the call without even saying goodbye. Her fingers were trembling. Thoughts flashed through her mind in broken pieces — a million euros, an apartment in Germany, and Viktor had filed for divorce. Dear God, what had she done? Why had she pushed him toward it? She should have been telling him to keep the peace instead!
She grabbed the phone and dialed her son. One ring. Two. Three.
“Hello, Mom,” Viktor answered, sounding tired.
“Son,” Taisiya Petrovna said, forcing warmth into her voice even though panic churned inside her. “How are you?”
“Fine. Why?”
“Well…” She paused, trying to choose her words carefully. “Maybe you rushed into this divorce? Maybe it’s not too late to fix things?”
“Mom, what are you talking about?” Viktor sounded genuinely confused. “You were the one who—”
“I just got to thinking,” she said quickly. “You were together for five years. That’s a lot. Maybe you’ve gotten used to each other. Maybe you should try again? Talk to her?”
“Listen, I’m busy. We’ll talk later.”
He hung up.
Taisiya Petrovna stared at the phone and slowly set it back on the table. She had to think. She had to act fast.
That evening she went to Viktor’s apartment. He was living there alone now — Dasha had moved in with a friend. He opened the door wearing a wrinkled T-shirt, smelling of cigarettes and lack of sleep.
“Mom? What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised.
“I brought you some pies,” she lied, squeezing past him into the hallway with an empty bag she had grabbed purely for appearances. “You’re all alone here, probably starving.”
They went into the living room. Viktor dropped onto the couch and turned on the television. Taisiya Petrovna looked around — overflowing ashtrays, dirty plates on the table, laundry lying around. No woman in the house, and it showed.
“Vitya,” she began carefully, “I was just thinking… do you ever talk to Dasha?”
“Why would I?” he shrugged. “Everything’s already decided.”
“Well, still…” Taisiya Petrovna sat down beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “She’s not a stranger. Five years together. Maybe you should call her, meet with her? At least part on decent terms.”
Viktor looked at his mother suspiciously.
“Why the sudden change? You could never stand her.”
“I just…” Taisiya Petrovna looked away. “You’re adults. It should end properly. Maybe she’s upset, all alone.”
Viktor gave a quiet snort but said nothing. Taisiya Petrovna realized she would have to be more direct.
“Son, you need to go back to your wife immediately,” she whispered, though there was no one else in the apartment. “She inherited all that money! Then we’ll teach her a lesson and leave her with nothing!”
Viktor stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“What… what did you just say?”
Taisiya Petrovna realized instantly that she had slipped. The words had burst out before she could reshape them. She was used to giving orders, steering people, making decisions — and now she was sitting in front of her son, who was looking at her like she was a stranger.
“I meant…” she tried to recover, but Viktor was already standing.
“So you know about the inheritance,” he said. It was not a question. “Lyudka called you, didn’t she?”
Taisiya Petrovna said nothing. Viktor crossed the room, stopped at the window, and lit a cigarette. The silence stretched, thick and unbearable.
“Mom, do you even hear yourself?” he said at last, turning around. There was something new in his eyes — not anger exactly, but bitter disappointment. “‘We’ll teach her a lesson and leave her with nothing’? That’s how you talk about someone I spent five years of my life with?”
“Vitya, you don’t understand,” Taisiya Petrovna rose to her feet and began speaking faster, more forcefully. She had always known how to seize control of a conversation. “That girl lived off you all those years! Teaching her little music lessons for pennies while you supported her! And now—”
“She worked,” Viktor cut in sharply. “She worked at a music school, she gave private lessons. And by the way, when I got stuck with that loan last year, Dasha was the one who helped me. She had savings from her lessons.”
“What savings!” Taisiya Petrovna waved a dismissive hand. “Peanuts! And now suddenly it’s a million euros! Do you really think she’ll even remember you now?”
Viktor slowly crushed his cigarette into the overflowing ashtray. His face had gone blank.
“And why should she remember me?” he asked quietly. “I’m the one who filed for divorce, Mom. Me. And do you know why?”
Taisiya Petrovna went still. Something in his voice made her fall silent.
“Because I was tired,” Viktor said, and the words began pouring out like water from a burst pipe. “Tired of every one of your visits ending in a fight. Tired of you finding fault with her cooking, her cleaning, the way she dressed. Remember my birthday, when you said in front of everyone that ‘a real wife should know how to host guests’? Dasha spent the rest of the evening in the kitchen so she wouldn’t cry in front of people.”
“I just wanted—”
“You wanted me to marry someone else,” Viktor said, calm but merciless. “Katya from a respectable family. Or Zhenya Soboleva. You wanted to run my life, like always. And I let you. I’m weak, right, Mom?”
Taisiya Petrovna stepped backward toward the door. For the first time in years, she had no idea what to say.
“Viktor, I’m your mother—”
“And that’s exactly why I’m ashamed,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “Ashamed that I let you poison my marriage. Ashamed that I never protected Dasha. She never even complained, you know. She put up with your barbs, kept trying to win you over. And I… I got tired of being stuck between the two of you. So I chose the easiest way out. I left.”
Taisiya Petrovna gripped the doorframe. Inside her, everything twisted — hurt, confusion, terror at losing control.
“So it’s all my fault now?” Her voice trembled. “I forced you to get divorced?”
“No, Mom.” Viktor shook his head. “I made that decision myself. A cowardly, pathetic decision. And now I have to live with it.”
He grabbed his jacket from the chair and reached into the pocket for his keys.
“Where are you going?” she asked quickly.
“To Dasha’s. To talk.”
“About the inheritance?” escaped her lips before she could stop herself.
Viktor paused in the doorway, turned, and gave her a tired, sorrowful smile.
“You know what the worst part is, Mom? You can’t even imagine that a person might want to apologize with no hidden motive. No calculation. Just apologize.”
The door closed behind him.
Taisiya Petrovna was left alone in the empty apartment, surrounded by dirty dishes and ashtrays. She sat down on the couch, still warm from where her son had been sitting, and suddenly realized her hands were shaking.
Dasha was staying with her friend Anna in a two-room apartment on the outskirts of the city. Viktor found the address in an old message thread and took the metro there. As he climbed the stairs, his heart pounded as if he were heading into an exam.
He rang the bell. Silence. Then footsteps behind the door.
“Who is it?” came Anna’s wary voice.
“It’s me. Viktor.”
A pause. Then the lock clicked. Anna opened the door and stood in the doorway — small, but fierce as a guard dog.
“What do you want?” she asked without greeting him.
“Anna, can I talk to Dasha?”
“And does she want to talk to you?” Anna crossed her arms. “You’ve already said more than enough to her over the years. Or rather, you didn’t say what you should have. You stayed silent when you should’ve stood up for her.”
Viktor clenched his fists. She was right. Completely right.
“I know. Please. Just five minutes.”
Anna studied him for a moment, then turned her head and called out:
“Dash! Someone’s here for you.”
Dasha came out of the room. She had lost weight over the past few weeks, dark circles under her eyes, yet she looked… calm. As though something inside her had shifted and settled.
“Hi,” she said simply.
“Hi.” Viktor shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Can we talk?”
Dasha gave Anna a small nod, and after throwing Viktor one last warning look, Anna went back to her room.
They sat down in the kitchen. Dasha put on the kettle, took out cups — mechanically, out of habit. Viktor watched her hands, those familiar movements, and with painful clarity he realized how much he had lost.
“I heard about the inheritance,” he began, and Dasha froze. The kettle clicked off. “And I want to say right away — that’s not why I came. I came to apologize.”
Dasha slowly poured water into the cups and placed one in front of him.
“For what exactly?” she asked. There was no bitterness in her voice, no mockery. Just a question.
“For everything.” Viktor wrapped his hands around the hot cup. “For not protecting you from my mother. For pretending not to see how hard things were for you. For walking away when everything became unbearable instead of trying to fix it, trying to talk.”
Dasha sat down across from him and held his gaze for a long moment.
“Your mother called me today,” she said at last. “Three times. I didn’t answer.”
Viktor closed his eyes.
“I know. She—”
“She wants you to come back to me,” Dasha finished for him. “And then, quote, ‘teach me a lesson and leave me with nothing.’ Right?”
Viktor went pale. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Dasha calmly took a sip of tea.
“She left a voice message,” Dasha continued. “By accident, apparently. She didn’t hang up properly, so the whole thing recorded. She was discussing with Lyudka how best to handle it. Want to hear it?”
“No,” Viktor exhaled. “God, Dasha, I’m so ashamed.”
“I was ashamed too,” Dasha said quietly. “All those years. Ashamed that I could never be good enough for your mother. Ashamed that I let her grind me into the dirt. Ashamed that I clung to a marriage where I wasn’t valued.”
“I did value you,” Viktor protested. “I just…”
“You stayed silent,” Dasha finished for him. “And that was the worst part. When you filed for divorce, I cried at first. For a week. And then suddenly I realized I felt lighter. As if a stone had been lifted off my chest.”
Viktor nodded. He understood. He had felt that same relief himself, and then the emptiness after it.
“And the inheritance?” he asked. “Is it true?”
Dasha gave a faint smile.
“It’s true. Aunt Marta, my mother’s sister. She moved to Germany before I was born. I only saw her a couple of times. The last time was at my mother’s funeral. She was alone, had no children. And now she’s left everything to me.”
“That’s…” Viktor had no idea what to say. “That’s wonderful. Honestly.”
“Yes,” Dasha agreed. “Do you know the funny part? I found out about it a week before you filed for divorce. I wanted to tell you, but then you came home and announced that we weren’t right for each other.”
Viktor froze with the cup in his hands.
“You… already knew?”
“I did.” Dasha nodded. “And I realized that if I told you then, you’d think I had kept it secret on purpose. Or your mother would decide I had bought you off. So I said nothing. I signed the divorce papers and left.”
“My God,” Viktor rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Not an idiot,” Dasha said, shaking her head. “Just weak. And that’s your choice, Vitya. To spend your whole life obeying your mother or finally start living by your own mind.”
She stood up and walked to the window. Outside, a cold drizzle blurred the city into gray twilight.
“I’m leaving for Berlin in a month,” she said without turning around. “There’s an apartment there. I’ll find work. A new life. And I don’t want you coming back to me out of greed or pity.”
“What if it’s not because of that?” he asked hoarsely.
Dasha turned and looked at him for a long moment.
“Then first deal with your mother. Set boundaries. Learn to tell her no. And then come back. If you still want to.”
Taisiya Petrovna did not sleep that night. She paced around the apartment, brewing tea and leaving it untouched, turning the television on and off. She called Viktor — no answer. She called Dasha — silence again.
By morning she had made a decision. She needed to act. She needed to fix this. She got dressed, put on makeup, and went to Anna’s apartment — Lyudka had managed to dig up the address.
She rang the bell. Dasha herself opened the door. She saw her mother-in-law and did not look surprised.
“Good afternoon, Taisiya Petrovna.”
“My dear Dasha!” the older woman exclaimed, putting on a mask of warmth. “May I come in? Let’s talk heart to heart.”
Dasha stepped aside to let her enter. Taisiya Petrovna walked into the kitchen, glanced around — clean, simple, poor. She sat down at the table and folded her hands.
“Dasha, I came to make peace,” she began in a syrupy tone. “I know we’ve had misunderstandings, but we’re family! Viktor is falling apart without you. Maybe we should forget the past? You come back, and I promise — I won’t say one word against you again.”
Dasha placed a cup of tea in front of her, sat down across from her, and smiled.
“Taisiya Petrovna, I heard your voice message.”
Her mother-in-law froze. Slowly, the color in her face changed from pale to red.
“What message? I didn’t—”
“‘We’ll teach her a lesson and leave her with nothing,’” Dasha quoted calmly. “Remember?”
“I gave love,” Dasha replied quietly. “But you were never capable of understanding that.”
“Love?” Taisia Petrovna scoffed. “You can’t buy an apartment with love! Do you really think Vitya will come back to you? He will. Where else would he go? I gave birth to him, raised him, shaped him! He listens to me!”
“You broke him,” Dasha corrected her. “His whole life. And you are still doing it now. But here is the truth: I will not be part of this performance anymore.”
Dasha rose from her chair, walked to the door, and pulled it open.
“Leave, Taisia Petrovna. And do not call me or Viktor again. If he ever chooses to return, that will be his decision. Not yours.”
Her mother-in-law sprang to her feet and snatched up her handbag.
“You will regret this!” she hissed. “I will find a way! I will—”
“You will find nothing,” Dasha said, meeting her gaze with calm, not anger. “Because I am leaving. And you will remain here alone, with your manipulation and your bitterness.”
Taisia Petrovna stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door behind her. As she hurried down the stairs, rage boiled inside her, hot and helpless. That insolent girl, that nobody, dared to speak to her that way.
She pulled out her phone and dialed Viktor. This time, he answered.
“Mom, I do not want to talk to you.”
“Vitya, my son, do you even understand that she—”
“I understand,” he cut in, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “I understand far more than you think. And you know what, Mom? I am tired. Tired of being your puppet. I am thirty-eight years old, and it is time for me to start living my own life.”
“But I am your mother!”
“Yes,” he said. “And that is exactly why it hurts the most. Goodbye, Mom.”
He hung up.
Taisia Petrovna stood in the middle of the courtyard, clutching her phone, and for the first time it truly hit her — she had lost. Completely. And there was no one to blame for it but herself.
But admitting that was something she had no intention of doing.
Not now. Not ever.
