“So here’s how it’s going to be, Vicky. We talked it over and decided there’s no reason for you to stay in this apartment right now.
Pack your things and move to the country house for a while. Mom will live here. It’s closer to her clinic, and some fresh air will do you good.”
Edik said it as casually as if he were asking me to pass the salt.
He stood in the middle of my freshly cleaned hallway with his hands buried in his pockets.
The expression on his face was unbearably patronizing, like some Roman nobleman who had brought civilization to the barbarians and then decided to confiscate their cave as payment.
Edik had been preparing the ground for the past two weeks.
He had begun sighing more often about his mother’s blood pressure and aching joints. He kept remarking that a two-bedroom apartment in the city was far too much space for just the two of us.
Then, as if it were nothing, he asked where I kept the documents for the country house.
The previous evening, he had locked himself in the bathroom and turned on the water.
Unfortunately for him, the acoustics in our apartment were excellent.
Even through the sound of running water, I clearly heard his smug whisper on the phone.
“Everything’s under control, Mom. Just arrive with your bags. I’ll pressure her, Vicky will lose her temper, make a scene, and leave on her own.”
“Leave the car keys on the console too,” he added now in a cold, commanding tone, as if every detail had already been settled.
“Mom needs the car for her massage appointments. Unlike your imaginary migraines, her health problems are real. Maybe while you’re at the country house, you’ll finally learn to cook proper soup instead of being nervous and irritable all the time.”
Before I could even blink, Alevtina Mikhailovna appeared behind him.
She charged into the hallway like an overloaded dump truck with failed brakes, grinding her orthopedic shoes mercilessly into my fluffy white rug.
In both hands, my mother-in-law dragged enormous plaid bags, swollen to the size of small airships.
“Oh, finally!” she exclaimed, dropping them directly onto my pale sneakers.
Without hesitation, she flung open the built-in wardrobe as though she had lived there for years.
“Clear this shelf. I’ll keep my medicine box here.
And take that half-dead orchid off the windowsill. I need the space for my seedlings. Edik, sweetheart, bring in the ficus and the box of pots from the landing!”
I leaned one shoulder against the wall.
One disturbing detail immediately caught my attention.
The zippers on her bags had been secured tightly with brand-new plastic ties. Thick black marker labels had been written on the sides: “Bedroom” and “Kitchen.”
This was not an impulsive decision.
It was a carefully planned takeover.
In their hands, an ordinary invasion of someone else’s home looked like a heavily armored military landing in the middle of a field of daisies.
But there was one thing they had failed to anticipate.
I had no intention of losing my temper.
Respect should never have to be begged for, and shameless arrogance deserves to be punished publicly and without mercy.
I walked calmly to the console, opened a drawer, removed the property certificates from a folder, and placed them on the surface.
“Eduard,” I said, deliberately using his full name. “Here is the ownership document for the apartment. One owner. Here is the document for the country house. One owner. The car belongs to me too.
Your mother’s name is not on the list of residents. And neither of you is on the list of people authorized to give me orders.
The only thing that belongs to you here, Edik, is your inflated opinion of yourself. You may take that without signing an inventory.”
“Vicky, why are you settling scores again?” Edik said, trying to preserve his icy confidence as his mouth twisted with contempt. “Don’t make a scene.
Family property is shared. Mom is elderly. We’ve already discussed everything. But you’re clinging to your precious square meters like a dog guarding hay it can’t even eat.”
“A family is made up of people who care about one another, Edik,” I replied evenly.
“What you call a compromise is cutting off my tail one piece at a time and expecting me to celebrate because I weigh less. No, thank you.”
“She refuses to understand the situation!” my mother-in-law shrieked from behind her bags.
“I’m a sick woman. I need comfort. You’re young. You can travel back and forth by train. Your crown won’t fall off. Ungrateful little egoist!”
Alevtina Mikhailovna unbuttoned her coat with determination, preparing to hang it on my coat rack.
I stepped forward and caught her wrist carefully but firmly.
“Keep your coat on, Alevtina Mikhailovna. You’re only passing through.”
“What do you mean?” Edik frowned.
The first crack appeared in his imperial confidence.
“I mean exactly what I said. Edik, you asked me to leave the keys on the console. That was an excellent idea.
Put your keys to this apartment there as well. Preferably right now.”
I looked at them with a light, almost affectionate smile.
Both of them froze.
“What kind of insane nonsense are you talking about?” my husband snapped, his voice breaking embarrassingly. “Where am I supposed to put my keys? This is my home. I’m the man of the house!”
“Your home is where you are officially registered, Edik. In your mother’s old apartment.
It’s amazing how quickly a man discovers his authority after moving into a woman’s property.”
I turned around, walked into the living room, and rolled two large suitcases into the hallway.
My old, reliable, spacious suitcases.
“What is that?” Alevtina Mikhailovna recoiled as though I had rolled out an anti-tank mine.
“Those, Mother, are your son’s belongings,” I announced clearly. “I packed them last night.
You know, Edik, when you were whispering on the phone in the bathroom about how cleverly you were going to crush me into submission, you should have turned the water up higher. The bathroom has excellent acoustics.”
My husband’s face began changing color with astonishing speed.
His respectable appearance peeled away like cheap gold paint.
“You were listening to me?” he shouted, spraying saliva. “You’re completely paranoid! Who needs you with that attitude? You’re nothing but a vicious woman with an apartment. I only stayed with you out of pity. I’ll leave you myself!”
“A wife is not a free housekeeper who comes with living space, Edik,” I said, folding my arms.
“And judging by your choices, you’ve decided to tie yourself to a stone and sink with it. The exit is behind you.
The suitcases are yours, the giant bags belong to your mother, and the door is available to both of you. You have three minutes.”
“I’ll divorce you!” Edik screamed, no longer even pretending to be composed. “You’ll crawl back to me on your knees and beg me to return!”
“Only when I run out of garbage bags. Your time starts now.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang briefly.
Edik flinched, probably hoping for a miracle.
I unlocked the door and opened it wide.
A gloomy-looking man in worn work overalls stood on the landing, holding a heavy toolbox.
“Someone called a locksmith?” he asked hoarsely, looking over the collection of bags, suitcases, and furious relatives. “Who owns the apartment?”
“I do,” I replied with a pleasant smile. “Come in. We need to replace the lock cylinder immediately. The old lock has started letting in drafts and unwanted rubbish.”
The locksmith shifted his stern gaze toward the sweating, red-faced Edik.
“So the apartment doesn’t belong to you?” he asked my husband dryly.
“No, it doesn’t,” I answered.
“Then it’s obvious why the lock got tired,” the locksmith remarked philosophically as he opened his toolbox.
That was the knockout blow.
Realizing that the comfortable city apartment and free domestic service had both vanished, Alevtina Mikhailovna let out a theatrical moan and clutched her chest.
But when she failed to detect even a trace of sympathy in my eyes, she recovered with remarkable speed.
“Come on, son!” she hissed viciously, grabbing one of her airship-sized bags. “May we never cross this threshold again! You poisonous snake!”
Humiliated and panting, Edik seized the suitcases.
He had to drag them onto the landing one at a time, tripping over his own feet and stumbling into his mother’s bags.
“The car!” he shouted desperately from beside the elevator while the locksmith switched on his drill. “At least let me use the car to move the luggage!”
“Call a cargo taxi,” I said sharply. “My car only carries people who don’t spit on the person who owns it.
And don’t forget the ficus, Alevtina Mikhailovna.”
I closed the door.
The shrill sound of the locksmith’s drill was the most beautiful symphony I had ever heard.
Fifteen minutes later, the new keys were in my pocket.
I walked over to the window.
An epic scene was unfolding below.
Red-faced and disheveled, Edik was trying to force the enormous bags into an old sedan that had just pulled up.
Alevtina Mikhailovna sat on her son’s suitcase, clutching the box of cooking pots to her chest. Beside her feet, a lonely ficus protruded from a plastic bag.
She waved her arms furiously, clearly saying something deeply insulting to her son.
Their pathetic defeat was being eagerly observed by the elderly women sitting on the courtyard bench—the highest court of public judgment, from which no humiliation could ever remain hidden.
