What is this garbage you’ve made?! No taste at all!» Viktor threw his fork on the table, demonstratively pushing his plate away. His wife Nina had a severe cold, and her sense of smell was temporarily dulled due to the illness. She couldn’t distinguish tastes and even failed to sense salt and pepper, so she was afraid of oversalting. Despite her sickness, Nina steadfastly prepared breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the family, and also worked from home so as not to let her colleagues down. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t recover and looked simply awful.
«Vitya, eat the sausages, at least for one day… Can I lie down? I probably have a fever over 40… I don’t have the strength to cook anything else,» Nina said quietly.
«You just want to lie down! You’ll become so lazy; soon you won’t fit through the door!»
«Vitya…»
«What, Vitya? Tired of telling acquaintances that you’re just fat, not pregnant!» he responded maliciously, glaring at his wife.
Nina was hurt to hear such words. However, she had grown accustomed to the fact that if her husband was in a bad mood, he wouldn’t choose his words carefully or care about her feelings.
«Mommy, go lie down. I’ll make something…» their daughter, Anya, appeared in the kitchen. She felt sorry for her mother, so as soon as she came home from art school, she rushed to the kitchen instead of doing her homework.
«Your place isn’t at the stove, it’s at your studies! Bring your report card!» Viktor banged his fist on the table.
«Dad, we have electronic report cards…» Anya reminded him.
«Bring the electronic one! I don’t care, don’t talk back!»
Anya meekly placed her phone in front of her father. He looked at the grades and, finding nothing to criticize, began commenting on her appearance.
«You look just like your mother! Like a peasant! Not hair, but fluff! You should look at other girls! Your peers are already dating rich suitors! And you? Who needs you in your tattered jeans and oversized sweater?! Always want to sit on my neck?!»
«Vitya, why are you like this? Anya is our beauty…» Nina interjected.
«Did anyone ask you? Go to your room and lie down! Sick!»
«Dad, why do you talk to us like this?» Anya looked at her father with tear-filled eyes. «What have we done to you?!»
«Shut your mouth before I slap you!» Viktor clenched his fists. His daughter irritated him more and more. It didn’t help that she increasingly resembled Nina. And Nina was like a thorn in his throat.
Anya silently wiped away her tears, took a chicken from the fridge, and began to prepare it.
There was no appetite, so Anya quickly fried the fillet and brought a piece to her mother, then sat down on her bed.
«Eat.»
«I don’t want to, sweetheart… I have no strength.»
«Should I go to the pharmacy?»
«Everything’s there. I went this morning.»
«Call a doctor?»
«No, I just need to rest a bit…»
«Who will wash the dishes?!» a roar from the kitchen made mother and daughter flinch.
«I’ll go…» Anya said quietly.
«Pay no mind. He loves us. Just… maybe problems at work or something hurts. That’s why he’s in a bad mood.»
Anya looked at her mother with sympathy. Sometimes it seemed to her that Nina lived in a parallel universe.
«He loves us. He doesn’t even love himself every day!» thought Anya, wiping the table.
The next day she came home late: there was a performance at dance school, and afterwards, the girls went to a cafe.
Anya came home happy, but her mood disappeared when she heard the screams.
«You’re good for nothing! Couldn’t even raise a daughter properly! What are these dances for?! And drawing? Nonsense! She should have gone to a technical school!»
«She’s a girl, Vitya…»
«So what?! I want her to study and work where I arrange her to!»
«Vitya… let her choose with her heart.»
«You never listen to what I say! You always argue!»
«Okay, Vitya. What’s wrong?»
«Everything is wrong! You’re not right! The daughter’s not right! Even that painting on the wall… I’ve been irritated by it for 16 years. I can’t stand to see it! And I can’t stand to see you! I want a divorce.»
«But Vitya, we have a daughter… What about us?» Anya heard sobs. «I love you… I try… And the painting… We can take it down,» Nina pleaded tearfully, swallowing her tears. Her father had hung that painting; he had painted it himself, and it was dear to her heart. But to save her family, Nina was ready to make such a desperate step.
«You try?! Look at yourself! No beauty, no figure. And these hair, peasant style! Who wears braids at your age?! I love blondes… And you?»
Anya couldn’t bear to listen to her parents’ quarrel. She quietly exited the door and went to her grandmother’s.
Tatiana Stepanovna knew her son-in-law’s character and was used to the fact that her granddaughter often stayed with her.
«They fought again?»
«Yes… Grandma, I don’t understand why mom puts up with him?»
«I don’t know, Anya. Perhaps it’s love.»
«If all men are like this, I’ll never get married.»
«Dear, people are different. Your grandfather was wonderful…» Tatiana Stepanovna loved to talk about her grandfather. He was a well-known artist; his paintings hung in the city art museum, and one, Anya’s favorite, adorned the main room of the apartment where they lived. «Your talent is from him. You’ll be just as famous, don’t give up drawing.»
«Grandma, dad wants us to take down Grandpa’s painting and remove it…»
«And do we need to hang his portrait instead?» the grandmother frowned.
«I don’t know, Grandma. But sometimes I wish I didn’t have a father at all. It seems like it would be easier for mom and me.»
Tatiana Stepanovna said nothing. She tried not to interfere in family matters, and recently she didn’t even go to the apartment left to Nina by her father. The atmosphere there was «tense.»
The next morning, Anya left for school, and in the evening, she went home, hoping that her parents had stopped fighting.
«Mom, what’s with your hair?» asked the daughter, seeing Nina. The woman had cut her braid and bleached her hair. She was unrecognizable. The braid, Nina’s pride, had been cut, and Anya felt sorry for her mother’s hair… But what’s done is done.
«Changed the image,» Nina said quietly. Anya was silent, and Viktor, returning from work, sneered contemptuously.
«Your hairdresser deserves a ‘prize’: he managed to mutilate what seemed already beyond ruin.»
Nina silently watched Viktor. She didn’t understand what she had done to deserve such treatment. From the morning, she had gathered all her strength to go to the hairdresser and please her husband. But he didn’t appreciate it.
Meanwhile, Anya went to the living room and found her favorite painting no longer in its place.
«Mom?! Where’s the landscape?»
«I took it down…»
«Why?! It’s a memory of Grandpa!»
«Grandpa can’t be brought back. Dad’s right, we need to add new colors…»
«You want to hang my painting in its place?» Anya arched an eyebrow.
«Your scribbling? No, we don’t need to embarrass ourselves. We’ll hang a clock there. I’ve wanted one with a cuckoo for a long time.» Viktor curled his lips into a smile, pulling cheap plastic clocks out of a bag. They were so ugly and poorly made that Anya couldn’t believe anyone would hang such a thing in the living room.
«I think it’s awful.»
«What would you know!» Viktor roared. «They’ll hang here. I’ve said all!»
He sat on the couch, awaiting dinner and enjoying the clocks, which not only looked terrible but also ticked loudly, counting down every tense nerve among the members of this «happy» family.
Nevertheless, noticing that his wife had given in, Viktor calmed down for a few days. He even smiled, looking at the clocks.
«If this thing makes my father and mother happy, I’ll endure this terrible ticking,» thought Anya.
But the calm only lasted a few days, and then everything went awry again.
«What are you standing there for?! Can’t you see I’m watching TV!» Viktor yelled at his wife when she tried to clean the floor during his show.
«I’m cleaning the apartment. It’s dusty… You forbade turning on the vacuum cleaner, so I have to do it by hand to not disturb you with loud noise,» Nina faltered.
«You disturb me by the mere fact of your existence! Get out of sight!»
«Vitya, really. You’d better help me.»
«Back off, Nina! Otherwise, you’ll be talking to the void! You won’t have a husband, just wait…» he threatened, turning up the volume.
Nina put down the rag and stood up, blocking the screen. Viktor even choked on the fizzy drink he was sipping while watching the show.
«Have you lost your fear, mother?!»
«What do you want, so we can live normally? I cut my hair, became a blonde, took down the painting. Our daughter now doesn’t go to the studio; she went to young engineers’ courses by your will. What’s wrong?!»
«I’m tired of you! Want to know what I need? Fine, I’ll tell.»
Viktor stood up from the couch to take up more space and appear more significant.
«So, I want my mother-in-law to transfer the apartment to me.»
«Which apartment?!»
«Her own. I’ll go there to rest from you. I can’t stand to look at you. I’ll live there for a week, rest, then a week here with you. The sheep are fed, and the wolves are safe,» he declared.
«And where will Mom go?!»
«Send the mother-in-law to the cottage. She loves to dig in the garden, and she doesn’t have long left, let her get used to the soil.»
Anya couldn’t listen to her father. She was dusting a vase and, unable to bear these words, dropped it, and it shattered.
«There you go, hands not from the right place! Just like your mother!» Viktor cursed, looking at his daughter with hatred.
«Maybe not like mother, but like father?! A tyrant!» Anya suppressed the urge to throw a piece of the vase at him and, dropping the shards, ran out of the room.
«You raised a rude girl, and you still expect something from me,» Viktor continued, but Anya no longer heard him. She quickly dressed and went to her grandmother’s. She couldn’t allow her father to do this to Tatiana Stepanovna.
The woman listened attentively to her granddaughter and pondered.
«I’m afraid Mom will go along with him again, convincing you to transfer the apartment! What if he then says he needs your cottage, and sends you to a nursing home?!» Anya cried. «And then he might decide I’m not his real daughter and send me somewhere to a boarding school…»
«Dear, don’t cry. As long as the apartment is in my name, nothing will happen. I won’t transfer it to him,» the grandmother reassured. At the same time, she understood that her granddaughter’s fears were not empty words. If Tatiana Stepanovna suddenly passed away, the apartment and the cottage would go to Nina, and Nina might do anything for her husband. Sometimes Tatiana Stepanovna thought that her daughter loved her husband too desperately, at the expense of herself and her daughter. But Tatiana Stepanovna kept her opinion to herself… Until she realized that the situation was out of control.
The woman didn’t sleep all night. And in the morning, she had a serious talk with her granddaughter. That day Anya stayed with her grandmother, and in the evening Nina joined them. She cried a lot and talked long, and Tatiana Stepanovna listened to her daughter. And Anya… also listened and didn’t understand what the point of such a family was if there was no respect among its members.
In the morning, Nina calmed down. She walked her daughter to school, then went home. It was hard for her, and she hoped until the last… But no miracle happened. Her husband came home even more irritated than he had left.
«Where’s that little pest been disappearing to for three days? You secretly taking her to drawing classes? A friend told me she quit the engineers’ courses! Why did I arrange for her to go there? To embarrass me?!» he yelled from the doorstep.
«Vitya, quieter, please. I have a headache.»
«Then you should mess around less! You’d better have cooked food! There’s been nothing to eat for two days!»
«I was at Mom’s. We discussed everything.»
«Yes?» Viktor slightly changed his tone. «And? Is she ready to transfer the apartment?»
«Mom already transferred the apartment, and she agreed to live in the village. She’s already packed. I’ll take her there tomorrow.»
«Why tomorrow? Order a taxi and let’s go right now! I’ll quickly get ready; I can’t stand to see you, I’ll rest in peace and quiet.» Viktor threw off his jacket and went to pack his things. He threw his clothes and personal items into a large bag. «This will do for now. Did you find a car?»
«Yes.»
«Great. Drive me to my mother-in-law’s, and the mother-in-law to the cottage. I’ll finally rest from you.»
Nina said nothing. She silently walked to the car, and they drove to the station.
«What does this mean?! Where have you brought me?!»
«Go back where you came from. Rest. I’ll file for divorce myself. You don’t need to worry,» Nina got out of the car and switched to another. A taxi «to a new life» was already waiting for her.
«And what about the division of property?! The apartment?!»
«Here,» she nodded at his bag and handed him a ticket to the village he had come from to marry and settle in the city. «This is all your property. That you’ve only earned a cuckoo clock in 16 years is your problem. The apartment has been transferred to Anya; you’ll get nothing. Goodbye, Vitya. Although no, not goodbye. We shouldn’t cut all ties too soon: you still have 3 years of alimony coming for Anya. And I’ll gladly spend it on our needs.»
Viktor said something to her as she left, but Nina left him at the station. She knew that Tatiana Stepanovna was changing the locks in her apartment at that moment. There was no way back home for Viktor. And although it was painful, she understood: it’s better to «cut off» once than to suffer flare-ups for the rest of your life.
