When Adelaida Ignatovna burst into the apartment dragging one wheeled suitcase, and behind it a second one following by inertia, Victoria was sitting in the kitchen eating cottage cheese with honey. The cottage cheese was farm-made, expensive, from the market — she was trying. Adel, as Victoria secretly called her, gave her a quick glance and, without greeting, said into the air:
“Your hallway floor is uneven. The suitcase gets caught.”
Victoria put down her spoon and looked at her husband. He immediately buried his face in his phone as if suddenly becoming very religious and opening a prayer book. Things only got worse.
“Where will I sleep?” Adelaida Ignatovna looked around businesslike. “Oh, and there’s so much dust here. Don’t you use a rag for cleaning?”
“We have a guest room,” Victoria forced out. “There’s a proper bed there.”
“Proper,” Adelaida mocked and went there as if she already owned the place. “The blanket is thin. I can’t live in such conditions. I have joints.”
Victoria stood up and followed her. Oleg stayed in the kitchen. Strategically, like a mouse within a cat’s radius. Surprisingly, he didn’t crawl away.
“When will the renovation start?” Victoria asked, folding her arms.
“Me? Who knows. It’s summer now. Everyone’s on vacation. And I’m not going to live with mold on the ceiling.”
“Do you have any documents for the renovation?”
“Are you a notary or a building inspector?”
Victoria exhaled. Not out loud, but as if something inside broke and silently rolled down. She felt a familiar mechanism activate: you are a stranger in your own home.
The first three days passed in the style of “House-2: senior edition.” Victoria went to work in the morning, came back — and the whole apartment had been rearranged. Books taken off the shelves. The zebra rug from Ikea — rolled up and taken to the balcony.
“Disgusting,” said Adelaida Ignatovna. “Even in the nineties, people didn’t put such things down. Psychedelia.”
“That’s my rug, Adelaida Ignatovna. Oleg and I picked it together.”
“Oh, and you can keep the ‘together with Oleg’ part to yourself. I gave birth to him before school. And you act like you’re renting it here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud. Old age, you know.”
On the fifth night, Victoria woke up to a crash. Thought: burglary. Or, deep down — hope — a stroke. She went out to the hallway. No light. A figure was fumbling in the living room.
“Mom!” Oleg hissed from the couch. “Mom’s looking for the charger.”
“At three in the morning?!”
“What, should I live by the clock now like in the barracks?” the mother-in-law turned around, a scrunchie on her head and phone in hand. “You’re supposed to be a smart woman. Or is it like in your offices now — you get paid and your brain switches off?”
“Well, for example, at three a.m. no one at our office rummages around the house.”
“Well, apparently we have different cultures,” Adelaida smiled sweetly. “At my place everything’s always simple. The light was cut off because you didn’t pay.”
“I didn’t…? Oleg, did we pay the electricity this month?”
“Well, I…,” he mumbled. “There was some glitch. I’ll check everything…”
Victoria went back to the bedroom and suddenly clearly understood: losing is not when you are humiliated. It’s when you stop being surprised.
The next Saturday, Adelaida arranged a tea party. She brought her school friend Nina Pavlovna, a grandmother with a voice as if she had been voicing funeral toasts for the past 40 years.
“So this is the daughter-in-law?” she nodded appraisingly. “Hmm… so why no children?”
“That’s none of your business,” Victoria said with a stone face. “Or are you conducting a social survey?”
“Ha-ha, sharp,” Adelaida laughed falsely. “Victoria here loves jokes. Only the sense of humor seems to have been bought on sale.”
Victoria stood up. Went to the bedroom. Closed the door. Sat down. Thought she would cry — but couldn’t. Instead, she pulled up the contacts of the management company from her chats and called.
“Hello. Tell me please, at 3 Berezovaya Street, apartment 41 — are there renovation works going on? Did you receive any application?”
“Let me check… no, nothing received. No requests, no complaints, nothing.”
“Thank you. You saved my life.”
“What?”
“Sorry. Just thinking out loud.”
“You mean to say my mother is lying?” Oleg asked in the evening when she told him the truth.
“I don’t want to, I’m telling you. There’s no renovation. She’s barged into our life like a hammer into a microwave. And you allow it all.”
“She is an elderly woman!”
“She is a cunning woman. And you know it. You’re just afraid to admit it. To yourself, not me.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Oh, finally! I had forgotten what it feels like to be guilty in your own house. Tell me, who do you live with? Me or her?”
“Don’t start…”
“Too late. It’s already begun.”
The next morning, Adelaida announced she was taking the first bath. Victoria silently packed her things into a bag. No hysterics. No scene.
At the door, she stopped. Slowly looked at her mother-in-law.
“I hope that when I’m sixty, I can be as lively, tough, cheeky, and absolutely unbearable. At least half-time.”
“Running away?” the other smirked. “Well, go ahead. Oleg will stay with me anyway.”
“I’d be surprised if you didn’t say that.”
And left.
Behind the door, for the first time in months, it became quiet.
Quiet — and scary. Because this was not the final point. It was the first chapter of a new life. And, it seemed, for the first time in her life Victoria knew: next — either her, or she’d be swept under the rug. That same psychedelic rug.
Three months passed. Oleg lived with his mother. Victoria — alone, in a rented apartment overlooking a fence and someone else’s laundry. She didn’t complain. Morning — office, evening — low-volume TV series and silence. Frightening, but honest.
At first, Oleg called a couple of times. Mumbling something about “I misunderstood everything” and “let’s meet.” Then disappeared. And then… then he called for a completely different reason.
“Vika, hi, listen… Mom’s not well. Could you come by?”
“Am I an ambulance now?” she asked calmly. “Or are you and Nina Pavlovna mixing up the queue to the therapist?”
“Don’t say anything now. Just… she asked for you. I’m on a business trip. Can’t get away.”
“Convenient. As always. Where is she?”
“At the apartment. The ambulance was already here, blood pressure, nerves. Well… you understand.”
She understood. Perfectly. But she went. Not out of pity. Out of curiosity. What kind of clown circus this time?
Adelaida Ignatovna lay in bed with an expression as if her roommate had cheated on her, stepped on her favorite cup, and taken away her TV show.
“Well, look who showed up,” she muttered. “And no flowers.”
“Sorry for no mourning ribbons,” Victoria cut in. “Where does it hurt?”
“In the soul. But you wouldn’t understand. You have a calendar for six days ahead instead of a heart.”
“Listen, if you’re having a heart attack, I’ll call an ambulance. If this is a show — give me the playbill and don’t bother me.”
“That’s what you are…,” sighed the mother-in-law. “I wanted to leave everything to you.”
Victoria froze.
“Excuse me?”
“The apartment. I wanted to write a will. I thought: Victoria, though with character, at least is reliable. But now I’m thinking — maybe I should give everything to Oleg and his new wife?”
Victoria sat down. Slowly. As if on a mine.
“What new wife?”
“Olya. You don’t know? They went to the registry office a month ago. Quietly, without noise. At least she doesn’t shout. And she makes cutlets like at our school.”
Something painfully struck in her chest. Not jealousy. A sudden mix of anger, tiredness, and… some pitiful relief. The end. Period. File closed.
“You know what, Adelaida Ignatovna,” Victoria stood up. “Leave it to whoever you want. Even the cat. Even your friend Nina, if she lives another three years. It doesn’t concern me anymore.”
“You young ones are so cold. All you know is freedom, mortgage, grad…,” she stopped herself. “All you know is how to run away. And me…”
“You are cunning. Smart. Experienced. And you knew exactly what you were doing. You deliberately interfered in our marriage. Not for your son — for power. You just like being needed. But being loved — you don’t know how.”
“Oh, you…”
“Yes, me. The daughter-in-law-monster. The one who didn’t tolerate intrusion into her life and didn’t let herself be crushed. Imagine, that happens.”
She left, slamming the door so hard the frame on the hallway mirror jerked.
A week later, Victoria received a registered letter. The will.
“Oh, well,” she said aloud. “Couldn’t hold out. Changed sides.”
The document was clear: the apartment would go to Victoria, in case of Adelaida Ignatovna’s death, on condition that Victoria would care for her until the end of her life.
“A condition like ‘marry me, but in black.’ Wonderful,” she muttered.
Oleg apparently didn’t know. Because a couple of days later he showed up himself. Without warning.
“Hi,” he said when Victoria opened the door. “Can we talk?”
“About cutlets?”
“No, about the will.”
She leaned on the door frame.
“Mom’s or your new wife’s?”
“Vic, don’t. I didn’t want it to turn out like this. It’s just… Mom says you’re going to inherit everything now.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think you shouldn’t… abuse it.”
She laughed. Out loud. Bitterly.
“You’re still mom’s boy. Only now with a ring on your finger. Well done, Oleg. Not a person — an investment.”
“I came to talk…”
“I’m done. Everything we had, you showed in two months. Move to your cutlet empire. And give the will back to Mom. I’m not going to care for her. Let her leave the apartment to the nurse.”
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
He stood there watching her light a cigarette. She hadn’t smoked for two years. But now — special occasion.
“You know,” Oleg said quietly, “you really have changed. You weren’t like this before…”
“Strong? Smart? Tired? Angry?”
“Lonely.”
She sighed and nodded.
“Exactly. Now I’m alone. But at least with myself. And without your mother on my back.”
Late at night she wrote a message. Short, without sentimentality.
Adelaida Ignatovna. I will not accept your apartment. Find someone who will love you not for square meters. Just because.
And turned off the phone.
She knew she did the right thing. But her heart… still ached. Because even when you tear yourself out from under someone else’s control — the scars remain. And the pain is not from the loss. But from how long you endured.
Six months passed.
Spring came as if especially for someone else. Victoria had a new address, a rented one-room apartment on the eighth floor, no view, but the main thing — silence. No mother-in-law, no Oleg, no discussions about how to cut bread and why you’re wearing jeans again. Work, friends, evening calls with her mother — everything gradually started to look like life. Not a victory, not a celebration, but a normal adult life.
And just then the doorbell rang. Unexpected. With that nasty “ding” after which the heart skips a beat.
“Who’s there?” Victoria opened slightly, not removing the chain.
“Hello…” said a woman about forty with a tense smile. “I… um… Olya. Oleg’s wife.”
Ah. The one with the cutlets and the quiet wedding.
“What do you want?”
“Can… I come in?”
“You better say it straight. I don’t have time — the kettle’s on the stove.”
Olya swallowed and spoke quickly, as if afraid Victoria would slam the door.
“Adelaida Ignatovna… trouble. She fell, broke her hip. In the hospital. Oleg is on a trip, I have kids, I can’t cope. And she… well, she’s asking for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. She’s babbling about you, honestly.”
Victoria sighed. Life had a sense of humor. But this joke was already over the top.
“All right. Give me the address. I’ll think about it.”
She went the next day. Not for Adelaida. For herself. She needed closure. Real closure. Without half-words.
Mother-in-law lay in a hospital bed like a porcelain figurine — face pale, eyes stubborn.
“Ahhh, you came,” she barely said. “I thought you wouldn’t.”
“I’m shocked myself. Alive?”
“For now, yes. But temporarily. The doctor said if there’s no constant care, complications may start.”
“So you’re bargaining with the will?”
Adelaida smiled:
“I rewrote everything. The apartment — to my grandson.”
“You don’t have a grandson.”
“He will. Olya is pregnant.”
“Congratulations. Just keep in mind — he’ll live about twenty years before he’s an adult. And the will works a bit faster.”
“That’s why I’m calling you.”
“To take care?”
“To live with me. In the apartment. Help. I can’t afford a nanny.”
“Why me? You have a daughter-in-law, son, friends.”
“Because you’re the only one not afraid to tell me the truth. Who doesn’t play games.”
Victoria sat on the edge of the bed.
“And what will I get for my honesty?”
“The apartment. The will again in your name. I’ll sign it in front of you. And submit it to the notary.”
“How much longer do you have to live?”
“Why do you ask?” Adelaida chuckled. “Planning a vacation?”
They both laughed. Like humans. For the first time in all this time.
Victoria moved in a week later. Honestly warned she would work, not jump around with porridge by the bed. Adelaida agreed. Where to go?
They lived like that for a month. Quietly. Without hysteria. Sometimes even talked. Once they even watched TV together — a show about divorces. They both laughed.
“Listen, at first I hated you,” the mother-in-law admitted once. “You were too proper. Too confident. I couldn’t stand women like that.”
“And I hated you — for always poking your nose everywhere.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re like old mothers-in-law and ex-wives. Nothing left to share. We both survived the same man.”
“Yeah, trophies.”
But the ending came unexpectedly. As life often does.
Victoria came home late at night. Silence in the kitchen. In the room — Adelaida in a chair, eyes closed.
“Fell asleep in an uncomfortable position again,” Victoria grumbled. “I told you, your neck will hurt later.”
But no answer.
The funeral was modest. Victoria organized everything herself. Oleg arrived only the next day, with Olya and a juice box.
“I heard you lived with her again,” he started, standing by the elevator.
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re a father. And the apartment is mine. The will exists, the notary confirmed it. You don’t mind?”
“Did I have a choice?”
“No. Neither did she. She chose me. Because in the end she wanted not to be a mistress — but simply a person.”
“You’ve changed,” he muttered.
“I’m just not a fool anymore. Left when needed. Came back when needed. And now — I’m leaving for good.”
He tried to say something, but Victoria had already entered the elevator. The doors closed.
Two weeks later she put up an ad. The apartment — a three-room in an old building but with potential. She didn’t need the money. But for something else. For a new beginning.
On the Volga shore, in a small village, she bought a little house. One floor. Simple furniture. Neighbors — elderly. There was not a single person who knew Oleg. Or Adelaida. Or that Victoria who once silently left when she was kicked out of her own kitchen.
She went out on the porch. Sat down. The wind blew.
And for the first time in a long time, she smiled — truly. Not out of politeness. Because she knew: now everything was hers.
And life — too.
