“I’ll tear every last hair out of your wife’s head if she doesn’t learn how to speak to me properly, son!”
The voice on the phone wasn’t just yelling — it rang with barely restrained fury, cutting through the monotone office buzz like an ambulance siren.
Maxim instinctively pressed the handset closer to his ear and turned away from the coworker who gave him a quick, curious glance.
On his monitor, a complex annual report table was frozen mid-scroll, but all the numbers and graphs had turned into meaningless pixels.
Reality was in his phone — hot, sticky, aggressive.
“What happened, Mom?” he asked wearily and quietly.
“My friends came over, do you understand? Lidiya Markovna, Verochka! Respectable people, not from the street! I’m setting the table, chopping salads, the roast is in the oven. I called her — asked politely: ‘Yulechka, come help me for half an hour, I can’t manage alone.’ And what did she say?!”
Tamara Pavlovna paused dramatically, clearly giving her son a chance to be horrified.
Maxim stayed silent, picturing the scene in detail — his mother in her best apron, standing in the middle of the kitchen, phone in one hand, knife in the other.
In the living room — her friends, the main audience and judges of this little theater.
“She told me she was busy!” his mother fired out. “Said I should have given her notice! What kind of tone is that, I ask you? What’s that even called? She scolded me, your own mother, like some little girl — right in front of my friends! They’re sitting there blinking, and she’s lecturing me about planning!”
Maxim rubbed the bridge of his nose. He knew this script by heart.
Any situation that didn’t go according to Tamara Pavlovna’s plan instantly turned into a tragedy of universal proportions, and the guilty party had to be judged immediately.
He had no doubt Yulia really was busy. She worked from home, and her schedule was often far more packed than his office routine.
But for his mother, there was only one schedule — hers.
“Let’s go step-by-step, Mom. What exactly did she say? Word for word.”
“Word for word?” Her voice took on the metallic edge of offended dignity. “She said: ‘Tamara Pavlovna, I can’t right now, I have an online conference. I’ll finish and help, but it won’t be for another three hours.’ Is that normal to you? She’s putting her work above my request! I’m here waiting for her as if for a sacrificial lamb, and she’s staring into her computer! You need to bring her here immediately. She needs to apologize. In front of everyone.”
The demand was thrown like a stone — not a request, an order.
Maxim imagined rushing out of the office, dragging his wife by force into his mother’s apartment to kneel before the tribunal of Lidiya Markovna and Verochka.
The image was so absurd he almost let out a bitter laugh.
“I’m at work right now, Mom. I can’t go anywhere. We’ll talk tonight.”
“Tonight?! You don’t understand! The humiliation happened now! They’re sitting here saying what a snake you brought into the house! What a rude brat who doesn’t respect her own mother-in-law! I demand you deal with this immediately! Call her! Order her to come! Are you a man or not?”
He felt that sticky web of maternal manipulation wrap around him again.
She didn’t want the problem solved — she wanted power. She wanted a public show that her word was law and her son her loyal enforcer.
“I’ll deal with it tonight,” he repeated firmly, cutting off further arguments. “I need to work.”
He hung up before the next wave of accusations.
Setting the phone face-down on the desk, he caught his coworker pretending to be entirely absorbed in work.
Still, Maxim felt the invisible gaze. The shame was sour — as if he’d just been rolled in the mud in public.
The numbers on the monitor swam. Tonight was going to be long. Very long.
The apartment door opened.
The familiar smell of ground coffee and cool, clean air greeted him — no aroma of roast meat or boiled vegetables, like in his mother’s house, where the air was always heavy with kitchen bustle.
Here, everything was organized, almost austere.
Yulia sat at her desk at the far end of the living room, her silhouette sharp against the pale wall. Headphones on, eyes fixed on the laptop. She didn’t notice him right away.
He went to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and drank it in one go, feeling the cold put out the fire lit by that phone call.
Finally, Yulia removed her headphones and turned. Her face showed no guilt, no anxiety — just calm, slightly tired focus.
“Hi. How was your day?”
“Got a call from Mom,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. His tone was matter-of-fact.
“I figured,” she said with a small shake of her head. “She hung up when I told her I was busy.”
“She’s demanding an apology. Public. In front of her friends.”
Yulia slowly closed the laptop — precise, economical movements, like a surgeon finishing an operation. No excuses, no indignation. Just facts.
“I had a video conference with clients in Düsseldorf. We were finalizing edits on a project I’ve been managing for three months. The call was scheduled a week ago. I couldn’t cancel or interrupt it. I told your mother: ‘Tamara Pavlovna, I’m very sorry, but I’m in an important meeting. As soon as I’m free, in about three hours, maybe sooner, I’ll come and help however I can.’ She hung up. That’s all.”
She said it evenly, looking him straight in the eye.
In that calmness was such unshakable rightness that his mother’s furious tirade now seemed like the ravings of a madwoman.
Two images came to him — his mother, hysterical over salads and imagined insults, and his wife, steady and professional, doing the work that sustained their life.
The choice his mother had been forcing on him his whole life suddenly felt laughably obvious.
“Understood,” he said simply.
Picking up his phone, he called and switched to speaker just as Tamara Pavlovna’s demanding voice rang out:
“Well? Did you talk to her? Does she understand what she’s done? When are you coming?”
“Mom, I’ve looked into it,” Maxim’s voice was cold, even. “Yulia was working. She couldn’t drop everything just because you decided to invite guests at the last minute. She’s not your servant to be summoned whenever you please. She’s my wife.”
Silence on the other end. Then an indignant gasp.
“How dare you—”
“I’m not finished,” he cut in, sharper now. “You will not speak to her like that again. You will not threaten her. If I ever hear you do so, or try to order her around, I will make sure you never see each other again. Ever. Is that clear?”
The silence that followed was empty — not offended, not outraged, just hollow.
Maxim ended the call without waiting for an answer.
Yulia met his gaze — no triumph, no thanks, just understanding. She knew this wasn’t the end. Only the first battle in a war his mother had just declared.
Two weeks passed in unnatural silence. No calls from Tamara Pavlovna.
It was more ominous than shouting. Maxim knew his mother — she never retreated, only regrouped.
He waited. The blow came.
A Saturday morning phone call, her voice sugary sweet.
“Hello, dear. I was thinking… my birthday’s coming up. Not a round number, but still. I want to gather my closest ones. I’ll invite my sisters, my nieces. You and Yulia will come, won’t you? It’s very important to me.”
Every word was a step deeper into the trap. “Closest ones.” “Very important.”
Not an invitation — a summons to a battlefield where all the pieces were already in place.
“We’ll come,” he said, knowing refusal would be branded as betrayal.
On the day, they entered her apartment — the air thick with perfume, hairspray, and roast meat.
In the living room, the “tribunal” was assembled: her sisters Zoya and Nina, their daughters, and of course, Lidiya Markovna — the star witness for the prosecution.
All turned with identical, polite smiles. Yulia entered with a straight back and a neutral, courteous expression. Ready.
The evening dripped by in syrupy conversations.
Aunt Zoya heaped a massive slice of meat roll onto Yulia’s plate:
“Eat, Yulia, eat. You need strength. Modern girls are all about work and careers… but the most important thing for a woman is home, family. Feeding her husband, creating comfort. Maxim’s been used to home life since childhood.”
“That’s right,” Aunt Nina chimed in, glancing at Tamara Pavlovna. “I remember when he was little, always helping his mommy. He understood a mother is sacred. Young people today… they’ve got their own priorities.”
Yulia smiled politely, cutting off a tiny piece of the roll.
“Times change, Nina Petrovna. Nowadays many manage both work and family.”
The calm answer hung in the air. They’d expected embarrassment — they got none.
The offensive shifted.
Tamara Pavlovna, playing gracious hostess, told polished stories of sacrifice and maternal devotion, each ending in an unspoken rebuke toward Yulia.
“…and that’s when I realized,” she concluded one, “the most important thing in a family is respect. Respect for elders, for their experience, for their requests. Without it, the whole house will collapse like a card house.”
Nods all around, pitying glances at Yulia.
Maxim tried to steer the talk elsewhere, but his words drowned in the chorus.
He was no longer the son — just “the husband of that woman,” brought for a show trial.
The climax came when Tamara Pavlovna raised her glass.
“I want to toast my family,” she declared, sweeping a triumphant gaze around. “For those who are with me. For our traditions. Life is hard, and it’s important that the young listen to their elders, not brush off their advice, not put temporary things above eternal values. I wish my son wisdom, and his wife…” — pause — “…I wish her to learn that wisdom. To understand that family isn’t a job you can postpone for an hour. It’s service.”
A public sentence, final and binding.
Maxim waited for her to finish, then rose, laying his napkin on the table.
“Thank you for the evening. We’re leaving.”
Hand in hand, they walked to the door under stunned stares. No shouting, no tears. Just cold, decisive calm. He wasn’t playing their game. He was walking away from it.
In the car, silence. Yulia stared straight ahead. No questions, no comfort — her presence was enough. She trusted him to finish this.
“I need to go back,” he said.
“Alone?”
“Yes. This has to end.”
He turned the car around, parked at the same entrance.
He rang the bell. Aunt Zoya opened it — her smug smile vanished.
He walked past her into the living room, where the feast still smoldered. Tamara Pavlovna sat in the center, queen of her court.
Seeing him, she broke off mid-sentence, smiling as if he’d come to beg.
“Changed your mind? Came to congratulate your mother properly?”
“I came to clarify something,” he said evenly, stopping in the center. “All evening, you talked about a choice — that I had to choose between you and my wife. You staged this to force it.”
Her smile slipped, replaced by caution.
“You made your choice tonight, in front of everyone. Now I’m making mine.”
Pause.
“This apartment came to us in equal shares after Dad died. My half is all that ties me to this place. Tomorrow morning, I’m putting it up for sale.”
The room froze. The hum of the fridge roared. Aunt Nina’s mouth opened soundlessly. Tamara Pavlovna’s face turned to wax.
“What?” she breathed.
“Given the layout, it’ll be hard to sell separately. Most likely we’ll sell the whole apartment and split the money. You’ll get your half — enough for a smaller place, farther away. We’ll buy a house. In another city.”
No shouting. No threats. Just fact — cold, inevitable.
He looked at her one last time. The woman who’d ruled him with tantrums and guilt now sat surrounded by her court, utterly alone.
“That’s my choice, Mom. I choose my family.”
He turned and left. No one stopped him.
Behind him, the lock clicked shut — this time, for good.
