— Mom, please, just for an hour, — Andrey was saying it for the third time, and with each repetition his voice grew thinner and more pleading. He stood in the middle of their small living room, feeling like an awkward teenager caught off guard.
Galina Borisovna didn’t even turn her head. She sat in the only armchair Oksana loved so much, ramrod straight, and looked with disdain at the children’s drawings taped to the fridge door. Her silence was louder than any rebuke. She had arrived forty minutes earlier without calling — simply appeared on the doorstep with a suitcase and the expression of someone to whom everyone owes something. Now, with her regal presence, she was turning their cozy family apartment into a satellite of a VIP lounge.
— Mom, the train arrives in an hour and a half. I have to get to the station, meet Oksana… You understand, she’ll be tired after the trip, with bags.
He helplessly swept his gaze around the room. Five-year-old Misha was intently building a crooked tower out of blocks, and three-year-old Katya was trying to feed a plastic carrot to a plush rabbit. The ordinary peaceful bustle that an hour ago had seemed like normal life now looked like flagrant disorder, compromising him in his mother’s eyes.
At last, Galina Borisovna deigned to react. Slowly, with a grimace of disgust, she shifted her gaze from the refrigerator to her grandchildren, as if appraising shoddy merchandise.
— Andrey, — she pronounced his name as though rinsing her mouth with something unpleasant. — I’m going to tell you something, and you try to get it the first time.
— What is it?
— I don’t need your kids here even for free, sonny! I came to you to relax, not to look after your brood! So I won’t even stay in the same room with them!
She didn’t raise her voice. Her words dropped into the room like heavy, cold stones, driving all the air out. Andrey felt the blood rush to his face. It wasn’t just refusal — it was a public annulment of his children, his family, his life.
— But it’s just an hour… — he mumbled, already sensing how futile his words were.
— I don’t care, — she cut him off and, rising gracefully from the chair, headed not for the door but deeper into the apartment. Her gait was that of a mistress inspecting her domain. She was walking straight into his and Oksana’s bedroom.
On autopilot, Andrey moved after her. He couldn’t formulate what he wanted to say or do, but her very movement toward their private space triggered a dull panic in him.
Galina Borisovna entered the bedroom and, without slowing, went to the big sliding wardrobe. With a soft squeak she pushed the mirrored door aside. Her gaze slid methodically, without the slightest interest, over his shirts and suits and came to rest on Oksana’s side.
— Well then, let’s see what your fashionista has for the evening, — she said more to herself than to him. Her hand, adorned with a massive gold ring, plunged into the row of neatly hung dresses. She shoved hangers aside with such breezy insolence it was as if she were rifling through rags in a thrift store. — What’s this sack? My God, that color… And this, I suppose, is for “going out”?
She spoke calmly, with a faint note of investigative curiosity, which was more frightening than open aggression. Andrey stood in the doorway, paralyzed. He watched those foreign, imperious hands rummaging through his wife’s things, touching her underwear, judging her dresses, and he couldn’t say a word. He should have stopped her. He should have said, “Mom, stop. Those are Oksana’s things.” But his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. This wasn’t just a woman — this was his mother, a force of nature he had been trained to obey since childhood. Any protest felt unthinkable, like trying to stop an avalanche with bare hands.
His mute presence in the doorway meant nothing to her. Galina Borisovna acted with the method and entitlement that only a long, unquestioned maternal status could confer. She wasn’t just rooting through her daughter-in-law’s belongings — she was conducting an audit of someone else’s life, issuing a silent but perfectly clear verdict. She pulled out a silk slip dress, held it by two fingers as if it were something indecent, and with a little snort of disdain tossed it onto the bed. It landed on Oksana’s pillow, crumpling like a discarded napkin.
Andrey swallowed. Scalding shame rose from somewhere deep in his gut and burned his throat. He didn’t just feel like a bad husband — he felt like an accomplice. Every gesture she made, every appraising look — all of it was happening with his tacit consent. The children in the next room had fallen quiet, and in that sudden silence the squeak of hangers along the metal rod sounded deafening.
— Mom, don’t, please, — he finally managed. His voice sounded weak, unconvincing. — Oksana will be upset. Those are her things.
Without turning around, Galina Borisovna answered while continuing to sort through the outfits:
— So what if they’re hers? It’s not like a stranger is taking them. Or does your wife already think I’m a stranger? I knew she was turning you against me. Bought rags worth three paychecks, and her mother-in-law comes once a year — and she begrudges me.
She turned her shoulders toward him; her face was utterly calm, even righteous. In her world, everything was logical and proper. She was the mother. She had the right. And any attempt to dispute that right was a rebellion to be crushed in the bud. Andrey opened his mouth to object, to say that Oksana wasn’t begrudging anything, that this wasn’t the point, but the words jammed somewhere in his chest. What could he even say? That she was violating every imaginable rule? To her, those rules didn’t exist.
Her choice fell on a dark blue velvet dress. New, with a barely noticeable cardboard tag at the collar. Oksana had bought it for their anniversary and hadn’t worn it yet, saving it for a special occasion. Galina Borisovna took the dress off the hanger and held it up to herself, gazing at her reflection in the mirrored door.
— Well, at least something decent, — she nodded approvingly. — She’s always in those pants of hers, like a little boy.
With that she began unbuttoning her travel cardigan right there in the middle of the bedroom. Andrey wanted to turn away, to leave, to sink through the floor. But he kept standing there, as if nailed in place, watching this profanation of their most private space. He saw her take off her clothes and put on his wife’s dress. The velvet clung to her heavy figure in a way it was never meant to fit Oksana’s slender frame, but that didn’t seem to bother Galina Borisovna at all. She went to the dressing table, moved Oksana’s perfume bottle aside, and, leaning toward the mirror, began fixing her hair.
— There now. Much better, — she said, admiring herself. — And tell me, where was she going dressed like this? To the store for bread? Just throwing money away.
She turned toward him, expecting approval, and at that very moment his jeans pocket buzzed briefly. Andrey pulled out his phone. On the screen glowed a message from Oksana. Two words that chilled him inside: “We’re pulling up. Come out.”
The door lock clicked with a dry, final sound that, to Andrey, went off like the starter pistol for a race he had already lost. He froze, unable even to turn around. A moment later Oksana appeared in the hallway. Tired from the road, with a travel bag on her shoulder and a light jacket thrown over her arm. She stopped, and her gaze, which had first slid over the suddenly subdued children, moved slowly to her husband, and then — into the bedroom, where, like a monument to someone else’s brazen impudence, stood his mother.
She didn’t say a word. There was no surprised gasp, no angry shout. The traces of travel fatigue on her face vanished for an instant, leaving it absolutely impassive, like a mask. She looked at Galina Borisovna, dressed in her new velvet dress, and there was no question in her eyes. There was only fact. Dry, indisputable, like a medical report. She saw everything: the dress stretched taut over a foreign body, the crumpled things tossed on her pillow, and the pathetic, guilty posture of her husband frozen between them.
Momentarily nonplussed, Galina Borisovna quickly gathered herself. She tried to play the gracious hostess welcoming a long-awaited guest to her own home.
— Oksanochka, you’re here! And we… I decided to help you straighten up a bit, tried this on, too — thought maybe we’d sit together this evening, celebrate my arrival.
Her voice sounded falsely cheerful, but the falseness shattered against the wall of Oksana’s silence. Oksana slowly set her bag and jacket on the floor. She took a step forward, skirting her husband as if he weren’t there at all. Andrey didn’t just feel superfluous — he felt invisible, a piece of furniture unworthy of even a passing glance.
She entered the bedroom. Her movements were measured, almost somnambulistic. She didn’t look at her mother-in-law or the mess. She went to the same wardrobe that, just minutes earlier, Galina Borisovna had been so unceremoniously inspecting, and slid the mirrored door aside. Her hand reached confidently into the depths, past the festive hangers, and drew out an old terrycloth bathrobe. Faded from many washings, the color worn in places, loops pulled on the sleeves. The very robe she wore while drinking her morning coffee and sometimes when she ran out onto the balcony. A completely domestic, intimate thing, not meant for other eyes.
Oksana turned. She held the robe out in front of her at arm’s length, like a flag of capitulation offered to an enemy. She took a few steps toward her mother-in-law and stopped. The silence in the room grew so dense it seemed you could touch it. Even the children stopped fidgeting and froze, sensing the change in the air.
— Get changed, — Oksana’s voice was terrifyingly calm. Quiet, even, without a single quiver. It wasn’t a command or a request. It was a statement of the inevitable.
Galina Borisovna went rigid, her face slowly flushing a deep crimson. She looked from the humiliating robe in her daughter-in-law’s hands to her cold, indifferent face. At last the full scope of the insult dawned on her. She hadn’t just been caught out — she had been publicly, silently reduced to the level of a servant to whom one tosses work clothes.
— You… what?! — she gasped, her usual authoritative manner collapsing into a ragged screech. — How dare you order me around! What is this supposed to be?!
Oksana didn’t answer. She just stood there, holding the robe out. Her calm was an absolute weapon. It devalued Galina Borisovna’s scream, turning her righteous fury into a pitiful, impotent hysteria. Andrey tried to intervene, took a step, started to say something, but met his wife’s gaze. There was nothing in her eyes but cold steel. And he realized that if he uttered even one word in defense of his mother, he would cease to exist for her forever.
— I’m talking to you! Are you deaf? — Galina Borisovna took a step forward, her face contorted with rage. She had expected anything: tears, shouting, accusations, a scene in which she would, as usual, emerge the victor by crushing everyone with her authority. Instead she collided with something new and incomprehensible — an icy wall of complete disregard.
Oksana didn’t deign to reply. She simply tossed the old robe onto the bed beside the crumpled silk dress. Then, just as calmly and methodically, she walked up to Galina Borisovna. There was no aggression in her movement; it was businesslike, like an orderly performing an unpleasant but necessary procedure. She took her mother-in-law by the elbow. Her grip was not strong, but it was unyielding. It was a touch that left no choice.
Galina Borisovna tried to wrench free, her body tensing.
— Hands off! Who do you think you are, you little brat?! Andrey, say something! Tell your wife not to dare lay a hand on me!
She appealed to her son, but her cry hung in the air. Andrey stood rooted, watching the scene as if it were a silent film. He was no longer a participant but a spectator. A spectator to the execution of his maternal bond, which his wife was now, before his eyes, coolly carrying out.
Ignoring the shouting and resistance, Oksana led her mother-in-law out of the bedroom. She moved with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing and will see it through. Galina Borisovna dug in her heels, tried to yank her arm away, but Oksana’s grasp was iron. They passed through the living room, by the children frozen in amazement, staring wide-eyed at the strange procession. They didn’t understand the words, but they fully felt the cold resolve emanating from their mother.
In the hallway, without releasing her mother-in-law’s elbow, Oksana scooped up her suitcase and travel bag with her free hand. Then she just as calmly opened the front door. The stairwell, with its dim bulb and scuffed walls, greeted them with an institutional chill. Oksana gently led Galina Borisovna across the threshold and set her bags beside her. All of this — in silence.
Only on the landing did Galina Borisovna seem to fully grasp what was happening. Her face went from crimson to ashen gray. She looked at Oksana, at her son’s door closing, and her rage gave way to bewildered disbelief.
— You… You’re throwing me out? From my son’s home?!
Oksana stopped in the doorway, her hand on the handle. She didn’t look at her mother-in-law but at her husband, who had silently followed them all this time.
— Your vacation is over, Galina Borisovna, — she said in the same even, colorless voice. Then her gaze locked onto Andrey. — Andrey, call your mother a taxi.
It wasn’t a request. It was an order. Final, definitive. She left him no room for maneuver, for compromise, for pitiful attempts to reconcile them. She presented him with a fact.
And at that moment she began to close the door. Slowly, inexorably, separating the stairwell from the apartment space. Andrey watched the narrowing gap, his wife’s face disappearing, and in the last second he saw her eyes — empty, cold, alien. The door slammed. The lock clicked, turning twice.
He was left on the landing. On one side — the locked door of his home, his family. On the other — his mother, who now looked at him with a hurricane of rage, humiliation, and contempt in her eyes. He was no longer caught between two fires — he was alone…
