— “Here’s how it’s going to be, Zoyenka.” The voice of Tamara Igorevna, sounding from the kitchen doorway, held not a drop of sentiment; it was more like an order barked at a negligent subordinate than a conversation with a daughter-in-law. Without an invitation she walked into the spacious room flooded with morning sun; her sharp gaze instantly swept over the expensive Italian furniture, the gleaming surface of the induction cooktop, and the built-in coffeemaker whose spout was releasing a fragrant stream of freshly brewed espresso. Seating herself on a straight-backed chair as if it were her rightful place at the head of the table, she folded her plump, ring-laden hands on her lap and stared Zoya down. “So that there’s, so to speak, peace and harmony in your family, and so that I, out of the goodness of my heart, don’t meddle in you and Stas’s relationship, you’ll be kicking back to me, let’s say, twenty percent of your salary every month. For my silence and, shall we say, non-interference.”
Zoya, dressed in a strict yet elegant dark-navy silk loungewear set, slowly stirred sugar in her cup with a tiny spoon. She didn’t turn around right away, allowing her mother-in-law to fully savor the effect she’d made and her own importance. A faint, barely noticeable smirk played on Zoya’s lips—utterly at odds with the gravity of the moment Tamara Igorevna had intended. The air in the kitchen, a minute ago filled only with the aroma of coffee and the quiet hum of the refrigerator, suddenly grew dense, almost tangible with mounting tension.
At last Zoya turned smoothly; her calm, attentive gaze met her mother-in-law’s expectant one. There was no fear in Zoya’s gray eyes, no surprise—only a kind of cool, analytical detachment that always infuriated Tamara Igorevna. This girl, with her IT firm and sky-high salary, had never shown the proper respect due to the mother of her husband.
“Twenty percent, you say?” Zoya’s voice was even, almost velvety, but with faint steely notes. The smirk at her lips widened slightly, revealing a row of perfectly even white teeth.
“Exactly!”
“And nothing will split at the seams from my money, dear mother-in-law of mine? One more word on this topic and you can take your son back to live with you!”
At such undisguised impudence, Tamara Igorevna even leaned forward a little; her face—already prone to redness—began swiftly to turn crimson. Her plump cheeks quivered. She had expected anything—haggling, tears, complaints about life—but not such outright mockery.
“You… how dare you speak to me like that, you rude little thing?!” she hissed, forgetting all about her magnanimous “Zoyenka.” “I’m setting terms here for your own good, so that my son doesn’t run off from you to a normal woman who knows her place!”
Zoya set her cup down carefully on the granite countertop. The smile vanished from her face at once, giving way to a cold, hard expression. Her gaze turned sharp as an icicle.
“You’re going to set terms for me? And who exactly do you think you are?” she said in a completely different tone, with no trace of the earlier irony. “I didn’t pick your Stas up off a trash heap to pay off his dearest mommy. One more word about this and you can take your precious boy back to your place. I do love him, of course—but I most certainly am not going to keep a hanger-on in your person by paying for your dubious ‘non-interference.’ And believe me, I won’t miss you.”
At that very moment—when the tension in the kitchen seemed to have reached its peak and was about to spill over into a full-blown scene with shouting and flying dishes (though Zoya never went in for breaking dishes—far too irrational)—Stas appeared in the doorway. Still in a T-shirt and shorts, hair tousled from sleep, he looked with obvious puzzlement first at his flushed mother, then at his wife, in whose eyes a cold fire was flickering.
“Mom? Zoy? What’s going on here so early in the morning?”
Switching in an instant from anger to righteous indignation and hurt, Tamara Igorevna rushed to him, throwing up her hands theatrically.
“Son! My darling boy! Just listen to what she’s saying! She’s insulting me! She… she’s throwing me out of your house! Me—your own mother!”
Zoya didn’t even raise an eyebrow. She calmly took a sip of cooling coffee and, looking straight at her husband, dispassionately relayed the gist of his mother’s “business proposal,” missing not a single detail, including the quoted fee for “peace in the family.” She spoke evenly, without emotion, as if reading a news brief, and her imperturbability affected Tamara Igorevna more than any shouting could have.
Stas listened, and his face gradually lengthened. His bewildered gaze shifted from his mother—her face contorted with malice and the expectation of filial support—to his wife, who stood radiating icy composure and confidence in her own rightness. At last he looked at his mother with such undisguised disappointment that Tamara Igorevna even took a half-step back.
“Mom… are you serious?” Stas’s voice was quiet, but in it one heard a deep, almost painful bewilderment. “You really came here to… to propose this? This… this is just beyond the pale. Zoya’s right. If you actually came here with those intentions, then you’d better leave.”
Zoya walked silently to the front door and flung it wide open, letting in the fresh morning air, which seemed to diffuse the charged atmosphere a little.
“Please, Tamara Igorevna. And I don’t want to see—or hear—any more such ‘offers’ here. Ever.”
Realizing that, this time, her son was not on her side and that her plan had crashed and burned, Tamara Igorevna shot them both a furious look, full of undisguised hatred. Her lips twisted into a spiteful grimace. Without another word she whirled around and, nearly clipping the doorjamb with her shoulder, flew out of the apartment, leaving behind a trail of indignation and unspoken threats. Out on the landing came a contemptuous snort, then quick, retreating footsteps.
After that morning “visit” by Tamara Igorevna and her ignominious expulsion, an unusual, almost ringing silence reigned in Zoya and Stas’s apartment for several days. It wasn’t that they discussed what had happened much—Stas looked dejected and tried to avoid the subject, and Zoya, having achieved her aim, saw no sense in chewing over an unpleasant incident. She was the sort of person who preferred to solve problems decisively rather than masticate them endlessly. And yet the invisible presence of her mother-in-law still seemed to hang in the air, like a stale, unpleasant odor that refused to dissipate.
Naturally, Tamara Igorevna had no intention of giving up so easily. The frontal assault had failed, the little financial stream she’d counted on had dried up before it even began, but her arsenal of means was far from exhausted. She took a tactical pause to regroup and then began a methodical siege from another flank, choosing as her main target, of course, Stas.
The first calls were cautious, full of maternal “concern” and “worry.”
“Stasik, sweetie, how are you, my good boy?” Tamara Igorevna’s voice oozed honeyed sweetness when she called his mobile—usually during work hours, knowing Zoya would also be busy then. “My heart’s not at ease after that… misunderstanding. You’re not angry at your old mother, are you? I only wish you both the best. It’s just that our little Zoyenka has a temper; she doesn’t always understand what family values are, respect for elders.”
Stas mumbled something indistinct in reply, tried to change the subject, but Tamara Igorevna gently yet insistently steered the conversation back where she wanted it.
“You should take a closer look at her, son. She’s all about her projects, her ambitions. And you? Where do you rank with her? I look at you two… do you have everything a man needs? Attention, care, a warm dinner at home… Or does she just drag you around to restaurants and feed you ready-mades? That’s not life, Stasik, not a family hearth. A woman should be a keeper of the home, not a business-woman on the go.”
Zoya noticed how, after these calls, Stas became different. He didn’t recount the conversations to her, but his mood subtly shifted. He grew more quiet, pensive; at times a shadow of doubt or weariness appeared in his eyes. A couple of times he dropped remarks that grated on Zoya’s ears, because they sounded far too much like his mother’s vocabulary and “life wisdom.”
“Don’t you think you work too much?” he asked one evening when Zoya, coming home later than usual, was going through work emails on her laptop. “We hardly see each other.”
“I’ve got an important project due—you know that,” Zoya answered calmly, without lifting her eyes from the screen.
“Projects, projects… and life is passing by,” he sighed with a kind of universal melancholy Zoya had never noticed in him before.
Attempts at “accidental” encounters with her daughter-in-law in neutral settings were made as well. Once, when she and Stas stopped by their favorite café near home, there “quite unexpectedly” sat Tamara Igorevna with one of her lady friends.
“Oh, look who it is! Stasik, Zoyenka! And we just decided to have a little coffee,” she cooed, bestowing on Zoya a look of barely concealed triumph. “Come sit with us, why not?”
Zoya politely but firmly declined, pleading lack of time. But Tamara Igorevna still managed to let fly a couple of barbs, loud enough for the friend—and perhaps other patrons—to hear.
“Zoyenka, you’re as busy as ever, all wrapped up in things! Not a spare minute. And Stasik must be missing some homey comfort. What does a man need, after all? To be awaited at home, for the place to smell of pies. And with you it’s probably all delivery and catering, hmm? Well, never mind—that’s the fashion now, emancipation.”
Zoya pretended not to hear, keeping a mask of cool politeness on her face, but inside she was boiling. This woman was methodically, drop by drop, trying to poison their life, to drive a wedge between her and Stas, to cast her in the worst possible light—as a selfish careerist incapable of being a good wife. And the worst part was that Stas, though he tried not to show it, was clearly yielding to the pressure. His former lightness and cheer were giving way to a sort of gloomy fretfulness. He started nitpicking over trifles—his shirt wasn’t ironed “quite right,” dinner seemed “a little bland,” the apartment lacked “enough coziness.” These weren’t his words, not his thoughts—this was Tamara Igorevna speaking through him.
Zoya understood this was only the beginning. Having lost the open battle, her mother-in-law had switched to guerrilla warfare—and that kind of war was far more exhausting and underhanded. And Zoya felt how, despite all her self-control and ability to take a hit, a dull, leaden irritation was building inside her, ready to burst out at any moment.
Despite all Zoya’s efforts to minimize contact with Stas’s family, sometimes it was simply impossible to avoid. The anniversary of Stas’s second cousin, Antonina Sergeyevna—a good-natured but utterly spineless woman—was approaching, and refusing the invitation would have looked like an open demarche that Tamara Igorevna would surely exploit. Stas, whose mother had already drummed into his ears about “sacred family traditions” and “Zoya’s disrespect for the older generation,” looked at his wife imploringly.
“Zoy, please, let’s go. Aunt Tonya will be hurt, you know she will. A couple of hours and we’ll leave. Mom promised to behave.” “Promised,” Zoya snorted inwardly—but seeing the desperation in her husband’s eyes (he himself wasn’t thrilled about the family gathering, but dreaded another round of maternal manipulation), she gave in.
“All right,” she said curtly. “But if your mama starts her performance, I’m leaving immediately—and you’re leaving with me. Understood?” Stas nodded quickly, clearly relieved at even such a conditional capitulation.
The evening began surprisingly peacefully. The apartment of Antonina Sergeyevna—small and crammed with furniture in the flashy “expensive-luxury” style of the 1990s—was already full of guests. Relatives of varying degrees of kinship, noisy and merry, exchanged news and offered congratulations to the celebrant. Tamara Igorevna, one of the first to arrive, really was behaving with surprising restraint. She buttered up the hostess, showered the other ladies with compliments, and paid almost no attention to Zoya, who tried to keep a little apart, making small talk with some third cousin of Stas’s who turned out to be an unexpectedly interesting conversationalist, passionate about astrophysics.
