— Roma, it’s me. Can you come over right now? I urgently need some jars.
Zhanna Arkadyevna’s voice on the phone had no trace of a question. It allowed for no refusal, admitted no objections. It was that same insinuating yet steely tone Roman had learned to hate since his teenage years. He closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to hold on to the last of his evening calm. His shoulders, which had just relaxed after a long workday, tensed again, hardening into the familiar armor.
— Hi, Mom. It’s late, I just got off work. What jars? We’ll bring them tomorrow, — he tried to keep his voice even, without irritation, knowing that any note of protest would be used against him.
Alina, sitting with a book in the chair opposite, involuntarily lowered her gaze. She couldn’t hear her mother-in-law’s words, but she knew that tone perfectly well from her husband’s voice. That tone meant their evening was over. That now the usual slow manipulation would begin, as exhausting as a toothache.
— What kind of jars… Empty ones, the ones you have on the balcony! I’ve just got it into my head to pickle cucumbers right now, and Svetočka is feeling poorly, she can’t go to the store, — cooed Zhanna Arkadyevna into the receiver. — She’s flat on her back, the poor thing. And what, you’re tired? You don’t have the strength to help your own mother? I’m not asking you to carry sacks.
Roman was silent. He stared at a spot on the wall, and Alina saw a deep crease form on his forehead. He was trapped. To refuse meant listening to a half-hour lecture about his callousness and ingratitude. To agree meant jumping up now, driving across the whole city over a whim that was most likely just a test of his obedience. “Svetočka is feeling poorly” was a trump card that Zhanna Arkadyevna pulled from her sleeve every time she needed something. Thirty-year-old Sveta, healthy as an ox, was “unwell” on a permanent basis whenever it came to work, helping around the house, or going to the store.
Alina saw her husband open his mouth to object and realized it was pointless. It was simpler to spend half an hour herself than to listen to this performance on the phone and then look at her husband wrung out like a rag. She firmly set the book aside and stood up.
— I’ll go, — she said quietly, but so he would hear.
Roman looked at her with gratitude and guilt at the same time. He covered the receiver with his hand.
— Alin, don’t. I’ll go…
— Sit, — she cut him off. — I’ll be quicker.
She walked over, took the phone from his hand, and raised it to her ear. Her voice was deliberately polite, almost sweet.
— Good evening, Zhanna Arkadyevna. Roma is very tired; I’ll gather the jars and bring them to you within half an hour.
There was a moment of silence on the line. The mother-in-law clearly hadn’t expected that turn. Her game had been designed for her son.
— Ah—Alina… Well then, bring them, if that’s the case, — she finally squeezed out, unable to hide her disappointment.
On the balcony stood a cardboard box filled with dusty three-liter bottles. A relic of the past they somehow never got around to throwing out. Alina picked up the box with distaste. The glass clinked dully. She carried that box like a symbol of her husband’s obligations he couldn’t shake off. Heavy, empty, and utterly useless.
Her mother-in-law’s apartment greeted her with the familiar, stale smell of old furniture and something sour from the kitchen. The dim light of the building’s single bulb made the scuffed walls look even more depressing. Alina rang the bell. A few seconds passed before shuffling steps sounded behind the door.
Zhanna Arkadyevna opened, and as Alina stepped over the threshold, she immediately realized she’d been dragged into a pre-staged production. The scene before her was so predictable it provoked nothing but a dull, old irritation.
In the living room, drenched in the bluish glow of a huge TV playing some shrill talk show, Sveta sprawled in a deep armchair. The “poor thing lying flat” was scrolling through her phone feed, its screen casting a deathly pale sheen on her face. On the side table sat a half-drunk cup of tea and a plate with cookie crumbs. She didn’t look ill. She looked exactly as she always did—bored and utterly idle.
Standing in the pose of a mountain queen, Zhanna Arkadyevna measured the box in Alina’s hands with a heavy look.
— Finally. Put it here, on the floor, — she waved toward the hallway. — And don’t scratch anything.
Alina silently and carefully set the heavy box on the linoleum. She was about to turn and leave, tossing a perfunctory “good-bye,” but the mother-in-law clearly had other plans for the evening. She didn’t move, blocking Alina’s way to the exit.
— Since you’re here, don’t stand like a post, — she began in that commanding tone she used exclusively with those she considered beneath her. — See, there’s dust everywhere, Svetočka is a bit sick, and my back is killing me. Wipe down the dresser real quick, and then mop the hallway—you tracked dirt in with your box.
Sveta in the armchair looked up from her phone and couldn’t suppress a smirk when she heard that. She sat up a little to better observe the forthcoming humiliation of her sister-in-law. It was their favorite amusement: together corner Roman’s wife and then complain to him how inconsiderate and lazy she was.
Alina slowly straightened. She looked at the layer of dust on the dark polish of the old dresser, then at the satisfied face of her sister-in-law, and finally fixed her gaze on her mother-in-law. Something clicked inside her—not like the ring of a broken cup, but like the dull, final snap of a severed rope that had kept her tethered to politeness far too long. She looked straight into Zhanna Arkadyevna’s eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was calm and clear, without a trace of tremor.
— I wasn’t hired to be your maid, Zhanna Arkadyevna. You have an adult daughter who lives with you—let her scrub your apartment. I’m your son’s wife, and he and I have our own home and our own family. That’s it.
For a few seconds the apartment fell unnaturally quiet; even the voices from the TV seemed to go mute. The smirk froze on Sveta’s face, then slid off, replaced by outraged astonishment. Struck by such unheard-of insolence, Zhanna Arkadyevna lost the power of speech. Her face turned purple, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly like a fish thrown onto the shore. When her voice returned, it broke into a shriek.
— You… How dare you, you rude little thing?! In my house telling me what to do?! I’ll call Roma right now—he’ll divorce you this instant! Throw you out on the street like a mangy dog!
— Is that what you think? — Alina asked calmly, almost with curiosity. Without taking her eyes off her mother-in-law’s rage-contorted face, she pulled her phone from her pocket. She found the contact “Husband” and pressed call. Zhanna Arkadyevna fell silent, staring at her in confusion. Alina switched on speaker.
— Hi, Roma, — she said evenly into the phone. — Your mother demands that I wash their floors and windows, otherwise you’ll divorce me. Do you confirm?
A short, eloquent pause hung on the line. Then Roman’s weary, heavy sigh sounded.
— Mom, give the phone to my sister.
Still not believing what was happening, Zhanna Arkadyevna passed the phone to the petrified Sveta.
— Sveta, — all three heard Roma’s voice, cold as steel, — you have thirty minutes to put the apartment in order. If I come over and see you sitting while Alina is working, I’ll throw all your stuff in the trash. And you’ll live on your own dime. I’ve said my piece.
The line went dead.
With a polite smile, Alina took her phone back from Sveta’s slack hand. She nodded to the stunned mother-in-law.
— I’ll be going. Looks like you’ve got a full housecleaning ahead.
The door closed behind Alina with a quiet, courteous click that, in the ensuing silence, sounded louder than a gunshot. For several seconds, Zhanna Arkadyevna and Sveta simply stood staring at the door as if it were a portal to another reality to which they no longer had access. The TV’s blue light kept dancing indifferently across the walls, illuminating their bewildered, spite-twisted faces.
Sveta came to her senses first. She slowly sank back into the armchair, but her relaxed pose had become tense. The phone in her hand went dark.
— You’ve done it now, haven’t you? — her voice was quiet and venomous, like a snake’s hiss. — Happy? I told you not to mess with her; she’s not the kind to stay silent.
Zhanna Arkadyevna spun around sharply. Her face was still crimson. Shock was giving way to a blind, all-consuming fury that needed an outlet. And the only available target was her own daughter.
— You keep quiet, freeloader! — she growled, stepping up to the chair. — You sit here all day doing nothing! This is all because of you! If you were good for anything—if you had once cleared your own plate—I wouldn’t have had to ask that… that upstart! You’ve turned my home into a pigsty, and I’m supposed to clean up after you?!
— I didn’t ask you to call her and humiliate her! — Sveta shot back, leaping to her feet. — These are your games, Mom! You like pitting them against each other, watching Roma tear himself apart between you! You just didn’t calculate that his patience would snap! Now he’s going to toss MY things in the trash, not yours!
They stood facing each other—two women who for years had formed a united front against the outside world and, first and foremost, against Alina. But now that their common enemy had struck a crushing blow and withdrawn, their alliance cracked, exposing the mutual contempt that had been building up.
Their squabbling was cut short by a sharp, insistent ring of the doorbell. It sounded as if someone were pressing the button not with a finger, but with their whole palm. Both froze and glanced at each other. The same fear stood in both pairs of eyes.
Zhanna Arkadyevna went to open the door, trying on the way to arrange a suffering expression on her face.
Roman was standing on the threshold.
He wasn’t angry in the usual sense. He wasn’t shouting; his face wasn’t twisted into a grimace. He was absolutely calm, and that was scarier than any rage. His eyes, cold and dark, swept over the hallway, paused on the dusty dresser, slid to the motionless sister in the living room, and stopped on his mother. He didn’t say hello. He didn’t say anything at all.
Silently, he walked past them, striding purposefully into the depths of the apartment.
— Romochka, son, you’ve got it all wrong! That Alina of yours… — Zhanna Arkadyevna began at his back, but he didn’t even turn around.
He walked into Sveta’s room—the inner sanctum, the abode of a princess living at his expense. Without looking around, he went to the wardrobe, yanked the doors open, and pulled out several large black garbage bags that Sveta had bought but never used as intended. With brisk, methodical efficiency, he began sweeping dresses, blouses, and expensive jeans off the hangers and tossing them into a bag.
— Roma, what are you doing?! — Sveta squealed, rushing at him. She grabbed his arm, trying to stop him. — Those are my things! Are you insane?!
He looked at her as if she weren’t his sister, but a bothersome insect. With one motion he shook off her hand and continued. The second bag filled with shoe boxes holding new heels, the third—with handbags and cosmetics from the dressing table.
— Son, stop! What are you doing?! She’s your sister! Her heart is weak! — wailed Zhanna Arkadyevna, throwing up her hands, but staying in the doorway.
Roman tied off the third bag and let it drop to the floor with a dull thud. He straightened and finally looked at them.
— You thought this would go on forever? — his voice was quiet but filled the whole room. — You thought I’d keep funding this circus? Your idleness, Sveta, and your manipulations, Mom?
He took a step toward his sister, and she involuntarily retreated.
— Here’s how it is, Sveta. Either tomorrow you find a job—any job, I don’t care if it’s mopping floors—and you start helping our mother for real, not just in words, or these bags go with you to a rental apartment. Which you will pay for yourself. You’ll get no more money from me. Not a single kopeck.
Then he turned to his mother.
— And you, Mom—get used to it. Your source of financing and your errand boy are done.
He didn’t wait for an answer. He simply turned, walked through the apartment, and left, closing the front door softly behind him.
Left in the room were two women standing amid the ransacked wardrobe and three black bags like little burial mounds beneath which their former, comfortable life was interred.
Three days passed. Three days of deafening, unfamiliar silence. Roman’s phone stayed quiet. No plaintive calls from his mother, no passive-aggressive messages from his sister asking him to “put something on the card.” In Alina and Roman’s apartment, a fragile, almost tangible calm took hold. They had dinner, talked about their day, watched movies. They lived their own life, and that simple normalcy felt like something stolen—something that could be taken away at any moment.
Roman was tense; he was waiting. He knew his mother too well to believe she would give up so easily. This was the lull before the final, decisive assault.
And it came.
On Saturday evening, just as they sat down to dinner, the doorbell rang insistently—not the brief ring of a guest, but a long, continuous buzz full of righteous indignation. Roman slowly set down his fork, looked at Alina, and in his gaze she read: “It’s started.” He went to open the door.
On the threshold, like two statues of vengeance, stood Zhanna Arkadyevna and Sveta. They were dressed in their best outfits, as if they’d come to a tribunal where they were both judges and prosecutors.
— We need to talk. Seriously, — declared Zhanna Arkadyevna without preamble, looking not at her son but past him, straight at Alina sitting at the table.
Roman silently stepped aside, letting them in. He closed the door behind them and stood there, leaning his back against it, cutting off any retreat—which they weren’t seeking anyway.
Alina didn’t get up; she merely set down her utensils, awaiting the inevitable.
— All right, I’m listening, — Roman said calmly.
Zhanna Arkadyevna moved to the center of the room; Sveta stood beside her like a faithful adjutant.
— We came to put a stop to this, Roman, — the mother-in-law began, her voice ringing with barely contained fury. — We’ve put up with this for too long. Ever since… she appeared in your life, — she nodded disdainfully toward Alina, — our family has been falling apart. She turned you against your own mother, against your sister! She’s crawled into your head and controls you like a puppet! And you, blinded, can’t see that this parasite is just using your money!
— You spend everything on her, while your own sister has to beg you for the bare necessities! — Sveta chimed in, eyes flashing. — She lives in our apartment, and wears things you could have bought for me!
They spoke over each other, pouring out everything that had been simmering for years. Their accusations were absurd, but delivered with such unshakable certainty that for a moment they might have sounded true to an outsider. Alina was silent, watching them without hatred, with something like detached interest—like an entomologist examining unpleasant yet predictable insects.
Roman listened without changing his expression. He let them talk themselves out, reach the boiling point.
At last, out of breath, Zhanna Arkadyevna took a step forward and said what they’d come for.
— Enough. We’re giving you an ultimatum. Either that hussy gets out of our family and out of your life, or you’re no longer our son. Choose, Roman. Either us—your blood, your family. Or her.
Tension hung in the room. The two women looked at him defiantly, certain of their strength, the inviolability of blood ties, sure he would break.
Roman slowly pushed away from the door. He approached his mother, stopping close enough to see every wrinkle in her hate-contorted face. He looked her straight in the eyes, and his voice was quiet, steady, and therefore unbearably ruthless.
— You want me to choose? Fine. I choose.
He paused, letting them savor the moment they took for their triumph.
— I choose my wife. I choose my home. I choose my peace. I choose my life—one that has no place for your swamp. And do you know why? Because you aren’t a family. You’re takers. A black hole that only drains strength, money, and time. You, Mom, never understood that your son grew up. And you, Sveta, never wanted to grow up. The son who was your wallet and your shoulder to cry on died three days ago in your hallway. And I am a stranger to you. Alina’s husband.
He turned and walked to the front door, throwing it wide open.
— Your ultimatum is accepted. You are no longer my mother. You are no longer my sister. Don’t call. Don’t come. I don’t know you. The money is over. For good. Goodbye.
He didn’t look at their faces, where shock was turning into the horror of realization. He simply stood holding the door until they stumbled out onto the landing like the blind. Then he quietly, without a slam, closed the door behind them. He turned the lock.
Silence settled over the apartment. Real silence. The silence of freedom.
He went back to the table, sat down across from Alina, and took her hand in his.
The war was over…
