— Denis, hi! I’ve got amazing news for you!
Tamara Viktorovna’s voice on the phone rang with barely restrained excitement, taut as a string. Denis winced and pushed the blueprint away from him. He was sitting in his humming open-space office, and this brassy call from his mother felt like a marching band bursting into a library. Absent-mindedly, he ran his finger over the photo on his desk: him, his wife Katya, and their two sons, smiling into the sun at the dacha.
— Hi, Mom. I’m a bit busy—something urgent?
— It couldn’t be more urgent! — her voice slipped into a conspiratorial whisper. — I found a trip! To Turkey! Five stars, beachfront, all inclusive! It’s a fairy tale, Denechka! And guess how much? A last-minute deal, practically giving it away! Only a hundred thousand for ten days! We just have to pay by evening or it’s gone!
Denis sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He knew that tone. That tone meant the decision had already been made and he was merely the means to carry it out—the wallet that needed to open on cue.
— Mom, it’s great you found something nice, but I can’t. Not now.
— What do you mean, “can’t”? — the delight in her voice instantly turned into chilly bewilderment. — I’m not asking for a million. I’m asking for a well-earned rest.
— I understand. But Katya and I are saving right now. Artyom starts first grade in two months. We need to buy everything—from the uniform and backpack to supplies and a desk. Plus activities. You know what prices are like now. Every kopeck counts. We just don’t have an extra hundred thousand.
A short, ringing emptiness hung on the line, with only office noise seeping through—the hum of computers and distant voices. Denis already knew what was coming. He braced himself.
— So— — Tamara Viktorovna said slowly, deliberately, with not a trace of her earlier joy — you have money for school shopping for Katya’s child. But for your own mother, who gave you her best years, you don’t. Did I understand you correctly, son?
— Mom, don’t start. Artyom isn’t “Katya’s child,” he’s my son. And your grandson. And this isn’t a whim, it’s a necessity. Turkey can wait.
— Wait? — the voice that a minute ago had been chirping like a spring bird now acquired hard, metallic notes. — I’m the one who should wait? I, who worked two jobs so you’d have everything? I, who denied myself everything so you could finish university? And now, when I ask for a trifle, you tell me to “wait”? Is this her doing? Your Katya?
Denis clenched the pencil in his hand until it creaked.
— Katya has nothing to do with it. This is our joint decision. We’re a family, and we have a financial plan.
— A family? — she gave a poisonous laugh. — You had one family, Denis. Me. And this—this is an add-on. A very expensive one, from what I can see. An add-on that makes you forget your obligations.
He felt a dull irritation spreading through his veins. He didn’t want this conversation, least of all at work where anyone could overhear.
— Mom, let’s end this. I can’t talk now.
— Of course you can’t. You don’t like the truth. I thought I had a son, a pillar… Well then, I’ll just have to look after myself. My future. And think about my property, too. Who knows how life will turn.
It wasn’t a direct threat. It was worse. It was a cold, calculated jab at the sorest spot. The apartment they lived in belonged to her. She never missed a chance to remind him, but she had never said it so plainly.
— You have everything you need, — Denis said stiffly. — An apartment and a pension. Don’t manipulate me.
— I am not manipulating! I’m stating facts! — she screeched into the receiver. — Just know this, Denis: if a son doesn’t think it necessary to take care of his mother, then a mother doesn’t have to care about his well-being!
She hung up. For a few seconds the short beeps still rang in his ears. Denis slowly set the phone on the desk. The office noise returned, but now it felt distant and alien. He looked at the photo of his family. At smiling Artyom, who had no idea his school prep had just become the pretext for declaring a cold war. And Denis realized this hadn’t been just a conversation. It was the first shot. And it wasn’t fired to scare. It was fired to kill.
— I knew you wouldn’t call back! I suppose your wife forbade it?
Tamara Viktorovna stood on the doorstep like the ghost of yesterday’s phone call given flesh. She wore her best coat, and her face displayed offended virtue. Without waiting to be invited, she gently but insistently moved her son aside and stepped into the hallway. The air in the apartment, until that moment filled with the scent of frying onions and children’s laughter, instantly grew thick and heavy. Katya peered out of the kitchen, her face frozen in a polite but tense mask.
— Good afternoon, Tamara Viktorovna, — she said evenly.
Denis’s mother granted her only a fleeting, glancing look filled with cold disdain, as if Katya were part of the furnishings, unworthy of individual attention. All her energy was aimed at her son.
— What, am I not allowed to visit my own son without notice now? — she asked, taking off her coat and hanging it up with proprietary air. — Or do you hold office hours for your mother here?
Denis silently closed the front door. The laughter from the kids’ room faded. Boys, with animal instinct for shifts in atmosphere, fell instantly quiet.
— Mom, we settled this yesterday, — Denis began wearily, following her into the living room.
— We didn’t settle it. You presented me with a fait accompli, — she snapped, settling into his favorite armchair. She surveyed the room with a sharp, appraising gaze. The gaze of an owner inspecting the condition of property let out to tenants. — I didn’t sleep all night. My blood pressure spiked. I kept thinking—what did I devote my life to? So that in my old age I could hear from my own son that he has no money for me?
She said it to Denis, but each word was a poisoned arrow aimed toward the kitchen, where Katya, without a sound, had returned to the stove. Her back was perfectly straight. She sliced vegetables with methodical precision, and only the too-loud knock of the knife on the cutting board betrayed her tension.
— No one is saying there’s no money for you, — Denis tried to stay calm, but he felt the familiar helpless anger beginning to flare in his chest. — We were discussing a specific, ill-timed expense. A trip.
— Ill-timed? — Tamara Viktorovna gave a short, bitter laugh. — For me, this may be my last chance to see the sea! I wrecked my health raising you, spent my nerves! I deserve this vacation! I earned it! And now it turns out that some notebooks and pants for a first-grader are more important than your mother’s health!
She deliberately said “pants for a first-grader,” diminishing and belittling his family’s needs, reducing them to trifles beside her grand “well-earned rest.”
— Stop it, — Denis’s voice grew harder. — They’re not “pants,” they’re my son’s future. And I won’t let you talk about it that way.
— Oh, you won’t let me? — she leaned forward, her eyes flashing. — You’re going to forbid me? In this apartment? Have you forgotten whose apartment this is, Denis? Whose walls protect you while you build your “family” and spend money on people who are nothing to you?
In the kitchen, Katya turned off the water. The knocking of the knife ceased. The only sound in the apartment was the hum of the range hood.
— Katya is my wife. Artyom and Nikita are my children. They are not “nothing,” — Denis ground out through his teeth.
— Of course, — she drawled with poisonous sweetness, reclining again. — A wife. One today, another tomorrow. But a mother is one and only. It’s just that sons tend to forget that. Especially when someone whispers sweet songs into their ears.
She deliberately glanced toward the kitchen, where Katya stood motionless. It was an open, undisguised insult. Denis stood up.
— Mom, leave.
— What? — she raised her eyebrows, feigning sincere amazement.
— You heard me. Leave. This conversation is over.
Tamara Viktorovna rose slowly. Her face showed no more hurt or anger. Only cold, sober calculation. She walked up to Denis and looked him in the eyes.
— Think, Denis. Think carefully. Because my patience has limits. And so does my generosity.
— I’ve already thought about it, Mom!
— I’m your mother! And I don’t care that you have a wife and children! First and foremost you must provide for me, not them! If your next paycheck doesn’t show up on my card, then believe me, I won’t be leaving you any apartment! Remember that!
— I remember. And I repeat: leave.
She silently took her coat and went out. Denis didn’t watch her go. He stood in the middle of the living room, listening to her footsteps recede down the stairwell. When all was quiet, Katya came out of the kitchen. She walked up to him, took his hand, and squeezed it tightly. They didn’t say anything to each other. Words weren’t needed. They both understood this hadn’t been just a visit. It had been a reconnaissance before the decisive battle. And the battlefield—their home, their life—was already mined.
— Mark my words: you’ll end up alone! Nobody will need you! Not those little runts, not your wifey! Only I have loved you and love you still! And you…
The voice on the other end broke, but not from tears—from poorly contained, bubbling rage. It hammered at his ears like hail on a metal roof. Denis stood by the living room window, looking out at the evening city, at the scatter of indifferent lights. The phone in his hand felt red-hot. Next to him on the sofa sat Katya. She pretended to read, but Denis saw her fingers blanch around the spine. She couldn’t hear the words, but she understood perfectly from his expression what was happening.
An evening that had promised to be quiet—a rare island of peace after they’d put the children to bed—was irretrievably poisoned. Tamara Viktorovna’s call rammed into it like a battering ram. Having failed to get her way in person, she had switched to the final, dirtiest weapon—open blackmail.
— You think I’m joking? — she kept shouting without waiting for an answer. — You think I’ll let some stray girl and her brood dispose of my money, which I earn for you? Yes, me! Because the apartment you live in costs money! Huge money you’re not paying! So consider it my second salary that you’re getting! And I want my share!
Denis was silent. He looked at his reflection in the dark glass. At Katya’s reflection behind him. He’d stopped trying to get a word in. Any argument, any explanation now would only fuel the blaze. He just listened, letting the poison stream over him, feeling something inside change irreversibly. Something that had been stretched to the limit for years finally snapped. But it didn’t snap with a ring—rather, quietly, like a burned-out bulb. The warmth was gone, the light went out. Only a cold, sharp wire remained.
— That calculating creature of yours planned it all! — his mother ranted on. — She wrapped you around her finger, had babies to climb on your neck! And you’re happy to oblige—everything for the house, everything for her! And to hell with your own mother! You traded your own blood for that bourgeoise who’ll squeeze you dry and toss you away! And I’ll be the one left! Me!
He slowly turned and looked at Katya. She raised her eyes to him. There was no fear and no reproach in them. Only heavy, expectant calm. She trusted him. She was waiting for his decision. And in that moment he understood that his old life, where he tried to balance duty to his mother with love for his family, was over. There was nothing left to balance on. One of the pans had smashed to pieces.
Apparently, Tamara Viktorovna had run out of steam. Her breathing in the receiver turned ragged and loud. She waited for an answer, for capitulation, for pleading.
— Do you hear me, Denis? — she asked more quietly, but no less threateningly. — I’m giving you until payday. Not a day later. Either the money is on my card, or you pack your things. Do you understand me?
Denis shifted his gaze from his wife’s face back to the dark window. The city beyond lived its own life. Thousands of windows, thousands of families, thousands of stories. And his story had just reached its main fork. He hadn’t made his choice now. He’d made it long ago, the day he met Katya. The day he first held Artyom in his arms. He had simply pretended until this evening that you could walk two roads at once.
He brought the phone closer to his mouth. His voice sounded in the quiet room stunningly calm, without a single tremor. There was no anger and no hurt. Only ice.
— Yes, Mom. I hear you.
And he hit the end button. Without waiting for her reaction, without giving her a chance to continue. He simply cut the line. He set the phone on the table. Katya was watching him, a silent question in her eyes. Denis walked over, sat down beside her, and took her cold hand in his.
— That’s it, — he said. — Enough.
And in that one word was everything: a decision, an end to torment, the beginning of a new, unknown life. And the realization that tomorrow would be very, very hard. But it would be theirs. Theirs alone.
— Mom, come over. We need to talk about the apartment.
Denis’s voice on the phone was even, almost businesslike, stripped of any emotion. Tamara Viktorovna set the phone on the table, and a condescending smile of the victor slowly bloomed on her lips. It worked. He broke. She’d known it would be so. Where could he go with a wife and two children? She was driving over, relishing the prospect of contrition, maybe even tears. She had already prepared a speech about how mothers must be valued and how she, magnanimously, would forgive him this time. She would rise—majestic and merciful—and accept his capitulation. She even put on her best dress—the one she planned to fly to Turkey in.
She pressed the doorbell like a landlady come to collect a debt. Denis opened the door. He was calm. Too calm. Behind him, in the hall, loomed brown cardboard towers bound with tape. Thick black marker labels read: “KITCHEN,” “BOOKS,” “CHILDREN’S TOYS.” The smile slowly slid off Tamara Viktorovna’s face.
— What is all this supposed to mean? — she asked, walking past him into the living room.
The apartment was half empty. Familiar things had disappeared, leaving paler rectangles on the wallpaper and dusty outlines on the floor. In the center of the room, also surrounded by boxes, stood Katya. She was quietly packing the kids’ jackets into a bag. Seeing her mother-in-law, she didn’t greet her. She simply nodded, like to a stranger on the street, and went on. The air held no tension of a quarrel. It was the silence and focus of a train station before departure.
— I don’t get it—are you trying to scare me? — Tamara Viktorovna’s voice rang with rising panic and anger. — Putting on this circus to make me back down?
Denis didn’t explain. He walked over to the coffee table where a lone bunch of keys lay. He picked it up and held it out to his mother. The metal tongues glinted dully in the lamp light.
— You win, — he said in that same flat, lifeless voice. — The apartment is yours. We’re moving out.
Tamara Viktorovna looked from the keys to his face, unable to believe what was happening. This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted power, submission, money. She didn’t want empty rooms.
— You… you’ve lost your mind. Where will you go? Out on the street? With the children?
— That’s no longer your concern, — Denis cut her off. He didn’t look away. There wasn’t a trace of warmth in his eyes, only a cold, scorched desert. — You made your choice very clear. You traded us for a package tour to Turkey. Well, that’s your right.
He placed the keys into her numb hand. The metal was cold and heavy.
— From this moment on, — he continued, each word falling into the silence like a stone into a deep well, — you no longer have a son. And you don’t have grandchildren either. Ever. Do whatever you want with this apartment. Sell it. Rent it out. Fly to your Turkey every month if you like. We don’t care.
He turned to Katya.
— Ready? She zipped up the last bag and nodded. The boys came out of their room already dressed to go outside. They looked at their grandmother without interest, like at a stranger blocking the way. Denis took two big bags, Katya took the kids’ backpacks. Wordlessly, as one unit, they headed for the door. They walked past Tamara Viktorovna, standing like a statue in the middle of the emptying living room. They didn’t look back.
The lock clicked. Footsteps on the stairwell grew quieter and then faded away. Tamara Viktorovna was left alone. She stood in the deafening silence of her apartment, her fortress, her victory. The walls that only yesterday had been home to her son and grandsons now felt alien and cold. She unclenched her hand. In her palm, instead of a burning ticket to Turkey, lay the cold keys to her resounding, absolute victory
