So, tomorrow morning we’re taking the bikes to the new park, and then to that little Georgian restaurant that opened on the embankment?” Katya set a plate of pasta down in front of Alexey with a smile. Her voice sounded light, filled with the anticipation of a well-deserved rest.
Friday evening was spreading through their small kitchen with warmth and the smell of garlic and basil. Outside, the blue dusk was thickening, but here under the lampshade it was cozy and calm. Alexey was eagerly twirling spaghetti onto his fork, nodding. In his mind he was already flying along the asphalt paths, feeling the wind in his face and the pleasant heaviness in his muscles. After a stuffy week in the office, it was exactly what he needed.
The phone on the table buzzed briefly but insistently. Alexey glanced at the screen, and a faint shadow ran across his face. “Mom.” Katya noticed the change, and something unpleasant clenched inside her. She knew that look, that expression that always came right before the same thing.
“Yeah, hi, Mom,” his tone instantly became different: focused, businesslike, a bit guilty toward someone. “Yeah, everything’s fine. In the morning? The seedlings? Ah, I see… Okay. Yeah, of course, I’ll come by. Alright, see you tomorrow.”
Katya’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. The smile that had been playing on her lips just a second ago slowly slid off, like wax from a melted candle. She silently set the fork down on the edge of her plate. The pasta instantly stopped looking appetizing. Alexey put the phone face down, took a deep breath as if bracing himself, and tried to look carefree.
“Katya, the plan’s changing a bit. Mom needs to go to the dacha tomorrow morning, take the seedlings over. She says everything will freeze if she doesn’t plant them. The weather’s perfect for it. I’ll just run over real quick, and by lunchtime I should be back. The bikes aren’t going anywhere.”
He spoke quickly, without looking her in the eye, as if he were reading out a prepared speech. Katya slowly raised her gaze to him. There was no hurt or anger in her eyes. Only a cold, heavy fatigue. She was looking at him the way you look at a wall you’ve already tried to break through many times.
“We can’t cancel our plans every weekend just because your mom urgently needs to go to the dacha, from the dacha, to the market!” she said. “She’s an adult, she can call a taxi.”
The phrase came out even, emotionless, and that made it sound even weightier. It wasn’t a question or a suggestion. It was an ultimatum. Alexey frowned, his face taking on an offended, puzzled look.
“Katya, what’s with you? It’s my mom. What taxi? There are boxes, soil, everything gets dirty. Who’s supposed to haul all that junk for her?”
“And these are our weekends,” she continued in the same even tone. “The only two days a week when we can be together and not live in ‘fetch-and-carry’ mode. We’ve been planning this outing for two weeks. Did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget anything! And what’s going to happen if we go to the park after lunch? The world will collapse? It’s not like I’ll be gone all day. You really make an elephant out of a fly sometimes, honestly.”
He cut her off with irritation, as if her complaints were just a silly, inappropriate whim. He genuinely didn’t understand how their leisure and his mother’s request could even be compared. For him those were things from different universes, beyond comparison.
“Katya, it’s my mom. I can’t say no to her, it’s my duty,” Alexey snapped, putting a bold period at the end of the argument.
The word “duty” hit Katya like a dry branch across the face. She fell silent. But it wasn’t the silence of someone giving up. It was the silence of a surgeon who has found the source of an infection and is now planning the operation. She didn’t start arguing, shouting, or trying to prove anything else. It was useless. She had been through this dozens of times.
She stood up without a word, gathered her almost untouched plate and his already empty one. She went to the sink and turned on the water. A steady, cold stream poured from the faucet. Every movement she made was precise, without any fuss. She washed the dishes, put them in the rack, wiped down the table. Alexey watched her with a sense of relief, deciding that the storm had passed and that she would, as usual, “get over it.” He didn’t know that at that very moment, under the sound of the water, a cold and perfectly symmetrical plan was taking shape in her head. There was something far more frightening in that icy calm than in any shouting. The war hadn’t started yet. One side had simply just finished mobilization.
Saturday morning greeted Alexey with bright sunlight slipping through the gap in the curtains and spreading a golden stripe across the floor. He woke up easily, without an alarm, with the feeling of having made the right choice the day before. Yesterday’s conversation with Katya seemed to him an annoying but minor misunderstanding. So she got upset—who doesn’t? Women are emotional creatures. The important thing was that he was doing what was right, what a son should. The thought of his own responsibility warmed him from the inside.
He took a quick shower and put a cezve on the stove in the kitchen. The aroma of coffee mingled with his thoughts about the upcoming trip: he had to load the boxes carefully so as not to crush the fragile stems, then help his mom unload everything at the dacha, maybe even dig a couple of beds…
He poured himself coffee, took a sip, and only then noticed that Katya wasn’t asleep. She was sitting at the table in the far corner of the kitchen, already dressed. Not in her house robe, but in jeans and a thick hoodie. In front of her stood a cooled cup. She wasn’t reading, wasn’t looking at her phone, just sitting and staring out the window at the waking city. Her posture was completely calm, even detached. There was something unnatural in that stillness that made Alexey wary.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked, trying to keep his voice carefree. “I thought you’d sleep in.”
Katya slowly turned her head. Her face was unreadable, like a poker player’s. No trace of yesterday’s resentment or fatigue.
“Good morning. I’m getting ready to go.”
Alexey blinked, his brain quickly flipping through scenarios. She’d decided to come with him? To help? Or to continue yesterday’s conversation on the way? He didn’t like the second option, but the first seemed like a sign of reconciliation. He even felt a prick of tenderness. So, she had understood after all.
“Oh, well… okay,” he nodded, already imagining how they would both help his mother. “Then hurry up, Mom’s probably already set the boxes down by the entrance.”
He headed to the hallway, finishing his coffee on the way, and started pulling on his sneakers. Katya got up and slowly followed him. She took her windbreaker off the hook and pulled the car keys out of her bag. Alexey, already jingling his own keys in his hand, froze.
“Where are you going?” he asked, genuine confusion in his voice.
“With you,” Katya replied calmly, slipping on her jacket. She looked at him as if explaining something self-evident. “We just need to stop by my parents’ first.”
For a moment, Alexey forgot how to breathe. He stared at her, trying to figure out whether she was joking or not. But her face was completely serious.
“To your parents’? What for? Katya, I’m short on time. Mom’s waiting, the seedlings…”
“I promised my dad I’d help him go through the whole garage,” she said in a flat, measured tone, as if reading out the clauses of a contract. She didn’t raise her voice or put any emotion into her words, and that made them sound even heavier. “It’s hard for them to do it alone, you understand. It’s my duty.”
The word “duty” hung in the morning air of the hallway. Alexey felt the blood rush to his face. That had been his argument. His trump card. His unshakable alibi. And now she was using it against him, coldly and deliberately.
“What garage? You didn’t say a word about this yesterday! You just made this up now to spite me, didn’t you?”
“And your mom can wait,” Katya ignored his jab, looking him straight in the eye. Her gaze was as hard as steel. “It’s not like it’s an emergency, right? It’s not like she’s dying. Seedlings aren’t a heart attack. Unlike my duty to my parents. They’re not getting younger, they need help right now.”
She took a step toward him, closing the distance between them to almost nothing. The air between them thickened with tension.
“Or is your duty somehow more important than mine? Go ahead, explain the difference to me. I’m listening very carefully.”
The drive passed in silence that was denser and heavier than any shouting. Alexey gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. He stared straight ahead at the road, but all he could see was Katya’s face—calm, detached, with a faint, almost invisible smirk at the corners of her lips. He felt like an idiot who had walked right into a primitive but perfectly laid trap. Katya, meanwhile, looked out the side window, her still profile against the backdrop of the passing buildings seeming carved out of stone. She hadn’t just gotten her way—she was savoring the process, every kilometer that took him farther from his mother and closer to her parents.
The garage complex greeted them with rusty gates and the smell of damp concrete. Katya’s father, a short, stocky man in an old work jacket, was already fussing around the entrance to his unit. When he saw their car, he looked genuinely surprised.
“Katya? Lyosha? What brings you here? I don’t recall calling or asking for help…”
“Hi, Dad. We decided to help you with the garage,” Katya got out of the car with such natural ease it was as if this really were a spontaneous impulse. “You never have time for it. And it’s no trouble for us.”
Alexey slammed the car door a little louder than necessary. Her father’s words were the final confirmation. She had made all of this up. This whole “duty,” this whole “help” was a cheap, humiliating performance staged just for him. Her father, suspecting nothing, was delighted.
“Well, in that case, of course! Help is always welcome. I was just about to take down the old shelves, can’t manage it alone.”
They were swallowed by the semi-darkness of the garage. It smelled of old motor oil, dust, and cold earth. Along the walls were stacks of yellowed newspapers, cans of dried paint, old tires, a broken folding cot—the usual junk that it’s a pity to throw out year after year. The work was monotonous, dirty, and pointless. They moved heavy boxes of tools from place to place, dragged out boards covered with years’ worth of grime. Every movement was soaked in dull irritation.
Alexey’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He wiped his dusty hand on his jeans and pulled it out. “Mom.” He rejected the call and shoved the phone back. Five minutes later, it vibrated again. And again. He stopped even looking at the screen, but he knew who it was. He knew that she was standing at the entrance to her building next to the boxes with her precious seedlings, unable to understand why he wasn’t coming. Guilt wrestled inside him with boiling rage at Katya.
Katya worked calmly and methodically. With a businesslike air, she was sorting through a shelf full of old fishing gear, and her calmness infuriated him most of all. She seemed not to notice his dark expression or the constant buzzing of the phone in his pocket. She just did her task, step by step pulling him deeper into this absurd scenario.
“Lyosha, hold this here,” she said evenly, pointing at an unstable wooden structure.
At that moment the phone started buzzing in his pocket again, more insistently this time—now it was messages, one after another. The screen kept lighting up, shining through the fabric of his jeans. Alexey pictured his elderly mother shifting from foot to foot in the chilly morning air, and something inside him snapped.
“That’s it,” he cut her off, dropping the coil of rusty wire he’d been holding. It clattered against the concrete floor. “I’m done with this circus. I’m leaving.”
He turned and marched toward the garage door. Katya’s father froze with some iron part in his hands, staring at him in confusion. But Katya reacted instantly. She stepped ahead of Alexey by two steps and blocked the narrow doorway. Not hysterically, not throwing herself at him. She just stood there, arms crossed over her chest.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said quietly, but her words sounded louder than any shout. “We’re not finished. My duty isn’t fulfilled.”
“Get out of my way, Katya,” Alexey ground out through his teeth. His voice was low and threatening. He took a step forward, intending to simply push her aside.
“I said you’re not going anywhere,” she repeated, not moving an inch. Her arms crossed over her chest were like a steel lock. In the half-light of the garage, her eyes gleamed with a cold, unshakable determination. “You wanted to talk about duty? Let’s talk. Right here. Explain to me and my father why your duty, which consists of transporting flowers, cancels out my duty—to help my parents with heavy physical work.”
Katya’s father stood frozen in the middle of the garage, turned into an unwilling spectator on someone else’s stage. He glanced helplessly from his resolute daughter to his son-in-law, red with anger. The atmosphere, already tense, became explosive.
“What are you doing? Stop this farce!” Alexey almost hissed.
And at that very moment his phone, as if sensing the climax, started ringing again in his pocket. The loud, intrusive trill sliced through the thick silence. It was the one call he could no longer ignore. The last straw. Without thinking, he moved toward Katya, trying to sidestep her. His shoulder brushed hers. In the same instant she snatched the phone from his hand with lightning speed. He didn’t even have time to react. The movement was precise, quick, and merciless.
“Give me the phone!” he barked, his face twisted with rage and disbelief. He reached out, but Katya stepped back, holding the device in her hand like a trophy.
Alexey froze. He looked at his wife, at her calm face and at his phone in her hand, and suddenly understood what was about to happen. This wasn’t some impulsive act. This was the finale of her plan. He saw it in her eyes, in the way her thumb slid across the screen to answer the call.
“Hello,” her voice sounded even and businesslike. No hostility. Just cold statement of fact. Alexey stood in the middle of the garage clutter like a statue, unable to utter a word. All he could do was watch.
“Hello, Lyudmila Sergeevna. This is Katya.”
Pause. Alexey imagined how his mother, on the other end, was surprised and asking where Lyosha was and what had happened.
“No, no, he’s fine. He’s just a bit busy right now and can’t come to the phone,” Katya went on in the same icy, polite tone. She looked straight at Alexey, not averting her gaze. “We’re at my parents’ place right now. Helping my dad in the garage, there’s a lot of work here. You understand, it’s hard for them alone at their age. And Lyosha—well, he’s a good son-in-law. Fulfilling his duty.”
Every word was a perfectly aimed blow. She was using his own weapon, turning it into an instrument of public flogging. Alexey felt the hot flush of shame cover his face. Her father, who’d heard this, coughed awkwardly and turned away, pretending to examine a rusty bolt on the workbench.
“The seedlings? Oh, yes. You know, Lyudmila Sergeevna, I think it would be better if you called a taxi. There are special services, cargo ones, they’ll deliver everything without any problem. Alexey won’t be free anytime soon today. As I said, he has a duty to my family. We can’t just drop everything. I hope you understand. All the best.”
She ended the call. The soft click of the disconnect sounded in the dead silence of the garage like a gunshot. With the same impassive expression she held the phone out to Alexey. He didn’t take it. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Not the wife he had spent seven years with, but a completely foreign, merciless stranger. There was no triumph in her eyes, no gloating. Only emptiness. The emptiness of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult but necessary amputation.
Katya’s father couldn’t take it anymore. He dropped the wrench he’d been turning in his hands; it hit the floor with a crash. The sound snapped them all out of their stupor.
Alexey turned without a word. He didn’t look at his wife or his father-in-law. He walked slowly toward the exit from the garage complex, leaving behind the car, the key he’d dropped on the concrete, and everything that tied him to this woman. Katya remained standing in the doorway, watching his back. They both understood that this was the end. Not just of a quarrel. The end of everything. Piles of old, useless junk loomed around them, and they themselves were now part of that junk—broken forever and thrown out of each other’s lives…
