Diana never liked Sunday evenings. It was supposed to be a day off—a time to unwind, have a quiet dinner with her husband—but instead there was a knock at the door, heavy as a verdict. She already knew: it was Inna.
And sure enough. On the threshold stood her sister-in-law in her usual style: stiletto boots, as if she wasn’t coming to her own brother’s place but strutting a runway, and a huge bag that could’ve fit half of Auchan. Beside her were her two kids, bored, chewing gum.
“Well hello there, you bunch of tightwads,” Inna drawled, knitting her brows like she hadn’t come to visit but to interrogate them. “I’m here again, no warning as always. But you don’t mind, do you?”
“As if we have a choice,” Diana muttered through clenched lips.
“What did you say?” Inna squinted, plopping the bag right onto a chair.
“I said come in,” Diana replied coldly. “Just take your boots off—no one’s going to wash the floor after you.”
Viktor, Diana’s husband and Inna’s brother, as usual pretended he wasn’t even there. He sat down at the computer and stared at the monitor as if he were urgently writing code on which the fate of humanity depended.
“Vitya, you’re the same as always,” Inna snorted. “Are you a man or what? Your wife is already ordering even your boots around. Watch it—next she’ll take over the TV remote.”
“Oh, come on, Inna,” Viktor mumbled without looking up from the keyboard. “Better to take them off, really.”
“My God, what a henpecked husband,” Inna smirked. “But why am I surprised? Our Dianochka is always the boss. Only she doesn’t have kids, and I, by the way, am practically a heroic mother.”
Something pricked inside Diana. That phrase was Inna’s favorite needle—“You don’t have kids.” How many times had she heard it over the years? Too many to count.
“Inna, maybe you’ll get to the point?” Diana asked evenly as she poured tea into mugs. “Or did you just come again to remind me I’m ‘not a mother’?”
“And what if it’s both?” the sister-in-law cooed sweetly. “You know times are hard for me. Those child support payments are a joke—eight thousand for two kids. It’s mockery. And you two, I hear, are doing great. How much does Viktor make now—one twenty?”
Diana nearly spilled the boiling water.
“How do you know that?” She jerked her head up.
“Oh please, it’s a small town,” Inna shrugged. “Rumors travel faster than a minibus. So I thought… maybe you could help me a little? At least fifty thousand.”
“Fifty?” Diana couldn’t believe her ears. “Inna, do you even understand what you’re asking?”
“What’s there to understand?” Inna laughed. “Your savings jar is bursting, you’re about to pay off the mortgage. And I have kids. They need jackets, and some clubs and activities. You don’t want them hanging around back alleys, do you?”
“Maybe you should start working, then, instead of lugging around bags with brand logos,” Diana said with a pointed glance at the shiny strap on Inna’s purse.
“Oh, is that jealousy?” Inna scoffed. “It’s a gift, by the way. Men give me gifts.”
“Men?” Diana snorted. “And here I thought your ex ‘gifts’ you those eight thousand in child support.”
Viktor coughed quietly, as if he’d choked on air. But, as always, he had no intention of getting involved.
“Vitya, why are you silent?” Inna turned to her brother. “Those are your kids too, you know.”
“In what sense—mine?” Viktor blinked.
“In the direct sense!” Inna raised her voice. “They’re your nephews. You’re obligated to help! Or has your wife dried your brains out completely?”
Diana clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms.
“You know what, Inna,” her voice trembled—not with fear, but with rage. “Viktor and I don’t owe anyone anything. We’ve been saving for years, denying ourselves everything, just to close the mortgage and finally breathe. And you’ve lived like tomorrow doesn’t exist. And now you want us to pay for your mistakes?”
“Mistakes?” Inna shot up from the table, eyes flashing. “You dare lecture me? You, who don’t know what it means to wake up at night to a child screaming? You don’t even understand how much it costs to feed a kid!”
“But I do know how much an apartment costs!” Diana snapped. “And I won’t let you crawl into our life.”
“Well, there it is,” Inna sneered. “So you do have money—you’re just greedy. Just like all childless women: only think about yourself.”
Diana shoved her chair back and stood. Anger pounded in her chest so hard it was difficult to speak.
“Get out.”
“What?” Inna lifted her brows.
“Get out of my apartment. Now.”
Inna froze for a second, then gave a short laugh.
“You’ve lost your mind. Viktor, tell her she’s crossing the line.”
Viktor looked up from his computer—for the first time—and suddenly said:
“Inna, leave.”
Those two words hung in the air like thunder.
Inna went pale, then grabbed her bag and called the kids over.
“Fine—live in your little box then,” she threw over her shoulder. “All the best, you tightwads.”
The door slammed so hard the kitchen windowpane trembled.
Diana stood shaking, an empty mug in her hand. Inside, everything tightened—anger, hurt, bitterness—but also a strange lightness.
Viktor came up to her and awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders.
“You said everything right,” he said quietly. “But now Mom will definitely tear us apart.”
Diana smiled bitterly.
“Let her try.”
She didn’t yet know that “try” was putting it far too gently.
The next day, the silence in the apartment felt suspicious. Even the clock seemed to tick louder than usual. Viktor sat with his phone in his hands, nervously scrolling through chats. Diana knew—he was waiting for his mother to call.
And it rang at exactly ten in the morning.
Viktor flinched, looked at the screen, and sighed as if someone had offered him a parachute jump without the parachute.
“Answer,” Diana said calmly, though her heart thudded in her chest.
“I’ll put it on speaker,” Viktor muttered. “Otherwise she’ll yell that I ‘quoted her wrong’ anyway.”
From the speaker came a voice that always made Diana’s fingers go cold:
“Viktor! What kind of circus was that yesterday?!”
“Mom,” Viktor began, forcing a tight smile as if she could see it, “we just had a fight with Inna…”
“A fight?!” his mother shrieked. “You threw your own sister out onto the street with her children!”
“No one threw anyone out,” Diana added quietly, stepping closer.
“Oh, so it’s you,” her mother-in-law’s voice turned icy. “I knew it. This is all your doing.”
Diana closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“Listen,” she said firmly. “We’re adults. We decide who we let into our apartment.”
“Your apartment?” the mother-in-law gave a bitter laugh. “Have you forgotten my husband—may he rest in peace—gave the money for the down payment? That means this apartment is family property.”
“Mom, are you serious?” Viktor cut in, barely holding back irritation. “We’ve been paying this mortgage for ten years. We have. Not Inna, not you.”
“And Inna, by the way, is alone with kids!” his mother was already shouting. “You sit at your computer, your wife fusses with her books, and that girl is tearing herself apart to raise two children! And you have the nerve to say you have no money?!”
“We have no money for her,” Diana said calmly but sharply. “We live modestly as it is. We’re not obligated to pull Inna out of her problems.”
“Not obligated,” her mother-in-law mimicked. “Of course. You don’t have kids. If you did, you’d understand. But since you don’t—you have a heart of stone.”
Diana felt her palms tremble. The line about children had become a mocking mantra.
“You know,” she suddenly smirked, “my heart may be stone, but my nerves are stronger than half your relatives’. Because everyone’s used to Diana being a walking wallet: you ask, she gives. And I’m tired.”
“Viktor!” his mother shrieked. “Do you hear how she’s talking to me? Are you going to let your wife humiliate your mother?”
Viktor covered his face with his hands.
“Mom…” he breathed out. “I get that you want to help Inna. But we can’t. And we won’t.”
Silence fell. Diana could even hear a drop fall from the kitchen faucet.
Then her mother-in-law’s voice came out slow and poisonous:
“Alright then, Viktor. If you won’t help your sister, I don’t want to know you. And don’t you dare come to my funeral.”
Diana bit her lip so she wouldn’t swear.
“Mom, don’t do this,” Viktor said hoarsely. “That’s blackmail.”
“What blackmail?!” his mother exploded. “I can just see you’ve been wrapped up by that snake. Listen to yourself—arguing with your own mother for the sake of some stranger!”
“Stranger?” Diana practically choked. “I’m his wife. Ten years.”
“A wife is temporary!” the mother-in-law snapped. “But a mother and a sister are forever!”
Diana felt such rage boil up in her chest that she couldn’t hold it back.
“Then you know what?” Her voice turned hard as metal. “Let them be ‘forever’ at their own home. And in our apartment it will be me and Viktor. And no one else.”
Her mother-in-law sucked in air as if she’d been struck.
“Why you… you ungrateful… you…”
“Mom, enough!” Viktor suddenly shouted—loud, unexpected. “Enough!”
Silence. Long and sticky.
And finally, coldly:
“Well then. If that’s your decision, Viktor—live. But without a family.”
The line went dead.
Viktor let the phone drop onto the table and sank heavily into a chair.
“That’s it,” he said dully. “We’re enemies now.”
“No,” Diana stepped up and put a hand on his shoulder. “We just put a period where there should’ve been one a long time ago.”
He looked up at her. In his eyes there was pain—but also something new: resolve.
“You realize they’ll do everything to destroy us now?” he asked.
“I do,” Diana nodded. “But I’m not going to be a victim anymore.”
And she surprised herself with how solid it sounded.
At that moment she still didn’t know the war was only beginning. And the next attack wouldn’t come by phone—there would be one right in their home.
A week passed. It seemed quieter, but the quiet was deceptive. On Saturday evening, as Diana chopped salad in the kitchen, the apartment door suddenly flew open.
Inna burst in—no knock, no “may I,” like she owned the place. Behind her came the mother-in-law, wearing a coat over a house robe, with a prosecutor’s face.
“That’s it, Diana—you’ve played enough,” Inna declared, planting her boots right on the mat without taking them off. “We came to put a stop to this circus.”
“What do you mean?” Diana breathed out, surprised—but she didn’t put down the knife.
“It means this apartment isn’t just yours,” the mother-in-law said triumphantly. “My husband paid for it. Which means it belongs to the family by right.”
“Mom,” Viktor came out of the room, pale as chalk. “Stop. We already discussed this.”
“We didn’t discuss anything!” his mother stomped her foot, her coat swinging open to reveal her home sweater. “I forbid you to throw your sister out of the house!”
Inna stepped toward Diana with a mocking smile.
“So clear out of the kitchen, dear. I’ll be living here with the kids now. And you… you’ll just have to squeeze in somehow.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Diana pushed her chair back, placing herself between the table and Inna. “This is our apartment.”
“Ours,” Inna hissed. “Family. And you are nobody in our family.”
Something exploded inside Diana. All the years of humiliation, all the “you don’t have kids,” all the sneers—everything tore its way out.
“You know what, Inna,” her voice was cold as ice. “If I’m ‘nobody,’ then you’re a lifetime freeloader. You live off other people’s money—your husband’s, your brother’s, and now you even use your children like a shield. But you will not live in my apartment.”
“Viktor!” Inna shrieked. “Tell her I’m right!”
“Viktor,” his mother backed her up, “tell her the apartment should be for family.”
Viktor shut his eyes. Took a deep breath. And suddenly said, loud and clear:
“My family is me and Diana. That’s all.”
Silence fell over the room. Even the fridge seemed to stop humming.
“So that’s how it is,” the mother-in-law went pale. “You chose her over your mother?”
“I chose myself,” Viktor answered calmly. “And my life.”
Inna snorted and shot Diana a look.
“You ruined our family. Remember this, Dianochka—you’ll cry for this.”
Diana smirked.
“I’ve already cried out everything I had. Now I only live.”
She walked to the door, opened it, and pointed:
“Out. Both of you.”
And—surprisingly—they left. With shouting and threats, but they left.
When the door slammed, Diana sank straight onto the floor. She was shaking, but for the first time in years her soul felt calm.
Viktor sat beside her and took her hand.
“We made it,” he said softly.
“No,” Diana smiled through tears. “We just finally started living.”
And for the first time in ten years, she felt that the apartment truly belonged only to them.
