“Once again my son is starving!” Lyubov Andreyevna’s voice—like a drill boring straight into your ear—cut the kitchen clean in half. “Katya, all you know how to do is drag suitcases around! And your husband, by the way, isn’t a camel—he needs to eat.”
Ekaterina, standing near the sofa, calmly set down the half-packed pile and turned around slowly. Her eyes were cold as freezer ice, but her voice stayed even—almost tired.
“Let’s make this simple, Lyubov Andreyevna. You came for the weekend as a guest, not to stage an inspection for the ‘National Sons-Deserve-Care Society.’ What exactly are you putting on here?”
Her mother-in-law clicked her tongue and pressed her lips together like she’d swallowed a lemon.
“What, was it really that hard to cook dinner? Or do you only know how to talk to a frying pan through Excel? Sergey is a man—he needs to regain his strength!”
“And did you forget your ‘man’ has been sitting at home for three months, proudly playing the role of couch hero?” Ekaterina straightened and crossed her arms. “Who do you think pays for electricity, water, internet—and your Friday fish? A fairy with a salary card?”
“So now you’re throwing it in his face!” Lyubov Andreyevna snapped, yanking angrily at her greying roots. “My Seryozhenka is finding himself, actually. And all you do is count. Why don’t you count how many times you’ve had dinner with him this month!”
“He’s thirty-five, Lyubov Andreyevna. Not fifteen—he’s not supposed to be ‘searching.’ At this age people either find themselves, or at least start looking for work. Not ‘soul harmony’ on a kitchen stool.”
“Katya, let’s not turn this into a circus,” Lyubov Andreyevna spread her hands as if offering peace, “or you’ll start again with ‘nerves,’ ‘headaches,’ ‘blood pressure’…”
“Yeah. Only not yours—mine. My flight is in three hours, by the way. I’d rather finish packing than host weekend psychotherapy.”
She turned back to her suitcase. She moved with confident precision, like a surgeon: underwear into the mesh pouch, shirts set aside for ironing, laptop on top. Everything by the system. Ekaterina was a walking system—especially when everything around her started crumbling like a card house.
She’d been like that since university: while her girlfriends split their last cash between pizza and a taxi, she kept a spending spreadsheet and bargained a discount from the driver. And now, years later, she was called in only when a business had one foot in the grave and the other already asking for a priest.
Her phone buzzed.
“Yes, Mikhail Stepanovich, hello,” she said, lifting it to her ear. “I’m getting ready to fly. I read the documents. The hotels are a disaster—I know.”
She listened with her lips pressed tight. The situation was ugly. A small hotel chain on the brink. The market had dipped, the staff were demoralized, the accountant was sleeping with the manager—and the manager couldn’t count his own tips. Business as usual.
“A month?” she repeated with a faint sigh. “Well, someone has to save it. Yes, I can handle it.”
The line went dead. And right on cue—like she’d been ordered—her mother-in-law reappeared in the bedroom doorway, standing there like a ghost from an alternate reality.
“A month?” she drew the word out, suspicious, as if Ekaterina had said, “I’m going to prison for a month.” “You’re leaving for a month again? Seriously?”
“Uh-huh. That’s me—dangerous woman. One month away and the family falls apart. Though at the moment the only thing falling apart is your brine in the fridge.”
“What kind of wife does that make you?” Lyubov Andreyevna sighed, as though she’d spotted a grandchild with a tattoo that read I HATE OLIVIER SALAD. “A wife means borscht, clean floors, and a gentle ‘darling’ in the evening. Not profit reports on WhatsApp.”
The front door slammed. Footsteps followed—quick and guilty, in the rhythm of “go on then, Katya, take your little work trip.”
“You packed already?” Sergey walked in with grocery bags. He looked tired, hair a mess, but he still hadn’t given up the act of being a nice husband.
“Almost.” Ekaterina didn’t even lift her eyes. “My flight is in three hours. Put the bags in the kitchen, if it’s not too hard. Or, like Mom says—you’re a man, you need strength.”
“Exactly!” Lyubov Andreyevna flared up as if she’d been waiting for her cue. “Son, you have to tell her—enough with the running around! You’re a man, you’re the master of the house, not a background extra!”
Sergey set the bags on the floor and sat down on a stool, defeated—like a man no one warned that family isn’t only coziness but also a nonstop championship in psychological survival.
“Mom, we talked about this. Katya has work. She saves businesses. People. She earns more money than I do,” he muttered the last part almost under his breath.
“Then maybe you should put on a skirt and she can wear the pants?” his mother sneered. “Honestly, it’s ridiculous. A man without a job, a wife with a suitcase. A masterpiece in oil paint.”
“Sergey,” Ekaterina turned to her husband, “can I have a word with you? Without the third-row theater lines.”
With an exaggerated snort, her mother-in-law disappeared into the kitchen. A barrage of pots clanged behind her, like she was preparing for the apocalypse.
“I’m leaving to work, not to lounge at a resort. It’s serious,” Ekaterina said quietly. “And I thought you, as my husband, would support me. Not sing along with your mother about borscht.”
“It’s just… we barely see each other, Katya. I’m home, and you’re somewhere in Vladivostok. Or Khabarovsk. I can’t even remember which.”
“You can’t remember where the cutlets are in the fridge either,” she snorted. “And not long ago you said you were proud of me—that I was ‘your smart girl.’ Or were you in a Santa costume then, daydreaming?”
“That was… before. Before I lost my job. Back then everything felt different.”
“You know, I’m not blaming you for not working right now. I wish you were—but I’m not blaming you. But if you’ve forgotten who keeps this apartment standing, who pays for food and lights—I’ll remind you: it’s me. And if we’re being honest, you didn’t marry Cinderella. You married a crisis manager.”
She snapped the suitcase shut. Loudly. Even the kitchen pots went quiet.
“I’ll call when I land,” she said at the door. “And, Seryozha—stop repeating your mother’s words. You chose me, not her. Or did you want a wife straight out of a manual?”
The door slammed. On the other side remained silence. And Sergey. Alone. Well—almost.
“Seryozhenka, don’t be upset,” Lyubov Andreyevna’s voice drifted from the kitchen, sweet as daycare compote. “I’ll stay for now. I’ll cook everything for you. Let the career woman fly. Maybe at that hotel she’ll mop some floors—might remember she’s a woman.”
Sergey stared up at the ceiling. The ceiling—like life—said nothing.
The days of the business trip blurred into one endless marathon with no finish line. Ekaterina stopped feeling her legs, her back, her mind. Morning: meetings. Then mountains of paperwork, debits and credits, brain-melting sessions with departments. And every night: collapsing into bed face-first into the pillow, with one single achievement—sending her husband a short message.
“How are you? Anything new?”
His answer was always the same kind of “I’m alive, don’t bother looking”:
“Fine. Nothing special.”
Well, thanks, darling, for the overflowing emotional richness. Video calls—zero. He didn’t suggest them. And she decided: fine. I won’t be the first to wag my tail. Even though she missed him—especially that stupid grin he always wore when he saw her on camera. Silly, but familiar.
One evening she stared at her phone like it might respond on its own, without her help. Her finger hovered over the video-call icon. Hovered… hung there… and then jerked away. Pride, apparently, had been fully recharged—solid as steel. She sent a text. No emoji. No extra warmth.
Meanwhile, the project unexpectedly took off like yeast dough. Everything she proposed as crisis measures worked even better than she’d hoped. The reports climbed upward like a child’s fever on the third day of a cold. The director of the hotel chain nearly bounced with happiness.
“Ekaterina Alekseyevna, you’re a real wizard!” His eyes were wide and shiny like fish in the oven—round and slick. “Three weeks—and results like this!”
“It’s a team effort, Pyotr Mikhailovich,” Ekaterina said with a strained smile. She was tired—not of numbers, but of loneliness.
And then it hit her: she could go back four days early. Officially. Documents done, accounts reconciled. Everything neat and tidy.
Home.
The road dragged on like gum tangled in hair. She pictured Sergey opening the door, going a little numb with surprise, then hugging her—warmly, for a long time. Then a real heart-to-heart, like in a movie. And maybe—a new starting point. Or at least… a comma.
The taxi slowed at the entrance. Ekaterina exhaled, paid, pulled out her suitcase, and trudged to her floor as if she were carrying not clothes but a sack of bricks. She put her key in the lock—and froze.
The key wouldn’t turn.
What?!
She checked again—her key, her door. Definitely.
And then the door swung open.
On the threshold stood a woman holding a baby. Exhausted, braid crooked, house robe on. Behind her shoulder—a man. Calm. Like he owned the place. Which, apparently, he did—at least in their version.
“Who are you?” the woman pressed her lips together, clearly about to say something very nasty.
“I’m the one who should be asking you,” Ekaterina snapped, already feeling herself boil. “What are you doing in my apartment?”
The man stepped forward. Looked Ekaterina up and down—at the suitcase, at the passport she was already yanking out with shaking fingers.
“We’ve been renting this apartment for two weeks. With a contract. From the owner.”
“From what owner?” Ekaterina nearly choked.
“From a man. Sergey Viktorovich,” the woman answered uncertainly, rocking the baby awkwardly.
Ah. So that’s where we are. Goodbye, Katya—you’re “home.”
Ekaterina hit call. Sergey picked up almost immediately. His voice was calm. Of course it was. He wasn’t the one standing in the hallway with a suitcase.
“Who are these people?!” Her voice trembled—not from cold, but from rage that rises inside and steals your breath. “Why are they living in my apartment?!”
“Katya?.. You’re back already? I thought you still had another week.”
“Answer. The. Question.” Each word landed like a slap.
“Listen… not over the phone. Come to Mom’s place. I’m here. I’ll explain everything.”
“You’ll explain? Perfect. Wait there.”
She apologized to the robe-and-baby family, called a taxi, and forty minutes later she was at her mother-in-law’s door. Sergey opened it like a man accepting a pizza delivery, not entirely sure it was his order.
“Hi… come in,” he mumbled, staring at the floor.
In the living room sat Lyubov Andreyevna, looking like she hadn’t rented out someone else’s apartment—she’d hit the jackpot.
“Well, look who’s here—our traveler!” she cried, folding her hands like a conductor before an orchestra. “Back early, I see? The surprise didn’t work out!”
“What surprise?” Ekaterina narrowed her eyes. Something here didn’t add up. Or maybe it did—just not in her favor.
Sergey cleared his throat, scratched the back of his head, glanced at his mother as if she were the translator from Katya-language into human.
“We decided… well, Mom and I talked… basically, I moved in here. Mom gave us a room. And we rented the apartment out. Extra money won’t hurt.”
“We?” Ekaterina arched an eyebrow. “Since when did you become a co-owner?”
“Well, we’re husband and wife. Joint property and all that…”
“She was bought before the marriage, genius. And how could you even decide this without me?!”
“And when exactly were we supposed to decide it with you?” Lyubov Andreyevna cut in, batting her eyelashes. “You’re always on the road. We had to act, not sit around thinking.”
“Act?!” Ekaterina felt herself start to choke on fury. “And who gave you the right to manage my apartment?”
“Oh, come on,” Sergey waved a hand. “You don’t even need it. You’re barely ever there. And this way—it’s useful.”
“Useful? You rented out my apartment like a cheap bunk at a train station and you call it useful?”
“Don’t yell at my son!” her mother-in-law shrieked like a kettle. “He’s trying for the family!”
“For which family, exactly? For mother and son?”
“You only care about work, about career,” Lyubov Andreyevna snapped. “A man needs support! Not a laptop and Zoom!”
Ekaterina went quiet. She looked at them—and couldn’t believe it. Two people she’d considered close were sitting there calmly discussing how to run her life without her.
“Sergey,” she said, very evenly, “stay. Here. With your mother. I’m filing for divorce.”
“What?! Have you lost your mind?”
“No. I’ve just finally woken up.”
She left, slamming the door, and called a number right from the stairwell.
“Inna? I need your help. Urgently.”
A week later the tenants moved out. The baby stuck its tongue out at her as a farewell. Ekaterina only smirked.
Sergey received the divorce summons. He didn’t respond. Lyubov Andreyevna called—Ekaterina stayed silent.
“Pathetic, honestly,” Inna said when they signed the papers. “Does he at least work?”
“He got a job with a school friend. Carries boxes—and his ego. I don’t care.”
She lived alone again. But on her own terms. Without a “we” that felt more like a sentence.
Free. And happy.
And between us—she looked better than she had in the last three years. Even the neighbor on the landing noticed.
“Katya, what is it—are you in love?”
Ekaterina just smiled.
“With myself, Aunt Nina. And you know what? It’s mutual.”
