He dramatically hurled a bundle of socks into his gym bag, nearly knocking my favorite vase off the shelf.
“I’m leaving so you finally understand what you’ve lost! Spend a week alone, howl at the moon without a man in the house, and maybe then you’ll learn to appreciate being cared for!”
I stood in silence, leaning against the doorframe, watching the performance unfold. Inside, I was boiling with a mix of hurt and hysterical laughter. My husband, a thirty-year-old “boy,” was standing in the middle of my one-room apartment — the one I had bought long before we got married — and threatening me with his absence. Apparently, he truly believed that without his precious presence, the walls would collapse and I would shrivel up like an abandoned geranium.
And, as usual, it had all started after Sunday’s visit to Vera Timurovna.
My mother-in-law was a truly gifted woman. She could deliver a compliment in such a way that it made you want to hang yourself, and she gave advice in the tone of a general scolding a recruit for dirty boots.
Vitalik had come back from his mother’s place “fully charged.” You could tell at once: lips pressed thin, eyes scanning the room, nostrils flaring in search of dust.
“Anya, why are the towels in the bathroom mismatched again?” he began the moment he stepped inside, not even taking off his shoes. “Mom says it creates visual noise and destroys the flow of qi in the house.”
I took a slow breath.
“Vitalik, your mother last saw ‘qi harmony’ in some television program from the nineties, and the towels are hanging there so people can dry their hands,” I replied calmly, stirring the stew on the stove.
He frowned, walked into the kitchen, and jabbed a finger at the lid of the pot.
“Vegetables in chunks again? Mom says a real wife should mash everything into purée. It’s easier for a man’s body to digest. You’re just lazy.”
“Vitalik,” I said, setting down the spoon, “your mother only eats purée because she has no teeth left. She chose a third china set over a dentist. You, however, still have teeth. Chew.”
He turned crimson, sucked in a huge breath, clearly preparing to unleash another portion of “Mommy’s wisdom,” but then stopped short.
“You… you’re just ungrateful!” he finally blurted out. “My mother is practically a PhD in homemaking!”
“Vitalik, your mother worked as a dormitory gatekeeper her whole life, and the only reason she calls herself a ‘scholar’ is because she likes how it sounds,” I shot back with an icy smile.
He froze with his mouth open, desperately trying to find an argument, but his brain had clearly stalled. He blinked, ground his teeth, and waved a hand as if shooing away a fly. At that moment, he looked so ridiculous he reminded me of an angry penguin.
That was when he decided he would “teach me a lesson.”
“That’s it! I’ve had enough of your vulgarity!” he declared, zipping up his bag. “I’m going to Mom’s for a week. Sit here and think about your behavior. And when I come back, I expect this place spotless and a written apology.”
The front door slammed.
Silence.
It left behind a strange feeling of emptiness and… sudden relief. But the sting of insult still burned. He had stormed out of my apartment to punish me by leaving me alone in peace and comfort? A brilliant strategist.
Still, fate had a much better surprise in store for me than Vitalik and his tantrums ever could.
The next morning, my boss called me in.
“Anna Sergeyevna, a project is on fire in our Vladivostok branch. We need someone there tomorrow. Three months. Double travel pay, plus a bonus big enough to buy a new car. Help us out — there’s no one else we can send.”
I stood in his office and felt something inside me spread its wings.
Three months.
No Vitalik. No phone calls from Vera Timurovna. The ocean nearby — even if it was a freezing one. Excellent money.
“I’ll go,” I said without hesitation.
As I walked out of the office, a thought came to me. The apartment would be sitting empty for three months, and utility bills were getting ridiculous. Then, right on cue, my friend Lenka called.
“Anya, I’m in trouble! My sister, her husband, and their three kids just arrived from the south. Their place is under renovation, they have nowhere to stay, and hotels are too expensive. They’re loud, sure, but they’ll pay well and in full upfront!”
That was the moment the devil on my shoulder snapped his fingers.
“Tell them to move in tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll leave the keys with the concierge. Only one condition: if some guy shows up claiming rights — throw him out.”
That very evening I packed my things, removed everything valuable, boxed it up, and took it to my mother’s. Then I got the apartment ready for tenants. Vitalik wasn’t answering my calls — he was still “teaching me a lesson.”
Fine.
The next morning, I flew out. And into my apartment moved the cheerful Gasparyan family: father Armen, mother Susanna, their three stair-step children, and a huge, kind, but extremely noisy Labrador named Baron.
A week passed.
As I later found out, Vitalik endured exactly seven days of “heaven” at his mother’s house. It turned out Vera Timurovna was delightful only from a distance. In real life, her “love” could suffocate harder than a noose.
“Vitasha, don’t chew so loudly,” she corrected him at breakfast.
“Vitaly, why are you flushing the toilet twice? The water meter is spinning!”
“Sit properly, son, or you’ll ruin your spine and end up hunched like Uncle Borya!”
By the end of the week, Vitalik was ready to howl.
He apparently decided that by now I had suffered enough, cried my eyes out, and come to appreciate his greatness. Time to return home in triumph.
He bought three wilted carnations — presumably his symbol of forgiveness — and headed back.
As he approached the door, already savoring my fear and gratitude, he slid his key into the lock.
It did not turn.
He frowned, yanked the handle.
Locked.
He rang the bell.
From inside came a thunder of footsteps, like a herd of bison charging down the hall, followed by a booming bark that made the front door tremble.
“Who is it?” a deep male voice called out, thick with an accent.
Vitalik recoiled.
“Uh… it’s Vitaly. The husband. Open up!”
The door swung open.
There stood Armen — a man as wide as the doorway itself, wearing a tank top and holding a skewer in one hand. They had apparently been grilling kebabs on an electric grill. Beside him stood Baron, tongue lolling happily.
“What husband?” Armen asked, puzzled. “Anya not here. Anya gone. We live here. Rent it. Have contract. Paid money. Who are you?”
“I… I’m the owner!” Vitalik squeaked, losing all composure. “This is my apartment! Well, my wife’s… We live here!”
Armen gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder with the skewer, leaving a greasy mark on his shirt.
“Listen, my friend,” he said cheerfully. “Anya said no husband. Husband lives with mama. Apartment empty. So now we live here. Go to mama, yes? Don’t bother people. Susanna, bring the adjika!”
And the door slammed shut in his face.
My phone started exploding with calls a minute later.
At that moment, I was sitting in a restaurant overlooking the Golden Horn Bay, eating scallops and drinking white wine.
“Hello?” I answered lazily.
“What the hell have you done?!” Vitalik was screaming so loudly I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Who are these people in our home?! Why won’t they let me in?! I came back and there’s some circus living there!”
“Vitalik, stop yelling,” I cut in coldly. “You left. You said a week, maybe forever, so I could ‘learn my lesson.’ Well, I did. Living alone is expensive and boring. So I rented the place out. Three-month contract.”
“Three months?!” His voice shot up into a shriek. “Where am I supposed to live?!”
“With your mother, obviously. You’ve got it good there — puréed borscht and towels arranged according to feng shui. Stay there. Enjoy yourself. I’m on a business trip. I won’t be back anytime soon.”
“I’ll file for divorce! I’ll call the police!” he spluttered.
“Go ahead. The apartment is mine, I’m the legal owner. The lease is official, and I’m paying taxes on it. Are you even registered there? No. Legally, you’re nobody, Vitalik. Just a guest who overstayed his welcome.”
I hung up.
Ten minutes later, Vera Timurovna called.
I answered for the sake of the entertainment.
“Anna!” Her voice rang like shattered glass. “How dare you! You threw your husband out into the street! It’s inhumane! The Family Code clearly states that a wife must provide her husband with a stable home and a hot meal!”
“Vera Timurovna,” I interrupted, thoroughly enjoying myself, “Article 31 of the Family Code says spouses are equal. And the property certificate for that apartment has only my name on it. Your son decided to ‘teach me a lesson’ by walking out? Well, the educational experiment was a success. The student surpassed the teacher.”
“You… you mercenary little harpy!” she choked out. “A man must have his own space! You’re destroying the family! I’ll report this to the trade union!”
“Report it to the lottery office for all I care,” I laughed. “And by the way, Vera Timurovna, you always said Vitalik was pure gold. Well, keep your treasure. Just don’t forget to mash his food for him, since apparently he no longer remembers how to chew.”
She made some strangled noise into the receiver, tried to inhale enough fury for a proper curse, and then choked on her own outrage. The sound she made when she hung up reminded me of an ancient fax machine swallowing paper.
The three months flew by.
I returned happy, richer, with a new haircut and a perfectly clear understanding that I did not want my old life back.
The apartment greeted me sparkling clean. Armen and Susanna turned out to be wonderful tenants. Before leaving, they had scrubbed everything until it shone and even fixed the dripping faucet that Vitalik had spent a year whining about without ever repairing.
Vitalik appeared at my door two hours after I got back.
He looked pathetic.
Thinner. Gray-faced. Shirt wrinkled. Three months with his beloved mother had aged him ten years.
“Any,” he began, staring at the floor, “come on, enough sulking. I’ve realized everything. Mom too… she went too far. Let’s start over, okay? I even brought my things back.”
He tried to step into the hallway.
I blocked the entrance with my suitcase.
“Vitalik, there’s nothing to start over. You wanted me to learn to appreciate having a man in the house? I did. Armen fixed the faucet in half an hour. You spent a year moaning that you didn’t have time to buy a washer.”
“But I’m your husband!” he cried, and in his eyes I caught that same frightened look children get when they’re being pushed out of the sandbox.
“You were my husband. Then you became dead weight,” I said. “I packed your things before I left. They’re downstairs with the concierge. Give me the keys.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” he snapped, trying to summon his old aggression. “I’ll sue you for half the renovation!”
“Vitalik, my father did the renovation, and I have every receipt. The only thing you contributed to these walls was the wallpaper of your constant whining.” I smiled and looked him straight in the eye. “That’s enough. The show is over. Intermission ran long, and the audience went home.”
He stood there blinking, trying to understand at what exact moment his perfect plan to discipline his wife had turned into the collapse of his own life.
Then I shut the door.
The click of the lock sounded like the crack of a starter pistol for my new life.
People say Vitalik still lives with his mother. Friends tell me Vera Timurovna now controls not only what he eats, but what time he goes to bed and who he’s allowed to talk to on the phone. And he walks around hunched, quiet, always staring at the ground, as if afraid of stepping on one of the invisible landmines of his mother’s moods.
