“Here’s how it’s going to be, Vicky. We’ve talked it over, and we’ve decided there’s no reason for you to stay in this apartment right now.
Pack your things and move out to the country house for a while. Mom will live here. It’s closer to her clinic, and some fresh air will do you good.”
Ed’s announcement sounded as casual as asking someone to pass the salt.
He stood in the middle of my freshly cleaned hallway with his hands buried in his pockets.
The look on his face was unbearably patronizing—like some Roman nobleman who had brought civilization to the barbarians and, while he was at it, decided to confiscate their cave.
For the past two weeks, Ed had been carefully preparing the ground.
He kept sighing about his mother’s blood pressure and aching joints. He repeatedly pointed out that a two-bedroom city apartment was far too much space for just the two of us.
Then, as casually as possible, he asked where I kept the documents for the country house.
The night before, he had locked himself in the bathroom and turned on the water.
Unfortunately for him, our apartment had excellent acoustics.
Through the noise, I clearly heard his confident whisper on the phone.
“Everything’s under control, Mom. Just show up with your bags. I’ll put pressure on her, Vicky will lose her temper, make a scene, and leave on her own.”
“Leave the car keys on the console table too,” he added in a cold, commanding voice, as though the matter had already been settled.
“Mom needs the car for her massage appointments. Unlike your imaginary migraines. Maybe living in the country will finally teach you how to cook proper meals instead of being so tense all the time.”
I barely had time to blink before his mother, Alevtina Mikhailovna, appeared behind him.
She charged forward like an overloaded truck with failed brakes, grinding her orthopedic shoes into my fluffy white rug without the slightest hesitation.
In both hands, she dragged enormous plaid bags swollen to the size of small airships.
“Oh, finally!” she exclaimed, dropping the bags directly onto my light-colored sneakers.
Then she immediately opened the built-in wardrobe as though she had owned it for years.
“Clear this shelf. I’ll keep my medicine box here.
And take that pathetic orchid off the windowsill. I need space for my seedlings. Eddie, sweetheart, bring in the ficus and the box of pots from the landing!”
I leaned one shoulder against the wall.
One detail caught my attention immediately.
The zippers on the bags had been tightly fastened with brand-new plastic ties. On the sides, written in thick black marker, were the words “Bedroom” and “Kitchen.”
This was not an impulsive decision.
It was a carefully planned hostile takeover.
In their hands, an ordinary invasion of someone else’s home looked like an armored division rolling into a flower bed full of daisies.
But they had overlooked one important thing.
I had no intention of losing my temper.
Respect should never have to be begged for, and arrogance deserved to be punished publicly and without mercy.
I calmly walked over to the console table, opened a drawer, removed a property statement from a folder, and placed it on the surface.
“Edward,” I said, deliberately using his full name. “This is the ownership document for the apartment. One owner. Me. This is the document for the country house. Again, one owner. Me. The car also belongs to me.
Your mother’s name is not on the list of residents. And neither of you is on the list of people authorized to give orders.
The only thing here that truly belongs to you, Ed, is your inflated opinion of yourself. You’re welcome to take it with you.”
“Vicky, why do you always have to make everything about revenge?” Ed tried to preserve his icy confidence, curling his lip in contempt. “Don’t make a scene. Family property belongs to everyone. Mom is elderly. We already discussed this. And you’re clinging to your square footage like a dog guarding a pile of hay.”
“Family means taking care of one another, Ed,” I replied evenly.
“What you call compromise is cutting off my tail one piece at a time and expecting me to celebrate because I weigh less afterward.
No, thank you.”
“She doesn’t understand the situation!” his mother shrieked from behind her bags.
“I’m a sick woman. I need comfort. You’re young. You can commute by train. Your crown won’t fall off. Ungrateful little egoist!”
Alevtina Mikhailovna firmly unbuttoned her coat, preparing to hang it on my coat rack.
I stepped forward and caught her wrist.
Gently, but firmly.
“Keep your coat on, Alevtina Mikhailovna. You’re only passing through.”
“What do you mean?” Ed frowned.
For the first time, a crack appeared in his imperial arrogance.
“I mean exactly what I said. Ed, you told me to leave my keys on the table. Excellent suggestion.
Put your keys to this apartment there too.
Preferably right now.”
I looked at them with a faint, almost affectionate smile.
They froze.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about, you lunatic?” my husband’s voice cracked embarrassingly. “Where exactly am I supposed to put my keys? This is my home. I’m the man of the house!”
“Your home, Ed, is wherever you are officially registered.
That would be your mother’s old apartment.
It’s amazing how quickly some men become fearless masters of property that belongs to their wives.”
I turned around, walked into the living room, and rolled two large suitcases into the hallway.
My old, reliable, spacious suitcases.
“What is that?” Alevtina Mikhailovna recoiled as though I had rolled out an anti-tank mine.
“Those, Mother, are your son’s belongings,” I said clearly. “I packed them last night.
You know, Ed, when you were whispering on the phone in the bathroom about how cleverly you two were going to force me out, you should have turned the water up higher.
The acoustics in there are excellent.”
My husband’s face began changing color at an astonishing speed.
His respectable appearance peeled away like cheap gold paint.
“You… you were listening to me?” he shouted, spraying saliva. “You’re completely paranoid! Who would even want you with that attitude? You’re nothing but a vicious woman with an apartment! I only stayed with you out of pity. I’ll leave you myself!”
“A wife is not a free housekeeper who happens to own the place,” I said, folding my arms.
“And judging by your brilliant strategy, you’ve decided to tie yourself to a rock and sink with it.
The exit is right there.
Your suitcases, your mother’s bags, one shared door.
You have three minutes.”
“I’ll divorce you!” Ed was openly hysterical now. “You’ll crawl back to me on your knees, begging me to return!”
“Only if I run out of garbage bags.
Your time has started.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang sharply.
Ed flinched, apparently hoping for some kind of miracle.
I unlocked the door and opened it.
A grim-looking man in worn overalls stood outside holding a heavy toolbox.
“Someone call a locksmith?” he asked hoarsely, glancing at the chaos in the hallway. “Who’s the owner?”
“I am,” I replied with a pleasant smile. “Please come in. We urgently need to replace the lock cylinder. The old one has started letting in unwanted drafts and garbage.”
The locksmith shifted his heavy gaze toward the sweating, red-faced Ed.
“So the apartment isn’t yours?” he asked him dryly.
“No,” I answered.
“That explains why the lock is tired,” the locksmith remarked philosophically as he opened his toolbox.
That was the knockout blow.
Realizing that the comfortable apartment and free domestic service were both disappearing, Alevtina Mikhailovna groaned theatrically and clutched her chest.
But when she saw not a trace of sympathy in my eyes, she recovered with remarkable speed.
“Come on, son!” she hissed angrily, grabbing one of her enormous bags. “May we never set foot in this place again! Poisonous snake!”
Ed grabbed the suitcases, panting with humiliation.
He had to drag them onto the landing one at a time, tripping over his own feet and stumbling around his mother’s bags.
“The car… at least lend me the car so I can move everything!” he shouted desperately from near the elevator while the locksmith started his drill.
“Call a moving taxi,” I said coldly. “My car only carries people who don’t spit on it.
And don’t forget your ficus, Alevtina Mikhailovna.”
I closed the door.
The whine of the power tool sounded like the most beautiful symphony I had ever heard.
Fifteen minutes later, the new keys were safely in my pocket.
I walked over to the window.
Below, an epic scene was unfolding.
Red-faced and disheveled, Ed was trying to force the enormous bags into an old sedan that had just pulled up.
Alevtina Mikhailovna sat on one of her son’s suitcases, clutching the box of pots against her chest. Beside her feet, a lonely ficus stuck out of a plastic bag.
She waved her hands furiously, clearly saying something humiliating to her son.
Their miserable defeat was being eagerly observed by the elderly women sitting on the courtyard bench—the highest court of public judgment, from which no disgrace could ever remain hidden.
