Oksana, don’t make a scene. Vika and I have already decided: the children will stay with us until August,” Sergey said, setting a third travel bag down in the hallway.
I looked at the bags by the wall. These were not things for a weekend. Sneakers were sticking out of one, a box with headphones from another, and Ulyana’s pink pillow lay on top. Beside them stood Victoria, Sergey’s ex-wife, holding a bag of towels with such confidence, as if she had brought the children to a boarding house she had paid for in advance.
“Until August?” I repeated. “In my apartment?”
Sergey winced.
“Why do you immediately say ‘my’? We’re a family. They’re grown up. They won’t take up much space.”
“They’re grown up,” I said, “which means they will eat more than one pot of porridge and more than one loaf of bread. And they won’t be living with us. They’ll be living with me. In the apartment I bought before marriage.”
Victoria immediately stopped smiling.
“Oksana, you’re an adult woman. I have renovations going on, workers, dust, wiring. The children can’t stay there. Seryozha said you would help.”
“Seryozha says many things when he promises what doesn’t belong to him.”
The hallway suddenly felt cramped, filled with other people’s belongings and everything left unsaid. Danila, a tall sixteen-year-old boy with headphones around his neck, stood by the door looking at his phone. Roma had already put one sneaker on my light-colored doormat. Ulyana hugged her pillow to her chest and looked around the corridor as if deciding where she would put her makeup bag.
“Where am I going to sleep?” she asked.
“Nowhere for now,” I answered.
Sergey stepped closer to me and lowered his voice.
“Not in front of the children.”
“You shouldn’t have brought them here with two months’ worth of things in front of me. You should have spoken to me beforehand.”
Victoria irritably adjusted the bag on her shoulder.
“I thought the two of you had discussed it. Sergey told me you’d get used to it. You’re at work during the day anyway.”
That was when the apartment became truly silent. Not because everyone felt embarrassed. It was simply that Victoria’s phrase had finally pulled into the open what Sergey had been trying to hide behind the words “we’ll help” and “they’re grown up.”
He had never intended to ask. He had intended to confront me with a fact, then wait until I started cooking, doing laundry, washing floors, and buying groceries for five people.
“So I’m supposed to get used to it,” I said. “Good plan. Who came up with it?”
Sergey rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Oksan, Vika really has it hard. She’s alone with them.”
“She’s not alone. She has Andrey, the reason she’s freeing up the apartment.”
Victoria sharply looked at Danila. Apparently, she had not wanted that part of the conversation to come out.
Danila snorted without looking up from his phone.
“Mom, don’t talk about renovations. Andrey himself said he wouldn’t live with us.”
Roma raised his head.
“Yeah. And you said Sergey has a three-room apartment, and Oksana would get used to it anyway.”
“Roma, shut your mouth,” Victoria hissed.
I looked at Sergey. He was no longer arguing. He just stood beside someone else’s travel bag and looked as if he had been caught over some trifle. But this was not a trifle. This was a summer of my life, scheduled without me.
At first, Victoria’s children had come over for a couple of hours. Then for Saturday. Then for the whole weekend. Each time Sergey said, “What’s so difficult about it?” and an hour later disappeared into the garage. I was left with Danila, who ate at the computer; with Roma, who played videos at full volume throughout the apartment; and with Ulyana, who took my towels, creams, and mugs without asking.
Every Sunday Victoria would pick them up and say:
“Thank you, you saved us.”
Only it wasn’t “you” who saved her. I saved her. With my groceries, my kitchen, my cleaning, my weekends. Sergey would come back from the garage satisfied, look at the dirty dishes, and ask why I was unhappy again.
Now they had decided that weekends were not enough. Now they needed June, July, and half of August.
“The children are not staying here,” I said.
Sergey immediately raised his hands, as if I had already started shouting, though I was speaking calmly.
“Where am I supposed to take them now? Vika is already leaving.”
“Back to the place you agreed to take them from.”
“I can’t do that to Vika.”
“But you can do it to me?”
He did not answer.
Victoria stepped into the apartment without taking off her shoes and placed the bag of towels on the cabinet.
“Oksana, let’s be human about this. I’ve been carrying everything alone for so many years. I need to arrange my personal life too. You’re a woman. You should understand.”
“I understand only one thing: you decided to arrange your personal life in my apartment and with my hands.”
“No one is asking you to serve them. They’re grown up.”
Danila opened the refrigerator.
“Is there anything normal to eat?”
I gestured toward the kitchen.
“Sergey knows. He accepted them.”
My husband flinched but stayed silent. Victoria quickly used the pause.
“Let them at least spend the night today. It’s already evening. You can talk calmly tomorrow.”
It was an old family trick: bring the things in for just one night, and then pretend everything had already been decided. Sergey also brightened.
“Yes, let’s not make any sudden moves. They’ll spend the night today, and tomorrow we’ll figure it out.”
I looked at the clock. It was 7:27 on Friday evening. After work, I had managed to stop by the store and buy groceries for the week: chicken, cottage cheese, vegetables, cheese, eggs, berries, cutlets. For two adults. Not for five people, three of whom ate every two hours.
“They will spend the night today only because it’s already evening,” I said. “But dinner, beds, towels, breakfast, and cleaning are on you, Sergey. Starting now.”
“Of course,” he answered too quickly.
“No, not ‘of course.’ Repeat it in front of Victoria.”
He frowned.
“Oksan…”
“Repeat it.”
Victoria looked at him with irritation. She clearly did not like that the arrangement was becoming less convenient.
Sergey exhaled.
“I’ll take care of the children myself tonight. Dinner, beds, breakfast, everything else is on me.”
“Excellent,” I said. “And tomorrow morning, this matter is closed.”
Victoria wanted to object, but from Sergey’s face she understood that one more word and the bags would end up on the landing. She kissed Ulyana, patted Roma on the shoulder, told Danila to listen to Sergey, and left almost at a run.
The door closed, and the apartment immediately became foreign. Bags lay in the hallway. The bag of towels stood on the cabinet. By the refrigerator, Danila was already looking for sausage. Roma asked for the Wi-Fi password, although he knew it from last time. Ulyana went into the bathroom and placed her makeup bag between my things.
“Please put that back in your bag,” I said.
“That’s inconvenient for me.”
“And it’s inconvenient for me when someone else’s things are standing in my bathroom until August.”
She took offense and went into the room. Sergey, of course, noticed.
“You could have been softer.”
“You could have been softer too. For example, by asking me before promising my apartment.”
He fell silent.
Half an hour later, he was standing at the stove and, for the first time in a long while, could not leave for the garage. Roma did not eat chicken without sauce. Ulyana did not want buckwheat. Danila asked whether there was any meat that was not in the form of cutlets. Sergey opened cupboards, dropped lids, looked for salt, and asked where the colander was.
I sat in the armchair with a book.
“Oksan, at least tell me where the baking tray is.”
“In the same place it has been for the last three years.”
“Very funny.”
“I also found it funny when you promised strangers my summer.”
Dinner was late. The teenagers ate, left their plates, and began settling in as if they had truly come for vacation. Danila put his charger by Sergey’s computer. Roma took the sofa. Ulyana asked where she could hang her dress so it “wouldn’t get wrinkled before Monday.”
“Before Monday?” I clarified.
She faltered.
“Well… Mom said at first until Monday, and then we’d see how it goes.”
Sergey looked away.
That phrase was enough for me. They were planning to drag “until August” in piece by piece. First one night. Then Monday. Then “well, they’re already used to it.” Then “don’t be selfish, there’s only a month and a half left.”
At half past five in the morning, I got up. In the kitchen were mugs, plates, and a frying pan Sergey had left “to soak.” Ulyana’s sweatshirt was lying in the hallway. Roma was asleep on the sofa, wrapped in my blanket. Danila slept in the room near the computer. Sergey lay in the bedroom so peacefully, as if everything had already settled itself.
I took out a travel bag. I had booked a spa hotel during the night while Sergey was battling with pasta and teenage demands. Not a luxury place, not a picture from an advertisement. Just an ordinary country hotel with breakfast, a pool, and a door that no one opened without knocking.
I put underwear, a book, a charger, and a makeup bag into the bag. Then I locked the bedroom with a key—not because of the children, but because of adults who considered my belongings common whenever it suited them.
On the kitchen table, I left a note:
“Sergey. You agreed to spend the summer in my apartment without me. That means you will spend the first two days of it by yourself. There is food in the fridge. You have money for groceries. Victoria is available to you. I will be unreachable until Sunday evening. Emergency means doctor, fire, or police. Everything else is called responsibility. The garage is canceled.”
At 6:08, I left the apartment and turned off my phone.
In the taxi, for the first time in many weeks, I did not calculate whether there was enough bread and milk. I did not think about where to put a folding bed. I did not remember how many towels were drying on the balcony. I simply drove out of the city and looked out the window.
When Sergey woke up, it was almost nine. Roma woke him.
“Seryog, is there going to be breakfast?”
Sergey came into the kitchen, found the note, and at first decided I had gone to the store. Then he saw that my bag was gone, my phone was not on the charger, and the bedroom was locked.
He called me. Then again. Then he wrote. Then he called Victoria.
“Come pick up the children.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Oksana left.”
“Where?”
“For two days.”
“Seryozh, we had an agreement.”
“You and I made an agreement behind her back. Those are different things.”
“Don’t put this on me. You were the one who said she’d get used to it.”
Sergey later repeated that phrase to me himself. Apparently, it hit him harder than all my conversations had.
“I said something stupid,” he answered.
“And what am I supposed to do now?”
“Come get the children.”
“I’m at Andrey’s.”
“Then explain to Andrey that your children are not furniture that can be moved to wherever there is more space.”
Victoria hung up.
Then began the Saturday Sergey had previously called “nothing difficult.” Danila wanted a filling breakfast. Roma wanted pizza. Ulyana said she had run out of shampoo, although she had brought an entire bag of things. Sergey boiled eggs, toasted bread, sliced cheese. Danila asked where the meat was. Roma spilled juice. Ulyana occupied the bathroom for nearly an hour.
At eleven, Sergey tried to go to the store alone, but Danila reminded him that his mother had told them not to stay without adults. He had to take all three of them. At the store, Sergey saw for the first time how much the phrase “they’ll just eat” cost: cereal, milk, yogurts, bread, cheese, chicken, juice, apples, cookies, shampoo, laundry detergent, and a new charger for Roma because the old one “worked badly.” At the checkout, he stared at the receipt for a long time.
At home, the teenagers started fighting over the computer. Roma took the sofa and turned on the console. Ulyana said she needed a table for drawing. Danila sat down at Sergey’s computer and, an hour later, announced that the internet was slow. Sergey tried to cook lunch, dried out the chicken, dumped the sticky pasta back into the pot, and washed the frying pan himself because I was not there.
At three o’clock, he called Victoria again.
“It won’t be like this until August.”
“You’re just not used to it.”
“I don’t intend to get used to you deciding to live with Andrey without the children at Oksana’s expense.”
“Don’t interfere in my personal life.”
“Then don’t bring your personal life into her apartment.”
She hung up again.
In the evening, things got worse. Danila quarreled with Roma over the computer. Ulyana was offended because Sergey had not bought her the cream she had seen in my bathroom. Roma slammed a cabinet door so hard that a plastic box fell from the shelf. Nothing serious, but Sergey spent half an hour gathering little things from the floor and wiping a sticky spot near the sofa.
He did not make it to the garage. He did not even go outside.
Meanwhile, I was swimming in the pool, reading a book, and having dinner at a table where no one asked whether they could taste my portion. My phone lay turned off in my bag. If I had turned it on for even one minute, I would have been pulled back into someone else’s urgency.
On Sunday morning, Sergey woke before everyone else. He went to the store himself, made scrambled eggs, washed the dishes immediately, took out the trash, and started a load of laundry. Then he sat in the kitchen and, apparently, finally calculated: this was only the second day. And ahead, he and Victoria had planned June, July, and half of August.
By lunchtime, he called his ex-wife in a different voice.
“Vika, today at seven I’m bringing the children home.”
“I’m not home.”
“You will be.”
“There are renovations there.”
“Danila said there aren’t. Don’t continue.”
She was silent.
“You promised to help.”
“I promised with someone else’s apartment and someone else’s hands. The promise is canceled.”
“Did Oksana turn you against me?”
“Oksana simply left. And for two days, I did what she did for me every weekend.”
Victoria began speaking loudly. Sergey did not argue. He only said:
“Seven. And I’ll bring the bags too.”
I came home on Sunday at 6:40 p.m. Deliberately before seven. I wanted to see the truth, not a picture they would have had time to put in order.
The truth smelled of laundry detergent, burnt chicken, and exhaustion. Three packed bags stood in the hallway. Roma sat on the pouf with his phone. Ulyana was zipping her backpack and angrily staring at the floor. Danila stood by the window, waiting for the moment they would finally leave.
Sergey came out of the kitchen with a trash bag.
“You’re back,” he said.
“I see you packed their things.”
“Yes. I’m taking them to Vika now.”
“Is she waiting?”
“She’ll be waiting.”
He looked tired, but there was no anger toward me in him. Only understanding gained in the simplest way: through a store receipt, dirty dishes, wet towels, and three teenagers who constantly needed something.
“Oksan, I was wrong,” he said quietly.
I looked at the children.
“Not now. Take them first.”
Twenty minutes later, they left. Sergey carried out two bags, and Danila helped with the third. Roma came back for his charger and found it under the sofa. At the door, Ulyana asked:
“Are we not coming again?”
“You can come as guests, if I’m asked in advance. You cannot live here all summer.”
She nodded, though she did not look pleased.
When the door closed, I walked through the apartment. The kitchen was not perfectly clean, but it was clean. My clean towel hung in the bathroom. On the table lay a long crumpled store receipt. Sergey had probably left it there by accident. I did not remove it. Let it lie there a little longer.
He came back a little over an hour later. He took off his shoes, went into the kitchen, and sat across from me.
“I took them. Vika yelled. She said I’m weak and my wife controls me.”
“And you?”
“I said my wife is not obligated to be a free nanny for my former family.”
“Better already.”
He looked at the receipt on the table.
“I really thought you would manage.”
“I would have managed. That’s the problem. You knew I would manage, so you didn’t ask.”
Sergey was silent for a long time, then nodded.
“Yes.”
That was the first honest word of the entire weekend.
“I wanted to be good for everyone,” he said. “For Vika, for the children, for myself. And you were supposed to pay for it.”
“I wasn’t supposed to. You just got used to me silently closing the gaps.”
He lowered his eyes.
“It won’t happen again.”
“There will be a rule,” I said. “No one spends the night in my apartment without my consent. Not your ex-wife, not her children, not your friends, not relatives. Not at the door with bags. Not ‘just for one night.’ In advance.”
“Yes.”
“If you want to help Victoria, help her yourself. The cinema, the park, a café, a walk—fine. But not with my groceries, not with my weekends, and not with my apartment.”
“Yes.”
“And if I ever again find out about a decision like this in the hallway, the conversation will no longer be about teenagers.”
He understood.
“About us?”
“About why I need a husband who makes promises on my behalf.”
Sergey did not argue.
The next week passed unusually calmly. Victoria called almost every day. First, she asked for “just a couple of nights.” Then she said Danila was uncomfortable at Andrey’s. Then she pressed on pity: “They’re used to you.” Then on resentment: “You abandoned them.”
Once, Sergey put her on speakerphone. I heard Victoria say:
“Oksana is at work during the day anyway. What difference does it make to her?”
Sergey answered:
“The difference is that it’s her home. And I will no longer pretend her consent isn’t needed.”
I said nothing, but I remembered.
In June, Sergey took the teenagers out for a few hours twice. Once to the movies, the second time to the park. He came back tired, but without complaints toward me. He bought the groceries himself. He bought the tickets himself. If Victoria tried to hand him a bag “just in case,” he immediately gave it back.
In July, she found another option: Roma and Ulyana went to her sister in the region, and Danila got a part-time job near home. No catastrophe happened. Victoria simply had to solve her own problems without using my kitchen.
On the last Friday of July, Sergey came home with a bag of groceries and said:
“Vika asked about August. I said no.”
“You didn’t even ask me?”
“No. Because it wasn’t a question. It was an attempt to bring bags to our door again.”
He put the bag on the table.
“I’ll cook dinner myself.”
He cut the vegetables slowly and unevenly. I did not correct him. A grown man who knows how to promise someone else’s apartment for the summer is perfectly capable of learning how to cut a cucumber and wash a frying pan.
Late that evening, I walked into the hallway. The floor was empty. There were no strangers’ bags on the cabinet. On the doormat were only two pairs of shoes: mine and Sergey’s.
I locked the door and put the key in my bag. In my home, once again, there lived only those who had the right to decide together with me, not for me.