“Remember this: our entire family is ashamed of you!” her mother-in-law declared, not knowing that the entire family had already been drinking tea at her daughter-in-law’s place for two weeks and keeping silent.
“Do you even understand what kind of person you are?!” Nina Arkadyevna burst into her son’s apartment as if she were storming occupied territory. “A disgrace! That’s what you are. A disgrace to our whole family!”
Oksana did not even turn around right away. She was standing by the mirror in the hallway, fastening an earring — small, gold, shaped like a drop. Her hands were not trembling. That was the strangest thing: her hands were not trembling at all.
“Good afternoon, Nina Arkadyevna,” she said evenly.
“What good afternoon?!” her mother-in-law threw up her hands, and somewhere in that gesture there was something theatrical, rehearsed. “I just spoke with Lyudmila Vasilyevna! She told me everything!”
Only then did Oksana turn around. She looked at her mother-in-law — dyed red hair, a stretched-out stained sweater, and the gaze of a woman who had spent her whole life believing that a loud voice could replace being right.
“And what exactly did Lyudmila Vasilyevna tell you?” Oksana asked.
But Nina Arkadyevna was no longer listening. She walked past her into the living room, inspected the room like a sanitary inspector, and pursed her lips.
“Dima!” she shouted. “Dima, come out!”
Dima came out of the office with the look of a man torn away from something very important. Although Oksana knew he had simply been watching short videos in there. For an hour already. She had heard the familiar sound through the door.
“Mom, what happened?” he asked, yawning.
“What happened?!” Nina Arkadyevna pointed at Oksana. “This happened! Your wife is disgracing our entire family! Our whole family is ashamed of you, remember that!” she announced solemnly, with so much prepared pathos in her words that Oksana almost admired it.
Almost.
Because she knew something Nina Arkadyevna did not know.
It had all started two weeks earlier with a phone call.
Oksana worked as a financial analyst in a small but very serious company. It was not as if she shouted about it from every corner — she simply did her job. Numbers, reports, Excel, negotiations. Sometimes until late in the evening. Nina Arkadyevna considered it “female nonsense” and had told Dima more than once that a normal wife stayed at home.
Dima would nod in response. He always nodded.
But two weeks earlier, Tamara had called — Dima’s older sister, who lived in a nearby district and with whom Oksana had never been especially close. Tamara’s voice sounded strange — quiet, almost guilty.
“Oksana, can you come over? Not to Mom’s. To my place.”
Oksana went. And there she found three people: Tamara, her husband Gennady, and Nina Arkadyevna’s cousin-aunt, eighty-year-old Zinaida Petrovna, who had come from Voronezh and was staying with Tamara.
They were drinking tea. And they looked at Oksana with the expression of people who had needed to say something for a long time but could never quite bring themselves to do it.
“Do you know that Mom wants to transfer the dacha?” Tamara asked.
Oksana did not know. But she listened very carefully.
It turned out that while Oksana was at work, Nina Arkadyevna had gone to a notary. She had been consulting about how to transfer the dacha plot out of joint ownership — because the plot had once been bought during Dima and Oksana’s marriage with Oksana’s money, but had been registered in Dima’s name — exclusively to her son. So that “that one” would get nothing “if anything happened.”
“If anything happened?” Oksana asked quietly.
Tamara lowered her eyes.
“Mom has wanted Dima to divorce you for a long time. She says you’re not right for him. That you’re too independent. That there have been no children for three years, which means it’s your fault. She has already found someone for him. Her friend’s daughter.”
Zinaida Petrovna said nothing, but nodded. Gennady looked out the window.
Oksana was silent too for a while. Then she asked only one question:
“Does Dima know?”
And from the way Tamara lowered her eyes again, everything became clear.
That was why, when Nina Arkadyevna now stood in the middle of her living room and announced that the entire family was ashamed of Oksana, Oksana felt a strange calm inside. Not cold, not angry. Just clear. Like numbers in a well-prepared report.
“The entire family, you say,” she repeated.
“The entire family!” Nina Arkadyevna even puffed out her chest. “I spoke with everyone! Everyone agrees!”
Oksana looked at Dima. He was standing by the wall, looking somewhere past her — at the corner, at the painting, at anything, as long as he did not have to meet her eyes.
“Dima,” she said, “do you think so too?”
“Well… Mom is right that…” he began, then stopped.
“That what?”
“That we need to have a serious conversation.”
Nina Arkadyevna sighed triumphantly.
And Oksana nodded. Once. Slowly.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s have a serious conversation.”
She took her bag from the hanger — her work bag, leather, heavy — and looked at her mother-in-law with such an expression that the woman, for some reason, took a small step back.
“Just not today. Today I have a meeting.”
“Where are you going?!” Nina Arkadyevna shouted after her. “We’re not finished yet!”
“I know,” Oksana said, already at the door. “We’re only beginning.”
And she left.
Outside, she took out her phone and dialed a number. Ring after ring — one, two, three.
“Anton Sergeyevich? Good afternoon. This is Oksana Belova. Do you remember saying that if I ever needed help, I should call? Well, I’m calling. I need a consultation on family property law. Would today work?”
The voice on the other end answered immediately — calm, businesslike.
“Of course. I’ll be expecting you at six.”
Oksana put away the phone and walked down the street. In her bag lay the folder of documents she had gathered a week earlier. Carefully. Methodically. Without unnecessary words.
So the whole family was ashamed of her.
She almost smiled.
The whole family had already been drinking tea in her apartment for two weeks when Nina Arkadyevna was not around. And they were silent. And watching. And waiting to see how it would all end.
Oksana knew how.
Anton Sergeyevich received her exactly at six. His office was small but serious — no unnecessary decorations, only shelves with folders and a narrow window facing the courtyard. Offices like that inspire trust. Not through luxury, but through order.
Oksana laid the folder on the desk. Anton Sergeyevich opened it and leafed through it — silently, attentively. Sometimes he made notes with a pencil.
“The dacha is registered in your husband’s name,” he said at last. “But if we can prove it was purchased with your money, that changes the picture.”
“I have bank statements from that period. Transfers,” Oksana said. “I kept everything.”
Anton Sergeyevich looked at her over his glasses.
“You prepared in advance.”
“I’m an analyst,” she answered simply. “I always prepare in advance.”
He gave a barely noticeable nod — with a respect that did not need to be spoken aloud.
They spoke for more than an hour. When Oksana stepped outside, it was already getting dark. She stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, took out her phone, and saw seven missed calls. Five from Dima. Two from Nina Arkadyevna.
She did not call back.
It was quiet at home. Dima was sitting in the kitchen with a mug and the look of a man who had been caught by his conscience — or something resembling it. Nina Arkadyevna was already gone. Apparently, she had left when she realized the performance was over.
“Oksana,” he began.
“Dima, I’m tired,” she said without stopping. “Tomorrow.”
“No, wait.” He stood up. And that was unexpected, because Dima almost never stood up first. Usually, he waited for the situation to resolve itself. “I need to tell you something.”
Oksana stopped. She looked at him. He seemed strange — not like usual. Not sluggish and evasive, but somehow… collected. Unfamiliar.
“I know about Nikita,” he said.
A second of silence.
“What exactly do you know?” she asked carefully.
“That he calls you. That you meet at work. That Mom…” He swallowed. “That Mom hired someone to follow you.”
Oksana felt something shift sharply inside her. Not fear. Rather, a cold fury she knew how to keep under control.
“Nina Arkadyevna hired someone to follow me,” she repeated slowly, testing the words. “To spy on me.”
“Three weeks ago. I found out by accident — she left her phone at my place, and there was a chat with some Vadim. Photos. You leaving the business center with Nikita Gromov.”
Nikita Gromov. Oksana closed her eyes for a second.
Nikita was her colleague. They were working together on one large project — meeting in conference rooms, sometimes having lunch in the café across from the office, discussing numbers. That was all. Nothing more.
“Dima,” she said, “Gromov is my colleague. We’ve been working on the same project for four months.”
“I know,” he said.
“What?”
“I know he’s your colleague.” Dima placed the mug on the table. “I checked. Not through Mom — on my own. I found information about the company, about the project. Everything matched.”
Oksana looked at him and barely recognized him.
“Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because Mom doesn’t know that I know.” At last, he raised his eyes to her — directly, without his usual evasion. “She thinks she has compromising material. She plans to use those photos. In court. If it comes to divorce — to present you as an unfaithful wife, so the court will side with her on the property issue.”
Oksana slowly sank into a chair.
So that was it. That was the plan.
Not just to quietly transfer the dacha. First, create a reason. Then a scandal, divorce, court. And ready-made photos that could be interpreted however they wanted.
“Dima,” she said quietly, “why are you telling me this?”
He was silent. For a long time. A car passed outside, and somewhere upstairs a television was turned on.
“Because I’m an idiot,” he said at last. “I have been for a long time. I didn’t realize it yesterday, but yesterday I realized it especially clearly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Tamara called me.” He sat down again and clasped his hands on the table. “After you went to her place. She said, ‘Dima, do you understand what Mom is doing to your wife? Do you understand what you’re allowing?’ And I… I had no answer. Because no. I didn’t understand. I was just drifting. Mom spoke, I nodded. It was easier that way. It was always easier that way.”
Oksana looked at him. This man had lived with her for four years. For four years she had watched him choose the easy way — and never choose her.
“And now what?” she asked.
“I want to tell Mom that I know about Vadim. About the surveillance.” His voice was steady, but his hands gave him away — his fingers kept tightening and relaxing. “I want to tell her this is the end. That she is no longer part of our life.”
“You already said that. Three years ago. After the renovation incident.”
“I know.”
“And a year ago. After she threw my things out of the storage room because she decided her jars of pickles should be there.”
“I know,” he repeated.
“Dima.” Oksana placed her palms on the table. “I already went to a lawyer today.”
He did not flinch. He simply nodded — slowly, like a man receiving confirmation of something he had already guessed.
“I’m not asking you to stop,” he said. “I’m asking you to give me a chance to do what I should have done long ago. One conversation with my mother. With you present. Without her theater and without my silence.”
Oksana looked at him for a long time.
Outside, it had grown completely dark. The kitchen smelled of coffee — coffee he had made while waiting for her. She noticed it only now. Two mugs. He had set out two.
“All right,” she said at last. “One conversation. But I will be there. And this time — no nodding.”
Dima lifted his head.
“No nodding,” he agreed.
And for the first time in a very long while, Oksana could not say for certain what would happen next.
That was unusual. She always knew what would happen next.
Nina Arkadyevna arrived the next day at noon — without warning, as usual, with the look of someone who believed she had the right to enter anywhere and at any time. In her hands she held a bag with some wrapped items, and on her face was the expression of a victor.
Dima opened the door himself.
“Oh, my son!” She leaned in to kiss him. “And where is that one?”
“Oksana is in the living room,” he said evenly. “Come in, Mom. We need to talk.”
Something in his voice made her wary. She walked into the living room and stopped — Oksana was sitting at the table, straight-backed, calm, with a folder in front of her. Nina Arkadyevna assessed it instantly and switched modes at once — from victor to victim.
“Dima, what is going on? Why this atmosphere? I simply came to visit my son…”
“Sit down, Mom,” Dima said.
She sat. Slowly, with dignity, lips pressed together.
“I want to ask you something,” Dima began, and his voice was unlike anything Oksana had heard from him before. No apologies. No softness. “Do you know a man named Vadim Streltsov?”
Nina Arkadyevna blinked. Once.
“I don’t know any Vadim.”
“Mom.” Dima placed his phone on the table, screen up. The same chat was open on it. “I read this. Not yesterday — three weeks ago.”
The silence was brief, but very dense.
“You were digging through my phone?!” Nina Arkadyevna’s voice shot upward instantly. “Checking your own mother?! I spent my whole life for you…”
“No,” Dima interrupted. Quietly, but he interrupted. “Not now. This conversation is not about you and me. You hired someone to follow my wife.”
“I was protecting you!”
“From what?”
“From her!” Nina Arkadyevna pointed at Oksana. “She walks around with some man while you sit at home! I have photographs!”
“He is her colleague,” Dima said. “I checked. They work on a project together. I’ve known that for three weeks.”
Nina Arkadyevna opened her mouth. Then closed it.
“You… knew?”
“I knew,” he confirmed. “And I was silent. I thought you would calm down. But you didn’t calm down — you went to a notary.”
That was where his mother-in-law truly lost her footing. It was visible — she even leaned back slightly, like a person unexpectedly struck in return.
“Tamara told you,” she exhaled — not as a question, but as a statement.
“Tamara is worried about the family,” Dima said. “Unlike some people.”
“This is betrayal!” Nina Arkadyevna stood up sharply. The bag with the wrapped items fell to the floor, and she did not even look down. “You conspired against me! My own family!”
Oksana had been silent all this time. She opened the folder and laid several sheets on the table.
“Nina Arkadyevna,” she said, “these are the bank statements from the period when the dacha was purchased. It was my money. I am ready to prove that in court. If you want to continue, then continue. I have a lawyer.”
Her mother-in-law looked at the papers. Then at Oksana. Then at Dima.
“Dima,” she said in a different voice — quiet, almost pitiful. “Are you allowing her to speak to your mother like that?”
“She is speaking normally,” Dima answered. “You are the one who has been speaking abnormally for three years. And I pretended not to notice.”
Something in him shifted completely — Oksana could see it. As if he had finally placed his foot on solid ground after walking through a swamp for a long time.
Nina Arkadyevna understood it before she could come up with her next move. She picked up the bag from the floor, straightened, and looked at her son with the expression of a deeply offended person.
“Our entire family is ashamed of you,” she said to Oksana — quietly, almost solemnly. The last trump card, saved for the most desperate moment. “Remember that.”
And then Oksana allowed herself to do something she had never done in three years.
She smiled.
“Nina Arkadyevna,” she said, “do you want to know what Tamara told me when I was at her place two weeks ago? That your entire family has been drinking tea in my apartment for two weeks while you’re not around. All of them. Tamara, Gennady, Zinaida Petrovna from Voronezh. They are silent and waiting. And all of them, you know, wish me luck.”
Nina Arkadyevna stood there staring at her.
“You’re lying,” she said. But her voice no longer carried its former certainty.
“Call Tamara,” Oksana suggested simply.
Her mother-in-law did not call. She turned around and left — quickly, without goodbyes, and only the slam of the door remained after her like the final line in a badly acted performance.
Dima stood by the window for a long time. He watched his mother get into a taxi in the courtyard — back straight, lips pressed together, the bag with the wrapped items still unopened.
“She’ll feel bad,” he said at last.
“I know,” Oksana replied.
“She’ll call in three days and say her blood pressure is high.”
“I know.”
“And what should I do then?”
Oksana came over and stood beside him at the window.
“Find out whether her blood pressure really is high,” she said. “If it is, help her. If it isn’t, politely hang up.”
Dima was silent for a moment.
“I don’t know how to hang up.”
“You’ll learn,” she said without cruelty. “It’s not difficult. The main thing is the first time.”
The taxi disappeared around the corner. The courtyard emptied.
Dima turned to her.
“Will you pick up the documents from the lawyer?”
“I’ll leave them with him for now,” Oksana answered. “Just in case.”
He nodded. Without resentment.
“That’s right.”
They stood in silence a little longer. Outside the window, an ordinary day continued — someone was walking a dog, teenagers were racing on scooters, and a small window opened in the neighboring building.
“Oksana,” he said quietly, “I’m not promising that everything has changed at once. But I want to try. Truly.”
She looked at him for a long time. Four years is not so little. And not so much that everything could be decided by one conversation.
“All right,” she said at last. “We’ll try. But one condition.”
“What condition?”
“No nodding.”
Dima gave a slight smile — for the first time that entire day.
“No nodding.”
That evening, Tamara called.
“Well?” she asked.
“Fine,” Oksana answered.
“Mom has already called me twice. She says you all conspired against her.” There was something like laughter in Tamara’s voice. “I told her yes. We conspired. Over tea.”
Oksana laughed — unexpectedly, lightly.
“Thank you, Tamara.”
“No need,” Tamara said simply. “Family isn’t only Mom. It’s all of us. It was long past time to explain that.”
Oksana put down the phone and looked at the folder of documents lying at the edge of the table.
Let it lie there. For now.
She closed it and put it away in a drawer.
Nina Arkadyevna called two days later — not after three days, as Dima had predicted. Apparently, she could not hold out that long.
“My blood pressure is high,” she announced in a tragic voice. “One hundred seventy over one hundred.”
Dima picked up the phone, listened, and said:
“Mom, call a doctor. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
And he hung up.
Oksana watched him from the kitchen doorway. He stood with the phone in his hand and stared at the screen for a long time, as if he himself could not believe he had just done it.
“The first time,” she said quietly.
“The first time,” he agreed.
A doctor did visit Nina Arkadyevna after all — she called an ambulance for credibility. Her blood pressure turned out to be one hundred forty over ninety. Her usual, as the paramedic said, prescribing her the familiar pills.
Tamara told Dima about it in a message, adding at the end: Don’t worry, she’s alive.
Dima showed the message to Oksana. She nodded.
“Good.”
They did not discuss the matter again.
A month later, Oksana picked up the documents from Anton Sergeyevich.
Not because everything had become perfect — life does not become perfect with the snap of a finger. It was simply that the folder in the desk drawer pressed on her every day like an unspoken word. And she did not like unspoken words.
The dacha remained registered in Dima’s name. For now.
Anton Sergeyevich said, “Call me if you need me.” She saved his number.
On Saturday, Tamara and Gennady came over. Just like that — for no reason, with a cake and a bottle of good wine. They sat until late in the evening, talking about different things — work, how Gennady wanted to buy a car, how Tamara had signed up for Spanish courses.
They did not mention Nina Arkadyevna.
After the guests left, Dima cleared the table, washed the dishes — on his own, without being reminded — and said:
“That was nice.”
“It was,” Oksana agreed.
She looked at him and thought: perhaps a person really is capable of changing. Slowly, awkwardly, with setbacks. But capable.
Perhaps.
It would take more than one day to test that.
But for the first time in a long while, she was not afraid of that test.