“Lena, you don’t mind if Mom stays with us for a bit, do you?” Kirill tried to sound calm, but his eyes gave him away: the decision had been made, and he was asking purely for form’s sake.
Lena lifted her gaze from the laptop for a second, looked at her husband over the rim of her glasses, and set her cup down on the coaster with such a clink that the cat shot under the couch.
“What do you mean ‘for a bit’? Kirill, we have a one-room apartment. And I work here. This is my home. Mine. I bought it before I even met you.”
“Oh, here we go…” Kirill grimaced. “It’s only temporary. She’s just tired of being alone in the village, my brother’s on another bender, and her blood pressure’s up. We’re not animals, Lena. She’s my mother, for God’s sake!”
Lena drew a deep breath. Someone had once told her: “If you let people treat you like furniture, don’t be surprised when they start hanging their coats on you.”
“Did you ask her how long ‘temporary’ means? A week? A month? Or until I end up in a psych ward with facial tics?” She stood and went to the kitchen, pretending to look for a spoon, really just needing to avert her eyes.
“Don’t exaggerate,” he muttered to her back. “You’re always saying you want family close. Well. She’ll be close.”
“I said I wanted MY family close. Not for you and your mother to turn this place into a communal flat. And anyway, Kirill, I have a job. I work from home. And she’s—sorry—a woman with a temperament. And a very loud voice.”
“So what if she blasts the TV? All moms blast their TVs! You can put on headphones, why are you making a thing of it?”
Lena turned. Her eyes were cold, her voice steady, but with that dangerous brittleness of an over-tightened string.
“Have you ever once asked whether I’m comfortable? Or have you already forgotten that everything we have is mine? My apartment. My car, which you, by the way, already ‘lent’ to your brother for two months. My grandmother’s earrings that ‘accidentally’ disappeared after your mother’s New Year’s visit. And now, apparently, it’s my personal space’s turn?”
Kirill spread his hands.
“Lena, why are you starting in like this? Everything’s through you. Like we’re in some rental arrangement and not a marriage. Mom will stay a couple of weeks, we’ll buy her meds, she’ll get back on her feet—and leave. You want us to write a receipt?”
“What I want is for you to think for once what it’s like for a woman—your mother-in-law in my kitchen, my underwear drying under her nose, my documents in the drawer where she’ll now be rummaging for iodine!”
He sighed, sank onto the stool, looked out the window.
“Lena, you’ve gotten… I don’t know… hard. On edge. You just snap when it comes to family. I don’t recognize you.”
She laughed—bitterly, silently. As if she’d run out of air.
“Kirill, maybe you never knew me. It was convenient for you to live in my place, drive my car, settle your mother into my apartment—and call it all ‘ours.’ And now that I’ve balked, I’m the outsider. Is Convenient Lena over?”
He didn’t answer. He just got up and reached for his jacket.
“Mom’s coming anyway. I’m just telling you so you won’t be surprised. And don’t make a scene. You’re an adult.”
She watched him slam the door for a long time. Then she slowly walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed.
Photos hung on the wall. The wedding, the trip to Greece, a Christmas tree with baubles—round like a pregnancy, a hope for coziness and family.
Now—just nail holes in the wall.
She took one frame down, looked at herself—young, happy, in a white dress—and pulled the photo out. Tore it. Carefully, right down the bridge of the nose.
The next day, Lidiya Petrovna moved in. With two suitcases, a stack of newspapers, and these words:
“Lenochka, you really are the lady of the house! That’s exactly how I imagined you: strict but fair. Just don’t get mad, I brought my own slippers—I hate walking around in strangers’ stinky ones.”
There was no blow-up. Yet. But the cat dove under the couch again. And Lena felt it—something in the house had shifted. The air. The smell. The tone of words. Everything was different now. Foreign.
But that was only the beginning.
At first Lena thought her anxiety had just flared up. It happens—spring, hormones, Mom on the phone with “how are you holding up with her, Lenochka, not too tired?” Then the utility bills arrived—suddenly much higher. Then two pairs of gold earrings vanished. Then peace. Peace vanished.
“Lenochka, I found a little box on the shelf, you know, with monograms. I thought—must be old junk, time to toss it. And inside, imagine—earrings! Not yours, by any chance?”
“Mine, Lidiya Petrovna,” Lena said, buttoning her robe all the way up. “My grandmother’s. And my great-grandmother’s. I didn’t move them. They were right in plain sight. Well, plain to me.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to! I was just tidying up. And you’ve got, of course… well, not a mess, but not order either.”
Lena clenched her teeth. Smirked. So that’s how it goes: first it’s “our home,” then “not a mess,” and a week later your things are flying into the trash and you’re on your way to a clinic with an anxiety disorder.
Kirill came home late. Ate in silence, stared at his phone. Every couple of days he drove off “to help his brother.” Rumor had it the brother had landed in the drunk tank again. Lena didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know.
On Monday she left work at 7:10 p.m. She made her way home slowly—bus stop, a packed bus, a woman blasting music through a speaker for the whole route, the smell of herring from someone’s bag. It made her nauseous.
She dreamed of silence. Just five minutes with no one scouring the sink with a sponge in performative offense, no one commenting on her lunch, no one asking, “Why are you drinking coffee at this hour?”
The apartment greeted her with a strange quiet.
In the kitchen—empty. In the bedroom—someone else’s socks on the windowsill. And… a box. Cardboard. Labeled “Lena’s Jewelry.”
“Kirill!” she called. “You home?”
Silence.
“Lidiya Petrovna?”
“I’m here!” came a voice from the bathroom. “Just don’t come in, I’m dyeing my hair! Sitting here like an idiot with dye on my head.”
Lena walked quietly to the box. Inside—a jewelry case. Only now it was empty. And a receipt. Pawn shop. Silver items—18,000. No name. No questions asked.
She stood there for a long time. Silent. Then her phone rang. Kirill.
“Yeah?”
“Hey, Lena. I told Mom—you don’t mind if my brother and I take your car for a couple of days, right? He’s got an interview, and I… well, you get it, I need to help. You’re not driving anyway. We’ll fill it up later. And clean the mats.”
“The car?”
“Well yeah. Your keys are on the hook, right? We already, uh, took it. You don’t mind?”
She sat down. Wordless. Her eyes burned. As if someone had lit matches under her nails.
“Kirill…” Her voice was calm. Too calm. “Don’t you want to sign the apartment over to your brother while you’re at it? You know, to keep things fair. Chop it up to the end. And I’ll just stand on the balcony and wave—‘Good luck, boys!’”
“Lena, what are you… don’t go overboard. It’s temporary. I said we’ll bring everything back. Why are you making a tragedy out of this?”
“A tragedy? I’ll make a tragedy, Kirill, when I find out who sold my earrings. My great-grandmother’s. Do you want me to go to the police? Or are we going to talk this out like adults?”
“Oh my God, you seriously decided we stole them? Are you out of your mind, Lena?”
“Exactly, Kirill. I am in my right mind. Unlike the rest of you. You’ve all been flying without brakes for a while now. Everything of mine is ‘ours.’ Everything of yours is ‘we need to help.’ The only time I count as the owner is when you need something—otherwise it’s always, ‘you don’t mind, right?’”
An hour later, there was a scene at home.
Lidiya Petrovna burst out of the bathroom with a kerchief on her head, Kirill clutching his phone, wearing the slippers Lena had bought herself for New Year’s.
“I’m tired!” Lena shouted. “Tired of you! You’ve eaten my life! You’ve lived in my apartment, on my money, shredded my nerves—and you still pretend this is normal!”
“You’re the crazy one!” screeched Lidiya Petrovna. “You’ve got a control freak bug up your—nothing’s ever enough, you suspect everyone. You’ll never have a decent husband! With women like you, everything always falls apart!”
“Mom, don’t…” Kirill bleated, but it was too late.
Lena walked over and opened the door. Wide.
“Out. Both of you. Now. No discussion.”
“Lena, have you lost your mind?” Kirill yelled. “That’s my mother!”
“This is my apartment, Kirill. And I am done playing at your family. I’ve got anxiety, insomnia, and I’m down two sets of earrings. You’ve got a brother in ‘my’ car and a mother who thinks I’m a psychopath. That’s it. Enough.”
They left. With banging. With screaming. With promises that she would “regret this.”
Lena sank to the floor and cried. For real. No hysterics. Just… exhausted.
And suddenly it was so quiet. Even the fridge hummed differently.
In the second half of the night she heard footsteps in the stairwell. And in the morning—a strange sound at the door lock.
Monday morning. Rain drummed outside as if it were angry too. Lena brewed a strong coffee, added cinnamon—on autopilot, as always, so she wouldn’t have to think. She didn’t want to think. Only a clammy anxiety pressed in—the kind you get when something is happening and you don’t yet know what.
It was ten to eight. Lena went to the door—and froze. Through the peephole—Kirill with a suitcase. Behind him—Lidiya Petrovna. In a housecoat. With a plaid market bag.
“Open up!” Loud, sharp, as if it were her own place.
Without taking her eyes off the lock, Lena dialed:
“What do you want?”
“To come back. Where else?” Lidiya screeched. “Where do you expect us to live at night? Are you even sane?”
“What, you’re going to shut the door on your own husband?” Kirill’s voice was theatrically calm. “By law this is joint marital property. It’s not just you living here.”
“No, Kirill. I live here. You were a guest. A long-term one. Way overstayed.”
“Oh, I see how it is…” Lidiya rolled her eyes. “Here we go. A cult. She wants her peace and quiet, but she’s the one with a nervous breakdown!”
“Step away from the door,” Lena’s voice turned metallic. “Or I’ll call the police.”
“Just try it,” Kirill leaned into the door. “Did you forget I’m registered at this address? I’ll call the district officer right now. Then the court. And we’ll see who throws whom out.”
Lena fell silent. Her breathing quickened. Inside, everything caved in. She couldn’t even feel the coffee in her hands anymore—just ringing in her ears and a sticky fear.
And then a voice came from the stairwell.
“Excuse me, did you get the wrong floor?”
A man was coming up. About twenty-five. A stranger. A courier jacket with a delivery service logo.
“This is my apartment,” he said. “We moved in yesterday. My wife and I. The realtor gave us the keys.”
Silence. Lena cracked the door open. Peered out. And went cold. He was telling the truth.
“Please show me the contract,” she rasped.
He pulled out a document. A lease. Signature—Kirill’s.
“This must be a mistake…” Lena whispered, her legs numb. “I… but I…”
Later, at the bank, they would show her the paperwork. A forged power of attorney. Her signature. A fake stamp.
“Your husband sold the tenancy rights,” the lawyer would say dryly. “Apparently he figured you wouldn’t notice. Or you’d just accept it.”
A week later, Lena was living at her mother’s. In a tiny Khrushchev-era two-room flat overlooking some sheds. The shelves creaked, the TV hissed, the kettle whistled—but no one touched her cup, no one rifled through her underwear, and no one sold her things.
The next morning she went to the police. Then to a lawyer. Then to a therapist.
“What do you want?” the therapist asked. “To get everything back? To fight? To forgive?”
“No,” Lena looked out the window. “To understand. Why I put up with it for so long.”
Two months passed. It was hard. Sometimes she caught herself missing things. Not Kirill, no. The person she had been before all of this. Naive. Polite. Agreeable.
But now—she was different. Strong. Angry. With clear boundaries.
And one evening, in a new apartment—small, with cheap wallpaper, but her own—the doorbell rang.
Kirill stood on the threshold. Alone. Crumpled. Bags under his eyes and roses in his hand. How banal.
“Lena… I… I get it now. You were right. Mom’s gone—she’s in the hospital. My brother’s in jail. Just like you said. I’m an idiot.”
She stood there in silence. For a long time.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. Go.”
“Lena… I’ve realized everything. I feel awful. I…”
“I felt awful for two years, Kirill. You just didn’t notice.”
She closed the door. Not loudly. Just—put a period at the end.
The apartment smelled of tangerines and quiet. Lena made herself tea. Sat on the windowsill. Outside—evening, cars, life.
And inside—for the first time in a long time—there was peace.