That night turned out to be restless. For some reason, Alevtina could not fall asleep. She kept opening her eyes, counting to twenty, but even counting did not help her calm down. It felt as though something unpleasant was about to happen. But what could possibly happen? Not long ago, she had moved to another city, up in the mountains, where she planned to start everything from scratch. After her divorce from her husband, she had not been able to fully recover. Everything in her hometown reminded her of the time they had spent together, so Alevtina decided to change both her job and her place of residence and begin building her life all over again.
Her relatives supported her decision. Her parents promised that as soon as they were able to transfer at work, they would also move closer to their daughter. The place the woman had chosen for her new life was peaceful and cozy. The neighbors welcomed her warmly, told her she could always turn to them for help, immediately showed her around the neighborhood, and explained where everything was.
Feeling unbearably thirsty, Alevtina decided to get up and go to the kitchen. There was no point in suffering and enduring it. Perhaps after drinking some water, she would calm down and finally be able to sleep properly. She wanted to rest, because after lunch she had a job interview scheduled. Since Alevtina really wanted to work for that company, she needed to look rested and be focused. That was hard to achieve without a good night’s sleep.
“Alya! Receive your guests!” a loud, slightly hoarse voice rang out from the yard.
For a moment, she shuddered at the thought that the voice sounded familiar. No, surely not! That simply could not be. Alevtina had no idea who would decide to visit her in the middle of the night, but she could not allow an uninvited visitor to make noise and wake the neighbors with their shouting.
Throwing a warm knitted cardigan over her shoulders, Alevtina hurried outside. She turned on the yard light and froze when she saw her former mother-in-law standing in the middle of the yard. Maria Maksimovna stood on the brick path, gripping the handle of her wheeled suitcase and staring at her daughter-in-law. Her former daughter-in-law, of course.
“Maria Maksimovna?” Alevtina barely managed to force out. Her voice sounded strange, almost unfamiliar. Shocked, she could not find the words and wondered whether she was asleep. Perhaps she had finally fallen into a dream and was now seeing a nightmare?
There was no other way to describe her mother-in-law’s visit. Their relationship had never been friendly. Maria Maksimovna was the kind of person who wanted everything, always, to follow the plan she had laid out. The moment her daughter-in-law did anything that contradicted her wishes, a real scandal would erupt. In such situations, Artur always took his mother’s side. He accused his wife of being disrespectful, of not having been taught to respect her elders and treat parents properly.
“She is your mother now too. You must listen to her in everything and do as she says,” Artur kept repeating.
At first, Alevtina endured it, but then she realized that this kind of life did not suit her. Why close her eyes and tolerate discomfort? If her husband did not care about her feelings or desires, then she simply had to gather her strength and end everything. Several times, Alevtina tried to get through to her husband. She tried to fix their relationship and explain that his demands for her to obey his mother every time would not lead to anything good. But Artur did not even want to hear his wife’s arguments. He would boil with anger, his face becoming covered in crimson blotches while the skin over his cheekbones turned pale.
“If you think I should change and adjust myself to your mother, maybe it would be better for us to divorce?” Alevtina asked her husband, feeling a lump choking her from the inside, filling her throat and preventing her from taking a proper breath.
She could no longer tolerate such treatment. She, too, was a living person with her own wishes and aspirations. If her husband failed to notice that, it meant he simply did not value her. He probably believed he could easily find a replacement. And if he thought that, then he had no real feelings for his wife at all.
“Maybe that would be better. Since you don’t have basic respect for my mother, why would I need a wife like you?” Artur scoffed.
Her husband confused respect with submission. Alevtina respected her mother-in-law, but she had no intention of becoming a puppet controlled by someone else for the rest of her life. Alevtina filed for divorce. Back then, Artur could not believe that his wife had truly taken such a desperate step. He said she would definitely regret what she had done, that he would certainly find a woman who would fully satisfy his mother, while Alevtina would have a hard time. But she did not want to listen.
Maria Maksimovna had contributed greatly to Alevtina’s divorce from her husband, and now she was standing in the middle of the yard of the woman who was no longer her daughter-in-law, staring at her and waiting to be welcomed with open arms.
“Well, why are you standing there frozen? Aren’t you going to take my suitcase and receive me properly? Or did you not recognize me? Or maybe you’re so happy you can’t even move?”
Alevtina let out a loud sigh. She took a step forward, but stopped and merely pulled the cardigan tighter across her chest, continuing to look at her mother-in-law and the suitcase she had brought with her. Of course, there were no gifts inside it. Clothes. Because her mother-in-law had called herself a guest.
And how had she found out her daughter-in-law’s address?
She had surely pried it out of her cousin. Tatyana Nikolaevna was the only person in Artur’s family with whom Alevtina had developed a warm relationship. Recently, Alevtina had sent Tatyana Nikolaevna a gift. She had not thought at all that by doing so, she would pass her new address on to her mother-in-law. However, she had not planned to run away and hide anyway, so she looked confidently at her mother-in-law, lifted her chin, and forced out a smile.
“What brings you here? And at this hour, no less! Normal people sleep at night instead of disturbing others.”
“What are you implying?” Maria Maksimovna snorted, showing her displeasure at her daughter-in-law’s words.
“I’m not implying anything. I’m simply stating a fact,” Alevtina replied calmly. “Why did you come in the middle of the night and make such a racket?”
“I came to sort out your personal life. After your divorce, my son hasn’t been himself. I already found him a suitable wife, but things are not working out between them. One old woman said that first I must restore what was destroyed — help you meet a worthy man. Then my dear son will be happy too. It is not as if I want to do this, but for my son’s sake, I am ready to help you. So be grateful.”
Alevtina gave a short laugh, unable to hold it back. She could not believe her own ears. Maria Maksimovna had decided to find her a husband? Who had asked her to do that?
“Forgive me, but you should not have woken me up to say such nonsense. I do not need a husband. If I ever want to get married again, I will manage without your help. Go to the station and buy yourself a ticket back.”
Alevtina turned around and was about to go into the house, but Maria Maksimovna dropped her suitcase, rushed toward her daughter-in-law, and grabbed her by the arm.
“You cannot refuse. You were always foolish, but I still accepted you into our family — mine and my son’s. I tried to take care of you. I did everything to make you comfortable. You cannot turn your back on me now. You would not dare. Until you meet a worthy man, I will continue teaching you. I will make a real woman out of you.”
In the past, Alevtina would have walked away from an unnecessary argument, smiled, and said she was grateful. But now rage boiled in her chest. Pulling her arm free from her mother-in-law’s grip, she looked angrily into the woman’s eyes.
“Are you serious?”
Alevtina felt an icy fury slice through her mind. She was no longer going to endure things and silently swallow insults.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Maria Maksimovna pursed her lips, and for the first time, uncertain notes sounded in her voice. “I am acting out of the best intentions, by the way! I am trying for your sake, you stupid woman! Who needs you like this — old and divorced?”
“Old?” Alevtina involuntarily smirked. “I am thirty-two, Maria Maksimovna. That is not exactly an age at which one should write herself off as an old woman. And being divorced is not a sentence. I filed for divorce myself, by the way. I was not abandoned. I left.”
“She left! If Artur had not driven you away, you would not have gone anywhere.”
Alevtina took a deep breath to calm herself and not sink to her mother-in-law’s level. She did not want to make a scene. She decided she would hold herself together and say everything calmly.
“Listen to me now. Just listen carefully. I did not ask you to come here. I did not ask you to ‘fix my life.’ My life is wonderful without your involvement. I have a job. I have a roof over my head. I have parents who love and support me. And finally, I have peace — something I was deprived of while I was your son’s wife.”
“How dare you!” Maria Maksimovna flared up. “I did so much for you! I accepted you into the family! I tolerated your antics, your lack of education, your inability to manage a household! And you! You are ungrateful!”
“What did you do for me?” Alevtina stepped toward her herself — for the first time in her life. She did not step back. She did not hide. She stepped forward. “You destroyed my marriage because your son could not take a single step without your approval. You convinced him that a wife is not a person, but an attachment that must unquestioningly obey his mother. You made my life unbearable. And now you have come to ‘help me find a husband’ because some old woman told you that only then would your son be happy? You say you came for my sake? Do not make me laugh, Maria Maksimovna. Do you hear yourself?”
Alevtina shook her head.
“Everything always revolves around you and your son. ‘I accepted her into the family.’ ‘I tried for her sake.’ ‘I want to help her so that later my dear son will be happy.’ And where am I in those sentences? Where are my wishes? Where is my life? You never saw me as a human being. To you, I was a tool. A mechanism that was supposed to work flawlessly for the benefit of your little family.”
Maria Maksimovna turned pale. Not the way people pale from fear, but the way they pale from rage, from helplessness, from seeing their entire familiar world collapse before their eyes.
“How… how dare you?”
“I merely told you the truth, and you are already offended. That is no way to behave. I hope I never see you in my home again. Go to the station, return home, and do not show up here anymore. My neighbors do not like noise very much. If you disturb their rest at this hour, they may call the police. And I have no intention of standing up for you.”
“Fine! You will regret treating me this way! You will bitterly regret it!” Maria Maksimovna shouted, grabbed the handle of her suitcase, and dragged it behind her while calling a taxi.
The woman was shocked by the sudden changes in Alevtina’s character. She had always considered that girl weak and spineless. She never would have thought that Alevtina would spread her wings like a bird reborn from the ashes and be able to fight back.
After entering the house, Alevtina involuntarily shuddered. She had not wanted to be rude, but she was not going to tolerate being used either. Maria Maksimovna had gotten what she wanted — Alevtina had left her son alone. There had been no need for her to appear in Alevtina’s life again. It was her own fault for coming to arrange her former daughter-in-law’s personal life when nobody had asked her to.
After drinking a glass of cool water, Alevtina finally settled comfortably into bed and fell asleep. She dreamed some beautiful dream, and in the morning she woke up in a good mood. Having stood up to her mother-in-law, even if only her former one, Alevtina felt whole again. And she promised herself that she would never again crawl before others. Her own opinion was worth defending, not kneeling before anyone else.
Thank you for reading and for your kind comments!