The nerve of former relatives is a constant value. It is not affected by inflation and does not depend on the phases of the moon.
When the doorbell rang on Saturday morning, I was expecting the dry-cleaning courier. But standing on my doorstep was a whole delegation: my ex-husband Tolik, his mother Irina Gennadyevna, and his sister Sveta. The appearance of Christ before the people, budget version.
The plot of their visit was laughably predictable. Eight months earlier, Tolik had dramatically left me for twenty-year-old Vika, chasing “youth and energy.” He left me the keys and marched off into the sunset with one suitcase, which, by the way, I had bought. The apartment had originally belonged to my parents and had been transferred to me as a gift. And now the prodigal inseminator had returned with an assault squad.
“Are you going to let us in, or are we supposed to keep wearing out the doormat in the hallway?” Irina Gennadyevna announced from the threshold. “Come on, let us through!”
“Come in, since you’ve already shown up,” I replied calmly. “Just park your brooms in the corner and hang your halos on the coat rack so they don’t scratch the ceiling.”
I did not rush around making tea or pretending to be hospitable. I simply prepared myself to listen.
“Anya, let’s not have any hysterics. We’re adults,” my former mother-in-law began.
“You’re a lonely woman. A two-room apartment is useless to you, like a saddle on a cow. It’s selfish. You’re sitting here like a dog in the manger!”
“And who exactly is it perfect for?” I asked. “The Foundation for the Protection of Endangered Toliks? Or should we open a museum here dedicated to failed personal lives?”
“For Tolik!” Sveta barked. “Vika is pregnant. They need square meters, not some rented kennel. Have a conscience, your ladyship, sitting alone in these mansions!”
“Oh, so your gene pool is expanding? Congratulations. So Tolik traded me in for fresh blood, and now I’m supposed to sponsor his incubator?” I smirked.
“Brilliant. A plan as reliable as a Swiss watch from AliExpress. Pity they won’t give you the Nobel Prize in economics.”
“Don’t be sarcastic! Tolik laid this laminate flooring himself three years ago! And nailed the baseboards!” Irina Gennadyevna raised her voice. “We calculated everything with a calculator. You sell the apartment, give half to Tolik for a down payment, and buy yourself a studio apartment on the outskirts. That’s more than enough for you alone. You won’t find a man anyway. You’ll just get forty cats!”
“Irina Gennadyevna, Tolik’s laminate flooring is, of course, a UNESCO cultural heritage site,” I nodded.
“Your arrogance is outpacing inflation. Right now, you remind me of Chukovsky’s Tarakanishche. Wiggling your mustache, demanding that people hand over what is most precious to them, while in reality you’re just an ordinary bug with an inflated ego.”
“You little—! That’s why he ran away from you! Sitting there acting clever! Who needs you at forty-eight, you old maid with a trailer full of books?!”
“Mom is right,” Tolik suddenly grew bolder. “Anya, be human. I have a family. A child. I’m not a stranger. I gave you the ten best years of my life.”
“Tolik, you spent your ‘best years’ lying on my couch so thoroughly that there’s still a dent in it shaped like your backside. Are we going to include that dent in the division of property too? And when you left, you shouted that a real man could move mountains on his own. What happened? Did the mountains turn out to be paid, and the mortgage started biting?”
“How is he supposed to earn anything with prices like this?! You feel sorry for him, don’t you?!” Sveta shrieked and slapped a printed sheet of paper onto the table.
“You’ll shrivel up here with your pride! Here, we brought a document. An agreement for compensation for the repairs! Sign it, saying you’ll give Tolik half the value of the apartment in cash, otherwise we’ll drag you through the courts for his investments!”
I stared at this masterpiece of legal thought. “Agreement.” Judging by the pale stripes, it had been printed on a dying printer in Sveta’s accounting office. I started laughing. Quietly at first, then out loud, until tears came, throwing my head back. I laughed so hard I almost knocked a vase off the table.
“To court? Over laminate flooring?!” I managed to squeeze out through my laughter, wiping away the mascara that had treacherously run from all the fun.
“Girls, you should have at least opened the Civil Code before wasting paper. This apartment was gifted to me!”
“Why don’t you also bill me for the air freshener in the bathroom? He breathed it for three years, after all! Tolik, did you keep the receipt for the wallpaper glue, or did your mother prepare the estimate from memory?”
My former mother-in-law turned crimson, drawing air into her chest for an ultrasonic attack, but just then the doorbell rang in the hallway. Still giggling, I went to open it.
It was not the courier at the door. It was Ilyukha. My friend, a trainer from the gym I had joined right after the divorce to drive out stress.
Two meters of muscle mass, fists like sledgehammers, and the good-natured smile of a man who could casually bench-press a compact car.
“Anya, you weren’t answering your phone, so I brought you the protein like we agreed,” Ilya rumbled in his deep voice, then stopped short, looking over the top of my head into the living room.
“What’s this shareholders’ meeting? Everyone’s faces look like they ate a lemon without tequila.”
“Well,” I waved my hand. “A charity foundation has come to dispossess me. They want to seize my apartment for the benefit of the younger generation. They’re threatening lawsuits over three nailed baseboards.”
Ilya stepped into the apartment. The floor under his size 46 boots did not even creak, but Tolik did. The whole delegation somehow deflated at once and pressed themselves into the sofa.
“Who is that?” Sveta squeaked, hiding behind her mother’s broad back.
“Mobile cleaning service,” Ilya smiled sweetly, cracking his knuckles.
“I remove large-sized garbage. Free of charge and with a breeze.”
He slowly approached Tolik, who, compared to Ilya, suddenly looked very small, fragile, and somehow transparent. Ilya easily grabbed my ex-husband by the collar of his branded jacket, the way one grabs a naughty kitten by the scruff of the neck.
“Hey! Take your hands off me! I’ll call the police!” Tolik squealed when his sneakered feet lifted about ten centimeters off the floor.
“Go ahead, brother. At the same time, you can explain to them how you were extorting square meters from your ex-wife. The article on extortion is very trendy right now,” Ilya remarked philosophically and carried Tolik into the corridor.
My former mother-in-law and sister-in-law shuffled after him with gasps and wails, resembling a flock of frightened geese.
I helpfully swung the front door open. Ilya carefully, so as not to scratch the doorframes — after all, Tolik had done the repairs, they needed to be preserved! — carried the body of the prodigal inseminator out onto the landing. He walked to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors obligingly slid open. Ilya placed Tolik in the very corner of the cabin, like a punished schoolboy.
“Ladies, your luggage has been loaded. Please proceed to boarding,” I said gallantly, gesturing toward the elevator.
Irina Gennadyevna and Sveta, shooting me looks filled with curses down to the seventh generation, scurried over to their precious Tolik.
“And take your little paper with you,” I said, crumpling the “compensation agreement” and tossing it straight into the elevator, hitting my ex-husband directly in the chest.
“Buy a frame for it and hang it above the heir’s crib. As a reminder that greed may not be stupid, but it must be folded away at the right time.”
The elevator doors began to close.
“Whore!” my former mother-in-law managed to spit out at the last second.
“But one with an apartment!” I shouted cheerfully at the closing doors.
A dull clang announced that the circus had departed for the first floor. Ilya dusted off his hands and looked at me with a grin.
“So, are we drinking a protein shake, or opening the cognac right away?”
“Ilyukha, you are my personal superhero,” I exhaled, feeling the tension finally release.
“Let’s have cognac!” I breathed out.
“To good living space and personal superheroes!”