Her husband thought he could trick her into letting his mother move in. An hour later, he was standing in the stairwell with a suitcase
“What on earth are you doing here?!” Dasha’s voice cracked into a hoarse shout the moment she stepped over the threshold of her own apartment.
A thick, nauseating smell of Corvalol hit her nose. In the hallway, right on her favorite light-colored rug—the one she washed by hand every week—stood three huge plaid bags. A crooked-legged floor lamp was sticking out of one of them.
But the worst part was something else.
The kitchen windowsill was empty.
“Where are my orchids?”
Dasha crossed the hallway in two strides, dropping her bag of groceries straight onto the floor.
Zinaida Arkadyevna, the mother of Dasha’s husband Igor, floated out of the kitchen wearing Dasha’s slippers.
“Don’t shout, Dashenka. You’re not at the market,” her mother-in-law drawled in a sugary, deliberately calm voice. “I put your brooms out on the balcony. That’s exactly where they belong. I need the space here. My seedlings are coming soon.”
“What balcony?! It’s minus two at night out there! Were you trying to kill them?”
Dasha flung open the balcony door. Three pots with rare phalaenopsis orchids, which she had been caring for for two years, were huddled pitifully against the cold glass.
Dasha spun around sharply.
“Take your bags and get out. Right now!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Zinaida Arkadyevna said, sitting down on a chair and folding her hands over her ample chest. “I live here now. Igor! Igorek, come out and explain the situation to your wife!”
Forty-five-year-old Igor shuffled out of the bedroom. He avoided her eyes, nervously tugging at the stretched collar of his old T-shirt.
“Dashul, just don’t get upset, okay…” he began, staring somewhere near the baseboard.
“I am calm… as a corpse,” Dasha said through clenched teeth. “What is this woman doing in my apartment with all her belongings? Why is there a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink? And why does the hallway stink of old junk?”
“Mom has moved in with us. Permanently,” Igor blurted out in one breath, immediately hunching his shoulders.
Dasha froze.
Twenty years of marriage flashed before her eyes. Twenty years of carrying the household on her back, working as an accountant at a logistics company, taking side jobs at home, balancing every debit and credit, scraping together money for tutors for their daughter.
Igor, the unrecognized genius of architecture, survived on occasional orders for sheds and verandas, earning pennies.
And his mother had always been a shadow over their life.
“In my apartment?” Dasha narrowed her eyes. “Have you lost your minds?”
“Dasha, please understand!” Igor whined, backing toward the refrigerator. “We have problems. I have problems. I took out a loan to develop my business. For new software, for professional courses…”
“What loan?” Dasha grabbed him by the sleeve of his T-shirt. “How much?”
“One and a half million,” Igor squeaked.
“How much?!” she roared. “You don’t bring a single kopeck into this home! You borrow cigarette money from me! Who gave you one and a half million?”
“Against Mom’s apartment…” her husband whispered.
“And we lost it, Dashulya,” Zinaida Arkadyevna sighed tragically, wiping away a nonexistent tear. “Because of collec—ugh, because of bank debts. I sold my two-room apartment to save my son from prison. So now you are obliged to take me in. I ended up practically begging on the church steps for the sake of your family!”
Dasha leaned heavily against the countertop. Her fingers found a sticky spot—her mother-in-law had already managed to spill jam and not wipe it up.
“So. You, Igor, secretly took out a loan behind my back. You flushed it down the toilet. Your mother sells her apartment, and the two of you decide she’s moving in with me? Without my knowledge?”
“Well, where is Mom supposed to go?” Igor protested, becoming a little bolder. “It may be cramped, but we won’t be offended. We’ll help you. Mom will cook…”
“Cook?”
Dasha jabbed a disgusted finger at the frying pan on the stove, where something gray was floating in a layer of grease.
“This? I wouldn’t even give this to stray dogs!”
“Ungrateful woman!” Zinaida Arkadyevna shrieked, jumping to her feet. “I lost my home for all of you, and you turn up your nose! Never mind, you’ll endure it! We’ll move Liza into the living room, onto the sofa, and I’ll settle in her room. The sun shines there in the morning. It’s good for my skin.”
“My daughter onto a sagging sofa?”
Dasha grabbed a kitchen towel and twisted it tightly into a rope.
“You really have no shame left.”
“Dasha, stop being hysterical,” Igor tried to switch on his man-of-the-house voice. “Mom has already unpacked her things.”
“She’ll pack them back up!”
Dasha marched into the hallway and kicked the nearest plaid bag.
“I’m giving you one hour. And then I don’t want a trace of you here. Rent a room, go to a hostel, live in a basement. I don’t care.”
“You wouldn’t dare throw me out into the street!” her mother-in-law shouted, clutching her heart. “My blood pressure! Igorek, bring the blood pressure monitor!”
“I’m calling the police right now,” Dasha hissed, pulling her phone from her coat pocket.
At that moment, a key turned in the lock. The door opened, and Liza appeared on the threshold. She pulled a heavy backpack full of notes off her shoulder and sighed tiredly, but froze when she saw the scene in the hallway.
“Hi… What’s going on? Grandma, why did you take my posters off the wall?”
Liza looked from her father to her mother in confusion.
Dasha turned sharply to her daughter.
“She was in your room?”
“Well, yes,” Liza shrugged. “Dad called me yesterday and told me to pack up my things. Said Grandma was moving in with us for a couple of years, and I’d live in the living room for now. I thought you knew, Mom…”
Dasha slowly turned her gaze to her husband.
“Yesterday?” she asked quietly. “You agreed on this behind my back? You decided to do this to my child just to move this…”
“Dasha, watch your mouth!” Igor snapped. “Liza is young. She doesn’t care where she sleeps. Mom has arthritis!”
“Your mother has no conscience, just like you!” Dasha exploded. “Liza, go to your room. And if either of you so much as touches one of her things, I’ll break your…”
“You little…!” her mother-in-law rushed to her bag and pulled out a folder of documents. “I came to my son! To the apartment where he is registered! You have no right!”
The folder slipped awkwardly out of Zinaida Arkadyevna’s plump hands, and the papers scattered across the linoleum like a fan. Dasha automatically lowered her gaze.
Among old receipts and prescriptions lay a fresh sheet printed on a printer. The large title read: “Lease Agreement.”
Dasha bent down and picked it up.
“Hey, give that back! That’s personal!”
Zinaida Arkadyevna tried to snatch the paper away, but Dasha sharply pushed her hand aside.
Her eyes quickly scanned the text.
“‘Landlord: Zinaida Arkadyevna… Tenant: ***. Subject of the agreement: ***. Rent: forty-five thousand rubles per month…’”
Dasha read aloud, and with every word her voice grew louder while Igor’s face grew paler.
A dead, ringing silence settled over the kitchen.
“So you sold the apartment to save your son, did you?”
Dasha stepped toward her mother-in-law. The woman backed away and bumped into a chair.
“You rented it out! And then dragged yourselves into my home so you could sit on my neck, eat at my expense, and sleep in my daughter’s room?!”
“So what?!” her mother-in-law suddenly shrieked, going on the offensive. “That’s my supplement to my pension! I worked hard my whole life! I have the right to live in comfort! And you are obliged to take care of us since you married my son! Igor works, he gets tired, while all you do is shuffle papers around in an office!”
Dasha turned to Igor.
“Why the hell did you play along with her?”
Igor looked away.
“Dash, what’s the big deal? Mom’s pension is small. We were going to save that money…”
“You? Save money?” Dasha burst into hysterical laughter. “You, the man who begged me for a thousand rubles for transportation yesterday?”
Her laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Her face twisted into a grimace of pure, primal rage. She grabbed a jar of homemade lecho from the table, the one her mother-in-law had brought with her, and hurled it at the wall with all her strength.
The jar shattered into pieces. Red slop slowly ran down the wallpaper.
Zinaida Arkadyevna squealed and covered her head with her hands.
“Out!” Dasha growled. “Both of you! Right now!”
“You’ve lost your mind!” Igor shouted.
“You don’t have a family anymore! Your family is your lying mommy!” Dasha rushed into the hallway.
She grabbed Igor’s jacket from the coat rack and threw it out onto the stair landing. His sneakers followed.
“Liza!” she shouted. “Bring his suitcase!”
Her daughter, pale but determined, rolled an old suitcase out of the storage closet. Dasha flung open the wardrobe in the bedroom and began scooping up her husband’s shirts, trousers, and sweaters by the armful, stuffing them inside without sorting anything.
“You have no right! I’m registered here!” Igor squealed, trying to snatch his things from her.
“I’ll have you deregistered through court tomorrow! As someone who has lost the right to use the apartment! This apartment was mine before marriage!” Dasha shoved the suitcase forcefully toward the door. “And you, Zinaida Arkadyevna, take your bags before I throw them off the balcony!”
“You rude witch! You…!” her mother-in-law spat poison as she fussily grabbed her bags. “Igor, call the police! She’s killing us!”
“The police? Go ahead!” Dasha herself flung the front door open. “At the same time, I’ll tell them about the fraud! Get out!”
She grabbed her husband by the collar of his T-shirt and, with strength unbelievable for her build, pushed him over the threshold. Zinaida Arkadyevna and her plaid bags followed.
Dasha slammed the door shut and immediately turned the key twice.
Dull thuds came from the stairwell.
“Dasha! Open the door immediately!” Igor’s voice trembled. “Dasha, stop freaking out! Where are we supposed to go now?! Mom’s apartment is rented out, people are living there!”
“Go to a hotel! With forty-five thousand a month, you can afford it!” she shouted through the door.
“Dasha, this isn’t funny! My laptop is still in there!”
“May you be cursed!” Zinaida Arkadyevna howled hysterically behind the door. “May you rot alone, you snake!”
Dasha leaned her forehead against the cold metal of the door and breathed heavily.
“Mom…” Liza called quietly from the hallway. “Are you okay?”
Dasha straightened and turned to her daughter. Crushed apples lay scattered across the floor, the kitchen wall was smeared with lecho, and an icy draft blew in from the balcony.
“Wonderful, sweetheart,” Dasha exhaled and wiped a drop of sweat from her forehead. “Just wonderful. Get the bucket and mop. We’re going to wash out this mothball stink. And then I’m calling a locksmith. We need to change the lock cylinder immediately.”
“Right now?” Liza asked in surprise.
“Right now. I don’t want to spend another second afraid that parasite might turn his key in my door.”
An hour later, the locksmith arrived. Dasha paid him double, standing over him the entire time while he changed the lock. She threw the old keys down the garbage chute with pleasure.
That evening, she and Liza sat in the kitchen, drank mint tea, and said nothing. The apartment seemed huge, clean, and, at last, truly theirs.
Six months passed.
October turned out rainy. Dasha stood in the kitchen kneading dough for cabbage pies. Broth gently bubbled on the stove, and the cozy smell of fried onions spread through the apartment.
On the windowsill, directly above the radiator, new orchids proudly bloomed—two huge white phalaenopsises.
Dasha had bought them with the very first bonus she received at work. It turned out that without Igor, she suddenly had plenty of free time to take on an additional project, and plenty of spare money that no longer disappeared into the bottomless pit of the “unrecognized genius.”
Liza sat at the table, typing quickly on her laptop.
“Mom, the potatoes are starting to boil,” her daughter said without looking up from the screen.
“Turn the heat down, sunshine,” Dasha replied, shaking flour from her hands.
Her mobile phone rang. Dasha looked at the screen.
“Igor.”
He called steadily once every two weeks.
Dasha pressed the answer button and turned on speakerphone.
“Dasha?” Igor asked in a dull, pitiful voice.
In the background, the television could be heard blaring.
“What do you want?”
“Dash, maybe we can talk? I can’t go on like this anymore. Mom is driving me insane. She kicked out the tenants, and now we live together. She counts every ruble. She forbids me from smoking. She makes me get up at seven in the morning and go to the market for bread because it’s three rubles cheaper there…”
“I’m very sorry,” Dasha answered evenly. “And what do you want from me?”
“Dash, we’re not strangers… Twenty years, after all. Maybe we could try again? I’ll find a proper job, honestly. I understand how wrong I was… Dasha, please take me away from here!”
Liza snorted, covering her mouth with her hand.
Dasha carefully placed a pie on the baking tray, wiped her hands on a sunflower-patterned towel, and leaned toward the microphone.
“Igor. Sign up for survival courses with your mother. And don’t call here again. You’re distracting me from the dough.”
She ended the call, blocked the number, and put the phone on the shelf.
“That was cruel to Dad.”
“That was fair,” Dasha corrected her.
She looked at her clean, blooming orchids, deeply breathed in the smell of homemade baking, and felt absolute, unclouded peace spreading inside her.
“Get the butter, Liz. We’re going to brush the pies. And don’t even try telling me you’re on a diet.”
Rain drummed against the window, but inside the apartment it was warm, bright, and incredibly quiet.
No one was grumbling about a ruined life, demanding money, or trying to take someone else’s place.
For the first time in twenty years, Dasha felt like the mistress of her own life.