Katya Was Washing the Balcony Floor Behind the Curtain When Her Mother-in-Law Entered the Living Room and Announced, “Katya Won’t Be Living Here Much Longer”
Katya was washing the floor on the balcony, hidden behind the curtain, when her mother-in-law entered the living room and announced:
“Katya won’t be living here much longer.”
The cleaning cloth froze in Katya’s hand. Water dripped from the bucket onto the tiles—drip, drip—and suddenly she could hear the sound with extraordinary clarity, as though someone had deliberately turned up the volume for her.
It was stuffy behind the heavy floral linen curtain she had sewn herself three years earlier. The air smelled of bleach and orange peel. She had peeled tangerines on the windowsill that morning, and the peels were still lying in a saucer.
She stood perfectly still, afraid to breathe, afraid that a floorboard might creak.
Cups clinked in the living room. Guests had arrived: Aunt Lyuba and their neighbor, Nina Petrovna. Her mother-in-law had invited them for tea to mark her granddaughter’s birthday, even though Katya’s daughter, Sonya, was celebrating at kindergarten with her teacher and a cake decorated with a cartoon fairy.
“Tamara Ivanovna, what are you talking about?” Aunt Lyuba asked. Judging by the sound, she was stirring sugar into her tea. “Where is Katya supposed to go?”
“She’ll go where she has to,” her mother-in-law replied with obvious satisfaction. “Dima called me yesterday. He said he was tired. Said he’d been thinking.”
“Thinking about divorce?” Nina Petrovna gasped.
“What else would I mean? They’ve been married for three years, and he hasn’t had a moment’s peace. First she wants him to renovate the apartment, then she demands a seaside vacation, then she claims she’s depressed. She’s a young, healthy woman, but she barely works. She just writes her little stories on the internet for pennies.”
Katya stood behind the curtain, her cheeks burning as though she had pushed her face into an oven. The cleaning cloth in her hand suddenly felt as heavy as lead.
“Well, then they’ll get divorced,” Aunt Lyuba said reasonably. “These things happen.”
“And whose name is the apartment in?” Nina Petrovna asked practically. Katya could hear from her voice that she had leaned forward, suddenly interested.
“That’s the point,” her mother-in-law said, lowering her voice. But Katya, pressed into the corner of the balcony, could still hear every word as clearly as if it were being broadcast through a megaphone. “My mother, may she rest in peace, left this apartment to Dima. But while I’m alive, I’m the one who decides what happens here. That’s what I’ve decided. And if Dima divorces her, Katya has no business staying. She can take her daughter and move in with her own mother. Her mother’s one-bedroom apartment is available, after all.”
“But what about the child?” Aunt Lyuba asked, less confidently now.
“What about the child? Dima will still see her. I’m not a monster. But Katya will not continue living here. I’ve made up my mind. Enough is enough. She’s been sitting on my neck for three years. She cooks only when she feels like it, cleans badly, and still has the nerve to demand her rights. She doesn’t have much time left here. I can tell you that for certain.”
Katya sank onto the small bench by the balcony door. Her legs had suddenly turned to cotton.
One phrase echoed inside her head, catching her completely off guard: not much time left.
Not “she’ll move out.” Not “she’ll leave.”
“She doesn’t have much time left.”
The wording scraped against something ancient and superstitious inside her, and for one moment she felt genuinely, physically afraid.
She shook her head, driving away the foolish thought. Of course her mother-in-law meant divorce and moving away, not anything darker.
But the feeling remained, sticky as spilled honey.
The cloth slipped from her hand and landed on the tiles with a wet slap.
Her mother-in-law stopped speaking.
“Keep your voices down,” she hissed at her guests. “I think Katya’s at home.”
“But wasn’t she making noise in the kitchen?” Nina Petrovna whispered.
“She could be anywhere. I’ll check.”
Katya jumped up, grabbed the mop in a panic, and began dragging it across the floor, pretending she had never stopped cleaning.
The curtain moved aside, and her mother-in-law looked onto the balcony.
“Why are you taking so long in here?” Tamara Ivanovna asked. Her face was perfectly calm, as though she had not just been passing judgment on her daughter-in-law over tea with her friends.
“I’m washing the floor,” Katya replied evenly, without looking up. “Sonya is always drawing with chalk out here. It leaves marks everywhere.”
“Oh,” her mother-in-law drawled.
Apparently losing interest, she returned to the living room.
Katya sat down on the bench again and remained there for a long time, staring at the streaks of soapy water on the floor.
Outside the balcony windows, the courtyard was alive with ordinary sounds. Somewhere, a ball bounced. Children laughed. A dog barked.
Life continued as usual, while everything inside her seemed to have frozen.
She took out her phone and started to type a message to her husband.
“Dima, come home as soon as possible. We need to talk.”
But she stopped.
What would she tell him?
“I overheard your mother discussing our divorce with the neighbors”?
And what if he asked why she had been hiding behind the curtain and eavesdropping?
She could say she had heard it accidentally, which was the truth.
Still, she put the phone away, wiped her hands on her apron, and stepped out from behind the curtain, trying to behave as though nothing had happened.
The guests were already preparing to leave, putting on their coats in the hallway.
“Katya, why are you so pale?” Aunt Lyuba asked sympathetically as she buttoned her coat.
“I have a headache,” Katya lied. “It’s stuffy in here.”
“You shouldn’t work so hard cleaning,” Nina Petrovna said, shaking her head. “You never take care of yourself.”
After the door closed behind the guests, Tamara Ivanovna returned to the kitchen, where Katya was silently washing the cups.
“Will you pick your daughter up from kindergarten today, or should I go?” her mother-in-law asked casually, as though she had not sentenced Katya’s marriage to death only an hour earlier.
“I’ll pick her up myself,” Katya answered quietly.
“Good. My arthritis has been acting up. I don’t feel like walking.”
Katya finished washing the cups, dried her hands on a towel, and finally looked directly at her mother-in-law.
“Tamara Ivanovna, did Dima really call you yesterday? Did he say he was tired?”
Her mother-in-law flinched slightly but quickly regained her composure.
“Yes, he called. Is a son not allowed to call his mother?”
“Of course he is,” Katya said. “I’m simply curious about what he told you.”
“What tired men usually say,” Tamara Ivanovna answered evasively before leaving the kitchen and abandoning Katya with a pile of dirty dishes and a heavy knot in her chest.
Katya finished the dishes automatically, dried her hands, and removed her apron.
Only one thought circled in her mind: she had to speak to Dima that very evening, directly and without hints.
She was not going to remain silent while other people decided her future behind her back, as though she were a piece of furniture that could be carried out of the apartment in one movement.
She collected Sonya from kindergarten at half past five.
The little girl ran toward her holding a drawing. Three figures had been drawn in pink and yellow: her mother, her father, and Sonya herself, all holding hands beneath a huge sun.
“That’s us!” Sonya announced proudly, waving the paper. “My teacher said I drew the best sun of everyone.”
“It’s beautiful, sweetheart,” Katya said, kissing the top of her daughter’s head.
For a moment, she felt better.
This was what was real. This was what was worth fighting for.
At home, she gave Sonya dinner and put her to bed earlier than usual, claiming that they had to get up early for kindergarten the next morning.
Then she waited for her husband in the kitchen, sitting beside a cup of tea that had long since gone cold.
Dima arrived at around nine, exhausted from work. He was an engineer at a factory and frequently stayed late.
He kicked off his shoes in the hallway, sighed, and entered the kitchen.
“Is there anything to eat? I’m starving,” he said, briefly kissing the top of Katya’s head.
“I’ll warm something up,” Katya replied.
She began moving pots and pans, trying not to let the anxiety show in her voice.
“Dima, did you call your mother yesterday?”
“Yes. Why?” Dima sat at the table and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing in particular. She asked how work was going. I told her I was completely exhausted by this project and that my boss had lost his mind.” Dima shrugged. “Why are you asking?”
Katya placed a plate of buckwheat and a cutlet in front of him. Then she sat opposite him, folding her hands on the table.
“Dima, today I accidentally overheard your mother telling Aunt Lyuba and Nina Petrovna that you were tired of our marriage and thinking about divorce. She also said that when you divorced me, I wouldn’t be allowed to stay here.”
Katya gestured around the kitchen.
“She said I would have to move out.”
Dima froze with his fork halfway to his mouth.
“What?” he asked. “Where did she get that idea?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” Katya said, her voice trembling. “Did you really tell her you were tired of our marriage?”
“Katya, I said I was tired of work. Of my boss. Of that ridiculous project. I didn’t say a single word about our marriage.”
Dima put down his fork and looked at her carefully.
“Do you honestly think I would complain to my mother about you?”
“I don’t know what to think.” Katya lowered her eyes. “I heard her say, with my own ears, ‘Katya won’t be living here much longer.’ Those were her exact words.”
Dima leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face with both hands.
“She invented all of it herself. You understand that, don’t you? She turned being tired of my boss into being tired of my wife, and then she added the divorce. She’s been criticizing you for a long time. I’ve noticed.”
“I’ve noticed too, but I remain silent because I don’t want to argue with her,” Katya said quietly. “It turns out she has already decided everything for us. And she has even announced it to the neighbors.”
Dima stood, paced across the kitchen, and stopped by the window.
“Listen,” he said without turning around. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk to her together. Directly. No hints. I’ll tell her I’m not planning a divorce and that she needs to stay out of our marriage.”
“And the apartment?” Katya asked. “She said it was left to you in the will, but that while she was alive, she would decide what happened to it. She said that if anything happened, she would throw Sonya and me out.”
“The apartment is already legally mine,” Dima said with a frown. “Grandmother left it to me, and I accepted the inheritance two years ago. You remember that. We went to the notary together.”
“I remember,” Katya said, nodding. “But your mother apparently thinks otherwise.”
“Then it’s time someone explained the reality to her,” Dima said firmly.
The next day, Saturday, Tamara Ivanovna came to their home as usual without warning. She had her own key and considered that perfectly normal.
Dima had deliberately arranged to finish work early so he would be home when she arrived.
“Mother, sit down. We need to talk,” Dima said as soon as she crossed the threshold.
His mother became wary, but she sat at the table and folded her hands neatly, like a schoolgirl waiting for a lesson.
“What happened? Is Sonya ill?”
“Sonya is fine. She’s playing at the neighbor’s apartment,” Katya replied, sitting beside her husband.
“Mother, Katya told me yesterday that you had been speaking to Aunt Lyuba and Nina Petrovna about our supposed divorce,” Dima began without any introduction. “You told them I was tired of my marriage and planning to leave Katya. That isn’t true. I told you I was tired of work and my boss. I never said anything like that about Katya or our marriage.”
Tamara Ivanovna turned pale, but quickly regained control, adjusting the collar of her blouse with her characteristic gesture.
“But you said yourself that you were tired,” she began defensively. “So I thought—”
“You thought, and then you invented the rest,” Dima interrupted. “And you didn’t merely think it. You told the neighbors that Katya would soon be gone and that you were the person in control of the apartment, even though the apartment was transferred into my name long ago. You know that perfectly well.”
“I know, I know,” his mother said quickly, nodding. “But I’m your mother. I worry about you.”
“Worrying means asking whether everything is all right between us,” Katya said firmly, speaking for the first time. “It does not mean deciding where Dima and I should live. And it certainly does not mean discussing it with the neighbors as though I were an object you could throw away whenever you wanted.”
“Katya, you’re exaggerating,” Tamara Ivanovna said, trying to soften her tone.
“Mother,” Dima continued, “if you ever do something like this again—if you discuss our marriage with outsiders or try to decide where we should live—I will change the lock so your key no longer works. I’ll meet you somewhere else, but you won’t enter this apartment whenever you feel like it.”
His mother gasped and pressed a hand to her chest.
“You’re threatening your own mother?”
“I’m establishing boundaries,” Dima replied calmly. “You are my mother, and I love and respect you. But this apartment belongs to me, Katya, and Sonya. We decide how we live here, not you.”
The conversation ended with his mother in tears. She slammed the door behind her, but called an hour later to apologize.
Tamara Ivanovna had always been able to calm down quickly when she realized she had gone too far.
Katya accepted the apology cautiously and without illusions. She understood that this was not the end of the story, merely a temporary ceasefire.
She was right.
A month later, at the beginning of autumn, the situation took a completely unexpected turn.
It began with a telephone call.
Katya was home alone. Dima had gone on a week-long business trip, and Sonya was at kindergarten, when the phone rang from an unfamiliar number.
“Good afternoon. This is the Garant notary office,” a polite female voice said. “May I speak to Dmitry Alexandrovich?”
“He isn’t here at the moment. He’s away on a business trip,” Katya replied cautiously. “I’m his wife. Can I take a message?”
“You see, we have an appointment scheduled for Friday regarding the reissuance of a power of attorney granting authority over real estate,” the woman explained. “The request was submitted by Tamara Ivanovna, your mother-in-law, unless I’m mistaken. We require confirmation from the owner because the property is registered in Dmitry Alexandrovich’s name.”
Katya felt cold all over.
“Excuse me, what power of attorney?” she asked, struggling to sound calm.
“A general power of attorney authorizing the management of the apartment at…”
The woman recited their address.
“It includes the right to sell, gift, and conduct other transactions involving the property. The applicant stated that the power of attorney was required in case the owner—your husband—became unavailable for an extended period because of illness or other circumstances.”
Katya felt the blood drain from her face.
“Can such a power of attorney be issued without Dmitry Alexandrovich’s consent?” she asked, making every effort to keep her voice steady.
“No, of course not. The owner must issue it personally and voluntarily,” the notary replied. “Your mother-in-law brought us some documents and asked us to prepare everything in advance so that Dmitry Alexandrovich would only need to appear in person and sign. She said he was aware of the arrangement and would soon come to sign it.”
“He is not aware,” Katya said firmly. “He’s on a business trip, he knows nothing about any power of attorney, and I’m certain he would never sign such a document.”
There was an uncomfortable pause on the other end of the line.
“Very well. I will cancel Friday’s appointment until the circumstances have been clarified,” the notary said. “Please ask Dmitry Alexandrovich to contact us personally if he wishes to discuss the matter.”
Katya ended the call and sat staring at one spot for a long time.
A general power of attorney granting the right to sell or gift the apartment.
In case Dima became “unavailable for an extended period because of illness.”
A terrible feeling tightened inside her.
Had her mother-in-law truly been considering some scenario in which Dima became incapacitated or disappeared, leaving her in control of the apartment?
Katya immediately called her husband.
“Dima, I think I have some very unpleasant news for you,” she said as soon as he answered.
She repeated her conversation with the notary word for word.
Dima remained silent for so long that Katya had to ask whether he could still hear her.
“I hear you,” he finally replied in a hollow voice. “Katya, this has gone too far. Arranging a power of attorney to sell my apartment without my knowledge is no longer a case of ‘Mother is worried.’ It’s an attempt to take control of someone else’s property.”
“What are we going to do?” Katya asked.
“I’m coming home early,” Dima said briefly. “I’ll get a ticket for tomorrow. We’ll deal with it there.”
Dima returned from his business trip two days earlier than planned, grim and determined.
The first thing he did was visit the notary office, taking all the apartment documents with him.
Katya remained at home, but she could not settle down all evening. She repeatedly looked out of the window, waiting for her husband’s car.
Dima returned late, his expression hard and unreadable.
“Well?” Katya asked as soon as he entered.
“The notary confirmed that Mother really did visit her,” Dima said, sinking wearily onto a chair in the hallway. “She brought a copy of the old ownership certificate from the time when the apartment was still formally registered in Grandmother’s name, before I accepted the inheritance.”
“She apparently thought those documents were still valid. She didn’t realize that the notary would have to check the current information in the property registry.”
“So she wanted to arrange authority over the apartment using outdated documents?” Katya asked, although she already understood the answer.
“It looks that way,” Dima said, nodding. “And the worst part is that the notary said Mother told her, ‘My son will come in soon to sign.’ That means she was either hoping to persuade me somehow or…”
Dima paused.
“Or she was planning to forge my signature or find some other way to proceed without me.”
Katya remembered her work at the property registry. She remembered dozens of cases involving real-estate fraud that had passed through her department.
A chill ran through her as she realized how familiar the scheme sounded—except this time, it involved her own family.
“Dima, I’ve seen many cases like this at work,” she said quietly. “They usually end badly for the person whose property someone is trying to take. We need to speak to your mother very seriously.”
“And perhaps we should consult a lawyer to protect the apartment officially. We can register a restriction so that no transaction can take place without your personal presence and signature.”
“I agree,” Dima said. “But first I want to speak to Mother. I want to hear from her why she did this.”
They visited Tamara Ivanovna together the following day, leaving Sonya with the neighbor.
His mother greeted them warily. She had apparently already realized that her scheme had been uncovered.
“Mother,” Dima began as soon as they entered the apartment, “the notary from Garant contacted me. She told me about the power of attorney you wanted to arrange over my apartment. Please explain what is happening.”
Tamara Ivanovna turned pale but tried to remain confident.
“What is there to explain? Anything can happen in life. Suppose you have an accident or become seriously ill. The apartment would be left without anyone able to manage it. It couldn’t be sold or handled properly. I was doing it for all of you, especially for my granddaughter.”
“Mother,” Dima said firmly, “the apartment would not be left without an owner. I have a wife and legal heirs—Katya and Sonya. If anything happens to me, they will manage the property according to the law.”
“I do not need to give you any power of attorney, especially not a general one that allows you to sell or give away the apartment.”
“You don’t understand,” his mother said, her voice trembling. “What if Katya decides to do something? What if she divorces you, marries someone else, and gets her hands on the apartment through your daughter anyway?”
“I wanted to protect it so that the apartment would remain in our family and wouldn’t pass to strangers.”
Katya stood silently, listening.
Something inside her seemed to break completely.
Everything had finally become clear.
From the very beginning, her mother-in-law had never regarded her as a person or as the mother of her granddaughter. She had seen Katya as a temporary obstacle, a threat to property that had to be protected at any cost—even through the deception of her own son.
“Tamara Ivanovna,” Katya finally said, trying to remain calm despite the anger boiling inside her, “I work at the property registry. Every day, I see what these kinds of ‘precautions’ lead to.”
“Powers of attorney obtained through deception, forged signatures, families fighting in court for decades. You tried to bypass your own son by presenting outdated documents to a notary.”
“That is not protecting the family. It is an attempt to seize someone else’s property by circumventing the law.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me!” her mother-in-law snapped. “You’ve barely been part of this family, while I’ve spent my whole life in connection with this apartment—”
“Mother, enough!” Dima interrupted sharply. “This apartment is mine. It was legally registered in my name two years ago.”
“You have no right to control it without my knowledge. And the fact that you tried to arrange a power of attorney using outdated documents is serious. It isn’t a joke. If the notary had become suspicious, she might have considered it an attempted fraud.”
Tamara Ivanovna burst into tears.
She began saying that she had only wanted what was best, that she was afraid of being left with nothing in her old age, and that she feared Dima would fall completely under his wife’s influence and leave his mother without a roof over her head.
“Mother,” Dima said more gently, sitting beside her, “no one intends to leave you without a home. You have your own apartment, and nobody is trying to take it from you.”
“But my apartment is mine, and it is also Katya and Sonya’s home. If you need help or support, tell me directly. I will always help you.”
“But deceiving a notary and preparing documents behind my back isn’t helping. It is a betrayal of trust.”
“I didn’t want to betray you,” his mother sobbed. “I was simply frightened. I was afraid I would grow old alone and become useless to everyone.”
Looking at her tears, Katya felt an unexpected mixture of pity and determination.
She understood that real fear lay behind her mother-in-law’s actions: fear of loneliness, fear of losing control, fear of becoming unwanted.
But understanding did not change the fact that this fear had nearly caused a serious conflict, deception, and possibly years of legal disputes.
“Tamara Ivanovna,” Katya said more gently, sitting opposite her, “I understand that you’re afraid. But the answer is not to take your son’s property through deception.”
“The answer is to speak honestly about what you want and what frightens you. If you’re afraid of being alone, tell us. We’ll help you.”
“Dima is your son, and I am his wife, not your enemy. But trust must be earned, not manipulated out of people through tricks.”
Her mother-in-law remained silent for a long time, wiping her tears with a crumpled handkerchief.
Finally, she said quietly:
“Forgive me. I truly didn’t think it looked so terrible from the outside. I thought I was only protecting myself, but it turns out I was trying to take my son’s apartment through deception.”
“It’s good that you understand that,” Dima said. “But I have one condition now. You will never again visit notaries, lawyers, or real-estate agents with my documents unless I am personally present.”
“If you need something arranged, the three of us will discuss it openly together.”
“I agree,” Tamara Ivanovna said, nodding.
That was not quite the end of the story, however.
Dima still did not completely trust his mother after what had happened. The following week, he and Katya consulted a lawyer and added an extra layer of protection.
They submitted a formal declaration to the property registry prohibiting the registration of any real-estate transaction without the owner’s personal participation.
This prevented anyone from attempting to complete a transaction under a power of attorney without Dima’s direct consent and presence.
Because Katya knew the procedure through her work, she helped prepare and submit all the necessary documents in a single day.
“I feel calmer now,” she told her husband that evening after the paperwork had been filed. “No one can do anything with this apartment without you, no matter how badly they want to.”
“Thank you for not remaining silent that day,” Dima said, embracing her. “Had you not overheard that conversation behind the curtain, I might never have discovered what was happening until it was too late.”
“It’s frightening to think about,” Katya admitted. “At first, I was afraid she was literally planning something terrible. It turned out she merely wanted to get control of the apartment.”
“Sometimes ‘merely taking the apartment’ sounds even more frightening,” Dima replied with a humorless smile.
Katya’s relationship with Tamara Ivanovna did not become perfect after that incident.
Her old habits of controlling people and interfering in other people’s affairs resurfaced more than once.
But from that day onward, her mother-in-law no longer allowed herself to determine her son and daughter-in-law’s future behind their backs, much less discuss it with the neighbors over tea.
Sonya grew older and started first grade.
At family celebrations, all three adults—Dima, Katya, and Tamara Ivanovna—tried to remain calm and polite, avoiding their former intrigues.
Occasionally, his mother still could not resist making a cutting remark. But as soon as Dima frowned, she would stop herself, remembering that unforgettable conversation at the table.
Whenever Katya remembered the sentence she had heard from behind the balcony curtain—“Katya won’t be living here much longer”—she no longer felt afraid.
Instead, she thought about it with bitter irony.
In one sense, her mother-in-law had been right: Katya had indeed nearly lost the roof over her head.
But not because her husband wanted a divorce.
It was because another person’s greed and fear had nearly destroyed everything Katya had worked so hard to build during those three years: her home, her family, and her quiet but stubborn confidence in the future.
Now, whenever she washed the floor on that same balcony behind the same floral curtain, Katya sometimes smiled to herself.
How fortunate that she had not been too frightened or too lazy to listen to the conversation until the end instead of simply stepping out and pretending she had heard nothing.
Sometimes silence protects peace inside a home.
But sometimes silence only allows evil to grow until it becomes too powerful to stop.
Katya had made a decision for herself long ago.
Whenever she had to choose between peace at any cost and the truth, however uncomfortable, she would choose the truth.
A home built on silence and endless concessions eventually collapses.
But a home built on honesty, even painful honesty, can stand for a very long time.