“Denis, do you really think we can manage that renovation in the next six months?” Alina pulled the blanket tighter around herself, even though the room was warm. Her voice, hoarse from the cold, sounded muffled, but there was no demand in it—only tired gentleness.
“We won’t just manage it, Al. We’ll turn that old Stalin-era apartment into a beauty. The main thing is the walls are solid, and the floors… well, so what if we had to rip up the boards? We’ll put in proper parquet. I’ll take a couple more sign-making orders. The glassblowing workshop is in season now—there’s plenty of work,” Denis said, sitting on the edge of the bed and carefully adjusting her pillow.
“I feel ashamed that I got so sick. I saved a hundred rubles by not taking transport, and now I’m lying here useless. The medicine ended up costing more,” she said with a guilty smile, looking up at her husband.
“Stop it. It was just the rain. You’re tough as stone,” he said tenderly, brushing a strand of hair away from her hot forehead. “Can I leave for a couple of hours? I need to deliver that complicated neon sign to the bar owner, otherwise there’ll be a penalty. Will you sleep?”
“Go, of course. I’ll drink the medicine and fall asleep. Only, Denis…” She hesitated for a second, hope for understanding flickering in her eyes. “If your… if Galina Ivanovna calls, don’t tell her I’m sick. She’ll say again that I’m weak and defective.”
“She won’t call. After that whole imaginary pregnancy story with Olya, I don’t want to speak to them at all. Sleep.”
Denis kissed his wife on the temple, took his keys, and quietly left. The lock clicked. Alina remained alone in the silence of the rented apartment, where every corner felt temporary and unfamiliar—but at least peaceful.
She wanted to believe that the dark period with her husband’s relatives was finally over, that their small family could simply live, save money, and put wallpaper on the walls of their own apartment—even if it was a wreck right now. Hope warmed her better than tea. Alina closed her eyes and sank into a heavy, sticky sleep caused by fever.
She woke to a sharp, scraping sound.
Someone was turning a key in the lock.
Her heart dropped. Denis? He couldn’t have returned so quickly; barely forty minutes had passed. Besides, he always opened the door carefully, almost silently. This sound was loud and rough, as if someone were trying to force the lock open—even though the key clearly fit.
The door swung open.
Two people burst into the hallway. Alina recognized their voices at once, and everything inside her clenched into an icy knot.
“Ugh, it’s so stuffy in here. They could at least open a window,” came Olya’s spoiled voice—Denis’s sister. “Mom, are you sure he’s at work?”
“I’m sure. I saw his car drive away. And this one is probably wandering around shops somewhere, spending her husband’s money,” replied Galina Ivanovna in her commanding, deep voice.
Alina froze under the blanket.
Her mother-in-law.
They had come while Denis was gone.
But how did they have keys?
Of course. Six months earlier, when relations were still strained but polite, Denis had given his mother a spare key “just in case.” They had forgotten to take it back, and then that enormous scandal with the fake pregnancy had happened.
Alina remembered that day in painful detail.
Galina Ivanovna had wrung her hands, telling them how poor Olya had been abandoned by a scoundrel, how she was carrying a grandchild under her heart but had nowhere to live. The demand had been simple and shameless, like being hit over the head with a log: Alina was supposed to sign over her inherited apartment to her sister-in-law.
“You and Denis have everything. You’re young, you’ll earn more. But Olechka needs a nest!”
Back then, Denis had wavered. His kind nature had cracked under the pressure. But chance saved them. Alina had seen “pregnant” Olya at a bus stop with a cigarette between her lips and a perfectly flat stomach.
Denis checked.
There had been no pregnancy. Only a cold, cynical plan to steal property.
And now they were here again.
“Come in, don’t bother taking off your shoes. It’s not exactly a palace in here anyway,” Galina Ivanovna ordered. “We need to look around.”
Alina wanted to get up, go out, and throw them out, but her body felt weak and heavy. Her head spun so badly the room seemed to float. She simply lay there and listened as disappointment in people turned into sticky fear.
“Mom, look at this handbag!” Olya’s voice came from the hallway. “Is this real leather? Where did she get the money for something like this? Denis works himself to death while she lives like a queen?”
“Put it back for now,” her mother muttered. “We came for something else. We need to find the papers for that apartment. She must be hiding them somewhere. If we can’t convince her nicely, we’ll use another method. We’ll say Denis owes a large sum of money and she’ll have to sell that dump.”
“And if she doesn’t believe it?”
“She will. She’s a lovesick fool.”
Nausea rose in Alina’s throat. They had come to dig through her things. To search for documents. This was no longer just shamelessness—it was an invasion, almost a crime.
Anger, hot and sharp, began to push aside her weakness. Alina clenched her teeth. She would not allow it.
Not now.
The bedroom door flew open.
Galina Ivanovna entered confidently, like the owner of the place, but when she saw Alina in bed, she stopped for a second.
“Oh. You’re home,” she said.
There was no embarrassment in her voice. No apology. Only irritation.
Olya peered out from behind her mother’s shoulder, chewing gum.
“Hello. What are we lying around for? Too lazy to work?”
“What are you doing here?” Alina pushed herself up on her elbows. Her voice trembled, but she tried to sound firm. “Where did you get the keys? Leave immediately.”
“Don’t you tell me where I can and can’t go,” Galina Ivanovna said, narrowing her eyes. “I came to see my son. And besides, I have a serious matter to discuss with you. Alina, you’re behaving selfishly.”
“Me?” Alina gasped in outrage. “You invented a baby to take my apartment from me, and I’m the selfish one?”
“That was a misunderstanding!” her mother-in-law snapped, stepping farther into the room and pushing aside a chair with Alina’s clothes on it with her foot. “Olya made a mistake. Her cycle was off. And you, like a snake, immediately ran and told Denis everything. You turned a son against his mother. But that’s not the point now. We’ve decided this can’t go on. That apartment is just standing there, gathering dust. You started some ridiculous renovation there, but you have no money. Sign it over to Olya. She needs it more. Her life hasn’t worked out.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Alina sat up and lowered her feet to the floor. Her head spun, but anger gave her strength. “That is my inheritance. Leave. I’m calling Denis right now.”
“Don’t you dare!” Olya shrieked. She rushed to the wardrobe. “She’s going to call him! Mom, look how many clothes she has! That’s where my brother’s money goes!”
Olya yanked open the sliding wardrobe door.
“Don’t touch that!” Alina shouted, trying to stand.
“Or what?” Olya grabbed a pile of Alina’s sweaters and threw them onto the floor. “All of this was bought with Denis’s money! So it’s mine too! You’re draining him dry, you parasite!”
She pulled out clothes, hangers, boxes, and hurled them under her feet, trampling them with her sneakers. A perfume bottle flew into the corner, but luckily it didn’t break—it hit the baseboard with a dull thud.
“Stop!” Alina lunged toward her sister-in-law and grabbed her arm. “Get out of here!”
At that moment, Galina Ivanovna, who until then had been watching the scene with her arms crossed over her chest, stepped forward.
“Don’t you dare touch my daughter!” she roared, and shoved Alina with all her strength.
Alina was weakened by illness. She couldn’t keep her balance. She was thrown backward, tripped over the scattered clothes, and fell heavily onto her side, striking her abdomen against the sharp corner of the bedside table.
A sharp, piercing pain tore through her lower stomach. Darkness flashed before her eyes. Alina gasped and curled up on the floor, pressing her hands to her body.
“Oh, look, now she’s pretending,” Olya snorted. “What a tragic actress. Let’s go, Mom. There’s no dealing with her. We’ll come back when Denis is here and explain who threw everything around in a hysterical fit.”
“Get up and stop embarrassing yourself,” Galina Ivanovna said, looking down at her daughter-in-law with contempt. “We’re leaving. But we’ll be back.”
They left, slamming the door behind them.
Alina remained lying among the scattered clothes. The pain did not fade. It became heavy, burning, and terrifying. She felt as if something inside her was collapsing beyond repair.
Through the haze, one cold decision came to her: she had to survive.
At any cost.
With trembling fingers, she found her phone.
Denis burst into the emergency room so fast he nearly tore the doors off their hinges. His hands—hands used to delicate work with fragile glass—were shaking now. He noticed a stain on the doctor’s white coat that looked like rust, and a shudder passed through him.
“Where is she?” he asked hoarsely.
The doctor, an older man, took off his glasses.
“Are you her husband? Calm down. Her life is not in danger. But… the pregnancy could not be saved. It was early, five or six weeks. Perhaps you didn’t even know for certain yet. The injury, along with the viral infection and stress… her body rejected the fetus.”
Denis froze.
The world did not spin. It simply became gray and flat.
Pregnancy?
They had waited so long, hoped so carefully, afraid even to speak their dream aloud. Alina had kept quiet—maybe she had wanted to surprise him, or maybe she had not been fully sure herself yet.
“Who did this?” Denis asked.
His voice sounded unfamiliar, even to himself.
“She said she fell. But the bruising is specific. And the things in the apartment… She said relatives came. There was an argument.”
Denis nodded slowly, mechanically.
He entered the ward.
Alina lay pale, almost transparent against the white pillowcase. When she saw her husband, she did not cry. She only closed her eyes and turned toward the wall.
“They pushed me, Denis. Olya was throwing my things around. Your mother pushed me. I hit myself.”
That was enough.
Inside Denis there was no fire. Instead, a black hole opened—an icy emptiness swallowing everything human: pity, doubt, filial respect.
He kissed his wife’s hand. It was cold.
“I’ll deal with it,” he said.
There was so much steel in those words that Alina opened her eyes in fear, but Denis was already gone.
He did not drive to his mother’s place fast.
He obeyed every traffic rule.
He was absolutely calm with that terrible kind of calm that comes before a hurricane. He did not plan revenge. He simply drove to put an end to it.
A thick, blood-black end.
His mother’s apartment door was unlocked. They were waiting for a pie to cool and had opened the hallway for air. Denis entered without knocking.
The television was on in the living room. Some foolish series was playing. His mother sat in an armchair with a cup of tea. Olya lay on the sofa, scrolling through social media.
Domestic peace.
Comfort.
The smell of vanilla.
When Galina Ivanovna saw her son, she blossomed into a false smile, then immediately frowned when she noticed his face.
“Oh, you’ve shown up. We’re having tea. I suppose yours has already complained to you? You should have seen the mess she made when we—”
Denis did not answer.
He walked past his mother to the large display cabinet—Galina Ivanovna’s pride. Inside stood her holiday china, Czech glass, crystal.
“Denis? What are you doing?” Olya lifted herself on one elbow.
Without a word, without shouting, Denis suddenly shoved the heavy upper section of the cabinet over.
The crash was monstrous.
Shattering glass, splintering wood, and the women’s screams merged into one horrible noise. Shards flew in every direction.
“What are you doing?!” his mother screamed, jumping up and spilling tea on the carpet. “Have you lost your mind?”
Denis turned around.
His face was terrifying—not because it was full of emotion, but because there was none. Only his eyes, empty and dark.
He walked to the hallway wardrobe, where his mother’s and sister’s fur coats and outerwear hung.
“Don’t you dare!” Olya shrieked, trying to grab his arm.
He flung her hand away without looking at her, as if brushing off an annoying fly. With the same strength he used to bend heated glass tubes and carry boxes of equipment, Olya flew back onto the sofa.
Denis ripped out an armful of clothes, hangers and all. Fabric tore. He threw the expensive fur coats onto the floor, straight onto the broken crystal. Boots, handbags, and hats followed. Then he stepped on them, heavily and methodically grinding his heels into the fur and leather.
“Stop! I’ll call the police!” Galina Ivanovna screamed, clutching her chest. “Son, come to your senses!”
Denis stopped.
He was breathing heavily, not from exhaustion, but from an overload of adrenaline. In the middle of the wrecked room, among the ruins of their comfort, he looked like a stone cliff.
He walked right up to his mother.
She fell silent and pressed herself into the back of the chair, frightened of her own child for the first time in her life.
“You wanted order?” he asked quietly.
That whisper made Olya’s lips begin to tremble.
“You wanted things? Apartments?”
He grabbed a vase of artificial flowers from the table and hurled it into the wall. It shattered, leaving a dent in the wallpaper.
“Alina had a miscarriage today,” he said, striking out each word. “The doctor said it was from the blow. From the fall.”
The room instantly went quiet.
Even the television seemed to lower its voice.
Galina Ivanovna turned pale. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Olya covered her mouth with her hand.
“You weren’t just throwing things around,” Denis continued, looking straight into his mother’s eyes. “You killed my child. My son or my daughter. You killed your own grandchild.”
“Deniska, we didn’t know… she didn’t tell us…” his mother whispered, reaching toward him with a trembling hand.
“Don’t touch me, murderer,” he recoiled as if from a disease. “Never. Again. Touch me. You are dead to me. Both of you. If I ever see you within a kilometer of my home, I won’t be responsible for myself.”
He turned and walked toward the exit, stepping over the ruined fur coat.
“Denis! I’m your mother!” Galina Ivanovna howled after him. “You can’t do this! Not because of some girl!”
He stopped in the doorway without turning around.
“I don’t have a mother anymore. I only have a wife. And you… you two monsters can live with this. If you’re able to.”
The door slammed shut.
Silence hung in the apartment, broken only by the television, where someone was laughing happily.
Galina Ivanovna slowly sank onto the sofa, directly onto a shard of broken saucer, but she didn’t even feel the pain.
Her son’s words reached her slowly, like a heavy freight train.
Miscarriage.
Murderers.
No mother.
The numbness passed, and animal fear took its place.
She knew Denis. He was soft, kind, forgiving. But she also knew something else: when he made a decision like that, with icy eyes, it was forever.
She had gone too far.
She had broken it.
“Mom, did you see that?” Olya whined, lifting her trampled boot from the floor. “He broke my heel! He’s a psycho! We should file a report against him and make him pay for everything! And anyway, this is all Alinka’s fault. She set it up on purpose!”
Galina Ivanovna looked at her daughter.
For the first time in years, she did not see her “poor little princess.” She saw a foolish, greedy, selfish woman who had just helped her destroy her own life.
“Shut up,” Galina Ivanovna said quietly.
“What?” Olya stared at her. “He tore down the curtain rods too, did you see? Mom, what’s wrong with you?”
“SHUT UP!” Galina Ivanovna screamed so loudly that her own ears rang. She jumped to her feet, her face covered in red blotches. “Get OUT! GET OUT OF HERE!”
“Mom, what are you doing? It’s me—”
“You pushed me into this! ‘Let’s go, let’s pressure her, let’s take it!’ Get out! I don’t want your presence here! I can’t stand the sight of you!”
Galina Ivanovna grabbed a sofa cushion and threw it at her daughter. Olya, shrieking something about a madhouse, ran into the hallway, grabbed her jacket, and fled the apartment.
Galina Ivanovna was left alone.
Among broken crystal, ruined clothes, and ringing emptiness.
She looked down at her hands.
Her son would never take those hands in his again. She would never see her grandchild, even if Denis and Alina had other children. She would grow old here, in this museum of broken dishes, alone.
She tried to convince herself that they would still come crawling back, that Denis needed money, needed family…
But the coldness in her chest told her the truth: this was the end.
With her own hands, she had pushed herself out of her son’s life.
Disbelief gave way to horror.
How could this have happened to her?
To respected Galina Ivanovna?
She sank to the floor, covered her face with her hands, and howled—long and dreadful, like a dog crying over ashes.
But no one came to comfort her.