Marina was standing at the ironing board at half past six in the morning. Four shirts were already hanging neatly on hangers, waiting for their owner. The fifth hissed beneath the iron, smoothing out obediently — just as Marina herself had been smoothed out over the past five years.
From the child’s room came her son’s alarm clock. It was time to make breakfast, check his backpack, and call a taxi to school.
Sergey appeared in the kitchen at exactly seven, fresh from the shower, wearing a perfectly ironed shirt. Without a word, he sat down, scrolled through his phone, and reached for his cup.
“Sergey, I wanted to talk to you,” Marina said, placing an omelet in front of him and sitting across the table. “Remember I told you about my tooth? The filling fell out two months ago. It hurts to chew on the left side.”
“This tooth again,” he muttered, not even looking up. “How much?”
“The dentist said around twelve thousand. If I leave it too long, it’ll be more expensive. I’ll need a crown.”
“Twelve thousand for one tooth?” Sergey frowned. “Let’s do it after the holidays. Now isn’t the best time.”
Marina pressed her lips together. “Now isn’t the best time” had been going on since March. First it was repairs for his car, then a new phone for him, then a gym membership — also for him. Her tooth was always last in line.
“Sergey, I’ve been putting up with this for two months. It’s not a whim. It really hurts.”
“Marina, I already said after the holidays. What language do I have to repeat it in?”
Their son ran out of his room with his backpack, and the conversation ended there. Marina made him sandwiches, checked his change of shoes, kissed the top of his head at the door, and returned to the kitchen.
A dirty plate. A cup with a coffee ring. Crumbs scattered across the table.
Her husband had already left without saying goodbye.
She cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher, wiped the stove. Then she vacuumed three rooms, hung up laundry, went to the store for groceries, cooked lunch, and picked up her son from his activity class. By evening, her legs were aching and her back hurt as if she had spent the day hauling sacks of cement.
But according to her husband, she “sat at home and rested.”
On Saturday, they went to visit Olya and Dmitry. Marina wore the only decent dress she had — one she had bought on sale three years earlier — and even managed to put mascara on, something she hadn’t done in a month.
Olya opened the door with a smile. The apartment was shining. On the table stood a lasagna giving off golden steam, with salad and homemade bread beside it.
“Well, Marina, look at this,” Sergey said, sweeping his hand around the room. “Now this is what I call order. The table is set, the hostess is glowing. You should take notes.”
Marina felt something tighten inside her. It wasn’t the first time. But in front of other people, it hurt more.
“Sergey, maybe don’t compare us?” she said quietly, touching his elbow.
“What’s wrong with that? I’m telling the truth. Olya, honestly, well done.”
Olya smiled awkwardly and called Marina into the kitchen to help. Once the door closed behind them, her face changed. The polite smile disappeared.
“Does he talk to you like that in front of everyone?” Olya asked quietly.
“All the time. I’m used to it.”
“You can’t get used to something like that, Marina.”
Olya took a second baking tray out of the oven and suddenly said, “You know, I’ll tell you something. Just between us. Dmitry transfers seventy thousand to me every month. Separate from groceries, utilities, and everything else. Just for me. Personally. No reports.”
Marina froze with a plate in her hands.
“Seventy? For what?”
“For what I do at home. He calculated it himself. Hiring a cook, a cleaner, and a nanny in Moscow would cost at least one hundred twenty thousand, maybe even one hundred fifty. He said, ‘Olya, you do the work of three people. It would be unfair if you didn’t have your own money.’”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“No. He offered it himself. Two years ago. Since then, every first day of the month, like a salary.”
Marina put the plate down. Her hands trembled slightly.
“I don’t even have a thousand for my tooth, Olya. I’ve been walking around with a hole in it for two months.”
Olya looked at her for a long moment but said nothing. She only squeezed her hand.
During dinner, the conversation somehow turned to household chores. Dmitry was talking, gesturing with his fork.
“Last autumn Olya went to stay with her mother for a week. I stayed alone with the kids, the house, everything. Guys, by the third day I felt like a wrung-out rag. You cook in the morning, then cook again in the evening. In between, laundry, homework, shopping, someone spills something, someone starts fighting. By Friday I was ordering food delivery and dreaming of going back to work as if it were a vacation.”
“Oh, come on,” Sergey smirked. “What’s so hard about it? Throw things in the machine, take them out, press a couple of buttons on the stove.”
“Sergey, I used to think the same thing. Until I tried it. Try it yourself, then we’ll talk.”
“No, this is just being whipped,” Sergey said, leaning back in his chair. “Paying your wife for living at home? She already has everything provided for her.”
Dmitry put his fork down and looked him in the eye.
“Having everything provided for you is when a person does nothing. But when someone works fourteen hours a day with no weekends and no vacation, that’s something else. You get paid for your work. Why shouldn’t Marina be paid for hers?”
Sergey had no answer, so he changed the subject to football.
They drove home in silence. Their son was sleeping at his grandmother’s place — Marina had arranged it on purpose so they could talk without witnesses.
She waited until Sergey sat down in his armchair and turned on the TV.
“Sergey, let’s talk. Calmly.”
“About what?”
“About what Dmitry said. I want to have my own card. A fixed amount every month. Not for groceries. For me. For my own needs.”
Sergey turned off the TV and looked at her. His face hardened.
“Are you serious? You want to hand me a price list for living in my apartment and eating with my money?”
“I want my work to be respected. Nothing more. I cook, clean, and raise our child. That is work.”
“Work is when you get paid. Who pays you? No one. Because it isn’t work, Marina. It’s your responsibility. I earn money, you take care of the house. End of story.”
“So my contribution is zero?”
“Financially? Yes. Zero. If you want money, go get a job. Who’s stopping you?”
“And who will run the house, drive our son around, cook your breakfasts and dinners, and iron your shirts?”
“We’ll figure it out. Everyone manages somehow.”
Marina stood up. Her voice did not shake, though everything inside her was boiling.
“Fine. So my contribution is zero. I’ll remember that.”
“Remember whatever you want. Look at you, suddenly an accountant.”
She went into the bedroom and closed the door. She didn’t slam it. She closed it quietly.
He switched channels, and ten minutes later, he had already forgotten the conversation.
Marina did not forget.
She took out her phone, opened a search engine, and calculated until two in the morning. A private cook for lunch and dinner: three to four thousand a day. A housekeeper for deep cleaning a three-room apartment: eighteen to twenty thousand. A nanny to accompany a child: eight hundred rubles an hour. Ironing: four hundred rubles per shirt at a dry cleaner.
She entered the numbers into a spreadsheet carefully, column by column.
By morning, the total came to between eighty and one hundred ten thousand rubles a month.
“Zero,” then.
In the morning, Marina printed the spreadsheet on the printer Sergey had bought for his own home office needs and attached the sheet to the refrigerator with a pineapple-shaped magnet. At the top, in large letters, she wrote:
“The cost of services you receive for free.”
Sergey came out for breakfast. There was only one plate on the table. Porridge. For their son.
“What about me?”
“Breakfast for one adult: four hundred fifty rubles. Payment by card or cash.”
“Are you joking?”
“I’m completely serious. My contribution is zero. That means I will only take care of myself and our child. You are an adult, independent man. You’ll manage.”
Sergey read the spreadsheet on the fridge, snorted, and made himself a sandwich.
“Fine. Play your little game. You’ll come running back in a day.”
She didn’t.
Not after one day. Not after two. Not after three.
Marina cooked for herself and her son. She cleaned her own room and the child’s room. She ironed the school uniform and her own clothes. Sergey’s shirts lay in a crumpled pile. His plates piled up in the sink. The hallway floor, dirtied by his shoes, stayed dirty.
On the third day, Sergey tried to pressure her with his voice.
“Marina, enough of this nonsense! What kind of circus is this?”
“This isn’t a circus. This is market economics. You said it yourself: work is when someone pays. No one pays me, so I don’t work.”
“I feed you!”
“You pay for groceries. That isn’t a salary for my labor. Those are household expenses in a home where you live too.”
“Where did you pick up all these words?”
“From a calculator. It’s more objective than you.”
By the fourth day, Sergey stopped talking. Silently, he boiled dumplings for himself, silently ate from disposable plates — he still hadn’t started washing dishes.
On the fifth day, he tried to wash his sweater and chose the cotton setting instead of delicate wash. His favorite cashmere sweater, worth fourteen thousand, shrank three sizes.
He held it in his hands and remained silent for a full minute.
“Marina,” he said finally, his voice different now. Quieter. “Can we talk?”
“We can. I’m in the kitchen.”
He sat down at the table. In front of him lay the same printout — apparently, he had taken it off the refrigerator.
“I looked up the prices. Cleaning, cooking, all of it… Does it really cost that much?”
“You can check.”
“I already did. Deep cleaning is twenty thousand. I called an agency.”
“And?”
“And food delivery for a week is another twenty. A nanny for a weekend is eight hundred an hour. That’s… a lot.”
“That is exactly what I do every day. For free. With a value of ‘zero.’”
Sergey rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the spreadsheet for a long time.
“I didn’t realize it was that…”
“You didn’t think, Sergey. That’s exactly the point. You didn’t think.”
On Sunday evening, Sergey sat in his shrunken sweater, which was now only fit to be used as a rag. In front of him lay his phone with the banking app open. Marina sat across from him, calm and straight-backed.
“I got you a card,” he said. “An additional one linked to my account. I transferred thirty thousand. For now.”
Marina looked at the screen. Then she raised her eyes.
“Thirty?”
“Well… to start.”
“I’ll open my own card. Dmitry transfers seventy to Olya. And you yourself said his income is about the same as yours.”
“Well, their situation is different…”
“How is it different? Olya runs the house. I run the house. Olya cooks. I cook. Olya drives the kids around. I drive our son around. The only difference is that Dmitry values it, and you don’t yet. Seventy is the minimum.”
Sergey leaned back in his chair. The arrogance he had been holding onto for five days finally fell away completely. He looked tired now. Not angry — tired, like a man seeing a familiar picture from the other side for the first time.
“Fine. Fifty. And I’ll vacuum on weekends.”
“Sixty. And my tooth. Tomorrow.”
“Your tooth?”
“The one you’ve been putting off for two months. I have an appointment tomorrow at ten in the morning.”
“Where did you get the money for the appointment?”
Marina took out her phone and placed it in front of him. On the screen was a transfer. Twelve thousand. From Olya.
“Olya gave me money for treatment yesterday. Do you know what she said? ‘This isn’t from me. Dmitry found out about your tooth and said, transfer it to her, because no woman should walk around in pain for months just because some jerk decided it wasn’t important.’”
Sergey stared at the screen. Then he closed his eyes.
“Another man paid for my wife’s tooth,” he said slowly, as if tasting every word.
“No. A family friend paid for something you refused to pay for. Feel the difference.”
“I’ll return the money to him.”
“You will. But first, think about why another person noticed my pain before you did.”
Sergey sat motionless. He didn’t argue, didn’t grumble, didn’t change the subject. He was silent — and that silence was more honest than any words.
“I’ll transfer sixty,” he said at last. “Every month. And I’ll return Dmitry’s twelve thousand today.”
“One more thing,” Marina said, sliding a second sheet of paper toward him.
Sergey unfolded it.
It was the same kind of spreadsheet, but for five years. The amount at the bottom was underlined in red: four million eight hundred thousand rubles.
That was how much hired help would have cost during all the years Marina had been running the household.
“I’m not asking for this money,” she said. “I want you to see that number. And every time you feel like saying ‘zero,’ remember it. But I won’t forget it either. So think carefully when we go to the notary to formalize my share of the apartment. And I’m not joking.”
Sergey carefully folded the sheet and put it in his pocket.
The next morning, he transferred twelve thousand to Dmitry.
Dmitry replied with a single message:
“I accepted it. But remember this: I paid not because I have extra money, but because you lack basic conscience.”
Sergey read the message. Then, without a word, he went to iron his own shirt.
The iron hissed. The fabric wrinkled under his uncertain hands. He burned the cuff, cursed under his breath, and started again.
And for the first time, he thought that four hundred rubles to have one shirt ironed at the dry cleaner was, perhaps, a perfectly fair price.
At that moment, Marina was sitting in the dentist’s chair.
And now she could smile without pain.
Not only because of the tooth.