Maria, having turned over for the hundredth time, let out a long sigh.
“Go to sleep already,” muttered her dissatisfied husband lying next to her. “You keep tossing and turning, and you’re not letting me fall asleep.”
“And can you sleep peacefully, Pasha?” she snapped. “I personally can’t. Everything inside me is boiling with indignation. I set the table, waited… After all, our daughter wants to introduce us to her boyfriend. And then this guy shows up… And his name—how unpleasant it is—Mark!”
“A name is just a name,” grumbled Pavel. “You didn’t like him, that’s why you’re prejudiced against his name.”
“Like you liked him!” Maria exclaimed indignantly.
Today, when their beloved Ksyusha brought her boyfriend to their apartment, Maria felt as though she had been splashed with cold water. The kinds of guys who had courted Ksyusha were decent, and here was this one. No figure, barely taller than Ksyusha, nothing to look at. “Well, alright,” Maria thought. “Maybe he’s a good person.”
And her assumption was disproven within the first few minutes of sitting at the table.
“My mom doesn’t put rice in her crab salad, and it tastes much better,” Mark wrinkled his large nose.
The parents looked at Ksyusha in confusion. Didn’t she see that this guy lacked manners? She should at least say something to him. But Ksyusha just smiled and gazed lovingly at her boyfriend.
“Yes, mom makes the salad the old-fashioned way, Mark. Should I make you some stuffed cabbage?”
“No need, I prefer dolma.”
Maria rolled her eyes and elbowed her husband.
“So, what do you do for a living, Mark?” Pavel, prompted by his wife, joined the conversation.
“I’m a ‘free artist’ for now, looking for myself,” Mark laughed.
“An artist, looking for himself!” Maria hissed, not bothering to even walk Mark to the hallway when dinner ended.
Ksyusha walked Mark to the taxi, and when she came back, her face revealed the utmost displeasure.
“Mom, Dad, you were so unfriendly. It was uncomfortable.”
“We were unfriendly?!!” Maria threw her hands up. “And your Mark is just a ray of sunshine! My salad wasn’t right, he doesn’t eat my stuffed cabbage. He made a fuss about everything, even though there was plenty to complain about. His jacket is all greasy, the elbows are almost worn through. No job. And look at him… Ksyusha, take a good look at him. He already has three hairs on his head. He’ll be bald in a few years. The guys who courted you were much better. Just look at Nikita from the first entrance…”
“Mom, that’s enough!” Ksyusha screeched. “I love Mark. You have to accept that. I hope next time, you won’t treat him like that.”
And so Maria tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, continually nudging her snoring husband.
“No, Pasha, did you hear that? Next time, we should lay out a carpet for him. Our Ksyusha is such a beautiful girl, athletic, stunning! And here’s this shrimp.”
“Let’s hope there’s no next time,” Pavel yawned loudly. “Ksyusha will be disappointed in him soon enough.”
She wasn’t disappointed. Several months after meeting the parents, Ksyusha was still dating Mark. From time to time, she brought him over, and Maria, gritting her teeth, tried to be pleasant to the guy, even though he behaved just as shamelessly.
Ksyusha still had two years of college left when, like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, she announced that she and Mark were going to get married. That’s when her father objected.
“Ksenia, this isn’t serious. You need to finish your studies first, and only then think about marriage.”
“One doesn’t interfere with the other,” the daughter insisted. “There are plenty of married girls in my year.”
“And where are you going to live? And how will you manage?”
“Mark just got a job. He’s a logistics manager at a construction company. The salary isn’t great, but you’ll help us out at first, right? And as for where we’ll live, Grandma’s apartment has been empty for a couple of years. Mark said we could stay there, even without renovation.”
“Mark said?!!” Maria fumed. “So, he knows about Grandma’s apartment? And he’s stooped so low as to agree to live there without any renovations? Well, what a saint!”
“Mom!!!” Ksyusha cried hysterically. “Why are you talking like this about him? I love Mark, and I’m going to marry him even if you’re against it and won’t help us.”
The wedding took place in the summer, during Ksyusha’s vacation from college. They celebrated quite modestly. Mark wasn’t happy about that. The guy seemed to think that Ksyusha’s parents had more money and should have arranged a bigger celebration. But his own parents didn’t owe him anything.
In fact, the guy was right about something. Maria and Pavel weren’t struggling financially and could have thrown a lavish wedding for their daughter, but they didn’t want to. They had no affection for the groom or his demands. Ksyusha, on the other hand, didn’t care. She was so happy that she didn’t notice anything around her. She was married to the man she loved!
After the wedding, the young couple moved into the apartment with Grandma’s old renovations. And during visits to her parents, Mark would dramatically sigh. It was so hard for them to live among flowery wallpaper and the peeling tiles in the bathroom. Maria and Pavel understood all the hints from their son-in-law but didn’t rush to respond. After the kids left, Maria often voiced her frustrations to her husband.
“Why are you silent, Pasha? This jerk thinks we should renovate the apartment. It’s our apartment, we help with food, and now he has these demands. Why don’t you just tell him flat out that we’re not going to do it?”
“I don’t want to fight with Ksyusha. You see how happy she is. She’s got rose-colored glasses on, and she doesn’t see or notice any flaws in her Mark, so she’s running around, happy. But if we start saying bad things about her husband, we’ll become enemy number one. That’s why, Mash, I keep quiet. Let her finally open her eyes.”
But Ksyusha couldn’t open her eyes. Mark constantly made demands of her. He earned little, and Ksyusha often had to turn to her parents for food, especially at the end of the month when they had “nothing left.” And still, she was happy. She was so happy to tell her parents she was pregnant that Maria dropped the ladle she was using to serve soup, planning to feed her daughter, who had popped in for a minute.
“I don’t understand why you’re so happy, Ksyusha,” Maria tried to dampen her daughter’s enthusiasm. “You shouldn’t have a baby now, you’re still studying. That’s the first thing. And second, your husband can’t even support you. What about a child? You’ve been living in Grandma’s apartment for six months, and you haven’t even changed the plumbing with his salary.”
“Yes, Mom is right,” Pavel finally joined in. “Ksyusha, what were you thinking? You should have lived together for a couple of years before getting pregnant. At least finish college first.”
“So, I don’t understand,” the girl frowned, “are you suggesting I should have an abortion?”
“No, of course not,” Maria sighed sadly. “I would never suggest that. Now you’ll have to have the baby.”
“And will you help us at first, with Mark?”
“Where else can we go?” Maria turned her eyes away.
“Mom, Dad,” Ksyusha jumped up from her seat, “you’re the best! I know you don’t like Mark, but I love him so much. And in time, you’ll see he’s a good person. You just need to look at him closely.”
The more Pavel and Maria looked at Mark, the more they were convinced of how useless a person he was and that he didn’t value their daughter. This became clear at the hospital when Mark showed up late, forgetting the time he was supposed to pick up his wife and child.
During her pregnancy, Ksyusha had gained a lot of weight. She had never been fat, but she was “broad-boned” and looked bigger because of it. Now, though, Ksyusha had really packed on the pounds. Apparently, Mark didn’t like that and criticized her. Maria noticed this during her frequent visits to help with the baby. She saw that Ksyusha hardly ate anything, and when she did, it was just vegetables.
“You can’t do that, sweetie. You need to eat well now. You’re breastfeeding.”
“I’m eating fine, Mom,” Ksyusha averted her eyes. “I just gained so much weight, a lot of weight.”
“Is Mark criticizing you for that?”
“Why does it always have to be Mark? Am I blind? I’m afraid to even step on the scale.”
Ksyusha went on a strict diet and started losing weight before their eyes. But the poor nutrition took its toll, and the young mother’s milk dried up.
Maria watched all of this disapprovingly but couldn’t reach her daughter. Ksyusha insisted on her weight issues, and even after losing weight, she continued dieting. Her old clothes hung off her. She looked terrible, and even Mark noticed, calling her a “nag.”
Recently, he stopped feeling ashamed in front of Maria and openly criticized Ksyusha. Maria often stayed late at her daughter’s place and saw how Mark came home, always dissatisfied. He criticized everything— the food, the mess in the apartment.
“Ksyusha, you sit at home all day and can’t even clean up,” he kicked his own sock lying by the bed.
“And you, dear son-in-law, instead of throwing your socks around, could at least take them to the laundry basket!” Maria tried to defend her daughter.
“I work,” Mark protested. “What, I’m supposed to come home and do housework too? Watch the house and cook dinner? That’s always the wife’s job, isn’t it? I came home today, hungry and tired. And what did Ksyusha make me? Yesterday’s soup and fallen-apart cutlets? I can’t even look at this, let alone eat.”
Maria opened her mouth to reprimand her son-in-law, but Ksyusha stopped her.
“Mom, Mark’s right, don’t argue. The cutlets really did fall apart. I’m not a great cook yet, but I’ll learn.”
Ksyusha tried hard. She wore herself out, scrubbing the apartment to a shine and cooking elaborate meals for her husband, all while caring for the baby. When her mom helped her, Ksyusha ran to the stores, trying to buy good food on sale since Mark’s salary was still low.
Maria returned home after visiting her daughter, nearly in tears.
“Pasha, it hurts to see her like this. Our Ksyusha is just a shadow of who she was. There are dark circles under her eyes. She hardly sleeps. Even when I go to her and tell her to rest, she doesn’t. She keeps saying, ‘Mark asked me to take his coat to the dry cleaner. Mark asked me to make pilaf for dinner. Mark this, Mark that. Ugh! I can’t stand it!!'”
“Yes, I’m also scared by the way she looks,” Pavel frowned. “Our beauty is just a shadow now, and he dares to reproach her for it. First, Mark made her lose weight, called her a fat cow, and now he’s not happy with her being too thin. But how is she supposed to get back in shape when she’s always on her feet, always moving? She runs around like a maniac.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a phone call. It was Ksyusha, asking if her parents could babysit while she and Mark went to visit friends of his.
Ksyusha brought the baby over alone, Mark stayed in the taxi, not even bothering to get out.
The couple who invited Mark and Ksyusha also had a young child. But they looked completely different. The young husband and wife were very friendly. The slim wife, with dimples in her cheeks, didn’t look as haggard as Ksyusha. She was flitting around, setting the table, while her husband took care of the baby. Ksyusha immediately noticed this. Mark never did that. He thought his wife should be able to do everything— take care of the baby and set the table. Later, the hosts went to put their own baby to bed, together.
Left alone with Ksyusha in the room, Mark suddenly blurted out:
“Ksyusha, look at her. She just had a baby, but she still looks great. And look at you, like an old, skinny cow with protruding ribs. And she cooks delicious food. Look at the table she set. She finds time for everything, but you’re always running around.”
Ksyusha was so outraged she opened her mouth to tell Mark everything. To tell him that this family was completely different. Here, the husband helped his wife and appreciated her. They did everything together. Though, obviously, the husband also worked. The apartment had a nice renovation, the wife was in an expensive dress, meaning he earned more than Mark. But he didn’t hesitate to help his wife. Ksyusha was ready to say all this.
But she closed her mouth, looking closely at Mark. What did she see in front of her? An unattractive, spiteful man with the beginnings of a bald spot. Would he hear what she said? Of course not! This man always thought he was right and was never satisfied with anything.
Ksyusha glanced around the room and saw a vanity with a mirror. She walked over to it and looked at herself carefully. She didn’t look any better than Mark. You could say she was just as bad. Was this how she looked when she married him?
Without saying a word to her husband, Ksyusha went to the hallway. There, she fished out the keys from Mark’s jacket pocket, didn’t say goodbye to the hospitable hosts, and left.
It was windy and chilly outside, but Ksyusha walked, breathing deeply. Suddenly, it felt like a huge weight had lifted from her shoulders, the weight that had been pressing on her since she first met Mark. It had been pressing her down, forcing her to run around and lose sleep, trying to please her husband.
Maria became alert when she saw her daughter earlier than expected and alone. Something had clearly changed in the girl’s face.
“Are you alone? Did you fight?”
“No, Mom, we didn’t fight. I’m just leaving him. Actually, not leaving him. I’m kicking him out of my apartment and divorcing him. I’ve already taken the keys.”
Pavel rushed in from the other room upon hearing his daughter’s words.
“Did he hurt you? Did he hit you?” he reddened with anger.
“No, Dad, he didn’t hit me, but he did hurt me. But, actually, he did this every day, I just didn’t notice. Now it’s like a veil has been lifted from my eyes. Let him live without the ‘bony cow’ he called me.”
“And what about your love for him?” Maria quietly asked.
“I don’t love him anymore. As Grandma used to say, ‘he’s not worth it.’ Just thinking about him makes me shudder with disgust.”
“Well, finally!” Pavel beamed. “Daughter, we’ve been waiting for so long for you to open your eyes. Don’t worry, we’ll help you with the baby, and you should finish your studies.”