— I’m telling you, Seryozha: it’s either me or her! — Galina Petrovna’s voice echoed through the kitchen like an air raid siren.
Sergey sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
— Mom, please don’t start again…
— You’re still on her side?! — she raised her voice. — Have you forgotten who raised you? When you came to me like a drenched rat — in worn-out shoes, with your diploma around your neck and hope in your eyes?
Anastasia stood by the window with a mug of bitter instant coffee, silent. Arguing with Galina Petrovna was like yelling at a kettle to stop whistling — there would be noise but no result.
— This isn’t your apartment, dear, — the mother-in-law continued without lowering her voice. — It’s my husband’s inheritance, and the owner here is my son. And you — you’re a guest. Understand?
— I understand, — Nastya replied calmly, turning to her. — But this “owner” has been living on my money for the last two years. And don’t forget: I also bought the refrigerator that devours electricity like it can’t get enough charge.
Galina Petrovna paused but only briefly. She had spent her life amid the verbal battles of the marketplace — a moment’s hesitation and she was back in the fight.
— Money doesn’t give you the right to boss him around! I’m his mother! And a mother belongs next to her son!
— Right there between us in bed? — Nastya retorted, taking a sip of coffee. It was without sugar, like the last two months of their marriage.
Sergey tried to intervene:
— Mom… let’s not make a scene. Maybe you could stay with Aunt Valya for a while?
— Me, Galina Petrovna, live at a summer house with that crazy woman who talks to dogs? No way!
— Then move out, — Anastasia said quietly. — You say this isn’t my apartment. So it can’t be your family’s either.
Galina Petrovna theatrically threw up her hands and collapsed onto a stool, playing the victim ready for the stake.
The kitchen froze for a moment. The only sound was the dripping faucet — the very one Sergey promised to fix three weeks ago. Like the chandelier in the living room, the pipe under the sink… and their marriage.
— You think I don’t see how you’re pulling him away from me? — the mother-in-law hissed, leaning forward.
— I want a normal life, Galina Petrovna. Without soap operas in the morning and searches at night. Without the smell of your perfume in my wardrobe and your control over my decisions.
— How dare you?! — the woman jumped up as if the stool had shocked her. — You don’t even have children to leave something valuable behind! What kind of housing do you deserve?!
— That’s the point, — Nastya smiled bitterly. — You don’t actually care about your son, just the square meters. You’d rather have a will and be done with it. Your love is just a decoration.
Sergey stood up abruptly:
— Enough! Both of you! Mom, calm down. Nastya… you’re not helping.
She silently placed the mug in the sink. Water droplets kept falling, as if counting down the last note.
— Do you think I don’t see how you’re taking him from me? — the mother-in-law hissed, leaning forward.
— I want a normal life, Galina Petrovna. No morning soap operas or nighttime searches. No scent of your perfume in my wardrobe or your control over my decisions.
— What do you think you’re doing?! — the woman jumped as if shocked. — You don’t even have children to leave something behind! What kind of home do you deserve?!
— That’s the point, — Nastya smirked. — It’s not your son you cherish, but the square meters. You’d rather have a will and split the house. Your love is just a façade.
Sergey suddenly stood:
— Enough! Both of you! Mom, calm down. Nastya… you’re not helping.
She put the cup down quietly. The dripping continued, like a ticking clock.
— I applied for a mortgage, — she said over her shoulder. — It was approved.
— What?! — they exclaimed in unison.
— I’m moving out. I need peace. And an apartment where there’s no smell of someone else’s perfume or someone else’s will.
She left the kitchen slowly, cautiously, as if afraid that one sudden movement would collapse everything. Sergey followed.
— Wait… I thought you’d be patient. We agreed.
— I thought you were a man, — she interrupted. — Not a boy who chooses between his mother and wife like between canned stew and sausage.
Galina Petrovna stood in the kitchen doorway. Her face was like a delicate china set spilled with water. Her eyes looked like someone who just lost their favorite corner.
— Have you lost your mind, Nastya? You think you can handle a mortgage on your own? At your age?
Nastya threw on her jacket and turned around:
— Better to pay for my own than hear all my life that I’m a guest. Even if it means paying for it all my life.
The door slammed behind her. Left in the kitchen were two people who suddenly realized: it has already begun. No one knows where it will end.
— So what now? — Sergey stood at the doorway, shifting nervously. He wore an old black jacket Nastya hated: broken zipper, worn elbows, and a constant scent of a train station.
— Into the world, — she answered shortly, dragging a cracked suitcase down the stairs. — I’m staying with Ira for now. Then I’ll find my own place. Mortgage approved, remember?
Sergey slumped. He wasn’t a bad person — just always chose the path of least resistance. In the fight between mother and wife, past and present, he preferred… to sleep.
— Maybe you rushed… Mom will calm down soon…
— Calm down? — Anastasia laughed so sharply a passerby turned around. — Her temperature’s always 100 Fahrenheit, especially when money’s involved.
She waved her hand and went to the bus stop. The bag thumped against her leg, knees ached, and inside was a nauseating emptiness. Like she tore out a piece of her life and now dragged it around with slippers and a phone charger.
Irina met her at the door with a plastic bag and tough kindness in her eyes:
— Here are the keys. My room’s free, my son’s in Petersburg. Live here until you find a place.
— Thanks, Iri. Just for a while. Until I handle the mortgage.
—I went through that myself. Five years under one roof with my ex’s mother. Did you at least hit her?
— Mentally — three times a day. Sometimes with a shovel.
— That’s normal. Everyone starts that way. My ex’s mother once put dill in my tea — said it would “strengthen my health.” Later found out she wanted me to work in trauma care. Through a fracture, so to speak.
They laughed. The laughter was harsh, forced, but no longer hopeless.
At the factory — like a battlefield. The conveyor hummed like an old fridge, bosses rushed around with eyes squeezed like lemons, and the cafeteria served buckwheat with an aluminum aftertaste again.
— Hey, Nastya, — Valera from the fifth workshop approached. — Why are you without Seryozha?
— Divorced. Almost.
— Really? Then who’s got the apartment?
— What?
— He lives with his mother there, right? And you — where to?
— I got approved for a mortgage. For a studio. Outside the MKAD.
— That’s almost Belarus. You’ve lost your mind? Alone, your age, health…
— Thanks, Valera. Just got back from the clinic.
— Didn’t mean it badly…
Nastya left. The studio outside the MKAD — not Belarus. It’s a chance. A foolish, risky one with interest and debts. But a chance.
And most importantly — her own. No mother-in-law’s photos on the walls, no rose-patterned blankets, and no endless questions: “Did you check your blood pressure today?”
Three weeks later she stood inside a concrete box — her apartment. An apartment.
No doors, peeling walls, mold in the corners, and a smell like someone died on the floor. But — her own.
— Well, mistress? — asked the foreman, a man with the face of a Caucasian general. — Shall we start?
— Let’s start, — Nastya exhaled. — But no sticky tiles, ceiling mirrors, or Chinese finishes. And no mothers-in-law in the closet.
— As you say.
Then the phone rang. Sergey.
— Hi, Nastya. I… Mom broke her arm. Fell down the stairs. She says you “threw her out,” so now it’s your fault.
— Was the staircase mine? Or did I push her? — Nastya grabbed the windowsill, nails digging into the concrete.
— She’s freaking out. And I’m alone. Everything’s falling apart. I thought… maybe you’d come back?
— Glad you finally thought of that. Now you can fix the faucet. Or is that not yours either?
— Nastya… We’re bad without you. Come back.
— “We” — you or her?
— I’m alone in feeling bad. She probably is too… I don’t know.
At that moment, the stairwell door slammed open with a crash. The foreman entered, tools in hand, chewing something.
— Shall we start, beautiful?
— Let’s start, — she answered into the phone. — Sergey, sorry, I’m busy. I’m renovating.
She hung up.
Late at night, covered in paint and exhausted, Nastya sat on the windowsill. Outside, strangers’ windows blinked: somewhere people argued, somewhere they had dinner, somewhere they simply sat in silence together.
She took out her phone. One message from Sergey: “I’m still waiting. Sorry.”
Another — from Galina Petrovna: a photo of a hand in a cast and a caption: “Thanks, dear. Now are you satisfied?”
— Damn you all, — Nastya whispered. Why does freedom cost this much pain?
She turned off the phone. Lay down on the cold floor. Concrete was preferable to any foreign presence.
— What do you all want from me?! — Nastya’s voice broke. She stood in the nearly finished apartment. The light bulb swung from the ceiling like a pendulum, counting down to the next conflict.
In the kitchen, the old electric stove rattled — one Nastya barely dragged from a flea market — heavy as family grudges.
The foreman left an hour ago. Left a note on the cement bag: “Better than at your mother-in-law’s. Call if the wallpaper comes alive.”
Anastasia stood with the phone to her ear, listening to Galina Petrovna sobbing.
— I can’t even pick up a spoon! And your Sergey… He can’t do anything! I’m like a chicken with its head cut off!
— You said yourself I’m nobody to you. Not family.
— You’re my son’s wife! How can you be so heartless?!
— I’m no longer a wife. I signed the papers.
— What?!
— Didn’t Sergey tell you? He brought them himself.
— It’s all your fault! You destroyed our family!
Nastya put the phone down nearby. Let her scream into the void. Maybe she’d hear how quiet it became without her.
The next day there was a knock at the door.
— Oh, icon! — Irina exclaimed, seeing Nastya in a robe with crumbs and not-so-fresh slippers. — Straight out of a monastery. So penitent.
— Come in, nun. Coffee just got more expensive.
— Brought kefir. Cheaper. — Ira kicked off her sneakers and headed to the kitchen. — So, how are you?
— Like a nail sticking out of the wall. Everyone bumps into it, but no one wants to knock it out.
— And Sergey?
— Called. Silent. Breathing. I’m silent too. Whoever gives up first loses.
— Do you need him?
— Don’t know… I wanted to live. Not fight. Not build trenches. Just live. Morning tea, evening series, and no one snoring next to me except the cat. But I have a front line.
— Want to live — live. Don’t want to — back to Galina Petrovna’s barracks.
Nastya smiled:
— By the way, she already healed her arm. Taking photos of the cast against a samovar.
A week later he stood at the door. Without knocking. Holding a bag from “Pyaterochka.” Eyes showed the look of a beaten dog.
— Hi. I bought you yogurts. Your favorite. Apricot.
— You hate apricot.
— Started learning to love what you love.
— Too late.
Silence hung between them — dense like putty. Filling the cracks they made themselves.
— I thought I could be between you. I couldn’t. I’m weak.
— You know, Sergey… I’m strong. But I don’t want to be anymore. Tired of carrying everything. I’m 52. I want to be cared for. Not to carry everyone like a resuscitation unit on my back.
He stretched out his hand. Slowly. Carefully.
— Can I just sit next to you?
Nastya looked at him for a long time. Not at a husband. Not at a mama’s boy. But at a person she had lived with for ten years. Good or bad — doesn’t matter.
— Sit down. But don’t snore. And put the bag on the floor — the tile’s new.
He sat. Quietly. Carefully. As if afraid to scare away the peace.
Later, in the dark, Nastya lay on the floor, buried in a blanket. Sergey slept on the couch. Apricot yogurt leaked from the bag.
She smiled.
Maybe they still could be. Just different. Without wars, without victims, without control. Or at least — honest about their weaknesses.
— You know, — she whispered into the darkness, — I’m weak too. Just better at hiding it.
And it became a little easier.