Anna already knew that going there was a lousy idea. But Dmitry was persuading her with his usual bored tone, as if discussing the weather or the dollar exchange rate.
“It’s just mom… Let’s not make a tragedy out of this. We’ll go for a couple of hours — that’s all.”
Anna stood by the mirror, pulling on her jeans. It was the third month of her promotion in the department, and she didn’t have a single minute left for any “let’s go to mom” errands.
“She doesn’t love me, Dim. She doesn’t even try to pretend she respects me. Don’t you notice that?” Her voice sounded calm, but inside she was boiling.
Dmitry shrugged.
“She’s got that kind of character. She’s like that with everyone. Even with her cat.” He smirked, looking at his phone.
Anna looked at him.
“You compared me to her cat?”
“Oh, God, you’re twisting everything again…”
The car was quiet. Dmitry turned on some pop music on the radio to avoid talking. Anna stared out the window. Friday. Traffic jams. The sixth time this year going to Elena Petrovna’s — and every time felt like an exam, only the grade was always a flat fail. Everything was wrong with her: her way of speaking, her hairstyle, her shoes, her profession, and even Anna herself was “wrong.”
Her mother-in-law’s home was a Soviet brick sixteen-story building where even the smells in the stairwell hadn’t changed since the ’90s. On their floor, a door painted eggplant color waited with a sign: “Doorbell doesn’t work, knock.”
Anna knocked.
“Soon this sign will be on you too,” she muttered under her breath. “Doorbell doesn’t work.”
Elena Petrovna opened the door with a face as if she had seen a subway ticket inspector at the threshold.
“Oh, Annushka, you actually came. I thought you had quarterly reports and sleepless nights. Well, come in…”
“Hello,” Anna nodded stiffly and stepped inside.
On the table, cabbage rolls were steaming. Next to them was Olivier salad, and in the fridge, as always, a cake with expired cream.
“Are you here as a guest today, or as usual: sit on your phone, go home, and say you’re ‘tired’?” the mother-in-law sneered, spreading napkins.
“Tired doesn’t mean I want to avoid you,” Anna replied calmly, taking off her jacket.
“That’s for me?” the mother-in-law raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad you’re here. Not every day do such important guests drop by.”
“Mom, enough already,” Dmitry grumbled, not looking up from his phone.
Anna sat on the edge of the couch. Elena Petrovna brought tea and sat opposite, arms crossed.
“You’re not coming over on Monday, right?”
“What’s on Monday?” Anna tensed.
“Well, I’m turning 60. Jubilee. But you’re probably busy. Quarterly reports, right?”
Anna froze.
“You didn’t invite me.”
“Oh, was I supposed to? I thought Dmitry would tell you. Although… maybe I just didn’t want to spoil my own celebration. I try to think about myself at my age.”
“Mom, seriously…” Dmitry looked up from his phone. “You really didn’t invite Anya?”
“Don’t start. You said she always has excuses. First work, then health, then a sick friend, then work again… I’m tired of guessing when she’ll grace us with her presence.”
Anna slowly put her cup on the table.
“I get it. Thanks. I really am busy.”
She stood up. Dmitry tried to grab her hand.
“Anya, where are you going?”
“Home. To my own place. Where, you know, no one thinks I’m extra.”
“Come on… Mom just said something dumb, so what now?” He fidgeted, got up, and followed her.
The mother-in-law snorted.
“That’s always the way. She’ll leave in tears, then you’ll come complain to me. I warned you, son. She’s not your woman. She’s about her career, not family. With those loans, mortgages, and that independence of hers.”
Anna turned around.
“I’m ‘not about family’? Are you serious? You don’t even know your own son. How many nights he spent at colleagues’ places because you threw a tantrum. Or how much money he owes me. You think badly of me, but at least I keep quiet. And you — you crap in my face. On my birthday, and every other day.”
In the mother-in-law’s eyes flickered something like anger, but she quickly masked it with a fake smile.
“You clearly have self-esteem issues. I’m the enemy, right?”
“No, you’re a mirror. But not for me — for Dmitry. When I look at you, I understand why he never supports me. He’s just afraid of becoming you. Or maybe he already has.”
There was a deathly silence. Even the radio in the room quieted down, as if afraid to interrupt.
Anna sharply put on her jacket, grabbed her bag, and left. Dmitry didn’t follow. He only shouted from the doorway:
“So where are you going now? Gonna spend your bonus on a taxi?”
Anna went down the stairs. In the elevator hung a note: “Does not stop from the fifth to the eighth floor. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Like my life right now,” she smirked. “Neither here nor there.”
Outside, it was cold. Her phone blinked with incoming calls: “Dimka” — three times. Then “Don’t be mad.” Then nothing. Emptiness.
Anna called a taxi, got in, and finally allowed herself to cry. Not hysterically. Just like when you have a cold — your throat itches and tears fall by themselves.
The driver turned on music. Some old song from the 2000s.
“Turn it up,” she asked, wiping tears.
“Did someone dump you?” he asked without turning around.
“No. I left.” And for the first time in a long while, she felt she’d done something right.
The next morning Anna woke up to the microwave beeping. It was only seven a.m. Outside, a blizzard raged like in a Hollywood movie — wild, blind. It would have been fine, except someone was heating dumplings in the microwave. And Anna knew for sure — it wasn’t Dmitry. He might forget his mother’s birthday, but not eat before eight.
She went out in a robe, hair messy, face of a woman who had slept four hours and definitely knew she’d been lied to.
“Looking great,” Elena Petrovna turned to her holding a plate proudly bearing six greasy dumplings and a drop of ketchup.
“What are you doing here?” Anna leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
“I caught a cold; my radiator in the living room doesn’t work. Dima said — come over, rest for a day. Your place is warm, fancy building, all posh,” she said in that tone that turns every word into a jab.
“Wonderful. Aren’t you going to work? Or also taking family leave?”
“You know, I’m retired, I don’t owe anyone anything. And you, Anechka, please don’t finish those dumplings — I brought my own. From Magnit.”
Anna turned and went back to the bedroom. Three minutes later the door opened, and Dmitry came in.
“What’s wrong with you? Another morning scene?”
“Did you think you could at least warn me before bringing into the house a person I’m, by the way, not on the best terms with?”
“She’s your mother, Anya. She has a fever, what — should I have thrown her out?”
“She had a fever two years ago when she tried to make me look like an idiot in front of your friends. Since then, she’s immune to conscience. How long is she staying?”
“Two days… three… four max.”
Anna didn’t answer. Silently put on jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed her bag, and left. She got to work earlier than anyone else. Colleagues exchanged surprised looks — Anna was usually ten minutes late. This time she was fifteen minutes early.
A week later, a steady draft settled in the house, made of words said “by the way” and looks full of passive aggression. Dmitry tried not to interfere. He left early, came home late. Sometimes — didn’t come at all.
One day Anna stumbled upon his messenger chat. She was searching for a pomegranate chicken recipe, but her fingers automatically scrolled up. There was “Oksana. 32. Lawyer.” And a long conversation full of giggles, hearts, and phrases like “sometimes I think I married the wrong person.”
Anna didn’t make a scene. Didn’t start spying. She just went to the kitchen and asked:
“How long have you known Oksana?”
Dmitry looked as surprised as if she had asked about the political situation in Afghanistan.
“What?”
“Well, you have half a page of love confessions and words I haven’t heard from you in six years. Actually, never. Has she been in our life long?”
“Anya, you got it wrong… It’s just… just talk. We work together.”
“And I thought at your work it was only Pavel from logistics and the cafeteria on the first floor. Although, come to think of it, you probably have romance in the cafeteria too.”
“Are you crazy? Don’t shout, my mother might hear.”
“Oh? And did you think it’s mother who’ll hear or the wife? Or now ‘the one I live with until Oksana is free’?”
Dmitry silently left the kitchen, slamming the door so hard a postcard of Minsk fell off the fridge. Elena Petrovna had brought it once. Anna picked up the postcard, looked at it, crumpled it, then smoothed it back out and put it back. Let Minsk hang as a reminder that even cities can make mistakes.
At work, everything suddenly improved. Anna got a promotion. Now she wasn’t just an accountant but the chief specialist in managing financial flows. Her salary rose by forty percent. Colleagues congratulated her, the boss shook her hand and muttered, “Finally, someone in this office who doesn’t get pregnant every March.”
Anna came home in a good mood. She didn’t want to go, but the apartment was still hers. Period.
In the kitchen, she found Elena Petrovna drinking coffee from her favorite mug that said, “I hate people before eight in the morning.” The clock showed 7:30.
“Congratulations on the promotion,” Elena Petrovna muttered, not looking up from her phone. “You’ll probably come home with a pout even more now?”
“Thanks. Maybe I won’t come home at all. Because I can afford that.”
“Well, good luck with that. Just don’t forget to take your husband. I’m giving him to you.”
“Don’t strain yourself, Elena Petrovna, a gift is a valuable thing. And this is more like a clearance sale.”
In the evening, Dmitry came with a bag of groceries. He looked down.
“You read everything, right?”
“No. I re-read. Even bookmarked the nastiest parts. Want me to show?”
“I didn’t want it to end like this.”
“But it did. Like your mom’s dumplings.”
Silence.
“I don’t want a divorce, Anya.”
“And I don’t want to be a backup plan. Or, as she says, ‘living in a fancy apartment at someone else’s expense.’ Although, by the way, the apartment is mine. I bought it before you and before your mommy. And I can kick you both out tomorrow.”
Dmitry turned pale.
“You won’t do that.”
“Look at me carefully. I’m now chief specialist in financial flows. Think I can’t handle a flow of two suitcases?”
He went to the bedroom, slammed the door again. As if that added to his manliness.
Anna sat at the table and opened her laptop. Started writing a divorce application.
And then Elena Petrovna entered the room with a can of paint in her hand.
“Anna, I thought. Since you’re all so independent, how about you pay for the renovation in my room? I picked the color — warm sandy. Like the people in Sochi have.”
Anna slowly raised her head. No smile.
“Do you really want me to answer right now? Or give you two more minutes to think about your last chance to stay alive?”
A week passed. The blizzard turned to rain, Elena Petrovna to silence. She went to Balashikha, where an armchair with a sunken armrest, grandma’s dresser, and the smell of cat litter awaited her — although she never got a cat.
Anna felt relief. But not victory. No triumph, no pain — only calmness, like after a long illness. Suddenly the dripping faucet and the creaking parquet in the bedroom could be heard in the apartment.
She sat in the kitchen, scrolling through old photos on her phone. In one — she and Dmitry smiling. Summer, barbecue, someone in the shot lighting the coals and everyone laughing. She looked about thirty, he the same age, but with a face not yet touched by cynicism.
The phone rang. Dmitry stood at the door with a bouquet and a bottle of wine.
“May I?”
“Depends on why.”
“To talk. No swearing, threats, or your signature ‘yeah, right.’”
Anna silently stepped back into the hallway. He came in, leaving his shoes by the entrance, like before, when he was still “one of us.”
“I’m an idiot,” he said, looking at the floor. “I acted like a teenager given a car and told to drive. And I drove — over people, over feelings, over you.”
“Deep metaphor. So what do you really want? No theater.”
He sat down, slouching.
“I want to start over. Without lies. Without… mom. Without Oksanas. Just you.”
Anna leaned on the fridge.
“Did you realize I can live without you? Or are you just scared you’ll have to iron your own shirts?”
“Both. I’m no hero. But at least I’m honest. Now.”
“Now? And before that? A comic book?”
“Anya… I was lost. I always felt you were stronger than me. And with Oksana, I felt needed.”
“Weak men always look for those who admire them. Even if it’s a dog. Or a lawyer with a savior complex.”
“I don’t want to play anymore. I’m ready for anything you say.”
“Exactly. ‘Anything I say.’ That’s how it’ll be now. If you want to stay — you live by my rules. No decisions behind my back. No secrets. And your mom won’t set foot here again. Got it?”
He nodded. Slowly. Not immediately — as if it was physically hard.
“And one more thing,” she added, “if you even think about looking for comfort on the side again — you’re gone. No scandal, no slamming doors, no show. Just gone. I don’t survive anymore. I live.”
“Agreed.”
She stepped closer. Took the bouquet, put it in water. The wine bottle — on the table. Sat opposite him.
“Want to stay for dinner?”
He smiled a little, like that day at the barbecue.
“Very much.”
“Then grab the pan. I’m making risotto, but you chop the onions. And don’t whine.”
“Yes, chef.”
“No, not chef. I’m the hostess. And you — the one given a second chance. Don’t mix it up.”
A month later, life started to resemble a chessboard. Black, white, pauses, reflections. Not love with flowers and poems, but a partnership where you’re responsible for every piece. Where no second chances are given. And Anna liked it. Because now — everything was on her terms.
On the hallway wall hung a frame with the postcard from Minsk. But inside it was no longer Belarus, but a black-and-white photo: an old, deserted road, and a sign “Borders.” A gift from a photographer friend. A symbol.
Anna looked at it every evening. And thought: the most important thing is to draw the line in time. Even if later you have to live next to the one you once forgave.