The cutlery clinked against the plates with some kind of predatory greed. One of my husband’s distant relatives was already serving himself salad for the third time, loudly discussing how hard it would be now for his mother, Svetlana Borisovna.
I sat at the head of the table, in Oleg’s chair, and almost physically felt the gazes of those present sliding over me, assessing, weighing.
They didn’t see me as a widow. They saw a problem, a temporary obstacle that needed to be removed as soon as possible.
Svetlana Borisovna, after a theatrical pause and blotting her dry eyes with a napkin, sat down beside me. Her hand rested on my shoulder—a gesture meant to seem supportive but felt like a brand.
“Alina, dear,” her voice was soft, coaxing, like molasses, “I understand how bitter it is for you now. Oleg was my only son. My support.”
She paused, expecting tears or at least a sorrowful nod from me. I only slowly turned my head and looked at her.
A recent conversation with Oleg surfaced in my memory, when, barely able to get out of bed, he handed me a folder of documents with a bitter smile.
“They’ll swarm like vultures, Lina.
Don’t let them tear you apart. This house is yours. And everything in it, too.”
“We all loved him very much,” I replied in a steady tone that seemed to disappoint my mother-in-law.
She withdrew her hand and leaned back slightly. The second act began.
“Of course, you did. Especially you. You were a good wife to him, no complaints there. But life, dear, goes on. You have to think about the future.”
Her gaze flicked toward the massive oak dresser, then to the paintings on the walls. She was already mentally inventorying the property.
“I understand,” I said.
“Well, good that you do,” she brightened. “This apartment… it’s the whole life of our family. Oleg grew up here, every corner filled with memories. It’s our ancestral nest.”
She said it as if I were a random guest who had wandered into someone else’s celebration. As if the five years of marriage between Oleg and me were merely a footnote in her family saga.
The relatives at the table quieted, sensing the shift in tone. The performance was approaching its climax. Svetlana Borisovna leaned forward; her voice lost its sweetness, gaining firm, businesslike notes.
“You’re young, you have your whole life ahead. You’ll find another husband, settle down. But we… we must stick together, in our family walls.”
I looked at her, at her pressed lips, at the cold gleam in her eyes, and felt nothing but a strange, icy calm.
She saw before her a grief-stricken girl who could easily be shown the door.
“That’s why it would be better if you… vacate the apartment soon,” she finished her thought, almost carelessly, as if asking someone to pass the salt.
“A week, I think, will be enough time for you to gather your things. Of course, we’ll help with the move.”
In the thick pause that followed, I leaned back in the chair. Oleg’s chair. My chair. And for the first time that endless day, I allowed myself a smile. Barely noticeable, just the corners of my lips.
My smile had the effect of a ticking time bomb exploding. At first, confusion crossed my mother-in-law’s face, then poorly concealed irritation.
“Did I say something funny, Alina?” she asked, her voice noticeably stronger.
“Not at all, Svetlana Borisovna,” I slowly took a napkin from the table and gently dabbed my lips. “I was just admiring your foresight.
You organized the wake and planned my move. Very thoughtful of you.”
The sarcasm was light, almost weightless, but hit its mark. My mother-in-law’s face flushed with red patches.
“This is my son’s house! My house!” she shouted, no longer caring about propriety.
The relatives at the table stirred like a disturbed beehive. Oleg’s cousin, a bulky man with a ruddy face, decided to intervene.
“Alina, don’t you dare be insolent to your mother. She’s grieving, and you…”
“And I’m not?” I interrupted him, not raising my voice, but every word fell into the ringing emptiness of the room like a stone.
“Uncle Vitya, grief is when your heart aches for a person who’s gone.
What’s happening now has a different name. Looks like a division.”
It was a direct blow. Uncle Vitya shut his mouth and stared at his plate.
Svetlana Borisovna realized she was losing control of the situation. Her soft-pressure tactic had failed. She abruptly stood up, her chair scraping unpleasantly as it slid back.
“I won’t let you, some outsider girl, run things here!” she hissed and stepped toward the china cabinet where her cherished porcelain collection stood.
Her hand reached for a large painted vase.
“You won’t get a thing from here!”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” my voice was so cold even I barely recognized it.
She froze, her hand hanging in the air.
I slowly rose from the table, feeling the blood drain from my face, but inside a hard, fiery core was burning.
“First, you might drop it. That would be a shame—Oleg valued it very much. And second…” I paused, scanning the frozen faces of the relatives, then looked straight into my mother-in-law’s eyes and finished, “…it’s my vase now.”
Like the cabinet it stood in. Like the walls of this house. Like everything in it.
The air in the room grew dense, heavy. Svetlana Borisovna let out a short, almost hysterical laugh.
“What are you talking about? What do you mean ‘mine’? Have you lost your mind from grief? Oleg would never…”
“He would never leave me out on the street, to be torn apart by a pack of greedy relatives?” I finished for her. “You’re right. He didn’t.
He took care of me.”
I calmly walked to the oak dresser, opened the top drawer, and took out a leather folder. I placed it on the table, and the slap of it sounded deafening.
“What’s that?” Uncle Vitya asked suspiciously, breaking the silence.
“That’s what you call the ‘ancestral nest,’” I opened the folder. “Here’s the deed to the apartment. Registered in my name. Notarized three months ago.
Here are the documents for the car. Also in my name. And here,” I pulled out the last sheet, “the deed to the country house and everything inside. Also, as you can guess, in my name.”
Oleg was a very perceptive man. He knew that his departure would be for you not a reason for mourning but for inventory.
I watched as disbelief on their faces turned to rage, and rage into confusion. Finally, they wore the expression of predators who have lost their prey—dull, malicious helplessness. Svetlana Borisovna lunged at the table, grabbed one of the papers. Her fingers trembled as she read the lines, silently moving her lips.
Then she looked at me with such undisguised hatred that for a moment I felt sorry for her.
“You made him do it!” she shouted. “You twisted him around, deceived him! He was sick, he didn’t know what he was doing!”
“He knew perfectly well,” I cut in. “He realized that after his death, his own mother would first try to throw his wife out on the street. And he simply protected me.”
I carefully put the documents back in the folder and snapped the lock shut.
“And now, I think the wake is over. I would like to be alone. In my home.”
No one moved.
“Please,” I raised my voice, and power appeared in it that I myself had not suspected. “Everyone out.”
Uncle Vitya was the first to get up. He silently, without looking at me, headed for the door. Behind him, as if on command, the others followed. They left, shuffling their feet, avoiding my gaze. Svetlana Borisovna was the last. She stood in the middle of the room, hunched and defeated.
“I will curse you,” she whispered.
“You already have,” I replied. “Goodbye.”
When the door closed behind her, I slowly walked around the room. Went to the window and saw them hurriedly getting into their cars.
The tension holding me released. My legs gave out, and I slid down the wall to the floor.
Tears poured from my eyes. Hot, bitter. I was not crying for them. I was crying for him. For Oleg.
For the first time, truly. In my home. In the complete, deafening, and saving emptiness he left behind.
A sunbeam, breaking through the leaves of a young maple outside the window, painted a moving, flickering patch on the kitchen wall.
I took a sip from a large ceramic mug of herbal tea and smiled. Two years. An eternity and a moment.
I repainted the walls a warm, creamy shade, replaced heavy drapes with light, airy linen.
Where the massive oak dresser once stood, which I sold without bargaining to an antique dealer, now stood a shelf with my landscape design books and dozens of pots with rare succulents.
It was my hobby that grew into a profession. I created little green worlds for other people, and it filled my life with meaning.
Oleg’s house became my home. His memory didn’t leave; it just stopped being a painful scar and turned into a bright, quiet part of me.
I no longer talked to his photograph, but sometimes, making a particularly successful design decision, I caught myself thinking: “He would have liked this.”
I hardly thought about the relatives anymore. After that day, they tried to sue, to contest the deeds.
They hired a lawyer who eagerly took the case, sensing easy money from a “grieving but very rich widow.”
The trial lasted almost six months and ended predictably—with a complete refusal. The documents drawn up by Oleg’s lawyer were flawless.
This process finally destroyed their family. They fell out over legal fees, accusing each other of greed and stupidity.
Uncle Vitya, I heard, after losing, went on a long bender. Some of the more distant relatives simply stopped communicating. Their “ancestral nest” turned out to be a house of cards that collapsed at the first gust of wind. And Svetlana Borisovna… I saw her once about a year ago in a grocery store. She had aged a lot, grown gaunt.
There was no hatred in her eyes, only fatigue and some kind of gray emptiness. She was pushing a cart with the cheapest groceries.
I froze between the aisles for a moment, and our eyes met. She recognized me.
There was no flicker of former arrogance in her eyes. She just turned away and pushed her cart on.
I felt neither gloating nor pity. Nothing. She became a stranger to me.
A ghost from a past life who no longer had any power over me. I turned and walked to the checkout, thinking about which lavender seedlings I needed to order for my new project.
The phone on the table beeped—a message arrived.
“Alin, I booked us a little cabin by the lake for the weekend. Rods are ready. Ready to beat your record for crucian carp? Kisses.”
I smiled, typing a reply. My record was three crucians. His—twenty-three. But I knew he would be happier with my single fish than with his entire catch.
I finished my tea and set the mug in the sink. Ahead was a new day. My day. In my life.
And I was grateful for every moment of it. Grateful to Oleg for giving me a chance to start over. And grateful to myself for taking that chance.