— You bought the wrong bread again,” my daughter-in-law Katya’s voice sliced through my ears as I unpacked the grocery bags in the kitchen. “I asked for yeast-free. For the fifth time.”
She picked up the loaf I’d brought and turned it in her hands as if it were some exotic poisonous caterpillar.
“Katya, I forgot, I’m sorry. I got caught up in things.”
“You’re always ‘caught up,’ Anna Petrovna. And we’re the ones who have to eat this. Artyom could have an allergy.”
She tossed the loaf onto the counter with the air of doing me a huge favor by not throwing it straight into the trash.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. My grandson Artyom is six, and he has never in his life had an allergy to ordinary bread.
My son poked his head into the room.
“Mom, have you seen my blue sweater?”
“I have, Oleg. It’s in the wash, I—”
“Why?” he cut me off. “I was going to wear it today! Come on, Mom!”
He disappeared, leaving me with that irritated “come on, Mom,” which lately felt worse than a slap. I had washed his sweater. I had taken care of something. And somehow I was the guilty one again.
I walked slowly to my room, past the living room where Katya was already loudly telling a friend on the phone that “the mother-in-law is acting up again.” The laughter on the other end was as sharp as her words.
My room felt like the only safe place left in this large house that had once been cozy. Now it hummed like a beehive.
Constant talking, a child’s shrieks, the TV blaring, doors slamming. Noisy. Crowded. And unbearably lonely.
I sat on the edge of the bed. All my life I’d been afraid of ending up alone. Afraid the children would grow up and fly away and I’d sit in empty rooms. What a fool I’d been.
Only at fifty-five did I understand that the scariest thing isn’t an empty apartment, but a house full of people who don’t need you.
To them, you’re a free add-on. A walking function that’s always malfunctioning. Bring this, fetch that, do the laundry—but do it exactly the way we say. One step left or right and you’re already in the way, annoying, underfoot.
That evening I tried again. My son sat scowling over his laptop.
“Oleg, maybe we could talk?”
“Mom, I’m working, can’t you see?” He didn’t look up.
“I just wanted—”
“Let’s do it later, okay?”
“Later” never came. He and Katya had their own life, their plans, their conversations. And I was… background. Like an old sofa or a lamp everyone is sick of. Sort of there, but sort of not.
There was a knock at the door. It was Artyom.
“Gran, read to me,” he said, handing me a book.
My heart leapt for a moment. There he was—my little ray of light. The only one who—
“Artyom!” Katya appeared in the doorway at once. “What did I say about not bothering Grandma? Go on—tablet time on your schedule.”
She took the book from him and led him away by the hand.
I was left sitting, staring at the closed door. And in that moment I realized I could no longer be just background. Something had to change. Or I would simply disappear into the walls of this house like a ghost.
The decision didn’t come at once. It ripened in me over several days, while I washed dishes on autopilot, went to the store, and silently endured the little stings.
It hardened when I found nearly a full pot of my pilaf in the trash—“too greasy, we’re on a diet.”
I decided to start small. With my own space.
On Saturday morning, while everyone was still asleep, I took down the boxes of my late husband’s things from the upper storage shelves.
His books, his tools, old photographs. I began sorting them right there in the living room on the big table. I wanted to make a little corner of memory, to hang his portrait.
Katya came down first. She froze in the doorway as if she’d found cockroaches.
“What is this supposed to be?”
“Good morning, Katya. I’m going through some things.”
“I can see that. Can’t you do it in your room? You’ve cluttered the whole living room. We’re having guests today, by the way.”
“It’s my living room too,” I said quietly but firmly, surprised by my own tone. “And these are your father-in-law’s things. Oleg’s father.”
Katya snorted and made a show of heading to the kitchen, banging the kettle. Ten minutes later Oleg appeared, drawn by the smell of coffee and his mother’s rebellion.
“Mom, what are you doing? Katya says you’ve piled stuff everywhere.”
“I just wanted to hang your father’s portrait. Right here,” I pointed to the wall.
“Here?” He looked at the wall, then at me. “Are you crazy? We’ve got a modern design going on here—what portrait? Katya picked out a stylish mirror for that spot.”
So that’s how it was. A stylish mirror—more important than his father’s memory.
“Oleg, this is my house.”
“Oh, here we go,” he rolled his eyes. “Always with the ‘my house.’ We live here too, you know! We did the renovation!”
The “renovation” being the kitchen wall they’d painted a garish lime-green. That was all.
“That’s exactly why I want the house to stay a home, not a thoroughfare with trendy mirrors.”
That evening came the main talk. They approached me together, with rehearsed serious faces. Sat down across from me.
“Mom, we’ve been thinking,” Oleg began smoothly. “This house is too big for all of us. Utilities are expensive, it’s hard to clean.”
Katya picked up, looking at me with honest eyes:
“Yes, Anna Petrovna. We’re thinking of you. It’ll be hard for you alone when we decide to live separately.”
A chill ran down my back.
“And where exactly are you planning to go?”
“We want to sell the house,” Oleg blurted out. “We’ll buy ourselves a good apartment in a new building. And for you—one-room place. Small, cozy. But your own.”
I looked from my son to my daughter-in-law. They weren’t joking. They’d decided everything. They’d already divvied up the money from selling my house. My fortress. My life.
“Sell… my house?”
“Why ‘yours’ right away?” Katya smiled brazenly. “We live here too, we invest. Or do you want us to slave away our whole lives keeping up this mansion for you?”
I stood up. My legs turned to cotton for a moment, but I straightened.
“No.”
“No what?” Oleg didn’t get it. “Mom, this is best for everyone.”
“I said no. This house isn’t being sold. Ever.”
I looked straight into my son’s eyes. There was nothing there but annoyance and cold calculation. The mask of a loving family had finally slipped. To them I wasn’t just a nuisance.
I was an obstacle to their “bright future.” And they were ready to bulldoze that obstacle. At any cost.
My “no” hung in the air. Oleg flushed dark red. Katya went pale; her thin lips compressed into a line.
“You don’t understand,” my son hissed. “This isn’t a request. We’ve already found a realtor.”
“Cancel the realtor,” I said calmly. The calm cost me dearly—inside I was shaking—but I knew that if I showed weakness now, they’d devour me.
“You’ll live in your little one-room and be happy!” Katya shrieked. “Enough of ruining our lives with your senility!”
“Katya,” Oleg snapped at her, then turned to me. “Mom, how can you do this to us? To your own son? I’m doing this for the family! For your grandson!”
A forbidden move. But it no longer worked.
“My grandson will come visit this house. His grandmother’s house. Not some faceless new-build bought on the bones of his grandfather’s memory.”
“Oh, that’s how it is!” Katya sprang to her feet. “So we’re nobody to you? We lived here, we helped, and now we should just get out?”
I looked at her. And for the first time in a long while, I saw not a frightened shadow but the mistress of my own home.
“You said it yourself, Katya. Not me.”
The next few days turned into hell. They stopped speaking to me. Not just ignoring—creating a vacuum around me. Deathly silence at the table. Doors slammed in my face. They cooked just for the two of them. They were trying to drive me out.
But they’d miscalculated. I was no longer afraid of emptiness. I craved it.
On Friday I made my move. That evening, while they were sitting in the living room watching some TV series, I walked in and laid two plane tickets on the table.
Oleg looked up at me in surprise.
“What’s this?”
“Tickets. For you. To your hometown. For next Saturday.”
Katya snatched up the tickets. Her eyes rounded.
“You… you’re kicking us out?”
“I’m giving you the chance to start the separate life you’ve dreamed about. Without me, without this old house. I’ll even help with some money at first—for a rental.”
“You… you have no right!” Oleg shouted, jumping up. “It’s my house too! I’m registered here!”
“You are registered,” I nodded. “But I’m the owner. And I’m tired. I want to live for myself now. In peace and quiet.”
He stared at me, and I could see his familiar world collapsing in his head. A world where Mom was always on hand, always convenient, always to blame.
“You’ll regret this,” he managed. “You’ll be completely alone.”
“I’ve already been alone. In a full house. I don’t want that anymore.”
They left a week later. They packed in silence, throwing me angry looks. Artyom cried; he didn’t understand why they were leaving his grandmother.
I hugged him, kissed him, and promised I’d come visit soon. And that he would come to me. Maybe.
When the door closed behind the last bag, I walked slowly through the house. It seemed huge, echoing. I went to the wall where Katya had wanted to hang the mirror. I took a hammer, a nail, and my husband’s portrait in its heavy wooden frame.
A few precise blows. The portrait hung in place. My husband looked at me from the photograph—young, smiling.
I ran my hand along the frame. The house stilled; the sounds of the street grew distant and unimportant.
There was no triumph, no all-consuming joy. There was something else. A sense of rightness. As if I had finally put things in order not only in the house but in my soul.
Yes, the house was empty now. But it was no longer foreign. It was mine again. And that wasn’t frightening. It was a beginning.
The first month felt like a honeymoon. I woke when I wanted, not to the clatter from the kitchen.
I drank coffee on the veranda wrapped in a blanket and read books that had been gathering dust on the shelves for years. I rearranged the furniture in the living room the way I’d always dreamed. The house breathed with me.
I realized that solitude and seclusion are entirely different things. I wasn’t lonely. I was alone with myself. And I liked it.
The call came at the end of the second month. Oleg’s number. My heart gave its old little lurch, but I answered calmly.
“Mom?” my son’s voice was tight, full of despair. “Mom, we’re in trouble.”
I sat down.
“What happened, Oleg?”
“Katya… she’s in the hospital. It’s very serious. We need money for surgery. A huge amount. I don’t have that kind of money.”
He sobbed. I had never heard my son cry. Not even as a child.
“How much?” I asked, my voice strange and wooden.
He named the sum. It was astronomical. Almost equal to the value of that one-room apartment they had planned for me.
“Mom, I’m begging you. Sell the house. It’s the only way. We’ll pay you back, I swear. Save Katya, save our family.”
I was silent. My head felt empty. On one side—a sick daughter-in-law, the mother of my grandson. On the other—lies that I felt in every cell.
“I’ll think about it,” I said and hung up.
All day I wandered through the house like in a fog. I looked at my husband’s portrait, at my flowers, at the armchair where I loved to read. And I understood that this was a test. The last one.
In the evening I called an old friend in their city. Just to chat. About the weather, about our health. And then, casually, I asked if she’d heard anything about Katya.
“About Katya?” my friend answered cheerfully. “Nothing’s wrong with her. Saw her at the mall yesterday. Picking out a fur coat. Said they’re moving into a new apartment soon, so she’s updating her wardrobe.”
The world didn’t turn upside down. It simply clicked into place. Every single piece of the puzzle formed an ugly, painfully clear picture.
I poured myself a glass of wine. Sat in my favorite chair. And when the phone rang again, I answered immediately.
“Well, Mom? Have you decided?” Oleg’s voice trembled with impatience.
“I have, son.”
“And? Are you selling?”
“No.”
Silence on the other end, heavy with disbelief.
“What do you mean, no? Do you want Katya to suffer?”
“Tell Katya that the mink coat suits her very well. Especially for a hospital bed,” I said, and I smiled.
“And also tell her there will be no money. Ever. And don’t call this number again. It won’t exist much longer.”
I hung up before he could reply.
I finished my wine, gazing out at the darkening garden. I didn’t feel like a victor.
I felt like a surgeon who had just amputated a hopelessly diseased part of her life. It hurt. But it was the kind of pain that leads to healing.
Now I knew for sure: the scariest thing isn’t an empty apartment. The scariest thing is being ready to give up everything for those who are ready to take your last. And the most important thing is to realize it in time.