— Your father is a miser! A real, utter miser! He held back the money for a car—again!
The front door flew open so hard it slammed into the rubber stopper with a dull, heavy thud that shattered the evening quiet of the spacious living room. Yegor burst into the apartment like a fury, flinging his expensive cashmere coat onto the floor. His face was crimson, the hair he’d styled perfectly that morning was disheveled, and angry, prickly sparks darted in his eyes. The car keys he threw onto the glass console in the hallway gave a sharp, unpleasant jangle.
Marina didn’t flinch. She sat in a deep armchair by the window, her legs covered with a soft blanket. A hardback book rested in her hands. She slowly, with an almost theatrical pause, finished the paragraph, slipped a silk bookmark between the pages, and closed the volume. Only then did she raise a calm, slightly tired gaze to her husband. Her whole posture radiated imperturbability—the best catalyst for his rage.
— He didn’t “hold it back,” Yegor. He said your car is still perfectly decent, and he sees no sense in such an expensive and unjustified purchase right now.
— Decent?! — Yegor threw up his hands, striding deeper into the room. He paced the expensive Persian rug like a beast locked in a cage. — He calls that “decent”? That clunker is three years old! Three, Marina! It’s shameful to pull up to board meetings in it! Everyone looks at you like you’re a pauper! What does your father understand about status anyway? A man who’s worn the same gray suit his whole life and thinks buying a new coffee machine is an unforgivable luxury!
He stopped in front of her, his overheated body looming over her calm. He expected an argument, shouting, counteraccusations. But Marina only looked at him in silence, and that infuriated him even more. He needed fuel for his anger and was getting only an icy wall.
— An old skinflint! He’s sat on his sacks of money his whole life and thinks he can boss everyone around! Asking him for anything is like begging for alms on the church steps! That tone of his… “Yegor, you need to be modest,” “Yegor, money likes to be counted.” What am I, a schoolboy for him to teach me life lessons?! I’m his son-in-law, a partner, for God’s sake! And he talks to me as if I ought to polish his boots!
He mimicked his father-in-law’s low, slightly hoarse voice, screwing up his forehead and pouting his lower lip in caricature. It was no longer mere indignation. It was a direct, spiteful insult. Marina’s fingers tightened almost imperceptibly on the book cover. Not a muscle moved in her face, but inside something began to freeze, turning into a sharp, cold crystal.
— And your precious mommy is no better! — he ranted on, switching targets. — She stood there nodding along, batting her eyes. “He’s right, Yegorushka, now isn’t the time.” What do you mean, not the time? For them it’s never the time if it’s about anyone but themselves! Arrogant, conceited old people who are sure they’ve bought the whole world and can now dictate to everyone how to breathe!
He ran out of steam. Breathing hard, he braced a hand on the back of the sofa and stared at her defiantly. He had poured it all out. In his mind, he’d laid out the entire injustice of the world, concentrated in her parents. He waited for a reaction. And he would get one—just not the one he expected.
Marina didn’t reply. She simply looked at him, and in that look there was no fear, no sympathy, not even irritation. There was something far worse— the detached, cold interest of an entomologist observing the fuss of a mindless insect. That gaze drained his strength, turning his righteous fury into a pitiful, meaningless tantrum. He felt his certainty evaporate under that calm, studying stare.
— Why are you silent? — he took another step, invading her personal space, trying to puncture that invisible armor with his physical presence. — Like what I’m saying? Truth stings, huh? You sit there like a queen on a throne and look at me like I’m a bug. Think I don’t see how your whole look announces who’s in charge here?
He didn’t wait for an answer and wound himself up again, his voice acquiring caustic, poisonous notes. He wasn’t just shouting—he savored each insult, spitting the words so they would cut as deeply as possible.
— Your daddy didn’t just pinch the money. He gave me a whole lecture! About how “real men build themselves,” about how “you have to value what you have.” Him—who got his first capital from his own father! And now he plays the wise man, the guru of financial literacy! And your mother… oh, that’s another song entirely! “Yegorushka, we’re just looking out for you. We want you to be more down-to-earth.” She said it with a face like she’d bestowed the greatest wisdom of the ages! Down-to-earth! They want me to crawl the way they do, counting every kopeck, afraid to spend an extra ruble on something that brings joy!
Marina slowly, with measured grace, set the book on the side table. The movement had no haste in it. She freed her hands. Now all her attention was on him. She didn’t fold her arms, didn’t take a defensive pose. She simply sat, straight and motionless, waiting for the stream of filth to run dry.
That finished him. Her silence was louder than any scream. He realized his attacks on her parents weren’t hitting home. So he decided to strike at her.
— And you know what’s most disgusting? You’re their exact copy. You soaked up that arrogance with your mother’s milk. You look at the world, at people, the same way. From above. With a touch of contempt. Don’t think I don’t notice how you purse your lips when I buy myself an expensive shirt. Or how you sigh when I say I want to change my watch. You’re just like them, Marina. A walking calculator in a pretty shell.
He came almost right up to her, his face only inches from hers. He lowered his voice to a venomous whisper so that every word would sink in like a needle.
— You don’t look at me as a husband. You look at me as… a project. A smart investment for Daddy. A guy with ambition you could take under your wing, slot into the system, and show off to your acquaintances: “Look what a husband our little Marina has! Promising!” Only the leash turned out too short, didn’t it? The “promising” boy isn’t getting a new car. I guess the status hasn’t been earned yet. Didn’t behave well enough.
He fell silent, expecting that this would finally get to her. He’d struck at the sorest spot—her feelings, their relationship—devaluing all that had existed between them. He waited for tears, counterinsults, anything.
Instead, Marina tilted her head ever so slightly. The ice in her eyes grew even harder. The cold interest vanished. In its place appeared something else. A decision. Final and irrevocable. She looked at him carefully, as if seeing him for the first time, and in a quiet, nearly soundless voice uttered a single word.
— Finished?
Her question, “Finished?”, hung in the air. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t a challenge. It sounded like a period placed at the end of a long, tedious, pointless sentence. Yegor blinked, thrown off balance. All his forward momentum, the righteous fury he had so carefully stoked, suddenly crashed into a smooth, blank wall and ebbed away, leaving a ringing emptiness. He had expected anything—tears, screams, counteraccusations—but not that calm, almost indifferent question that cheapened his entire tirade.
— Now listen to me, — Marina said in the same even voice.
She rose from the armchair slowly. The movement was fluid, unhurried, without a single wasted gesture. She didn’t just stand up—she changed the disposition. From a passive target of his anger, she became the active, dominant figure. Tossing the blanket back onto the chair, she took a few steps toward him. She wasn’t walking—she was advancing. With every step, the space in the room seemed to compress around him.
She stopped right in front of him, so close he could have seen the golden flecks in her cold, dark eyes. But he didn’t look into them. He watched her face—calm, unreadable, as if carved from ivory. There was no hatred in it. There was a decision.
— You’re finished. Now I’m going to speak. You said this apartment is a queen’s throne? You’re right. Only, it’s my apartment. Not ours. Mine. A wedding gift from my father. Do you understand? Every square meter of this parquet you were so theatrically strutting across five minutes ago, every wall with paintings my mother chose—he paid for it. You live here. You are a guest who has grossly overstayed his welcome.
Each word was delivered clearly, dispassionately, as if she were reading an inventory list. Yegor wanted to object, to open his mouth, but couldn’t. The words stuck in his throat. He was seeing her like this for the first time. Not loving, not irritated, not hurt. Foreign. Dangerous.
— You talked about your status. About partnership. About business. Your stake in the business—those are his funds, too. He put you on the board and gave you shares not because you’re a brilliant strategist, Yegor, but because his daughter asked on behalf of her husband. He created a job for you, invented a title so you could tell your friends you’re a “partner” and not just Marina’s husband living off her.
She made a tiny pause, letting the facts soak into his mind. He could physically feel the foundation he’d built his self-esteem on cracking and collapsing beneath him.
— And now the most interesting part. The car. That very “heap” you say you’re too high-status to drive to work. To the very job my father dreamed up for you. He gave you that car as well. To you personally. So you wouldn’t feel deprived, so you’d have something of your own. He gave you a tool to maintain your “status,” and you went to him demanding he replace it with something more expensive because your ego wants a new toy.
She leaned even closer, and her voice—without rising—took on a steely hardness. All the cold she’d saved up concentrated in a single, lethally precise phrase.
— You’d better shut that little mouth of yours, my dear, and stop talking like that about my parents, because if they find out the names you call them here, tomorrow you’ll be left with nothing and out on the street.
It wasn’t a shout and it wasn’t a threat. It was simple information. A statement of fact. As if she were explaining the rules of a game he had been playing without the slightest idea of how it worked.
And in that moment everything fell away from Yegor. No anger, no resentment, no swagger remained. It was as if someone had pulled out the invisible rod that held up his whole construct of arrogance and self-satisfaction. The blood drained from his face, leaving an unhealthy pallor. He looked at his wife but saw not her, only the pitiless picture of his complete, absolute collapse. He was no longer a partner. He was no longer a successful man. He was a kept man who had just insulted his only sponsor.
The silence that followed her words was different from the one that had filled the room before he came. The earlier silence had been calm and cozy. This one was dense, heavy, saturated with Yegor’s palpable humiliation. He stood before her, and it seemed he had physically shrunk. The crimson had drained from his face, leaving a corpse-like whiteness. He opened his mouth, then closed it, producing an inarticulate sound like a hoarse gasp. There wasn’t enough air. All his bluffing confidence, his status, his swagger—turned out to be a cheap stage set that had just been torn down with a crash.
— Marina… we’re a family. What are you saying? — he finally managed. The voice was strange, weak, with no trace of the former fury. It was a last, desperate attempt to change the register, to appeal to something he himself had just trampled into the mud. He tried to reach out, to touch her shoulder.
She took the slightest step back, avoiding his touch. Her gaze didn’t warm by a single degree.
— Family? — she said the word as if tasting it and finding it disgusting. — Family is when people respect each other, Yegor. When they value each other. And you just spent half an hour methodically destroying the people who gave you everything you have. You slung mud at my father, who believed in you more than you believe in yourself. You insulted my mother, who has always treated you like her own son. That’s not family. That’s freeloading. And your line of credit just ran out.
He looked at her, and animal fear sloshed in his eyes. Not fear of her anger—fear of her being right. He realized this wasn’t blackmail and not an emotional breakdown. It was a verdict.
— What… what do you want me to do? — he whispered.
Marina looked him straight in the eye, her face absolutely unreadable. She gave him one last chance. Not a chance to save their relationship—it no longer existed. A chance to save his comfortable life.
— You’re going to turn around now. Take the car keys—the very ones that humiliate you so much—drive to my parents, and apologize.
She paused, letting him absorb the first part of the ultimatum. Then she went on, detailing his humiliation with surgical precision.
— And you’re not just going to mumble “I’m sorry.” You’ll look my father in the eye and tell him you behaved like an ungrateful, conceited idiot. You’ll tell my mother that you value her care and deeply regret your vile words. You’ll tell them you fully understand your dependence on their generosity. And that you’re asking their permission to keep benefiting from their kindness. Did you understand me? You must ask permission to live the way you’re used to living.
His face turned into a mask where two expressions fought: panicked fear of losing everything, and wounded pride that wouldn’t let him drop to his knees. To go there. To say that. It would mean admitting he was nothing. It would mean forever giving up the illusion of his own importance. His ego, swollen to absurd proportions, was the only thing he truly considered his. And she demanded he sacrifice it.
— I won’t humiliate myself, — he exhaled. It was almost inaudible, but firm.
Marina nodded, as if she’d heard exactly the answer she expected. No disappointment flashed in her eyes, no gloating. Only a cold statement of fact.
— Fine. I respect your choice. Then it’s simple.
She turned and nodded toward the glass console in the hallway, where the keys he’d thrown still lay.
— The keys. To the apartment and the car. Put them on the console. Your coat is on the floor. You have half an hour to gather what personally belongs to you. I don’t think it will take long.
He froze, unable to believe his ears. This was the end. Not a quarrel before reconciliation, but a quiet, businesslike amputation. He looked at her, searching for the slightest doubt, but her face was smooth and calm. She turned, went to her armchair, picked up the blanket, folded it neatly, and sat down. Then she took the book from the side table, opened it to the page marked with the silk bookmark, and sank into reading, as if he no longer existed in that room. As if he were nothing more than an unpleasant draft they were about to shut the door on. Forever…