I stood at the living room window, looking out at the gray roofs of our neighborhood, and couldn’t believe it… Finally! After three years of divorce, after all the courts and the splitting of property, I had what I’d dreamed of all my life—my own territory. My apartment. My rules.
Light walls I picked out myself at the hardware store. A sea-green sofa—so expensive I saved up for it for six months. And this silence… God, how I missed it! Twenty years of marriage taught me to value every minute of peace.
“Ira, sweetheart, why are you just standing there?” my cousin Galina’s voice pulled me back to reality.
She was sitting on my new sofa, casually propping her feet on the coffee table I had recently been dusting with religious zeal. In her hands was a mug of coffee—my coffee, by the way.
“Galina, you said you’d stay a couple of weeks,” I began carefully, turning to her.
“Yeah, so what?” She shrugged and took a sip. “Until I sort out my housing.”
And her housing just wasn’t getting sorted out—already a month. Exactly thirty days ago, Galina called me, sobbing into the phone:
“Ira, he kicked me out! Can you imagine? Ten years together, and he says he’s had enough of me!”
Of course I couldn’t say no. Family is family. Aunt Klava, her mother, was always kind to me. And Galka… well, Galka is what she is. A little selfish, a little careless, but deep down a good person. That’s what I told myself.
“Do you want to move in with me just because I don’t have a husband?” The question slipped out before I could think it through.
Galina almost choked on her coffee.
“What nonsense are you talking?”
“I’m just curious. You have married friends. Lena, for example. Or Olga from college…”
“Ira, what does that have to do with anything?” She set the mug down so hard coffee sloshed onto the glass surface. “Are you implying I’m using you?”
I kept quiet. What was there to say? In a month, Galina had turned my apartment into… a dormitory, I guess. Every evening she did video calls with friends until one in the morning. Loudly, with cackling and commentary about everyone we knew. The bathroom was occupied for two hours at a time—she didn’t just shower there; she did face masks, washed clothes, blow-dried her hair.
And yesterday she announced, “Listen, let’s move the sofa—over by the window. And we’ll turn the TV around. Your setup feels kind of uncozy.”
Uncozy! In the apartment I’d arranged with so much love that every detail was thought through!
“Galina, I don’t mind helping,” I said, trying to keep my voice gentle. “But it seems to me a month is already…”
“A month is what?” She jumped up from the sofa. “I thought you understood me! I’ve got nowhere to go!”
“What about work? You said you were getting hired…”
“I am, I am! But until I get a paycheck, I can’t rent! Or do you want me to live on the street?”
There it was, the familiar tactic: guilt first, then offense. Galina had always done that, since childhood. I remember how she would “forget” money for ice cream and then take offense that I didn’t treat her.
“That’s not what I mean…”
“What then?” Her eyes narrowed. “I know what you’re thinking! That I latched onto you because you live alone and there’s no one for you to complain to!”
Bull’s-eye. But how could I admit it?
That evening I called Sveta, my best friend.
“Sveta, I’m losing my mind…”
“Ira, what now?” There was so much warmth in Sveta’s voice I nearly burst into tears.
“Galka. She’s been living with me a month, and I feel like a guest in my own apartment.”
“Then kick her out.”
“How can I ‘kick her out’? She’s family!”
“Ira,” Sveta sighed so deeply I heard it through the phone, “family isn’t a license for freeloading. You’re not a shelter.”
“But she really doesn’t have any money…”
“And trying work—has that occurred to her? Or are her hands broken?”
I knew Sveta was right. Galina had always known how to live at someone else’s expense. In college she lived off a stipend her parents wrangled for her through connections. Then for ten years she sat on the neck of Mikhailych—her common-law partner. And now…
“You know what,” Sveta went on, “ask her directly: when does she plan to move out?”
“I already asked. She says—soon.”
“‘Soon’ when? In a week? A month? A year?”
“I don’t know…”
“Exactly. And she doesn’t either.”
After the call with Sveta, I lay awake for a long time. Through the wall Galina was watching some TV series—loudly, with commentary. I heard her laughter, lines like “She’s an idiot!” and “What a twist!”
Before, at that hour I would read. Or just lie there in silence, thinking about my life. About who I was now—without a husband, without his constant complaints and orders. Free.
And now…
In the morning I woke up to the smell of eggs. I went to the kitchen—Galina was frying breakfast, humming under her breath.
“Good morning, darling!” She turned to me with a smile. “I made us eggs. With bacon!”
“Galina, where did the bacon come from?”
“Oh, I bought it yesterday. At the market, from that guy… Ira, you’re out of salt.”
“What salt?”
“Just regular. I used the last pinch.”
I opened the cupboard. Sure enough, the salt shaker was empty. So was the shelf with dry goods—there was a gap where the oatmeal and buckwheat used to be.
“Galina, could you…”
“What?”
“Buy your own groceries.”
She looked at me as if I’d suggested she sell a kidney.
“Ira, you know I’m short on money right now…”
“And the bacon?”
“That’s nothing! I’m treating you!”
With bacon bought with my money—the money she “borrowed” the day before yesterday for “the bare essentials.”
“You know what, let me make a list of what we need, and you…”
“Ira,” her voice turned plaintive, “I really am looking for a job. Once I find one—I’ll settle up. And move out. I promise.”
“I promise.” How many times had I heard that?
Three days later, something happened that finally opened my eyes.
I came home early—got time off for overtime. I was climbing the stairs, pulling out my keys, when the door opened before I could get the key in the lock.
Galina stood there—pleased with herself, keys in hand.
“Oh, Ira! You’re early today.”
“Galina, what’s that?” I nodded at the keys.
“Oh, this… Well, I had a copy made. For convenience.”
“For whose convenience?”
“Well, mine… I mean ours!” she corrected herself quickly. “What if you’re late and I need to…”
I walked past her into the apartment without listening. There were some papers lying on the sofa in the living room.
“What’s this?”
“Oh, those are forms for registration,” Galina tossed off as she walked by.
“Registration? What registration?”
“Well, temporary. They need it for work…”
“Galina!” I felt my insides start to boil. “Are you planning to register yourself at my address?”
“Temporarily!” She threw up her hands. “Just temporarily!”
“And asking me first?”
“Oh, come on, what difference does it make? You live alone anyway!”
There it was. You live alone anyway. Which means I’m a hostel. Which means my opinion doesn’t matter.
“You know what,” I sat down on the sofa, my legs suddenly rubbery, “let’s be honest.”
“About what?”
“You’re not planning to move out. Are you?”
Galina froze. Then slowly sank into the armchair opposite.
“Ira…”
“Don’t ‘Ira’ me. Just say it.”
She was silent for a minute. Then sighed:
“Why should I move out? I’m comfortable here. You’re not cramped, your apartment is big…”
“And asking me?”
“I thought you’d even like it! It’s boring alone…”
“I’m not bored!” I shot to my feet. “I was perfectly happy alone! I could finally live the way I wanted!”
“Sorry for being alive!” she snapped.
“That’s not what I mean! You’re living as if this were your apartment! You rearrange the furniture, invite guests without asking!”
“What guests?”
“Your Lena? Who sat in the kitchen until two in the morning yesterday?”
“She just dropped by!”
“For six hours! And she brought a bottle of wine! My wine, by the way!”
“One bottle…” Galina muttered.
“Galina,” I sat back down, trying to speak calmly, “you don’t want to stay here temporarily. You want me to support you. And I don’t have the energy or the desire for that.”
Her face lengthened.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you want to live here, eat my food, use my things, and give nothing in return. You don’t even say thank you properly.”
“Ira, are you serious?”
“More than serious.”
She stood, paced the room.
“I thought we were relatives…”
“We are relatives. But that doesn’t mean I have to support you for the rest of my life.”
“For the rest of your life!” She snorted. “Big deal, I lived here a month!”
“A month with plans for ‘forever.’ You said it yourself—why should you move out?”
Galina stopped in the middle of the room, arms crossed.
“So what are you proposing?”
“That you move out. This week.”
“And where am I supposed to go?”
“I don’t know. To your parents. To friends. Rent a room…”
“With what money?”
“Work.”
“I told you—I’m looking!”
“You’ve been ‘looking’ for a month. And what, not a single offer?”
She went quiet. And I understood—she wasn’t looking. Or she was, for show.
“Fine,” she said at last, “if you don’t need me…”
“Galina, it’s not that I don’t need you…”
“Then what?”
“It’s that you don’t respect me. You think that because I don’t have a husband, I should be grateful for your company. I shouldn’t.”
“Where do you get that from?”
“You said it yourself: ‘it’s boring alone,’ ‘the apartment is big,’ ‘what difference does it make.’ All of that translates to: ‘Ira has nothing better to do.’”
Galina stood there looking at me as if seeing me for the first time.
“That’s not what I meant…”
“What did you mean?”
“I just…” she faltered. “I thought you’d have more fun.”
“I’m already having fun. I like my life.”
“But you’re alone!”
“So what?” I felt the heat rising again. “What’s wrong with that? Why does everyone think being alone is a sentence?”
“Well… I don’t know…”
“I work, I have friends, hobbies. I read, I go to the theater, I meet up with girlfriends. I’m not bored!”
“Okay, okay,” she raised her hands, “I get it.”
But her face said—she didn’t. To her, a single woman is always a victim of circumstance who needs help being entertained.
It took her three days to pack. Three days of silence, pointed door-slamming, and sighing. When she left, she said:
“You know, Ira, I didn’t think you were so heartless.”
I didn’t answer. What was there to say? That wanting to live your own life isn’t heartlessness?
After she left, for a whole week I’d come home and freeze in the entryway. Silence. Real, deep silence. No loud phone calls, no advice on where to put a plant.
I could sit on my own sofa with a book and read until morning. I could turn on classical music—the kind Galina called “boring.” I could just lie there and think my own thoughts.
Two months later a message came: “I’m sorry, I really went too far. Found a job, renting a room. Maybe we could call sometime?”
I smiled. Maybe we would. When I was ready.
For now, I bought a keypad lock—one you can only open from inside or by knowing the code. And a ticket to St. Petersburg for a long weekend—the first vacation in many years.
Sitting on the plane, looking out the window at clouds drifting below, I thought: “No one will ever move into my life again without my consent. No one.”
And you know what? It was the best decision of my life.