Marina had always believed that every thing had its own place and its own story. Her makeup bag with the French mascara she’d bought three years ago. Her grandmother’s emerald earrings, which she wore only on special occasions. The blue Zara dress in which she’d met Andrei. Every item was part of her personal space, her intimate world.
Andrei took a simpler view of property. To him, things were just objects to use, share, and lend. He genuinely couldn’t understand why Marina was so attached to her dresses and jewelry.
The first warning sign came about two months ago.
“ Andrei, have you seen my pearl earrings?” she asked, rummaging through the jewelry box. “The ones Mom gave me for my birthday.”
“Oh, those?” Andrei didn’t even look up from his phone. “I gave them to Lena. She has an interview for a new job tomorrow and asked for something strict and elegant.”
Marina froze, holding the empty earring box in her hands.
“How could you give them away? Those are my earrings.”
“So what? You’re not using them right now. And Lena needed them.”
“Andrei, those are my personal things! You can’t just hand them out!”
“Oh, come on,” he finally tore himself from the screen. “Lena’s my sister. Not a stranger. And she’ll definitely return them.”
Lena returned the earrings two weeks later. One pearl had faint, barely visible smudges of foundation. Marina spent ten minutes scrubbing them off, washing and disinfecting them, and the whole time she felt a strange wave of nausea. Not from the stains, but from the thought that someone else had worn her earrings—that they had touched someone else’s skin and absorbed someone else’s scent.
But Andrei didn’t get her reaction.
“For heaven’s sake, Marina, what’s with you? They’re just earrings. And besides, what difference does it make? Lena’s clean and tidy.”
A month later the blue dress disappeared.
Marina was getting ready for a corporate party and had specifically planned to wear that dress—it fit her perfectly and brought out her eyes. But it wasn’t in the closet.
“Andrei, where’s my blue dress? The one from Zara, remember?”
“Oh, Lena took it for a date. Says it suits her really well.”
“What date?” Marina felt something tighten inside her. “She’s been seeing Maksim for six months!”
“Yeah, she’s going with him. To the theater or somewhere. She said her black dress is in the wash and buying a new one is expensive.”
Marina sat down on the bed slowly.
“Andrei, do you understand that I wanted to wear that dress? Today? To the corporate party?”
“Then wear another one. You’ve got a whole closet full.”
“It’s not about whether I have other dresses! It’s that it’s MY dress, and I didn’t give permission for it to be taken!”
“Why are you getting worked up? Lena promised to be careful with it.”
The dress came back three days later. There was a yellow stain on the hem—probably sauce or something else. Hardly noticeable, but still there. Andrei shrugged:
“Stuff happens. Take it to the dry cleaner and it’ll be like new.”
But for Marina the dress was no longer the same. Every time she looked at it, she pictured Lena dancing with Maksim in it, kissing him, leaving traces of makeup and sweat on the fabric. She never wore it again.
Then cosmetics, scarves, and bags started disappearing. It was as if Lena had decided that Marina’s wardrobe was a public library where you could take anything you liked. And Andrei played the librarian who cheerfully issued any “book.”
“Listen,” Marina tried to have a serious talk with him, “I’m really uncomfortable with your sister wearing my things. This is my personal space.”
“Marina, don’t be so stingy. We’re family. And family should help each other.”
“Help with money, advice, support—yes. But not with my personal belongings!”
“What, jewelry and dresses aren’t help? Lena’s a student; she doesn’t have money for all that.”
“Then she should ask my permission!”
“Why? I know you wouldn’t refuse. Why all the formalities between close relatives?”
But it wasn’t about formalities. It was that Marina felt robbed in her own home. Her things disappeared without asking, came back damaged or late. And her husband didn’t understand her feelings and called stinginess what, for her, was an attempt to preserve at least a small piece of personal space.
The last straw was the laptop.
Marina worked as an interior designer, but for the past two months she’d been between projects and really had been using her personal laptop less. The work laptop issued by her company was enough for business emails and for scrolling through social media in the evenings. Her personal one lay on her desk in the bedroom, and lately she had barely opened it.
That day she decided to deal with personal matters—sort through vacation photos, update her résumé, clean out her personal inbox. But the laptop wasn’t there.
“Andrei, where’s my laptop?”
“Lena has it,” he replied without taking his eyes off the TV. “Hers broke, and she needs to submit a term paper.”
Marina felt the blood rush to her face.
“What do you mean, Lena has it? All my files, photos, documents are on there! Including very personal ones.”
“So what? She’s not going to look at them. She just needs Word and the internet.”
“Andrei!” Marina raised her voice. “There are my personal photos! Documents! Passwords! Do you even understand what you’re doing?”
“Calm down. Lena’s decent; she won’t go snooping through your files.”
“It’s not about decency! It’s that these are my PERSONAL things! You have no right to hand them out!”
But Andrei had already turned back to the TV, signaling that, as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.
The laptop came back a week later. Marina immediately checked the browser history and found that someone had been looking through her photos in cloud storage—including some quite intimate shots taken on their honeymoon. Unknown files had appeared on the desktop, and one of her important documents had been deleted.
When she told Andrei about it, he just waved his hand:
“Then restore it from the trash. And anyway, it was probably an accident.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it was an accident or not!” Marina shouted. “The point is that you gave a stranger access to my personal information!”
“A stranger? She’s my sister!”
“She’s a stranger to me! And she had no right to poke around in my files!”
But Andrei had already gone into the other room and slammed the door.
The final drop was the food processor.
On Sunday morning Marina decided to bake Andrei’s favorite cake—the one with nuts and cream that she usually made for his birthday. She bought all the ingredients, took out her grandmother’s recipe, and settled into the long, pleasant process of baking.
But when she opened the kitchen cabinet, the shelf where the processor usually sat was empty.
“Andrei!” she called. “Where’s the food processor?”
“Oh, that? Lena has it. She called yesterday and said she wanted to try making something fancy for Maksim. I figured you hardly ever use it anyway.”
Marina stood in the middle of the kitchen with a bag of nuts in her hands and felt a wave of fury rise inside her—stronger than anything she had ever felt.
“Andrei,” she said slowly, “I was going to bake a cake. For you. And I specifically need the processor to grind the nuts.”
“Then bake it tomorrow. Or the day after. It’s not like Lena took it forever.”
“I wanted to bake it TODAY!” Marina screamed. “I planned it, I prepared, I bought the ingredients!”
“So what, is this a global catastrophe now?” Andrei snapped. “Chop them with a knife or buy pre-ground nuts at the store.”
“It’s not about the nuts!” Marina threw the bag on the table. “It’s that you treat MY belongings as if they were yours! Without asking, without permission! As if I have no say at all in my own home!”
“Oh, stop dramatizing! It’s just a processor!”
“No, it is NOT just a processor! It’s MY processor, which I bought with my own money and which sits in OUR kitchen! And you have no right to lend it out without my consent!”
Andrei looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“God, Marina, what’s gotten into you? Such greed… Are you really that reluctant to share with my sister?”
And that’s when Marina realized that words were useless. Andrei would never understand her, because to him the concept of personal space simply didn’t exist—at least not when it came to her things.
But she did know how to make him understand.
On Monday morning, when Andrei left for work by subway, as usual, Marina called her brother Mikhail.
“Hey, Misha. Listen, do you need a car for a few days?”
“What happened?” her brother asked, surprised.
“Andrei gave permission,” Marina lied. “He said he’s taking the subway to work anyway, and the car is just sitting there.”
“Well, if he doesn’t mind… I actually need to run some errands at the dacha, and the bus is a hassle. Thanks!”
An hour later Mikhail was already picking up the keys to the snow-white BMW that was Andrei’s pride and joy. Every weekend he washed it by hand and polished it to a mirror shine. He’d bought it on credit two years ago and treated it like a treasure.
In the evening, when Andrei came home from work, he went straight to the window to check that his car was all right. The spot in the parking lot was empty.
“Marina, where’s my car?” he asked, trying to stay calm.
“Oh, Misha took it,” Marina said, continuing to make dinner. “He needed to take building materials to the dacha.”
Andrei froze.
“What do you mean, took it? Which Misha?”
“My brother. I gave him the keys.”
“What DID you do?!” Andrei’s voice shot up into a falsetto. “How could you give away my car?!”
“What’s the big deal?” Marina shrugged. “You’re not using it anyway. You take the subway to work.”
“Not using it?!” Andrei clutched his head. “It cost me half my career! I’ve been paying the loan for two years! I check on it every day, I wash it, I take care of it!”
“So what? Misha’s a careful driver. Don’t worry, nothing will happen to it.”
“Nothing will happen?!” Andrei was on the verge of hysterics. “What if he crashes it? What if it gets stolen? What if he drives drunk?”
“Andrei, why are you panicking? Misha doesn’t drink and drive. And he’s experienced—he’s been driving for twenty years.”
“Experienced?! What does that have to do with anything?!” Andrei paced the room. “It’s MY car! You had no right to give it away! Call him right now and have him bring it back!”
“But he hasn’t finished the dacha errands yet. He’ll bring it back tomorrow evening.”
“Tomorrow?!” Andrei roared. “You gave my car to a STRANGER for a whole DAY?!”
“A stranger?” Marina asked, surprised. “He’s my brother.”
“He’s a stranger to me! And he had no right to take my car!”
Marina slowly turned to her husband and looked him straight in the eye.
“You gave your sister my food processor—why can’t I give your car to my brother? You’re not using it right now either!”
Andrei opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. For the first time in months, he saw the situation from the other side.
“That’s… that’s completely different,” he muttered.
“How so?” Marina asked calmly. “You said there shouldn’t be formalities between family. That family should help each other. That stinginess is bad.”
“But a car… that’s an expensive thing…”
“And my laptop is cheap? It had my personal files on it—worth more than any car.”
“But Lena didn’t mean—”
“And Misha could also accidentally scratch your car. Or get into an accident. Or it could be stolen. Anything can happen.”
Andrei turned pale.
“Marina, please call him! Ask him to bring it back!”
“Why?” his wife asked, genuinely puzzled. “I know you wouldn’t refuse. Why all the formalities between close relatives?”
Andrei didn’t sleep the whole night. He got up every hour to look out the window, as if the car might magically materialize in the parking lot. He pictured Mikhail smashing it into a tree, getting stopped by the traffic police, the car being scratched in some unfamiliar courtyard.
By morning he was pale and exhausted.
“Marina, please call Misha. At least ask him to send photos of the car so I can be sure it’s fine.”
“Why?” Marina shrugged. “I’m telling you, he’s careful.”
“Please! I’m just worried!”
“And I wasn’t worried when you handed out my things? When Lena brings them back with stains from makeup and who knows what else?”
Andrei looked at his wife and finally understood what she had felt all these months: the helplessness when someone uses your belongings without asking; the anxiety that they might be handled carelessly; the anger that your opinion doesn’t count.
“I… I didn’t understand,” he said quietly.
“Do you understand now?”
He nodded.
In the evening, Mikhail returned the car. It was clean and intact, even filled up to the brim. But there were someone else’s gloves on the back seat, it smelled of an unfamiliar cologne, and there were sunflower seed shells in the ashtray.
“Sorry,” Mikhail said, handing back the keys, “I made a bit of a mess. I cleaned up what I could.”
Andrei nodded silently and went to inspect the car. There were no scratches or dents, but it no longer felt as “his” as before. Someone else had sat behind the wheel, and that made him oddly uncomfortable.
“Well?” Marina asked. “Do you understand now how I felt?”
Andrei didn’t answer for a long time. Then he nodded slowly.
“I do. I’m sorry.”
From that day on he never again lent out Marina’s things to Lena without Marina’s permission. And when his sister called with the next request to borrow something from Marina’s wardrobe, he would say:
“Lena, those aren’t my things. Call Marina yourself and ask her.”
And, strangely enough, once Lena started asking for permission, Marina was much more willing to share. Because now it was her choice, not generosity forced upon her.
The food processor reclaimed its rightful place in the cabinet, and Marina finally baked that very nut cake. Andrei said it turned out especially delicious. Maybe because it was made with love.
Sometimes people need to stand in someone else’s shoes to understand their feelings. And sometimes the most effective lesson isn’t words, but personal experience—even if you have to play by someone else’s rules a little to get there.