— Alyon, I’ve been thinking… about Archie.”
Yegor said it while standing in the middle of the living room. He didn’t sit down. He had just come in, taken off his jacket, and was now fidgeting with his car keys as if they were prayer beads that could calm him down. Alyona was sitting on the floor with her back against the couch. Her hand slowly, rhythmically stroked the old dog’s gray, coarse fur. Archie, dozing at her feet, lifted one ear slightly but didn’t open his eyes. He was too old and too wise for pointless fuss. His world was made of his mistress’s scent, the warmth of her hand, and a soft bed.
“About Archie?” Alyona didn’t lift her head. Her voice was even, a little tired after the workday.
“Well, you can see he’s really old now. It’s hard for him,” Yegor began from afar, circling the point in a wide arc. “He breathes like that… and there’s hair everywhere. Maybe we should think about some… more comfortable option for him?”
Alyona froze. Her hand stopped on the dog’s head. Comfortable. The word hung in the air—unnatural and fake. She slowly raised her eyes to her husband. There was no surprise in her gaze, no hurt. Only a cold, attentive curiosity—the way an entomologist studies a rare insect.
“Like what?” she asked just as quietly.
Yegor swallowed. He felt that look and shrank under it.
“I talked to Mom…” he said. “She’s really worried. About cleanliness, about health. She says an old dog is a breeding ground… well, you know. She’s suggesting a good shelter. Out of town. Fresh air, care, vets. We could even pay for his upkeep. It’s not like we’d throw him out on the street, Alyon. It’s… a civilized solution. For everyone.”
He finished and went silent, waiting for a reaction. He was ready for anything—an argument, objections, pleading. But he wasn’t ready for what happened next. Alyona removed her hand from the dog’s head and, slowly, as if reluctantly, got to her feet and stepped right up to him. She was a little shorter, but now it felt as if she were looking down at him.
“And what makes you think I’m going to abandon my dog, the one I picked up before I even met you?!” she snapped. “Because your mommy is afraid of germs? Then she can just not come here! And if the choice is between her and the dog, I’ll ban you from coming in, too!”
“Alyon, you’re going too far,” Yegor mumbled, confused, taking a step back. The forced confidence on his face collapsed into something pathetic and frightened. “It’s my mom… I just want peace in the family.”
“In the family?” she gave a small laugh—without a gram of humor. “Yegor, our family is me, you, and this dog. And your mom is your mom. She’s not a member of our family, she’s a guest. And if a guest tries to set rules in my house, they stop being a guest. I picked him up ten years ago. He was filthy—a beaten lump of fear with a broken paw. I nursed him back. He slept in my bed when I had a fever and didn’t leave my side. He was with me when I didn’t even know you existed. And you’re offering to put him in a cage because it’ll help your mother sleep better? Do you even hear yourself? You’re not offering a solution. You just came to deliver someone else’s ultimatum.”
The evening stopped being just an evening. It became territory. The living room—where Archie’s bed lay on the floor—turned into Alyona’s sovereign state. The kitchen and bedroom became neutral zones where they moved like two unfriendly neighbors in a communal apartment, carefully pretending not to notice each other. The silence wasn’t oppressive; it was businesslike. It was a tool Alyona used methodically to shut Yegor out, building a wall out of his own cowardice. He tried to break through with small, pitiful gestures: brewing two teas instead of one, putting her mug on the table. She would walk past, take her own from the cupboard, and pour herself tap water. In the evening he put on a movie they’d long wanted to watch together. Without a word she took a book from the shelf, sat in the armchair, and demonstratively turned pages without looking at the screen.
Yegor couldn’t take it. He wandered around the apartment like a restless ghost, bumping into invisible borders. His attempts to “fix things” shattered against her cold indifference. But the real attack came from the other side. The next day, while Yegor was at work, his phone started vibrating. Alyona saw it: “Mom” flashed on the screen. He took the phone into the bedroom and shut the door tightly behind him. The call was short, but when he came out, his face wore a mask of guilty determination. He didn’t talk about the dog. He came in from the flank.
“Did you check the meat in the fridge? I think it smells kind of off,” he tossed out, peering over her shoulder as she cooked dinner.
“It doesn’t,” she cut him off without turning around.
An hour later, while she was dusting, he came up again.
“Listen, maybe we should buy an air purifier? A stronger one. There’s a lot of dust and… you know, different smells. It’s good for your health.”
Alyona stopped and slowly turned to him.
“What smells are bothering you, Yegor?”
He faltered, unprepared for the direct question.
“Well… I mean… it smells like dog. Let’s be honest.”
“That smell didn’t bother you for the last three years. It started bothering you yesterday, after your mother’s ultimatum. Go tell her her tactic isn’t working.”
She went back to cleaning, leaving him standing in the middle of the room. He understood he’d failed the mission. But Tamara Igorevna wasn’t the type to retreat. That evening, when Yegor was coming home from work, she was waiting for him outside the building. Not coming up, not pushing her way into the apartment. Just standing by a bench, wrapped in her severe coat like a commander inspecting the front line. Alyona saw them from the window. The scene was more eloquent than any words. The mother, gesturing energetically, hammered something into her son’s head. And Yegor—a tall, strong man—stood in front of her with slumped shoulders and a lowered head, nodding now and then. He looked not like an adult discussing family issues, but like a guilty schoolboy being scolded in front of the class.
Alyona stepped away from the window. She didn’t feel anger. She felt something inside her freeze over completely. The last crumbs of respect, warmth, illusion—everything turned into icy dust. She looked at Archie, asleep and lightly wheezing in his dreams, and understood that this old, sick dog had more dignity and willpower than her husband.
When Yegor came into the apartment, he was different. Not guilty. He was wound up and angry. He walked into the kitchen without taking off his shoes, opened the fridge, and slammed it shut. Then he went just as silently into the bedroom. Alyona could hear him pacing from corner to corner, the parquet creaking under his heavy steps. He was preparing. Gathering courage for a new assault. He didn’t understand that the fortress wasn’t simply ready for siege anymore. The fortress had already decided to burn every bridge and bury both the attackers and itself under the rubble.
He waited almost a full day. He circled, pretended at normal life, even washed the dishes after himself—something he hadn’t done in months. Then, the next evening, when Alyona sat in the armchair with her laptop and Archie lay at her feet, Yegor came up with two steaming cups of tea. He set one on the side table beside her. He didn’t sit. He stayed standing, leaning his hip against the couch armrest, creating the illusion of casual closeness.
“Alyon, I thought all night,” he began in a soft, coaxing voice—the one he used when he wanted to sound wise and caring. “You’re right, the shelter isn’t an option. I overreacted. He’s our dog, our friend.”
Alyona slowly lifted her gaze from the screen. She stayed silent, letting him talk—like an investigator letting a suspect lay out his story. She saw the change of tactics, felt the falseness in every word. It wasn’t his intonation. It was his mother’s, passed through a filter of his weakness.
“But understand me too,” he continued, seeing she was listening. “Mom won’t calm down. Her blood pressure spikes, she doesn’t sleep at night, she winds herself up. She’s old-school, she’s afraid of infections, dirt… It’s not out of malice, it’s fear. And because of it, we have a war in the house. You’re on edge, I’m caught between two fires. No one feels good.”
He paused, lifted his cup, took a sip. The gesture was calculated—meant to show this wasn’t an ultimatum, but a calm reflection.
“And I came up with something. A compromise. Your parents’ dacha sits empty most of autumn, right? Big plot, fresh air. Let’s take Archie there—just for a couple months. Mom will calm down, stop harassing us. We’ll go see him every weekend. Every single one! We’ll bring him meat, walk in the woods. It’ll even be better for him than a stuffy apartment. And then, when things settle, we’ll figure something out. What do you say? It’s a way out.”
He looked at her with hope. In his eyes was a plea: Please, agree—let’s end this. He truly believed his plan was brilliant. It solved his main problem—ending his mother’s pressure—while looking like care for everyone.
In that moment something in Alyona broke for good. It wasn’t even disappointment. It was a cold, clear revelation—like a winter dawn. She suddenly saw him not as a husband, not as someone close, but as a foreign, complicated mechanism transmitting someone else’s will. He wasn’t looking for compromise. He was looking for a way to make her give in, wrapping it in pretty “care.” To send an old, sick dog who had spent his whole life beside her to an empty, cold house. “For a couple months.” She knew it was a lie. In two months there would be a new reason. Then another. It was exile disguised as vacation.
And then she changed. The tension left her shoulders. Her face, which until then had looked like a clenched fist, smoothed out. She slowly closed the laptop, set it aside, and looked at Yegor. Calmly, directly, without a hint of hostility.
“Alright, Yegor,” she said evenly. “I understand you. You’re right. This situation needs to be dealt with. And dealt with once and for all.”
Yegor didn’t believe his ears. Such sincere, childlike relief appeared on his face that for a second Alyona almost felt sorry for him. He straightened up, ready to hug her, to celebrate his victory.
“Really? Alyon, I knew you’d understand me! I’m so glad!”
“Don’t rush,” she stopped him. “I said the situation needs to be dealt with. Not that I agree to send my dog into exile. Let’s do this: no more broken telephone and whispering behind backs. Let’s call your mother right now. And discuss everything the three of us. You, me, and her. Like adults.”
Yegor beamed. It was even better than he could have imagined. The conflict was brought into open court, where he and his mother would, of course, easily pressure Alyona. He didn’t see the trap. He saw the end of his suffering.
“Of course! Yes, that’s a great idea! Call her!”
Alyona took her phone. Her fingers didn’t tremble. She slowly swiped the screen, opened her contacts, scrolled down. Yegor watched impatiently, like a child waiting for a gift. She found the number labeled simply and officially: “Tamara Igorevna.” She tapped it. And before raising the phone to her ear, she looked him straight in the eyes one last time. There was no love in her gaze now, no anger—only the cold, merciless resolve of a surgeon before an operation.
The long rings from the speaker were the only sound in the room. They counted down the last seconds of the “peace” Yegor had been trying so desperately to preserve. He watched Alyona, and his happy smile slowly slid off his face, replaced by confusion. Something in her stillness, in her icy calm, was wrong—alien. This didn’t look like surrender. It looked like preparation for an execution.
“Hello!” came a sharp, commanding voice from the speaker—Tamara Igorevna’s. “Why did it take so long?! I’ve been waiting!”
Without taking her eyes off her husband’s whitening face, Alyona pressed the speakerphone icon. Her mother-in-law’s voice filled the room—harsh and demanding.
“Tamara Igorevna, good evening,” Alyona said coldly and distinctly, like a newscaster delivering an emergency bulletin. “This is Alyona. Yegor is beside me. He wanted all of us to settle an important question together.”
“What question now?” the mother-in-law rasped, displeased. “Have you finally decided to get rid of that flea-ridden beast? I explained everything to him!”
Yegor flinched as if he’d been hit. Mouth half-open, he stared from the phone pouring out his mother’s venom to his wife, who had calmly let that venom into their home. He was beginning to understand. A sticky, paralyzing horror crawled up his spine.
“Tamara Igorevna, your son is choosing between you and my dog,” Alyona continued in the same flat, lifeless tone. “I’ve already made my choice.”
On the other end there was a second of silence, then the speaker exploded with an outraged shriek.
“What?! What kind of show is this?! Yegor! Do you hear what she’s saying?! She’s turning you against—”
“Alyon, don’t, stop!” Yegor babbled, stepping forward. His hand jerked as if to snatch the phone, but froze halfway—powerless, чужая. He was caught in a trap, and it wasn’t his wife who closed it. He brought it here himself, insisted on the call himself, handed her the weapon himself.
Alyona ignored him completely, as if he were a piece of furniture. She didn’t let her mother-in-law finish—delivering the final, crushing blow straight into her screaming mouth.
“So you can take your boy back home,” she said with surgical precision. “Along with his things. That way you can keep an eye on the microbes in his room, too.”
And she pressed the red button, ending the call.
The click of the disconnected call sounded deafening in the sudden emptiness. Tamara Igorevna’s voice vanished, but its echo seemed to seep into the walls. Yegor remained standing in the center of the room that a minute ago had been theirs, and was now the scene of his personal rout. He looked at Alyona with an expression that mixed horror, hatred, and a belated, agonizing realization. He’d lost. Not to his mother. Not to his wife. He’d lost to himself—his inability to choose, his cowardice, his desire to please everyone and, in the end, please no one.
Without giving him another glance, Alyona calmly set the phone on the side table. Her mission was complete. She went to Archie, who had been woken by the noise and was looking up at her questioningly. She knelt and buried her fingers in his rough fur that smelled of home and loyalty.
“There, buddy,” she said quietly, but loud enough that Yegor heard every word. “Now it’ll be much easier to breathe in our house.”
She stood, took the old leather leash from the chair, clipped it to the dog’s collar. Archie wagged his docked tail happily and got up, ready for a walk. Alyona headed for the door, her steps calm and sure. She didn’t look back. She simply left the room, then the apartment, leaving Yegor alone amid the ruins of their marriage. He stood motionless—stunned, crushed—breathing air that had suddenly become чужим and sterile…