— Why weren’t you at my mom’s today?
Vadim’s voice—sharp and stripped of any warmth—hit Valeria like a blow between the shoulder blades. She was in the entryway, taking off her shoes, savoring the relief as she peeled the tight office pumps from her aching feet. All day she’d been dreaming about this moment: to come home, change into a soft T-shirt, and simply stretch out on the couch. The smell of lasagna heating in the microwave was already filling the small apartment, promising modest but well-earned peace. Vadim’s question shattered that fragile idyll in an instant.
She didn’t turn around.
— I was working, Vadim. Forgot to tell you—quarterly report, I stayed till the very end, — she replied, trying to keep her voice even instead of as exhausted as she felt.
He didn’t move, still standing in the doorway—big, displeased. His jacket was unzipped but not taken off, as if he’d only stopped by for a minute to make an accusation and leave. It had become his new habit: to start every conversation with blame, not even giving her a chance to catch her breath.
— Working. Everyone works. And she’s there alone, waiting. She was counting on you coming. We agreed you’d drop by every evening after your office.
There was no question in his words—only a declaration of her guilt. Lera finally straightened up and looked at him. His face wore that righteous anger she’d been noticing more and more. As if he were a prosecutor and she were a defendant forever in the wrong.
— I called her during the day, said I wouldn’t make it. She answered that it was fine, — Lera stepped toward the kitchen, instinctively trying to move out of the line of fire. — The social worker visited her this morning, brought groceries. I didn’t leave her helpless.
— What else would she tell you? — Vadim followed her, his voice gaining force. — That she feels awful and can’t even get up to use the bathroom? She won’t complain—she’s proud. You’re supposed to understand without words! You, as the future mistress of our home, as my wife, should anticipate things like that!
He planted himself in the middle of the kitchen, filling every bit of free space. The microwave beeped, announcing the lasagna was ready, but neither of them paid it any attention. Valeria looked at him, and her fatigue began to turn slowly into something else—cold, clear irritation.
— Vadim, I’m not a mind reader. I’m a person who worked ten hours today with almost no break. I physically couldn’t split myself in two.
— That’s not an excuse. Those are just excuses, — he snapped, and a steely, unyielding glint flashed in his eyes. — Taking care of her is your responsibility. Your direct responsibility as my future wife. You need to understand that and accept it as a given.
He said it with such calm certainty, as if he were quoting an article from some “family code” he’d written himself. The word responsibility hung in the kitchen air, pushing out the smell of food and comfort. It sounded foreign, official—like a stamp on a document you sign without reading.
Lera froze. The hum of the refrigerator disappeared. The noise of traffic outside vanished. She stared at her fiancé—the man she was supposed to marry in two months—and saw no love, no care, no partnership. She saw a supervisor checking whether she was doing her job properly. And in that moment, all the exhaustion she’d been carrying all day evaporated, replaced by an icy, crystalline clarity.
— Responsibility? — she repeated. Quietly, almost without intonation. But that quiet word sounded louder than any scream. She looked him straight in the eye—the look of someone who has just noticed a hideous detail in a familiar painting that changes its entire meaning.
— Yes. What did you think?
He nodded smugly, as if she’d asked the dumbest question on earth and he, tired of her slowness, had finally explained everything. That nod—his calm, confident tone—became Valeria’s trigger. Not for hysteria. For something far colder and final. Suddenly she saw the whole picture without the rose-colored filter of love and hope.
Fragments of their plans flashed through her mind: the white dress they’d picked last week, the silly arguments about where to go on their honeymoon, his promises to carry her in his arms. And now another image layered over those bright scenes—disgustingly sharp and real: her, exhausted after work, driving not home but to his mother’s stuffy apartment that smelled of medicine and old age. She saw her own hands changing a diaper. She felt the aching pain in her back from lifting and turning someone else’s helpless body. And in that picture, Vadim wasn’t there. He was somewhere else—in their cozy apartment—waiting for dinner and sure that his woman was “fulfilling her responsibility.”
Lera gave a bitter little smirk, but there was no humor in it. It was the sound of a snapped string.
— My responsibility? — she repeated, and now there was metal ringing in her voice. — So in your mind I’m getting married to become a free caregiver for your mother? To wash her, feed her by spoon, and change her diapers for the rest of her life? That’s the happy family life you’re offering me?
Vadim frowned, his face twisting with irritation. He hadn’t expected pushback. In his world, a woman was supposed to accept her role obediently.
— Why are you exaggerating everything? That’s my mom! She raised me, stayed up nights—
— Don’t tell me about her sleepless nights, — Lera cut him off sharply. — I’m talking about my life. About our life. Or will there be no “ours”? Just your life and your mom—and me as service staff who should be grateful for the opportunity?
He walked around the table and leaned on the countertop, looking down at her. It was his favorite posture in arguments—the posture of dominance.
— It’s called family. It’s called respect for elders. That’s how normal families do it. A wife takes care of her husband and his parents. That’s the foundation. My father cared for his mother until her last day, and my mom helped him, and nobody acted like it was something shameful. And you… you’re clearly made of different stuff. All you care about is comfort and развлечения.
His words were like small, poisonous darts—meant to sting her into feeling selfish and wrong. But he was too late. The process had already started, and her soul was sealing itself in ice.
— Yes, Vadim, I’m made of different stuff, — she confirmed calmly, meeting his gaze. — The kind where marriage is a partnership of two equals, not a contract for lifelong slavery. I thought I was marrying a man I’d build a future with. Turns out I was just interviewing for the position of orderly. With no paycheck.
— Stop spouting this nonsense! — he slapped his palm on the table—not hard, more like a marker of anger. — You’re just looking for a reason to slack off! It’s not that hard—stop by for an hour or two!
— An hour or two? Every day? After work? And on weekends too, I assume? And when do we live, Vadim? When are we together? Or is this what our evenings will be now: you on the couch in front of the TV, and me reporting to you by phone whether I changed Zinaida Viktorovna’s diaper?
She said it with such cold, vicious sarcasm that for a moment he lost the ability to speak. He stared at her, genuine confusion in his eyes. He truly didn’t understand what her problem was. In his coordinate system everything was logical. He was the man. She was his woman. His mother was part of him. Therefore, his woman must take care of his “part.” As simple as two plus two.
— I thought you loved me, — he finally forced out, reaching for the last, cheapest argument.
Valeria slowly shook her head.
— I thought so too. But today I realized you’re not looking for love. You’re looking for convenience. A free bonus for your comfortable life. And love… in your understanding, love is me silently agreeing to whatever you order. Well, sweetheart—that isn’t love. That’s exploitation.
The word exploitation hit him like a slap. Vadim jerked back from the counter, his face distorting. He wasn’t used to Valeria—his quiet, compliant Lera—speaking to him like that. Looking at him like that: cold, appraising, as if weighing him on invisible scales and finding the result deeply unsatisfying. Confusion flickered in his eyes, but it drowned immediately under a new wave of wounded pride. He was losing, and that was unbearable.
And then he decided to play his trump card—the one that was supposed to work without fail.
Without saying a word, he demonstratively pulled his phone out of his pocket. His movements were slow, theatrical. He didn’t look at Lera, but he felt her stare, and it fed his confidence. He found “Mom” in his contacts and hit call, immediately turning on speakerphone. All in—his last attempt to appeal to her conscience, to what he believed was her “female softness.”
— Yes, son? — a thin, trembling voice came from the phone speaker: Zinaida Viktorovna. Weak, as if pushing through a wall of cotton. The voice of a sick, lonely person.
Vadim shot Valeria a quick, triumphant glance. Listen, he seemed to say. Listen and be ashamed.
— Hi, Mom. How are you? I just wanted to check in, — his own voice changed instantly. All the steel and harshness vanished; it became soft, velvety, filled with dutiful tenderness. It was a disgusting, fake performance, and Lera saw it with terrifying clarity.
— Oh, Vadimmy… well, how… I’m lying here. My head is spinning today. I was waiting for Lerочка, she promised to stop by. Is she not coming? Did something happen?
Every word from Zinaida Viktorovna dripped with old-age hurt and anxiety. She wasn’t complaining outright, but her intonation painted abandonment better than any direct accusation.
— No, Mom, she’s not coming. She has… work, — Vadim paused meaningfully, packing that simple word with an entire world of blame. — A lot of work. Important things.
Lera stood leaning against the cold refrigerator, silent. She didn’t move, barely breathed. She listened and felt the very last drop of warmth toward the man two steps away from her freeze solid inside. He wasn’t just arguing. He was cynically, cold-bloodedly using his sick mother as a battering ram to break her will. Turning her fear and loneliness into a weapon against the woman he supposedly loved. It was beyond the pale. It was vile.
— Did you eat anything? — Vadim continued his show. — You need to eat, Mom. You know you can’t go hungry.
— What would I eat here all alone… I have no appetite at all. Probably my blood pressure again. I took a pill, lying here, staring at the ceiling. Good thing you called, son, otherwise it’s just тоска…
He let that phrase hang in the air so it would soak into Valeria’s conscience. He looked at her, not even hiding his superiority. His stare said: Well? Now do you get it? Now you see what a heartless monster you are?
But he miscalculated. He expected tears, remorse, shame. Instead he saw an ice mask. Her eyes—once alive and warm—had become two dark, impenetrable crystals. There was nothing in them—no anger, no hurt. Only emptiness. Emptiness where, an hour earlier, love had been.
She looked through him, straight at the ugly essence of what he’d done. And in that moment she finally understood: it wasn’t about his mother. It was about him. About his rotten, exploitative nature—for which any person was merely a resource. His mother, her—everyone was just a function, a tool for his personal comfort and peace.
— All right, Mom, you rest, — Vadim said, ending the call. — We’ll… sort it out here. I’ll talk to her. Everything will be fine.
He hung up and placed the phone on the table with a satisfied air. He was sure the game was played and won. He waited for her surrender—for her to come over, hug him, and say he was right.
He waited in vain.
The silence after the call was thick and heavy—not ringing, not crushing, simply present, like a new invisible object in the room. Vadim crossed his arms, posing like a victor, watching Valeria with poorly hidden triumph.
A minute passed. Two.
Then he said loudly, so she’d hear him anywhere in the apartment:
— Starting tomorrow you’re back to your responsibilities! You’ll go to my mom’s and help her, whether you want to or not! Got it?!
Valeria slowly pushed away from the refrigerator. She took one step into the center of the kitchen and stopped. Her face was calm, almost lifeless, but deep in her eyes a cold, dark fire flared. She looked at him as if she were seeing him for the first time—not a fiancé, not a beloved man, but a stranger she didn’t like.
And then she spoke. Her voice was even, without a single trembling note, but it carried such force that Vadim involuntarily straightened.
— And why exactly should I go to your mother’s every evening, wash her, and change her diapers? Hire a caregiver for her, because I’m not doing this anymore!
Her words fell into the kitchen silence like stones. Not a shout—a verdict. Vadim was stunned. He opened his mouth to object, to unleash his righteous fury, but she didn’t let him get a word in.
— You thought your little performance would work? — she sneered, and it was pure contempt. — You decided to press on pity, make me look like a heartless monster? Congratulations—you just showed me your true face. The face of a cheap manipulator who’s willing to use his sick mother as a club to beat me into a stall.
He stared at her, and his confidence started cracking like thin ice underfoot. This wasn’t Lera. This was some other woman—unknown and terrifying in her calm.
— So listen to me, Vadim, — she continued, taking one more step toward him. — There won’t be a wedding. I’m not burying myself under the diapers of my future mother-in-law at the whim of a future husband who calls it my direct “responsibility.” I wanted a family, not a life sentence.
— How dare you… — he began, but his voice drowned in her gaze.
— And now about your mother. You’re so worried about her, right? Such a loving son. Well, now you have a perfect chance to prove it. Put on an apron and do your sonly duty. You’re a man, the future head of the family—go ahead. Every evening after work. You’ll cook for her, wash the floors, do her laundry. And change the diapers, Vadim. Don’t forget the diapers. It’s your mom. Your responsibility. You said it yourself—that’s the foundation, that’s respect. So respect her.
She spoke methodically, hammering each word like a nail. She took his own weapon—his talk of duty, family, and respect—and turned it back on him, painting him the future he’d so casually prepared for her.
When she finished, she turned and walked toward the entryway. She didn’t run. She didn’t slam doors. She simply walked. Vadim watched her back, and it started to sink in—not that he’d offended her, but that his perfectly built world, so convenient for him, had collapsed in a single evening. And he himself had destroyed it.
She grabbed her purse and keys from the little table. He heard her put on her shoes. He wanted to shout, to stop her—but he couldn’t make a sound. His mouth was dry.
The front door clicked softly as it closed.
Vadim was left alone in the kitchen. He looked around as if he didn’t recognize the familiar surroundings. His gaze landed on the microwave, where the forgotten lasagna stood—dinner for two. He walked over and opened the door. The smell of cooled, dried-out food drifted through the kitchen.
The smell of a life that didn’t happen.
And for the first time all evening he didn’t feel anger or resentment.
He felt a raw, icy fear of the reality he’d just been left in—alone.
Alone with his “duty…