Marina heard the familiar doorbell and gripped the ladle so hard her knuckles turned white. Tuesday. Eleven a.m. The punctuality with which Valentina Petrovna showed up could have put Swiss watches to shame.
“Andy, your mom’s here!” came the voice from the entryway, and Marina closed her eyes and counted to ten. It didn’t help. She counted to twenty.
“Hi, Mom,” her husband’s sleepy voice drifted out. Andrey worked late and usually slept until noon. Usually. When his mother didn’t come.
“Son, you’re still sleeping? At this hour! I’ve already been to the market and stood in line at the clinic. Here—I brought pies. Where’s Marina? Marina! Why aren’t you waking your husband up? He’s going to be late for work!”
Marina took a deep breath and came out of the kitchen. Valentina Petrovna stood in the tiny entryway of their one-room apartment, filling every bit of free space with herself—solid, in a blue puffer coat with faux fur, two huge bags hanging from her hands.
“Hello, Valentina Petrovna. Andrey works until eleven at night. He has a flexible schedule,” Marina said, trying to keep her voice even.
“A flexible schedule is no reason to laze around till noon,” her mother-in-law snapped, already tugging off her coat and hanging it on the only free hook—where Marina’s autumn jacket had been. Marina’s jacket slid to the floor. “You always need a routine. I trained Andryusha from childhood…”
“Mom, I really do work evenings,” Andrey tried to defend himself, but his mother was already walking into the room.
“Oh, what is this you’ve got here!” Valentina Petrovna’s voice grew even louder. “The windows haven’t been washed! Marina, how can you live like this? It’s October, and your windows are streaked. I’ll do it right now.”
“No, Valentina Petrovna, I’ll wash them myself on the weekend.”
“On the weekend, on the weekend… My granddaughter is breathing this filth! Where are your rags?”
Marina clenched her teeth. Alice was sleeping peacefully in her crib, and the only “filth” here was in her mother-in-law’s inflamed imagination. Marina had washed the windows two weeks ago; it had just rained yesterday, leaving drops on the glass.
The next two hours turned into the usual nightmare. Valentina Petrovna washed the windows while commenting on every movement: “This is how you do it—circular motions, not however you feel like,” then checked the refrigerator (“What are these yogurts? My granddaughter can’t have chemicals—only homemade cottage cheese!”), rummaged through the cupboards (“Marina, is that how you store clothes? Look how I do it at home…”), woke Alice at the wrong time (“Wake up, sunshine—Grandma’s here!”), and fed her porridge even though Marina had already made vegetable purée.
“Porridge is healthier,” her mother-in-law cut her off. “I raised my kids—I know better.”
“One,” Marina corrected quietly. “You only have one. Andrey is your only child.”
“One, but look how I raised him! And he didn’t argue with me, unlike some people. Andryusha, tell your wife a mother always wants what’s best.”
Andrey smiled placatingly.
“Marish, Mom just wants to help.”
When the door finally closed behind Valentina Petrovna (around four o’clock, after she’d also ironed laundry, advised Marina to change her face cream, and complained that her son rarely called), Marina sank onto the couch and stared at the ceiling.
“Why won’t you tell her?” she asked her husband.
“Tell her what? She’s helping,” Andrey shrugged awkwardly.
“Helping? Andrey, we moved out from her place a year ago! We rented this apartment on purpose so we could live separately—remember? Because she meddled in everything! And now she comes here three or four times a week!”
“Well, she misses us. She lives alone.”
“Andrey, she has a three-room apartment in a good neighborhood, tons of friends, and her sister lives around the corner. She isn’t lonely. She just can’t let us go. Or rather—you.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“I’m not! She was here on Monday. Today. On Thursday she’ll definitely come again. We live in a one-room apartment, Andrey! Thirty-six square meters! We have a baby! I need at least a little personal space!”
Andrey rubbed the bridge of his nose, guilty.
“I’ll talk to her. I’ll ask her to come less often.”
But he didn’t. And on Thursday Valentina Petrovna did come— with new pies, beets from the market (“the store ones are nothing but rot!”), and a determination to rearrange the furniture (“why is the crib by the window? Alice will catch a draft!”).
Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Marina hoped that at least on the weekend they’d be alone. But on Saturday at nine in the morning the bell rang again.
“Surprise!” Valentina Petrovna lugged a huge box into the apartment. “It’s a juicer. For little Alice. Fresh juices are needed every day. I’ll show you how to use it right now.”
On Sunday she arrived at lunchtime with a pot of rassolnik.
“You don’t know how to cook properly, so I made you enough for the week.”
That evening, when Andrey left for work, Marina sat in the kitchen staring at the pot—enormous, three liters, taking up half the fridge. Just like Valentina Petrovna took up half their life. No—not half. More.
No. This couldn’t go on.
Marina opened her laptop and started googling: “tenants’ rights,” “temporary registration,” “apartment exchanges.”
By morning she had a plan.
The next Tuesday began as usual. The doorbell at exactly eleven.
“Andryusha, Mom’s here! Marina, what is this you’ve got here?” Valentina Petrovna stumbled over two large suitcases standing in the entryway. A few more bags were piled by the door.
“Hello, Valentina Petrovna. Right on time,” Marina stepped out of the room, and her mother-in-law involuntarily took a step back. There was something new in the daughter-in-law’s voice—an unfamiliar firmness. “Come in. We need to talk.”
“What happened? Are you moving out?” Valentina Petrovna’s eyes widened. “Andrey, what’s going on?”
Andrey looked lost. Marina hadn’t let him in on her plan; she’d only asked him not to go anywhere that morning.
“Sit down,” Marina pointed at the couch. She remained standing. “Valentina Petrovna, Andrey and I have been thinking a lot…”
“I’ve been thinking,” she corrected herself, catching her husband’s glance. “And I’ve concluded that our current situation is absurd.”
“What situation?” her mother-in-law asked warily, perching on the edge of the couch.
“You come to our place five or six times a week. You stay for several hours. Basically, you’re here more than you’re at home.”
“I’m helping you! With the baby! Around the house!”
“And meanwhile,” Marina continued calmly, “we live in a one-room apartment—thirty-six square meters—with an infant. And you have a three-room apartment—eighty-two square meters—where you live alone.”
“So what?” Valentina Petrovna’s voice sharpened. “That’s my apartment! I earned it!”
“I’m not arguing. But since you’re here all the time anyway, I thought—maybe we should swap?”
A silence fell so thick it felt like the air had frozen.
“What?” Valentina Petrovna went pale, then flushed red. “What did you say?”
“We’ll move into your apartment, since you’re basically living here,” Marina said slowly, clearly. “It’s logical. You clearly enjoy being here. And it’s cramped for Andrey, Alice, and me. In your place there are three rooms—one for me and my husband, one nursery, one for guests. Here you’ll feel at home. Because, judging by everything, this is your home now.”
“Are you… are you mocking me?!” Valentina Petrovna jumped up. “Andrey! Are you hearing what your wife is saying?!”
“Marish, maybe don’t…” Andrey muttered, but Marina didn’t listen.
“I’m completely serious. We can arrange an official exchange, or we can just agree informally. I already consulted a lawyer—if a person effectively lives at an address more than half the time…”
“I don’t live here! I visit!”
“Six times a week, four to five hours—that’s thirty hours. I did the math. You sleep at your place, but you live at ours. You eat here—you bring food and cook it. You do laundry here. You clean. You run the household here. And Andrey and I feel like guests in our own apartment.”
“I won’t allow it!” her mother-in-law’s voice broke into a scream. “That’s my apartment! I lived there for thirty years! Andryusha grew up there!”
“That’s exactly why I’m offering this,” Marina stayed unruffled, though everything inside her was shaking. “So you can keep living here. And I’ll move with your son and granddaughter to where we have more space. Where Alice can crawl without bumping into furniture. Where we’ll have a real bed in a bedroom instead of a fold-out couch. Where there’s a balcony and I can put the stroller out there in summer.”
“Andrey!” Valentina Petrovna whirled to her son, her face twisted. “Tell her! Tell her she can’t! That’s our family apartment!”
“Mom, I…” Andrey looked helplessly at his wife, then at his mother. “Maybe it really would be better to come less often?”
“I’m taking care of you! Of all of you!” tears flashed in her eyes. “I’m alone—there’s no one else for me to take care of! And you want to take even that away from me?”
“No one’s taking anything away,” Marina stepped forward. “Let’s be honest. You want to be in our lives every day? Fine. But then it makes sense for the family with the baby to live where it’s convenient. Or—you give us space, come once or twice a week by invitation, and you stay in your apartment. Choose.”
“That’s an ultimatum!” Valentina Petrovna gasped with outrage. “You’re blackmailing me!”
“I’m offering a solution. One that works for everyone.”
“It doesn’t work for me! I’m not giving up my apartment! Never! You… you planned this! You did it on purpose! You’ve had your eye on it from the beginning!”
“Valentina Petrovna, before your invasion I never thought about your apartment at all,” Marina crossed her arms. “This one was enough for me. Small, but ours. Where the three of us could live as our own family. But you made it yours. So now—either we swap, or you stop coming. Completely.”
“Completely?!”
“Yes. You’ll come only when we invite you. After we agree in advance. You won’t touch my refrigerator, my cupboards, my laundry. You won’t give advice nobody asked for. You won’t wake the baby when she’s sleeping. You won’t criticize my home. This is my home, Valentina Petrovna. Mine and Andrey’s. Not yours.”
Her mother-in-law breathed heavily. Her hands trembled.
“Andrey…” she turned to her son with such pleading in her eyes that even Marina felt a stab of discomfort. “Tell her. Tell her she’s wrong. That I… that I just want to be close. To help. I’m the grandmother. I have the right…”
Andrey was silent. He stared at the floor, and Marina saw his jaw tighten—he always did that when he was trying to make a hard decision.
“Mom,” he finally said quietly. “Maybe we really should… keep a bit of distance?”
“Distance?!” Valentina Petrovna’s voice shot up. “From your own mother?! From your granddaughter?!”
“Not distance exactly, just…” Andrey faltered. “Just come a little less…”
“Fine.” Valentina Petrovna snatched up her bag. Her movements became jerky, sharp. “So you’re kicking me out. Your own mother, Andryusha—the one who devoted her whole life to you. Who raised you. Who gave up everything for you.”
“Mom, don’t…”
“Shut up!” she jabbed a finger at Marina. “This is all her! She turned you against me! From the beginning! I saw how she looked at me! I’m not stupid—I understand everything!”
“Valentina Petrovna, I didn’t turn anyone against you,” Marina rubbed her face tiredly. “I just want to live normally in my own apartment.”
“In MY apartment you want to live—that’s what this is!” her mother-in-law screamed, grabbing her coat. Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t get her arm into the sleeve. “You thought you’d play the meek little lamb and then—snatch!—grab the three-room place! Miscalculated, sweetheart! You’ll get nothing! Not my apartment, not— not…”
She didn’t finish. She spun around, yanked the door open. At the threshold she turned back. Her face was wet with tears; mascara ran in black streaks.
“Andrey, if you choose that… that… don’t expect me to ever cross this doorstep again. Choose. Her or me.”
Silence hung in the apartment. Marina looked at her husband. Andrey looked at his mother. One second. Two. Five.
“Goodbye, Mom,” he breathed.
Valentina Petrovna froze. So much flickered across her face—shock, pain, disbelief—that Marina almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
“You… you chose her?”
“I chose my family.”
His mother swayed as if she’d been struck. Then she turned and left. The door slammed so hard Alice started crying in the nursery.
Marina went to soothe her daughter. When she came back with the baby in her arms, Andrey was still standing in the entryway, staring at the closed door.
“Am I a monster?” Marina asked softly.
“No,” he turned to her, his face a strange mix of relief and guilt. “No, I’m the monster. I should’ve done this a long time ago. Back when we moved out. I should’ve explained it to her. But I couldn’t. I kept thinking—she’s alone, it’s hard for her, maybe I can endure a little longer…”
“And she crossed every boundary at once.”
“Yes.” He walked over and hugged Marina and Alice together. “I’m sorry. Truly.”
“She’ll call,” Marina pressed against him. “Probably today. She’ll complain, cry, blame me for everything.”
“I know.”
“And she’ll say I’m trying to get her apartment.”
“Yeah. That you’re a greedy bitch who wormed her way in and now is squeezing out her living space.”
“Something like that.”
“And that I’m whipped.”
“That’s mandatory.”
They fell silent. Alice, calmed down, snuffled against Marina’s shoulder.
“But did you really want to move into her apartment?” Andrey asked cautiously.
Marina snorted.
“God, no. Can you imagine what she’d do if we moved in there? She’d come every day and check whether we broke something, scratched the parquet, took down her precious curtains. It would be hell. Worse than now.”
“So you were bluffing.”
“Of course. I just wanted to show her how absurd the situation is. She claimed our apartment—our time, our space—like she had a right to it. And when I offered to make that ‘right’ official, with responsibilities attached, she panicked. Because she doesn’t want responsibility. She wanted control. And now she has neither.”
Andrey chuckled softly.
“You’re a genius.”
“I’m just tired.” Marina slipped out of his arms and went to the window. Rain streaked the glass—gray, dreary October. “Tired of pretending everything’s fine. That I’m okay being the subordinate who’s constantly inspected and judged. Tired of walking on eggshells in my own home.”
“You won’t have to anymore.”
“Do you think she really won’t come back?”
“I hope not. At least for a while. And then—we’ll see. Maybe when she cools down, we can talk normally. Set rules. But only if she’s ready to follow them.”
Marina nodded. She didn’t believe Valentina Petrovna would cool down soon. She didn’t believe she would change. But it wasn’t the most important thing. What mattered was that Marina had finally said what she thought—and her husband had backed her.
Andrey’s phone rang twenty minutes later. Then again half an hour after that. Then again. He didn’t pick up. By evening a long message came through—Marina saw him reading it, saw his face darken.
“What is it?” she asked, though she could guess.
“What we expected. That you latched onto our family for the apartment. That you’re manipulating me. That I’m a blind idiot. That she never wants to see you again and won’t have anything to do with her granddaughter until I ‘come to my senses.’”
“How wonderful,” Marina said as she set the table. A simple dinner—no culinary showmanship, no worry about whether the mother-in-law would approve. Just macaroni and cheese, which they both loved. “So she set the rules herself. Convenient.”
“I feel sorry for her,” Andrey admitted. “Truly. She really is alone. And she really did see me as the meaning of her life. When Dad left…”
“Andrey.” Marina put a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t be the meaning of someone else’s life. Even your mother’s. That’s too heavy a burden. You have your own family. Your own responsibilities. You’re a good son. But you don’t have to sacrifice your marriage for her loneliness—which, by the way, she created herself.”
“How so?”
“She has a sister. Lots of friends. She could take classes, join a club, volunteer—there are a million options. But she chose the option of ‘living her son’s life.’ That was her choice. And the consequences of that choice are her problem—not yours.”
Andrey was quiet for a long time, then nodded.
“You’re right. Probably. It’s just unfamiliar. All my life I felt I owed her. And now…”
“And now you’re free,” Marina finished for him.
They sat in the kitchen of their tiny apartment, ate macaroni and cheese, and Marina felt the space around them grow freer with every minute. The walls seemed to push outward. The air became lighter.
Thirty-six square meters. A tiny one-room place on the outskirts. But for the first time in a whole year, it felt like you could truly breathe.
Andrey’s phone rang again. He looked at the screen—Mom—and put the phone facedown on the table. The ringing stopped.
“Don’t worry,” Marina took his hand. “Everything will be fine.”
And she believed it. For the first time in a long time, she believed it.
Outside, the rain kept falling, but inside their small apartment it was warm. And—most importantly—free. At last.
Three weeks passed. Valentina Petrovna didn’t call, didn’t come by; she replied to Andrey’s messages briefly and coldly. Marina didn’t push for reconciliation. She knew: one first step, and her mother-in-law would take it as a victory, an admission that she’d been right—and everything would go back to how it was.
In early December, Valentina Petrovna finally couldn’t stand it and called. Not Andrey—Marina.
“I need to talk to you,” she said tensely. “Without Andrey.”
They met at a café near the метро. Neutral territory. Valentina Petrovna looked older. Marina felt a jab of pity, but quickly smothered it.
“I want to see my granddaughter,” her mother-in-law began without preface. “And my son. I can’t live like this. It’s unbearable.”
“I understand,” Marina said calmly, stirring her coffee.
“You won,” Valentina Petrovna clenched her lips. “I won’t come every day anymore. But I want to see Alice at least once a week. She’s my granddaughter. I have a right.”
“You do,” Marina agreed. “But on our terms.”
“What terms?”
“You come once a week, on the weekend, when we invite you. You stay no longer than three hours. You don’t dig in the fridge, you don’t inspect cupboards, you don’t clean without being asked. You don’t criticize how we run the house or raise our daughter. You don’t wake her when she’s sleeping, you don’t feed her unless I ask. If I ask you not to do something—you don’t do it. If I ask you to leave—you leave. No scandals, no hurt feelings.”
Valentina Petrovna went pale.
“You want me to be a guest in my own son’s life?”
“I want you to be a grandmother, not a dictator. Andrey loves you. But he needs his own life. We need ours. And if you want to be part of it—you’re welcome. But as a guest, not the owner.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“Then you won’t see your son or your granddaughter. Because Andrey is on my side. He finally understands that.”
Valentina Petrovna was silent for a long time. Then she nodded—short, sharp, like it physically hurt.
“Fine. I agree. On your terms. But if you ever interfere with me seeing Alice…”
“I won’t interfere,” Marina cut in. “If you follow the rules. I don’t want a war. I want peace. And freedom.”
They parted without warmth, but with understanding.
The next Sunday Valentina Petrovna arrived at exactly two o’clock, as agreed. With a small gift for Alice. She rang the doorbell. Took off her shoes in the entryway. Walked into the room.
And for three hours she played with her granddaughter, told Andrey the news, even praised Marina’s delicious pie. Once she started to give advice—“If I were you…”—but caught her daughter-in-law’s look and stopped mid-sentence.
At five o’clock she stood up and began to leave.
“Until next Sunday?” she asked uncertainly.
“Until next Sunday,” Marina confirmed.
When the door closed behind her, Andrey hugged his wife.
“You did it.”
“We did it,” Marina corrected. “You’re her son. Without your support, she would’ve eaten me alive.”
December was starting outside the window. The first snow settled on the sill in a thin layer. The apartment was warm and quiet. Alice slept in her crib. And no one came without an invitation, no one woke her early, no one told them how to raise children, cook borscht, or fold towels.
Thirty-six square meters of freedom.
It was priceless