“Len, you don’t mind if my mom stays with us for a little while, do you?” Kirill tried to sound like the calm, reasonable type—though his eyes made it obvious: the decision was already final, and her opinion was just a courtesy.
Lena glanced up from her laptop for a second, peered at him over her glasses, and set her mug down with a click so sharp the cat shot under the couch.
“And did you ask her what ‘temporary’ actually means?” Lena said. “A week? A month? Or until I end up in a psychiatric ward with facial tics?” She stood and drifted into the kitchen, pretending she was looking for a spoon—when really she just needed somewhere else to point her eyes.
“Don’t dramatize,” he grumbled, staring at her back. “You’re always saying you want family close. Well—there. Family will be close.”
“I said I want my family close,” Lena snapped. “Not you and your mother opening a branch office of a communal apartment in here. And anyway, Kirill, I have work. I work from home. And she—no offense—is a woman with a temperament. And a very loud voice.”
“Oh, so her TV is loud—big deal,” he scoffed. “Every mom has the TV blasting! Put on headphones. Why are you clinging to this so hard?”
Lena turned around. Her eyes were icy, her voice controlled—but in that dangerous, brittle way, like a string pulled tight.
“Have you ever once asked whether I’m comfortable?” she said. “Or have you already forgotten that everything we have is mine? My apartment. My car—which you two, by the way, already handed over to your brother for two months. My grandmother’s earrings that ‘mysteriously’ disappeared after your mom’s New Year visit. And now, apparently, it’s my personal space’s turn?”
Kirill spread his hands as if she were being unreasonable.
“Lena, why are you starting again? Everything becomes a problem with you. Like this is some commercial rental, not a marriage. Mom will stay a couple weeks, we’ll buy her meds, she’ll recover—and she’ll go back. Want us to write you a receipt?”
“I want you, for once, to think about what it feels like for a woman to have someone else’s mother in her kitchen,” Lena shot back. “My underwear drying right under her nose. My documents in a drawer she’ll start digging through looking for iodine!”
He sighed, dropped onto a stool, and stared out the window.
“Len… you’ve gotten… I don’t know. Hard. Jumpier. You just flip a switch the moment ‘family’ comes up. I don’t recognize you.”
She laughed—bitter and soundless—like there wasn’t enough air left in the room.
“Maybe you never knew me,” she said quietly. “It was convenient: living in my place, driving my car, moving your mother into my apartment—and calling it all ‘ours.’ And now that I finally pushed back, I’m suddenly the outsider. The convenient Lena is over?”
He didn’t answer. He just stood, grabbed his jacket.
“Mom’s coming anyway,” he said. “I’m telling you so you won’t act surprised. And don’t make a scene. You’re an adult.”
Lena watched him slam the door. Then she walked slowly into the bedroom and sat on the bed.
Photographs hung on the wall. Their wedding. A trip to Greece. A Christmas tree with round ornaments—round like pregnancy, like hope for warmth and family.
Now it was just nails in the wall.
She took down one frame, looked at herself—young, happy, in a white dress—slid the photo out… and tore it neatly, right down the bridge of her nose.
The next day, Lidiya Petrovna moved in with two suitcases, a stack of newspapers, and a bright smile.
“Lenochka, what a perfect little homemaker you are!” she chirped. “I always imagined you exactly like this—strict, but fair. Don’t be mad, I brought my own slippers. I hate walking around in other people’s stinky ones.”
There was no blowup. Not yet. But the cat hid under the couch again, and Lena felt it—something in the apartment had shifted. The air. The smell. The tone. Everything suddenly felt чужое—foreign.
But that was only the beginning.
At first Lena told herself it was just anxiety. It happens—spring, hormones, her mother calling to ask, “How are you doing, Lenochka? You’re not exhausted with her, are you?” Then the utility bills arrived—sharply higher. Then two pairs of gold earrings disappeared. Then the peace did, too.
“Lenochka, I found a little jewelry box on the shelf,” Lidiya Petrovna announced one day. “The one with the fancy letters. I thought maybe it’s old, maybe it should be tossed. And inside—can you imagine—earrings! They’re not yours, are they?”
“They are mine, Lidiya Petrovna,” Lena replied, buttoning her robe all the way up. “My grandmother’s. And my great-grandmother’s. I didn’t put them anywhere. They were right in plain sight. Well—plain sight to me.”
“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything,” the older woman cooed. “I was just tidying up. Though honestly… your place is, of course… not exactly a mess, but not exactly tidy either.”
Lena clenched her jaw and forced a crooked smile. That’s how it goes: first it’s “our home,” then it’s “not a mess,” and a week later your things are flying into the trash and you’re headed for a clinic with an anxiety disorder.
Kirill started coming home late. He ate in silence, scrolling his phone. Every other day he drove off to “help his brother.” According to rumors, the brother had landed in the drunk tank again. Lena didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know.
On Monday, she finished work at 7:10 p.m. The trip home was slow—bus stop, an overcrowded bus, a woman blasting music from a speaker, and the sharp smell of pickled herring seeping from someone’s bags. Her stomach turned.
She fantasized about silence. Just five minutes where nobody scrubbed the sink with theatrical resentment, nobody commented on her lunch, nobody asked, “Why are you drinking coffee at this hour?”
The apartment greeted her with an eerie quiet.
The kitchen—empty. The bedroom—someone else’s socks on the windowsill. And… a box. Cardboard. Labeled: “Lena’s Jewelry.”
“Kirill!” she called. “Are you home?”
Silence.
“Lidiya Petrovna?”
“I’m here!” her voice came from the bathroom. “Don’t come in—I’m dyeing my hair! Sitting here with dye on my head like an idiot!”
Lena stepped toward the box. Inside was the jewelry case—now empty. And a receipt. A pawnshop. Silver items—18,000. No name. No questions.
She stood there for a long time. Not moving. Not breathing right. Then her phone rang. Kirill.
“Yeah?”
“Len, hey. I told Mom—you don’t mind if my brother and I take your car for a couple days, right?” he said easily. “He’s got an interview, and I… well, you know, we have to help. You don’t really drive it anyway. We’ll fill the tank. Clean the mats.”
“My car?”
“Yeah. Your keys are on the hook. We already took them, actually. You’re not against it, are you?”
Lena sat down without a word. Her eyes burned, like someone had lit matches under her fingernails.
“Kirill,” she said very calmly—too calmly—“maybe you’d like to sign the apartment over to your brother too? Just to be fair. Finish carving me up. I’ll wave from the balcony: ‘Good luck, boys!’”
“Lena, what’s wrong with you—don’t go overboard. It’s temporary. I told you—we’ll bring everything back. Why are you making this a tragedy?”
“A tragedy?” she said. “I’ll make it a tragedy when I find out who pawned my earrings. My great-grandmother’s. Do you want me to go to the police? Or do we talk like adults?”
“Oh my God—do you seriously think we stole them?” he snapped. “Are you out of your mind?”
“That’s the point, Kirill. I’m completely in my right mind. Unlike all of you. With you, everything that’s mine becomes ‘ours.’ Everything that’s yours becomes ‘we have to help.’ And whenever I’m needed, I’m ‘the hostess’—but when it’s time to respect me, it’s always ‘you don’t mind, right?’”
An hour later the apartment turned into a battlefield.
Lidiya Petrovna burst out of the bathroom with a scarf on her head, Kirill stood there with his phone in hand—wearing the slippers Lena had bought herself for New Year’s.
“I’m done!” Lena shouted. “I’m done with you! You swallowed my life whole! You lived in my apartment, spent my money, burned my nerves—and you still act like this is normal!”
“You’re the one who isn’t normal!” Lidiya Petrovna shrieked. “You’re obsessed with control, nothing is ever enough for you, you suspect everyone. You’ll never have a real husband! Women like you always destroy everything!”
“Mom, stop…” Kirill squeaked, but it was too late.
Lena walked to the door and flung it open.
“Out,” she said. “Both of you. Now. No discussion.”
“Lena, have you lost your mind?!” Kirill yelled. “That’s my mother!”
“And this is my apartment, Kirill,” Lena said, her voice shaking but firm. “And I’m done playing your family game. I’ve got anxiety, insomnia, and two missing sets of earrings. You’ve got your brother in ‘my’ car and your mother calling me a psychopath. That’s it. Enough.”
They left—slamming, screaming, swearing she’d “regret it.”
Lena dropped to the floor and cried. For real. No theatrics. Just exhaustion pouring out.
And suddenly it was so quiet. Even the refrigerator seemed to hum differently.
In the second half of the night, she heard footsteps in the stairwell. In the morning—an odd sound at the lock.
Monday morning. Rain hammered the window like it was angry too. Lena brewed strong coffee and added cinnamon out of habit, just to keep her hands busy. She didn’t want to think. Thinking felt like glue. All she had was that sticky dread—the kind you get when something is about to happen and you don’t know what yet.
Ten minutes to eight. She walked to the door and froze. Through the peephole: Kirill with a suitcase. Behind him—Lidiya Petrovna, in a robe, holding a checkered tote.
“Open up!” the older woman barked, sharp and loud, like she owned the place.
Without taking her eye off the lock, Lena asked, “What do you want?”
“To come back. Where else?” Lidiya Petrovna screeched. “Where do you think we’re supposed to sleep at night? Have you lost your mind?!”
“You’re really going to shut the door on your own husband?” Kirill’s voice was performatively calm. “Legally, this is joint property. You don’t live here alone.”
“No, Kirill,” Lena said. “I live here. You were a guest. A long one. And you overstayed.”
“Oh, I see,” Lidiya Petrovna rolled her eyes. “Here we go. Cult behavior. She wants ‘peace and quiet,’ meanwhile she’s got a nervous breakdown!”
“Step away from the door,” Lena said, her voice turning metallic. “Or I call the police.”
“Go ahead, try it,” Kirill snarled, looming at the door. “I’m registered here. I’ll call the district officer myself. Then we’ll go to court. And we’ll see who gets kicked out.”
Lena went silent. Her breathing sped up. Something collapsed inside her. She couldn’t even feel the coffee cup anymore—only the ringing in her ears and a slick, crawling fear.
And then a voice came from the stairwell.
“Excuse me… are you sure you’ve got the right floor?”
A young man—maybe twenty-five—was coming up the stairs. A stranger. A jacket with a delivery-service logo.
“This is my apartment,” he said. “We moved in yesterday. My wife and I. The realtor gave us the keys.”
Silence.
Lena opened the door a crack, stared—and went numb. He was telling the truth.
“Show me the contract,” she managed hoarsely.
He handed her papers. A rental agreement. Signed—Kirill’s signature.
“This has to be a mistake…” Lena whispered, her legs turning to water. “I… I…”
Later, at the bank, she’d be shown the documents. A forged power of attorney. Her “signature.” A fake stamp.
“Your husband sold the rental rights,” the lawyer said flatly. “Most likely counting on you not noticing. Or on you accepting it.”
A week later Lena was living with her mother—in a tiny Soviet-era two-bedroom with a view of sheds. The shelves squeaked, the TV hissed, the kettle whistled… but no one touched her mug, dug through her laundry, or pawned her belongings.
The next morning she went to the police. Then to a lawyer. Then to a therapist.
“What do you want?” the therapist asked. “To get everything back? To fight? To forgive?”
“No,” Lena said, staring out the window. “I want to understand why I tolerated it for so long.”
Two months passed. It was hard. Sometimes she caught herself feeling something like longing. Not for Kirill—no. For the version of herself from before all this. Naive. Polite. Always agreeing.
But now she was different. Stronger. Angrier. With clear boundaries.
And one evening, already in her new apartment—small, wallpaper cheap, but hers—there was a knock.
Kirill stood in the doorway. Alone. Rumpled. Dark circles under his eyes. Roses in his hand. The cliché of it almost made her laugh.
“Lena… I… I understand everything now,” he said. “You were right. Mom’s gone—she’s in the hospital. My brother got arrested. Just like you said. I’m an idiot.”
Lena stared at him in silence for a long time.
“I can’t,” she said finally. “Go.”
“Lena… I’ve changed. I feel terrible. I—”
“I felt terrible for two years, Kirill,” she cut in. “And you never noticed.”
She closed the door. Not loudly. Just… decisively.
The apartment smelled of tangerines and quiet. Lena made herself tea, sat on the windowsill. Outside—cars, evening lights, life moving forward.
And inside—for the first time in a long time—there was peace.
The End.