Karina was standing at the stove, stirring a vegetable stew, when she heard the familiar rattle of keys in the lock. Anton had come back from work—like always, closer to nine at night. She didn’t even turn her head, just kept moving the wooden spoon through the pan, mechanically.
“Hey,” her husband grunted, walking past the kitchen into the room. “What’s for dinner?”
“Stew,” Karina answered curtly.
A few minutes later Anton reappeared in the doorway, changed into a house T-shirt and sweatpants. He had a bottle of beer in his hand—his Friday ritual had begun.
“Listen, tomorrow’s Saturday,” he started in the tone of someone stating a fact. “In the morning you’re going to my mom’s. She needs a deep clean. I talked to her yesterday—she’s waiting.”
Karina froze with the spoon in midair.
Two years. Two damned years—every Saturday she’d been stuck in her mother-in-law’s stuffy apartment: scrubbing floors, washing curtains, redoing the dishes. And Anton, meanwhile, either slept off his Friday drinking with friends or sprawled on the couch with his phone.
“Anton,” she said slowly, turning toward him. “Maybe… that’s enough.”
“Enough of what?” He took a swig and lifted his brows, honestly puzzled.
“ENOUGH of turning me into your mother’s maid!” Karina slammed the spoon onto the table so hard that droplets of sauce speckled the white wall.
“Why are you shouting?” Anton scowled. “She’s my mom. She needs help.”
“Help? HELP?!” Karina’s voice snapped into a scream. “Two years, Anton! TWO YEARS every Saturday I go to your mother’s and lick her apartment clean! And where are you? Where’s your help for your own mother?”
“I work all week. I’m tired…”
“And I’m on vacation, right?” Karina cut in. “I work too! Eight to six in an office, then I cook, do laundry, clean here! And on my only day off I’m supposed to cross the whole city to scrub your mom’s place?”
“Don’t exag—don’t talk like that,” Anton said, setting the bottle down. “Mom’s old. It’s hard for her.”
“Old? She’s fifty-eight! She’s three years younger than my mother! And somehow my mom manages her own home just fine!”
“Karina, stop the drama. Tomorrow’s Saturday and you’re going to Mom’s. End of story.”
Karina grabbed the salt shaker and hurled it at the wall beside him. It exploded against the plaster.
“NO! ENOUGH! I’M NOT GOING!” she screamed so loudly it felt like the windows shook. “Saturdays—what am I, some obedient servant? That’s it. I’m going to my mom’s!”
“You’ve totally lost it!” Anton jumped back from the wall where the salt had scattered. “What kind of circus are you putting on?”
“This isn’t a circus—this is the END of your slave schedule!” Karina snatched up her phone and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?” Anton asked, suddenly wary.
“Your mother. So she knows her personal cleaning lady is resigning!”
“Don’t you dare!” He lunged for the phone, but Karina darted away.
“Hello, Lyudmila Petrovna?” Karina’s voice trembled with fury. “It’s Karina. I’m calling to tell you I’m not coming to clean tomorrow. Or the day after. Or EVER again!”
Her mother-in-law’s outraged voice burst from the receiver, but Karina kept going:
“Your son has been using me as a free housekeeper for two years! If you want spotless floors—hire a cleaning service, or let your precious Antosha come himself with a rag and a bucket!”
“Give me that!” Anton ripped the phone out of her hand. “Mom, don’t listen to her, she’s just stressed from work…”
Karina ran out of the kitchen and started packing. She flew around the room, shoving the first things she grabbed into a bag—underwear, jeans, a sweater.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Anton stood in the bedroom doorway, still pressing the phone to his ear.
“TO MY MOM’S! To my mother—the one who never demanded your relatives serve her like slaves!”
“Mom, I’ll call you back,” Anton muttered and hung up. “Karina, stop this performance. Sit down. Let’s talk calmly.”
“Calmly? CALMLY?!” She whirled on him. “I was calm for two years! Two years your mother barked orders at me like I was a serf: ‘Karina, the floors aren’t washed right,’ ‘Karina, the windows have streaks,’ ‘Karina, there’s dust in the corners!’ And where were you? Drinking beer with Maksim and Denis!”
“They’re my friends. I need a social life…”
“And what do I need—am I a robot?” Karina shot back. “I have friends too, but I don’t see them for months, because Saturdays go to your mother and Sundays go to cooking and laundry!”
Anton’s phone rang—his mother again.
“Don’t pick up!” Karina shouted. “We’re not finished!”
But Anton had already answered.
“Yes, Mom… No, she just… What? Aunt Vera? Why are you calling her?”
Karina gave a bitter little laugh.
“Oh, here we go. Now your whole family is going to pile on.”
And she was right. Five minutes later Anton’s phone was being torn apart by calls—Aunt Vera, then Uncle Igor, then his mother again.
“What is going on?!” Anton paced the apartment, clutching the phone. “Mom, wait… Aunt Vera, I’ll handle it… Uncle Igor, this is our private business!”
Half an hour later, someone rang the doorbell. Karina, who had nearly finished packing, went rigid.
“Don’t open it,” she told Anton.
“It’s Mom and Aunt Vera,” he said after checking the peephole. “I have to.”
“DON’T YOU DARE!”
But Anton was already turning the lock.
Lyudmila Petrovna and her sister Vera burst in, both flushed and furious.
“Where is she? Where’s that ungrateful one?” Lyudmila Petrovna charged into the room without even taking off her shoes. “Karina! Get out here!”
Karina stepped out of the bedroom with the bag in her hand.
“I’m leaving. You can gossip about me all you want.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” her mother-in-law snapped, her face red with rage. “I accepted you into the family and you—”
“Into the FAMILY?” Karina laughed outright. “What family? You brought me into slavery! A free cleaner, dishwasher, laundress!”
“Anton, what are you— a man or not?” Aunt Vera turned on her nephew. “Look how she talks to your mother!”
“Karina, apologize to Mom,” Anton said firmly.
“APOLOGIZE? For what? For telling the truth?” Karina stepped toward the door. “To hell with all of you!”
“Stop!” Anton blocked her path. “You’re not going anywhere until you apologize!”
“Move, Anton.”
“I’m the man of this house! What I say goes!”
“The man of the house?” Karina sneered. “In a rented apartment we split fifty-fifty? A ‘man’ who can’t even wash his own socks?”
“I won’t let you talk to me like that!”
“And what are you going to do—call more relatives? Maybe summon some third cousin from the village?”
Just then the door opened again—Uncle Igor, Aunt Vera’s husband, walked in.
“What’s all this noise all over the stairwell?” he demanded.
“Igor, look at this!” Vera pointed at Karina. “This girl is mouthing off to Lyudmila and refuses to help!”
“Alright,” Uncle Igor said, staring Karina down. “Young lady, you’re married to my nephew. In our family, we respect elders and help them.”
“In your family you USE people!” Karina shouted. “Two years! TWO YEARS every Saturday I cleaned Lyudmila Petrovna’s apartment! Where was Anton? Where were all of you—such a ‘close’ family?”
“We work!” Aunt Vera snapped.
“And you think I sit around doing nothing?” Karina fired back. “I work too! Yet for some reason I’m the only one expected to sacrifice my weekends!”
“Because you’re the wife!” Anton roared. “That’s your duty!”
“There it is!” Karina even clapped her hands. “Finally—the truth! My duty! And what’s your duty, Anton? Drink beer on Fridays?”
“Don’t you talk to my son like that!” Lyudmila Petrovna stepped toward her.
“GET OUT! ALL OF YOU—GET OUT OF MY HOME!” Karina screamed so fiercely everyone flinched.
“Your home?” Anton let out a short laugh. “We’re renting this place, by the way.”
“WE are,” Karina shot back. “That’s the key word—WE.” She pulled her phone from the bag. “Want me to call the landlady right now and tell her I’m moving out? Let’s see how you handle thirty-five thousand a month on your own!”
“Stop trying to scare me. I earn enough!”
“Forty-five thousand? Minus rent leaves ten. For food, transport, your beer, and hanging out with your buddies. You’ll be broke in a week.”
“Anton will manage!” Lyudmila Petrovna jumped in. “He’s my son—I’ll help him!”
“You’re great at helping your precious boy. But cleaning your own apartment? That’s what daughters-in-law are for, right?”
“That’s it—enough!” Anton grabbed Karina by the wrist. “Apologize to my mother and my aunt right now!”
“LET GO!” Karina yanked her arm free. “Don’t touch me!”
“I’m your husband!”
“You were.” Karina’s eyes flashed. “WERE. That’s it, Anton. IT’S OVER.”
Silence fell over the room. Everyone stared at her.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Anton went pale.
“I’m saying what I should’ve said a long time ago. I’m leaving you. To hell with this life. To hell with you and your relatives. To hell with a spineless mess of a man!”
“How dare you!” Aunt Vera shrieked. “After everything we—”
“What have you done for me? WHAT?” Karina cut her off. “Name one thing.”
Silence.
“Exactly. NOTHING. But for you I’m free labor. Well—it’s over.”
Karina squeezed past Anton toward the door.
“Stop!” he tried to block her again. “You’re not leaving!”
“Go to hell!” Karina shoved him aside. “And you know what? I’ve kept every receipt for two years—groceries, utilities, everything. I paid half the rent in cash to the landlady and I have signed receipts. So if you decide to play tough—I’ll get my money back through court.”
“What money?” Anton stared at her.
“You thought I was stupid?” Karina snapped. “That I’d just suffer quietly? I saved every document—every receipt, every transfer. Nearly seven hundred thousand over two years went into the place we lived in. And that’s not counting food and cleaning supplies!”
“Karina, let’s talk calmly…” Anton’s tone softened.
“Too late. You had two years to talk. Instead you gave orders like I was your property.”
She jerked the door open.
“You’ll regret this!” Lyudmila Petrovna yelled after her.
“You’ll regret losing a daughter-in-law!” Karina shot back from the doorway. “And you know what? GO ALL OF YOU TO THE DEVIL!”
The door slammed with a bang.
Anton stood in the middle of the room. His mother, Aunt Vera, and Uncle Igor exchanged glances.
“Nothing, she’ll come to her senses and come back,” Lyudmila Petrovna said. “Where else is she going to go?”
“Mom, she said she went to her mother’s.”
“So what? She’ll sit there for a couple days and run back. She’ll realize what she’s done.”
But Karina didn’t come back—neither in two days, nor in a week. At first Anton stayed silent out of pride, waiting for her to break. Then he started calling. She declined. He texted. She didn’t answer.
Two weeks later it was time to pay rent. Anton panicked when he saw only twenty thousand left on his card—he was short by fifteen. He had to borrow from his mother.
“It’s temporary,” Lyudmila Petrovna soothed him. “Your wife will come back and everything will settle.”
But at the end of the month a letter arrived from a lawyer. Karina demanded a division of jointly acquired property and compensation for two years of shared expenses. Attached were copies of every receipt and signed rent acknowledgments.
“She’s lost her mind!” Anton fumed, waving the letter at his mother.
“Don’t worry, son. She’s bluffing. She has nowhere to go.”
But Karina wasn’t bluffing. A week later the landlady called Anton:
“Hello, Anton. Karina informed me you’ve separated. The lease is in both your names. If she’s moving out, you either need to renew the lease in your name only—but then the security deposit doubles—or find a new co-tenant. You have one month to decide.”
The deposit was seventy thousand. Anton didn’t have that kind of money.
He tried to find a roommate, but no one wanted to live with him—the apartment was expensive, and nobody was eager to split it with a stranger.
His friends Maksim and Denis only shrugged.
“Bro, we’d help, but we’ve got families, mortgages…”
He begged his mother for money, but Lyudmila Petrovna could only scrape together thirty thousand.
“Son, my pension is tiny—you know that. Maybe ask Vera?”
Aunt Vera refused.
“Anton, Igor and I are saving for renovations. Sorry.”
In the end Anton had to move out. The landlady returned the deposit, but kept the last month’s rent. Out of the seventy thousand, Anton got thirty-five—his half.
He moved back in with his mother, into his old room. Lyudmila Petrovna welcomed him with open arms.
“It’s fine, son. Stay with me for now. You’ll find a normal girl—unlike that flighty one.”
But “for now” dragged on. A month passed, then another. Anton tried to rent something cheaper, but even a tiny one-room on the outskirts cost twenty-five thousand. With his salary, he’d have twenty left for food, transport, and everything else—plus he still needed a deposit.
His mother started dropping hints.
“Anton, we should redo the apartment. The wallpaper’s peeling, you see. And you should go buy groceries—it’s hard for me to carry bags.”
“Mom, I’m at work all day…”
“And am I young?” she snapped. “Karina used to come and help…”
“Don’t talk to me about her!”
But Lyudmila Petrovna brought her up more and more often.
“Remember how Karina baked that pie for your birthday? So good… And she washed the floors properly—no streaks. And the windows shined…”
Anton clenched his jaw, furious—but he stayed silent. He had nowhere else to live.
A year later Anton finally understood: he hadn’t just lost a wife—he’d lost someone who truly loved him. He dated other women, but without meaning to, he compared every one of them to Karina—and they all felt like strangers, random and temporary.
Meanwhile, Karina rented a roomy two-bedroom apartment with a friend, went on a seaside vacation, and on weekends she slept as long as she wanted—feeling freer and happier than she had in years.