Marina learned about the relatives’ visit three days before New Year’s.
She was in the kitchen, stirring sauce for a casserole, when Oleg passed by wearing the unmistakable look of a guilty man, muttered something under his breath, and slipped into the bathroom. Marina knew that move well. Twelve years of marriage had taught her how to recognize trouble before it was spoken aloud.
“Oleg,” she called, turning off the stove. “What happened?”
Silence. Then the sound of running water — he was washing up to buy himself a little time.
“Oleg!”
He appeared in the doorway with a towel in his hands, face flushed, eyes darting.
“Listen, Marina… there’s something…” He swallowed hard. “Mom called. And Aunt Lyusya. And Vovka and Lena. So…”
“Just say it,” Marina said, folding her arms across her chest.
“They’re coming for New Year’s. Not for long. A week, maybe. Maybe a little more. I couldn’t say no. They were so upset, and Mom was practically crying on the phone…”
A cold wave rose inside Marina. Oleg’s family. His mother, Galina Petrovna, who could find fault with every single dish Marina made. Aunt Lyusya, with her endless stories about other people’s illnesses. Cousin Vova and his wife Lena, who had a gift for turning any place they visited into a copy of their own home.
“When?” Marina asked quietly.
“The day after tomorrow. In the morning.”
The day after tomorrow. December twenty-ninth. She had forty-eight hours to prepare the apartment for an invasion.
The next two days disappeared in frantic preparation. A trip to the bedding store — they needed extra sets for the pullout sofa and the air mattress. Then the grocery store — shopping as if she were feeding a small army. Galina Petrovna didn’t eat pork, Vova suffered from heartburn, Lena insisted on fat-free milk. Aunt Lyusya could eat practically anything, though she preferred complaining no matter what was served.
Oleg helped in that awkward way that somehow only made things harder. He carried bags and shifted furniture, but with such a pitiful, guilty expression that Marina only grew more irritated.
On December thirtieth, at nine in the morning, the doorbell rang.
“Open up, open up!” Galina Petrovna’s voice rang through the door. “We’re frozen after the trip!”
Outside stood four adults with suitcases, shopping bags, and boxes. Galina Petrovna swept into the entryway first, arms spread wide for a hug.
“Olezhek, my boy!” she cried, crushing her son against her chest, then immediately scanning the apartment with a critical eye. “Marina, what happened — you didn’t have time to clean? There’s dust on the mirror.”
“Hello, Galina Petrovna,” Marina said, forcing a smile. “Come in, take off your coats.”
Getting out of their outerwear took forever and swallowed up the entire hallway. Aunt Lyusya groaned dramatically as she pulled off her boots, complaining about swollen feet. Vova immediately asked for coffee. Lena announced that she was starving.
“Oleg said you were coming for a week,” Marina began carefully as she helped hang up their coats. “What date are your tickets back?”
“Oh, tickets, what tickets?” Galina Petrovna waved the question away. “We’ll stay a bit and see. Maybe another week. We hardly ever get to see one another!”
Something in Marina’s stomach twisted.
By the end of the first day, the apartment looked less like a home and more like a crowded transit station. Their belongings had spilled into every room. Galina Petrovna claimed the bedroom — “I need peace and quiet, my blood pressure is acting up” — pushing the owners onto the foldout sofa in the living room. Vova and Lena settled there too, on the air mattress. Aunt Lyusya somehow made the kitchen her personal territory.
“Oleg, maybe you could tell your mother the bedroom is actually ours?” Marina whispered as they tried to settle onto the miserable sofa for the night.
“Marinka, she’s older. She needs rest. Just hang on a little.”
That little turned into two weeks.
A routine formed quickly. The guests slept until noon because, according to them, “the holidays are for resting.” Marina still woke up at seven as always — her body refused to adjust. She moved through the apartment on tiptoe, made breakfast for herself and Oleg, and watched him rush off to work even during the holidays. “We’re swamped,” he said. “Reports, deadlines.”
At noon, the awakening began. Galina Petrovna emerged from the bedroom in Marina’s robe — “I forgot mine, you don’t mind, do you?” — and demanded coffee. A very particular kind: strong but not bitter, with milk, but not the milk already in the fridge — real rich farm milk.
“Marina, where’s my coffee?” she would call from the bedroom, without even bothering to come to the kitchen.
By one o’clock, the others would drift in. Aunt Lyusya always started with a lengthy retelling of some dream — tangled, detailed, impossible to follow. Then she moved on to illnesses — her own, the neighbors’, friends of friends.
Lena, Vova’s wife, would sit by the refrigerator and announce:
“Oh, girls, I’m on a diet. Just fat-free yogurt for me. And an apple. A green one.”
There were no green apples. Only red.
“Marina, you know green apples have fewer calories,” Lena sighed like a tragic heroine. “You’ll have to run to the store.”
And Marina ran to the store three times a day.
On Sunday, Galina Petrovna handed down a decree.
“Oleg, tell Marina to make Olivier salad. A proper one, the way I make it — with beef. Hers never comes out right.”
Oleg dutifully passed along the request. Marina made the salad. Galina Petrovna tasted it, wrinkled her nose, and said:
“Too much mayonnaise. Not enough peas. Still, edible.”
The next day they wanted Olivier again. And the day after that. By Christmas, Marina was having nightmares about it.
The television ran from morning to night. Vova changed channels without asking anyone. Concerts, news, reality shows, serials. Marina wanted to watch a movie once and was flatly denied.
“Vov, maybe let Marina watch something?” Oleg asked timidly.
“Yeah, yeah, in five minutes. This is almost over,” Vova said without taking his eyes off the screen.
That show ended, and another one started right away.
Marina cleaned constantly. The guests left a trail behind them everywhere they went. Cups on tables, on armrests, on windowsills. Crumbs on the sofa. Wet towels on the bathroom floor. Dirty dishes in the sink.
“Marina, don’t you keep any order in this house at all?” Lena remarked one day, pointing to a stain on the table that she herself had just made with her teacup.
Marina silently picked up a rag.
“Maybe I should show you how to clean properly,” Lena continued. “At my place everything is always spotless.”
“Thank you, I can manage,” Marina said through clenched teeth.
By January tenth, she could barely remember what her own bed felt like. The sofa creaked, the mattress slid around by morning. Oleg snored, slept badly, and was increasingly irritable.
“Maybe enough is enough?” Marina asked one evening as they got ready for bed at half past eleven, waiting for Vova to finish yet another action movie. “Could you maybe hint that it’s time for them to leave?”
“Marinka, they’re family. They don’t come that often.”
“Oleg, they’ve been here almost two weeks!”
“So what? Hosting guests once a year isn’t that hard. I don’t understand why you’re so upset. Is it really such a burden?”
Marina said nothing. Something inside her snapped for good.
On January eleventh, Oleg announced:
“We’re all going to the mall. Vova wants to look for a jacket, Mom wants dishes. Coming with us?”
“No, I’m staying home. I need to work,” Marina replied.
She watched them from the window as all five of them squeezed into Oleg’s car and drove off around the corner.
She had three hours. Maybe four.
Marina started with the bedroom — Galina Petrovna’s things. Robes, dresses, jars of cream. She packed everything neatly into her mother-in-law’s suitcase and zipped it shut.
Then the kitchen — Aunt Lyusya’s clothes, skirts, medications. A second suitcase.
Then the living room — Vova and Lena’s things. They had the most. Two suitcases barely closed.
She packed Oleg’s belongings separately. A travel bag. Shirts, jeans, socks, razor, toothbrush. Only the essentials.
She took the luggage downstairs in the elevator, one load at a time. Three trips. She lined them up neatly on the lawn beneath the windows. Oleg’s bag she set a little apart.
Then she went back upstairs, fastened the door on the chain lock, and made herself coffee. Real coffee. Strong. In her favorite mug.
They came back around six in the evening. Marina heard voices in the stairwell, footsteps on the landing, then the doorbell.
“Open up, we’ve got bags!” came Galina Petrovna’s voice.
Marina walked to the door and opened it only as far as the chain allowed.
“Hello,” she said calmly.
“Marina, open the door properly,” Oleg said, trying to push it.
“Your things are on the lawn under the balcony. Didn’t you notice?” Marina said evenly, looking at them through the narrow gap.
Silence.
“What?” Oleg said at last.
“Your things are downstairs. Under the first-floor windows. Five suitcases.”
“Marina, is this some kind of joke?” Galina Petrovna’s voice shook. “Open this door right now!”
“It’s not a joke. I packed your things. You’ve had a lovely time here for the last two weeks. Now the holidays are over. Time to go home.”
“Marinka, what are you doing?” Oleg shoved the door harder; the chain went taut. “Open the door right now!”
“Oleg, your bag is there too. Go with your mother and Vova. Figure it out. I need rest. From you. From all of you.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Galina Petrovna shrieked. “Oleg, break the door down!”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Marina said, bracing her shoulder against the door. “The neighbors are downstairs, and the district officer is just around the corner. Cause a scene, and I’ll call the police.”
“Marina, stop this right now!” Oleg raised his voice. “That’s my mother!”
“And this is my home. The home where I’ve spent two weeks working like a servant. Cooking your Olivier salad every single day. Washing your towels. Sleeping however I could. Listening to lectures on how to clean properly. Hearing all about strangers’ illnesses. And you, Oleg, told me that hosting guests once a year wasn’t such a big deal.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“That’s exactly what you meant. You never noticed how exhausted I was. You went off to work, came home in time for dinner, and decided everything was fine. And not once did you thank me. Not once.”
Silence again. Then a sob from behind the door — Aunt Lyusya had started crying.
“Marina, come on, let’s talk about this,” Oleg said more gently. “Open the door. Let’s talk properly.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. I made my decision. You mistook my hospitality for endless patience. Your things are waiting for you. Have a safe trip.”
“You’ll regret this!” Galina Petrovna’s voice broke into a shrill scream. “I will never forgive such an insult!”
“Galina Petrovna, you lived in my bedroom for two weeks, slept in my bed, wore my robe, and criticized my cooking. I’d say we’re even,” Marina replied, stepping away from the door. “Goodbye.”
“Marina!”
She walked into the living room and shut the window so she wouldn’t have to hear them from below when they found the suitcases. Then she sat down on the sofa. Her sofa. In her living room. In her apartment.
Her phone started vibrating. Oleg. She declined the call. Then another. Declined. Five calls in a row. She turned the sound off completely.
Forty minutes later, a car engine started outside. Marina looked out the window. Oleg’s car was pulling away from the building, packed with suitcases. Figures were visible inside.
She watched until it disappeared, then turned back into the apartment. Silence. Glorious, ringing silence.
Marina walked into the bedroom. Her bedroom. She lay down on the bed on top of the blanket, spread her arms, and closed her eyes.
For the first time in two weeks, she could breathe.
Oleg came back three days later. He rang the bell softly, almost timidly. Marina looked through the peephole. He was alone, face wrinkled with exhaustion, shirt creased.
She opened the door. No chain this time.
“Hi,” he said quietly.
“Hi.”
“Can I come in?”
Marina stepped aside. Oleg entered the hallway and stopped, as if unsure what to do next.
“I’ve been staying at Vova’s,” he began. “The relatives left. They’re very offended.”
“I can imagine,” Marina said with a nod.
“I was angry too. The first day. I thought you’d… gone too far.”
“And now?”
Oleg rubbed his face with both hands.
“Now I’ve spent three days sleeping on an air mattress at Vova’s place. Lena complained that I was taking up too much space. Vova watched football until three in the morning. Yesterday I had to fry potatoes because they demanded it. And this morning Lena told me I was supposed to mop the floor.”
Marina said nothing.
“Three days was enough for me,” Oleg said, meeting her eyes. “And you put up with it for two weeks.”
“Almost three,” Marina corrected him. “If you count the preparation.”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t understand. I thought you were exaggerating. I thought it was just… cooking and cleaning. I didn’t realize how draining it was. I didn’t see how my mother kept criticizing you. How Lena kept acting spoiled. How I myself…”
“Dismissed it,” Marina finished for him.
“Yes. Dismissed it.” He stepped closer. “Can I come back?”
Marina thought it over for a long time. Oleg waited in silence.
“You can come back,” she said at last. “But there will be rules.”
“What kind of rules?”
“First: no guests without mutual agreement. In advance. With a discussion of how long they’re staying. And I get veto power.”
“Agreed.”
“Second: if guests do come, you take time off. Half the work is yours. Cooking, cleaning, entertaining — all of it split evenly.”
“Fine.”
“Third: if I say I’m tired, you don’t brush it off. You listen, and you help.”
Oleg nodded.
“Fourth: your mother never sleeps in our bedroom again. And she never wears my robe.”
“I promise,” he said, a faint laugh slipping into his voice.
“And one more thing,” Marina said, looking him straight in the eye. “No Olivier salad. For a year. Minimum.”
“Not even for New Year’s?”
“Especially not for New Year’s.”
Oleg stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, carefully, as if afraid she might change her mind.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “Truly.”
Marina hugged him back. Tightly.
“All right,” she said. “But never again.”
“Never again,” he promised.
That evening, after Oleg had fallen asleep in their bed, in their bedroom, Marina sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea. Her phone vibrated — a message from Galina Petrovna. Long, furious, accusatory, full of vows never to cross the threshold of this house again.
Marina read it, smirked, and deleted it without replying.
Snow drifted down outside the window. The apartment was quiet. Her apartment. Her silence. Her life.
She took a sip of tea, leaned back in her chair, and for the first time in three weeks felt herself truly relax.
Sometimes, she thought, the only way to save a family is to show the door to the people suffocating it. Even if they’re relatives. Even if afterward you’re supposed to feel ashamed.
Though ashamed was the last thing she felt.
Marina finished her tea, rinsed the cup, and went to bed. To her bedroom. Her bed. Her life, finally returned to her.