Later, after everything had already happened, my friend asked me:
“Do you regret it?”
I thought for a second. I remembered the white tablecloth, the faces of those women, the pot I slammed onto the table so hard that its contents splashed all over their tasteless dresses. I remembered the silence — so thick it felt like you could drown in it. And I remembered Lyonya, looking at me first as if I had lost my mind, and then… completely differently.
“No,” I said. “Not one bit.”
But let me tell you everything from the beginning.
Lyonya asked me about it on Thursday evening. We were having dinner. He kept turning his fork in his hand and couldn’t seem to find the courage to start speaking. I watched him and waited. After three years of living together, I had learned to recognize his silences — each one had its own meaning. This one was the kind that came before an awkward request.
“My mother’s birthday is on Sunday,” he finally said, without raising his eyes.
“I remember.”
“She… she would like you to help with the cooking. There will be guests, she won’t manage on her own, and she doesn’t want to hire anyone. You know what Mom is like…”
I knew his mother.
Valentina Sergeyevna. My mother-in-law. The woman who, the first time we met, looked me up and down and declared, “Well, Lyonyechka, she may not be beautiful, but maybe at least she’s a decent homemaker.” The woman who called us every Sunday and somehow managed, within half an hour, to inform me that I made cutlets wrong, ironed shirts wrong, and that it was unclear what anyone had taught me at all. The woman whose voice alone was enough to give me a headache.
“Masha,” Lyonya finally looked up, and there it was in his eyes — that guilty, pleading look. “She is still my mother. It’s only once a year. Please.”
Only once a year.
As if that one time didn’t drag behind it a long trail of hundreds of tiny humiliations, each one so small that it almost felt ridiculous to complain about. She came to our wedding wearing not the dress I had politely asked her to wear, but her own — bright red, loud, ruining most of our wedding photos. She didn’t congratulate me when I got promoted at work; instead, she said that “women in management positions always develop bad tempers.” She never once asked how I was feeling, but she never forgot to ask when she could finally expect grandchildren.
“Fine,” I said.
Lyonya exhaled with such relief that I felt sorry for him.
And a little sorry for myself.
On Sunday morning, I arrived at my mother-in-law’s place carrying two heavy bags. Lyonya was supposed to come later with the rest of the guests. I rang the doorbell and prepared myself.
Valentina Sergeyevna opened the door immediately, as if she had been standing behind it waiting. She looked me over, then let her gaze settle on the bags.
“Finally,” she said instead of hello. “I thought you’d come even later. Go peel the potatoes. My back hurts. The apron is on the hook.”
She turned around and walked toward the living room, where the sound of the television immediately became louder. I stood in the hallway with my bags and watched her go.
“Only once a year,” I told myself.
I hung up my coat. Found the apron. Went into the kitchen.
The kitchen was small, but organized according to the principle of “there is plenty of everything, and none of it is where it should be.” I started figuring out what was where, what had already been bought, and what still needed to be done. About fifteen minutes later, my mother-in-law appeared.
“You’re going to bake the meat like that?” she asked, looking at me as if she had caught me doing something shameful.
“I was going to marinate it first, and then—”
“It’s already too late to marinate it, do you understand? There’s no time. We’ll just bake it in a roasting sleeve. And don’t add so many spices. My friends aren’t used to your little experiments.”
My little experiments.
I was preparing the meat exactly the way I always did — normally, simply, without anything fancy. But I kept quiet. I put some of the spices away. Took out the roasting sleeve.
And that was how it went.
I would do something, and my mother-in-law would appear, look, and correct me. She didn’t ask. She didn’t suggest. She corrected — in the tone of a person for whom everything was obvious, while everyone else somehow failed to understand the simplest things. I cut the salad wrong. I kneaded the dough for a pie she had suddenly decided we were making wrong. I arranged the dishes from the wrong side.
I answered briefly, redid things when it was absolutely necessary, and stayed silent. Somewhere inside me, something was slowly boiling, but I kept the lid pressed down tightly. Firmly.
Only once a year.
By lunchtime, when things were already bubbling and simmering on the stove, and the table in the living room had been covered with the snow-white tablecloth my mother-in-law saved for special occasions, Lyonya finally arrived. He came into the kitchen, looked at me, then quickly — knowingly — looked at his mother.
“Mom, is everything all right? Are you managing?”
“We’re managing,” Valentina Sergeyevna said shortly. “You’d better move the chairs. It’s inconvenient the way they are.”
Lyonya went to move the chairs. I mixed the sauce.
The guests arrived a little later — all at once, as if they had planned it. They flowed noisily into the hallway, and the apartment instantly became too cramped. My mother-in-law’s friends — several women her age, dressed up, loud, smelling of heavy sweet perfume. I could hear them from the kitchen: exclamations, kisses, laughter.
“Valechka, you look wonderful.”
“This is for you, dear.”
“Oh, your place is so lovely.”
“Masha!” my mother-in-law’s voice cut through everything. “Bring the appetizers!”
I brought the appetizers.
The living room was already packed. The women had taken their seats. Valentina Sergeyevna reigned in the center — the birthday woman, the hostess, the queen of the room. She accepted gifts, responded to compliments, poured drinks into glasses. They glanced at me — casually, without much interest.
“This is my daughter-in-law,” my mother-in-law said to someone, and her tone contained everything: condescension and a slight apology for my existence.
“Ah, the daughter-in-law,” one of her friends responded — a plump lady in a dress covered with enormous flowers. “And how do you two get along? I told my daughter-in-law right away: my house is not some public walkway…”
I went back to the kitchen.
At least there, it was clear what needed to be done.
I spent the next hour in a state that could probably best be described as service. I carried things out, carried things back, added more food, poured more drinks. Between toasts and stories from the past, my mother-in-law managed to issue orders in short, sharp bursts, like a military commander.
“Masha, we’re out of bread!”
“Masha, bring more napkins!”
“Masha, there’s a pitcher in the kitchen, can’t you see?”
Her friends watched. Some with curiosity, some with pleasure — that particular kind of pleasure people feel when something unpleasant is happening to someone else. The lady in the floral dress whispered something to her neighbor and giggled. I pretended not to notice.
Lyonya sat in his place and ate. Sometimes he looked at me — a little guilty, a little helpless — but he didn’t offer to help. I understood. He was afraid of his mother the same way he had always been afraid of her. That fear was buried deep in him, since childhood, and I had long since stopped being angry at him for it. I simply accepted it as a fact.
The main course was ready. Meat in the roasting sleeve, potatoes, sauce in a separate little saucepan. At the table, the guests were finishing their salads.
“Sit down, Masha,” said one of the friends — tall, thin, with piercing eyes and a tone that immediately made it clear she was used to giving orders. “Enough running back and forth.”
I was just about to.
There was one place left for me — in the far corner of the table, the most uncomfortable one. My back would be against the wall, squeezed between a cabinet and another chair. To get into it, I would have to slide in sideways, and then sit half-turned away from the table. But even that seemed fine to me. My legs were already aching.
I started squeezing my way toward my seat.
“And where do you think you’re climbing to sit?”
My mother-in-law’s voice was sharp, loud, filling the entire living room.
I stopped.
“Can’t you see the guests need the hot food served? Why are you just standing there? Go to the kitchen!”
The table burst into laughter. Not everyone — but enough of them. The lady in the floral dress practically bloomed with delight. The thin one with the piercing eyes agreed:
“Yes, dear, where is the hot dish? We’re all hungry.”
“And bring more bread,” someone added.
“And get me a clean fork, this one wasn’t washed properly,” someone else said.
They started talking over one another — calmly, naturally, as if it was perfectly normal to sit there and give orders to a person who had spent the whole day cooking for them, carrying things for them, cleaning up after them. As if I were part of the service, not a guest. As if I didn’t exist as a person at all.
I stood there and listened.
And something inside me — the thing I had kept so carefully under the lid all day — suddenly didn’t just start boiling. It rose up and spilled over the edge, quietly and completely calmly. It wasn’t rage.
No.
It was something else.
Cold, crystal-clear understanding.
“All right,” I said.
And I went to the kitchen.
I stood there for a second, looking out the window. Then I took the biggest pot. I put the potatoes into it. Added the sliced meat straight from the roasting sleeve. Poured all the sauce over it. Crumbled several pieces of bread from the breadbox into the pot as well.
Then I stirred it.
I took the pot with both hands. It was heavy and hot even through the towels I had wrapped around the handles.
I walked out of the kitchen.
In the living room, the conversation hadn’t died down. They were laughing, clinking glasses. My mother-in-law was telling some story, waving her hands. No one paid attention to me until I reached the table.
I slammed the pot onto the table.
It hit the surface with a loud thud, and part of its contents — broth, sauce, several chunks of potato — splashed onto the snow-white tablecloth. And then onto Valentina Sergeyevna’s beautiful dress. And onto the floral dress of her friend. And onto the thin woman’s sleeve.
Silence fell instantly.
My mother-in-law stared at me. Her mouth was slightly open. She hadn’t found the words yet. She only looked at me, then at the tablecloth, then back at me again.
“Here is your hot dish,” I said. “All together, just as you ordered.”
A pause.
“If you behave like pigs,” I continued, “then it will probably be more comfortable for you to eat like this. Too bad I couldn’t find a trough. That would have been even more familiar and convenient.”
The lady in the floral dress made a sound that was difficult to describe. The thin woman froze with her fork in her hand. Someone gasped. Valentina Sergeyevna finally regained the power of speech and drew in a breath — I saw her chest rise — but I was already turning away.
I took off the apron. Laid it over the back of a chair. Went into the hallway.
I put on my coat. Took my bag. Opened the door.
Behind me, the noise was already beginning — my mother-in-law’s voice, other voices, something outraged and indistinct. I stepped out and closed the door behind me.
The stairwell was quiet. It smelled faintly of someone’s soup from another apartment and a little of paint. I went down one flight and stopped, leaning against the wall. My hands were shaking slightly — not from fear, just from the adrenaline that still hadn’t gone anywhere.
I stood there and waited, though I didn’t know what for.
The door upstairs opened almost immediately.
Footsteps on the stairs — quick, hurried. Lyonya rushed out onto the landing, looked around, and saw me. He ran down.
He looked at me. I looked at him. That stunned expression was still on his face — shock, confusion — the same one he must have had while watching everything unfold at the table. But now there was something else there too.
“Masha,” he said.
“Lyonya, I’m going home,” I said evenly. “If you want, we’ll go together. If not, I understand. She’s your mother. It’s her celebration. But I’m not going back in there.”
He was silent for a few seconds.
“I’m coming with you,” he said at last.
And there was no doubt in his voice. No hesitation.
We went downstairs.
Outside, as we walked toward the bus stop and the first rush of cold air hit my face — clean, sharp, sobering — Lyonya took my hand. He simply took it and held it without saying anything. I didn’t pull away.
“I should have stopped it,” he said about five minutes later. “What she was doing to you. And not just today.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
I didn’t soften it. I didn’t say, “Come on, it’s fine.” Because very little about it had been fine.
He squeezed my hand a little tighter.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I love you too.”
We kept walking.
Somewhere behind us — several blocks away, in an apartment with a white tablecloth and a cooling pot on the table — another conversation was happening. Probably loud. Probably outraged. They were probably saying plenty of unkind things about us.
I didn’t care.
Sometimes someone has to say out loud what everyone else has been pretending not to see. I put down that pot. And I said my piece.
And it was the best birthday of my mother-in-law’s that I had ever had to attend.