Raisa Pavlovna sat at the kitchen table with her elbows spread wide, as though the chair beneath her were a throne. Her friend Zhanna sat beside her, holding a mug between both hands. Alina wiped down the stove, one hand pressed against her aching lower back, trying to keep her breathing steady.
“Just look at the way she moves that rag around,” Raisa Pavlovna said loudly enough for her voice to reach every corner of the apartment. “She smears the dirt and calls it cleaning.”
“I’ve already washed everything,” Alina replied gently. “I’ll make some fresh tea now.”
“Fresh tea!” her mother-in-law scoffed. “Those mugs aren’t fit for anything but feeding flies. Get clean ones, you slob. I have a guest here, not a shelter.”
Alina took out two clean mugs and put the kettle on. Her back throbbed. The seventh month of pregnancy had settled into her body as a heavy, dragging exhaustion. By then, she had grown used to Raisa Pavlovna’s jabs, the way people grow used to a draft coming through an old window.
“Zhanna, can you imagine,” her mother-in-law whispered, though her whisper echoed through the kitchen, “my Artyom brought this woman into my home with one plastic bag. One! No property, no family home, nothing. Complete poverty.”
“I can hear you, Raisa,” Zhanna muttered with a grimace.
“Let her hear me!” Raisa Pavlovna raised her voice. “She should know what kind of burden my son dragged into this family.”
Alina poured the tea and placed the mugs on the table. Her hands remained steady, and her face revealed nothing.
“Where’s the milk?” Raisa Pavlovna demanded.
“Artyom finished it this morning,” Alina answered. “There’s only a little left at the bottom.”
“Then go and buy some! Are your legs going to fall off?”
“Raisa Pavlovna, the elevator is broken, and climbing all those stairs is difficult for me at seven months pregnant,” Alina explained patiently.
“Seven months pregnant!” her mother-in-law cried, throwing up her hands. “I carried three children and never complained. Go and get the milk. Zhanna doesn’t drink tea without it.”
Alina slowly dried her hands.
“Fine,” she said quietly. “But let’s speak to each other like human beings. There’s no need to put on a performance in front of an audience.”
“Listen to her talking back,” Raisa Pavlovna hissed as she left.
That evening, Artyom came home, and the kitchen instantly fell silent, like a pond after the wind has stopped.
“Are you tired, sweetheart?” Raisa Pavlovna cooed. “Sit down. I’ll pour your tea myself.”
“Hi,” he said, taking off his shoes near the door. “What’s going on here?”
“Nothing,” Alina replied as she placed a plate in front of him. “I was waiting for you.”
When Artyom stepped into the other room, his mother moved close to Alina.
“I want you out of this house,” she breathed. “Do you understand? You’ll ruin my son’s life. You’re beneath him. A penniless nobody.”
Alina heard every word.
A little later, she also heard Raisa Pavlovna speaking to Artyom behind the wall, her voice suddenly sweet and affectionate.
“Alina, did you start another fight with my mother?” he asked when he came back. “She says you were rude to her.”
“Artyom,” Alina began calmly, “when you’re here, she’s all sweetness. When you leave, she becomes someone else. She insults me and tells me to get out.”
“You’re exaggerating again,” he said dismissively. “She treats you like her own daughter.”
“Like her own daughter?” A faint smile touched Alina’s lips. “Then I’m afraid to imagine how she treats strangers.”
“Why do you always have to talk like that?” he complained.
“Then let’s rent an apartment,” Alina said directly. “I can start looking tonight. I don’t like postponing problems that can be solved immediately.”
“We don’t have the money,” Artyom snapped. “We have our own room here. What else do you need?”
“Air,” she answered. “Just a little air and a small amount of respect.”
Earlier.
Something inside Alina had slowly hardened under the constant attacks. At night, she no longer reached for her husband, and he grew angry, pacing back and forth across the room.
“What’s the point of having a wife like you?” he said irritably. “You’re as cold as a windowsill.”
“The same point as having a warm home,” she replied. “But you were the one who let all the warmth out.”
“So once again, everything is my mother’s fault,” he mocked.
One night, he returned after midnight. A sweet, unfamiliar perfume clung to his clothes. Alina looked up from her book.
“Where were you?” she asked evenly.
“With another woman,” he said without looking away. “So what? You don’t want me. She does.”
“How honest of you.” Alina closed the book. “It’s a pity your honesty arrived several years too late.”
“It’s your own fault,” he muttered.
“You know,” she said quietly, “people are often more afraid of change than they are of suffering. You’re afraid. I’m not anymore.”
Raisa Pavlovna happened to be passing the room and immediately joined in.
“Lazy parasite!” she shouted. “You got a diploma, and now you live off my son! You can’t even find a job!”
“I look for work every day,” Alina replied. “Unlike some people, who found their life’s purpose long ago—counting how many bags other people own.”
One afternoon, Alina became nauseous outside. Her legs suddenly felt weak, and the world began to tilt. Her friend Vika caught her by the arm.
“Alina, you need to go to the hospital right now,” Vika said anxiously.
“All right,” Alina agreed. “Let’s go. I’m not going to delay it.”
At the hospital, she was told something she had not yet known.
“Congratulations,” the doctor said gently. “You’re pregnant.”
The news landed at home like a stone dropped into still water.
“Artyom, we’re going to have a baby,” Alina said.
“A baby?” He smiled uncertainly. “I’ve always wanted one.”
“What baby?” Raisa Pavlovna shrieked. “Get rid of it! Do you hear me? You’re both already poor, and now you want another mouth to feed?”
“That’s enough,” Artyom said sharply. “It’s my child.”
“You fool!” his mother wailed. “You’ll regret this!”
The months passed, and Alina tried to spend as little time at home as possible. During her seventh month, she became dizzy on the way to the store and lost consciousness.
When she woke up, she was lying in a hospital bed. The doctors had admitted her to protect the pregnancy.
Back at the apartment, Raisa Pavlovna found Alina’s medical reports and slowly ran her finger down the pages.
“Artyom,” she said that evening, shaking the documents in front of him, “there’s something wrong with the baby. She’s going to give birth to a disabled child. You’ll spend your whole life working yourself to death. Divorce her before it’s too late.”
“Do you really think so?” he asked, frowning.
“I know so,” she declared, thrusting the papers into his hands.
He came to the hospital carrying a completed divorce application and a pen.
“Sign it,” Artyom said. “It will be better this way.”
Alina looked at him.
“Better for whom?” she asked.
“For everyone,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes.
“How strange.” She took the pen. “Once, ‘everyone’ meant our family. Now it means your conscience folded neatly inside your pocket.”
She signed without trembling.
After giving birth, she had nowhere else to go, so she returned to that apartment with her newborn son in her arms.
“You came back again?” Raisa Pavlovna screamed. “Get out of here, beggar!”
“What is she doing here?” Artyom said with disgust, looking at the bundled baby as though the child offended him.
He pulled out some money and held it toward her.
“Take this and leave. I don’t want to see either of you here again.”
“Thank you,” Alina said calmly, refusing the bills. “Keep the money. You’ll need it soon enough—for all those cold nights ahead.”
She bought a ticket and traveled to see her father, Oleg, a man she had feared since childhood. He had left the family years earlier and had spent a long time drinking.
But when he saw his daughter standing at his door with a baby in her arms, he froze. Then he began to cry quietly.
“Come inside, sweetheart,” he said. “It may be poor here, but at least no one bites.”
Six months passed.
The baby had just turned half a year old when Alina received a phone call.
“Alina,” Raisa Pavlovna said, her voice trembling. “Artyom has been in an accident. He’s in terrible condition.”
“I’m sorry for your pain,” Alina replied evenly. “But he is your son, not my husband. We’re divorced. At your insistence, remember?”
“You heartless creature!” the woman gasped. “I curse you!”
“Curses are cheap merchandise,” Alina said, and ended the call.
Six months later, she heard through acquaintances that Artyom had died.
She did not celebrate another person’s death, but she did not cry either. She only released a quiet breath, as though an old weight had finally been lifted from her chest.
A month later, someone knocked on the door.
Raisa Pavlovna stood outside. She looked thin and exhausted, and her hands trembled.
“I came to see my grandson,” she said with difficulty. “I have the right to see him.”
Alina gave a quiet laugh.
“What grandson?” she asked. “You were the one who shouted that I should get rid of him. You said he was unwanted. You have no grandson. You rejected him before he was even born.”
“Please,” the woman whispered.
“Go home,” Alina said softly, and closed the door.
The woman remained outside for a long time, crying alone.
Her friends gradually abandoned her. Her health failed, and after some time, she too passed away.
Then one day, Alina received a letter from a notary.
She went to the office, sat across from him, and listened.
“Your son is the sole heir to the apartment,” the notary explained. “That means the property legally passes to him.”
Alina stepped outside with her child in her arms and allowed herself a quiet smile.
“You see, little one,” she said, “the very home they drove us out of eventually decided who never belonged there.”
She looked down at her son.
“And perhaps that is the only kindness we ever received from that woman.”
The baby laughed and wrapped his tiny fingers around hers.
“Come on,” Alina said. “Grandpa is waiting for us at home, and there’s hot tea on the table.”
She smiled.
“In clean mugs. With no audience.”