The words burst out before Lena could stop them—sharp and cutting, like shards of broken glass. Vitya stood in the middle of the kitchen with his phone in one hand, staring at his wife as though she had just announced the end of the world. Golden spring sunlight poured through the window, almost offensively warm and beautiful. The room smelled of coffee and something frying on the stove, and suddenly all that cozy domestic comfort felt like a cruel joke.
“Lena, just wait…”
“Wait for what?” She set her cup down so hard that Vitya flinched. “Are you seriously telling me this now? On Friday evening? The night before?”
He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. Lena knew that movement very well. Vitya always did it when he realized he was losing an argument but still wasn’t ready to admit it.
It had all started about three hours earlier, when Lena had been sitting at her laptop finishing a list. It was a good list, carefully organized with plans and little notes.
A bike ride along the river on the first day.
The contemporary art exhibition she had been meaning to visit since February.
A movie with Masha and her husband on Wednesday evening.
Barbecue at Seryoga’s place on Thursday.
And Friday—absolutely nothing. No rushing anywhere. Sleeping until noon, reading, lying around, doing whatever she wanted.
The May holidays. An entire week.
Lena had been looking forward to them like a person waiting for an unexpected mini-vacation. Which, in a way, was exactly what they were.
She had worked herself half to death during the final weeks of April. There was a quarterly report to complete, two new clients to deal with, and negotiations that dragged on endlessly before ultimately leading nowhere. By the last working day, she felt completely drained.
Yet as she walked home that evening, she also felt strangely light and happy.
A whole week was waiting for her.
A week of her own life.
No deadlines. No meetings. No endless calls.
Vitya came home earlier than usual, which should probably have warned her immediately.
He kissed her on the cheek, poured himself a glass of water, sat down across from her, and spoke in a tone that was much too casual to be natural.
“Listen, Mom called me today.”
Lena looked up from the laptop.
“And?”
“Well, she’s been saying for a while that she wants to come visit us. Stay for a little while. She misses me.”
“Uh-huh,” Lena said.
Her intuition had already sensed trouble, although her rational mind was still trying to ignore it.
“So…” Vitya stared into his glass as though there might be something hidden at the bottom besides water. “She’s coming tomorrow. She wants to stay for all the holidays. She’ll take a few unpaid days from work, so it’ll be almost a full week.”
Lena slowly closed her laptop.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
She only stared at her husband while something happened inside her that reminded her of accidentally touching a hot pan—first a second of stunned silence, and then the burning pain arrived.
“You invited her,” Lena said.
It wasn’t a question.
“Well, technically, she suggested it herself…”
“Vitya. Did you invite her?”
He finally looked up.
His expression was guilty and slightly wounded—the face of a man who had been hoping the situation would somehow resolve itself without consequences.
“I told her we’d be happy to have her.”
That was when the explosion came.
“You told her we would be happy,” Lena repeated.
Her voice had become dangerously quiet. Vitya knew that tone. It was the calm that always came just before the storm.
“Vitya, ‘we’ includes me. Did you ask me?”
“Lena, she’s my mother…”
“I know exactly who she is. I’ve been married to you for eight years. Believe me, I know who your mother is.”
Lena got to her feet and began pacing across the kitchen.
“I already know what she’ll say about my curtains. I know what she’ll say about the way I cook soup. I know she’ll tell me about your neighbor Nina Petrovna, who is apparently ‘such a wonderful woman who manages to get everything done around the house’—which, of course, means I’m a terrible woman who gets nothing done. She’ll find dust where there isn’t any dust. And by the second day she’ll suddenly develop some mysterious illness she didn’t have before arriving.”
“Lena, you’re exaggerating.”
“Vitya, I’m being realistic.”
He stood up as well.
Now they were facing each other from opposite sides of the kitchen table, and somehow the table suddenly felt like more than a piece of furniture. It had become a boundary between them.
“She’s alone,” Vitya said quietly, almost pleading. “She barely speaks to Dad after the divorce. She doesn’t see me very often. She just wants to spend some time with us.”
“I understand that.”
Lena let out a slow breath.
“I really do understand. But you should have asked me first. These are my holidays too. I’ve been waiting for them. I made plans.”
She gestured toward the laptop.
“I planned everything, do you understand? The exhibition, cycling, the movie, Seryoga’s barbecue. I wanted to rest. Properly rest.”
“Well, we can still do all of that with Mom…”
Lena stared at him for several long seconds.
“Are you serious?”
He understood.
Or at least he should have. Vitya knew his mother just as well as Lena did.
Galina Stepanovna had a special gift.
She could enter any room and within minutes identify everything that was supposedly wrong with it.
The plant on the windowsill was in the wrong place. The sofa cushions were arranged incorrectly. The television was too loud—or too quiet. The salt was the wrong kind. The bread was wrong. Even the weather outside could somehow become a personal concern because it might affect her joints.
The strange thing was that Galina Stepanovna was completely sincere.
That was the paradox.
She didn’t deliberately try to hurt anyone. She simply viewed the world as an endless list of problems that urgently needed to be discovered, announced, and discussed.
Once, Lena had mentally counted how many topics Galina Stepanovna managed to complain about during a three-day visit.
Environmental problems in the city.
The quality of tap water.
The dangers of microwave ovens.
The terrible diet of young people in general and Vitya in particular.
Lena’s supposed lack of concern for her husband.
Lena’s excessive devotion to her career.
The high price of absolutely everything.
The poor quality of everything sold at those high prices.
And, inevitably, Nina Petrovna, who apparently represented the highest possible standard of human perfection.
That was only three days.
And now she was coming for almost an entire week.
“If your mother comes here for all the holidays, I’m leaving. You can stay here with her yourself. Is that clear?” Lena’s words rang through the suddenly silent kitchen.
Vitya stared at her.
“You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
“Lena, she’s arriving tomorrow morning. Her train gets in at seven.”
“I know. I heard you.”
Lena folded her arms.
“And I’m telling you this: if you don’t call her and move this visit to another time—one that we agree on together—I’m going to Masha’s place. For the entire holiday. You and your mother can have a wonderful week together.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
Outside the window, a thrush was singing loudly and cheerfully, as if it had chosen the worst possible moment to celebrate life.
“Masha is expecting you?” Vitya finally asked.
It was a ridiculous question.
“Masha always has room for me.”
He remained silent for a while longer.
Then he sighed heavily, like a man who had lost the game but still refused to admit defeat.
“Lena, what am I supposed to tell her? She already bought the ticket.”
“That isn’t my problem.”
Lena tucked the laptop under her arm.
“You’re an adult man, Vitya. You’ll think of something.”
Then she walked out of the kitchen.
The following morning, Galina Stepanovna arrived carrying two suitcases and enough conversation topics to last an entire month.
By then, Lena had already packed her own bag.
It was small, only enough for a few days.
She put in a book, her favorite sweater, a charger, and some face cream.
Masha had answered her message almost immediately:
“Come over. The wine is already in the fridge.”
Vitya watched as Lena closed the zipper on her bag.
“Lena…”
“I’m not angry,” she said calmly.
And surprisingly, it was true.
The anger had disappeared during the night. What remained was determination—cool, solid, and even, like the surface of a well-made wooden table.
“I’m simply doing what I said I would do. You made a decision on your own. Now I’m making mine. Seems fair.”
“Mom asked where you’re going.”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with an explanation.”
Lena put on her jacket.
She kissed Vitya briefly on the cheek. There was no tenderness in the gesture, but there was no cruelty either.
Then she picked up her bag.
“You know where I’ll be,” she said at the door. “If something important happens, call me.”
And she left.
Masha lived about twenty minutes away by metro, in a cozy apartment with large windows and an orange cat named Professor.
Professor was fat, calm, and regarded every visitor with the same complete indifference.
Lena sat in Masha’s kitchen drinking white wine and telling her the entire story.
Masha listened, nodded, and occasionally refilled Lena’s glass.
“You did the right thing,” she said when Lena finished.
“I know.”
“He’ll call you in a day.”
“Three days,” Lena corrected.
“Want to bet?”
Lena smiled.
It was the first time she had smiled in twenty-four hours.
The next day, they rented bicycles and rode along the river.
The weather was warm and gentle, and the air carried the fresh smell of budding poplar trees. Lena pedaled steadily and felt something inside her slowly loosen, as though her entire body were learning to breathe again.
Two days later, they finally visited the exhibition.
There were enormous canvases, some nearly three times taller than a person. Strange, unconventional paintings, but each one seemed to contain something unexpectedly honest.
Lena stood in front of one particular painting for a very long time.
She wasn’t thinking about anything specific.
Her phone remained silent.
That evening, a message from Vitya appeared.
“How are you?”
She replied:
“Good. How are things there?”
His answer came shortly afterward.
“Fine.”
Lena knew exactly what Vitya’s “fine” meant.
After eight years of marriage, she had become an expert in decoding his versions of “fine.”
This one meant:
Everything is absolutely not fine, but I’m not ready to admit it yet.
He called on the third day.
Masha widened her eyes dramatically and mouthed, “You won.”
Lena waved her away and stepped onto the balcony.
“Len,” Vitya began.
He sounded like a man who hadn’t slept properly for several nights and was exhausted for one very specific reason.
“I’m listening.”
“Mom…” He paused. “She asked why we don’t have carpets in the living room. Then she found my old jeans in the wardrobe and said I’d ‘let myself go.’ After that, she spent three hours telling me about Nina Petrovna. Then she discovered we don’t have gauze in the medicine cabinet and announced that it was practically a disaster.”
Lena leaned against the balcony railing.
The chestnut trees below were bright green.
“Mm-hmm,” she said.
“Lena, I…” Another pause. “I didn’t realize it was so…”
“Vitya. You did realize. You just forget between her visits.”
The silence on the other end said everything.
“I told her I’ve been urgently called back to work,” he finally admitted. “An emergency. Something came up, and I have to cut the holiday short.”
Lena closed her eyes.
Somewhere beyond the balcony, a bird was singing again.
“And what did she say?”
“She said she always knew I had a ‘crazy job’ and that I ‘never get any proper rest.’ She got offended, obviously. But she agreed to leave. Her train is tomorrow at one.”
“I see.”
“Lena…”
He spoke more slowly now, choosing every word carefully.
“I was wrong. I should have asked you. These were your holidays too. You were right. I didn’t think about you, and that was… unfair.”
Lena remained quiet for a moment.
She watched the chestnut trees, the people walking below, and Professor, who had wandered onto the balcony and was now staring into the sky with the expression of a philosopher.
“Can you hear me?” Vitya asked.
“I can.”
“Will you come home?”
“Tomorrow,” Lena said. “After she leaves. Send me a message when you’ve taken her to the station.”
He sent the time less than a minute later.
Lena walked back into the room.
“Well?” Masha asked.
“I’m going home tomorrow.”
“How is he?”
“Alive,” Lena said. “A little battered, but alive.”
Masha poured out the rest of the wine.
“You love him,” she said.
“I do,” Lena admitted. “But he should have asked me.”
“He should have,” Masha agreed. “And now he knows exactly what will happen if he forgets again.”
Lena raised her glass.
“Exactly.”
She returned home the following afternoon.
The apartment smelled of unfamiliar perfume and boiled chicken. Galina Stepanovna had clearly been cooking.
In the kitchen stood a saucepan polished until it shone. Her mother-in-law always washed dishes with the precision of a surgeon.
Vitya was sitting on the sofa.
He looked like a man who had just survived an expedition through extremely difficult terrain.
Lena put down her bag.
She looked at him.
He looked back.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“She left. Everything’s fine. I saw her off.”
“Good.”
A pause followed.
“Lena…” he began.
“Vitya,” she interrupted, and he stopped.
“I forgive you. But remember this. Next time, we discuss everything in advance. Together. Guests, plans, holidays—anything that affects both of us. Agreed?”
He nodded quickly, visibly relieved.
“Agreed.”
“Good.”
She went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and put the kettle on.
“I’m hungry. Masha fed me well, but somehow I never felt properly full.”
Vitya stood up and came over.
“Len.”
He placed his hand cautiously on her shoulder, almost as if she were something fragile.
“I’m sorry. Really.”
She placed her hand over his.
“I know. And I’ve already forgiven you. But we’re finishing this conversation on bicycles.”
“On bicycles?”
“Tomorrow morning, we’re going for a ride along the river. I wanted to do it during the holidays, and I still will. Maybe at the end of the week, but I’m doing it.”
Vitya smiled.
For the first time in several days, it was a real smile—not forced, not nervous.
“Deal.”
They spent the rest of the holidays almost exactly the way Lena had originally planned.
They cycled through the city early in the morning, when the streets were still quiet and the air was cool and fresh.
In the evening, they went to the movies with Masha and her husband. The film turned out to be good—funny in places, a little sad in others.
The barbecue at Seryoga’s place was moved to the final day of the holidays, but somehow that made it even better. Seryoga had marinated the meat overnight, and everyone sat outside in the garden until late in the evening, refusing to go indoors until the cold finally forced them.
Vitya stood near the barbecue grill, laughing at something Seryoga had said.
Lena watched him through the drifting smoke and thought that this—exactly this—was what a holiday was supposed to feel like.
That night, on the final evening of their break, Lena lay in the darkness listening to Vitya’s breathing as he slowly fell asleep beside her.
She thought about many things.
About how arguments in a marriage were sometimes like thunderstorms: terrifying while they were happening, but afterward the air somehow felt cleaner and easier to breathe.
About how Masha was right.
She loved this man, even with his annoying habit of making decisions before thinking them through.
She thought that perhaps for their next holiday, they should travel somewhere.
Just the two of them.
Far away.
Or maybe they could invite Galina Stepanovna over for one day.
One.
With an arrival time and departure time clearly discussed and agreed upon beforehand.
Lena closed her eyes.
Outside, the night was dark and quiet.
Somewhere far away, a nocturnal bird called again and again, sounding almost as though it were stubbornly trying to prove a point to someone.
Lena smiled in the darkness.
In the end, the holidays had turned out pretty well after all.