“Go back home to your mother, Vadim. I don’t need a mama’s boy running errands for me anymore.”
The door slammed shut, leaving her ex-husband standing in the hallway with his bulging gym bag. Natalia locked the door and leaned her back against the cool wall of the entryway.
For the first time in twelve years, her home was exactly the way she wanted it.
It all started two months ago with a typical phone call that Natalia was forced to overhear through the thin wall of their Khrushchyovka apartment.
“I only put up with her in the house out of pity, Zoya.”
Tatyana Pavlovna declared loudly into the phone, making sure her words carried even behind the closed bathroom door, where Natalia was scrubbing a stain from a child’s jacket.
“Poor thing. If not for my Vadik, she’d be begging on the street. I bear my cross, Zoyechka! What else can I do? I put up with it.”
Natalia rinsed her hands under the stream of water, shook off the drops over the sink, and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.
Two women under one roof is always a trial. Especially when one sees herself as the rightful queen of the universe, and the other is just trying to survive on her modest patch. Twelve years of marriage in someone else’s apartment taught Natalia to always be on the defensive. She didn’t argue, didn’t react to jabs, just quietly kept up with daily chores, her supermarket job, and raising her son.
“Look how many years I cared for Mikhail!” the mother-in-law carried on behind the wall, switching to her next topic. “Who made him soup? Me! Who kept everything spotless? Me again! I put my heart and soul into that old man. Wore myself out completely.”
Natalia just smirked to herself.
Grandpa Mikhail, her mother-in-law’s cousin, had passed away a month and a half ago. The old man had a nice two-room apartment along the metro line. For the past four years, Tatyana Pavlovna had put on a whole act for the neighbors, playing the part of the “sainted martyr.”
Once a week, she’d buy a cheap pack of chicken backs, boil them into a plain broth, pour it into a mayonnaise tub, and grandly carry it to her sick relative. That was the extent of her great care. She never cleaned, never helped, never even sat down for a chat—Tatyana Pavlovna was always “too busy.”
Suddenly, the front door slammed in the hallway.
Natalia peeked out from the kitchen. Vadim was standing on the threshold. He hurriedly took off his coat, tossed it near the hook, and glanced around nervously. He looked rumpled, his hair a mess.
“Is Mom in her room?” he asked in a half-whisper, avoiding his wife’s gaze.
“She’s on the phone with Zoya, complaining as always,” Natalia replied dryly. “She’s telling her, again, how hard it was to take care of Grandpa Misha.”
Vadim shifted from foot to foot.
“Here’s the thing, Natash…”
He trailed off and glanced nervously at the closed door of his mother’s room.
“I went over to Uncle Misha’s apartment. Wanted to change the locks so we could get new tenants in. Mom told me to do it.”
Right then, the door flew open. Tatyana Pavlovna floated out of her room. She had already tucked her phone into the pocket of her house pants. Her eyes gleamed with anticipation.
“So? Did you change them?” she pounced on her son immediately.
“No, Mom.”
“What do you mean, no?!” my mother-in-law snapped, hands on her hips. “I told you, it all needs to be done today! The realtor is already waiting, I called her. An apartment near the subway is no joke. We’ll rent it out, put the money in a savings account. And this one…”
She shot a contemptuous glance at Natalia.
“We’ll send her to the country house to weed the garden before winter. Useless in the house anyway. At least she can earn her keep that way. Hand over the apartment keys, I’ll go myself and work things out with the handyman. Idiot.”
Vadim took a step closer to the front door, as if preparing to make a run for it.
“We can’t, Mom. There are new owners already.”
A heavy silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by the dripping faucet. Tatyana Pavlovna froze, mouth slightly open.
“What do you mean, new owners?” her voice turned into a shriek. “What are you talking about? Uncle Misha was all alone! I was his only family! I gave him the best years of my life!”
“Mom, calm down.”
“I’ll show you calm!” Tatyana Pavlovna slammed her fist on the kitchen table. “Who dared take my apartment?! This is a scam! I’m going to the police!”
Vadim glanced guiltily at Natalia, then back at his mother.
“Uncle Misha transferred ownership while he was alive, Mom. Half a year ago. To Natasha.”
Natalia leaned both hands on the edge of the table in silence. She had been waiting for this moment. Waiting calmly, without any gloating.
The mother-in-law’s face flushed with ugly, brownish patches. Her wild gaze darted from her anxious son in the hallway to her composed daughter-in-law.
“What?..” Tatyana Pavlovna hissed.
“Just what I said,” Natalia replied evenly. “Grandpa Misha’s apartment belongs to me. Legally and completely.”
“How dare you?!”
The mother-in-law lunged forward, but Vadim quickly wedged himself between her and the kitchen table, fearful.
“You snake!” Tatyana Pavlovna screamed, trying to shove her son aside. “You pauper! You manipulated that poor old man! You robbed him! I brought him soup!”
“Old man poured your watery soup made from chicken bones down the toilet. I saw it myself.”
Natalia stood her ground. Her voice was cold and clear.
“What nonsense are you spouting?!” the mother-in-law screeched.
“The truth. While you spent hours complaining to Zoya on the phone about how hard your life was, I was visiting him after my supermarket shifts.”
Natalia crossed her arms over her chest, staring directly into her mother-in-law’s darting eyes.
“I cleaned his floors. I fed him with a spoon when he couldn’t do it himself. I changed his diapers and washed his clothes. I bought real food for him with my own money, by the way. Because you never spent a penny on your own uncle. You just carried those empty mayonnaise buckets around so the neighbors would think you were a saint.”
“Lies!” the mother-in-law spat out, though not very convincingly.
“What lies?” Natalia sneered. “Did you even know what prescriptions he took? Did you ever clip his nails? No. You were just waiting for him to die so you could rent out the apartment. But he saw everything. He understood everything.”
Vadim tried to interject into the women’s battle.
“Natasha, come on, what are you starting this for?” he whined. “Mom really did her best. Why take something that isn’t ours? We don’t need drama in the family. Sign it over to Mom and be done with it. Give it up peacefully.”
Natalia slowly turned her gaze to her husband.
Twelve years. For twelve years, she watched this big grown man and hoped that just once he’d act like a real man. Not once in all that time did he stand up for her to his mother. Whenever Tatiana Pavlovna started scolding her for shirts not ironed just right or soup that was too salty, he’d either hide out in the garage or bury himself in his phone.
And now, while they were dragging her name through the mud, he was asking her yet again to give in. Just to make his life easier.
“Here’s how it’s going to be,” Natalia declared firmly.
She pushed herself away from the table and walked past her stunned husband into the hallway. She reached up to the top shelf, grabbed the old travel bag, and tossed it onto the ottoman.
“Vadim. I’ll have my things packed by tonight.”
Her husband blinked in confusion.
“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to my own place,” Natalia snapped. “I’ll pick up our son from daycare and we’re leaving. Thankfully, we finally have somewhere to go.”
“Natalia, what are you thinking?” Vadim protested, stepping closer to her. “You’re going to destroy our family over some apartment? What about me?”
“You can stay here with your mother.”
Natalia started methodically pulling her things off the shelves and packing them into the bag.
“She’ll need a caregiver soon anyway. And you’ll do it for free—cooking her soups on schedule and everything. You’ll do great.”
“How dare you!” Tatiana Pavlovna shouted from the kitchen again. “In my house! You ungrateful wretch! Get out!”
“Serfdom’s long been abolished, Tatiana Pavlovna,” Natalia tossed over her shoulder. “Entertain yourselves here. I’m gone.”
Curses followed her as she walked away—shouts about ingratitude, threats of heavenly punishment, and promises to ruin her. She didn’t listen anymore. She just kept packing.
Two months passed.
Life improved in the most surprising way once the constant background noise of dissatisfaction was gone. Natalia did some light cosmetic repairs in her grandfather Mikhail’s apartment. She threw out the old sagging furniture, scrubbed the windows until they gleamed, and hung some bright new curtains.
Her son started going to a good school right in their building’s courtyard. The boy finally stopped flinching at every loud sound and began to sleep well.
As for alimony, Vadim begrudgingly sent tiny sums, each time adding a long-winded complaint on the messenger. He’d write about how hard things were for him, how unfairly he was treated at work, and how everything was getting more expensive.
Natalia didn’t read those messages—she just swiped them away. Her own salary was enough now for her to live quietly and depend on no one.
On Wednesday evening she was baking a chocolate cake with kefir. The cozy scent of vanilla filled the apartment. Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
Natalia rinsed her hands, wiped them on a kitchen towel, and went to the door. She looked through the peephole.
Vadim was shuffling his feet on the landing. At his feet was that same huge, bulging sports bag.
She turned the lock and cracked the door open, leaving the metal chain still fastened.
“What do you want?” she asked tonelessly.
Vadim tried to squeeze inside, but the chain stretched to its limit and stopped him on the threshold.
“Natasha, let me in, please?”
Her ex-husband’s voice was pitiful and pleading.
“I asked why you’re here. The cake isn’t for you.”
“Mom has totally lost it,” Vadim whined, leaning his forehead against the door frame. “She nitpicks all day, every day. I sit the wrong way, buy the wrong things, don’t give her enough money, don’t clean up after myself. I can’t take it anymore. Living with her is just impossible.”
Natalia leaned her shoulder against the doorway.
“Wow. But for twelve years, it was possible?”
“Come on, Natasha! I’m your husband.”
“Ex-husband, Vadim. Ex. And thank goodness for that.”
“Oh, stop holding a grudge!”
Vadim tried to flash a charming smile on his rumpled face. It turned out awkward and unconvincing.
“I packed my bag. With my things. I’ve left for good. How about we start over? It’s so nice living in your spacious apartment. There’s room for everyone. It always smells like delicious pies. I know you miss me.”
Natalia silently glanced at the bulging bag by his feet, then looked at Vadim’s face without blinking. She felt no pity. Only mild disgust, like seeing a squashed bug on the pavement.
“Go home to your mother, Vadim. I don’t need an errand boy here anymore.”
“Natasha! Where am I supposed to go?” he wailed, gripping the door. “She’ll eat me alive!”
“That’s your family problem.”
She calmly closed the door and turned the lock twice. Footsteps lingered in the hallway, accompanied by heavy sighs, then eventually shuffled down the stairs in defeat.
Natalia straightened the doormat at the door and went to the kitchen. The pie was ready, and it was time to call her son for dinner.