I walk into the apartment at half past nine in the evening, and the first thing that greets me is the smell of fried onions and my mother-in-law’s voice from the kitchen. It’s twenty-nine degrees outside, but it feels like thirty-five in the stairwell. My shirt is sticking to my back. I set my briefcase against the wall and unbutton my collar.
“Gleb, have you seen what time it is?” Lyudmila Sergeyevna comes out with a towel over her shoulder. “Normal men are home by seven.”
“Normal men work,” I reply as I head to wash my hands.
“Everyone works. But your wife sits here all evening by herself, like an orphan.”
“Alyona is glued to her phone,” I call over my shoulder. “I checked. She even answers.”
From the other room comes the sound of my wife’s giggle. Then, silence, as if she remembered whose side she’s supposed to be on. I dry my hands and walk into the kitchen.
There’s a pot on the stove. I lift the lid—soup with floating circles of fat and a heap of over-fried carrots on top. Just looking at it feels heavy in this heat.
“Sit down, I’ll serve you,” my mother-in-law orders.
“Thanks, but I’ve already had dinner.”
“Where did you have dinner?”
“Grabbed a salad and chicken breast at the deli on Leninsky.”
“Eating grass—” she shakes her head. “Some son-in-law. Mother cooks, and he chews on cardboard.”
“You’re not my mother,” I say calmly. “You’re my wife’s mother. That’s fine, I have nothing against you.”
“Did you hear the way he talks?” she calls into the other room.
Alyona appears in the doorway—shorts, tank top, hair up with a clip. She’s beautiful, thirty-one years old, and I hardly see her these last eight months—either her shift or mine gets in the way.
“Gleb, why are you getting upset,” she drawls. “Mom means well.”
“I’m not upset. I just got home from work and I’m answering questions like it’s a meeting.”
“He’s all about himself,” my mother-in-law says to her daughter. “I cleaned the floors this morning, straightened up your bedroom, sorted the laundry.”
I slowly turn around.
“In the bedroom?”
“So what? There was dust under the bed. I’m not a stranger here.”
“Lyudmila Sergeyevna, please don’t go into the bedroom. Not you, not anyone else. That’s a request.”
“Oh please,” she waves the towel. “Look at the lord of the house.”
I go into the room and close the door. A minute later, Alyona comes in, sits on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees.
“Did you have to talk to her like that?” she asks.
“I’ve asked you to talk to your mom. A month ago. Two months ago.”
“I have talked to her.”
“But nothing’s changed. She comes every other day and acts like the apartment’s hers. She opens closets, checks the fridge, digs in our laundry.”
“She’s just helping.”
“I didn’t ask for help. All I asked was that she not go into our room. Is that so much?”
Alyona turns to the window, where it’s still light outside.
“She’s bored. She’s alone.”
“She’s sixty-two, works as a college security guard, and spends every weekend at her friend’s dacha. She’s not alone, Alyona. She just likes to be in charge here.”
My wife is silent. I can hear the clang of the pot lid in the kitchen and the sound of running water.
“I’m tired,” I say more quietly. “Really.”
“You’re always tired,” she replies, then leaves.
***
We bought this apartment two and a half years ago, six months after our wedding. A three-bedroom in a new building on the left bank, windows facing the courtyard, a poplar outside the balcony. The down payment—nine hundred thousand—came from my mother, who sold my grandmother’s house in the suburbs.
I’m the head of logistics at a transport company—trucks, routes, invoices, and drivers who break down in the middle of the night near Boguchar. My mortgage payment is sixty-two thousand every month, and like clockwork, those sixty-two thousand are debited from my card.
Alyona works as an administrator at a fitness club. Her salary goes towards utilities, groceries, and her personal spending, and I’ve never questioned her about it. That’s how we agreed from the very beginning, and it’s always worked fine for me.
We have a third room in our apartment that’s empty. There’s only a shelving unit and some boxes inside. We used to call it a nursery—not out loud, but naturally: “we’ll put the crib here,” “we’ll set up a desk there someday.”
On Saturday, I come home from the garage and see two bags in the entryway.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“My mom will be staying with us,” Alyona says, not looking up from the washing machine.
“How long?”
“A week.”
“Why?”
“Well… to help out. They’re replacing the risers in her building.”
I look at the bags. There are two of them, and they definitely don’t look like bags for just a week.
“Alyona, are they replacing the risers in the whole building or just in her apartment?”
“What difference does it make?”
“A big one. If it’s the whole building, that’s a week. If it’s just her apartment, it’ll take two days.”
“Gleb, are you counting my mom’s days? Seriously?” She straightens up.
“I’m counting because I wasn’t asked.”
“I’m asking you now.”
“No, you’re telling me. Those are two different things.”
By evening, my mother-in-law is already unpacking in the empty room. I stand in the doorway and watch as she hangs her robe on a nail hammered into the wall. The nail is fresh, hammered in today, right into the new plaster.
“Lyudmila Sergeyevna, this is the nursery.”
“Where?” she looks around. “I don’t see any kids.”
“I don’t see any yet either. But the room is meant for them.”
“When you have kids, then we’ll talk,” she carefully smoothes her robe. “Until then, might as well use the room.”
I go to the kitchen, pour myself a glass of cold water, and drink. Alyona stands by the window.
“One week,” she says. “Just bear with it.”
“Last year you promised she’d stop showing up unannounced. She didn’t. Now you promise one week.”
“You act like you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you. I don’t trust your mother.”
A week goes by. Then another. By mid-August, Lyudmila Sergeyevna is already rearranging the jars on our kitchen shelves, throws out my coffee grinder (“it’s noisy, it keeps me awake”), and starts lecturing me about how to fold towels.
I come home from work, eat my chicken from a container, and hear the television in the next room blasting so loudly that the glass on the table vibrates.
“Could you turn it down, please?” I ask.
“I can’t hear well!”
“Then you should see a doctor. That can be treated.”
“Are you trying to send me to the hospital?”
“I just want to be able to hear my own thoughts in my own apartment.”
She purses her lips and retreats to her—our—room. Half an hour later, Alyona comes home after her shift, and I wait until she’s done with her shower.
“Sit down,” I say. “We need to talk.”
“Is this about my mom again?”
“About the apartment. When is she leaving?”
Alyona grabs her towel and dries her hair. Much longer than usual.
“Gleb… Mom is going to stay with us for a while.”
“What do you mean ‘for a while’?”
“I mean, she’s staying for good.”
I can hear the kitchen tap dripping. One drop. Then another. Then a third.
“Explain.”
“She sold her apartment.”
“When?”
“In June.”
“In June,” I repeat. “So in July, when you talked about the risers, the apartment was already gone.”
— Gleb, don’t nitpick words.
— I’m nitpicking dates. That’s my job—dates and routes. So, you’ve been lying to me for two months.
— I wasn’t lying. I just didn’t say anything.
— Fine, — I nod. — Where did the money go?
She sits down on a stool, placing her hands on her knees.
— Some of it went to us. For the mortgage.
— How much?
— Six hundred.
— Six hundred thousand, — I count out loud, slowly. — Her two-room apartment by the park in a brick building is worth at least four million two hundred. Where’s the rest?
Alyona stays silent.
— Where’s the rest, Alyona?
— To Denis, — she finally says. — His daughter Eva just started school, they didn’t have enough space, so they invested it to get something bigger.
Denis is her younger brother, twenty-six years old, a loader-courier-whatever, switches jobs every quarter. Eva is his daughter, six years old. Sweet girl, I bought her a bike for her birthday.
— So your mother sold her place, gave three million six hundred to her son for an apartment, and kept a room for herself in my mortgage.
— In our mortgage.
— In our mortgage, — I agree. — Which I pay for. With the down payment from my own mother.
— Are you measuring everything by money right now?
— I measure housing by square meters and rubles. There’s no other way to measure it, you can’t measure it by love.
My mother-in-law appears in the doorway. She’s heard everything, that much is clear.
— For your information, I put in six hundred thousand, — she says. — Some people wouldn’t have given anything at all.
— Lyudmila Sergeyevna, let’s be honest. You didn’t put six hundred thousand into the mortgage. You bought yourself a room in a three-bedroom apartment for six hundred thousand, for the rest of your life. That’s quite the deal. Congratulations.
— How dare you…
— And you bought Denis a studio, — I continue. — That’s your right, he’s your son. But then go live with Denis.
— He has a child!
— I don’t have a child precisely because there’s nowhere to put one.
Alyona jumps up from her seat.
— Stop it! That’s just cruel!
— The real cruelty happened back in June, — I reply.
***
I can’t sleep at night. I just lay there staring at the ceiling, the neighbors’ air conditioner is humming outside, and it’s still stifling close to midnight.
In the morning, I brew coffee and hear footsteps behind me.
— You said horrible things to my mom yesterday, — Alyona says. — She couldn’t sleep until two in the morning, her blood pressure spiked.
— Mine went up too. Didn’t see anyone come bring me valerian drops.
— You’re a man.
— How convenient.
She sits across from me, wrapping her hands around her mug.
— Let’s just live. Mom’s old. Who knows how much longer she’s got?
— Twenty-five years, if she’s lucky. Honestly, I hope she gets thirty.
— Gleb!
— I’m serious. I’m not waiting for someone to die to finally get a decent night’s sleep.
She sets down her mug.
— And what do you suggest?
— Option one. Your mom takes her six hundred, adds whatever Denis pays back—he should at least return some—and buys herself a one-bedroom place in an old building. I’ll help with the renovations, honestly, with my own hands.
— Denis won’t pay anything back.
— Option two. We sell this apartment, split the money according to the contributions, and then each live separately.
Alyona looks at me like I’ve just started speaking Chinese.
— Are you blackmailing me?
— I’m just telling you how it’s going to be. There is no third option.
She gets up, leaves, and slams the bathroom door. A minute later, my mother-in-law comes out—dressed in a robe, her hair in a neat braid, looking very at home.
— I’m not going anywhere, — she says. — My daughter invited me, and I’m staying with her.
— You live in an apartment that’s registered in my name and our daughter’s, and it’s still under the bank’s mortgage.
— A wife is entitled to half.
— Half comes only after a court decision and after calculating our investments. You know how to do the math, you sit at the college front desk with that register every day.
— You’ll live to regre…
— No, — I cut her off. — Don’t say that. It doesn’t change anything.
I’m getting ready for work, and my wife finds me in the hallway, still wet from the shower with a towel on her head.
— Are you really ready to destroy everything over one room?
— I’m ready to destroy everything over all the lies. The room is just a consequence.
— My mom acted from the heart…
— That’s a lie! Your mom bought your brother an apartment out of the goodness of her heart. Love has nothing to do with this; three million six hundred thousand has everything to do with this.
When I get home that evening, I see new slippers with pom-poms in the hallway. There’s a stranger’s bathrobe hanging in the bathroom. My coffee jars have been moved around in the kitchen.
And that’s when I pull that gray suitcase out of the closet—the same one we took to Sochi two years ago.
— Where are you going? — Alyona stands in the bedroom doorway.
— To my mother’s place. On Ostuzheva. She has a free room.
— You’re leaving your own apartment?
— I’m leaving an apartment where there are three of us. It’s not a home anymore, it’s a dormitory with a warden.
— Run along, just run — I hear from the hallway. — We know your kind.
I zip up the suitcase. Alyona grabs the handle.
— Let go, — I say.
— No. Let’s just talk!
— We talked back in June, when you didn’t say a word. I already had my part of the conversation.
She lets go. The suitcase wheels thump dully over the threshold.
— And what now? — she asks, her voice aimed at my back.
— Now comes the divorce filing and splitting up the property, — I answer as I pull on my sneakers. — See you at the district court.
— You wouldn’t dare.
— Already did.
I walk out into the building entrance. Outside it’s August, a sticky evening, kids are kicking a ball in the yard, the air smells of dust and warm asphalt. I head for the car and, for some reason, I can breathe easier than I have in the past six months.
***
The court process drags on until mid-November. Alyona skips two hearings, so I send a message through her lawyer: the third hearing will proceed without her. She finally shows up for the third one.
— Maybe we can work this out? — she says in the hallway. — Mom is ready to move out and live with Denis.
— She’s ready now?
— Now she is.
— Too late, — I reply. — This isn’t about the room anymore.
I bring all the documents: a statement showing my mother transferred nine hundred thousand, the deed of gift, three years’ worth of bank statements from my card, income certificates. The court decides my share is significantly larger—because of personal funds in the down payment and my payment of the loan.
We sell the apartment through the bank. I lose almost half a million by rushing, but I don’t care. I use my share to buy a two-bedroom on Rostovskaya: bright, poplar views, decent elevator. Alyona gets a mortgage for a one-bedroom in a panel building by the reservoir.
A month later, Denis calls me.
— Gleb, hey. Listen, this… it didn’t turn out right.
— Actually, it turned out exactly right. You got a studio, Alyona got a one-bedroom. Everyone got their share.
— She kicked our mom out, — he says after a pause. — Right in October. Told her: ‘Because of you, I have no apartment. Go wherever you want.’
I say nothing. I picture the scene and feel nothing—no joy, no remorse.
— Is she staying with you?
“No,” Denis hesitates. “It’s too cramped at our place. Mom is at her friend’s dacha.”
“What about Alyona?”
“She’s renting a room. Just while she’s having renovations done.”
“I see.”
“You should help her out, you know? You two were together for three years…”
“Denis,” I say, “I did help. For three years I paid sixty-two thousand a month, never missed a payment. That’s more than enough.”
I hang up the phone.
In December, coming home late from the warehouse, I find a puppy by the garages—a red-haired, floppy-eared, shivering little thing. I take him to the vet, pay for his vaccinations, buy him a bed he completely ignores, since he prefers to sleep at my feet.
I name him Tishka. And then, the most important part—something I never expected myself.
I come home at nine in the evening, and no one asks where I’ve been. No one is rummaging through my closet. There’s no stranger’s robe hanging in the bathroom.
I put the kettle on, play my own music as loud as I want, and eat the food I cooked myself. Tishka sits close by, looking me right in the eye—because he wants sausage, not my paycheck.
And in the second room of my new apartment—well, in the tiny bedroom—there’s only a bookshelf so far. But I know exactly who will live there. And I know for sure who never will.