The April sun beat into her eyes, making her squint. Marina was pushing the stroller along the broken path, weaving between puddles. Bags of groceries pulled down her elbow, and Misha had finally fallen asleep after two hours of fussing in the store.
From a distance, she heard a familiar commanding voice:
“Didn’t you go to school? Is this work? The wire’s hanging like a clothesline!” Inna Sergeyevna, wearing a knitted sweater thrown over her shoulders, stood in the middle of the front yard, hands defiantly on her hips. Before her, Uncle Kolya, an elderly electrician, shifted nervously from foot to foot, holding his tools.
“Hello,” Marina said quietly as she passed by.
Her mother-in-law snapped around sharply, measuring her daughter-in-law with a piercing look:
“Oh, you showed up! Had your fun, huh? Of course, it’s comfortable to live off your husband’s neck, isn’t it?”
Marina stopped. She slowly turned her head, meeting her mother-in-law’s eyes. In them was everything: fatigue from constant nitpicking, hurt from unfair hints, and growing irritation. But she remained silent. For now.
Misha stirred in the stroller, and Marina took a deep breath and headed toward the house. Behind her, a scandal was erupting again, but she no longer listened.
Marina entered the house, carefully maneuvering the stroller between the old shelving unit and the dresser. Her mother-in-law’s reproaches still rang in her ears. After settling the sleeping Misha in the crib, she sat down on the edge of the sofa and involuntarily recalled how it all began.
A year ago, this house was inherited from her grandmother Vera. Small but sturdy, with stove heating and a cozy veranda. She and Oleg had spent the whole summer painting the walls, redoing floors, and updating wiring. He joked, calling them the “enthusiast repair crew,” and she rejoiced over every little thing fixed.
Inna Sergeyevna’s call came like thunder from a clear sky.
“Olezhek, I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed into the phone. “Your stepfather… he took everything. He transferred the apartment. Timur and I are on the street…” That evening, Oleg gently placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder:
“Marish, maybe we should let them stay for a while? Maybe two months, no more. Mom will find a job, they’ll move out…”
She agreed. Somehow it seemed right.
Inna Sergeyevna appeared on the doorstep with two huge suitcases and a sullen Timur. She inspected the house with a critical eye:
“Well, what a dump you have here… Isn’t it cold in winter?”
For the first month, she restrained herself, but then the complaints started.
“Look at how the floorboards creak!” she complained on the phone to a friend. “And this stove… feels like we’re living in the last century.”
Every day Inna found something new to criticize.
“Why is the tile in your bathroom so old?” she asked, peering into the shower. “And where’s the washing machine? I can’t wash by hand!”
“We only did cosmetic repairs,” Marina tried to explain, but her mother-in-law just waved it off. “Repairs are one thing, but living here is another. And the fridge is empty? What are you going to feed us today?” Marina felt her patience draining. Every evening, Inna found new reasons to be dissatisfied:
“There’s dust here like in an old barn! And why is the kids’ room so dark?”
She didn’t know how to handle the situation but understood one thing: life in the house, which once seemed cozy, was turning into a trial.
Days dragged on like rubber. Marina woke at dawn, made breakfast for everyone, cleaned, did laundry, rocked Misha when he started fussing. Outside, the neighbor Petrovich’s hoarse voice often sounded, despite the early hour, as he sang his favorite “A Glass of Vodka.”
“God, when will this end?” Inna Sergeyevna frowned, demonstratively slamming the window shut. “How do you put up with this madhouse?” Marina silently shrugged. “Patience” had become her second name.
In the evening, after putting Misha to bed, she went to the kitchen for tea and froze at the door. Inna Sergeyevna, phone pressed to her ear, paced the room:
“No, can you imagine, Lyuda, she doesn’t even work! She just stays home all day taking care of the child. From morning to night, and what’s the use? Dust in the corners, lunch never ready. If I were Marina, I’d do something, not just call myself the ‘housewife.’ She leeches off my son! Olezhek works and does everything around the house… I told him — find yourself a decent one…”
Something clicked inside Marina’s head. She quietly returned to the bedroom, took an old box with documents out of the dresser, and pulled out a yellowed sheet. The deed. Grandma Vera had given her the house. She was the owner.
Marina ran her fingers over the page. It had never occurred to her to prove her rights. There was no one to argue with. Oleg already knew the house belonged to her.
But now…
She sat on the edge of the bed next to her sleeping son. Slowly and clearly, a thought began to form in her mind: “What if… What if this is my house — and my rules?”
For the first time in months, Marina felt a surge of energy. Not indignation or hurt — but energy. Something new was stirring in her soul, something that had no name yet.
Marina woke determined. In the morning, when Inna Sergeyevna went to a friend’s, and Timur hadn’t returned from college yet, she waited for Oleg to come home from work. He arrived for lunch, tired as usual. Misha played in the playpen with a rattle.
“We need to talk,” Marina said, placing a bowl of borscht in front of him.
“Something happened?” He looked up at his wife, noticing the unusual tone in her voice.
“I decided to set up a workshop in the back room and start sewing. We need money. Your mother reproaches me for doing nothing.” The spoon froze halfway to his mouth.
“But what about… Mom and Timur? They live there.”
“They have legs,” Marina answered calmly, wiping the table. “They can go to the realtor. I’m not obligated to them. I provided temporary shelter. I think three months is enough.”
Oleg put down his spoon:
“But, Marish… maybe there’s another way…”
“Another way? — she looked him straight in the eyes. — Another six months of hearing how bad I am at running my own house and living at your expense?”
“You know your mother…”
“I know. That’s why I’m giving them a month. Let her find a place or reconcile with her husband. And move out.”
Oleg sighed but didn’t argue. Deep down he knew his wife was right. Just telling his mother… the thought gave him a headache.
The evening was stifling. Marina washed the dishes when the front door slammed. Oleg came home from work earlier than usual, and behind him — Inna Sergeyevna with Timur. From her husband’s tense face, Marina understood the conversation had happened.
“Is it true?” the mother-in-law started from the doorway, throwing her bag onto a chair so hard it toppled. “You’re kicking us out?”
Marina calmly wiped her hands with a towel:
“Yes. I want you to move out.”
“My God!” Inna Sergeyevna clutched her chest, theatrically staggering. “Olezhek, do you hear? Your wife is throwing us out! Her own mother!”
Oleg stood, eyes lowered:
“Mom, we said it’s temporary…”
“Temporary?!” the mother-in-law’s voice broke into a shriek. “Where are we supposed to go? You want Timur and me to live under a bridge? After everything I did for you! I didn’t sleep nights when you were sick! I worked two jobs so you could get into college!”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, smearing her mascara. She sank onto the chair, covering her face with her hands:
“I gave you my whole life… And now… No one needs me… You’re throwing me out like an old rag!”
“Mom,” Oleg stepped closer, “no one is throwing you out. I will help. I promise, ten thousand every month so you can rent something.”
“Ten thousand?” Inna Sergeyevna lowered her hands from her face, her eyes narrowing. “What can you rent for ten thousand now? A tiny room with no windows? You want your mother to live in slums?”
“Mom, that’s all we can afford,” Oleg’s voice trembled.
“All? And that TV you bought? And the renovation you started? There’s money for that, but not for your own mother!” She burst into tears again, but now anger could be heard in her sobs. “I thought you were different. I thought you understood what family means!”
Timur, standing in the doorway, suddenly stepped forward:
“Mom, maybe enough?!” Inna Sergeyevna stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes widened with surprise. Her son never talked back to her.
“What did you say?” her voice became quiet and dangerous.
“Enough,” Timur repeated quietly. “We’ve lived with them long enough. I can get a job. I’m already eighteen.”
“You?!” Inna jumped up from the chair. “You’re still a child! Do you think it’s that easy to work? And studies? You want to drop out of college?”
Silence fell in the room. Inna Sergeyevna looked confused, shifting her gaze from her son to her daughter-in-law as if seeing them for the first time. Her lips trembled, and her eyes held something between anger and fear.
Marina approached the door and turned around:
“You’re adults. And I’m tired of being blamed for your choices.”
She stepped out onto the veranda with a cup of coffee, leaving behind the heavy silence. For the first time in a long while, she could breathe easily.
Behind her, Oleg’s voice sounded:
“Mom, the decision is made. We’ll give you a month, and I promise to help with money. Every month, no reminders. But you need to find your own place.”
Inna Sergeyevna sobbed one last time and quieted, realizing she had lost this round.
The move took only one day. Inna Sergeyevna methodically packed her things, loudly talking on the phone:
“Yes, Lyuda, can you believe it? Kicked out! After everything I did for them… No, I rented a one-room. What else can I do? Olezhek helps, but is that money? Not enough for decent housing.”
Timur silently carried bags, avoiding looking at Marina. There was something like an apology in his eyes. Once, when Inna Sergeyevna went outside, he quietly said:
“Thanks for putting up with us for so long.”
Marina just nodded. Words weren’t needed.
Oleg helped load things into a taxi, frowning and checking his watch. He had taken time off work for the move and now hurried to finish everything by evening.
When the last bag was taken out, Inna Sergeyevna paused in the doorway. Her gaze swept over the room she had occupied for almost five months.
“Well,” she said bitterly, “children grow up and forget gratitude.”
When the door closed behind them, the house grew unusually quiet. Marina opened all the windows wide, letting in fresh air. She stood in the middle of the room, feeling a strange mixture of relief and slight sadness.
She took down new curtains from the top shelves — light ones with a small pattern she had long wanted to hang. In the bathroom, she replaced the worn-out rug, attached a water filter to the kitchen faucet — all the things she had postponed “for later.”
She changed the bed in her mother-in-law’s former room, threw out the old mattress that Inna Sergeyevna considered “the most comfortable.” She dusted the shelves where heavy-framed photos had stood just that morning — Oleg as a child, Timur as a first-grader, the late grandfather in uniform.
Misha followed her closely, peeking into every corner as if searching for the missing residents.
“Grandma?” he asked, pointing to an empty chair.
“Grandma left,” Marina answered, “she has her own house now.”
In the evening, Oleg came into the kitchen where Marina was preparing dinner. He hugged her from behind:
“I transferred money to Mom. Ten thousand, as agreed.”
“All right,” she turned to him. “You know, I didn’t want to…”
“I understand,” he nodded. “You’re just tired. We’re all tired.”
Misha ran into the kitchen with a toy car, babbling happily in his baby language. Marina picked up her son and smiled. Life was settling into a familiar rhythm — calm, measured, without sharp corners or barbs.
Later, after Misha fell asleep, she took an old box of sewing patterns from the closet. She used to sew once. Maybe now was the time to remember?
Six months passed. The veranda, entwined with young grapevines, had become Marina’s favorite place. She sat in a wicker chair, legs pulled up, watching Oleg tend the grill. The smell of grilled meat mixed with the scent of freshly cut grass.
“How’s Misha?” Oleg asked, turning the kebabs.
“He’s asleep,” Marina smiled. “He ran around all day.” Her phone softly chimed. A new message: “Can you make me the same as in the photo?” Under the text was a picture of a dress similar to one she had put up in her new online shop a week ago.
Marina swiped the screen. Third order of the day. Small, but her own workshop was beginning to bring not only joy but income.
“Something important?” Oleg put a glass of homemade wine before her.
“A new order,” she looked up. “You know, sometimes it feels like all this is a dream.”
He sat down beside her, took her hand:
“You just found yourself.”
Marina nodded. She had learned to stand up for her space and time. And it turned out not to be as scary as it once seemed.