Anna sat in the car, fastening the collar of her coat with trembling fingers. It was May outside, but inside felt like February: her heart raced, her mouth was dry, and her hands were cold. She knew this evening would end badly—she just didn’t know how badly yet.
Outside the window was a sign: “Avtotechnik Plus,” a gray two-story service center with peeling paint on the facade, smelling of burnt oil, welding, and someone else’s reproach.
She got out, slammed the door, and headed to the entrance. From inside came her mother-in-law’s voice—sharp, displeased:
“…and here comes our boss, ready to give orders!”
“Good evening, Olga Pavlovna,” Anna nodded calmly, as if ignoring the sarcasm. “Alexey asked me to drop by.”
“He asked. And he’s always asking you for pants too, so why don’t you just come by if you’re the commander.”
Viktor Andreevich, her father-in-law, lifted his head from under the hood and grumbled:
“Hi, Anya. We’re swamped here. If you’re here for business, make it quick.”
Anna shifted her gaze to her husband, who stood by the shelf, leaning on a toolbox.
“Lyosh, can we talk?”
“Anya, just quick, okay? The engine from the Prado isn’t starting.”
“It won’t be quick. You’ve got the tax office breathing down your neck again, and you haven’t even started the declaration.”
“So you came to tell us how to do everything, as usual?” Dmitry, Lyosh’s brother, smirked while wiping his hands on a rag.
“I came to offer help,” Anna said evenly. “Both with accounting and restructuring. You’ve been operating at a loss for two years now, and if nothing is done…”
“So what, you’re going to save us all with your IT brain?” Olga Pavlovna interrupted, slapping the rag on the table. “We have our own ways here. And they work.”
“They work?” Anna couldn’t hold back; her voice rose. “You’re in debt! You’re about to be shut down. I could…”
“Exactly, you could,” Olga Pavlovna snapped. “But we didn’t ask. You’re not part of the business. And not part of the family, by the way. We didn’t choose you.”
Anna froze. The silence in the workshop was so loud it felt tangible. Alexey coughed, then quietly:
“Mom, come on…”
“What ‘come on’?” Olga snapped back. “Or is it trendy in Moscow for wives to make all the decisions? First you’re a son, then a husband—not the other way around.”
Anna looked at her husband. He looked away.
“Understood,” she whispered, then louder. “I’m not coming here anymore. And don’t offer me to ‘support the family.’ I’m not part of the family, remember? So don’t expect help with debts.”
She turned and left. Someone was talking behind her, but she no longer heard.
Late at night, she sat in the kitchen with a glass of wine. On the table lay a to-do list: call the lawyer, cancel the transfer to the service account, change the password for the family account.
Alexey came home around midnight. He climbed onto a stool without looking.
“You knew what kind of family I had. Why did you get involved?”
“To help, Lyosh. Just once, so they’d hear me.”
“They’re just… old-fashioned. Don’t like interference.”
“I’m not interfering. I live with you. I wanted us to have a shared path. Not your mother deciding who’s a stranger here.”
“Don’t make a tragedy out of it. It’s just business.”
“No,” Anna stood up sharply. “It’s not just business. It’s my patience. Which is gone.”
He went to sleep on the couch, and she stayed in the kitchen, looking at herself in the dark window glass.
In the morning, there was silence. Even the kettle whistled softly. Anna was getting ready for work when Alexey came out of the bedroom, yawning:
“We’re having a family meeting tonight. To talk about how to get out of this.”
“Without me,” Anna said. “I’ve had enough of your meetings. I put in my vacation request. I’m leaving for a couple of weeks. To think.”
“Are you serious?”
“More than that. And a tip: ask your mom to pay the taxes. Maybe then you can keep this ‘order.’”
At the station, Anna suddenly hesitated. Was running away weakness? Or salvation?
Her mother-in-law’s call lit up the screen. She looked at the phone like it was a snake in the grass.
“Yes?”
“Anna, this is Olga Pavlovna. I wanted to… well, ask if you’ll transfer the money or not? Because the tax office…”
“No, Olga Pavlovna. I’m not part of the family. You said so yourselves.”
She hung up and breathed out with relief. The train departed in seven minutes.
Ahead—new tracks. Without old brakes.
Anna returned after ten days. Without warning, without calling—just bought a return ticket, threw on her coat, and silently sat on the train, staring out the window as if beyond the glass were not bare trees but answers to all questions. But there were no answers.
At home, silence greeted her. No Lyosh, no socks under the couch, no smell of fried potatoes he always made “because you brought your quinoa boxes again.” Lyosh was gone. Probably at the service. Or with his mother. Which was almost the same thing.
In the kitchen sat a jar of half-drunk jam—the very one Olga Pavlovna had brought “for immunity, not for Moscow softness.”
Anna took out her phone. No messages from her husband. Not a single one. She reread her last message three times—a short, dry one:
“I’ll be back in a week. We’ll decide what’s next.”
So, she’s back. Decide. Where is everyone?
She found them, oddly enough, at the service. The three of them. Olga Pavlovna stood by the coffee machine, pouring something dark and strong into plastic cups. Viktor sat at the table, buried in papers, muttering. Alexey was nearby, with a laptop.
Curious whose password he used to log in?
“Hello,” Anna said calmly, stepping over the threshold.
“Oh, here’s the lady of the house. How was the Maldives trip?” her mother-in-law immediately attacked, with her usual sarcasm. “Or is that your ‘vacation for reflection’?”
“It was good. And you? Looks like you’ve been busy with business?”
“Yeah, easier without you,” Dmitry from the next bay chimed in.
“Then keep breathing. I came to pick up my things.”
Silence.
Alexey stood up. His voice was hoarse, tired:
“Anya… wait. We were… thinking. Discussing. You were right. The taxes are a mess. But it’s Dmitry’s fault, he lost the documents, and…”
“So it’s the brother’s fault, not mom and her ‘old ways,’” she interrupted. “Wonderful. How convenient.”
“We didn’t mean it,” he exhaled. “You knew who you married.”
That was the nail in the coffin. That finished it.
“Yes, I knew. Thought there was a person beneath that rough exterior. But it turned out to be a son. Someone’s. Forever.”
“Well, go ahead, turn everything inside out like you know how,” Olga Pavlovna couldn’t hold back, throwing a cup lid into the trash. “How old are you anyway? Thirty-five? And you’ve got the mind of a sulking girl.”
“A sulk,” Anna smiled bitterly. “You’ve been hurting me every day for two years and now blame me for sulking?”
“Don’t take it so to heart,” Alexey said quietly. “It’s just how our family is. Tough. But it’s ours.”
“Then live in it. Just don’t ask me for money to save ‘yours’ anymore. Because I’m not one of you.”
She pulled an envelope from her pocket.
“Here’s the full settlement. For last month. For taxes. For the box rent. For the website I paid for before you kicked me out.”
“What are you trying to show?” her mother-in-law asked angrily.
“That I’m quitting. Your game. This family. And this marriage.”
Later, as Anna packed her things into a suitcase, Lyosh appeared in the apartment. This time—with beer. As if that could drown the hole between them.
“I don’t want a divorce,” he said from the doorway, without taking off his shoes. “It’s just… you’re strong. And I… I don’t know how.”
“I’m not strong. I’m tired.”
“But maybe we can… try? Without my mom, without the service, without everything?”
She looked at him. He was familiar. Comfortable. A little worn, with a beer belly, but familiar. Like an old robe—cozy, but no longer warm.
“You can’t be ‘without everything,’ Lyosh. You yourself are part of all this. And your mom is inseparable. You can’t cut it off. It’s grown in.”
“But I love you.”
“And I love myself. Finally.”
He stood by the door for a long time, hesitant to leave. Then finally went out, without slamming the door. And in that moment, it became truly quiet. Pleasantly quiet.
The next morning she delivered the paperwork to the registry office.
By taxi. Because she would now take her car to a mechanic she knew who, unlike her ex-husband’s family, actually kept records.
The phone was silent. And that was good.
They came three days later. All three. Without warning, without calling—just like she had at the service.
Anna had just made coffee and sat down at her laptop when someone rang the doorbell.
Loud. Insistent. Long.
Police knocking? Or the ex-husband’s family? She thought absently and opened without looking through the peephole.
There stood Olga Pavlovna, Viktor, and Alexey.
Like some kind of family tribunal.
Dad in a jacket—probably from a meeting. Mom in a black fur coat, with a face as if about to read a verdict.
Alexey—a crumpled jacket, a bag of pies in his hand.
Funny. Pies. After everything.
“Can we come in?” he asked hoarsely.
“No,” Anna answered calmly. “Talk here.”
“We… thought,” Viktor began. “Maybe you rushed.”
“I didn’t rush. I’ve been building up to this for two years. You just didn’t listen. Now it’s too late.”
Olga Pavlovna looked at her husband irritably:
“I told you! She’s already decided everything! People like her have everything scheduled! Left—means left! Successful, trendy, city girl! You have everything by tables, right? Coffee at eight, divorce at nine!”
“I don’t live by tables. I live by love. Love is either there or it’s not. And when you’re treated like an outsider every day, it dies. Like you died for me.”
Alexey stepped closer. His voice trembled.
“Anya, well… you know. Without you, everything fell apart there. The website crashed. People are leaving. Brother went on a binge again.”
“What do I have to do with that? I’m not part of the family. Forgot?”
“We… didn’t mean it then,” Viktor muttered. “We just… didn’t want to impose.”
“You didn’t want to impose?” She laughed involuntarily. “Then who came into my bedroom and said ‘a wife isn’t even blood’? Who threw out my food from the fridge? Who said IT isn’t a job but a whim?”
Olga Pavlovna flared up:
“Well, sorry we’re not programmers but just earn our living with our hands! We thought family means support, not billing!”
Suddenly Anna’s tone changed sharply. Calmly. Firmly.
“Support means you’re not humiliated, devalued, or blamed for not being from their clan. Support means being heard. But you only hear yourselves.”
She stepped back and closed the door.
“Tell your mom: if she comes around again, I’ll call the officer. And keep the pies.”
They left.
Downstairs. Slowly. As if descending not stairs, but a stage.
That evening a message came from Alexey:
“I won’t be able to forget you. But I understand. Sorry.”
Anna didn’t reply. Not because she was angry. There was simply nothing left to say.
Her life became spacious. Without pressure. Without “you should.” Without strangers in her kitchen.
A month later she was living in a rented two-room apartment in Sokolniki. Alone. Quiet. Clean. Sometimes sad—but only sometimes. Sadness isn’t a disaster. It’s just a reminder that you’re a feeling person, not an emotion accountant.
In the kitchen—a new kettle. A new coffee maker. And no one says anymore, “that’s your weird food obsession.”
One Friday she went to a notary. Signed the papers.
Divorce. Done.
The stamp—a final chord. Quiet. Easy.
At the court doors, Dmitry caught up with her. Red-eyed, unshaven, smelling of booze.
“Anya… listen, don’t you want to come back after all? Everything fell apart there. Completely. Mom’s crying. Lyosha went to sleep at the service.”
She looked at him. And for the first time—without anger.
“I’m not obliged to save those who drowned me.”
He turned away. Then quietly said:
“But you once loved us.”
“And you—don’t love me,” she answered shortly and left.
Two days later, she got a call from work:
“Anna, we nominated you for an internal promotion. You’ll lead a new project. Salary’s different. Flexible schedule. You earned it.”
She turned off the phone.
Poured buckwheat, cucumbers, and cheese into a bowl.
Sat by the window and smiled.
Sometimes, to become yourself, you have to lose everyone who tried to make you “convenient.”