— Arina! Open up already, what are you dithering for? I’m not a stranger standing here!
Lidiya Ivanovna’s voice thundered in the silence of a Saturday morning just as Arina was fumbling for the key in the lock. Apparently, her mother-in-law had been lurking by the door—otherwise, how else to explain her materializing on the doorstep at eight a.m. on a day off?
“Oh God, why today of all days?” Arina mentally groaned. Saturday. Sacred Saturday! Stas was on a 24-hour hospital shift, and she could finally be alone. Lie in bed until noon, drink coffee straight from the cezve, finish reading that Ulitskaya book… And there was even a ticket for the exhibition at the Pushkin Museum lying around—she’d been meaning to go for three months.
The door flew open, and Lidiya Ivanovna—a sixty-year-old energizer in a floral robe—stormed into the apartment, nearly knocking Arina over. She carried a huge shopping bag swinging at her side, with some kind of rakes or hoes sticking out—God knows what.
“All right, get ready quickly, we’re going to the dacha!” her mother-in-law ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. “The potatoes need hilling, the cucumbers need tying up. I can’t manage alone. And it’ll do you good, too—you’re sitting here inside these four walls, pale as a toadstool.”
Arina blinked once, twice. Maybe it was a dream? A nightmare about a dacha and potatoes?
“Good morning to you first, Lidiya Ivanovna,” Arina squeezed out as politely as she could. “Today… I have plans. Sorry, but I won’t be going to the dacha.”
She cautiously retreated deeper into the apartment. Maybe if she backed away slowly, her mother-in-law wouldn’t notice?
She noticed. Lidiya Ivanovna’s eyebrows shot up, and her lips pressed into a thin line—the sure sign of an approaching storm.
“What kind of plans could be more important than helping your mother?” Her voice took on a metallic edge. “Stas definitely wouldn’t approve. He always says family is sacred, you have to help each other. And I’m not doing this for myself! For you, so you have your own potatoes in winter, not poisonous store-bought ones!”
“Here we go,” thought Arina. Her mother-in-law’s favorite trick—hiding behind Stas like a shield. Like, her son would be upset, her son wouldn’t understand…
“Lidiya Ivanovna,” Arina tried to speak calmly though she was already boiling inside, “Stas and I have talked about this. He knows I can’t stand messing around in the garden beds. And today is my only day off in two weeks. I just want to sleep in and rest.”
“She wants to sleep in!” exploded her mother-in-law, her face turning beet-red. “And you think I’m made of steel? I’m sixty years old, for God’s sake! I’m bent over those beds from morning till night! For whom? For you ungrateful ones!”
She stepped forward, pushing Arina back against the wall.
“Listen to me, girl! I’m not some neighbor Klavka for you to set conditions for me! You will go—and that’s final! Or I’ll tell Stas how you treat his mother!”
Something inside Arina snapped. Enough. She had endured these attacks for three years, the “mom knows best,” the endless complaints and reproaches. Three years of smiling and nodding when she wanted to scream. But everything has its limit.
“You know what, Lidiya Ivanovna?” Arina’s voice turned icy. “I don’t care. About you, about your dacha, about your cucumbers and potatoes. Get out of here. Now.”
Her mother-in-law staggered from the surprise. She clearly hadn’t expected such defiance from the always polite daughter-in-law.
“How dare you?!”
“I dare!” Arina straightened up, looking her straight in the eyes. “If you don’t leave yourself, I’ll call Stas and tell him what you’ve done! You break into my home when I’m alone, yell, threaten! Let’s see what he says about that!”
Lidiya Ivanovna opened her mouth but words got stuck somewhere in her throat. For a few seconds, she gasped for air like a fish thrown on shore, then spat out:
“You… snake! Ungrateful wretch! I’ll remember this! I’ll tell Stas everything! You’ll regret this!”
Arina silently pointed to the door. That was it. No more words.
Her mother-in-law stood there a moment, breathing heavily, drilling Arina with a stare, then abruptly turned and stormed out, muttering something about “spoiled youth” and “in our day…”
The door slammed. Arina slowly slid down the wall to the floor. Her hands trembled, her heart pounded somewhere in her throat. She did it. She threw her mother-in-law out. Broke the unspoken rules of playing happy family.
“What now?” she thought, hugging her knees. “How will Stas react? Will he support me? Or…”
Or not. And that thought was even scarier.
Evening came unnoticed. The day passed in some strange stupor—Arina wandered the apartment, doing things mechanically, but her thoughts kept returning to the morning scene. To the furious face of her mother-in-law, to her threats…
A click of the lock—and there was Stas. Tired after a 24-hour shift, with dark circles under his eyes, but still so familiar. Usually, she would rush to him, hug him, ask how the shift went. But today…
“Hi,” she muttered, not looking up from the book she wasn’t even reading.
“Hi…” Stas looked at her surprised. “Why are you like this?”
Arina met his gaze.
“Your mother came by.”
“Oh, yeah, I know. She called.”
Her heart sank. Called. Of course she called. And surely already painted everything in the darkest colors—how the daughter-in-law demon drove away the poor old woman who just wanted to help…
“And what did she tell you?” Arina crossed her arms.
Stas sighed heavily, sitting down on the couch.
“Well… that you kicked her out. Rude to her. That she just wanted you two to go to the dacha together, and you…”
“And what about me?” Arina’s voice hardened.
“Arin, why are you like this?” Stas rubbed his temples. “You could have been gentler. She’s an elderly person, it’s hard for her alone at the dacha…”
“Gentler?!” Arina jumped up from the chair. “Stas, she barged in here at eight a.m.! On my day off! And started bossing me around—get ready, we’re going to hill potatoes! When I politely refused, she started yelling and threatening!”
“Well, mom’s like that… impulsive,” Stas clearly tried to smooth over the conflict. “But she’s not malicious. She just wants everything to be good for us. Maybe you could’ve just… I don’t know, said you’d go next time?”
Arina looked at him and couldn’t believe her ears.
“So, I should have lied? Promised what I didn’t intend to do? And anyway—why should I justify wanting to spend my day off the way I want, not your mother’s way?”
“That’s not the point!” Stas also started to get worked up. “You just didn’t have to make a scandal! She’s my mother, Arin! Not some stranger!”
“And who am I?” Arina asked quietly. “I’m not a stranger either, Stas. I’m your wife. And I’m tired of your mother constantly meddling in our life, telling us what to do, bossing us around, manipulating us. And you… you’re always on her side.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side!” Stas exploded. “I just want both of you… to have peace! Is it really so hard just to… just apologize to her? Even for show?”
Arina felt something inside her break. Slowly, creaking, like an old door.
“Apologize? I should apologize for defending my right to personal space? For not letting her walk all over me?”
She shook her head.
“You know what, Stas? If you can’t protect me from your own mother, if her peace is more important to you than mine… then what kind of husband are you?”
They stood facing each other—two people who suddenly became strangers. The apartment, which had seemed a cozy nest that morning, now looked like a battlefield.
Outside, rain fell. Small, annoying, autumn rain. Though the calendar said midsummer.
Three days passed. Three days of icy silence when words were spoken only out of necessity: “Pass the salt,” “I’m going to work,” “Dinner’s in the fridge.” Arina and Stas lived like neighbors in a shared flat—politely avoiding each other in the narrow hallway of their relationship.
Stas looked gloomier than a thundercloud. At work, colleagues asked if he was sick—he looked so lost. Arina wasn’t better. At work she smiled mechanically at clients, at home mechanically cooked dinner. But inside, everything ached like an unhealed wound.
On Wednesday evening, the story continued. Stas stayed late at work—an emergency operation—and Arina decided to bake an apple pie. Not for him, no. For herself. Just to keep her hands and mind busy, to fill the apartment with the warm smell of cinnamon and home.
There was a knock at the door just as the pie was cooling on the table. Arina froze with a towel in her hands. Her heart told her—it was her. Again.
Through the peephole, she saw Lidiya Ivanovna with a large woven basket in her hands. Her face showed a mixture of offended innocence and determination.
“Open up, Arina!” the voice was sickly sweet but Arina heard steel in it. “I brought treats for my son. Otherwise, you’re probably starving yourself, wandering off to your exhibitions!”
“Here we go,” Arina thought. Not open? But that would be silly—hiding in her own home. She opened the door.
“Hello, Lidiya Ivanovna. Stas isn’t here, he’s at work.”
Without waiting for an invitation, her mother-in-law entered the apartment. She looked around the kitchen, lingering on the pie.
“Oh, you’re baking?” disdain seeped into her voice. “Well, my pies are simpler but made with soul. Not like these… experiments of yours.”
She set the basket on the table next to Arina’s pie—as a banner on enemy territory.
“I actually came to see Stas,” Lidiya Ivanovna continued, turning to Arina. “Want to talk. Mother-to-son talk. He’s gotten out of control since…”—a meaningful pause—“since he got married. I don’t recognize my boy anymore.”
“Maybe because he’s thirty-two years old and hasn’t been a boy for a long time?” Arina couldn’t help herself.
Her mother-in-law pursed her lips.
“For a mother, a son is always a child. You’ll understand when you have your own, if you have any. All career, career, career…”
“Lidiya Ivanovna, if you came to insult me…”
“Insult?!” her mother-in-law feigned shock. “Oh no, dear! I’m just telling the truth. Tell me—is my son happy? I look at him—he’s like a wet rag. It’s all because of you! He used to listen to his mother, respect her, and now? The wife says something, and the mother is out of the picture!”
She theatrically sighed, clutching her hand to her heart.
“I only want good for you. I want you to live well, so the kids grow up on their own vegetables, not on store-bought chemicals. And you… you think I’m the enemy.”
“I don’t think you’re the enemy,” Arina said wearily. “But I won’t let you dictate how I live. Stas and I have our own family.”
“Our own family?” Lidiya Ivanovna’s eyes gleamed with a hostile light. “What kind of family is it if the wife turns the husband against his mother? Stas complained to me, said you don’t understand him, that because of you, his nerves are shot!”
Arina turned cold.
“What? Stas complained about me?”
“Of course!” her mother-in-law confirmed with satisfaction. “The poor boy worries. Afraid you’ll completely alienate him from his mother. And a mother—that’s sacred, forever. And wives…” she shrugged expressively. “Here today, gone tomorrow.”
At that moment the key turned in the lock. Stas. Tired, worn out, completely unprepared for what awaited him at home.
“Mom? Arina? What’s going on?”
Lidiya Ivanovna instantly transformed. Her face became mournful, tears sparkled in her eyes.
“Stasik! Son! Finally! I brought you your favorite pies, with cabbage, like you love. And Arinochka…” she sobbed, “she attacked me again! Said I’m ruining your life, that you don’t need me…”
Stas looked at his mother, then at his wife. His eyes showed exhaustion from everything happening.
“Arina, is this true?”
Two words. Just two words—but they crossed out everything. All their love, all their trust, all hope that he would understand, support, protect.
Arina looked at her husband and saw a stranger. Someone who didn’t even try to understand, who had already chosen sides in advance.
She didn’t answer. Just looked—long, intently, with such pain in her eyes that Stas felt uneasy.
Then she turned and went to the bedroom. Quietly closed the door behind her.
It was over. Everyone understood that.
What happened next could be called agony. The agony of a family dying slowly and painfully.
Arina stood in the bedroom, back against the door. Voices could be heard outside—the soothing of Stas and the complaining of his mother. Then footsteps, the sound of the front door opening, Lidiya Ivanovna’s farewell lament about the “ungrateful daughter-in-law” and the “poor son.”
Silence.
Stas’s footsteps in the hallway. He stopped at the bedroom door.
“Arina… may I come in?”
She didn’t answer. Just moved away from the door and sat on the bed, hugging herself.
Stas entered. He looked lost, like a child who doesn’t understand why his parents are fighting.
“Arin… let’s talk. Please.”
“What is there to talk about, Stas?” Her voice was quiet, scorched. “That you didn’t even try to listen to me? Immediately asked if what your mother said was true? As if my word means nothing.”
“That’s not what I meant…”
“What did you mean?” Arina looked up at him. “Here sits your wife, who’s tolerated your mother’s antics for three years. Smiled when she wanted to cry. Listened to reproaches, lectures, insults. And now she can’t take it. Just once. And what do you do? You ask if it’s true. Not ‘what happened?’, not ‘are you okay?’, but ‘is it true?’ Like I’m some criminal.”
Stas sat down beside her, tried to take her hand, but Arina pulled away.
“Sorry. I… I’m just tired of all this. Of your conflicts, of constantly having to choose…”
“And I’m not tired?” bitterness crept into Arina’s voice. “You think I’m made of steel? Do you know what your mother told me today? That you complained about me to her. That I don’t understand you, that because of me your nerves are shot. Is that true?”
Stas faltered.
“Well… I didn’t complain. Just sometimes told her how things were. She’s a mother, she worries…”
“Worries,” Arina echoed. “And you told her about our problems. About what’s going on between us. To your mother who can’t stand me anyway.”
She stood, walked to the window. Outside, the lights of the night city burned—strange lives, strange destinies.
“You know what, Stas? I thought we were a team. That no matter what happens—we’re together, we stand for each other. But it turns out… turns out you still can’t separate from your mother. Can’t tell her—enough, this is my family, these are my boundaries.”
“That’s not fair!” Stas also stood. “I love you! But I can’t just renounce my mother! She raised me, she…”
“I’m not asking you to renounce her!” Arina sharply turned to him. “I’m asking you to protect me! Protect our family from her intrusions! But you can’t. Or won’t. And you know what? I can’t live like this anymore. Can’t fight alone. Can’t be in a family where I’m always to blame.”
Stas paled.
“Arina… what are you saying? You don’t mean…”
“I do,” she cut him off. “I’ve thought a lot these days. And I realized—nothing will change. Your mother will always see me as an outsider. And you will always be torn between us. And in the end, it will destroy both you and me.”
“Don’t say that! We’ll manage! I’ll talk to my mother, explain…”
“What will you explain?” Arina smiled sadly. “That she needs to respect your wife? She won’t understand. For her, I will always be the one who took her son away. And you… you’re not ready to admit that.”
They looked at each other across the chasm that had quietly grown between them. When did it appear? Maybe at the very beginning, when Stas first said, “Well, mom is like that, bear with it.” Maybe when Arina first kept silent though she wanted to scream.
Or maybe the crack was always there. They just didn’t want to notice it.
“I… I need to think,” Arina finally said. “Be alone. I’ll go to a friend’s for a few days.”
“Arina, don’t! Let’s talk this out!”
But she was already pulling a bag out of the closet, mechanically packing things. Her hands didn’t tremble—a strange calm settled on her, like after a decision is made.
Stas stood and watched her pack. He wanted to say something, stop her, but the words stuck in his throat. Maybe because deep down he knew—she was right. He really hadn’t protected their family. Hadn’t become the wall behind which his wife would feel safe.
“I’ll call,” Arina said at the door. “When I’m ready to talk.”
“Arina…”
But she was gone. The door closed quietly, without a scandal. That silence was scarier than any shouting.
Stas was left alone in the empty apartment. On the kitchen table still stood Arina’s untouched apple pie next to the basket of motherly pies. Two worlds that never learned to live together.
Outside, the rain began. Big, summer rain, washing dust from the streets and illusions from the soul.
The family died. Quietly, without scandals or broken dishes. Just two people who once loved each other found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades.
And each stayed with their own truth.
Epilogue
A month passed.
Arina rented a small apartment on the other side of the city. A one-room in an old building, with windows facing the courtyard. But it was hers, without ghosts from the past.
In the mornings she drank coffee by the window, watching the courtyard wake up. Old ladies walking dogs, mothers hurrying with kids to kindergarten, janitor Petrovich sweeping paths, whistling something cheerful.
Ordinary life of ordinary people. And now she was part of it.
At work, they noticed—Arina had changed. Calmer, more confident. She stopped apologizing for everything, learned to say “no.” Friends said—it’s like you were born again.
Maybe it was true.
Stas called. At first every day, then less often. They met once in a café to discuss formalities. He had lost weight, looked haggard. Said his mother now came every day—cooking, cleaning, lamenting about the “broken family.”
“She’s happy,” he said sadly, smiling. “At last I’m her boy again. Only this boy is thirty-two and feels like an old man.”
Arina was silent. What could she say? Everyone makes their own choice.
“Maybe it’s not too late to fix everything?” he asked at the end of the meeting. “I understood a lot. About myself, about us. Maybe we can try again?”
Arina shook her head.
“Sorry, Stas. But I don’t want to go back to where I was unhappy. And you… you won’t change. As long as your mother lives, you’ll always be her son first. And I’m not ready to be second in my own family.”
They parted at the café doors. Stas went right, to the metro. Arina—left, to her new life.
There was no rain. The August sun was shining, and the city seemed washed and fresh.
Just like her life.
Arina smiled and walked faster. At home awaited her unfinished Ulitskaya book, a ticket for tomorrow’s exhibition, and a whole evening that belonged only to her.
And that was wonderful.