“Mom is moving in tomorrow,” Kirill said, eagerly putting a piece of roasted chicken into his mouth. He said it as casually as if reporting tomorrow’s weather forecast. There was not a hint of doubt or question in his voice, only the statement of a fact wrapped in the smug complacency of someone who had made the only correct decision for everyone.
Arina slowly put her fork down on the plate. She didn’t bang it or throw it, but carefully placed it with some unnatural, deliberate precision. The sound of metal touching porcelain seemed deafening at that moment. She leisurely chewed the last bit of her salad, swallowed, and took a small sip of water from her glass. All the while, she didn’t take her eyes off her husband. Her gaze was calm, attentive, almost studying, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Kirill, absorbed in his dinner and his own importance, did not notice this change in her. He was waiting for a reaction—but one of enthusiasm, full of gratitude for his care.
“He’s going to rent out his two-room apartment,” he continued, wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin. He was clearly savoring the moment. “Imagine the extra pension income! And help for us, too. She cooks like a goddess and will help with cleaning—things will be easier for you. I’ve already arranged with the realtor, there are good clients, a decent young family.”
He was beaming. Shining like a polished samovar. He looked like a magician who had just pulled not a rabbit but a whole elephant out of a hat and now expected wild, endless applause. He decided, organized everything, and made everyone happy: his mother and his wife. The perfect son, the perfect husband. But Arina was in no hurry to applaud.
She tilted her head slightly, and a smile appeared on her lips. But Kirill suddenly felt uneasy, as if a draft ran down his spine. There was no joy or warmth in that smile—only a cold, razor-sharp interest of a surgeon examining an operating field.
“Great idea, dear,” her voice was even and calm, almost gentle, contrasting with her gaze. “Simply brilliant. But you know what would be even better? If no one got hurt. If everything was fair.”
Kirill frowned in confusion. He didn’t catch the catch, still high on his own generosity. He saw only the benefits before him: a free cook, a free cleaner, and extra income for the family budget to spend on his fishing gear and new game console.
And then Arina struck.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and her voice gained the hardness of tempered steel.
“If your mother is moving in with us and renting out her apartment, how about I invite my mother here, too, for the complete ‘happiness’? Let’s see who will outlast whom!”
Kirill choked. He started coughing, his face instantly flushed red. He looked at his wife as if she had just proposed not inviting a mother-in-law, but housing a hungry alligator in their living room.
“Are you crazy?” he blurted, taking a sip of water. “What does your mother have to do with this? It’s totally different!”
“What’s different, Kirill?” Arina didn’t raise her voice, and this icy calm affected him more than any shout. “Explain to me. Your mother is lonely, and mine is lonely. Yours wants to help us, and mine is sure her help is absolutely necessary—she tells me that every day on the phone. Your mother will get a nice pension boost, and mine will save on utilities. Fair? I think very fair.”
“But… but my mother is quiet, she won’t bother anyone!” he fired off the first argument that came to mind, realizing how weak it was.
“And my mother is going to run around the apartment banging a drum?” Arina smirked. “Compared to some, mine is an angel in the flesh. She’s an intelligent person, a music teacher with forty years of experience. She’ll play Chopin for us in the evenings. Of course, there’s no room for a grand piano, but we’ll buy her a synthesizer. Isn’t that lovely? A cultured atmosphere at home.”
Kirill opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. He was trapped in a snare built from his own arguments. Any attempt to object or belittle her mother would seem like a direct insult and a blatant double standard. He couldn’t say, “My mother is better than yours because she’s mine.” He was caught like a novice in a simple chess combination.
“Well, so what, dear?” Arina took her fork and demonstratively speared a cucumber slice with appetite. “Shall we invite both? We have a third room empty anyway. We’ll put two beds there, on the sides. It’ll be fun. A real Italian family. Deal?”
He silently pushed away the plate with half-eaten chicken. His appetite vanished. He looked at his wife and understood she was neither joking nor bluffing. In her eyes burned the fiery, merciless flame of a strategist anticipating an interesting game. He still believed it was some absurd whim, that she would come to her senses. He just didn’t know that this devilish plan was not hers but her brilliant mother’s, hatched in a phone call an hour ago—and it was already in motion.
Two days later, their three-room apartment ceased to be theirs. It became a battleground, a neutral territory where two warring powers clashed. The first to arrive was Raisa Zakharovna. She didn’t enter—she rolled into the hallway like a bowling ball, followed by Kirill, burdened with two huge checkered bags and an old but well-kept wheeled suitcase.
“Well, welcome the lodger!” she proclaimed at the threshold, looking over the apartment with an owner’s assessing gaze. “Kirill, the suitcase goes straight to the room, and the bags to the kitchen, with the groceries so they don’t spoil. Arinochka, what’s this dust in the corner? Should wipe it off.”
She acted assertively, without pauses, filling all the space. Her energy was like a natural disaster—noisy, all-encompassing, and intolerant of objections. She went straight to the kitchen, opened the fridge, clicked her tongue at the half-empty shelf, and started pulling homemade preserves from her bags, decisively pushing Arina’s aristocratic olives jar to the farthest corner. She didn’t ask for permission; she established her own order, the only right one, not to be discussed.
An hour later, the second doorbell rang. Nina Pavlovna appeared quietly, almost silently. She wore an elegant coat and carried a small, neat handbag. She was the complete opposite of Raisa Zakharovna—not a tsunami, but a slowly rising water level you notice only when it’s already knee-deep.
“Good evening,” she said softly, extending her powdered cheek for a kiss to Arina. “Kirusha, hello. Looks like you already have guests.”
Her gaze swept the hallway and stopped on Raisa Zakharovna, who was just emerging from the kitchen with a damp rag in her hand.
“Raisa Zakharovna,” Kirill introduced the mothers, feeling a cold sweat run down his spine.
“Nina Pavlovna,” Arina’s mother nodded with a polite but cool smile.
First blood was spilled that very evening. After dinner, consisting of cutlets brought by Raisa Zakharovna, the whole company moved to the living room. Raisa Zakharovna, as the rightful mistress, settled into Kirill’s favorite armchair and decisively grabbed the TV remote. At exactly nine o’clock, her soap opera—a tearjerking saga about a difficult female fate—was about to start.
“All right, now ‘Fragments of Happiness’ will begin,” she announced, clicking the button.
“Excuse me,” came Nina Pavlovna’s quiet but insistent voice from the sofa.
“Could we switch to ‘Culture’? There’s a broadcast from the Vienna Opera tonight. I’d like something for the soul, not all this.”
Her phrase “all this” sounded like a verdict on cheap trash. Raisa Zakharovna slowly turned her head. Her face, flushed after dinner, looked like a thundercloud.
“I’ve been on my feet all day, moving things, I’m tired. I want to watch my show and relax.”
“Relaxing can be done with your eyes closed,” Nina Pavlovna retorted in the same polite tone. “And good music, on the contrary, soothes the nervous system. Kirusha, you don’t mind listening to Mozart, do you?”
Kirill felt like a target aimed at by two sniper rifles.
“Moms, why are you acting like children? Let’s watch the news—a compromise option.”
But compromise was already impossible. This was a battle not for the channel, but for power. Arina, sitting in another corner of the sofa, silently observed the scene with a faint, barely noticeable smile on her lips.
The next morning, the war escalated. The battle for the bathroom began at seven a.m. Raisa Zakharovna occupied it first, for a long time, with loud sounds of running water and folk songs. Nina Pavlovna waited her turn with a stone face, then locked herself in the bathroom for no less time but in complete, dead silence, which irritated even more. Kirill, late for work, was forced to brush his teeth in the kitchen.
The refrigerator became a map of the battlefield. The right side was occupied by neat rows of jars and containers belonging to Raisa Zakharovna. The left side by neat labeled boxes of Nina Pavlovna. If anyone accidentally touched the other’s territory, it was seen as an act of aggression. The climax was borscht. Both mothers decided to cook it on the same day. Two pots stood on the stove like two warring camps, emitting completely different aromas and ideologies. That evening, Kirill had to choose whose borscht to eat. And he understood any choice would mean declaring war. Hell was just beginning.
Open hostilities of the first days quickly died down, replaced by something far more exhausting—guerrilla warfare. The apartment air became dense and motionless, like a sealed crypt where every careless word could cause a collapse. Shouts and quarrels ceased, replaced by thick, suffocating silence filled with disapproving looks, demonstrative sighs, and loud, emphasized quiet. Arina and her mother moved on to the next phase of their plan: methodical destruction of Kirill’s psyche.
The kitchen remained the epicenter of hostilities. Raisa Zakharovna, a true adherent of hearty and fatty food, cooked a lot and with gusto, occupying the stove and oven for hours. Nina Pavlovna, a supporter of healthy eating, quietly suffered, waiting her turn to cook a diet broccoli soup. One day, when Nina Pavlovna’s soup was simmering on low heat, Raisa Zakharovna entered the kitchen with a salt shaker in hand.
“Oh, Ninotchka Pavlovna, what an appetizing green soup you have!” she cooed. “Did you salt it? I’m frying cutlets for Kirusha and wondering if it might be undersalted for him.”
“I salt at the very end, Raisa Zakharovna, thank you.”
“Well, I’ll just try a little now, okay?” And, without waiting for a response, she scooped some broth with a spoon, grimaced, and decisively poured salt into the pot. “There! I just wanted to check if it was salted. My hand must have slipped. Old age, Nina Pavlovna, no joy.”
She left, leaving Nina Pavlovna staring at her spoiled brew. She said nothing. She simply took the pot and silently poured its contents into the sink. Revenge was served the next day. Raisa Zakharovna was proud of her pristine, starched blouse she wore “for going out.” Nina Pavlovna, having launched a big laundry, “accidentally” washed that blouse along with Kirill’s new blue jeans.
“Raisa Zakharovna, don’t worry,” she said in the evening with angelic innocence, showing the blouse with pale blue streaks. “I washed it with colored clothes. Thought to freshen it up. White gets gray so fast in this city, but now it has acquired a noble tint.”
Raisa Zakharovna froze. Her face turned beet red, and her hands clenched into fists. But she could prove nothing. It was “help,” “care.”
But the main target of the attacks was Kirill. He became a trophy both mothers tried to pull to their side. He no longer went home from work—he went to the scaffold. Every evening, inserting his key into the lock, he froze and listened, trying to determine the disposition of enemy forces by sounds. But invariably, he was met by both, right in the hallway.
“Kirushenka, son, you’re home!” Raisa Zakharovna would swoop at him, trying to snatch his briefcase. “Tired, my golden boy? I made you mashed potatoes with cutlets, nice and hot!”
“Kirill, take your time,” Nina Pavlovna would immediately intervene, handing him slippers. “First wash your hands and change clothes. You mustn’t bring street dust into the house. And better to eat something light—I made you a vegetable salad.”
They literally tore him apart. He sat at the table, and two plates were set before him. He ate mashed potatoes while Raisa Zakharovna triumphantly looked at Nina Pavlovna. He poked at the salad with a fork, and Nina Pavlovna threw a glance at her rival full of intellectual superiority. Kirill’s left eye began to twitch. He jumped at every sudden sound, almost stopped speaking, replying with monosyllables. The home ceased to be a fortress; it became a torture chamber.
Arina took no part in all this. She was Switzerland—neutral, polite, and impenetrable. In the evenings, she sat with a book while invisible storms raged around her. Once, when Kirill, driven to frenzy by a dispute about which setting to iron his shirts on, locked himself in the bedroom, Nina Pavlovna quietly passed by her daughter’s armchair and whispered:
“A couple more days, Arisha. The client is almost ripe.” Arina barely nodded without looking up from her book. Their plan worked flawlessly. The volcano was about to erupt.
A week passed. Seven days, each longer than the previous. Kirill lost weight, grew gaunt, dark circles appeared under his eyes. His twitching left eye became chronic. He no longer tried to be a peacemaker; he turned into a ghost in his own home, trying to move as quietly and unnoticed as possible so as not to provoke the next round of the invisible war. But that evening, a clash was inevitable.
He came home from work utterly exhausted. Already in the entrance hall, he smelled a mixed scent of fried meat and boiled vegetables, and his stomach twisted with a bad premonition. He opened the door and froze. Both mothers were waiting in the hallway, standing on either side of the entrance like an honor guard at a mausoleum. Their faces were tense and solemn.
“Kirusha, come in quickly, my hands—I made your favorite chops with garlic!” Raisa Zakharovna loudly and cheerfully announced.
“Kirill, I made you steamed fish with asparagus. You shouldn’t eat so much fried food, it’s bad for your vessels,” Nina Pavlovna countered quietly but firmly.
He silently passed between them, threw his briefcase on a chair, and disappeared into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, he sat at the kitchen table. Before him, as if on cue, two plates were placed. On one, a steaming, fat, browned chop lay next to a heap of mashed potatoes. On the other—a pale piece of white fish rested on several green asparagus stalks. It wasn’t dinner. It was a choice. A choice between past and future, between habit and care, between two women who had turned his life into a personal hell.
“Well, son, eat while it’s hot,” Raisa Zakharovna pushed her plate closer to him.
“Kirill, start with the fish—it’s easier on the stomach after work,” Nina Pavlovna did the same with her plate.
They both watched him. Their gazes crossed above his head. He sat staring at the space between the two plates. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t even breathe. He felt himself slowly but surely suffocated by this care.
“He’ll eat the chop,” Raisa Zakharovna cut in. “A man needs meat, not that grass.”
“It’s not your place to decide what he needs,” Nina Pavlovna replied coldly. “Health is more important than momentary whims.”
And then the last thread holding his composure snapped. He didn’t scream. He made some strange, hoarse sound like a wounded beast’s roar. He abruptly stood up, and the chair crashed back.
“OUT!” His voice, which he barely recognized as his own, was low and terrifying.
Both women fell silent and stared at him in shock.
“What, son?” Raisa Zakharovna stammered, confused.
“OUT. BOTH. RIGHT NOW,” he enunciated each word, looking through them. His face was pale, and the twitching eye turned into a mad dance. “Take your things. Leave my house. Immediately.”
“Kirusha, what are you saying?” Nina Pavlovna tried to appeal to his reason.
“I said, GET OUT!” He slammed his fist on the table. Plates jumped and clinked. He didn’t look at them but walked to the front door and threw it wide open. A cold draft rushed into the electrified kitchen atmosphere. “You have five minutes.”
There was something in his voice and gaze that left no room for argument or dispute. It wasn’t anger; it was complete, absolute burnout, the last stage before emptiness. The mothers exchanged looks and realized it was over. They silently, offended, went to their room, grabbed bags and coats. Three minutes later, they stood in the hallway. Kirill stood by the open door, motionless like a statue. He didn’t help them or say goodbye. He just waited.
When the door closed behind them, he remained standing in the hallway for a few more minutes. Then he slowly locked the door. The long-awaited, deafening silence settled over the apartment. No footsteps, no sighs, no rustling. Only peace.
Arina, who had been sitting in the living room all this time, slowly got up. She calmly went to the kitchen, put both untouched plates into the fridge, then took out a bottle of expensive red wine and a tall glass from the cabinet. She poured herself some wine, walked to the window, and took a small sip, looking at the city lights at night. A smile of pure, unclouded triumph played on her lips. She had achieved her goal.
The phone rang. It was her mother.
“Well?” came Nina Pavlovna’s quiet, businesslike voice over the line.
“Everything’s according to plan, Mom,” Arina answered equally quietly, taking another sip. “Absolutely everything. You can come home now. You were brilliant.”
“I know, daughter. I know…”