Who is this?”
Sonya’s voice was even, almost indifferent, but Artyom flinched as if struck. He stood in the middle of their small kitchen, where only a minute ago the air had been filled with the warmth of almost-domestic bliss. Spread across the table in a fan were samples of wedding invitations—cream-colored card with gold embossing, parchment with calligraphic lettering, a minimalist design on thick gray paper. They had been choosing. They had almost decided. Forty guests. Only their closest friends, parents, and a handful of relatives they actually spoke to. Everything had been calculated down to the last ruble—from the rent for a small but cozy waterside restaurant to the cost of the groom’s boutonniere. And now he stood there holding a stupid sheet of school-notebook paper, folded into quarters.
“Well, it’s… Mom asked me to add a few people,” he mumbled, avoiding her gaze. His eyes darted around the kitchen—lingering on the fridge magnets, her favorite mug—anywhere but meeting hers.
With slow, almost theatrical precision, Sonya set the sample invitation back on the table. Her fingers, nails painted a perfect cherry red, unfolded the paper. It was filled from top to bottom with Nina Borisovna’s neat, schoolteacher’s handwriting—the kind that left no room for argument. Sonya began to read aloud, her voice growing increasingly metallic and emotionless with each name.
“Aunt Zina from Saratov. The Trofimov family. Mom’s colleagues from her old job, HR department—six people. Aunt Valya’s cousin’s niece, her husband, and their college-aged daughter. Artyom”—she finally looked up at him, her eyes glinting with cold, clinical curiosity—”have you seen any of these people in the past ten years? Do you even know what Aunt Valya’s niece looks like? Can you name the patronymic of even one of your mother’s colleagues?”
He said nothing, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. His silence was louder than any answer.
“I thought so. That’s fifty-four people. Fifty-four strangers to me and, let’s be honest, mostly to you. That’s another one and a half million added to the budget we’ve been scraping together for nearly two years. Where are we supposed to get that?”
“Sonya, come on… Mom said it’s important. They’re family, close people. They’ll be hurt if we don’t invite them. She says it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event and it should be done properly, not like paupers. She said she’d help…”
That word—”help”—was the trigger. Sonya let out a silent, bitter laugh. She stood, stepped closer, and looked straight into his eyes. The contempt in her gaze made him instinctively retreat.
“Help? Is she going to pay for a banquet for a hundred people? Cover the extra alcohol, the MC, the DJ, the photographer who’ll have to shoot the whole crowd?”
“Sonya, stop taking it that way! It’s just—”
“Is your mother paying for our wedding, since she’s decided to invite half of Russia? No! Then she can sit down and keep quiet.”
She said it softly, almost in a whisper, but the chill in her tone unsettled him far more than any shouting would have. He had expected a fight, not this ice-cold finality.
“We’re inviting none of them,” she went on, returning to the table and sweeping all the invitation samples into one neat pile. The celebration was over. “The guest list is set. Forty people. Not one more.”
“But she’ll be offended…” he murmured, realizing he had failed in his mission. “She’s my mother…”
“I don’t care,” Sonya cut in without looking at him. She dropped the invitations into a drawer. “This is our wedding, Artyom. Ours. Not her high-school reunion or a gala for distant Saratov cousins. You have a choice: either you call her right now and tell her clearly—like a man, not a guilty schoolboy—that there will be forty guests, as we agreed, or you can celebrate with her and Aunt Zina without me.”
For two days their apartment was like a vacuum, all sound drained away except for the bare minimum—the click of the kettle, running water, the creak of the floorboards. Artyom didn’t call. He chose the weakest path: waiting. He hoped Sonya would “cool off,” that time would blunt her ultimatum’s sharp edges. He even tried small talk—about the weather, about the movie they’d meant to watch—but met a polite, impenetrable wall. She answered briefly, never prolonging the conversation. Her calm was more frightening than shouting or smashed plates. He felt like a ghost in his own home; she was the ruler of this silent kingdom.
On the third evening, when the tension had stretched to the point where the air itself felt brittle, Sonya’s phone rang. She sat with her laptop on her knees; Artyom pretended to watch the news. The screen read: “Nina Borisovna.” Sonya shot Artyom a sharp, weighted look—”Well? This is what you wanted?”—before answering on speakerphone.
“Sonyechka, hello, dear,” came the syrupy voice of his mother, the tone used to pacify unruly children or coax them into taking bitter medicine. “I’m just calling to see how you are, how the preparations are going. Artyom hasn’t called; I was starting to worry.”
“Hello, Nina Borisovna. Everything’s on schedule,” Sonya replied crisply, eyes fixed on Artyom’s face. He paled, shrinking into himself.
“That’s wonderful,” his mother cooed, ignoring the frost in Sonya’s voice. “Now, about that list I gave Artyom… Don’t think I just made it up. A wedding is for the whole family, a chance to share the joy. People need to be acknowledged. Aunt Zina from Saratov has asked me three times already when my eagle is getting married—she’s known him since he was in diapers. It’s awkward, Sonyechka. We’re family.”
Every word dripped passive-aggressive sweetness, painting herself as the guardian of tradition and Sonya as the cold-hearted outsider.
“I saw the list,” Sonya said evenly. “And Artyom and I discussed it. Our budget and the venue are set for forty people. That number was agreed on by both of us.”
“Oh, don’t fuss over money, dear!” the motherly purr continued. “Happiness isn’t about that. It’s about doing things right, like a proper family celebration. We’ll help, we’ll pitch in. Don’t worry. Just say you’ve added them, and I’ll call to share the good news.”
This was a flanking maneuver, bypassing her pliable son to attack directly.
“You’ll help?” Sonya’s voice hardened. “Will you pay for the banquet, alcohol, and transport for an extra fifty-four people? I can get the invoice from the restaurant right now.”
Silence. The older woman clearly hadn’t expected that.
“Why would you say such a thing, Sonya? I’m only thinking of you—”
“And I’m thinking of the budget,” Sonya cut her off. “Forty guests. As we decided. Goodbye, Nina Borisovna. I’m busy.”
She hung up and set the phone down. Artyom didn’t move.
“She went around you as if you weren’t even there,” Sonya said quietly, each word a hammer blow. “She knew you wouldn’t stand up to her. And you just sat there. You waited to see who’d win.”
A week passed in syrupy, suffocating silence. Artyom tried clumsy peace offerings—coffee in bed, her favorite pastries, movie nights—but she accepted them with the polite detachment of a patient enduring useless treatment. Wedding plans froze completely.
The truce shattered on Saturday morning. Sonya sat scrolling her phone while Artyom busied himself at the stove. Her phone rang—from an unknown number.
“Hello, Sonya? Hi! It’s Katya, the Trofimovs’ daughter—remember me?” chirped a cheerful voice. Sonya frowned—Trofimovs… second name on the list.
“Hello, Katya. Didn’t recognize you right away,” she said carefully, glancing at Artyom. He froze, skillet in hand.
“I get it, you’re swamped! I just had to call—we’re so happy for you and Artyom! Nina Borisovna told us all about it. She said you’d send invites later, but to save the date. She’s so thoughtful! Just checking—the restaurant is ‘Prichal,’ right?”
Thoughtful. She’d even supplied them an excuse for the delay.
“Yes, Katya, that’s right. Thanks for calling. We’ll be expecting you,” Sonya said evenly, hanging up and placing the phone face-down.
“So, the Trofimovs will be at our wedding too,” she stated, not asked. “You knew?”
“I didn’t think she’d start calling… She said she’d just speak to a couple of the closest—”
“So they ‘wouldn’t be offended’?” Sonya rose slowly. No ice this time—something deeper, scorched-earth disappointment. “She invited people we agreed not to, and lied about us. She’s sabotaging us. And you… you knew she was up to something and said nothing.”
“I didn’t want another fight!” he blurted. “I thought it would… sort itself out! That she’d calm down!”
“Sort itself out?” She stepped toward him; he backed away. “You were waiting for me to give in. You didn’t just show weakness, Artyom—you became her accomplice. You let her destroy what we were building. You didn’t just betray our plans. You betrayed me.”
After that, their apartment became a mausoleum. They moved like billiard balls that had collided and rolled apart, never crossing paths again. He gave up trying. She no longer looked at him, spoke only when necessary. The wedding plans lay in ruins.
The end came Sunday afternoon. A sharp knock at the door made Artyom jump. Sonya didn’t turn from the window; she knew. Some things you can sense like an oncoming storm. Artyom shuffled to open it.
There stood Nina Borisovna, glowing like a polished samovar, carrying a heavy, gift-wrapped bundle with a gold bow. Sweeping past her son, she headed for the living room.
“Sonyechka, hello! I brought you a gift!” she declared with barely concealed triumph. “A little something to lift your spirits.”
She set it down and tore off the paper to reveal a massive white-leather photo album embossed in gold: Our Wedding. Artyom and Sofia. Artyom hovered beside her, staring as if it were an unexploded bomb.
“Let’s look inside!” She opened it herself. “I worked on this to help you—collected photos of our dearest people, so you can put them in pride of place.”
On the first page smiled an elderly woman in a headscarf.
“That’s Aunt Zina from Saratov—such a dear soul! And here are the Trofimovs, the whole family, at Valya’s anniversary. And my girls from work—the HR department! We were inseparable for twenty years!”
Page after page—her “list” made flesh, printed in glossy permanence. Not just added guests—she had cemented them into the foundation of their future.
Sonya stared at the parade of strangers, seeing only her mother-in-law’s smug glow and her fiancé’s mute, cowardly stance. He seemed to be hoping she’d simply accept it.
Her gaze moved from the album to Artyom, then to Nina Borisovna. Without a word, she picked up her phone, found Restaurant Administrator, and hit call on speaker.
“Restaurant ‘Prichal,’ this is Marina,” came the brisk voice.
“Marina, good afternoon. This is Sofia. We booked your banquet hall for the 24th, forty guests.”
“Yes, I remember. Is something wrong?”
“Yes. I’m calling to cancel. There will be no wedding.”
Nina Borisovna froze, her hand suspended over the next page. The smile vanished. Artyom’s mouth opened, but no sound came.
“Understood. I’ll cancel,” Marina said after a pause.
Sonya ended the call, set the phone beside the album, and said, calm and clear:
“There. Now you have your album and your guests. You can celebrate all you want—without me.”