— Yana, will you drive Mom to Aunt Vera’s? She’s been getting ready since morning, leave around ten.
The words fell into the kitchen’s silence like pebbles into a still pond. Yana didn’t turn around. She kept looking out the window at the courtyard flooded with morning sun, where a sleepy janitor was lazily chasing a few dry leaves with his broom. This was her Saturday. Not just a day off, but a whole, complete, hard-won Saturday—the only one in the past month of a mad race at work.
The air in the apartment was special—thick, unmoving, smelling of freshly brewed coffee and calm. Her plans for today would have seemed like the height of idleness to anyone else, but to her they were a vital luxury: a long bubble bath, the new book she hadn’t even had time to open, and possibly just a few hours of staring at the ceiling to her favorite music.
Timur, her husband, already dressed, rustled past to the fridge. His voice was brisk, businesslike, not leaving room for objections. He wasn’t asking; he was informing. He was presenting a fait accompli, as if announcing that dinner would be cutlets tonight. He took out a bottle of water, slammed the door, and only then noticed that his wife hadn’t answered. She hadn’t even moved.
“Did you hear me?” he repeated, now with a hint of impatience.
Yana slowly turned her head. Her face was utterly calm, almost serene. She took a small sip of coffee from her favorite cup, savoring its bitterness. She needed that pause to be absolutely sure she hadn’t misheard. That this man she lived with had really decided to annex her one single day without asking.
“No,” she said. The word was short, quiet, but as hard as a steel ball bearing.
Timur froze halfway to the door. He blinked in surprise, as if a speck of dust had got into his eye. Genuine bewilderment crossed his face, like a man who’s flipped a switch and the light hasn’t come on.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” he even chuckled, still hoping it was some odd morning joke. “What does ‘no’ mean? Mom’s waiting.”
“It means I’m not going anywhere,” Yana explained just as evenly, setting her cup on the table. “It’s my day off.”
It seemed to be sinking in. The smile slid from his face, giving way to mounting irritation. He came up to the table, braced his knuckles against it, and spoke with emphasis, as if explaining obvious things to an unreasonable child.
“Yana, I don’t get it. What difference does it make if it’s your day off? It’s not hard for you—you’re at home anyway. We need to help. Mom can’t ride those stinky buses, she gets carsick, you know that.”
There it was. “You’re at home anyway.” The phrase, spoken with light disdain, devalued all her long-awaited rest, turning it into meaningless vegetating within four walls. Her plans, her peace, her right to personal time—all of it weighed nothing compared to Zinaida Pavlovna’s discomfort on public transport.
“Three hundred kilometers there, three hundred back,” Yana calculated coolly out loud. “That’s six solid hours of driving, not counting traffic getting out of the city. Plus at least an hour there while your mother has tea and says goodbye to her friend. That’s my entire day. All of it. From morning till late evening. In exchange I get nothing but a sore back and a buzzing head. No, Timur. The answer is no.”
He straightened up, and the bewilderment in his eyes finally gave way to outrage. He looked at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head. He couldn’t understand. Either couldn’t, or wouldn’t. In his frame of reference, his mother’s request was an axiom requiring no proof, and his wife a convenient tool for carrying it out. And now that tool had suddenly refused to work.
“Are you serious right now?” Timur’s voice lost the last trace of morning cheer, turning hard and flat. “I ask you to help my mother and you lay out some kind of mileage report? What kind of attitude is that?”
He was no longer leaning on the table. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, feet planted, like a man preparing for a fight. His gaze bored into Yana, trying to burn a hole in her calm, to find a weak spot. But Yana didn’t look away. She looked right back—not with defiance, but with a cold, almost scientific curiosity. As if observing a predictable chemical reaction.
“It isn’t an attitude, Timur. It’s facts,” she answered, and the levelness of her voice seemed to infuriate him even more. “The facts are that, because of your mother’s whim—she doesn’t like buses—I’m supposed to sacrifice my only day off. I’m not prepared to make those sacrifices.”
“A whim?” he practically spat the word. “You call it a whim that an elderly person is uncomfortable rattling around for seven hours in a stuffy tin can? Do you have even a drop of respect for her at all?”
There it was. The heavy artillery. Accusing her of disrespecting his mother was Timur’s favorite move in any argument. It was the trump card that, in his view, should instantly shame Yana and force her to back down. But this time something went wrong. The mechanism didn’t engage.
“Respect means not turning me into a free taxi driver,” Yana snapped, and for the first time metal cut through her voice. “Respect means valuing my time and my plans as much as you value Zinaida Pavlovna’s comfort. She’s an adult, competent person. She wants to visit a friend? Wonderful. There are plenty of ways to do that without turning other people’s lives into a logistics nightmare.”
Color slowly rose in Timur’s face. He paced the small kitchen back and forth like a tiger in a cage, stopping now and then to fling another accusation at her.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. A logistics nightmare? Helping my mother is what we’re calling it now? Any normal wife would just get in the car and drive! No talk, no conditions!”
That was the last straw. The phrase “a normal wife,” tossed like a label, like a reproach for her defectiveness, blew up the icy dam Yana had been carefully maintaining. She stood up sharply, and her calm vanished, giving way to searing, furious contempt.
“But it’s not me who needs to go to the ends of the earth—it’s your mother! Why should I drive her to her pal’s? There are buses, trains! So let her go take one!”
The words hung in the air. They were crude, angry, final. Exactly the kind of thing Timur had least expected to hear. He froze mid-step, his mouth fell open. He looked at his wife as if seeing her for the first time. All his mock righteousness, all his rehearsed reproaches turned to dust in the face of this straight, bullet-clean bluntness. He’d expected a quarrel, coaxing, maybe even tears. But he got this—“let her go take one.” Unvarnished, pure irritation that no longer wanted to hide behind polite phrasing.
“What…” he rasped when speech returned. “What did you say? Say it again.”
“You heard me perfectly,” Yana replied coolly, walking over to the coffee maker and, quite deliberately, beginning to wash its parts. Her hands moved sharp and precise. Every motion was full of contained energy. “I won’t spend my day catering to someone else’s whims. Discussion over.”
For a few seconds Timur simply stood there, breathing hard. Then he turned without a word, left the kitchen, and a moment later Yana heard him in the other room, talking into the phone with fierce, muffled intensity. She had no doubt who it was. The heavy artillery was on its way.
Yana didn’t react to her husband’s call. She just finished washing the coffee maker’s parts, carefully, with methodical anger wiping every mesh, every curve of plastic. She set them on the rack as if putting pieces back in place on a lost chessboard. She knew what would happen now. The call wasn’t just a bulletin about her revolt. It was a summons for reinforcements, the activation of the main weapon Timur always kept in reserve. The doorbell rang about forty minutes later. Not the short, peremptory ring a courier might give, but two long, melodic presses, full of dignity.
Timur, who had been sitting gloomily in the room the whole time, darted to the door as if he’d been waiting for nothing else. Yana stayed in the kitchen, leaning her hip against the counter. She heard muffled voices in the hall, the rustle of someone taking off their coat, then footsteps. They came into the kitchen together. Timur walked a little behind, like a squire carrying his liege’s banner. In front, with a perfectly straight back, in an elegant travel suit, stood Zinaida Pavlovna. At her feet sat a small but obviously tightly packed travel bag.
Her face didn’t show anger. Oh no, that would have been too simple, too crude. It displayed universal sorrow, quiet martyrdom, and boundless, bitter disappointment. She swept her gaze over Yana with a look that said: “I understand everything, my child, I do not condemn your cruelty, I merely suffer from it.” It was a performance of the highest order, honed over years of practice.
“Hello, Yanotchka,” her voice was soft and sad, as if she were speaking at the bedside of a severely ill person. “Timur said you weren’t feeling well? I got so worried. Maybe we shouldn’t make this trip if you’re unwell.”
It was a brilliant move. She didn’t accuse. She cast Yana not as an egoist, but as a malingerer hiding behind a made-up illness. She gave her a chance to “confess” and capitulate in shame, preserving at least the appearance of propriety. Timur instantly picked up the act.
“No, Mom, she isn’t sick,” he said with sorrow in his voice, looking at Yana with reproach. “She just… has other plans. More important than driving my mother on necessary business.”
Zinaida Pavlovna gave a theatrical gasp and pressed her hand to her chest. Her eyes, expertly moistened, fixed on her daughter-in-law.
“Other plans? What plans can there be on a Saturday? Yanotchka, I didn’t want to bother anyone. I thought we’d do a good deed, take a drive, get some fresh air. I even baked your favorite little pies for the road…” She nodded at the bag, from which there did indeed waft a faint smell of fresh pastry.
Pies. The killing shot. Not just food, but a symbol of care, hominess, unbreakable family values that Yana was now trampling with muddy boots. She stood under the crossfire of their silent accusations and mournful looks. The kitchen felt cramped. Not physically—morally. The air thickened with their righteous indignation and her cold stubbornness.
“I’m not unwell, Zinaida Pavlovna,” Yana said calmly and distinctly, looking straight at her mother-in-law and completely ignoring Timur. “And I’m not sick. I have a day off that I planned to spend at home. Alone. With a book. Those are my plans.”
Zinaida Pavlovna slowly lowered herself onto a kitchen chair, which her attentive son immediately pulled out for her. She let out a quiet, suffering sigh.
“With a book…” she whispered, as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “So the book… is more important. I understand everything. No words are needed, Timur. None. I’m obviously just a burden to everyone. I’ll go to the station—maybe I can still catch some bus…”
She even made a feeble motion to stand, but Timur stopped her at once, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Mom, sit! You’re not going to any station!” He turned to Yana, and rage contorted his face. “Do you see what you’re doing to her? Do you like this little show? Is this what you wanted?”
Yana was silent. She looked at this duet, at this perfectly played scene, and felt nothing but icy emptiness and a growing certainty of her own rightness. They didn’t want to understand her. They wanted to break her. To make her feel guilty, ungrateful, defective. They had come into her home, into her morning, into her one day off to ram through their decision, not shying away from any manipulation. And she realized she couldn’t retreat. Because if she gave in now, she would never have another Saturday.
“No,” Yana said so quietly that in the ensuing silence the word sounded deafening. “The performance is over.”
She pushed off from the counter and took a step forward, into the center of the kitchen. She was no longer the target, cornered. Something new had appeared in her posture, in her gaze—the imperturbability of a surgeon who has assessed the situation and is ready to begin the operation. Without emotion, without hesitation.
“You’re both looking at me right now and you don’t understand what’s happening,” she went on in an even, almost colorless voice. “You think I’m just a stubborn, selfish witch who won’t help ‘poor Mom.’ But you’re missing the main thing. You don’t see me at all.”
Her eyes moved over first the bewildered face of Zinaida Pavlovna, then the anger-contorted face of her husband.
“To you I’m not a person. I’m a function. A convenient add-on to your family life. There’s a car? Great, that means there’s a driver. There’s a day off? Perfect, that means this time can be used for family needs. Your family, Timur. Your mother wants to see her friend—and just like that, my Saturday, my rest, my nerves, and my gas become bargaining chips for solving her issue. And those pies,” she gave a brief nod toward the bag, “they’re not care. They’re payment. A cheap attempt to buy my time and my consent.”
Zinaida Pavlovna opened her mouth to say something—perhaps to sigh once more over her bitter lot—but Yana raised a hand, not raising her voice, yet with a single gesture making her fall silent.
“I’m not finished. Today is not an accident. It’s a system. A system in which I always must. Must be understanding, make allowances, sacrifice, be flexible, be convenient. A system in which my wishes and plans are by default less important than any whim of yours. And I don’t want to live in this system anymore.”
She paused for a moment, letting the words soak into the kitchen’s thick air. Timur stared at her, and the anger on his face slowly gave way to stunned bewilderment. He had expected a scene, shouting, accusations. He wasn’t ready for this icy, merciless analysis.
“You want your mother to be driven?” Yana looked him straight in the eyes. “Fine. No problem. You think it’s the family’s duty and that the car should serve that purpose. I accept your point of view.”
She turned and, without another word, left the kitchen. Timur and his mother exchanged a look of total confusion. Her compliance was more frightening than any shout. A few seconds later Yana returned. In her hand were the car keys. She walked to the table, where her half-finished cup of cooling coffee still stood, and laid the keys down on the light surface with a dry tap.
“Here,” she said, just as calmly. “Take them. Drive your mother. To Aunt Vera’s, to the dacha, to the ends of the earth if you like.”
Timur looked at the keys in disbelief, then at his wife. He didn’t understand where the trap was.
“Now listen to me very carefully, Timur,” Yana continued, her voice turning hard as granite. “This is your choice. If you take these keys now to fulfill your filial duty, I won’t say a word against it. But from this very moment this car stops being ours. It becomes yours. Yours and your mother’s. It will be your personal transport for errands, visits, and shopping.
I won’t touch it again. I’ll take taxis, the metro, walk. I’ll cross it out of my life. And every time you have to drop everything at work, cancel your plans, or spend your day off to drive your mother on her business, you’ll look at that steering wheel and remember this day. You’ll be her personal driver.
Always. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To be a good, dutiful son? Here’s a perfect opportunity. Choose.”
She fell silent. Absolute, dead silence settled over the kitchen. Zinaida Pavlovna stared at the keys as if they were a snake ready to strike. Her performance was ruined. The role of the victim had become absurd and foolish. Timur stood white as a sheet, looking from the keys to his wife. He understood everything.
He understood that this wasn’t a threat of divorce. It was something far worse. It was a sentence he himself would have to carry out to the end. He’d been driven into a trap built from his own demands and manipulations.
Yana took one last look at their petrified faces, turned, went into her room, and shut the door firmly behind her. She picked up the new, still-wrapped book from the nightstand and sat down in the chair by the window. The scene was over. For good.
And out in the kitchen, in the middle of her stolen morning, on the table lay the keys waiting for their master—because her husband had no intention of spending his own time to drive his dearest mommy around on her errands…