Natalya stood at the stove, slowly stirring the oatmeal. The kitchen was dead quiet, broken only by the soft crackle of the gas. A cold dawn pressed through the window—gray-blue, like the fogged eyes of a tired person.
“Natash, you didn’t forget that Mom needs her blood pressure taken before breakfast, did you?” Viktor’s voice drifted from the bedroom.
“I didn’t forget,” she answered automatically—and only then caught herself realizing she hadn’t thought about it at all.
Turning her head, she looked at her reflection in the window. Dull eyes, wrinkles, hair greasy at the roots. Once, she wouldn’t step out of the house without lipstick. Now—just make sure the herbs are brewed by 8 a.m.
Raisa Dmitrievna—her mother-in-law—appeared in the doorway, leaning on her cane. Her movements were deliberately heavy, with a touch of drama.
“We ought to wash all the curtains in the living room today. And the hallway rugs, too,” she pronounced without even saying hello. “You can feel the dust—my throat’s scratchy.”
Natalya turned around.
“But it’s Wednesday—the window-washing day. I was planning—”
“What were you planning?” Raisa Dmitrievna cut her off. “You plan, and I have asthma. Or is an old person’s health no longer important to you?”
She knew: any resistance would turn into blackmail. Illness, age, fatigue—Raisa Dmitrievna always knew how to turn weakness into a weapon.
Viktor came into the kitchen, scratching his belly under his T-shirt.
“Ma’s right. It is dusty. Maybe toss the curtains in the machine, and I’ll wash the windows this weekend. If I don’t forget, of course.”
“Of course,” Natalya whispered, feeling the familiar heaviness rise in her chest again. No one even asked if she wanted to do it. She simply had to.
By 9 a.m. the kitchen was already spotless. Raisa Dmitrievna sat in an armchair with her knitting, commenting on everything:
“Natalya, what is that you’re wearing? Some gray cardigan. It washes your face out completely. Lilac suits you—I told you that.”
Natalya looked at her hands, red from cleaning agents, and felt anger slowly pool inside her. But she swallowed it. As always.
Later she sat down at her laptop—reports to check. She was still working remotely as an accountant, but the family treated it like a hobby, not a real job.
“You’re home anyway,” Viktor would toss off. “What’s there to strain yourself over?”
By evening, Raisa Dmitrievna reminded her again:
“Remember I said you should go to the market for potatoes? They have specials on Mondays. You should go before they’re all gone. Don’t forget two sacks—one for winter, one for mashed.”
Natalya gently closed the laptop.
“Tomorrow I’m working all day. Report in the morning, then a call with the tax office.”
“I’m not saying you have to lug the sacks! Order a taxi. Nowadays laziness is the excuse for everything. Back then women carried two buckets from the garden on their own and didn’t complain.”
And again—silence. Natalya didn’t argue. Why? They would make her the guilty one anyway.
Before bed she stood before the bathroom mirror. A slack face, hair as if it had lost its color. Who was this woman?
Beside the toothbrushes stood a bottle of Raisa Dmitrievna’s drops, a box of Viktor’s pills, and somewhere behind them—her face cream, expired three months ago.
She turned off the light.
The next morning Natalya woke before dawn. She dressed quietly. Put on her jacket. She didn’t make breakfast. Didn’t take the blood pressure. Didn’t explain.
She simply walked out, closing the door behind her.
The bus moved slowly, carrying Natalya away from the high-rises, the complaints, the pills, and the constant “you must.” Outside, still-sleeping villages flickered by, the odd gas station, endless fields. With every kilometer, she felt something inside her loosen. Not quite calm—the anxiety still swelled—but she could breathe.
She went to Tatyana—the same friend, a former neighbor. Tatyana had moved to a tiny wooden house by the forest, no internet, but with a stove, a samovar, and a porch where you could just sit and look at the sky.
“You can’t imagine how you looked that day at the pharmacy,” Tatyana said, pouring tea. “As if you’d been wrung out to the last drop. I kept thinking—should I call or not butt in… And here you are.”
Natalya stared silently at the steaming cup. And suddenly she said:
“I left. I just got up and left.”
Tatyana didn’t look surprised. She only nodded.
“You’re not the first. And, sadly, not the last.”
The next day Natalya turned off her phone. The first time—out of fear. The second—because she wanted to. For the first time in ten years there was no “Natash, where are the pills?”, no “Natalya, did you salt the soup?”, no “Where did you put my socks again?”
She washed dishes, whisked the broom, lit the stove. In the morning she brewed coffee and made herself sandwiches, not oatmeal with the proper sugar allowance for a diabetic. She took a dress from the wardrobe that no one commented on with “at your age.”
On the fourth day she turned on the phone. Thirty-six missed calls from Viktor. Nine from his sister. Even two voice messages from Raisa Dmitrievna:
“Natalya, what are you… We’re worried…”
“This won’t do. You’re an adult. Come home, enough with the hysterics.”
Natalya listened to all the messages, then put the phone on the windowsill and went outside. A fine rain was falling, the air was damp, but there was some kind of truth in it.
“If I go back now—it’ll all start again,” she thought. “And if I stay—what then?”
On the seventh day she sent Viktor a short message: “I’m fine. Resting. When I’m back—we’ll talk.”
The reply came instantly: “This is too much, Natalya. Mom’s worried. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
A couple of hours later another:
“At least say when you’ll be back. This isn’t humane.”
She didn’t answer.
On the ninth day Natalya woke again at six—out of habit. But for the first time in many years… she stayed in bed. She looked at the ceiling, then out the window where dawn was breaking. And suddenly, for no reason, she cried. Quietly. Soundlessly. Simply because she could.
Two weeks later she returned. With a taxi, a bag, and a new, clear tone to her voice. Raisa Dmitrievna opened the door, wordless. Viktor stood behind her, scowling.
“So, you’re back…” he muttered. “Thought you weren’t coming back.”
Natalya set her bag on the floor and said calmly:
“We need to talk. All of us.”
Raisa threw up her hands.
“What’s there to talk about? You abandoned us, disappeared! I nearly called an ambulance! Do you have any idea what it was like for me?!”
“Do you have any idea what it was like for me for ten years straight?” For the first time, Natalya looked them in the eye. “No days off. No respect. No voice.”
Viktor turned away, picked up the remote, turned on the TV. Natalya stepped over and pressed “off.”
“That won’t work, Vitya. This time—you won’t just keep quiet and wait it out.”
He sighed. Raisa Dmitrievna pressed her lips together and said nothing.
“I’m not going to live the way I did. If you want to know what comes next—listen to what I have to say.”
That evening, Natalya insisted: everyone—at the table. No TV, no phones. Just the three of them—her, Viktor, and Raisa Dmitrievna.
She served a chicken and broccoli casserole for dinner. No broth, no bread, no “homemade borscht.” Raisa Dmitrievna grimaced at first glance.
“And you call this dinner?” she hissed. “Chicken without potatoes? Where’s the soup? Where’s the first course? This isn’t Russian.”
“Tonight dinner is what I decided to cook. Tomorrow you can choose the menu yourself,” Natalya replied evenly, pouring herself tea.
Raisa fell silent, lips pinched into a thin line. Viktor said nothing, eating slowly as if waiting for everything to blow over on its own.
“So,” Natalya began. “I left because I was at the breaking point. I could have simply collapsed, and you wouldn’t even have noticed. All these years I’ve been here like background. Like a lamppost you can lean on, but no one ever says ‘thank you’ to.”
Raisa snorted.
“Well, sorry no one applauded your oatmeal…”
“Raisa Dmitrievna,” Natalya’s voice turned cold. “I am not your orderly. Not your maid. I am a person. With my own wishes. My own boundaries.”
“Oh, so that’s how you talk now…” the mother-in-law hissed. “So we’re a burden to you, are we?”
“Yes. The way it was—yes. I can’t take it anymore. So either we set new rules—or I leave. For good.”
Viktor looked up. His face went deathly pale.
“Natalya, are you serious right now? Leave where? To Tatyana’s? To a dacha?”
“Anywhere. As long as I don’t lose myself.”
Raisa Dmitrievna straightened, her voice full of reproach and poisonous pity.
“You’ve gone mad. What nonsense have you filled your head with? We’re family!”
“Family isn’t when one person works for three and the others only criticize. Family is support. Not perpetual drill.”
“You lived like cheese in butter!” the mother-in-law burst out. “A roof, food, a husband by your side!”
“A husband who keeps quiet when I’m humiliated at dinner. And a mother-in-law who thinks I’m obliged to carry everything on my back. No, thank you.”
And then Raisa went all in.
A few days later she organized a “family dinner,” inviting a second cousin, Viktor’s brother and his wife, even a third cousin once removed. Natalya sensed the trap, but came. She stood in the doorway, took in the table laden with dishes, the prepared speech on her mother-in-law’s lips, and her husband’s indifferent face.
Raisa Dmitrievna stood up, holding a salad bowl like a microphone.
“We’re all here to talk. Because something strange has begun in our family. Our Natalya… suddenly decided she has some ‘rights.’”
There was snickering around the table. Someone said:
“Yeah, Natalya, what’s this—did you become a feminist?”
Natalya rose. She walked up to the table. Calmly, without raising her voice.
“And are you all ready to take responsibility for what you’re about to say? Because I won’t stay silent anymore.”
Silence.
“For ten years I was convenient for you. No one asked how I was. The main thing was borscht on time, clean curtains. But you know what’s the scariest? Living beside people who don’t notice you’re dying slowly. Inside.”
Viktor’s sister coughed.
“Oh, don’t dramatize…”
Natalya looked at her coolly.
“If I had died physically—you’d only wonder who would take shifts with her now. And when I chose to live—you stage a showdown.”
Raisa flushed; her lips trembled.
“You’re ungrateful. You… you’re selfish!”
“If taking care of myself is selfishness, then I am proudly selfish.”
And she walked out. Out of the room. Out of the argument. Out of the role.
The night after the family dinner was strangely quiet. Neither Viktor nor Raisa spoke to Natalya. Through the wall came whispers, rustling, muffled comments, but no one dared to approach.
In the morning, as usual, Natalya got up at six. She made herself strong coffee. Not tea, not broth for her mother-in-law—for herself. She sat by the window, turned on her laptop, and opened an online course site. Only two classes remained in the art-photography course. She had already signed up for a competition at the city gallery.
An hour later Viktor came into the kitchen.
“Hi,” he muttered, stealing a quick glance at her.
“Hi,” Natalya replied without taking her eyes off the screen.
He fidgeted, shuffled in place, then finally forced out:
“Listen… I’ve been thinking. Maybe you’re right. I was… to put it mildly, not very attentive.”
Natalya looked up.
“You weren’t inattentive, Vitya. You were comfortable. Because that was easier for you.”
He lowered his head.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“Then learn to live differently. Or I’ll leave anyway. Without scandal, without tragedy. I’ll just go.”
The next day, on her own, Raisa Dmitrievna asked a caregiver from the next house to help her with her medications. Without a word, Natalya left her a list of phone numbers and visiting hours. No reproaches, no triumph. Just a clear boundary.
Two weeks later, Raisa Dmitrievna came into Natalya’s room. She stood silently for a moment, then said:
“You’ve changed.”
“Yes,” Natalya nodded. “Because otherwise I wouldn’t have survived.”
Raisa sighed, glanced out the window, and said unexpectedly:
“Aunt Vera has a spare room. I’ll move. It’s quiet there. And I won’t be a burden to anyone.”
Natalya didn’t answer. She only felt something inside finally let go. Not out of gloating—out of relief.
A week later, Raisa really did move out. No tears. No grand scenes. Just a brief “take care of yourself” in the hallway.
After that the house began to breathe in a new way. The heavy pauses, the accusations, the hunched shoulders disappeared. In their place—a light breakfast for two, a Saturday trip out of town, tea on the veranda. Natalya slipped her photos into frames and hung them on the walls. In place of old tapestries—living images: rain on glass, an apple tree in bloom, a woman in a coat walking into the dawn.
At first Viktor got mixed up, forgot to take out the trash, confused the floor rag with the dust cloth. But he didn’t give up. He even suggested they clean out the storage room together, where dust hadn’t been touched in ten years.
“We did it,” he said one evening.
“For now—yes,” Natalya replied. “The main thing is not to forget how much it hurt when we didn’t.”
Lilacs were blooming in the garden. Natalya clicked the shutter. In the photo, it was her—a woman no longer a shadow, no longer background, but alive, with a quiet strength in her eyes