“Lena, let’s not make a scene,” Igor said the moment he stepped over the threshold, tossing his jacket onto the armchair—the very one she’d asked him a hundred times to leave alone.
“I wasn’t planning to,” Lena answered coolly, not even looking at him. “What is it this time? Is someone moving in again? Or are we renting out the bedroom to strangers now?”
He sighed as if she were not his wife but a stern clerk from the housing office, and walked straight to the kitchen without looking at her. Lena stood at the sink, washing the dishes from the dinner she’d cooked for two but eaten alone.
“Mom’s coming to stay. Temporarily. Two weeks,” he said, as if he were talking about changing batteries in the remote.
Lena turned off the water, set the plate carefully in the rack, and slowly turned to him.
“Two weeks? Like last time? When her ‘quick stay’ stretched to three months? Or like the time before that, when you forgot you even had a wife?”
“She’s having renovations done, Lena. Dust, debris… workers. You get it.”
“I do. What I don’t get is why I’m the one who has to put up with it. I had a life. I had an apartment. Now I have a commandant in a bathrobe.”
He shrugged, poured himself tea, as if everything was already decided.
“She’ll stay in the room. We’ll rearrange it a little so it’s comfortable.”
A sting went through Lena’s chest. It was her room. Her desk, hauled in on an old Gazelle truck, sanded by hand and painted that soft gray-green. Her books, her favorite ceramics, her photos. Her one corner where she could breathe freely.
“That’s my room, Igor. Mine. You promised no one would touch it. You said you understood how important it was to me.”
He came closer and put his palm on the tabletop.
“Lena, you’re a grown woman. Don’t be so… spoiled. It’s just for a little while. Then everything will go back to how it was.”
She laughed softly, but the laugh was heavy, joyless.
“Only what hasn’t been broken can ‘go back.’ You break everything, Igor. Quietly, methodically. And always—behind my back.”
He stepped away.
“It’s just a room. Just furniture. Don’t make a drama out of it.”
Lena moved right up to him.
“It’s not just a room. It’s my territory. And you trespassed again.”
Two days later, Olga Sergeevna arrived—with two suitcases, a heap of rags, a pot of hot soup, and a face that already knew it wouldn’t be easy here, but was ready for battle. Igor, as always, fussed, lugging bags back and forth, while Lena watched from the kitchen as her corner turned into someone else’s storage room.
“My, what dust you have here, Lenochka,” the mother-in-law said fifteen minutes in, brushing imaginary specks from the windowsill. “I thought you kept this place sterile.”
“And I thought you hadn’t even moved in yet,” Lena replied dryly.
Word by word, and Olga Sergeevna’s things were already lying right on top of Lena’s neatly stacked books and albums.
“You could at least have warned me,” Lena said to Igor that evening when they were alone. “Said a word.”
He, glued to his phone, tossed back:
“You knew. It’s fine. We’ll get through it.”
“We means you and me. Not you and your mother. If you want to live with her, live with her. Just not in my apartment.”
He jerked up his head.
“Oh, here we go. ‘My apartment.’ So I’m nobody here?”
“No. But you act like I’m nobody.”
The next days were a real endurance test for Lena: in the morning—comments about tea (“Not boiling, just a little warm!”), in the afternoon—her things rearranged (“I only made room for you; you don’t use this anyway!”), in the evening—long chats between Igor and his mother, discussing Lena as if she were an unfinished project.
On the third day, Lena snapped.
“Olga Sergeevna,” she said, stepping into what used to be her room, now hung with rugs and crammed with heavy furniture from the last century, “do you remember that this is not your house?”
Her mother-in-law looked at Lena as if she had violated some ancient, unwritten rules of cohabitation.
“And you, Lenochka, truly think a family should live apart? Or do you just want to sit alone like a cat in an attic?”
Lena pressed her lips together to keep from saying too much.
“I want to live where I’m not touched. Where my things stay where I put them and don’t fly around the house without my knowledge. Where no one drags my books and rearranges my papers. I want to live in a home, not a waiting hall for resettlers from the past century.”
Olga Sergeevna stood up, arms crossed, as if about to deliver a lecture.
“You’re difficult, Lenochka. Your tongue is sharp as a saw. You tear a husband from his family, the family from its home. And then what? When you end up alone, what will you console yourself with?”
“Better alone than with people who think love is a constant exam in patience.”
Lena turned and walked out. Igor sat in the kitchen, immersed in his phone. She looked at him and suddenly realized—she felt nothing. No anger, no hurt, not even the usual scrap of hope.
“Tell me honestly,” she asked quietly, “if I just disappeared, would you notice?”
He said nothing. And that was enough.
On Friday evening Lena came home, tired, carrying a heavy bag. The first thing she saw—huge trash sacks by the door. The second—Olga Sergeevna settled into her former armchair, knitting something in a dreary gray.
“What’s all this?” Lena nodded at the bags.
“We’ll take it out tomorrow,” the mother-in-law said indifferently. “You work late; I decided not to bother you.”
Lena took off her shoes and listened. Quiet.
“Where’s Igor?”
“With friends. Went to the bathhouse. You don’t mind, do you?”
“I don’t. But it’s strange that this is discussed with you, not me. Or are you now the chief dispatcher of our family?”
“Lenochka,” the mother-in-law sighed, looking up from her knitting. “I only wanted to help. It was such a mess here! I cleaned the cupboards, shook out the rugs, and threw away some of your old books—they only collected dust. And those little… what do you call them… trinkets you collect.”
A twitch pulsed at Lena’s temple.
“You threw out my books?”
“Oh, don’t put it like that… Not all! Just the ones that were falling apart. And those… foreign ones. What would you even do with them?”
Lena walked into what had been her room. Now everything was alien—gaudy bedspread, ruffles on the curtains, carpets on the walls. On her desk—a jar of buttons. A symbol of total occupation.
“Where are my notebooks?”
“What notebooks?”
“The ones with my plans, drawings, photos, sketches… Five years’ worth.”
“Maybe in the sacks. I didn’t sort them. Your boxes are there, by the way. I was going to throw them out tomorrow. Have a look if you want.”
Lena stepped out onto the landing. She crouched by the bags. Opened one. Inside were crumpled pages, broken photos, and her notebooks—crushed under a box of something heavy.
She sat like that for about twenty minutes. People passed by, glanced over. A neighbor muttered, “Again something over there… poor girl,” and disappeared into the elevator.
When Lena came back in, her mother-in-law was already conjuring over the stove.
“I made you soup. Tongue soup. Igor loves it. I went all over the shops this morning for the meat…”
Lena came closer, calmly. Too calmly.
“Olga Sergeevna. You won’t be here tomorrow. Or the day after. Or ever again.”
“What?”
“Pack your things tonight. I’ll order a taxi. Or a moving van if you like.”
“Are you out of your mind! I’m your husband’s mother!”
“And I am the owner of this apartment. The papers are with me. Igor is registered here temporarily. So—goodbye.”
Olga Sergeevna threw up her hands.
“You’re crazy! I’ll tell him everything!”
“Excellent. Let him come. With his things. And take you away. For good.”
“You’re destroying a family, Elena!”
“No. Families are destroyed by people who think I’m nothing. I’m not nothing. I’m a person. I have a right to my life.”
She went to the bedroom. The real bedroom, where her bed still stood and her clothes still hung. She sat on the bed in the dark. She cried softly. But not for long—she knew it would be harder ahead, but cleaner.
That very evening she filed for divorce. Calmly. Like a nurse in an operating room: one, two, three—documents, scans, send.
In the morning the mother-in-law left—with noise, threats, and yelling. And Igor didn’t even show up. He only sent a short message: “You went too far. We’ll talk.”
But there was no talk anymore.
That day, when Lena was on her way home, there was that special inner silence—the kind before a storm. The city was the same, the bus roared as always, the smell of coffee at the corner pulled her toward the familiar café—yet in her chest sat a cold knot, a premonition: something bad was waiting at home.
The key stuck in the lock as if it too resisted. But she had to go in—her home, after all. A home she had been building for years: she had painted the walls herself in spring, replaced the windows last fall, chosen the furniture to match her mood, herself. Everything here was a piece of her.
She crossed the threshold… and stopped.
The living room—chaos. A broken vase, the one that stood on the coffee table. Books mixed with magazines; some things were missing entirely. On the photo shelf gaped empty spaces: the picture of her and Igor at the sea was gone. Boxes with her things, packed for the dacha, were pried open and overflowing, as if they were about to be thrown away.
In the kitchen—the stove’s surface scratched, the refrigerator she’d bought with her own savings unplugged. The curtains taken down and crumpled into a ball.
In her room, where she used to hide with a book and a cup of tea, there now stood old armchairs with worn upholstery, unfamiliar boxes. The shelves were half empty, half stuffed with other people’s things.
Lena went out into the hall, sat on the floor, and wrapped her arms around her head. Inside her—only one thought: How? How can someone walk into another person’s life and turn it upside down? And call it help? This isn’t help. It’s war.
The phone rang. Igor.
She picked up.
“Lena, I know you’re angry. Mom wanted to help. You saw how hard she tried.”
“Help? She destroyed everything I built. Did you see the apartment?”
“We’ll fix it. Together. I love you.”
She was silent. Love? How can you love someone while silently letting another person trample through their life?
“Igor. If you’re not on my side, you’re not a husband. You’re just a son who’s afraid to contradict his mother.”
There was no answer.
The next morning Lena called a lawyer. She spoke calmly, without hysteria, but with steel in her voice. They went over the papers, liabilities, ways to protect herself. She wrote down every word.
The house was quiet. Igor didn’t show; the mother-in-law seemed to have vanished. Lena realized: she was alone. And that was frightening, but also light in a way.
She took a rag and started cleaning. Wall by wall, shelf by shelf—she took her home back. Neighbors peeked in to ask if she needed help. Some offered advice, some just tea. Those little things kept her afloat.
In the evenings she remembered her childhood. How her mother lugged heavy bags, how her father left and never returned. Back then she had promised herself: her home would be strong and protected. And now—she had to win it back.
With every cleared space, strength grew inside her. She understood: you can restore not only walls, but yourself.
A week later Igor finally came.
“Have you changed your mind?” she asked evenly.
“Lena, I…”
“No, Igor. I can’t live with people who wreck my life and don’t consider me a human being.”
He dropped his eyes.
“I’ve filed for divorce.”
Silence stood like the air after a storm.
Several months passed. The apartment came alive again: the walls shone with fresh paint, things stood exactly where she wanted them. But more important, Lena had learned to defend herself.
And though the ending wasn’t the one she’d dreamed of, it was honest. And it was her new life—quiet, her own, with no extra people and no foreign hands rummaging through her closets