Raisa sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the suitcase.
Not opened, not packed — just standing there like a silent reproach.
Black, worn, with one crooked wheel that had gotten stuck in a cracked tile back in Turkey and since then rattled like a pot full of peas.
For two years it had gathered dust up on the storage shelf, and now it was back out again.
A symbol? A warning?
Or just a reminder that any person’s patience has a limit?
Arkady was sleeping next to her, curled up like a child, his phone in his hand.
Even at thirty-three he still couldn’t manage without his toys.
Raisa looked at the back of his head and felt a dull anger rise in her.
A stranger.
A completely foreign person.
“What are you staring at him like an idiot for?”
Galina Petrovna’s voice sounded right outside the door. She always had that special hearing, like a house spirit: as soon as Raisa stayed in the bedroom a little longer than usual, her mother-in-law was already at the threshold.
Raisa flinched.
How much more of this?
For two years she’d lived “in her house.”
That ever-emphasized “my.”
Even the bread Raisa bought, Galina Petrovna would put on the table with the phrase:
“I bought this. With my money.”
At first, Raisa tried not to argue. Young, inexperienced, “you have to be smarter,” as her own mother advised.
But being smarter doesn’t mean you have to endure everything.
She stood up and opened the door.
In the doorway stood Galina Petrovna, in a terry robe with stretched-out elbows. The smell of onion and old oil hit Raisa right in the nose.
“I’m actually sleeping,” Raisa said quietly, trying not to wake her husband.
“Sleeping, are we! At ten in the morning!” the mother-in-law snapped. “A woman should get up earlier. All my life I’ve been up at six. And nothing. And you just sleep and sleep. Why did you even get married and come into this home? To rest?”
Raisa swallowed.
Again.
Every day the same thing.
As if she weren’t a wife, but some tenant with fines and penalties.
“I work late,” she forced out. “I have the right to sleep in.”
“Right?” Galina Petrovna narrowed her eyes, folding her arms across her chest. “You have no rights here. This is my house.”
That phrase was like a toothache.
Constant, dull, but so painful it made life unbearable.
Arkady stirred, muttered something, and, as always, pretended to be asleep. His signature tactic. While the women were at each other’s throats, he was “not involved.”
Raisa slammed the door shut.
She was exhausted.
She wanted to grab that suitcase, throw it out the window and leave.
But where?
Renting was expensive. Her salary — pennies. Her parents lived out in the provinces, barely making ends meet.
She fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
When will this end?
That evening at dinner everything went according to the usual script.
Galina Petrovna sat at the head of the table like a general at a roll call. She was wearing a new housecoat — bright burgundy, shiny, bought at the market. On her finger, a massive ring she loved to spin around demonstratively.
“Pasta again?” she twisted her face, looking at the pot. “How much longer? A man needs meat.”
“Then buy some if you want,” Raisa couldn’t hold back. “I’ve got nothing left after the utilities.”
“But you work!” the mother-in-law flared up. “What do you spend your money on then? On your rags?”
Arkady cleared his throat, staring into his plate.
“Mom, that’s enough…”
“Enough what?!” she snapped. “I’m feeding two adult mouths here! My son works and brings everything home. And her? All she does is lie on the couch!”
“I don’t lie around, I work!” Raisa slapped her palm on the table. “I give half my salary toward this apartment!”
“And whose apartment is it?” The mother-in-law leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. “Mine! I got it with Arkady’s father! This is our home! Who are you here? Nobody.”
Raisa felt her face burning.
Arkady stayed silent. Again.
“You know what, Mom,” she forced out through clenched teeth, “I’ll be leaving here soon.”
“Go tomorrow, for all I care!” Galina Petrovna laughed. “Where will you go? To the train station? You don’t have a penny to your name!”
Raisa jumped up, the chair crashing to the floor behind her.
“That’s enough!” Her voice cracked. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to your insults!”
Galina Petrovna jumped up as well, clutching her ring like a weapon.
“You ungrateful girl! I took you in, and this is how you repay me! My son will live here all his life, but no one’s forcing you to stay!”
Arkady finally raised his head.
“Raya, come on… don’t start…”
She looked at him — and in that moment she understood: he was not her ally. He never had been. He would always be on his mother’s side, like a little boy clinging to her skirt.
Raisa grabbed the suitcase from the hallway and set it in the middle of the living room.
“That’s it. I’m done. Either I find my own home or I lose my mind.”
Galina Petrovna clutched her hand to her chest, as if she’d just been insulted worse than with any curse.
“A home?” she hissed. “You? Ha! You’ve got a lot of nerve.”
Silence fell in the room.
Only the clock ticked on the wall.
Raisa left.
She didn’t slam the door, didn’t make a scene — she just grabbed the suitcase, threw the bare essentials inside, and walked out.
The stairwell smelled of cat urine and old linoleum. She walked down and for the first time in two years felt like she could really breathe.
Fresh air — yes, even with exhaust fumes and the smell of fried onions from the neighboring entrance.
She sat on the bench in front of the building.
The suitcase stood beside her, its wheel rattling again — now on the asphalt.
Funny and sad at the same time: that’s how “family” falls apart.
Doesn’t even crumble — it just collapses on its own, like a rotten wardrobe.
Her phone buzzed. Arkady.
Raisa stared at the screen and didn’t pick up.
What was he going to say?
“Come back, Mom is worried”?
Or “Why did you ruin everything”?
Ridiculous.
Her mother called.
“Daughter, what’s wrong?” Her voice was worried but steady. “My heart just skipped a beat.”
Raisa swallowed.
“Mom, I left.”
“Where?”
“Nowhere. I’m sitting here with a suitcase.”
“Oh Lord… Daughter, come to us.”
“Mom, you’ve got a three-room place and my sister with her kids. Where would I sleep? On the couch?”
“So what, we’ll manage. The main thing is for you to get out of there. Your father and I have been thinking… maybe we could help you with a place of your own?”
Raisa exhaled.
Those words dropped like a stone into water.
A week later she was already sitting in a notary’s office.
A sterile room, plastic windows, the smell of coffee from the vending machine in the hallway. In her hands — a stack of documents: a bank statement from her parents’ account, the contract for a little house in the Moscow suburbs. Small, old, but hers. Hers!
And then in barged Galina Petrovna. Literally barged in: she flung the door open with a bang, Arkady trailing behind her.
“Well, here we are!” The mother-in-law plopped down on the chair next to her. “My son said you’re buying a house. So I came to help sort things out.”
Raisa tensed.
“And what does this have to do with you?”
“What do you mean, what?” The older woman raised her eyebrows. “You’re my son’s wife! Everything is shared! The house is shared too. We have to register the shares properly.”
Raisa felt everything inside her tighten.
Here it was — the moment of truth.
The notary, a woman around fifty with a neat haircut and the air of a schoolteacher, lifted her eyes from the papers.
“The house is being purchased with Raisa Sergeyevna’s personal funds. Her parents are gifting her the money. This is her personal property.”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Galina Petrovna. “But she’s married! That means half belongs to the husband!”
The notary calmly adjusted her glasses.
“If the funds are gifted to Raisa Sergeyevna alone and this is documented, the property is not considered jointly acquired.”
The mother-in-law went pale.
“That’s not fair! My son will be left with nothing!”
Raisa looked straight at her.
And what did I have for two years? she thought.
But she said it out loud:
“And what did I have for two years? Freedom? Respect? My own corner? I was also left with nothing.”
Arkady blushed, mumbled something:
“Raya, maybe we could still register it in both our names? You know, to be fair?”
“Fair?” Raisa laughed — bitterly, harshly. “Have you ever once been fair with me? Ever once taken my side? No. So now everything will be done strictly by the law.”
Galina Petrovna hissed:
“You don’t understand what you’re doing, girl. You’re destroying the family! You’ll regret this.”
Raisa stood up and gathered her papers.
“Family is when there is support. What we had was a barracks. The only thing I’ll regret is that I put up with it for so long.”
She walked out of the office. Behind her remained her mother-in-law’s shrill cries and Arkady’s choked voice.
That evening he still came to see her — at the new house.
The house was tiny, the walls with peeling paint, smelling of damp. But it was quiet. It was hers.
Arkady stood on the threshold with a bottle of cheap wine.
“Raya… don’t start over like this. Let’s make up. Mom… well, Mom is hot-tempered, you know that.”
Raisa looked at him in silence.
He stood there in his leather jacket, wrinkled jeans. So familiar — and so foreign.
“I’m not coming back,” she said.
“But what about me?” he asked helplessly. “I’ve only got Mom there…”
“Then live with Mom. It suits you.”
He took a step closer and grabbed her hand.
“Raya, don’t be stupid! We’re a family!”
She yanked her hand away, sharply.
“A family? We were tenants in your mother’s apartment. I’m ending that lease.”
And she slammed the door in his face.
A couple of days later, a court summons arrived: Arkady’s claim for division of property. He’d written that the house had been purchased during the marriage, which meant it was joint property.
Raisa sat at the kitchen table in her new house with the paper in her hands and laughed. The laughter was shaky, edged with tears.
Here it was, the real war.
No more option to retreat.
The court.
A gray corridor, people in coats, the rustling of papers, the smell of cheap coffee from the vending machine. Raisa sat on a bench, clutching her folder of documents so tightly her fingers turned white. One thought hummed in her head: “Just hold on. Don’t cave.”
Arkady sat two meters away, and next to him — Galina Petrovna. She, as always, fully armed: a strict suit, bright red lipstick, her hair in a bun. She looked at Raisa from above, like at a second-grader summoned to the principal’s office.
“Well,” the mother-in-law hissed, leaning forward, “are you ready to end up on the street? The house will be ours anyway.”
Raisa raised her eyes.
“No, Galina Petrovna. This is my house.”
The hearing began.
The judge read out the claim.
The notary confirmed: the money had been gifted personally to Raisa by her parents, all documents were in order.
“Thus, the house is the personal property of Raisa Sergeyevna,” the judge stated dryly.
A pause hung in the courtroom.
Galina Petrovna leaned forward:
“Your Honor, how is that fair? My son will be left without a roof over his head!”
The judge looked at her coldly over the rim of her glasses:
“Your son is an adult. He can decide for himself where to live.”
Arkady went pale. His eyes darted back and forth — from his mother to Raisa.
“Raya…” he breathed out plaintively. “Maybe we can still come to some agreement?”
Raisa stood up.
Her voice was steady:
“That’s it. Enough. No more deals. I’m filing for divorce.”
The judge nodded:
“A petition for dissolution of marriage is added to the case file.”
Galina Petrovna jumped to her feet:
“You’ll regret this! Without us, you’re nobody!”
Raisa looked her straight in the eye.
“Without you, I finally get to be somebody.”
That evening she returned to her house. The old fence, the peeling gate — but now it was her territory.
She walked inside and sat down on a stool by the window. Silence.
No one yelling, no one humiliating her, no one laying down the rules.
She took a cup out of the suitcase — the only thing she’d brought from that “home.”
She poured herself some tea and looked out the window. Snow was falling slowly, and the light from the streetlamp cast a golden patch onto the road.
Raisa smiled for the first time in two years.
And then suddenly burst into tears — from sheer relief.
The ending: she was left alone.
But it was the best “alone” of her life