“You didn’t wash the cups properly again, Lida! Look at these marks!” Tamara Petrovna’s voice sounded like an alarm—sharp, metallic.
Lida stood at the sink, lips pressed tight. Foam from the dish soap clung to her mouth; anger burned in her eyes.
“Mom, I just washed them,” she said quietly, but evenly.
“Washed them… sure. Hold it up to the light! Streaks!” the mother-in-law said, demonstratively raising a glass to the bulb. “I would never have had that! My Valerochka always ate from clean dishes!”
Lida turned and silently put a plate in the cupboard. She wanted to say that Valerochka wasn’t a boy anymore, but a healthy thirty-year-old man who could rinse his own plate, but she knew—it was useless.
Valera himself peeked out of the room—T-shirt on, phone in hand, half-asleep eyes.
“Ma, enough already,” he muttered.
“Enough of what? Am I raising you? No. I just want the house clean! You have a wife, not some housemaid from the classifieds!”
Lida shut off the tap with a sharp motion.
“Maybe I am a housemaid then—just an unpaid one,” she breathed out.
Tamara Petrovna looked her up and down, her gaze a mix of superiority and habitual irritation.
“Exactly,” she said in an icy tone. “A housemaid doesn’t talk back.”
Silence hung thick, like steam over boiling water. Lida dried her hands, grabbed her bag, and without looking at either of them, went out into the hallway. The door slammed hard enough to send a faint tremor through the walls.
Outside it was gloomy and cold; October was already pressing close to winter. Drizzle, gray sky, and a tram that was always late.
Lida stood at the stop, gripping her bag strap. One thought spun in her head: I’m so sick of all of this.
At work she seemed to hold it together. Smiled at colleagues, discussed reports, wrote emails. But it was all on autopilot. The moment her thoughts slid toward home, something unpleasant knotted in her stomach.
Two years ago, everything had been different.
When she and Valera rented their first two-room apartment—modest but cozy—she truly believed it was the start of their life. Their real, shared life. She remembered unpacking boxes, laughing, arguing about where the bed should go. Back then Valera was different—attentive, gentle, almost tender. He listened, asked questions, consulted her.
And then she arrived.
Valera’s mother sold her apartment, put the money into some shady investments—and went bust. Lost everything, down to the last kopeck. And Valera, of course, couldn’t say no.
“Temporary,” he’d said then. “Until Mom gets back on her feet. A month or two, no more.”
A year passed. Then another.
And all that “temporary” stretched on like rubber.
“Lidochka,” Valera would say in the evenings, when Mom had already fallen asleep in front of the TV. “Just hang on. What is it to you, really—hard? She’s alone now.”
Lida nodded. Endured. And then she stopped.
Now every morning started the same way—with complaints. With sighs and criticism.
“You iron badly.”
“The soup is too salty.”
“Valerochka is going to work unshaven—aren’t you ashamed?”
And in that chorus of petty, domestic nitpicking, the meaning of their marriage melted away.
One evening, after an especially hard day, Lida finally decided to talk.
Valera was lying on the couch, scrolling his phone.
“We need to talk,” she said.
He didn’t even look up.
“About what?”
“About us. About the fact that we live as three people. That’s not normal.”
He snorted, as if he’d heard something funny.
“Mom!” he shouted toward the kitchen. “Come here, Lida’s whining again!”
She didn’t even have time to be surprised. She just looked—and understood everything.
Tamara Petrovna came in, wiping her hands on a towel.
“What happened?”
“Nothing, Mom,” Valera waved a hand. “Lida says you’re in the way.”
Lida clenched her teeth.
“I didn’t say that. I said I want to live separately. We’re a family. Husband and wife. We need our own space.”
Her mother-in-law lifted an eyebrow.
“And who am I to you—an enemy? I’m here on bird’s rights, is that it?”
“You live at our expense,” Lida blurted out.
Silence.
Then Valera’s laugh—nervous, quiet.
“Lid, wow… You really said that. My mom! What ‘at our expense’? Everything we have is shared.”
Shared. That word stuck in her chest like a bone.
Time went on.
Lida started coming home later and later—“work delays,” “client meetings.” In truth she would just sit in a park or a café with a cup of coffee, just to be in silence for a while.
Sometimes she imagined living alone. A morning that didn’t begin with “You didn’t wash properly,” but with the smell of fresh bread and the radio in the kitchen.
She dreamed—quietly, like a woman does, without grand speeches.
And then, one day in mid-October, an unknown number called.
“This is a notary. We’re looking for Lidiya Valentinovna Lebedeva,” a voice said.
A week later she sat in a small office with green curtains and listened as they explained that after her grandfather’s death, she had been left an inheritance. Money. Not just money—five million rubles.
Her head spun.
Not from joy—from the feeling that life had suddenly tipped in a different direction.
When she came home, Valera and his mother were sitting in the kitchen. Drinking tea as if nothing had happened.
“Oh, here comes our rich relative!” the mother-in-law greeted her with a grin. “Valera already told me—five million! Wow. Lucky you.”
Lida set her bag down and silently took off her coat.
“Well then,” Tamara Petrovna went on, “I’ve been dreaming of a proper fur coat for ages. And Valerochka needs a car—he’s a man, but he rides the metro like a student.”
Lida turned slowly.
“I’m buying an apartment,” she said softly, but firmly.
Tamara Petrovna acted like she hadn’t heard.
“What did you say?”
“An apartment. My own. With that money.”
A pause fell. Then the mother-in-law pressed out sharply:
“Nonsense. We already have housing. The money should be put to work. I know exactly where to invest…”
“No,” Lida cut her off. “They’re my money. And I’ll decide myself what to do with them.”
Her tone was new. Hard. She surprised herself with the calmness inside it.
Valera tried to smooth it over:
“Lid, come on, we’re family. Mom’s right—we could use a car, or I’ll keep looking like a loser on the metro.”
“I’m buying an apartment,” she repeated. “Period.”
Tamara Petrovna bit her lip.
“Well, well. We’ll see whose apartment it’ll be,” she muttered under her breath.
The next weeks turned into an endless marathon of viewings.
Lida drove from listing to listing, dragging her mother-in-law along—of course she inserted her “valuable” advice.
“Too dark!”
“The neighbors are drunks!”
“Too far from the метро!”
“The floor creaks—impossible to live!”
Lida listened and nodded, but inside she knew: she wasn’t looking for square meters. She was looking for freedom.
On the twentieth apartment, she found it.
Three rooms, bright, with windows facing a courtyard where two old maples grew. Clean air, sunlight spots on the floor. Quiet. Calm.
She walked through the rooms—and suddenly she wanted to cry.
“Expensive,” Tamara Petrovna grunted at once.
“But it’s mine,” Lida answered, turning to the realtor. “I’ll take it.”
When the contract was signed, for the first time in a long while she felt light inside.
But the joy didn’t last.
At home, the moment she said the word “registered,” the storm began.
“Do you even understand what you’ve done?!” her mother-in-law shrieked. “You should’ve put it in everyone’s name! We’re family!”
“It’s my inheritance,” Lida said calmly. “I bought the apartment with my money.”
“In a family there is no ‘mine’!” Tamara Petrovna slapped her palm on the table.
“And for me everything was always ‘someone else’s,’” Lida looked straight into the woman’s eyes for the first time. “Enough.”
Valera sat in silence, eyes darting like a schoolboy caught doing wrong.
Moving day was brutal. Rain, wind, movers, boxes, bags. Tamara Petrovna commanded like a general at the front.
“Not there! That’s not how you stack things!” she yelled.
Lida clenched her jaw and carried bags without a word.
When everything was finally brought in, she sank onto a chair and closed her eyes. For the first time in a long while—her apartment, her walls.
But again, the joy didn’t last.
Tamara Petrovna walked around, went into the biggest bedroom, and announced:
“In this one—the brightest—I’ll be living.”
Lida opened her eyes.
“And why would that be?”
“Because I’m the elder! It’s what I’m entitled to.”
Lida stood up, stepped closer.
“This is my apartment. I bought it. I decide who lives where.”
Her mother-in-law snapped around.
“Without us you wouldn’t have wiped your nose! It’s all thanks to Valera!”
“Thanks to Valera I learned to endure,” Lida said quietly. “But enough.”
Valera appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, what now,” he yawned. “Mom, maybe go to the living room.”
“No! I said I’ll be here!” his mother flared. “I’m the elder, I need peace!”
Lida felt something boiling up inside.
How long? How long to listen, yield, stay silent?
She looked at her husband—and in his gaze she saw no support, no understanding.
Only fatigue. And the familiar: Just endure.
But this time she didn’t want to endure.
She stepped forward, looked at both of them, and said:
“No. It won’t be the way you want anymore.”
“What do you mean, ‘it won’t’?” Tamara Petrovna was the first to recover. Her voice trembled—not with fear, but with rage.
“It means,” Lida slowly wiped her hands on the towel, “that from now on I live by my rules.”
“Girl, have you lost your mind?!” her mother-in-law threw up her hands. “I’m the elder in this family! I’ve lived a life, and you’ll tell me where I sleep?”
“You’ve lived your life,” Lida answered evenly. “And now I’m going to live mine.”
Valera stepped between them.
“Okay, that’s it, enough. Mom, go to the hall. Lid, don’t escalate. Let’s be normal. We’re family.”
“Family is when people listen to each other,” Lida said quietly. “Here everyone only listens to the two of you.”
Tamara Petrovna lifted her chin.
“Oh, here we go… Another offended one. I, by the way, treat you like a daughter! And you’re always with that tone. Ungrateful.”
“You treat me like a mother-in-law, not a mother,” Lida said, sitting at the table and taking a cup out of a box. “And there’s a big difference between those words.”
The new home should have brought peace. Instead, a quiet, sticky conflict moved in.
Tamara Petrovna wandered around the apartment like the owner, as if she’d signed the contract herself.
She could nitpick any trifle:
“You hung the towel in the wrong place!”
“There’s dust under the radiator again!”
“These curtains are hideous—who chooses like that?”
At first Lida kept quiet. Then she started answering. Calmly, but firmly.
“Dust—wipe it.”
“The curtains are mine. I like them.”
“The towel stays where it is.”
Each reply hit the mother-in-law like a red rag to a bull.
“Oh, so you’ve started talking back!” she screamed. “That’s what money does to people! You’ve decided you’re a queen!”
Valera tried to “stay out of it.” His favorite phrases became:
“Don’t pay attention, Lid, Mom’s just worried.”
“Just endure—you know her character.”
“Let’s not fight, I have work early.”
And Lida wanted to ask: And what about me? Where am I supposed to go?
In early November, one day she came home from work early. The hallway was quiet, light spilled from the kitchen. She heard muffled voices.
“Valerochka, son, I understand everything, but this can’t go on,” Tamara Petrovna was saying. “The apartment can’t be only in her name. You must insist on a share! It’s your future!”
“Mom, don’t start…” Valera answered wearily. “I’m not going to demand anything. She’ll blow up and kick us out altogether.”
“She will kick us out!” his mother protested. “And you’re silent! Are you a man or what?”
Lida froze by the door, her heart pounding like a drum.
There it is, she thought.
She stepped into the kitchen.
“You don’t have to whisper. I heard everything.”
They turned like children caught at the scene of a crime.
“Lid, what are you…” Valera began, but she lifted a hand.
“Enough. I’m tired of living in this circus. This is my home. And if someone doesn’t like it—there’s the door.”
Tamara Petrovna gasped.
“You’re throwing us out?!”
“I’m giving you a choice,” Lida said firmly. “Either you respect my home—or you leave.”
The next days were heavy. The silence in the apartment rang. Everyone tried not to cross paths.
Lida left early, came back late.
Tamara Petrovna spent the days in the kitchen calling her friends:
“Yes, can you imagine—ungrateful! I did everything for them! And she almost threw me out!”
Valera darted between them—toward Lida with a guilty look, then to his mother with tea and comforting words.
“Do you even understand what you’re doing?” he asked one evening. “Mom isn’t a stranger.”
“And I am, then,” Lida said. “You know, Valera, you’re always standing between us—but somehow you’re always closer to her.”
He wanted to say something, but found no words.
“I just don’t want scandals,” he mumbled.
“And I don’t want to live in your mother’s shadow,” Lida said, and went to sleep in another room.
Time passed. The home grew cold—not only from autumn, but from their silence.
A couple of times Lida caught herself talking to herself.
You could leave… But where? Abandon your apartment? No. Let them leave.
She began to look at Valera differently. The same guy who used to bring her coffee in bed and promise “we’ll get through everything” had become a man without a backbone.
He wasn’t cruel—just convenient. And his mother twisted that convenience any way she liked.
One evening in mid-November, the doorbell rang. On the doorstep stood their neighbor—Aunt Nina from the first floor.
“Lidochka, hi,” she said, looking at her with sympathy. “I heard it got loud at yours. Everything okay?”
Lida sighed.
“Yes, Aunt Nina, it’s fine. Just a talk that got too loud.”
“Well, you see,” the neighbor shrugged. “You’re a good woman, you can tell. But men are hard these days. Just know this: if you don’t set yourself up, nobody will set you up.”
Lida nodded. Simple words—but they hit right at the core.
The next day it happened.
She came home—and there was shouting.
“I won’t allow it!” Tamara Petrovna screamed. “This is my son’s apartment, and I’m not leaving it!”
“This is my apartment!” Lida shouted back. “And I decide who lives in it!”
Suitcases stood on the floor.
“You’re going to kick us out?!” Valera was red as a lobster. “Do you even understand what you’re doing?!”
“I do,” she said calmly. “I’m just tired.”
“We’re family!” the mother-in-law yelled. “In a family you don’t divide property!”
“In a family where there’s respect, you don’t have to throw people out,” Lida said. “But you didn’t respect me—or my word.”
“Lida,” Valera started, “come on, no drama. Mom, don’t yell. Let’s calmly… We can agree.”
“We already agreed,” Lida replied quietly. “Two years in a row. I listened, yielded, stayed silent. I won’t anymore.”
She walked up to the suitcases.
“Here are your things. I helped pack.”
“You’re insane,” Tamara Petrovna hissed. “You don’t do this to family.”
“Family is people who don’t humiliate you,” Lida said. “And every day you reminded me I was nobody.”
Valera stepped toward her.
“Lid, I won’t leave Mom on the street.”
“And you don’t have to,” she said evenly. “Go together.”
Silence fell—thick, ringing.
Then Tamara Petrovna moved first toward the door.
“Valera, let’s go. We’ll show her yet.”
He stood for a second—and went after her.
When the door closed behind them, the apartment became quiet. Truly quiet.
Lida stood in the middle of the room, not believing it was over.
The first minutes were even scary. As if her ears were ringing from the unfamiliar calm.
She sank to the floor, pressed her palms to her face. Then she laughed—softly, relieved.
Not from anger. Not from joy. From the fact that for the first time in years she felt alive.
The first days alone felt strange.
She woke up—and caught herself waiting for her mother-in-law’s voice: “You didn’t wash the cups again!”
But the apartment was silent. Only the refrigerator hummed.
She bought new curtains—green, with a tiny pattern.
Put flowers on the windowsill. Bought herself the kettle she’d dreamed about—shiny, with a short spout.
Every small thing felt like a victory.
The kitchen began to smell of vanilla and cinnamon.
She turned on music, cooked herself dinner, ate without rushing. Without someone else’s gaze. Without comments.
Valera called.
At first he asked to talk. Then he shouted. Then he apologized.
“Mom went too far,” he said. “Let’s bring everything back.”
“Bring it back?” Lida smirked. “Do you even understand that ‘everything’ is where I stopped being myself?”
He was silent.
“Lid, I… I didn’t want it like this. I just got confused.”
“And I untangled myself,” she answered. “And I don’t want to go back.”
In December she finalized all the paperwork in her name.
Bought a wardrobe, laid down a new rug.
Life slowly fell into place.
Neighbor Aunt Nina brought her a jar of pickles and said:
“Good job, girl. Now live for yourself.”
“I’ll try,” Lida smiled.
That evening, when lights flickered in the window, she sat on the windowsill with a cup of tea and watched the city.
No fights, no complaints. Only her—and silence.
Sometimes she dreamed the door opened again and Tamara Petrovna walked in with a suitcase. She’d wake in a cold sweat. Then she’d realize: it was a dream. And smile again.
With each passing day, the apartment became more and more her home.
Her own. Real.
And if she used to think happiness was when someone loved you, now she understood:
Happiness is when nobody breaks you.
She stopped being afraid of loneliness. It turned out not to be an enemy, but an ally.
Even if for now she had to brew tea for one. Even if it stayed that way for a while.
Before New Year’s, she went out to the balcony to hang up a string of lights. Frost nipped her cheeks; the air was fresh and crystal-clear.
Below, people walked by with shopping bags, laughing, hurrying.
Lida looked at them and suddenly realized—she didn’t hurt anymore.
Yes, there would be a lot ahead—difficulties, loneliness, maybe even new love. But now she knew she could do it herself.
She went back inside, brewed tea, turned on the radio.
A song about winter and New Year started playing in the kitchen.
And Lida smiled.
Her home was breathing.
Her walls were silent—but silent in the right way.
And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t want to leave.
She was finally home.