Raisa stood in the doorway of her apartment, blocking Margarita—her almost-ex-husband Stepan’s sister. Two massive suitcases and several boxes were piled at the sister-in-law’s feet. Under a loose tunic, Margarita’s belly pushed forward in a prominent curve—seven months pregnant, unmistakably.
“What do you mean you won’t let me into your apartment?” the pregnant woman asked Raisa, genuinely shocked. “I’m going to give birth any day now!”
“My apartment?” Raisa raised an eyebrow, stressing the word my. “Rita, have you fallen out of a tree? This is my place. My Aunt Vera gave it to me when she married a Frenchman and moved to Lyon. The deed is in my name.”
Margarita shook her head, as if she couldn’t accept what she’d just heard.
“Raya, you do understand Stepa is your husband. That means the apartment is shared. And I’m his own sister—I have nowhere to live!”
“He was my husband,” Raisa snapped. “I filed the divorce papers three weeks ago. And the apartment is not shared—I received it as a gift before marriage. It’s my personal property. Stepan never had any claim to it and he still doesn’t!”
Margarita tried to edge past her into the entryway.
“Oh, come on, Raya! We’ve always been fine. You’re not really going to throw a pregnant woman out onto the street, are you?”
“Stop.” Raisa thrust her hand forward. “Rita, I truly feel sorry for you. I do. But this isn’t my problem. You have parents. You have a brother. And you have the baby’s father—your Vadik, the guy you’ve been seeing for a year. Why should I let you move in with me?”
Margarita pouted.
“Vadik dumped me when he found out I was pregnant. My parents live in a two-bedroom—there’s no space. And Stepa said you’d definitely let me stay—you’ve got three rooms, and you’re alone!”
“Stepan said?” Raisa’s voice turned icy. “The same Stepan who spent two months terrorizing me, demanding I sign the apartment over to him? The one who screamed that I was a greedy witch because I wouldn’t ‘share’? The one who stormed out after a huge scene and now tells everyone what a mercenary bitch I am?”
“Well… he got a bit heated…”
“A bit?” Raisa let out a sharp, nervous laugh. “Your brother pushed me so far I was taking calming pills! He picked a fight every single day. One day he demanded a ‘share,’ the next he wanted the apartment listed for sale, then he insisted we give his parents a room! And when I refused, he tried to blackmail me with divorce. Fine—he got the divorce!”
Margarita shifted from foot to foot, rubbing her belly.
“Raya, but we were friends… remember how we went to the dacha together? Remember how I helped you when you quit your job?”
“Helped me?” Raisa narrowed her eyes. “You never helped me once, Rita. I helped you—I lent you money you still haven’t paid back, I listened to all your love dramas, and I kept your cat for two weeks when you ran off to Turkey!”
“Well, see? We helped each other! So let me in—I truly have nowhere to go.”
Just then Nina Pavlovna—Stepan and Margarita’s mother—appeared on the landing. A strict-looking woman in her sixties, dressed in a tailored suit, climbed the stairs, breathing hard.
“Ah, Raisa,” she said in the tone people usually reserve for household staff. “Good—you’re home. Help Rita carry her things inside.”
“Hello, Nina Pavlovna,” Raisa replied curtly. “I’m not carrying anything. Rita is not moving in with me.”
Her mother-in-law stopped short.
“How is she not moving in? We already agreed!”
“Who agreed?” Raisa felt anger starting to boil. “The two of you agreed with each other? Because I wasn’t part of any agreement.”
“Raisa, don’t be selfish,” Nina Pavlovna said in a lecturing voice. “You have a huge apartment, and your sister-in-law is a pregnant woman who needs help. It’s basic human decency!”
“Decency?” Raisa’s voice trembled. “And where was your decency when Stepan insulted me? When he called me a greedy idiot because I wouldn’t sell my apartment? Where were you when he threw my things out the window in one of his rages?”
“Don’t bring up the past,” her mother-in-law replied coldly. “Stepan is simply an emotional person. And besides, he had every right to expect a share of the property as your spouse.”
“He had no right!” Raisa shouted. “The apartment was gifted to me! By law it is my personal property! For God’s sake—why are you all so unbelievably entitled?!”
Nina Pavlovna grimaced.
“Watch your language. It’s uncultured. And I believe you are obligated to help Rita. After all, she’s carrying a child—your future nephew!”
“That is not my nephew!” Raisa was nearly screaming now. “Stepan and I are divorcing! Do you understand—DI-VOR-CING! Rita is nobody to me! And you’re nobody to me! And I don’t owe you anything!”
Margarita sniffled, pressing her hands to her belly.
“Raya, please… I really have nowhere to go. Mom can’t take me in—there’s a renovation, and there isn’t space anyway…”
“Renovation?” Raisa turned to Nina Pavlovna. “But you have a three-bedroom apartment. What renovation?”
Her mother-in-law looked away.
“Well… we decided to expand the kitchen. The contractors are already working. It’s impossible to live there now—dust, mess…”
“So you started a renovation on purpose to dump Rita on me?” Raisa realized. “You sly fox.”
“No one did anything on purpose,” Nina Pavlovna protested. “It just happened. Besides, Stepan said he’s entitled to half the apartment. So consider that Rita will live in his half.”
“Stepan lied to you!” Raisa stamped her foot. “He has no rights! It was my aunt’s gift—to me! Personal property! How many times do I have to say it?”
“Well, we’ll see what the court says,” her mother-in-law said darkly.
“Court?” Raisa burst out laughing. “Go ahead! I already showed every document to my lawyer. Stepan’s got nothing coming—nothing at all. He knows it perfectly well. That’s exactly why he was losing his mind!”
Margarita tried again to slip past Raisa.
“Raya, come on—let me just come in. We’ll sit, have tea, talk calmly…”
“No!” Raisa blocked the entrance with her whole body. “No tea. Both of you—get out.”
“How dare you speak to us like that?” Nina Pavlovna bristled. “We’re family!”
“You are not my family!” Raisa yelled. “You are relatives of my ex-husband. That’s it. Over. Curtain down!”
“Raisa, think,” her mother-in-law tried to grab her hand. “You’re an Orthodox woman. How can you throw out a pregnant woman? It’s a sin!”
“A sin? A SIN?” Raisa jerked her hand away. “Is lying not a sin? Manipulating not a sin? Demanding what belongs to someone else—not a sin? Take your sermons and go to hell! You’re a hypocrite!”
She spun around and grabbed the nearest suitcase.
“What are you doing?” Margarita asked, alarmed.
“What I should’ve done the second you showed up!” Raisa dragged the suitcase onto the landing and hurled it toward the stairs with all her strength. “Out!”
Margarita shrieked.
“Are you crazy? My things are in there!”
“Perfect!” Raisa grabbed the second suitcase. “Take them and get lost!”
The suitcase flew after the first. Then the boxes—one after another. Raisa threw them so hard the cardboard cracked.
“Stop this right now!” Nina Pavlovna screamed. “I’ll call the police!”
“I can give you the number if you forgot it!” Raisa shouted, launching another box. “And tell them how you’re trying to move into someone else’s apartment without the owner’s permission. That’s called unlawful self-help, by the way!”
A neighboring door opened a crack and a curious woman—Aunt Lyusya—peeked out.
“What’s going on here?” she asked.
“Kicking out uninvited guests!” Raisa puffed, shoving the last bag forward.
“Oh, your ex’s relatives?” the neighbor nodded knowingly. “I heard him yelling here last week. You’re doing the right thing—don’t feel sorry for them!”
“You’ll regret this!” Nina Pavlovna hissed. “Stepan will never forgive you!”
“Tell your son to get lost!” Raisa snapped, slamming the door in their faces and turning the lock. “And you can go right after him!”
Outside the door came outraged shouting, then the scrape of luggage being dragged away. Raisa leaned back against the door, breathing hard. Her hands trembled with adrenaline, but inside she felt strangely light.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The screen flashed a name—Stepan.
“Hello,” she answered, already knowing what was coming.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” her ex-husband roared. “How dare you throw out my pregnant sister?!”
“Well, Stepa—did it not work?” Raisa smirked. “Thought you’d bulldoze your way in? First you demanded a share of my apartment, now you decided to plant your sister there?”
“She’s pregnant! She has nowhere to live!”
“That’s your problem. Since you’re such a caring brother, why don’t you take her in yourself?”
“I’m renting a one-room!”
“Then rent a two-room. Or dump her on your parents.”
“They’re renovating!”
“Yeah—how conveniently timed. Stepan, I’m not stupid. You staged this. You wanted to sneak your way into my apartment through Rita—so later she’d be impossible to get rid of.”
The silence on the line said everything.
“Knew it,” Raisa said, satisfied. “Not happening. Take your schemes and roll away.”
“You’ll pay for this,” Stepan growled. “I’ll take you to court—”
“Go steam yourself with that court talk,” Raisa cut him off. “My lawyer already told me—you don’t have a single chance. The apartment was gifted to me, and you have nothing to do with it.”
“We’ll see!”
“We will. And now—get out of my life.”
She ended the call and blocked his number. Then she blocked Margarita and Nina Pavlovna too. Enough. She’d tolerated that family long enough.
Two months passed. The divorce went through without trouble—Stepan didn’t even show up, he sent a representative. His attempt to challenge the apartment rights collapsed at the filing stage: the judge didn’t even accept the claim, pointing out the obvious lack of legal grounds.
Raisa sat in a café with her friend Sveta, sharing the latest:
“Can you imagine? Margarita gave birth last week. A boy. And you know what came out?”
“What?” Sveta leaned in.
“Turns out Vadik never even left her. She told him the baby wasn’t his!”
“No way!” her friend gasped.
“Oh, yes way. She got involved with some married guy, figured he’d leave his family for her. He dumped her the second he heard about the pregnancy. So she lied to Vadik—said she’d gotten pregnant by someone else. And she told her parents and Stepan that Vadik abandoned her!”
“That’s insane. How did the truth come out?”
“Vadik ran into Stepan by accident. Stepan blew up at him, they started arguing—and the whole mess unraveled.”
“And now what?”
“Now what? Vadik refused to marry her. Her parents are furious—she lied to them. Stepan got his share too—because of his apartment stunt, they started that renovation, spent a fortune, and got nothing out of it. Now Margarita is living in their wrecked apartment with a newborn, and Nina Pavlovna is babysitting—angry as hell.”
“And Stepan?”
“What about him? Still renting his tiny one-room. And at work, by the way, he started having problems too. He told everyone I was a monster, wouldn’t ‘give up’ the apartment. Then it came out the place was mine all along—gifted—and he’d been throwing tantrums for nothing. Management didn’t love that. A man who lies and manipulates at home can do it at work too. They cut his bonus and passed him over for a promotion.”
“Wow. Justice.”
“Yep. And the funniest part? Last week Nina Pavlovna called me from an unknown number. She goes, ‘Raya, maybe you could help Rita? Buy diapers, formula? She’s got a tiny baby…’”
“The nerve!”
“I told her, ‘Nina Pavlovna, you can all go to hell,’ and hung up. I’m done helping that family.”
Sveta laughed.
“Good. Don’t waste pity on parasites. They brought it on themselves.”
“Exactly.” Raisa lifted her coffee cup. “To a new life without relatives like that.”
“To freedom,” Sveta agreed.
At that moment, a tall man with a bouquet walked into the café. When he spotted Raisa, he headed straight for their table.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you Raisa? I’m Mikhail—your new neighbor from the fifth floor. Aunt Lyusya said you come here often. I wanted to thank you for helping with my door yesterday and… maybe get to know you better?”
Raisa smiled shyly and accepted the flowers. Sveta gave her a mischievous wink and stood up.
“Oh, I should go. Raya—see you!”
And she disappeared, leaving them alone.
“Have a seat,” Raisa invited. “Coffee?”
“Gladly.”
Mikhail sat down opposite her and they started talking. He turned out to be a programmer who’d recently bought an apartment in their building. Divorced a year ago, no kids. Loved traveling and cooking.
“You know,” he said after an hour, “Aunt Lyusya told me about what happened with your ex’s relatives. It’s impressive you didn’t let them use you.”
“Thank you. It wasn’t easy, but I learned something: if you don’t defend your boundaries, people will devour you.”
“True words. Want to continue this over dinner? I make excellent pasta.”
Raisa smiled.
“Why not?”
As they left the café, she glanced at her reflection in the window. A happy woman looked back at her—one who had finally learned to say no. A woman who had protected her right to her own life.
And somewhere in a rented one-room, Stepan sat counting whether his reduced paycheck would cover rent. In his parents’ apartment, amid paint cans and construction debris, a baby cried while Margarita and Nina Pavlovna argued over who would get up with him at night.
Everyone got what they deserved. Arrogance and greed were punished. And the courage to protect yourself was rewarded.
Raisa slipped her arm through Mikhail’s and walked toward her new happiness.