Two-room apartment on the fourth floor of an old five-story building had come to Kristina from her grandmother three years earlier. The building had been constructed back in the sixties. There was no elevator, but the windows looked out onto a courtyard with huge poplar trees, and in summer, from the balcony, one could watch the neighborhood children kicking a ball between the garages. Kristina had re-papered all the doors herself, painted the radiators white, and arranged violets on the windowsills—the same violets that had come with the apartment. Her grandmother had grown them for forty years, and her granddaughter treasured every leaf.
Kristina worked as a florist in a small shop on the first floor of a shopping center. She made bouquets quickly and tastefully, and customers often came back specifically to her. The salary was modest, but it was enough to live on and even allowed for small pleasures, like a new book or a trip to the cinema.
She met Igor at the birthday party of a mutual acquaintance. A tall, slightly stooped man with a short haircut and a neat little beard was sitting in the corner of the sofa, silently scrolling through his phone. Kristina sat down beside him, and a conversation began. It turned out that Igor worked as a programmer for some company, rented an apartment not far from the city center, and disliked noisy gatherings. He spoke little, but he listened attentively. That was what won her over—after a string of exes who constantly interrupted and pulled all attention toward themselves, his calm manner of communication felt like a breath of fresh air.
They dated for six months. Igor came to Kristina’s place after work; they watched films, cooked dinner together, and walked through the evening city. There were no stormy arguments or wild passions—just steady, measured relations. That was why his proposal was not a surprise. One evening, Igor simply said that he was tired of paying rent and that it would be good to officially move in together. There was little romance in those words, but Kristina decided that reliability and stability mattered most.
She knew little about Igor’s mother. Tamara Vladimirovna worked as a deputy headmistress at a school and lived alone in a three-room apartment on the other side of town. Her husband had left when their son was ten, and from then on, the woman had devoted herself entirely to raising her only child. When Igor first brought his fiancée to meet her, the atmosphere in his mother-in-law’s apartment felt like a museum—perfect cleanliness everywhere, strict furniture arrangement, and the cold gaze of the mistress of the house.
“So, a florist,” Tamara Vladimirovna drawled, looking Kristina up and down. “An interesting profession. Selling little flowers.”
Kristina clenched her fists under the table but smiled.
“Not selling—creating arrangements. It’s an entire art.”
“Well, well,” her mother-in-law said, taking a sip of tea from a delicate porcelain cup. “Igor told me you live in some old Khrushchev-era apartment. An inheritance, you say?”
“Yes, I inherited the apartment from my grandmother.”
“I see.”
Tamara Vladimirovna asked almost nothing else. All evening, she addressed only her son, asking about work, advising him where it was better to buy groceries and how to plan a budget properly. Kristina sat beside them like a decoration.
The wedding was modest, without lavish celebrations. They registered the marriage at the registry office and celebrated in a café with friends. Tamara Vladimirovna came in a strict dark-blue suit, sat the entire evening with a stone face, and left among the first guests. Igor later explained that his mother was simply tired; she had a lot of work at school, and autumn was always a stressful season.
The first months of married life passed calmly. Igor came home from work, ate dinner, and sat down at the computer. They spent weekends at home—watching series, cleaning, going to the store. Tamara Vladimirovna called almost every day, usually in the evening. Igor would go into another room, talk for a long time in a muffled voice, and return looking slightly irritated.
“Mom worries,” he explained when Kristina asked whether everything was all right. “She just wants to know how I’m doing.”
They hardly crossed paths with her mother-in-law. A couple of times they met on neutral ground—in a café or for a walk in the park. Tamara Vladimirovna spoke exclusively to her son, rarely addressing Kristina, and always with a faintly condescending tone in her voice. Igor either did not notice that tone or pretended not to.
Everything changed at the beginning of October. Igor came home in the middle of the day with a gloomy face and threw his jacket onto the sofa.
“I was fired,” he said shortly.
Kristina froze at the sink, a ladle in her hand.
“What do you mean, fired? What for?”
“Staff cuts. Half the department was let go.”
“But you can find another job…”
“Of course I can,” Igor said, walking into the room and dropping onto the bed. “Just not immediately. I need to send out résumés, go to interviews.”
Over the next two weeks, the atmosphere in the apartment became oppressive. Igor stayed at home, spending most of his time at the computer, browsing vacancies and sending applications. He spoke little and answered questions in monosyllables. Kristina tried to support him as best she could—cooked his favorite dishes, did not pester him with questions, gave him space.
When Tamara Vladimirovna learned about her son’s dismissal, she began calling even more often. Now Igor no longer went into another room; he spoke right in the kitchen. Kristina involuntarily heard fragments of their conversations.
“Yes, Mom, I understand… No, everything is fine… Of course I’m looking… Come on, don’t exaggerate…”
One evening, while Kristina was washing dishes, her husband put his phone on the table and sighed heavily.
“Mom wants to come stay with us.”
Kristina turned around, drying her hands on a towel.
“Stay with us? For how long?”
“A few days, maybe a week. She says she misses me and wants to help around the house.”
“Igor, we only have two rooms. Where will she sleep?”
“On the sofa in the living room. It’s fine. It’s not like people have never slept on sofas before.”
“But…”
“Kristina, she is my mother,” her husband’s voice became harder. “If she wants to come, I don’t see any reason to refuse.”
There was no point in arguing further. Three days later, Tamara Vladimirovna arrived by taxi with two huge bags and a pot wrapped in newspaper. Igor helped bring in her things. His mother cast a glance around the hallway, grimaced, and pulled off her shoes.
“It’s so stuffy in here,” Tamara Vladimirovna said first. “Do you ever air the place out?”
“Of course we air it out,” Kristina said, taking one of the bags. “Come in, Tamara Vladimirovna, make yourself comfortable.”
“I am coming in. I can see that I’m coming in.”
Her mother-in-law walked into the room, inspected the sofa, touched the pillow, and grimaced.
“Igorek, bring me the blanket from my bag. The blue one. I brought it on purpose.”
Her son obediently dashed into the hallway. Kristina stood in the doorway, feeling irritation begin to boil inside her. Tamara Vladimirovna had already managed to take a book from the shelf, flip through it, and put it back in the wrong place.
The first evening passed relatively peacefully. Her mother-in-law took cutlets from the pot, heated them, and set the table. Igor ate silently; Kristina picked at her potatoes with a fork. Tamara Vladimirovna talked about school, about the new teacher who had absolutely no idea how to control a class, and about the deputy headmaster from a neighboring school who had stolen teaching materials.
“And what about you, Igorek? How is the job search?” she finally switched to her son.
“Nothing concrete yet. There are several options, but I haven’t decided yet.”
“Haven’t decided,” Tamara Vladimirovna repeated, shaking her head. “You’re sitting here doing nothing, earning no money. Good thing I came, at least I’ll support you morally.”
Kristina clenched her teeth. Igor said nothing and kept chewing his cutlet.
The following days turned into a trial. Tamara Vladimirovna got up earlier than everyone else and immediately went to the kitchen, where she began rearranging the dishes in the cupboards. Kristina woke to the clinking of cups and plates.
“Tamara Vladimirovna, what are you doing?”
“Putting things in order. It’s such a mess here, it’s frightening to look at. Pots should be on the right, pans on the left. That’s logical.”
“It was convenient for me the other way.”
“It was wrong. Now it will be right.”
Igor kept silent. When Kristina tried to talk to her husband, he only shrugged.
“So let her rearrange things. What difference does it make where the pots are?”
“The difference is that this is my apartment, and I’m used to a certain order!”
“Our apartment,” Igor corrected her. “And Mom just wants to help. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.”
Tamara Vladimirovna began dictating what should be cooked for dinner. She came into the kitchen, looked into the refrigerator, and clicked her tongue.
“Pasta again? Igorek loves buckwheat with meat. Kristina, why don’t you cook what your husband likes?”
“I cook different things. Yesterday we had chicken with vegetables.”
“Chicken,” her mother-in-law snorted. “Igor needs meat. Proper red meat. Protein. How will he find a job if he has no strength?”
Each day brought new nitpicking. Tamara Vladimirovna criticized the way Kristina washed the floor, hung laundry, and folded towels. If the young woman tried to object, her mother-in-law looked at her with undisguised contempt.
“You’re still young and inexperienced. At your age, I was already raising a son, running a household, and working two positions. And what about you? You sell little flowers and think you know life.”
Igor continued to remain silent. What was more, he began agreeing with his mother. If earlier he had at least stayed out of it, now he nodded in response to her sharp remarks.
“Mom is right, we should do wet cleaning more often.”
“Mom is right, there should be more hot food in the house.”
Kristina felt the ground slipping from beneath her feet. The apartment had stopped being a refuge. Tamara Vladimirovna acted as if she had always lived there, and Igor silently supported every word his mother said.
The explosion happened a week later. Kristina came home from work exhausted. She had spent the whole day on her feet, putting together autumn arrangements for someone’s wedding. All she wanted was to collapse onto the sofa and think about nothing. But Tamara Vladimirovna was waiting for her in the kitchen with a displeased face.
“Where have you been? It’s already past six!”
“At work, as usual.”
“Igor needed to take his résumé to some office, and you didn’t answer the phone.”
“I had a client. My phone was on silent.”
“You always have excuses,” her mother-in-law said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your husband is sitting here without work, and you can’t even help. Useless.”
Kristina froze. The word rang out loudly and clearly.
“What did you say?”
“Useless. You can’t cook properly, and you can’t look after the house. Did Igorek deserve a life like this? He could have found someone better, but he chose you. I don’t understand what he saw in you.”
Blood rushed to Kristina’s face.
“Tamara Vladimirovna, this is my apartment. I work, I support myself, and I don’t need your evaluations!”
“Your apartment?” her mother-in-law smirked. “Igor lives here, so it’s mine too. I am his mother. I have every right to come here and say what I think.”
“You have no right to insult me in my own home!”
“Insult you?” Tamara Vladimirovna took a step forward. “I’m telling the truth. Look at yourself! What kind of wife are you? Nothing but complaints and zero use.”
At that moment, Igor appeared in the hallway. Judging by his face, he had heard the last remarks.
“What is going on here?”
“Igor, tell your mother to leave us alone!” Kristina turned to her husband. “I can’t take this anymore. For a week she’s been dictating what to do, where to put things, what to cook. It’s unbearable!”
Igor looked at his mother, then at his wife. His face hardened.
“Mom is right,” her husband said slowly. “A monkey like you is beneath me.”
Kristina blinked, unable to believe what she had heard.
“What?”
Igor walked past her, opened the hallway closet, and pulled out Kristina’s bag. He threw it on the floor and began stuffing things from the hallway into it—her jacket, scarf, boots.
“Pack up and leave. I’m tired of listening to your hysterics.”
Tamara Vladimirovna stood in the kitchen with a triumphant smile. Kristina looked at her husband, who was methodically packing his wife’s belongings into a bag, and could not understand what was happening. Seven months earlier, this man had proposed to her. A week earlier, they had watched a film together and laughed at silly jokes. And now Igor was throwing his wife’s things out the door of her own apartment.
Her husband opened the wardrobe in the bedroom and began pulling dresses from hangers. Fabric rustled as it fell to the floor. Kristina stood in the doorway of the room, watching what was happening. Her hands were trembling, but not from fear. Something else was growing inside her—a cold clarity.
“Igor, this is my apartment,” Kristina said quietly but clearly.
Her husband did not even turn around. He kept shoving clothes into the bag, crumpling the sleeves of sweaters, throwing shoes onto the floor.
“It used to be yours,” Igor tossed over his shoulder. “Now I live here. Get out.”
Tamara Vladimirovna came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands with a towel. Her face glowed with satisfaction.
“That’s right, Igorek. No need to tolerate such a person. You’ll find yourself a normal wife, a good homemaker.”
Kristina looked at this woman, who had managed to turn her life upside down in a week. Then she shifted her gaze to her husband, who was packing her things as if throwing away garbage.
For a second, she wanted to stop Igor, grab his hand, scream, demand explanations. Instead, Kristina turned and walked into the hallway. She opened the drawer of the chest where the documents were kept. She took out a folder with papers—the certificate of ownership for the apartment, the technical passport, the deed of gift from her grandmother. Everything was registered in the name of Kristina Sergeyevna. Three years earlier.
Igor came out of the bedroom with an overstuffed bag. He threw it onto the floor and went back for the next batch of things. Kristina put the documents into her small handbag and took out her phone.
“What are you doing?” Tamara Vladimirovna asked, noticing the movement.
“Calling,” Kristina answered calmly and dialed the police.
Her mother-in-law’s eyes widened.
“Have you completely lost your mind? Who are you calling?”
“The police.”
Igor burst out of the room with another armful of clothes. His face twisted.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Kristina lifted the phone to her ear. Beeps. One, then another.
“Hello, good evening. I want to report unlawful entry into my home. Yes, someone is trying to evict me from my own apartment. The address is 12 Sadovaya Street, apartment forty-three. Yes, I’m at home. I’ll wait.”
She hung up. Igor stood with clothes in his hands, not understanding what was happening.
“Are you insane? What police?”
“This is my apartment, Igor. I inherited it from my grandmother. It is registered in my name. And you are trying to throw me out of my own home.”
Her husband dropped the clothes onto the floor.
“We’re married! That means the apartment is shared!”
“No,” Kristina said, taking the documents from her handbag. “Inherited property is not considered jointly acquired marital property. Even if it is received during marriage. And I received this apartment before the wedding.”
Tamara Vladimirovna turned pale. She grabbed her son by the shoulder.
“Igor, you told me the apartment was jointly yours!”
“I thought…” her husband muttered.
“You thought you could dispose of someone else’s property,” Kristina finished for him. “And now I have called the police because you are violating my rights.”
Igor rushed to the door and began unlocking it.
“Then I’ll just leave.”
“Wait.”
Kristina went over to the bags of her belongings that had been put in the hallway. Calmly, she picked them up and carried them back into the apartment. Igor looked at his wife in confusion.
“You called the police for nothing?”
“Not for nothing. I need witnesses that you tried to throw me out. And written confirmation.”
Tamara Vladimirovna tried to squeeze toward the exit, but Kristina blocked the way.
“Tamara Vladimirovna, you are not going anywhere. You will give a statement.”
Her mother-in-law tried to protest, but no words came. Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. Kristina opened it. A district police officer stood on the threshold—a man of about forty with a tired face and a tablet in his hands.
“Good evening. Did you call?”
“Yes, come in.”
The officer entered and looked around the hallway, where scattered things lay on the floor. He looked at Igor, at Tamara Vladimirovna, and at Kristina.
“What happened?”
Kristina handed him the documents.
“This is my apartment. I inherited it from my grandmother three years ago. Here is the certificate of ownership. This man is my husband. We have been married for seven months. Today he tried to evict me from my own home, packed my things into bags, and put them by the door.”
The officer took the documents and studied them carefully. Then he looked up at Igor.
“Is this true?”
Her husband was silent, shifting from one foot to the other. Tamara Vladimirovna stepped forward.
“Young man, you don’t understand the situation! My son…”
“Madam, let the man answer for himself,” the officer interrupted her. “So, is it true?”
“Well… we had a quarrel,” Igor muttered. “I lost my temper.”
“Lost your temper,” the officer repeated. “Sir, is the apartment registered in your name?”
“No.”
“Do you have any documents confirming your right to live here?”
“I’m her husband. We’re legally married.”
The officer looked at Kristina.
“Are you opposed to your spouse living in your apartment?”
“Yes. After what happened today, I no longer want to live with this man.”
The policeman nodded, took out his tablet, and began filling out a report.
“Understood. Sir, the owner of the property does not consent to your continued residence here. According to the housing code, you are obliged to leave the premises. If you refuse, you will be evicted by force.”
Igor turned crimson.
“What do you mean?! I’m her husband! We’ve been married for seven months!”
“Being married does not give you an automatic ownership right to housing that your spouse received before or during the marriage through inheritance,” the officer explained calmly. “It is not jointly acquired property. Pack your things.”
Tamara Vladimirovna clutched at the policeman’s sleeve.
“Wait! And where is my son supposed to sleep? On the street?”
The officer freed his sleeve.
“That is not my concern, madam. You can take your son in.”
“I have a three-room apartment on the other side of town!”
“Excellent. That means he has somewhere to live.”
Igor stood there with his fists clenched. Kristina watched her husband without emotion. The officer finished filling out the report and handed over the paper.
“Sign here. And here. And you too,” he nodded at Igor.
Her husband signed with a trembling hand. Tamara Vladimirovna tried to say something, but her son grabbed her by the elbow.
“Mom, let’s go.”
“What do you mean, let’s go?! Igorek, you can’t…”
“I said, let’s go!”
Igor went into the room, took his backpack with his laptop, returned, and pulled on his jacket. Tamara Vladimirovna looked at Kristina with hatred.
“You’ll regret this.”
“I doubt it,” Kristina replied.
The district officer watched them leave. Igor slammed the door so hard that the windowpane rattled. The policeman looked at Kristina.
“Do you want to file a report for assault or threats?”
“No. There was no physical violence.”
“Then I advise you to change the locks. Just in case.”
“I certainly will. Thank you.”
The officer left. Kristina closed the door and leaned against the doorframe. Silence. For the first time in a week, there were no strangers’ voices in the apartment, no smell of another woman’s perfume, no floorboards creaking beneath someone else’s steps.
She went into the kitchen. Her mother-in-law’s pots were still on the stove. Kristina took them and put them into a bag. Tomorrow she would take them to Tamara Vladimirovna or throw them away—she had not decided yet.
She took out her phone and found an ad for a locksmith. She dialed the number.
“Good evening. Can you come today to change a lock? Yes, urgently. I’ll give you the address.”
The locksmith arrived an hour later. An elderly man with a small case of tools. Silently, he removed the old lock and installed a new one. Kristina paid him and received two sets of keys. She put one in her bag and the other in the same drawer of the chest.
She returned to the room. She looked at the scattered clothes—dresses, sweaters, skirts. Everything Igor had thrown out of the wardrobe. Kristina began picking up the clothes and hanging them back. Every movement was precise and calm. No rush.
The next morning, she got up early. She dressed, had breakfast, and left the house at exactly eight. The road to the registry office took twenty minutes. Kristina went up to the second floor and found the right office. A middle-aged woman with a neat hairstyle sat at the desk.
“Hello. I want to file for divorce.”
“Come in, have a seat,” the woman said, pointing to a chair. “Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Jointly acquired property?”
“No. The apartment is mine. I inherited it before the marriage.”
“Then you may file the application unilaterally. Please fill out this form.”
Kristina took the form. She wrote slowly, carefully forming each letter. Surname, first name, patronymic. Date of birth. Registration address. Reason for dissolution of marriage: incompatibility of characters. She signed at the bottom and wrote the date.
“When will it be considered?”
“You will receive a summons within a month. If your spouse appears and does not object, the process will go quickly. If there are no objections, the divorce will be finalized one month after filing.”
“Thank you.”
Kristina left the building. The day was clear and cool. The October wind tousled her hair. She walked to the bus stop, got on a bus, and went to work.
Her colleagues were already at the workshop. Alina, the girl at the neighboring table, waved to her.
“Hi! How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Are you sure? You look tired.”
Kristina hung her jacket on the rack and put on her apron.
“I filed for divorce today.”
Alina whistled.
“Seriously? What happened?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you sometime later.”
The workday passed unnoticed. Orders, bouquets, clients. The familiar routine distracted her from her thoughts. Kristina cut stems, matched shades, wrapped arrangements in kraft paper. Her hands did everything automatically.
In the evening, she returned home. She opened the door with the new key. The apartment greeted her with silence. Kristina took off her coat and went into the kitchen. She put the kettle on. While the water boiled, she took the leftovers from yesterday’s dinner out of the refrigerator and heated them in the microwave.
She sat at the table with a cup of tea and a plate. It was growing dark outside. The lamps in the courtyard had already lit up, illuminating the empty playground. Kristina drank her tea in small sips, looking out the window.
Her phone vibrated. A message from an unknown number: “Kristina, it’s Igor. We need to talk.”
She replied briefly: “We don’t.”
A minute later, a new message came: “You can’t just throw me out like that. Let’s discuss everything.”
“You tried to throw me out yourself. I merely protected my rights. There is nothing to discuss.”
The phone vibrated again, but Kristina placed it face down. She finished her tea. Washed the dishes. Wiped the table. Walked through the apartment, putting scattered little things back in their places.
There was a wedding photo on the shelf in the bedroom. Kristina took down the frame and removed the picture. She looked at the smiling people—herself in a simple white dress, Igor in a suit. The photograph went into the trash bin.
The next few days passed calmly. Igor tried to call and wrote messages. Kristina ignored him. Once, Tamara Vladimirovna came—she stood at the door, rang the intercom, and shouted something about ingratitude and insolence. Kristina simply did not open the door. After half an hour, her mother-in-law left.
Three weeks later, a summons from the registry office arrived. Date and time. Kristina took a couple of hours off work and arrived on time. Igor was already sitting on a bench in the corridor. Her husband looked exhausted—dark circles under his eyes, unshaven, his shirt rumpled.
When he saw his wife, he stood up.
“Kristina…”
“Hello.”
“Let’s not divorce. We can fix everything.”
“No.”
“I was wrong. Mom influenced me. But now I understand everything.”
“Igor, you called me a monkey and threw my things out the door. In my own apartment. The conversation is over.”
They were called into the office. The registry office employee asked formal questions. Both confirmed their decision. Igor signed the documents with a stone face. Kristina signed calmly, without emotion.
“The marriage is dissolved. You will receive the certificate within a week.”
They left the office. Igor tried to speak again, but Kristina walked past him. She went down the stairs and stepped outside. She breathed in the cool air deeply.
That evening, she sat in the kitchen with a cup of hot cocoa. She sorted through the violets on the windowsill, removing dried leaves. Her grandmother’s flowers continued to grow, no matter what.
Kristina looked at her reflection in the dark window glass. Her face was calm, with no trace of tears. Inside, there was neither anger nor resentment. Only certainty. The humiliation would not happen again. The door was locked with a new lock. The apartment belonged only to her once more.
And that was right.
