Lena stood by the window, watching a neighbor walk her dog in the courtyard. The room was quiet. Behind her, Denis was sorting through papers on the desk and whistling something under his breath. An ordinary evening. The most ordinary evening, like hundreds they had shared before. Only today, everything was supposed to change. Lena had known it since morning, when she gathered the documents into a folder and hid it in the kitchen cabinet behind jars of grain.
She turned to her husband. He looked up and smiled, unaware that in another minute his familiar world would shatter into pieces.
“We need to talk,” Lena said.
Her voice sounded steady, though everything inside her was trembling.
Denis put down his pen and leaned back in his chair.
“Well, let’s talk. Did something happen?”
“It did, Denis. I’m filing for divorce. And you have to move out of this apartment. Together with your mother.”
A pause hung in the air. Thick and sticky, like jelly. Denis looked at his wife and could not understand whether she was joking or speaking seriously. Then he smirked and shook his head.
“Lena, what’s gotten into you? What bug bit you?”
“No bug. I’m tired. Tired of your mother giving orders in my home. Tired of you both acting as if this apartment belongs to you. Tired of the rudeness and disrespect. I can’t live like this anymore.”
Denis slowly stood up. His face darkened, and the smile vanished.
“What do you mean, your apartment?” he frowned, his voice growing lower. “We lived here together for seven years. I did the renovation.”
“The apartment is mine. It was bought before the marriage. I have the documents. You are registered here, but I am the owner. The sole owner.”
“And the renovation?” Denis stepped toward her, and something angry, something unfamiliar, flashed in his eyes. “I put half a million into this apartment. I laid the floors with my own hands, leveled the walls, changed the plumbing. Do you even remember what condition everything was in when we moved in?”
Lena remembered perfectly. Peeling wallpaper, creaking floors, rusty pipes in the bathroom. Yes, Denis had tried. He really had done a lot. And she had been grateful to him. But gratitude was one thing, and the feeling that you were slowly being pushed out of your own home was something else entirely.
“I remember,” she answered calmly. “And I’m not denying your contribution. But the apartment is still mine. Legally.”
“Legally?” Denis laughed bitterly. “So now it’s about the law. And what about conscience? We’re a family. We’ve been together for seven years. We have a daughter.”
“It’s because of our daughter that I dragged this out for so long. I thought you’d come to your senses. I thought your mother would calm down. But every month it only gets worse.”
Denis slammed his fist on the table. The pen jumped and rolled onto the floor.
“Don’t you dare touch my mother! She never said a bad word to you.”
“Oh really?” Lena raised her voice too, because her patience had snapped. “Then who told me yesterday that I was a bad housewife? Who said my daughter was growing up to be a slob? Who constantly tells me what to cook and how to clean? In my own apartment!”
Denis clenched his jaw. The muscles in his cheekbones twitched. He clearly had not expected such resistance. He was used to Lena swallowing insults and staying silent to keep the peace. And suddenly she was speaking out loud.
“This is all emotion,” he said after a minute. “Female hysterics. You’ll cool down and laugh at your own words.”
“I’m not joking.” Lena took the folder of documents out of the cabinet and placed it on the table. “Here is the ownership certificate. The purchase date is two years before our marriage. Here is the extract from the Unified Register. Here is my passport with my registration. And here,” she took out a separate sheet, “is the divorce petition. Tomorrow I’m submitting it to court.”
Denis grabbed the papers and began reading. Lena saw his fingers turning white as he clutched the pages. He was breathing heavily, as if after running.
“You’re serious,” he said, and something like confusion sounded in his voice. “You’re really serious.”
“Absolutely.”
At that moment, the door to the room opened slightly, and Tamara Ivanovna herself appeared in the doorway, Denis’s mother. A tall woman with an imperious expression and lips that were always pressed together, she seemed to have sensed that the conversation was about her.
“What is all this shouting?” she asked, looking them both over. “I was drinking tea, by the way. Could you be quieter?”
“Mom,” Denis turned to her, “can you imagine? Lena is evicting us.”
Tamara Ivanovna froze for a moment, then her eyes narrowed into slits.
“What do you mean, evicting?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” Lena now looked directly at her mother-in-law. “The apartment is mine. You live here on borrowed rights. Denis is registered here, but you are nobody here at all. So pack your things and move out.”
“How dare you!” Tamara Ivanovna’s voice rose to a shriek. “Denis, do you hear what she’s saying? I am your mother! I put my soul into this apartment! I helped you renovate it, I bought curtains for the kitchen, I looked after Vera while you were off at resorts!”
Lena flushed.
“First of all, we weren’t at a resort. We were at a sanatorium on a doctor’s recommendation. Second, I didn’t ask for the curtains. And third, putting your soul into something doesn’t make you the owner.”
“Denis, say something to her!” Tamara Ivanovna demanded.
Denis was silent. He was still holding the papers and staring at them as if hoping the words would disappear on their own.
The scandal flared up. The evening that had begun in silence turned into a storm. Vera, Lena and Denis’s daughter, came running at the sound of the shouting. The girl stopped in the doorway and looked fearfully from her mother to her father.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Go to your room, Vera,” Lena said quickly. “The adults are talking. Go to my bedroom and turn your cartoons up louder.”
The girl did not argue and disappeared behind the door. The scandal continued, now in lowered voices so as not to frighten the child.
“Do you even understand what you’re doing?” Denis came almost right up to Lena. “You’re destroying the family.”
“I didn’t destroy the family. Your mother destroyed it, the one who believed from the first day that I owed her everything. And you destroyed it too, because you never once stood on my side.”
“I was always on your side!”
“Really? And when your mother said I should go work as a street sweeper because I had no proper education, what did you do? You kept silent. And when she called me rootless because I grew up in an orphanage, where were you? Standing next to her and nodding.”
Denis darkened. He clearly had not expected this attack. Hearing those words, Tamara Ivanovna only snorted.
“So what? I told the truth. You really are from an orphanage. What’s so offensive about that? I accepted you like family. I let you live here.”
“You let me live here?” Lena gave a bitter smile. “In my own apartment? How generous.”
“Lena, don’t get worked up,” Denis suddenly said in an entirely different tone, almost conciliatory. “We can discuss everything. Do you want Mom to apologize? Mom, apologize.”
“For what?” Tamara Ivanovna snorted.
“Mom!”
“Fine. Sorry,” the mother-in-law hissed through her teeth, looking somewhere over Lena’s shoulder. “If I said something wrong.”
“No need.” Lena shook her head. “It’s too late. I’ve made my decision.”
She took the folder, put it back into the cabinet, and turned to her husband.
“Tomorrow morning I’m filing the petition. You have one month to find a place to live and move out. Take your mother with you. If you don’t leave voluntarily, I’ll have you removed through court.”
“You won’t be able to,” Denis hissed. “I’m registered here. I have the right to live here.”
“We’ll see.”
Lena spent the night in the bedroom with her daughter. She locked the door. She could hear Denis and Tamara Ivanovna heatedly discussing something behind the wall, but she could not make out the words. She did not want to. Inside her, a strange determination she had never known before was growing. As if some string that had been stretched tighter and tighter for years, causing pain, had finally snapped. And suddenly it felt lighter. Frightening, but lighter.
In the morning, Lena woke up early. Vera was still sleeping, curled up under the blanket. Lena kissed the top of her daughter’s head, got dressed, and went to the kitchen. Tamara Ivanovna was already sitting there with a cup of tea, pointedly staring out the window without greeting her.
Lena silently switched on the kettle. She took out bread and butter. She sat at the table opposite her mother-in-law.
“How long are you going to sulk?” Tamara Ivanovna asked without turning her head. “Do you think you scared everyone with your ultimatum? Denis is a serious man. He won’t just leave.”
“This isn’t an ultimatum. It’s a decision.”
“Well, well. We’ll see what your lawyer says. Denis called a lawyer he knows last night. He explained his rights to him. So don’t think everything is so simple. You’ll cry yet.”
“Maybe,” Lena calmly spread butter on the bread. “But I’ll cry in my own apartment. And without you.”
Tamara Ivanovna turned sharply.
“You know what? You are an ungrateful, evil woman. My son has done so much for you, and you are throwing him out into the street. And me too, an elderly woman who needs care.”
“What care? You’re healthier than I am. Yesterday you spent half the day moving furniture around in your room and complaining that I wasn’t helping.”
The mother-in-law pressed her lips together and said nothing. Denis entered the kitchen. He looked as if he had not slept, with dark circles under his eyes. He put the kettle on again and sat on the empty chair.
“Lena, I thought all night,” he began. “Let’s try again. Let’s go to a family therapist. There’s a good specialist; someone at work recommended them.”
“It’s too late, Denis. I told you a hundred times that I wasn’t happy with the way we lived. You didn’t hear me. Now it’s too late to listen.”
“But why?”
“Because I don’t trust you anymore. You promised your mother would live here for a couple of months while repairs were being done in her apartment. Four years have passed. The renovation ended after three months. And she’s still here.”
“It’s hard for me to be alone,” Tamara Ivanovna inserted. “I got used to you. I got used to Vera.”
“Then you should have behaved differently,” Lena cut her off. “Not bossed us around, not insulted me, not interfered in our family.”
“I am your family! I am your husband’s mother.”
“And I am your granddaughter’s mother. But that never mattered to you.”
After breakfast, Lena dressed Vera and took her to school. When she returned, the apartment was already buzzing with activity. Tamara Ivanovna was on the phone, and from fragments of phrases Lena understood that she was calling relatives.
“Yes, can you imagine, she’s throwing us out… No, I’m serious… Straight into the street… We’re all in shock… Come over today, we need to discuss it…”
Lena went into the bedroom and closed the door. She understood: her mother-in-law was gathering a support group. Soon Denis’s aunts, uncles, and cousins would appear in the apartment to put her on public trial. Fine, let them come. The apartment was still hers, and she had every right to kick them out.
At three in the afternoon, the doorbell rang. Lena opened it and saw Tamara Ivanovna’s younger sister, Valentina Petrovna, standing there — a woman with a shrill voice and a habit of sticking her nose everywhere. Beside her stood another relative, some distant niece whom Lena had seen only a couple of times.
“Well, hello, Lenochka,” Valentina Petrovna sang, walking into the hallway without ceremony. “We heard there’s a revolution brewing here.”
“Come in, since you’re here,” Lena stepped aside.
The living room quickly filled with people. Denis’s cousin Sergey also arrived, a man who worked somewhere at a car service and loved talking about life’s injustices. Tamara Ivanovna’s neighbor, with whom she had managed to become friends over the years, came too.
They sat down. Tamara Ivanovna, like a director, arranged everyone in their places and began the performance.
“Look at this,” she pointed at Lena. “This woman wants to throw Denis and me out onto the street. After everything we’ve done for her.”
“How can this be, Lena?” Valentina Petrovna threw up her hands. “You are family. Seven years together. How can you do this?”
“I can,” Lena answered. “The apartment is mine. If I want, I live with my husband and mother-in-law. If I want, I live alone.”
“But Denis did the renovation,” Sergey interrupted. “He invested money. How is that fair, in your opinion? A man put money into the place, and now he gets a kick in the backside?”
“He did the renovation for the family. Nobody forced him. He has no receipts for the materials, no contract for the work,” Lena had studied this issue in advance. “It’s almost impossible to prove his investments. And even if he could, that doesn’t give him ownership rights. Only the right to demand compensation.”
“So you’ve already set lawyers on us,” Tamara Ivanovna hissed. “So you were preparing. You spent a long time plotting how to get rid of us.”
“I wasn’t plotting anything. My patience simply ran out.”
Denis sat in the corner in silence the whole time. He looked lost. He clearly did not know how to keep the situation under control. The relatives buzzed, discussing details, suggesting absurd ideas like “registering him in another share” or “filing a counterclaim.” Lena listened to all of it with a stone face.
“Here’s how it is,” Valentina Petrovna stood up and put her hands on her hips. “We will not allow our Denis to be thrown out. We will fight.”
“Fight,” Lena shrugged. “Only you’ll have to fight the law. And it’s on my side.”
“The law is one thing, justice is another,” Tamara Ivanovna declared. “God sees everything.”
“Exactly.” Lena looked her mother-in-law straight in the eye. “God sees how you poisoned my life for four years.”
The relatives began shouting again. Someone yelled that Lena was “ungrateful,” someone appealed to her conscience. Valentina Petrovna even tried to stage a heart attack, grabbing her chest and sinking onto the sofa. But Lena had seen this trick more than once and only smiled faintly.
“Valentina Petrovna, the valerian is in the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. Or should I call an ambulance?”
“No need,” the woman immediately recovered and began protesting again.
After an hour, Lena grew tired of the performance. She stood up and announced loudly:
“That’s enough. The audience is over. I have to pick up my daughter from school. By the time I come back, I ask all guests to leave. Strangers will not remain in my apartment.”
“We are not strangers, we are relatives,” Valentina Petrovna objected.
“You are my husband’s relatives. And he is here with my permission. So goodbye.”
Lena deliberately walked into the hallway and opened the front door wide. Cold air from the stairwell rushed into the apartment. The relatives grumbled, but began gathering their things. Tamara Ivanovna looked at her with such hatred that the air around her seemed to melt.
“You’ll regret this,” she whispered as she passed Lena on the way to her room. “You’ll regret it very much.”
In the evening, when Vera had already gone to bed, Denis came to Lena’s bedroom. She was sitting with a book, though she was not reading, only staring at one point.
“Lena, can we talk? Quietly, without shouting.”
“Talk.”
“I understand you’re angry at Mom. But what do I have to do with it? I love you. I want to be with you and Vera.”
“If you loved me, you would have put your mother in her place long ago. You are a grown man, Denis. You’re thirty-six years old. And you still can’t tell her no.”
“She’s my mother. She raised me alone. I can’t just throw her out.”
“And I can’t live with her anymore. Do you understand the difference?”
Denis lowered his head. Lena could see he was hurting. But pitying him meant betraying herself. She had pitied him for too long. Forgiven too much.
“I suggest this,” Denis said after a pause. “Mom moves back to her apartment. Tomorrow. And you and I stay here. We try to start over.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lena shook her head. “You’ll promise, and in a month you’ll bring her back with suitcases again. It’s already happened.”
“I swear to you.”
“Don’t swear. I’ve made my decision.”
Denis stood up. His face changed, becoming cold and unfamiliar.
“Fine. If that’s how it is, then I won’t play nice anymore either. You think I’ll just leave? You’re wrong. I’ll file a counterclaim. I’ll demand compensation for the renovation. Not some symbolic amount, but the full cost of the work and materials. I kept photos of the apartment before the renovation. And neighbors’ testimony confirming what condition everything was in. So you’ll still have plenty of running around to do.”
“Run around,” Lena shrugged, though something inside her sank. “I’m not afraid.”
But fear did appear. That night she barely slept. She thought about how much the renovation could cost if calculated properly. She and Denis had no joint savings, and the money she had been setting aside for her mother’s surgery was in a separate account. If the court ordered her to pay compensation, that money might not be enough. And then her mother would be left without help.
In the morning, Lena called an old friend who worked at a legal consultation office. Her friend listened to her confused story and said bluntly:
“If he proves the fact of investment, the court may order you to compensate the amount. But for that he needs receipts, invoices, contracts. Words and photos alone aren’t enough. And if the renovation was done a long time ago, he won’t be able to recover anything at all. The limitation period is three years.”
Lena breathed a little easier. But her heart still felt heavy. She understood the war was only beginning.
Three days passed. The atmosphere in the house became unbearably tense. Tamara Ivanovna no longer shouted. She walked through the apartment with the air of an offended queen, pressing her lips together and remaining meaningfully silent. Denis barely spoke, only threw heavy glances at Lena. Vera, sensing that something was wrong, became quiet and spent more time in her room.
And then something began that Lena had not been prepared for.
On Friday evening, the doorbell rang. An unfamiliar woman stood on the threshold with a folder in her hands.
“Good evening. I’m from the guardianship and child protection department,” she introduced herself. “We received a report about an unhealthy situation in your family. We need to conduct an inspection.”
Lena felt cold inside.
“What report? From whom?”
“The report was anonymous. But we are required to respond. May I come in?”
The woman entered the apartment and looked around. In the living room, Tamara Ivanovna was sitting on the sofa with a pious expression, watching television. Seeing the inspector, she sighed and shook her head.
“There, look for yourself,” she said quietly. “The mother is at work all day, the child is left to herself. I, the grandmother, try to help, but who listens to me?”
Lena was speechless at such vile deceit. She looked at her mother-in-law and could not believe her ears.
“That isn’t true,” she told the inspector. “I work remotely. My daughter is always supervised.”
“We’ll check,” the woman answered calmly and asked to see the child’s room.
Lena led her to Vera’s room. It was clean and cozy. Textbooks lay on the desk, drawings hung on the wall. The inspector looked over everything, checked the refrigerator, and verified that there was food. Then she asked to call the girl.
Vera came in, looking fearfully at the unfamiliar woman. The inspector asked her several questions about school, meals, and who helped her with homework. Vera answered briefly, holding her mother’s hand.
After the inspection, the woman wrote up a report and left, saying no violations had been found. But Lena understood: this was only the beginning. Her mother-in-law had brought out the heavy artillery. Now another blow could come at any moment.
That evening, Lena approached Tamara Ivanovna.
“Did you call child services?”
“Me?” she pretended to be surprised. “Why would you think that? Maybe the neighbors noticed that your child is neglected.”
“My child is not neglected. And you know that.”
“I don’t know anything. I’m not speaking to you at all after you threw me out.”
Lena realized the conversation was useless. She had to act differently.
She began recording everything that happened in the house. She turned on the voice recorder on her phone every time she went into the kitchen or living room. She documented every word from her mother-in-law, every strange phone call, every visit from uninvited relatives. At first it seemed like paranoia, but very soon it bore fruit.
A week after the guardianship visit, the doorbell rang again. This time the district police officer came — a young man with a tired face and a tablet in his hands.
“A complaint has been filed stating that you are violating the rights of the residents and creating impossible conditions for cohabitation,” he said routinely. “I have to have a conversation with you.”
“Who filed the complaint?” Lena asked, though she knew the answer.
“Your mother-in-law, Tamara Ivanovna. She claims you are evicting her, turning off the electricity in her room, and denying her access to common areas.”
“That’s a lie. Nobody is turning off the electricity. She has access everywhere. Come in and see for yourself.”
The officer walked through the apartment and asked several questions of Denis, who was sitting in the kitchen gloomily drinking tea. He answered evasively: yes, there was conflict, but it had not come to violence.
“I understand,” the officer said after the inspection. “It’s a domestic situation. I advise you to resolve it peacefully. If that doesn’t work, then through court.”
“That’s exactly how we’ll resolve it — through court,” Tamara Ivanovna said loudly from her room. “And I’ll sue her for slander too!”
“Tamara Ivanovna,” Lena could not hold back, “what slander? I’m telling the truth.”
“Everyone has their own truth.”
When the officer left, Lena sat in the kitchen and stared at one spot for a long time. Denis came in, saw her face, and turned away. He was clearly ashamed, but he did nothing to stop his mother.
“Denis,” Lena called. “It was your mother who called both guardianship and the district officer. Do you understand that she is setting up not only me, but you as well?”
“I don’t talk to her about that.”
“You’ll have to. Because it will get worse.”
A day after the officer’s visit, Lena was sitting in the bedroom, going through the recordings on her phone. One of them turned out to be especially valuable. It had been made late in the evening, when Lena, passing by her mother-in-law’s room, heard a loud conversation. Tamara Ivanovna was shouting on the phone, clearly thinking no one could hear her.
“Let her just try to evict us! I’ll burn that apartment down with her in it, to hell with it, so nobody gets it! Let her know who she’s messed with!”
Lena had frozen in the hallway then, pressing the phone to her chest. The recording was running. Tamara Ivanovna continued:
“And Denis supports me, don’t worry. He also understands that legally we won’t get anything. But we’ll ruin her life so badly that she’ll run away herself. I have connections everywhere. I already called the district officer; he came. I’ll call guardianship again, and the tax office too. Let her run around.”
When Lena heard this, she was frightened at first. Then came rage. Here it was — direct proof of malicious intent. A threat of arson, an admission of false reports, an open description of a revenge plan. If this recording made it to court, Tamara Ivanovna would be in trouble. Denis too, because in the conversation his mother had mentioned that her son “supported” her.
But Lena did not use the recording immediately. She decided to wait. To let the situation ripen. Let her enemies drive themselves into a corner.
Three more days passed. On Saturday morning, Denis placed a stack of papers on the table in front of Lena.
“This is my claim. I’m filing for compensation for the cost of the renovation. Three hundred eighty thousand rubles. Plus legal expenses. Read it.”
Lena took the documents and leafed through them. To her surprise, the papers had been prepared quite competently. They listed types of work, approximate rates, and dates. Attached were printed photographs showing the apartment’s condition before renovation. There were even screenshots of messages where Denis discussed buying materials with her.
“Where did this come from?” she asked.
“I prepared. Did you think I was a complete fool? I kept every receipt. Every single one.”
“But the limitation period has passed.”
“It hasn’t. Renovation work was still going on two years ago. We replaced the windows, remember? And windows are an improvement to the property. The limitation period hasn’t expired for them yet.”
Lena felt cold inside. They really had replaced the windows two years ago. And Denis really had paid for them with his own money. That changed things.
“Fine,” she said calmly. “Let the court decide.”
But when Denis left, Lena grabbed her head in her hands. If the court satisfied his claim, she would have to give away almost all her savings. The money for her mother’s surgery was under threat.
She called her lawyer friend again and described the situation.
“The windows do make it more complicated,” her friend confirmed. “But do you have his threats recorded? That changes everything. A threat of arson is a criminal offense. If you present the recording in court, his claim will fall apart. The judge simply won’t believe a person whose mother threatens to destroy the property.”
That was salvation. Lena saved the recording in several places — on her phone, in the cloud, on a flash drive. And she began waiting for court.
The hearing was scheduled for two weeks later. All that time, a suffocating silence reigned in the apartment. Tamara Ivanovna hardly came out of her room, Denis came home late and went straight to bed. Vera still sat in her room, and Lena tried not to remind her daughter unnecessarily of what was happening.
On the day of the hearing, Lena dressed formally, gathered all her documents, and called a taxi. Denis and his mother were already sitting in the courtroom. Tamara Ivanovna was dressed all in black and carried herself as if she had come to a funeral.
The judge, a middle-aged woman in glasses, read out the case materials. Denis spoke first. He talked about how much effort and money he had invested in the apartment, how he had helped renovate it with his own hands, and how he had bought expensive materials. He presented receipts, photographs, and testimony from a neighbor who confirmed the window replacement. He spoke calmly, without emotion, and Lena saw that the judge was listening carefully.
Then Lena was given the floor. She stood and began to speak. She explained that the apartment had been purchased before the marriage. That the renovation had indeed been done, but most of the materials had been paid for with her own money, while Denis had merely performed the work. That the receipts he presented did not prove that he had paid specifically, because the card used for payment was a shared one.
But she had saved the main thing for the end.
“Your Honor,” Lena said, “I would also like to draw attention to the methods used by the defendant and his mother in trying to resolve this matter. I have an audio recording showing that Tamara Ivanovna threatened to burn down my apartment and admitted to filing false reports with guardianship and the police.”
Silence fell over the courtroom. Denis turned pale. Tamara Ivanovna opened her mouth and forgot to close it.
The judge asked for the recording to be presented. Lena pressed play. Tamara Ivanovna’s voice, full of hatred, rang clearly through the room: “I’ll burn that apartment down with her in it, to hell with it, so nobody gets it!”
A whisper swept through the courtroom. The judge raised her eyebrows and asked to hear the fragment again. Lena replayed it. Then another fragment, where her mother-in-law talked about calling the district officer and guardianship.
“This is slander!” Tamara Ivanovna shouted, jumping up from her seat. “It’s fake! She edited the recording!”
“Silence,” the judge said sternly. “Sit down. The recording will be added to the case file.”
“Your Honor,” Denis spoke up, “my mother didn’t mean anything serious. It was an emotional domestic conversation.”
“A threat to destroy property is a criminally punishable act,” the judge calmly noted. “And a false report even more so.”
At that moment, Lena understood that she had won. Denis sat hunched on the bench and no longer looked confident. Tamara Ivanovna clutched at her heart, but this time her performance touched no one.
The judge withdrew to make a decision. An hour later, she returned and read it out: Denis’s claim was denied. Moreover, the court saw signs of a criminal offense in Tamara Ivanovna’s actions and ordered the materials to be forwarded to the inquiry authorities for evaluation of the arson threat and false reports. Lena was also awarded compensation for moral damages — thirty thousand rubles, a small amount, but symbolic.
Leaving the courtroom, Lena did not look at her former husband. She heard Tamara Ivanovna crying and shouting something, and Denis trying to calm her down. But none of it was her business anymore.
The divorce was finalized quickly. A month later, Denis and Tamara Ivanovna moved out. Her mother-in-law left with her head held high, but Lena saw her lips trembling. Denis carried the suitcases and said nothing. At the door, he turned around.
“Lena, maybe you’ll think about it again? I can’t live without you.”
“Goodbye, Denis.”
She closed the door and locked it.
At first, it was difficult. Loneliness pressed down on her, and the apartment seemed too large and empty. But gradually Lena got used to it. She did some cosmetic repairs, repainted the walls, and threw away old things that reminded her of her past life. Vera slowly recovered from what she had gone through, began laughing again, and started inviting her friends over.
For several more months, Tamara Ivanovna wrote angry posts on social media, trying to justify herself and portray Lena as the villain. But Lena blocked her and stopped reading. Denis tried calling a couple of times; Lena did not answer. Time heals, and she needed to heal from seven years of humiliation and resentment.
One evening, Lena sat in the kitchen, drinking tea and looking out the window. Vera was doing homework in her room. It was quiet, peaceful, good. Lena thought that she would never again allow anyone to rule over her home. That she would remember this lesson for the rest of her life. And that now, ahead of her, there would only be what she chose for herself.
She picked up her phone and opened her contacts. She found her lawyer friend’s number and wrote a short message: “Thank you. You saved me.” Then she placed the phone on the table and smiled.
Everything was only beginning.
But now it was her life.
Hers alone.
