— “Mom’s coming on Saturday.”
The words hit the kitchen like a slab of fat dropped onto a red-hot pan. Elena didn’t even flinch. She kept methodically slicing the onion, her hand with the heavy chef’s knife moving steady and sure, cutting off translucent rings that thudded dully and damply against the cutting board. The air already stung with that sharp, biting smell that makes you want to cry, but her eyes stayed perfectly dry.
Sergey stood leaning against the doorframe. His pose was relaxed, almost swaggering. He’d already taken off his suit jacket and was down to a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, showing off an expensive watch. He looked important, like a man who’s just stated something self-evident—like the weather forecast or the exchange rate—a fact that requires no discussion. He waited for her reaction, and when none came, he decided to elaborate.
“Lena, please, let’s not have a scene. Let’s agree on this right away. She’s only staying a couple of days. Whatever my mom says, whatever mood she’s in—just keep quiet and smile. You understand? Don’t argue, don’t try to prove anything. Just nod. It’s the easiest thing. Do it for me.”
He said it calmly, almost tenderly, in the tone of a condescending adult explaining to a foolish child why you mustn’t touch a hot kettle. He clearly regarded his tone as the height of diplomacy and manly wisdom, a preemptive strike against potential conflict.
The knife froze. With a kind of ritual precision, Elena set it on the board, blade facing away. Just as unhurriedly, she wiped her hands on her checkered apron, untied it, and hung it on the hook by the fridge. Every movement was measured, free of fuss, as if performing a long-rehearsed routine. She turned to him. Her face was utterly calm, even unreadable—the face of a poker player who’s just been dealt a decisive card.
“Seriozha, do you remember what you told me two weeks ago when my mother wanted to come by? Just to visit, for one evening, to bring us those pies you love so much.”
He grimaced, as if she’d touched on an unpleasant, long-forgotten subject covered in dust and cobwebs. He lazily waved her question away like a pesky fly that kept him from important thoughts.
“Come on, Lena, don’t start. This is different.”
And that was it. Three words. “It’s. Different.” They sounded so commonplace, so simple—and yet they were the pebble that triggers an avalanche. Something inside Elena, compressed and compacted for years under pressure, finally cracked.
She didn’t scream. No. She smirked. Quietly, almost soundlessly, just the corners of her mouth. And that smirk sent a disagreeable chill down Sergey’s back.
“Different?” she echoed. Her voice was surprisingly even, but there was a new, unfamiliar hardness in it—as if beneath the velvet a layer of steel had been found. “Oh, I see. So it’s different. I wonder—what’s the difference? Was my mother going to come over with a white glove to inspect the cleanliness of the toilet? Or maybe she planned to tell me what a useless husband I have who can’t earn enough for a decent car and drives ‘that clunker’? Or perhaps she was going to teach me how to make borscht while noting that my hands must have grown from the wrong place? No? And do you know who does all that? Your mother. Every. Single. Time.”
Sergey tensed. The relaxed pose vanished. He straightened, and an expression of displeasure, almost disgust, appeared on his face.
“Stop it. You always exaggerate.”
“Exaggerate?” Her voice strengthened a little, metallic notes ringing through it. “Then tell me—why is this different? Go on, explain. I want to hear your logic. I want to understand this great masculine wisdom.”
He faltered, searching for words, sifting through options that wouldn’t sound outright idiotic. He understood that any argument he offered would look pitiful.
“My mother lives alone, she needs attention… Your parents are together… It’s just… different!”
And that’s when she exploded. Her voice, held in check until now, finally found its full force and slammed against the kitchen walls, making the glasses in the rack rattle.
“When my mother wants to come to our place, you throw a fit so she doesn’t dare step over our threshold! But when your mommy comes, I’m supposed to endure all her insults for your sake, is that it?!”
He flinched at the word “mommy,” as if slapped, but she didn’t let him open his mouth, taking a step toward him. There was no calm in her eyes now—only a cold, furious fire.
“No. Enough. I will not keep quiet and smile anymore. Do you hear me? Never. Your mother will come. And for every word, every sideways glance, every poisonous sigh, I will answer. Honestly. Directly. In detail. And if she doesn’t like the truth, that will be her problem. And yours. Welcome to the real world, dear.”
Sergey stared at her as if she had started speaking in a strange, threatening language. The condescending calm of his face turned to stone. He stepped forward into her personal space, trying to cow her with his height, with the anger that suddenly surged up.
“Who do you think you are? What ‘real world’? Have you lost your mind? You’re going to issue ultimatums over a couple of unfortunate remarks? My mother is an elderly woman—she deserves respect!”
He tried to speak firmly, like the man of the house, but panic crept into his voice. The familiar world, where Lena was predictable and ultimately compliant, was collapsing before his eyes, and he was desperately trying to glue the shards back together with his usual methods—pressure and blame.
“Respect?” she repeated. Her voice was still remarkably calm, but that cold steel in it cut far sharper than any shout. “Fine, let’s talk about respect. Remember her last visit? In March. I made solyanka from a new recipe, spent half the day on it. Your mother sat down, took a spoonful, and said, ‘Interesting little soup. A bit poor, of course, but for variety it’ll do.’ Do you remember that, Sergey?”
He looked away; his confidence began to crack.
“So she said it. She meant that without smoked meats, just on broth… You always look for barbs in everything!”
“Barbs?” Elena took another step toward him, and now he instinctively backed up to the kitchen table. “And when, on your birthday, she gave me a set of scales and loudly, in front of all the guests, said, ‘Lenochka, a little present for you. Time to keep an eye on yourself—Seriozha is a handsome man, he needs a wife in shape.’ Was that not a barb? That was concern for my health, right? I remember your face. You blushed, mumbled ‘Mom, stop it,’ and immediately pretended nothing had happened. You didn’t stand up for me. You hid.”
His face flushed with shame and anger. The memory was too vivid, too humiliating for them both.
“She didn’t mean any harm! It’s her generation—they say what they think! You’re just too sensitive!”
“Her generation?” she smirked, and there wasn’t a drop of mirth in it. “And when she walked around our apartment—the one we furnished together—and announced that I have absolutely no taste because ‘decent people hang sheer curtains on their windows, not those trendy blinds like in an office’? Is that also a generational quirk? Or is it a direct insult delivered in my own home? And you stood there. And kept silent. You always keep silent.”
She stopped right in front of him, looking him straight in the eye. Her calm frightened him far more than any hysteria would have.
“This isn’t about her, Sergey. It’s about you. About the fact that you let her do it. You stand by and watch while I’m demeaned, and the only thing you can manage afterward is to tell me, ‘You know what Mom’s like, don’t pay attention.’ Your cowardice is her main weapon. You are her shield. You let her wipe her feet on me and then come asking me to ‘be patient’ and ‘keep quiet with a smile.’”
He wanted to object, to say it wasn’t true, that he loved them both and only wanted peace. But the words stuck in his throat, because deep down he knew—she was right. Every word was merciless, unvarnished truth.
“So here’s what,” she concluded, delivering her verdict. “This Saturday everything changes. Your shield is broken. When your mother arrives and starts talking, I won’t stay silent. I will answer. If she says the soup is ‘meager,’ I’ll explain in detail that we eat healthy food and don’t swim in cholesterol like some people. If she brings up my figure, I’ll advise her to look in the mirror before handing out tips. If she doesn’t like our blinds, I’ll suggest she buy us lace curtains herself. I’ll be polite. But I’ll tell the truth. Using her own method. And you will stand there and listen. Along with her.”
The two days until Saturday felt like the stillness in the eye of a hurricane. The air in the apartment grew dense and heavy, saturated with unspoken words. They moved through the rooms like shadows, avoiding each other’s eyes. Sergey tried several times to speak, to start with some domestic trifle, to feel out a retreat, to steer things back to normal. He hoped she’d cooled off, that her threats had been just a flare of anger. But each time he ran into the wall of her cold, courteous silence. She answered briefly, didn’t pick up the thread, and in her eyes he saw not anger but a firm, icy resolve.
Elena prepared. She cleaned the apartment to a sterile shine—not for her mother-in-law, but for herself. It was like a surgeon preparing for a complex operation: everything had to be in its place, nothing distracting. She planned the menu and cooked a dinner that could be faulted neither for being “meager” nor for being overly fatty. She acted methodically and calmly, and that calm scared Sergey much more than a scandal. He understood: she wouldn’t change her mind.
At exactly six o’clock the doorbell rang. Short, commanding, brooking no delay. Sergey rushed to open it with exaggerated, bustling cheerfulness, as if his enthusiasm could conjure the illusion of a happy family.
“Mom, hi! Come in, we’ve been waiting for you!”
Tamara Pavlovna stood on the threshold. A short, wiry woman with a neat hairstyle and a keen, appraising gaze. She offered her powdered cheek for her son to kiss, but her eyes were already sliding over the entryway, taking in every detail.
“Oh my, how… compact it is here,” she said, her trademark phrase that was both a statement of fact and a reproach for the cramped space.
Elena came out of the kitchen. A polite but completely lifeless smile was on her face.
“Good evening, Tamara Pavlovna. Please, come in.”
Her mother-in-law raked her with a look from head to toe, lingering on the house dress.
“Hello, Lenochka. Lost some weight, have you? Your face is gaunt. You must be tired at that job of yours.”
It was a classic move: an accusation dressed up as concern, that she looked bad. Before, Elena would have kept quiet or mumbled something vague. But not today.
“Thank you for your concern,” she answered in an even, calm voice. “No, I haven’t lost weight. I just stopped eating sweets at night. Very good for your health and complexion. I recommend it.”
Tamara Pavlovna froze for a moment, picking up something new in her tone. Sergey, sensing the first tremor underfoot, jumped in at once:
“Mom, why are you standing there—take your coat off! Lena, help Mom, would you.”
They went into the living room. Without taking off her shoes, the mother-in-law walked across the carpet and, with ostentatious interest, ran a finger along the dark polished surface of the bookcase. Then she looked at her finger. It was clean, but the gesture mattered more than the result.
“Seriozhenka, you should at least help your wife with the cleaning—she clearly can’t keep up,” she said, addressing only her son, as if Elena weren’t in the room.
And then came the second shot.
“You’re absolutely right, Tamara Pavlovna,” Elena said distinctly, stepping between her and Sergey. “Sergey works so much that he has no energy left to help around the house. But we manage. It’s just as clean here as is comfortable for the people who live in this apartment, not for guests who come to conduct inspections.”
Sergey turned pale. It was a direct declaration of war. He opened his mouth to say something, to smooth it over, to joke it away, but not a sound came out.
Tamara Pavlovna slowly turned her head toward Elena. Her eyes narrowed. The mask of benevolent concern fell away, revealing cold, undisguised irritation.
“What did you say?”
“I said you’re right,” Elena repeated, looking her straight in the eye. “My husband’s help wouldn’t hurt. But we are both adults and we decide for ourselves how to run our household.”
It was unheard of. It broke every unspoken rule of their interactions. The mother-in-law turned to her son, seeking righteous support in his face.
“Sergey, did you hear how she’s talking to me? I am your m-o-t-h-e-r!”
Sergey stood between them like a pitiful, helpless statue. He looked from his enraged mother to his icy, unfamiliar wife. He needed to say something, do something. But he didn’t know what. Any word would make him a traitor in someone’s eyes.
And Elena didn’t give him time to think. She answered for him, addressing her mother-in-law but looking at her husband with a cruel, almost cheerful smirk.
“Yes, Tamara Pavlovna, he heard. And he’s going to keep listening. We agreed on everything, didn’t we, dear? Complete honesty.”
Elena’s phrase—“We agreed on everything, didn’t we, dear?”—hung in the living room air like gunsmoke. It was addressed to Sergey but meant for his mother. Not a question but a statement, a public display of a power shift in this house.
For a moment wrong-footed by such insolence, Tamara Pavlovna chose the tactic that seemed to her the only correct one. She played the card of the offended mother, the victim, appealing to her son as the last bastion of justice.
“Seryozha, are you going to let her talk to me like that? In your house? What has she done to you? I don’t recognize my son.”
Her voice was full of tragic, trembling notes meant to stir filial guilt. And it almost worked. Sergey twitched as if struck. He looked at his mother—her pursed lips, her reproachful eyes—and then at his wife—her calm, impenetrable face. Everything in him, raised on the need “not to upset Mom,” screamed that he had to stop this revolt immediately.
“Lena, that’s enough,” he forced out. His voice was hoarse and uncertain. “Stop it right now. Apologize to Mom.”
It was his last desperate attempt to restore the world to its former, comfortable state. He didn’t pick a side; he just tried to gag the source of trouble that seemed more manageable. He miscalculated.
Elena didn’t even turn her head toward him. She kept looking at her mother-in-law, and in her eyes there appeared a shadow of pity mixed with contempt.
“Apologize?” she asked softly, addressing Tamara Pavlovna. “Do you really want me to apologize? Would you like to know what I could actually apologize for?”
Without waiting for an answer, she stepped toward the set table, still untouched, like the decor of a failed play.
“You think I’ve turned him against you? You think these are my words? Oh, if only you knew what your son says about you when you’re not here.”
Sergey froze. The blood drained from his face. He understood what was about to happen and felt an icy, animal terror.
“Lena, don’t you dare!” he hissed.
But she wasn’t listening anymore. She turned to Tamara Pavlovna, and her voice was even and distinct, like an announcer reading out a verdict.
“‘Whenever she comes, it feels like someone let poisonous gas into the house. I can’t breathe,’—those are your son’s words, Tamara Pavlovna. He said it after your last visit. And he also said that your endless whining on the phone sucks the life out of him, and sometimes he simply doesn’t pick up to save what’s left of his sanity.”
Tamara Pavlovna slowly sank into a chair. Her face shifted from offended to bewildered. She looked to her son, waiting for a furious denial. But Sergey was silent, staring at his wife with hatred and horror.
Elena continued her methodical execution.
“And your famous borscht? You bring him a pot every time because you think I can’t cook. Well, know this: he pours it down the toilet as soon as you leave. Says that with all the fat and vinegar you put in, it gives him heartburn. He eats my soup, and yours he dumps. But he smiles and thanks you.”
Each word was a nail she drove into the lid of the coffin of their family lies. She didn’t shout. She stated facts. Dry, merciless, lethal facts.
Her mother-in-law turned her eyes to her son. There was no reproach left in them. Something much worse had appeared—contempt and revulsion, the kind you feel for a traitor.
“Seryozha… is that… true?” she whispered.
And he couldn’t lie to her. Not in front of Elena, who knew everything. He simply bowed his head, and that silence was louder than any confession.
The world collapsed. Not just for Tamara Pavlovna, but for him as well. He had lost everything in an instant. He had betrayed his mother with his hypocrisy and been betrayed by his wife, who exposed that hypocrisy. He stood naked, pitiful, utterly alone between two women who now hated him.
Tamara Pavlovna rose slowly. She didn’t cry. Her face hardened into a mask. Without another glance at anyone, she picked up her bag and walked to the door. Her departure was quiet, devoid of drama, and all the more frightening for it. She didn’t slam the door. She simply closed it behind her, cutting this home out of her life forever.
Emptiness settled in the apartment. Not silence—emptiness, ringing and hollow, swallowing all sound. Elena stood by the table. Sergey stood in the middle of the room, staring at the closed door.
He turned to her slowly. There was no anger in his eyes. Only desolation.
“Are you… happy now?” he croaked.
Elena looked at him—at his slumped shoulders, at his bewildered, miserable face. And for the first time in many years she felt neither pity nor love. Only a cold, heavy weariness.
“Happy? No. But now you see everything as it is. No lies. No grimacing. No need to smile when you’re being insulted. There. This is the real world now. Welcome, dear…
