By the way, I never told you. My folks are coming next week. For about a week.”
The words dropped into the kitchen like heavy, dirty stones thrown into a clear stream. Irina froze, her hand holding the carton of milk suspended halfway to the refrigerator. The crinkle of the paper bag on the countertop, the sound of her steady breathing—everything cut off. A tense, thick emptiness settled over the kitchen, one that even the hum of the fridge couldn’t break. Slowly, as if afraid to make any sudden move, she set the carton down on the cool, glossy surface and straightened.
“What—sorry?” Her voice was quiet, almost colorless. It wasn’t so much a question as a demand that he repeat it, give her a chance to make sure she hadn’t misheard.
Igor stood leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. A lazy, faintly condescending smirk played on his face—the look of someone announcing something already decided and not up for discussion. He didn’t move, only tipped his head slightly, as if surprised by her lack of understanding.
“My parents,” he said. “They’re coming. Monday. What’s so hard to get? They called half an hour ago—already bought the tickets.”
He said it as though he were talking about the weather forecast, not an event that had nearly destroyed their marriage six months earlier. Irina turned toward him slowly. She stared straight at him, her gaze heavy and appraising, as if she were seeing him for the first time. She saw not her husband, but a smug stranger who had barged into her home and her life.
“Igor. We had an agreement,” she said, enunciating every word. No pleading, no hysteria—only a cold, leaden statement of fact. “You promised me. You gave me your word that after last time… they would never set foot in this house again.”
He shrugged, and the smirk widened—bolder, more insolent. That gesture—dismissive, devaluing—hit her harder than if he’d shouted.
“Yeah, I promised. So what? Things changed. They’re my parents. What am I supposed to tell them—don’t come, my wife is against it? Think about how that would look.”
“I don’t care how it looks,” she said evenly, but steel entered her voice. “I care that you broke your word. You lied to me. After what your mother pulled last time… after she went through my things while I wasn’t home and then declared I was a bad housewife who doesn’t look after your health… you forgot how we didn’t speak for a week after that? You forgot how you yourself said she went too far?”
He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the kitchen, invading her space. The lightness left his face, replaced by irritation. He didn’t like being reminded of his weaknesses.
“Here we go again. Ira, stop it. Mom got carried away—who doesn’t? She apologized.”
“She didn’t apologize,” Irina cut in. “She said, ‘If I offended you in any way, then forgive me.’ That isn’t an apology, Igor. That’s a way to make me guilty for daring to be upset. And you stood there and nodded along like a bobblehead.”
“Enough!” he barked, his voice slamming into the walls. “I’m not discussing this. It’s settled. They’re coming. Period. I’ve made my choice.”
His words—I’ve made my choice—didn’t sound like a threat. They sounded like a diagnosis. Final and not subject to appeal. Irina looked at him, and something inside her—something warm and alive that had still been trying to find an excuse, a compromise—suddenly cooled and hardened. She felt it almost physically, as if liquid nitrogen had flooded her chest. Every emotion—hurt, anger, disappointment—evaporated, leaving only a ringing, absolute clarity. She no longer saw a close person who’d made a mistake. She saw an intruder who had just announced, with satisfaction, that her feelings, her peace, and her home were worth exactly nothing.
Igor misread her silence as submission and decided to cement his victory. He walked to the table, took an apple from the bowl, and bit into it with a loud crunch. The juicy, provocative sound was an act of self-assertion. He chewed slowly, looking down at her, open triumph rippling in his eyes.
“Well, good,” he said through a mouthful. “Glad we understand each other. And if you don’t like it—if you’re not ready to show respect to my family—then fine. You can move in with a friend for a week. Wait it out there until they leave. I think everyone will be calmer that way.”
He said it. He actually said those words out loud, standing in the middle of her kitchen—in the apartment she’d bought with her own money long before she even met him. He suggested that she, the owner, get out of her own home to make room for people who had already once turned her life into hell. And in that moment, everything ended for Irina. Not the marriage. Not love. The person she had known as Igor ended. He ceased to exist, crumbled into dust, leaving behind only a brazen, self-satisfied shell.
Without a word, she turned away. Not a single unnecessary movement. She didn’t keep unpacking the groceries—those symbols of a broken coziness. She simply left the kitchen and, without looking at him, walked down the hall to the front door. Her steps were even and firm—no haste, no fuss. Igor, startled by the maneuver, followed her, still chewing the apple.
“Where are you off to? Decided to pack your things after all? Good. No need for drama.”
Irina reached the door, took the lock, and turned it. A loud, distinct click. Then she pulled the door toward her, and it swung open soundlessly, letting in cool air and the muted light of the stairwell. She turned to him. There was no anger or hurt on her face—only the cold, detached calm of a surgeon preparing for an amputation.
“Igor, you promised me your parents would never come to our home again after the last scandal. Why are they coming here again?”
Her voice was steady, not a trace of tremble. It wasn’t a question—it was the reading of an indictment before sentencing. She looked him straight in the eyes, and for the first time he saw something there that made him uneasy.
“What, putting on a show?” he tried to smirk, but it came out strained. “Close the door—it’s drafty.”
“You’re right,” she nodded with the same icy composure. “Someone really should move out. Right now. Go. Go to your parents. And you can stay with them not for a week, but forever. Get out of my home.”
For a moment Igor froze. His brain, accustomed to a certain script—her wounded silence, then tears, then his patronizing reconciliation—refused to process this new reality. The words get out of my home sounded so clear and everyday that they seemed like an absurd system glitch. He blinked; genuine, almost childish bewilderment crossed his face. Then it shifted into a crooked, angry grin.
“You’re serious?” He gave a nervous laugh, stepping forward, intending to shut that damned door and end the draft and the spectacle. “Ira, are you out of your mind? You’re kicking me out? Over something so stupid? You’re ready to destroy our family just to keep my old folks from staying here a couple of days?”
He deliberately used our family and our home, trying to drag her back into the familiar coordinate system where everything was shared—and therefore his. But Irina didn’t move, blocking his path to the door.
“No, Igor. Not ‘our home.’ Mine,” she corrected him, and that calm clarification was like a scalpel cut. “My apartment. You forgot? This is my apartment. And you live here. You’re a guest who’s stayed too long and for some reason decided he’s the owner.”
His face flushed dark red. The accusation of being a freeloader was the most humiliating thing he could hear. All his manufactured confidence—his role of “head of the family,” which he played so diligently—cracked and crumbled.
“I live here?!” he roared, raising his voice to a shout. “I work, I bring money into this home! Or did you forget I don’t lie on the couch all day? I support you and your apartment!”
Irina tilted her head slightly to the side, and something like a researcher’s curiosity appeared in her eyes, as if she were studying a primitive organism.
“Support me? That’s interesting. Let’s do the math, Igor. My salary goes to the mortgage on this apartment—the one I took out before you. To utilities. To the food in that refrigerator. To the household cleaners you refuse to touch when it’s time to clean. And what does your salary go to, Igor? Remind me. Ah, yes. Gas for your car. The new rims you bought last month. Your Friday bar nights with your friends. And that ridiculously expensive drone that’s been collecting dust on top of the wardrobe for half a year. You don’t bring money into this home. You spend it on yourself, while letting me pay for your comfortable life here.”
Every word was a dry fact, stripped of emotion. It wasn’t a reproach—it was accounting. And that emotionless precision drove him mad far more than if she’d screamed and smashed plates.
“You… you kept track? You sat there counting who spent what? What a petty, calculating—” He couldn’t find the words, choking on rage.
“I didn’t keep track. I just stopped lying to myself,” her voice grew even quieter, and all the heavier for it. “For a long time I pretended we were partners. That we were a family. I closed my eyes to the fact that you behave not like an adult man, but like a spoiled teenager who thinks everyone owes him. A teenager whose wife should provide the household while he ‘blesses’ her with his presence. But today you crossed a line. You didn’t just break a promise. You thought you could point me to the door in my own home. You decided you had that right.”
He stared at her, hatred and confusion mixing in his eyes. He didn’t recognize this woman. Where was the Ira who always smoothed things over, who forgave, who was afraid to upset him? In front of him stood a stranger—cold, utterly impenetrable.
“You just hate my parents! You always hated them!” he shouted—the last thing he could think of, the most worn-out and pathetic accusation of all.
For the first time in the whole conversation, Irina allowed herself a faint smile. But there wasn’t a drop of humor in it.
“Your parents have nothing to do with it, Igor. They’re just litmus paper. They simply showed who you really are. A man whose word means nothing. A man ready to humiliate his wife so he doesn’t look like a bad son in Mommy’s eyes. So go. Go be a good son. Your role as a good husband is over. Get out.”
The word get out hung in the hallway air. It wasn’t an emotional outburst—it was a dry, lifeless fact. Igor looked at her, and one frantic thought battered inside his head: this isn’t real. It’s some stupid, dragged-out joke. Any second now she’ll blink, her face will twist with restrained tears, and everything will go back to normal. He’ll pretend to forgive her generously; she’ll pretend to be grateful. But nothing happened. Her face remained an impassable mask. She didn’t cry. She didn’t rage. She waited.
And then it hit him. Not fury, but something far worse—panic terror at losing control. He was losing everything: this convenient apartment, this predictable woman, this comfortable routine he took for granted. And in that animal fear he groped for his last weapon. The dirtiest, most poisonous one—the kind used not to win, but to destroy, to burn the ground the opponent stands on.
He slowly, deliberately looked her up and down. His gaze was sticky, appraising—like a merchant inspecting damaged goods. Then he smirked, quietly and nastily.
“I see,” he drawled, venom sliding into his voice. “Now I get it. You’re just jealous. I have a family. A mother, a father. Normal, living people who love me. And who do you have? Nobody. Just these walls. That’s why you blow up when they come. They remind you how… empty you are.”
He paused, letting the poison sink in. Irina didn’t flinch. Her face looked carved from stone. Her silence spurred him on, gave him confidence. He took another step in his verbal assault, aiming for the softest spot.
“I always wondered why you don’t want kids. All those excuses—career, not the time… but that’s not it. You’re just not capable of loving anyone but yourself. You’re infertile, Ira. Not medically—no. Spiritually. There’s no warmth in you, no life. Just calculation and cold. That’s why you’ll never be a mother, and that’s why my family line sticks in your throat like a bone. It’s real. And you’re a counterfeit.”
He finished, breathing hard, laying his last trump card on the table. He expected anything—screaming, a slap, a stream of insults. He was ready for it, hungry for it, because any reaction would mean he’d hit the target, that she was still alive, that he could get to her.
But nothing showed on her face. Absolutely nothing. No pain, no hurt, no anger. Her eyes looked as if they were focused right through him. As though he were speaking in some foreign language about someone else entirely. The person he believed her to be had just died completely in her gaze. In her place remained emptiness. She stayed silent for several seconds that felt like an eternity to him.
Then she spoke. Her voice was terrifyingly calm—the voice of a dispatcher reading evacuation instructions.
“Take your jacket from the hook. Your phone and wallet are on the dresser. The keys to your car are there too, in the little blue dish.”
She spoke slowly, giving him time to grasp each word. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.
Igor went rigid. He hadn’t expected this reaction. Total, absolute disregard for his monstrous words disarmed him. He was crushed not by her anger, but by her indifference.
“And the keys to this apartment,” she added in the same even tone, “leave them on the dresser. You won’t need them anymore.”
Silently, like a somnambulist, he turned around. His hands automatically found the leather jacket and pulled it off the hook. He picked up his phone. He scooped up his car keys from the dish—and his fingers touched the cold metal of the keyring to the apartment. He froze for a moment, then pulled them out and set them on the polished surface of the dresser. The sound was quiet, but in that deafening atmosphere it rang out like a gunshot.
He put on the jacket and, without looking back, stepped over the threshold. Irina didn’t watch his back. She turned away and looked down the hall, into the depths of her apartment. He stood for a second on the landing, waiting for something—a door slam, a final curse. But nothing followed. He was simply erased.
She took the handle and slowly pulled the door toward herself. The heavy slab slid silently into place. She turned the key in the lock. One turn. A second. The clicks were dry and final.
She stood in the hallway of her apartment. Alone. And the silence no longer felt oppressive. It was clean
