— I endured your humiliation for five years, but today you crossed the line. Tomorrow I won’t be here anymore.
Viktor recoiled in disgust, as if something dangerous had been thrown at his feet. Instinctively, he pressed the edge of his polo shirt to his face, even though he was already wearing a medical mask.
“Who do you think you are?!” His voice cracked. “Pick that up immediately! This is a sterile zone! Mom is getting nervous!”
“Let her get nervous,” Lena said in an icy voice, wiping her hands on her jeans. The skin on her fingers was red and peeling from cheap household chemicals. “And you, ‘effective manager,’ can now administer this process yourself — free of charge and without days off.”
Friday evening in their three-room apartment felt less like a cozy family nest and more like a branch of a district hospital that saved money on orderlies. A heavy, sweetish smell hung in the air: camphor alcohol, old flesh, and cheap “Sea Breeze” air freshener, with which Viktor tried to drown out reality.
Lena, forty-five, once a striking brunette and now a shadow with dim eyes and constant lower-back pain, was changing her mother-in-law’s bed linen. Galina Ivanovna, a heavy woman weighing nearly ninety kilos, lay sprawled across the bed and did not even try to lift her hips.
“Pull more carefully!” she commanded, staring at the ceiling. “You’re pinching my skin! Your hands are like sandpaper. Vitenka, tell her to put cream on them — she’s scraping me!”
Viktor, forty-eight, fit and smelling of expensive cologne that he applied before leaving his office-room, stood in the doorway. He never stepped more than a meter into his mother’s room. He had a “delicate constitution” and a certificate from an allergist for everything under the sun — including, apparently, conscience.
“Len, seriously,” he grimaced, adjusting his respirator — he had bought a construction one with a valve so he “wouldn’t breathe in the smells.” “You missed a stain on the sheet, at the edge. And air the room properly afterward; there’s no air in here. I installed an air-quality sensor — it’s blinking red.”
Lena straightened up, feeling a vertebra crack.
“Vitya, I need proper care products. I sent you the links. Seni cleansing foam — it doesn’t need to be rinsed off with water — dry shampoo, and nitrile gloves, not these polyethylene ones that tear.”
Viktor took out his phone and demonstratively scrolled through the chat.
“Len, I looked. The foam costs eight hundred rubles, the shampoo six hundred. These are consumables. Why pay for a brand? Ordinary baby soap and tap water have the same effect, and the soap costs forty rubles. Feel the difference. We have to save money. I’m putting money aside for Sasha’s car, you know that. A Camry costs a fortune nowadays.”
Lena was silent. She knew about the car. Sasha, Viktor’s son from his first marriage, was finishing university. His father had promised him a gift. Lena knew that there were already two million rubles in her husband’s savings account.
She also knew that she herself walked around in torn winter boots and dyed her hair at home with cheap dye, because “salons charge an arm and a leg, and the result is the same.”
“So you don’t mind spending five thousand on floor mats for your son’s future car,” she said quietly, “but you resent spending eight hundred so your mother doesn’t get bedsores and I don’t get eczema on my hands?”
“Don’t twist things,” Viktor snapped. “That’s an investment in my son’s future, and foam just goes down the drain. That’s enough. Get back to work and stop distracting yourself. I have a call with partners in ten minutes.”
He closed the door, cutting himself off from the smell and the problems. Lena was left alone with Galina Ivanovna, who smiled maliciously.
“Vitya is right. You’re a spendthrift. Larochka, his first wife, was much more economical. She would have washed everything with laundry soap and wouldn’t have broken in half.”
An hour later, Lena went into the kitchen. Her legs were buzzing like high-voltage wires. She poured herself tea and sat down, staring blankly at the wall.
Viktor sat at the table eating. He had fried a steak himself — one steak, for himself — because Lena was “on a diet” anyway, meaning she was too exhausted to cook anything separately for herself.
“Vitya,” she began without raising her eyes. “I can’t go on like this anymore. This has been going on for six months, ever since she broke her hip. I work full-time, then come home and start a second shift. I sleep four hours a night. At night she rings that bell every forty minutes: water, turn me over, I’m scared.”
Viktor chewed a piece of meat and wiped his lips with a napkin.
“And what are you suggesting?”
“Let’s hire help, at least on weekends. Or a night nurse, so I can simply sleep. Today I mixed up figures in a report — the chief accountant almost fired me.”
Viktor put down his fork. His face took on the expression of a man about to explain why she was wrong. He took out his smartphone and opened the calculator.
“Len, I hear you. You’re tired. But let’s turn on logic and set emotions aside.”
He began tapping in numbers quickly, then turned the screen toward her.
“Look. A weekend caregiver is at least three thousand per shift. That’s six thousand for a weekend, twenty-four thousand a month. A night caregiver is even more expensive — the rates are high. A full-time live-in caregiver is seventy to eighty thousand, plus food. In total, hired personnel would cost us around a hundred thousand.”
He paused, looking at her like a teacher at a failing student.
“Your salary, Len, is forty-five thousand net. If we hire a caregiver, we go fifty-five thousand into the red. That’s economic suicide.”
“I’m not suggesting we go into the red,” Lena’s voice trembled. “I’m asking for help. Your salary allows—”
“My salary is a strategic reserve!” he interrupted harshly. “The dacha construction, Sasha’s car, our old age. Spending an asset on a liability is stupid. It’s more profitable for you to stay home with Mom than to work. Your efficiency as a caregiver is higher for the family budget than your efficiency as an office worker.”
“What?” Lena could not believe her ears.
“Quit your job, Len. You’ll take care of her full-time. I calculated it: if you don’t spend money on transport, office lunches, and office clothes, we’ll even save money. I’ll give you… well, ten thousand a month for personal expenses. Enough for necessities and yogurts.”
He said it calmly and confidently, as if everything had already been decided. He had optimized her life down to the function of “orderly for food.”
“You’re suggesting I bury myself here for ten thousand?” she whispered.
“I’m suggesting you fulfill your duty to the family. Mom fed me once; now we feed her. More precisely, you do. I have misophobia — you know that. Smells make me sick. And you’re good at this. You’re a woman; caring is in your blood.”
The spilled bedpan
Saturday morning began not with coffee, but with Galina Ivanovna’s scream.
“Lena! Where are you wandering around?! I’ve been calling for an hour!”
Lena ran into the room. Her mother-in-law was sitting on the bed, her face red.
“The porridge is cold! The tea is slop! Are you deliberately starving me? Vitya! Vitya, come here and see how she’s abusing me!”
Viktor appeared in the doorway in a fresh mask and gloves.
“Len, what now? Why is Mom shouting? Warm up the porridge. Is that so hard?”
Lena silently took the plate. At that moment, Galina Ivanovna, deciding to add drama, swung her arm. She lost her balance slightly and knocked over the full bedpan standing on the table beside the bed.
A yellow, unpleasant liquid splashed onto the carpet and Lena’s slippers.
The smell hit instantly. Viktor, in the doorway, coughed and sharply recoiled.
“Damn it!” he yelled through the mask. “Lena! Why didn’t you remove it right away?! Did you do that on purpose?!”
Galina Ivanovna theatrically clutched at her heart.
“Oh, I feel ill… She pushed me! Vitya, she hit my hand! I saw hatred in her eyes! She wants to kill me! Like your Larochka — though no, Lara was an angel, and this one is a snake!”
Lena stood in the middle of the puddle. The liquid soaked into her socks. She looked at her husband, waiting for him to say, “Mom, stop lying.” Waiting for him to offer her his hand and lead her out of that room.
But Viktor took out a can of air freshener and began spraying the air in front of himself, creating a chemical shield.
“Len, really,” he said with disgust. “Clean this up immediately and scrub the carpet — it costs money. And check Mom’s blood pressure. You’ve upset her. You’re so clumsy, you can’t do basic things. Lara, by the way, never left the bedpan full.”
Lena slowly bent down and picked up the rag she had been about to use to wipe the floor. The rag was heavy and filthy.
“Clean it?” she repeated.
“Obviously! Not me! I’ll throw up!”
Lena straightened, walked to the door, and with one swing — putting into that throw all the pain of five years, all the hurt over “ten thousand for little things” — hurled the rag into his face.
The rag slapped against his chest, slid down, leaving a wet mark on his expensive polo shirt, and fell onto his slippers.
“Have you mistaken me for a servant?” she said in a voice that sent chills down Viktor’s spine. “Take care of her yourself. Wash it and smell it yourself. I quit.”
Viktor froze, then his face flushed crimson.
“You… What have you done?!” he shrieked. “Get out of here! I don’t want your spirit in this house!”
Lena was already walking to the bedroom. She took out a suitcase and began throwing things into it at random: underwear, jeans, documents.
Viktor rushed in after her.
“If you leave now, there’s no way back!” he shouted. “I’ll change the locks and tell everyone — at work, our friends, your mother — that you abandoned a helpless old woman to die! No one will even shake your hand!”
Lena froze for a second. Fear stabbed her heart. Her mother was old-school: “The husband is the head of the family; a woman must endure.” Sideways glances at work… And where would she live? The apartment was Viktor’s, bought before the marriage. The money from the room she had sold had gone into renovating his dacha, which was registered in his mother’s name.
Viktor saw her hesitation and smirked under the mask.
“And in court, I’ll strip you bare. We have a prenuptial agreement, remember? Separate property regime. Everything in my name is mine. Everything in your name is yours. And all you have is that old coat. You’ll go out into the street and live like a bum. So go on, apologize, wash the floor, and keep quiet.”
That was his signature blow. He had cornered her. But he had failed to account for one thing: when there is nothing left to lose, fear disappears.
Lena closed the suitcase. The click of the locks rang out. She walked over to her husband’s desk, took a sheet of paper and a marker.
“You like numbers, Vitya?” she asked calmly. “You like laws? Let’s play your game.”
She placed the paper in front of him.
“Argument number one.”
She quickly wrote: “Able-bodied adult children are obliged to support their disabled parents who require assistance.”
“Children, Vitya. Not daughters-in-law. Not wives. Children. You are her son. I am a third party. Legally, I am not required to change her diapers. You can tell anyone anything you want, but any lawyer will laugh in your face. I will file for divorce tomorrow and demand division of jointly acquired property. Yes, the apartment is yours, but we renovated the dacha during the marriage, and I have receipts for building materials worth one and a half million. I kept them, Vitya.”
Viktor twitched. He had not known about the receipts.
“Argument number two.”
Lena opened the website of a specialized agency, Care+, on her phone and shoved the screen under his nose.
“Look. You wanted savings? Let’s calculate. A live-in caregiver for a bedridden patient — weight over ninety kilos, dementia/aggression, night awakenings. That’s a ‘complex patient’ category. Rate: from seventy thousand rubles.”
“The caregiver’s food is paid by the employer. Minimum fifteen thousand.”
“Agency commission: fifty percent of the first salary. Thirty-five thousand.”
“Visiting nurse services — because you’re not going to give injections, you’ll faint. Fifteen hundred per visit. Thirty days: forty-five thousand.”
She wrote the numbers on the sheet, circling them heavily.
“Total for the first month: one hundred sixty-five thousand rubles.”
“After that, monthly: one hundred thirty thousand.”
“You were saving up for Sasha’s car?” Lena smiled, and that smile was scarier than her tears. “Congratulations, Vitya. You just flushed a Camry down the toilet. Your greed has cost you a million a year.”
“You’re bluffing,” Viktor whispered, turning pale. “I’ll find someone cheaper.”
“Find one,” Lena nodded. “Galina Ivanovna will bite her — she bit me yesterday, by the way — and the worker will leave and file a police report against you. Or she’ll simply rob you and disappear. Good luck with the casting.”
She picked up her suitcase.
“And I’m taking my forty-five-thousand-ruble salary and my life. I’ll rent a studio for twenty-five. I’ll have twenty left, just like you once said: enough for yogurts. But I’ll sleep eight hours a night, and no one will poison my air with the rot inside them.”
Reality bites
Lena left. She slammed the door so hard that the cover fell off the air-quality sensor.
Viktor was left alone. The apartment was silent, interrupted only by his mother’s moans:
“Lena! The bedpan! Clean it, it stinks! Vitya, where is that wretch?!”
He stood with the calculator in his hands, and for some reason the numbers on the screen no longer formed the beautiful picture of “optimization.”
Lena rented a room from a friend for the time being.
The first night, she slept twelve hours. She woke up to a sunbeam on her pillow. Silence. No one calling her. No smell.
She went into the kitchen, brewed coffee, and took a sip. The coffee was bitter and cheap, but it tasted better than any restaurant drink. It was the taste of freedom.
Five days later, Lena’s phone came alive. Viktor was calling.
She stared at the screen for a long time. Then she answered and put him on speaker.
“Yes.”
“Len…” Viktor’s voice was unrecognizable: hoarse, strained, pathetic. In the background, there was some kind of crash and a stranger cursing in broken Russian. “Len, pick up, don’t be silent!”
“I’m listening.”
“Len, come back. Please.”
“What happened, Vitya? Did the optimization fail?”
“These caregivers… They’ve gotten completely brazen!” he was almost crying. “The first one ran away after twenty-four hours. She said Mom threw a plate at her. The second one, the one I found for fifty thousand, started drinking my cognac and sleeping in my bed! I kicked her out, and she scratched up my door! Now there’s a third one from an agency, an expensive one… She demands extra pay for every sneeze! For weight, for smell, for Mom swearing! I’ve already spent a hundred twenty thousand in a week! Advances, commissions, penalties!”
“Demand creates supply, Vitya.”
“Len, I understand everything now. I was wrong. Let’s make an agreement. I’ll pay you — fifty thousand! On top of your salary! You’ll stay home with Mom, the money will stay in the family… We’ll buy the Camry… for you! Well, later, someday…”
Lena listened to him and imagined his face: red, sweaty, with a twitching eye. He still had not understood anything. He was still bargaining.
“Vitya,” she interrupted. “Remember what you said about efficiency?”
“Yes, yes! Your efficiency is higher!”
“My efficiency works for me now. I’ve filed for divorce and division of property. The lawyer said the receipts for the dacha are a rock-solid argument, so get ready to pay me for my share or sell the dacha.”
“You wouldn’t dare…”
“And as for working as a caregiver…” Lena paused. “My peace is not for sale. Not for fifty, not for a hundred. Go look for some fool at the market. I work at my job now, and you are the effective manager — so manage. Have you changed the diaper? Make sure there are no bedsores. Treatment is expensive nowadays.”
She pressed “end call” and blocked the number.
“You’re trying to scare me with court? Then let’s go to court!” I roared at my husband’s sister.
