“This is my apartment, and I’m not putting up with your mother for one more day!” Katya shouted, slamming the door and wiping away tears of anger.
Ekaterina first realized that she had completely lost control of her own life when she could no longer drink a cup of coffee peacefully in her own kitchen.
Just sit down. Just pour herself a cup. Just enjoy a little silence.
But silence had long become a rarity in her home, like a decent doctor at a local clinic—supposedly on the staff, but no one had ever actually seen one.
Olga Petrovna, her mother-in-law, was an imposing woman with permanently styled hair and a razor-sharp tongue. She had moved in “for a couple of weeks” while the pipes in her apartment were supposedly being repaired.
It was already the third month.
The pipes were apparently being repaired so thoroughly that Olga Petrovna had settled in as though she had returned to her ancestral home. She spread her cosmetics across the bathroom, placed her pills on the dining table, and left her slippers beside the front door.
And she spread something else around the apartment as well—her opinion.
Everywhere.
Katya returned from work feeling as though she had just finished a shift in a labor camp, only to enter another one the moment she came home.
“You bought that… that store-bought sausage again?” Olga Petrovna drawled with disgust, peering into the grocery bags before Ekaterina had even managed to close the door. “Do you know what they put in it? Cellulose, paper, and judging by the taste, probably a piece of an old mop!”
“If you don’t like it, don’t eat it,” Katya replied, walking past her.
“And what about Dima? What is he supposed to eat—your chemicals? He has suffered from gastritis since childhood! Tomorrow I’ll cook him some proper boiled chicken myself. Like a normal person!”
Katya clenched her teeth.
These conversations had become a repeated mantra. Every morning and every evening, over and over again. Either Katya cooked badly, folded the laundry incorrectly, or took showers too often.
Today, apparently, the sausage was a murderer.
“I work, Olga Petrovna, in case you’ve forgotten,” Katya said as she removed her coat. “I don’t sit on the sofa watching television all day. I can’t cook boiled chicken every half hour.”
“Who asked you to? You could at least bring your salary into the household instead of buying discounted skirts! Poor Dmitry carries everything on his shoulders alone.”
The “poor boy” was peacefully snoring in the bedroom.
He had left work early because “Mom was upset” after Katya refused to let her into the kitchen during a Zoom meeting.
Ekaterina worked too. From home.
But everyone usually forgot that.
“Olga Petrovna,” Katya said, slowly exhaling, “let me remind you that this apartment belongs to me. I bought it before the marriage, with my own money. I don’t complain when you spend the entire day sitting in my kitchen. But at least give me some peace and quiet in the evenings.”
Olga Petrovna looked her up and down.
“You should try saying ‘my apartment’ in front of your husband,” she hissed. “You’ve completely lost your conscience. You have a husband, yet all you ever say is ‘mine, mine, mine.’ With an attitude like that, you’ll end up alone, sweetheart.”
Katya turned her back on her and went into the bathroom.
She closed the door. Locked it. Sat down on the edge of the bathtub and buried her face in her hands.
The humiliation made her tremble. It brought tears to her eyes.
She did not cry. She had not cried in a long time. It felt as though she had dried up inside.
But everything within her was burning like a furnace into which someone had thrown a cruel letter and forgotten to close the damper.
Why am I putting up with this at all? she thought. Why am I living like a tenant in my own apartment?
Late that evening, after Olga Petrovna had retired to the room mistakenly referred to as the “guest room,” Katya sat down beside Dima.
He was scrolling through YouTube and laughing at a video about a drunken cat.
She spoke carefully.
“Dima, we need to talk. About your mother.”
He sighed without looking away from the screen.
“Please don’t start. She’s an elderly woman. It’s difficult for her to live alone.”
“And it isn’t difficult for me? Has anyone asked me that question even once during the past few months?”
“You’re young and strong. Surely you can handle one old woman.”
“That old woman is destroying me emotionally,” Katya said with a bitter smile. “I think I’ve started going gray since she moved in.”
“Stop it,” he interrupted. “Don’t talk like that. She hasn’t done anything bad to you.”
Katya jumped to her feet.
“She goes through my things every day. Isn’t that bad? She counts the food in the refrigerator and asks why I bought another bottle of shampoo when the previous one isn’t empty yet. You heard her call me a brainless housekeeper, didn’t you?”
Dmitry fell silent.
He looked at his wife the way people look at someone who has broken a sacred vow of silence.
“Katya, you take everything too personally. She’s older. She simply has a different way of doing things. You need to be wiser.”
“I’m not living in a monastery, Dima! This is my home. Mine. Yet I live here like a servant. I’m supposed to remain silent, endure everything, and be grateful that I haven’t been thrown out!”
He shrugged.
“I’ll talk to her if you want. But you should also try to… you know… get along with her.”
Katya stared at him.
“Three months. I’ve been trying for three months. I’m choking on all that effort, Dima. And you keep saying you’ll talk to her. You don’t talk to me. You talk to your mother for three hours every evening. You only talk to me when I start shouting.”
He turned away.
That was it.
The conversation was over.
Again.
Katya got up and went onto the balcony. The cold air burned her face.
She lit a cigarette.
She had quit five years earlier, but there was still a packet hidden in a cabinet “for an emergency.”
Apparently, the emergency had arrived.
If it weren’t for this stupid apartment, she thought, I would rent a room somewhere and leave. But why should I, the owner of this apartment, be the one to leave? Why shouldn’t they leave?
She stood there thinking for a long time.
The cigarette burned down, her fingers grew cold, and angry tears filled her eyes again.
The following day, she did something no one expected.
Katya withdrew half her salary in cash.
She bought a safe—a real, heavy safe with a combination lock—and placed it in the bedroom.
She put everything inside: the apartment documents, passports, her emergency envelope of money, and even the ring Dmitry had once presented to her with great ceremony.
Then she went into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and calmly said:
“Olga Petrovna, I have a request. Starting tomorrow, you need to begin looking for somewhere else to live. You have one week. After that, I’m changing the locks.”
“Have you lost your mind?” her mother-in-law screamed, her face turning white.
“No. I’ve simply had enough. This is my home, and I’m going to live in it—alone, or with people who respect me.”
Dmitry, who had been silently crumbling bread throughout the conversation, did not even look at her.
He simply got up and walked into the bedroom.
For the first time since moving in, Olga Petrovna had nothing to say.
The next morning, the apartment was silent.
It was not the warm, pleasant kind of silence filled with the smell of coffee and birds singing outside the window.
It was tense, like the silence before an earthquake.
Even the old cat, who usually howled like an opera singer, remained quiet in the corner, looking as though he understood that something serious was about to happen.
Olga Petrovna emerged carefully from her room, moving like a cat.
She wore a dressing gown so old that it seemed to have survived Lenin, perestroika, and possibly Katya’s entire youth.
She looked at Ekaterina without saying good morning.
Katya sat calmly at the table, eating oatmeal.
“And how exactly do you imagine this happening?” her mother-in-law asked in a calm but icy voice. “You want to throw me out? Me?”
Katya did not blink.
“I don’t want to, but you’re leaving me no choice. You are living in my home. I never invited you to move in permanently. When someone comes as a guest, they should at least avoid making life unbearable for the owner.”
Olga Petrovna recoiled as though someone had thrown boiling water in her face.
“So that’s how it is! Have you forgotten that I’m your husband’s mother? If it weren’t for me, you might never have married anyone! Dima defended you at university when you were nearly expelled!”
Katya placed her spoon on the table.
“And have you forgotten that you are living on my property? You’ve lived here for three months without contributing a single kopeck. As for Dima—yes, he defended me. Then he married me. And you know what? I regret that I didn’t realize sooner that his backbone has the consistency of jelly.”
“You’re insulting me, young lady!” her mother-in-law gasped. “I’ll take you to court! I’ll leave, but you’ll pay for this!”
“Take me to court for what? Asking a guest who decided to become a permanent resident to leave?” Ekaterina replied with a calm smile. “I’m not forbidding you from visiting. You simply can’t live here anymore. That’s all.”
Olga Petrovna spun around and marched away, slamming the door like an actress in a cheap television drama.
Two minutes later, Dmitry entered the kitchen, yawning and scratching himself.
He wore sweatpants, his hair was greasy, and he had the expression of a man who had no plans for that day, let alone for his future.
“Katya, this has gone too far,” he began lazily. “She cried all night. Do you want her blood pressure to rise?”
Katya looked at him as though he were a stool.
Not with hatred.
With indifference.
“Dima, unless you say something sensible right now, I’m filing for divorce. No scenes. No hysterics. I’ll simply go and do it. I’ve already made my decision.”
He froze.
“Are you serious?”
“Did you think I was joking? Have you ever heard me joke about divorce? I’m thirty-nine years old. I don’t want to be a nanny to you and your mother. I want to be a woman with a husband, not a landlord for a retired woman who complains from morning until night and counts my sanitary pads.”
“You’re exaggerating. Everything will work out. She’ll find an apartment, and—”
“And what about you?” Katya asked. “Are you with me, or are you still standing between the two of us?”
Dmitry shrugged helplessly.
“I just don’t want us to argue.”
“Well, I do,” Katya replied. “Because things can’t get any worse. I feel as though I’m living in a communal apartment with strangers. Everything is scheduled, everything becomes a complaint, and every word is spoken with contempt.”
He sat down.
“So what do you want? Do you want me to throw my mother out?”
“No. I want you to understand for yourself where your family is. And I want you to make your own choice.”
He remained silent, staring at his plate.
The kettle boiled.
Katya stood up and switched it off.
“If you can’t do it, don’t torture yourself. I’ll leave. I’ll make the decision easier for you.”
And he left.
He took his jacket and walked out.
There was no shouting, no packing, no attempt to embrace her.
He simply left in silence, like a man.
Only the door slammed behind him like a gunshot.
Katya sat down.
And cried.
They did not speak for four days.
Olga Petrovna locked herself in her room, listened to radio programs about health, and breathed loudly like a steam engine.
Dmitry stayed with a friend—perhaps on his sofa, perhaps with a bottle. Katya did not ask.
For the first time in a long while, she could breathe freely.
But her heart beat differently.
It felt as though she had been beaten quietly and emotionally, without bruises, leaving only a dull ache inside.
On the fifth day, toward evening, Dima returned to the apartment.
His hair was clean and his clothes were not wrinkled—a sign that he had not been staying with Vitalik and might even have spent some time inside his own head.
“Katya, can we talk?”
She nodded silently.
He sat opposite her.
His eyes were red. Apparently, he had not been sleeping either.
“I’ve been thinking for a long time. I honestly never wanted any of this. I’m simply used to her always being there and telling everyone what to do. And you… you’re strong. I thought you could handle it.”
“Of course I’m strong,” Katya said with a tired smile. “Everyone expects me to be some kind of heroine. Am I not allowed to simply live?”
He nodded.
“I’m going to rent an apartment for her. I’ve already found one near the metro. I’ll help her move. And… provided you don’t object… I would like to stay.”
Katya said nothing.
“I’m not saying everything can be forgotten,” he continued. “But I can see how much you suffered. I truly understand it now. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
She stood up, slowly walked toward him, and embraced him.
But there was no warmth in the embrace.
There was only respect, like the way one embraces someone with whom one has survived something difficult.
Or someone one is saying goodbye to.
“Dima, you’re not ready. Not for a family and not for adult life. I’m thirty-nine. I can’t keep teaching people how to live. I can only live my own life.”
He sighed and squeezed her hand.
“Can I sleep on the sofa for a few days? I’ll arrange everything—the paperwork, Mom’s apartment, all of it. Then I’ll leave if that’s what you want. Just give me the chance to finish this like a decent person. Without a war.”
She nodded.
Not for him.
For herself.
A week later, Olga Petrovna moved out.
Dmitry helped with the move. He returned late each evening and slept on the sofa.
They spoke very little.
In truth, they barely spoke at all—only short, practical phrases.
On the ninth morning, Katya woke to the smell of coffee.
Dima was sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window.
“It’s done,” he said. “She has moved. I’m leaving too. Thank you for not throwing me out immediately.”
Katya walked over and stood beside him.
“I’m not cruel. I was simply tired of being alone while two people were living beside me.”
He stood up.
“If you change your mind, call me. If you don’t, I’ll understand.”
“Dima…” She caught him by the hand. “Had it not been for your mother, would we have stayed together?”
He remained silent for a long time.
Then he quietly said:
“We would have fallen apart even without her. It simply would have taken longer.”
He left.
Katya remained behind.
And for the first time in many years, she felt that her life belonged to her again.
A month passed.
Ekaterina’s home was clean.
The silence was not merely audible—it lived there.
The cat gained weight, stopped hiding beneath the bathtub, and finally seemed convinced that no one was going to burst into the room shouting, “What kind of food is that? Did you buy chemicals again?”
Katya returned from work without hurrying.
For the first time in years, there was no reason to rush home. No one sent her shopping lists through the messenger. No one complained on the phone, “Katyusha, you do remember that Malakhov is on television tonight, don’t you?”
She entered, hung up her coat, tossed her keys onto the shelf, and went into the kitchen.
She made tea.
There was a new tablecloth on the table, bought with her salary without any “budget approval.”
A crystal bowl filled with fruit stood in the center.
Everything was hers.
Everything belonged to her.
The phone rang.
The number was saved under the name “THAT Person.”
Katya sighed and answered.
“Yes, Dmitry?”
“Hello. Am I disturbing you?”
“You’ve never known how to call at the right time, so go ahead,” she replied calmly, almost teasingly.
“I’m not calling because I want to come back, so don’t worry.” There was an awkward pause. “I wanted to discuss… Mom’s apartment.”
Katya froze.
Here it comes.
“She left for the countryside to stay with her sister. She says she feels more at peace there. And she wrote a will. She’s leaving everything to me. But she and I had a conversation.”
“What kind of conversation?” Katya asked tensely.
“She said all of this started because I tried to act like a cushion between the two of you. She said I should have made decisions instead of shifting the responsibility onto both of you.”
Katya laughed—a dull, bitter laugh.
“At least your mother finally saw the truth.”
“Katya, I want to give you that apartment.”
“What?”
“We bought it when we had just married. Most of the money came from the apartment you sold, and the rest came from the mortgage. I haven’t forgotten. Just take it. I’ll transfer it to you as a gift.”
“Wait. Are you trying to apologize with money?”
“No. I simply want to settle everything honestly. Properly.”
Katya stood up from the table.
It was bright beside the window.
Beyond the glass, other people’s lives rushed past—someone falling in love, someone getting divorced, someone paying a mortgage.
And she had her own square meters of silence.
“I’ll think about it,” she said quietly.
“I don’t expect gratitude. I simply want you to have a backup. You can rent it out, move into it, or burn it down. Your life, your rules.”
A week later, they met at the public service center.
There were no embraces and no nostalgia.
They were simply two people who had once been husband and wife, now signing documents together.
Katya completed the paperwork silently, her expression firm.
For the first time in many years, there was no resentment in her eyes, no desire to convince anyone, and no guilt.
After signing everything, they walked outside.
“I thought you might say something,” Dmitry said with a crooked smile. “I don’t know—‘thank you,’ ‘goodbye,’ or ‘I hope you rot.’”
“You said everything yourself. I simply agreed,” Ekaterina replied with a shrug. “What happened is over. I’m not going back to it.”
He nodded.
“By the way, I’m getting married again. Next month.”
Katya smiled.
“That was quick. Although you were always quick to get married. Growing up was the part you never had time for.”
He turned red but said nothing.
“Dima, I honestly hope you find a woman who doesn’t own an apartment. Perhaps then you’ll love her for who she is rather than for her square meters—or for the way she serves you soup.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s fair,” she replied, walking away without looking back.
Katya registered the apartment in her name.
Two weeks later, she rented it to a young couple.
They were noisy. They laughed and slammed doors.
But Katya did not mind.
The rental payments arrived in her account.
The moral debt had been settled.
She went to the countryside alone for the first time in ten years.
She rented a small house with a peeling veranda and the scent of old currant bushes.
That evening, she sat beside the window with a glass of wine.
And for the first time in a very long time, she thought:
I’m free. I don’t owe anyone anything anymore. Not even myself.
A year later, Katya sold the apartment.
She invested the money in a house outside Moscow.
Her own house.
A house without mothers-in-law, without Dmitry, and without a single square centimeter of humiliation.
She invited only her female friends to the housewarming party.
All of them were divorced, strong, and carrying stories of their own.
One of them looked at her and said:
“You know, you seem lighter. As though you’ve lifted an entire family off your shoulders.”
Katya laughed.
“That’s exactly what I did.”
