On Saturday evening, the apartment on the third floor of the concrete nine-storey block smelled of fried potatoes – and of a heated argument that was just about ready to burst out.
Anna shrugged off her coat, hooked it carelessly onto the crooked peg in the hallway and, slapping along the linoleum in worn-out slippers, walked into the kitchen. Denis, her husband, was already sitting there, looking like someone who’d just been handed a draft notice. In front of him, tea was going cold in a mug that said “Best Husband,” the one Anna had given him last New Year. The irony was brutal – the words on the mug sounded like mockery now.
“Why the long face?” Anna asked, switching on the kettle.
“Mom called,” Denis sighed heavily.
“Again? So what has she come up with this time?”
Denis rubbed his neck, looking away. He had the guilty but stubborn look of a kid who knows he already ate the candy but is scared to admit it.
“She… well, basically, she asked whose name the apartment is in,” he said uncertainly.
Anna froze with a spoonful of sugar halfway over her cup. For a second, a deathly silence hung in the kitchen; only the fridge hissed like an old man, and the kettle started to wheeze.
“And what did you tell her?” Anna set the cup on the table with such a thump that water splashed over the rim.
“Well, I said it was in your name. Why? You always said that yourself…”
Anna snorted.
“I said it was my apartment. And that’s true. But the paperwork is still in my parents’ names. They bought it when I was at university. They meant to transfer it to me later, but never got around to it.”
Denis winced.
“So it turns out you… kind of… weren’t exactly honest?”
She burst out laughing.
“Oh my God, Denis, are you serious right now? Do we have a mortgage? Are we hiding something from the bank? No. We live here, we pay the utilities, I paid for the renovation with my own money. Why do you care whose name is on some piece of paper?”
But Denis had already pulled his head down into his shoulders, like a turtle. He knew the conversation was only just beginning.
That same evening, the front door opened and in walked Tatiana Ivanovna herself – his mother-in-law. No call, no “may I come in.” She had her own key – an old sore point, actually, but Anna was tired of fighting about it.
“What have we got here?” Tatiana Ivanovna said from the doorway, casting a glance at the doormat. “Dirt, hair… You don’t look after anything, do you?”
Anna rolled her eyes.
“Good evening, Tatiana Ivanovna. We’re delighted to see you, of course, only there’s no dog in this house, so the hair is probably yours.”
Her mother-in-law shot a glare at her over the top of her glasses.
“Don’t get smart, Anechka. Being smart doesn’t mean being wise.”
She sat down at the kitchen table and pulled pies out of a bag (Anna couldn’t stand them, but her husband lit up over them like a child).
“Denis, I wanted to have a serious talk with you,” she said, unwrapping the first pie. “Do you understand that you’re living in an apartment that’s not yours?”
“Mum, enough already!” Denis fidgeted, twisting his fork in his hands.
“No, not enough!” she cut him off. “I worked my backside off for twenty-five years so you could have a future. And now you’re sitting here living off that girl’s parents!”
Anna felt something stir inside her. Not even anger yet – more like that boiling point in the kettle when the lid is about to blow off.
“Excuse me, Tatiana Ivanovna,” she said quietly but firmly. “Denis and I live together. I work, I pay for everything myself. What exactly are you accusing me of? That my parents helped me? That’s normal.”
“Normal?” His mother laughed, crunching into her pie. “Normal is when a man provides for his wife, not when he squeezes in like a lodger in her little family burrow.”
“Mum!” Denis jumped to his feet. “Come on, that’s enough…”
But it was too late. The words were already hanging in the air like the smell of burnt oil, spoiling the whole evening.
Anna tried to keep herself together. Tea, TV, small talk. But her mother-in-law wouldn’t let up.
“Have you even seen the papers?” she suddenly asked. “Or is your ‘young wife’ just pulling the wool over your eyes?”
Anna froze.
“What was that supposed to mean?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“I mean what I said,” Tatiana Ivanovna replied calmly. “I was at the public services center, found out a few things. The apartment isn’t in her name. It’s in her mother’s and father’s. That’s how it is. And here you two are, building a family. Then one day – bam! – and they throw you out on the street.”
Denis looked at Anna as if he was seeing her for the first time. And it wasn’t at all clear that he liked what he saw.
“Anna, is that true?” his voice trembled.
She pushed her chair back and stood up sharply.
“It is. So what? Did you marry me, or a property registry extract?”
Silence. Only his mother pressed her lips together in satisfaction.
“You see, son,” she said quietly but venomously. “You backed the wrong horse.”
And at that moment Anna snapped.
“That’s it!” she shouted, slamming her palm on the table. “I am done with you shredding my nerves! This is my apartment, my life, and if something doesn’t suit you here – the door is right there!”
She jabbed her finger toward the hallway.
Denis jumped up.
“You can’t talk to my mother like that!”
“And how exactly am I supposed to talk to her?” Anna was no longer holding back. “She insults me, humiliates me, lies about my own documents! If you want – go live with her! Go on, pack your things and run back to Mommy!”
Tatiana Ivanovna snapped her bag of pies shut and stood up without looking at Anna.
“You see, son, what did I tell you… Shameless. Living with someone like that is having no respect for yourself.”
And she slammed the door so hard the kitchen windowpanes rattled.
Anna stayed where she was, breathing hard. Denis was silent, staring at the floor.
The next day Anna woke up to a suffocating silence. On Sundays Denis was usually next to her, tossing and snoring, and then dragging her into the kitchen for coffee and a discussion about where to go – to their friends’ or to his mother’s. But today the pillow beside her was cold, and in the hallway a lonely backpack sat on the chair. Denis’s jacket lay neatly folded on top.
Anna didn’t go looking for him. Something had already settled inside her – not anxiety, not anger, but a kind of heavy emptiness. As if there were a concrete block sitting in her stomach. She walked slowly into the kitchen, turned on the kettle and absent-mindedly put oats on for herself. Her phone blinked with a notification: “I’ve gone to Mom’s. I need to think.”
“Perfect,” she said out loud with a crooked smile. “Think. A thirty-year-old man ‘thinks’ on his mom’s couch.”
She took the milk out of the fridge, then realized she had no appetite.
He showed up that evening. She heard the key in the lock – and immediately an irritated voice:
“Why did you change the lock?”
Anna opened the door.
“Because your mother had a key. I don’t want her playing mistress here while I’m at work.”
“You’re driving me crazy,” Denis walked in, dropped his backpack in the hallway. “She’s my mother!”
“So what?” Anna folded her arms. “I didn’t hire her to supervise my life.”
He went into the kitchen, poured himself some water from the filter and drank it down in one go. Then he turned around, lips pressed tight.
“Anna, do you understand that you lied to me?”
“About what, Denis?” Her voice broke into a bitter little laugh. “About the fact that my parents kept the flat in their names instead of putting it in mine? That’s a lie? Seriously?”
“To me – yes, it is!” Denis slammed his fist on the table. “You knew it was important to me that my wife had her own place. That I wouldn’t end up here with no rights at all!”
Anna laughed – nervously, loudly.
“With no rights? You’ve been living here for three years, and I’ve never once kicked you out. I paid for the renovation, I carry everything on my shoulders. And now you’re throwing a fit because the paper isn’t the one you imagined?”
“It’s a matter of principle!” he shouted.
She stepped closer and stared straight into his eyes.
“And love? Is that not a principle?”
He looked away. And that was all she needed to see.
A couple of days later, the conflict moved to the next level. One evening Anna came home from work and found a suitcase in the room. Her suitcase.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, dropping her bag to the floor.
“Mom says we can’t go on like this,” Denis rattled off quickly, as if afraid to contradict himself. “If the apartment isn’t yours, then we’re nobody here. We either have to put it in our names or… well…”
“Or what?” Anna stepped closer. “Or I’m the one who’s supposed to leave?”
He faltered.
“Well, you know…”
She grabbed the suitcase and slammed it down on the floor so hard the zipper cracked.
“Screw you!” she yelled. “You want to live with your mother, go!”
Denis jumped up and grabbed her by the wrists.
“Quiet! The neighbors will hear!”
“Let them hear!” Anna tore herself free. “Let everyone know you’re a spineless wimp who does whatever Mommy tells him!”
He let her go and turned to the window. His back was shaking.
“I’m not a wimp,” he said quietly. “I just don’t want to end up on the street.”
“You’ll end up on the street because of your own stupidity,” she replied coldly. “Leave the keys.”
The next day his mother showed up herself – with a triumphant look. She had a supermarket bag in one hand and a folder of documents in the other.
“Well, Anechka,” she said as she walked past Anna into the hallway. “Have you decided how you’re going to live?”
“Yes,” Anna replied, narrowing her eyes. “Without you.”
Her mother-in-law snorted.
“Oh, don’t make me laugh. You think your parents are going to stand up for you? The flat’s theirs. If they feel like it, they’ll sell it and move you into a dorm.”
Anna sighed.
“Do you realize you’re deliberately destroying our family?”
“I’m saving it!” Tatiana Ivanovna flared up. “I’m saving my son from your lies!”
“Lies?” Anna stepped closer until their faces were almost touching. “If the apartment were in my name, you’d just find something else to latch onto.”
Her mother-in-law froze, her lips twitching, but she quickly regained her firm tone.
“I will not let my son live in a cage owned by someone else’s parents.”
“Then take him,” Anna said calmly. “I refuse to live in this circus.”
Denis came that evening, and the final scene played out in the kitchen. He dropped onto a stool, staring at the floor.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said dully. “On the one hand there’s you… on the other, there’s Mom…”
Anna stood beside him, resting her hands on the table.
“You’re a grown man. Make a choice. Either you live with me and we build a family, or you go to your mother and the two of you keep ‘thinking’ together.”
He stayed silent. Then he raised his eyes – and there was no resolve and no love in them, just exhaustion.
“I need time,” he muttered.
Anna’s smile was crooked.
“You don’t have time. Your suitcase is by the door.”
He flinched but didn’t protest. Then he stood up, took his jacket and walked out without looking back.
Anna slammed the door, leaned against it. And for the first time in a long while, she felt she’d taken a step toward freedom. A terrifying, painful step – but the only possible one.
That night she couldn’t fall asleep for hours. First she cried, then she laughed. Then she just lay there listening to the old man in the next apartment coughing. The world kept on going. And her life was only just beginning again.
The conflict had not just come to a head – it had split her past apart like a crack in glass. And there was no way back.
A week passed. Denis was still living with his mother. Anna didn’t call, didn’t text – and suddenly realized she actually liked it that way. The silence in the apartment had become a kind of medicine: no one throwing socks under the couch, no one slamming the fridge door at night, no one grumbling about “real food instead of some salad.”
But the illusion of peace didn’t last long. On Saturday evening, the doorbell rang. On the doorstep stood his mother with Denis. Both of them looked serious, as if they’d come to divide up an inheritance from a rich uncle, not to talk to a young woman.
“We’ve been thinking,” began Tatiana Ivanovna, straightening the collar of her jacket. “Since the flat isn’t yours but your parents’, it would be logical for them to sell it. And you can split the money.”
Anna didn’t get it at first.
“Sorry… do what, exactly?”
“Sell it!” his mother repeated confidently. “Your parents can live in a house; they’ve got that dacha, don’t they. And you two can buy something together with the money. Fair and square.”
Anna narrowed her eyes.
“Fair is when you and your son stop counting other people’s walls as your own.”
Denis stepped forward. His voice was shaking, but the words came out firm:
“I can’t live like this, Anya. You hid the truth from me. A family has to be built on trust. If the apartment isn’t yours, then we don’t have a foundation.”
Anna laughed – quietly, but with such despair that her own chest ached.
“A foundation, Denis? What about the years we’ve been together? The renovation I paid for? The fact that I loved you? That’s not a foundation?”
“That’s different,” he cut her off, avoiding her eyes.
And then Anna understood completely. It was over.
She walked to the coat rack, took his jacket off the hook and shoved it into his hands.
“Take your mother, your ‘principles’ and get out of here.”
“You’ve lost your mind!” his mother exploded. “Your marriage is falling apart!”
“It’s not a marriage, it’s a trick show.” Anna stood straight; her hands were trembling, but her voice was steady. “I’m not a commodity and not an apartment. I’m a woman. And I’m not going to live wedged between you and your mommy anymore.”
She flung the door open. Denis hesitated for a couple of seconds, but his mother tugged him by the elbow. And they left.
Anna closed the door, leaned her back against it and drew a deep breath. It was quiet. Really quiet.
A week later she filed for divorce. When her parents found out everything, they offered to put the apartment in her name, but Anna refused.
“Let it stay this way,” she said. “It’s my filter. If someone else ever shows up in my life, I’ll know right away what they’re here for – love, or a ‘piece of paper.’”
She smiled. Bitterly, but honestly. And for the first time in a long while, she felt free