“Alina, sign the waiver for the apartment immediately!” her mother-in-law shouted. “Or we’ll throw you out of here by force!”
“Alina, open up!” Valentina Petrovna’s voice behind the door cut through the silence like steel against glass. It almost sounded as if the clinking of handcuffs, not a friendly visit, was lurking behind it.
Alina rolled her eyes, letting out a strained groan from her chest. A knife gleamed in her hands under the kitchen light, a half-cut onion lay abandoned on the cutting board, and one thought slithered through her mind: if that fury barged in now, tears would be unavoidable.
“Coming, coming,” she purred, trying to pull a fake mask of hospitality onto her face.
She knew the script by heart. First came Valentina Petrovna’s look, heavy and appraising, like a cast-iron weight. Then the theatrical sigh that shook the air. And, of course, the inevitable tirade about how “a woman should tend the hearth, not lounge around on those internets of yours.”
“Oh God…” Alina whispered as she opened the door. “Valentina Petrovna! What a surprise!”
“Mm-hmm, a surprise like a punch to the gut,” her mother-in-law hissed, slipping inside. She kicked off her boots with the air of someone who had already been deeded the living space. “It smells like onions in here… I suppose you’re poisoning yourselves with ready-made meals again?”
“It’s borscht. Real borscht.” Alina held back her anger, clenching her fingers into a fist until her knuckles turned white. “And yes, I scrubbed the floors this morning.”
“Really? Commendable…” Valentina Petrovna swept the hallway with a look of feigned concern, as if searching for traces of a crime. “Is Denis working late again? Poor thing…”
Deniska… It was funny how she addressed a thirty-five-year-old man as if he were a kindergartener.
“Yes. He’s your heroic manager, after all, working tirelessly,” Alina said through clenched teeth. “Forever saving construction sites and dreaming of a country estate with a bathhouse.”
“Exactly!” her mother-in-law’s eyes flashed. “A house outside the city is exactly what a real man needs! But here… it’s cramped, suffocating…”
“Is it too cramped for you? Then go to your dacha,” Alina snapped, tossing the onion into the boiling pot.
Valentina Petrovna followed her into the kitchen, not falling a step behind.
“Alina, no sarcasm. This is a serious conversation. Denis and I have discussed it: this apartment is an excellent springboard into the future. Start-up capital, so to speak. Denis is tired of four walls. And you understand how important it is for a man to fulfill himself, don’t you?”
“To fulfill himself at my expense?” Alina spun around sharply, raising her eyebrows. “So I’m supposed to give up the apartment I inherited from my grandmother?”
“This is family!” Valentina Petrovna threw up her hands indignantly. “In a family, there is no ‘mine’ and ‘yours’!”
“Really? Was everything shared between you and your husband too? Or did you still tuck away your grandmother’s little ring in your own jewelry box?” The words struck like a whip.
“Oh, that temper!” her mother-in-law cried, nearly dropping her handbag. “Deniska is right, you’re selfish! He deserves that house! He’s a man, he works like a dog!”
“And what am I? A piece of furniture?” Alina pressed her lips together. “I work too, by the way. And this apartment is the only thing I have left from my family. I won’t allow…”
At that moment, the lock clicked in the hallway.
“Mom, hi! You’re already here?” Denis pulled off his jacket and kissed his mother on the cheek. “Alina, why are you so tense?”
“Oh, Deniska!” Valentina Petrovna rejoiced. “Your wife and I were just discussing how to build a family properly.”
“As always, right?” Alina forced out a crooked smile. “First you ‘discuss’ things, and then you present me with a done deal?”
“What’s with that tone?” Denis frowned. “Alina, we only want what’s best. The apartment is small, we want more space, selling it and buying a house is logical.”
“Logical for whom? For you and your mother?” Alina’s voice trembled treacherously. “And what about me? Do I go out onto the street?”
“Stop being hysterical,” Denis said tiredly, running a hand over his face. “We’ll register it in my name — it’s simpler that way. You trust me, don’t you?”
Alina looked at him in such a way that his breath caught.
“Trust you? After I accidentally heard you and Mommy calculating how much you’d get per square meter of my apartment?”
“You… were eavesdropping?” Denis turned pale, as if someone had doused him with icy water.
“Is that what it’s called now?” Alina laughed hysterically, tears ringing in her voice. “Eavesdropping in my own apartment?!”
“Alina, stop this circus!” Valentina Petrovna barked. “Sign the papers and you’ll be happy! Denis loves you, he won’t hurt you!”
“Betray me…” Alina closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and exhaled. “I think both of you did that a long time ago.”
Silence pressed down like a concrete slab.
“I’m not signing anything,” Alina said firmly. “And if necessary, I’ll file for divorce.”
Valentina Petrovna sprang up as if stung.
“Go ahead, file! We’ll see how you sing when you’re alone!”
Without a word, Alina took the kettle from the cupboard and put it on the stove. Her hands were trembling, but her voice was like steel.
“We’ll see.”
“You let your precious mommy steal thirty thousand?!” Angelina stared at her husband in shock as he tried to justify his mother’s thug-like shakedown.
“Have you lost your mind or what?” Denis’s voice seemed to ooze icy calm, but his eyes betrayed a volcano ready to erupt. “Why jump straight to that? Divorce? Do you even understand what you’re saying?… Continuation just below in the first comment.”
Alina, Sign the Waiver for the Apartment Immediately!
“Alina, open up!” Valentina Petrovna’s voice behind the door cut through the silence like steel against glass. It sounded as if the clanking of handcuffs, not a friendly visit, was hidden behind it.
Alina rolled her eyes and let out a strained groan from deep in her chest. The knife in her hand glinted under the kitchen lamp. On the cutting board lay a lonely half-sliced onion, and one thought slithered through her mind: if that fury barged in now, tears would be unavoidable.
“Coming, coming,” she purred, trying to pull a fake mask of hospitality onto her face.
She knew the script by heart. First came Valentina Petrovna’s look, heavy and appraising, like a cast-iron weight. Then the theatrical sigh that shook the air. And, inevitably, the lecture about how “a woman should keep the hearth, not waste time on all that internet nonsense.”
“Oh my God…” Alina whispered as she opened the door. “Valentina Petrovna! What a surprise!”
“Yes, a surprise, like a punch to the stomach,” her mother-in-law hissed, slipping inside. She took off her boots with the air of someone to whom the apartment had already been signed over. “Smells like onion in here… Don’t tell me you’re poisoning yourselves with ready-made food again?”
“It’s borscht. Real borscht.” Alina held back her anger, clenching her fingers into a fist until her knuckles turned white. “And yes, I scrubbed the floors this morning.”
“Really? Commendable…” Valentina Petrovna looked around the hallway with feigned concern, as if searching for traces of a crime. “Is Deniska working late again? Poor thing…”
Deniska. Funny how she spoke to a thirty-five-year-old man as if he were a child in kindergarten.
“Yes. Your heroic manager is working tirelessly,” Alina said through her teeth. “Always saving construction sites and dreaming of a country estate with a bathhouse.”
“Exactly!” her mother-in-law’s eyes flashed. “A country house is exactly what a real man needs! And here… it’s cramped, suffocating…”
“If you feel cramped, go to your dacha,” Alina snapped, dropping the onion into the boiling pot.
Valentina Petrovna followed her into the kitchen, not falling a step behind.
“Alina, enough sarcasm. This is a serious conversation. Denis and I have discussed it: this apartment is an excellent springboard into the future. Starting capital, so to speak. Denis is tired of living within four walls. And you understand how important it is for a man to fulfill himself, don’t you?”
“Fulfill himself at my expense?” Alina spun around sharply, raising her eyebrows. “So I’m supposed to give up the apartment I inherited from my grandmother?”
“This is family!” Valentina Petrovna cried indignantly, throwing up her hands. “In a family, there is no ‘mine’ and ‘yours’!”
“Really? Was everything shared between you and your husband? Or did you still hide Grandma’s little ring away in your jewelry box?” The words struck like a whip.
“Oh, what a temper!” the mother-in-law threw up her hands, nearly dropping her bag. “Deniska is right. You’re selfish! He deserves that house! He’s a man. He works like a slave!”
“And what am I? A piece of furniture?” Alina pressed her lips together. “I work too, by the way. And this apartment is the only thing I have left from my family. I won’t allow…”
At that moment, the click of a lock sounded in the hallway.
“Mom, hi! You’re already here?” Denis pulled off his jacket and kissed his mother on the cheek. “Alina, why are you so tense?”
“Oh, Deniska!” Valentina Petrovna said happily. “Your wife and I were just discussing how to build a family properly.”
“As usual, right?” Alina forced out a crooked smile. “First you ‘discuss’ things, and then you present me with a done deal?”
“What kind of tone is that?” Denis frowned. “Alina, we only want what’s best. The apartment is small. We want more space. Selling it and buying a house is logical.”
“Logical for whom? For you and your mother?” Alina’s voice treacherously trembled. “And where do I go? Out onto the street?”
“Stop being hysterical,” Denis said tiredly, rubbing his face with his palm. “We’ll register it in my name. It’s easier that way. You trust me, don’t you?”
Alina looked at him in a way that made his breath catch.
“Trust you? After I accidentally heard you and Mommy calculating how much you could get per square meter of my apartment?”
“You… were eavesdropping?” Denis turned pale, as if he had been doused with ice water.
“So that’s what it’s called now?” Alina laughed hysterically, tears ringing in her voice. “Eavesdropping in my own apartment?”
“Alina, stop this circus!” Valentina Petrovna barked. “Sign the papers and you’ll be happy! Denis loves you. He won’t hurt you!”
“He’ll betray me…” Alina closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and exhaled. “Actually, I think both of you already did that a long time ago.”
Silence fell over them like a concrete slab.
“I’m not signing anything,” Alina said firmly. “And if necessary, I’ll file for divorce.”
Valentina Petrovna jumped as if she had been stung.
“Then file, file! We’ll see how you sing when you’re alone!”
Alina silently took the kettle from the cupboard and placed it on the stove. Her hands were trembling, but her voice was steel.
“We’ll see.”
“You let your precious mommy steal thirty thousand?!” Angelina stared at her husband in shock as he tried to justify his mother’s blatant shakedown.
“Have you lost your mind?” Denis’s voice seemed to ooze icy calm, but his eyes gave away a volcano ready to erupt. “Why jump straight to that? Divorce? Do you even understand what you’re saying?”
Alina sat at the table, pointlessly turning a cup of long-cold tea in her hands. She was tired. Tired of him. Tired of this apartment-cage, where the air was saturated with the poisonous fumes of Valentina Petrovna’s reproaches. Tired of the fact that her life had suddenly turned into a third-rate soap opera.
“I understand,” she answered quietly, but steel rang in every sound. “This is my last chance not to turn into your convenient wallet on legs.”
“Alina…” Denis sat down across from her and tried to grab her hand, but she pulled it away as if from the touch of a snake. “Why are you dramatizing everything? This isn’t war, after all. It’s family!”
“In a family, you know, a husband is supposed to protect his wife, not push her under the tracks of a bulldozer for the sake of his mother’s dream about a gazebo and a lawn.” Alina’s words sliced through the air like shards of razor glass.
Denis grimaced as if from a toothache.
“God, you’ve become so… venomous! You used to be completely different. Understanding, cheerful. We could joke, make plans, dream together… And now what? Nothing but bile! Do you even realize that you’re destroying our marriage yourself?”
“Marriage?” Alina smiled bitterly. “This looks more like a carefully designed business plan, where I’m the unlucky investor and you two are the sole beneficiaries.”
He slammed his fist down on the table so hard that the cup jumped, spilling the last of the tea.
“Stop talking this nonsense! You got this apartment by pure accident! What would you even be without your grandmother and her stupid will?”
“Yes,” Alina slowly stood up, looking down at him. “And you know what? I’m protecting this apartment not out of greed, but because it’s the only place on earth where I feel safe. And you and Mommy want to take even that away from me.”
“Don’t you dare drag my mother into this!” Denis shouted. “She only wants what’s best! She wants us to live in normal conditions!”
“She wants me to sign a deed of gift over to you.” Alina crossed her arms. “And then the two of you will calmly sell the apartment, leaving me with nothing. But that is not going to happen.”
“You think I’m capable of that?” His voice carried a mixture of anger and hurt. “Do you consider me a traitor?”
“I know it,” Alina’s voice trembled slightly. “I heard you whisper to her on the phone: ‘As soon as she signs the papers, we can safely take out a mortgage on a country cottage.’”
Denis turned pale as a ghost.
“You were eavesdropping?”
“I was living in my own apartment and accidentally heard your phone conversation,” she snapped, straightening her shoulders. “Those are, strangely enough, two very different things.”
At that very moment, as if announcing the arrival of a storm, the doorbell rang insistently.
“Mommy has arrived, probably to give you moral support,” Alina said through clenched teeth, as if spitting snake venom.
Denis rushed to the door, and a moment later Valentina Petrovna swept into the room like a whirlwind, her face shining with triumph, as though she had brought in the head of a defeated enemy.
“Well, Alinka, have you come to your senses?” Her voice rang with self-confidence, grating on the ears like the screech of metal. “Denis said you made a mountain out of a molehill again.”
Alina silently looked at her mother-in-law as if at an unexpected, uninvited tax inspector.
“Sweetheart, listen to me…” Valentina Petrovna moved closer and began speaking in a soft, sugary voice, though hidden poison could be felt beneath the sweetness. “If you love Denis, you must trust him. This apartment is useless to both of you. A man must feel like the master.”
“The master?” Alina narrowed her eyes, a cold fire flashing in them. “In my apartment?”
“God, there you go again!” Valentina Petrovna jumped up as if a wasp had stung her. “I always knew you got that from your mother: everything is mine, and no one else gets anything! That’s exactly why you’ll end up alone!”
“Better alone than with you,” Alina said slowly and clearly.
“Do you regret our marriage?” Denis’s voice was quiet, but sharp as a razor blade.
“I regret closing my eyes for so long,” Alina cut him off, picking up her phone from the table. “And I regret not calling a lawyer sooner.”
Valentina Petrovna’s eyes bulged, her face twisting with astonishment.
“What? What lawyer?”
“The kind who already explained today that as long as I’m the owner, you can only dream about that house. And you know what, Denis?” Alina looked at her husband with sad but unshakable resolve. “If you want, you can file for divorce. I’m not holding you back.”
“You won’t manage alone!” Valentina Petrovna shouted with triumphant malice. “No one will help you!”
Alina smirked, steel glinting in her eyes.
“The lawyer thinks otherwise.”
And then, as if crossing them out of her life, she slipped silently into the kitchen, leaving them standing in the middle of the room in stunned silence.
“You will NEVER be the mistress of MY house!” the mother-in-law screamed like a wounded animal, wanting to cast her not merely out onto the street, but into an icy wasteland.