— Apologize to my mother. Right now. And transfer her the money. Otherwise you’re really flying out of this apartment!
That sentence rang out so loudly that the neighbors upstairs seemed to stop using their drill.
My beloved husband, Igor, was standing in the middle of the living room, threateningly pointing somewhere toward the baseboard. He had puffed himself up with his own importance, looking like an airship ready to drop an ultimatum bomb on my ungrateful head.
I sat in an armchair, slowly stirring my tea, observing this free theatrical performance with the curiosity of a natural scientist. The situation was so absurd that it did not even make me angry.
We had been married for three years. We lived in Igor’s “family nest” — a run-down one-room apartment he had inherited from his grandfather.
My husband sincerely believed that since he had generously allowed me onto his thirty-three square meters, I had automatically been promoted to the status of his personal servant with ATM functionality.
What Igor, in all his grandeur, stubbornly refused to remember was one amusing fact.
I owned a beautiful three-room apartment in an elite neighborhood. My mother, whom I had moved from the village, was currently living there quite comfortably.
And I lived in Igor’s one-room apartment solely because it was half an hour closer to my office.
I was fine with that compromise. Exactly until my mother-in-law got involved.
Zinaida Pavlovna was a loud, categorical woman who firmly believed that her son was an exclusive gift from heaven, and that I was obligated to pay daily rent for the privilege of using him.
The first warning signs appeared a couple of weeks ago. My mother-in-law developed the charming habit of showing up without calling, conducting a customs inspection of my refrigerator, and issuing financial directives.
“A good wife should invest all her income into her husband’s family, not hide it away in accounts!” she declared instructively last Friday, energetically working her fork through a salad.
“Money should serve the good of the clan! You should chip in for a new car for Igoresha. He’s embarrassed to drive the old one in front of his friends.”
“According to the Central Bank, Zinaida Pavlovna, the best investment right now is a deposit account, not attempts to impress mysterious friends with credit-financed scrap metal,” I replied calmly.
“And my budget is calculated exclusively for the benefit of my own digestion.”
Outraged, my mother-in-law jerked her hand, caught the saltshaker with her sleeve, and sent it crashing under the table.
Zinaida Pavlovna froze with her fork raised, like a ground squirrel suddenly realizing that all the safe burrows in the wide steppe had disappeared.
But that lesson did her no good. Yesterday she decided to launch a full-scale offensive, and that became the beginning of the end.
Zinaida Pavlovna arrived for dinner and announced from the doorway that her anniversary was coming up. And the best gift that I — specifically I, not her precious son — could give her was to pay for a two-week trip to an elite sanatorium. The price equaled two months of my salary.
“I am your husband’s mother! I gave him the best years of my life!” she proclaimed, waving a piece of bread like a conductor’s baton.
“And you live on my territory! It’s time you showed some respect and thanked his mother!”
“The territory, Zinaida Pavlovna, according to the extract from Rosreestr, belongs to Igor.”
“And my personal charity program for sponsoring other people’s vacations is temporarily closed for audit. Please contact the Social Insurance Fund.”
Igor, who until that moment had cowardly blended into the wallpaper in the hallway, suddenly felt a surge of filial duty.
He rushed into the kitchen, fussily escorted his offended mommy to the elevator, and then returned to me with that historic ultimatum.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” my husband continued, looming over me.
“This is my apartment! And I make the rules here! I’m giving you until this evening. You call my mother, apologize, and transfer the money for the trip. Or you pack your rags and get out!”
I looked at his reddened face and understood: the time for half-measures was over.
“You know, Igorek, you’re absolutely right,” I nodded peacefully and rose gracefully from the armchair.
“Living on someone else’s territory is always a risk. I’ll need about three hours to pack.”
Igor smirked triumphantly. In his picture of the world, I was supposed to throw myself at his feet right now, flood the parquet with tears, and beg him not to throw me out into the cold.
“You’ll crawl back!” he declared, proudly shoving his hands into the pockets of his house pants.
“Who needs you with that attitude? You’ll go rent a room with bedbugs on the outskirts, and your arrogance will disappear fast!”
“Of course. I’ll try to find the most picturesque heating pipeline with a view of the central park,” I agreed, taking out my smartphone.
Muttering something unintelligible, he grabbed his car keys and announced that he was going to his mother’s place to wait for the money transfer and my humiliated apologies.
As soon as the door slammed behind him, I opened an app and called a moving crew with the largest truck available.
But he had failed to account for one tiny but critically important detail. He had absolutely no understanding of cause and effect.
When I moved into that apartment three years ago, it was a depressing sight: concrete walls, a squeaky sofa from the early stagnation era, and a refrigerator that rattled louder than a tractor during sowing season.
Over the course of our marriage, unwilling to live in ruin, I had completely furnished that den. With my own personal money.
The large double-door refrigerator? Mine. The latest-model washing machine? Mine. The luxurious corner sofa with an orthopedic base? Paid for with my salary card.
The television, coffee machine, microwave, fluffy carpet, and even the expensive blackout curtains — I had bought all of it, meticulously saving the electronic receipts in cloud storage.
The movers arrived quickly. They were strong, quiet men who worked smoothly and efficiently.
Two hours later, Igor’s spacious one-room apartment had been returned to its factory settings. Only bare wallpaper, worn linoleum, and a lonely kitchen stove remained, which I did not touch out of purely humanitarian considerations — at least let him boil himself some dumplings. The echo of footsteps wandered through the empty room, bouncing off the bare windows.
Before leaving, I neatly placed a stack of utility bills on the kitchen windowsill. For the past three years, I had paid them, because Igor considered them “minor women’s expenses,” unworthy of his noble attention.
Now this honorable duty was returning to the legal owner of the square meters.
I arrived at my spacious three-room apartment. My mother, smelling of fresh baking and home comfort, threw up her hands when she saw the procession of movers endlessly carrying in appliances and furniture.
“Daughter, good heavens, what is all this?” she asked in surprise, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I’m returning to my native hearth, Mom. Put the kettle on. We have a grand unpacking ahead of us,” I smiled, feeling a heavy concrete slab slide off my shoulders.
The call came exactly at eight in the evening. Igor had returned home.
“Where are the things?!” he screamed into the phone so hysterically that I had to move the speaker away from my ear. “Where is my sofa?! Where is my TV?! What have you done, you lunatic?!”
“The sofa flatly refused to apologize to your mother, Igor,” I answered in an extremely calm, almost affectionate voice, sipping thyme tea.
“And it also didn’t want to transfer money to her sanatorium trip. So, according to your strict ultimatum, it flew out of the apartment. Along with the refrigerator and the coffee machine. They showed solidarity.”
“You robbed me! I’m going to the police right now!” my husband shrieked, his voice cracking with outrage.
Like a broken ATM dispensing only declined transaction receipts instead of cash, Igor spat out one ridiculous threat after another.
“Go, sweetheart. Definitely go,” I advised gently.
“And don’t forget to tell the duty investigator how your treacherous wife took property for which she has all the named receipts and bank statements.”
“And while you’re at it, read the bills on the windowsill. There’s a decent debt for major repairs that accumulated while I was paying your water and electricity. Now it’s on you. All on you. You’re the owner!”
I ended the call. Immediately afterward, Zinaida Pavlovna’s number joined the endless blacklist.
I bit into a piece of my mother’s pie, looked at my magnificent double-door refrigerator, which fit perfectly into my large bright kitchen, and smiled.
The best revenge against shameless people is not shouting or scandals. The best revenge is leaving them alone with their own selfishness. In an absolutely empty apartment. Without a television. And without the wife who had paid for that celebration of life for three years.