“Will You Finally Shut Up! You Can Boss People Around Back in Your Village, but Here We’re the Owners and Nobody Else!”
“You ungrateful wretch!” Naila Viktorovna hurled a cup onto the floor so hard that shards flew across the entire kitchen. “Will you finally shut up! You can boss people around back in your village, but here we’re the owners and nobody else!”
Liza stood in the middle of the kitchen in a wet bathrobe, her hair disheveled, her hands trembling. She had just tried to explain to her mother-in-law why she couldn’t deal with canning vegetables for the winter today. She had a fever, her head was splitting, and now there was this hysteria on top of it all…
“Naila Viktorovna, I’m telling you, I’m sick. I’ll do it tomorrow, honestly…”
“Tomorrow!” her mother-in-law’s voice rose to a shriek. “The tomatoes will spoil by tomorrow! Or do you think I bought three crates of them for the dog’s amusement?”
Ilya was sitting at the table, buried in his phone, pretending not to hear the scandal. He didn’t even look up when his mother threw the dish. Damn coward. Three years of marriage, and he still hadn’t learned to protect his wife from his mother’s attacks.
“Ilyusha,” Liza turned to her husband, desperate hope sounding in her voice, “tell her…”
“Don’t drag your husband into women’s squabbles!” Naila Viktorovna cut her off. “And who do you think you are, giving orders here? You live in my house, eat my food, and now you’re acting like you have rights!”
That was when Liza couldn’t take it anymore. Blood rushed to her face, and her temples began to pound.
“In your house?! We bought half of this apartment! We’re still paying off the loan!”
Naila Viktorovna twisted her face as if she had swallowed an entire lemon.
“Oh, you bought it, did you?! And who bought it, exactly? My son works, and what do you do? Sit comfortably in an office, you lazy good-for-nothing!”
“Mom, enough already,” Ilya finally spoke, but so weakly that it didn’t feel like support at all.
“Not enough!” his mother turned on him. “Look at the snake you brought into this house! I dragged you through life alone for thirty years, and then she showed up and immediately decided she was the mistress here!”
Voices sounded from behind the wall. Vera had probably already pressed her ear to the door—she adored discussing other people’s scandals later in the stairwell.
Liza felt nausea rising inside her. Whether from the fever or from this circus, she couldn’t tell.
“You know what,” she leaned against the refrigerator, “make your tomatoes yourself. I’m going to lie down.”
“Don’t you dare turn your back on me, you ungrateful thing!” Naila Viktorovna screamed and grabbed the cutting board from the table.
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Sharp and insistent.
All three of them froze. The bell rang again.
“Uncle Kolya,” Ilya exhaled, glancing at the clock. “I asked him to stop by about the dacha…”
Naila Viktorovna instantly changed masks. She smoothed her face and fixed her disheveled hair.
“Ilyusha, open the door. And you,” she glared viciously at Liza, “make yourself presentable. Don’t disgrace the family in front of people.”
Liza wanted to answer, but Uncle Kolya had already appeared in the doorway—the late father-in-law’s brother, still a sturdy man, with sly little eyes and a habit of sticking his nose into other people’s business.
“Oh, what passions!” he looked over the broken dishes on the floor. “Solving household matters?”
Naila Viktorovna forced a smile.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just little things. Come in, Kolya, we’ll have some tea.”
But Uncle Kolya clearly had no intention of pretending he hadn’t noticed anything. He walked to the table, sat down, and looked closely at Liza, whose face was red from tears.
“So what exactly happened? I could hear it through the wall.”
And then Liza realized that the most interesting part was about to begin…
“Oh, nothing special,” Naila Viktorovna hurried toward the kettle. “Liza is just feeling a little unwell, but household chores don’t cancel themselves.”
“A little unwell?” Uncle Kolya snorted skeptically. “Then why all the screaming? I thought there was a fire.”
Liza felt her cheeks burning. She was ashamed in front of this outsider because of the dirty scene. But she could no longer stay silent.
“Uncle Kolya,” she sat opposite him, “I have a temperature of thirty-eight. I asked to postpone the canning until tomorrow…”
“And what’s so terrible about that?” he shrugged.
Naila Viktorovna nearly dropped the kettle.
“Kolya! You know what kind of housewife I am! Everything is according to plan, everything on time! And now…”
“And now your daughter-in-law is sick,” Uncle Kolya interrupted. “So what? Will the world collapse because of it?”
Ilya shifted uneasily in his chair. For the first time during the entire scandal, he looked uncomfortable.
“Uncle Kolya, Mom is just worried…”
“Worried, you say?” Uncle Kolya took out cigarettes and lit one without asking permission. “Looks to me more like she’s raging.”
Naila Viktorovna froze with a cup in her hands. She clearly hadn’t expected such a turn.
“What do you mean, Kolya?”
“I mean you’re acting like a market woman.” He inhaled and slowly exhaled the smoke. “Screaming at a sick girl over some tomatoes.”
“Some tomatoes?!” Naila Viktorovna’s voice began rising again. “I stood at the market all day choosing them!”
“So what? Tomorrow is another day.”
Liza stared at Uncle Kolya in amazement. No one had ever dared to speak to her mother-in-law like that. Even her own son spread himself under her feet like a doormat.
“Listen, Naila,” Uncle Kolya flicked ash straight onto a saucer, “isn’t it time you started living your own life? You keep sticking your nose into someone else’s.”
“Someone else’s?!” her mother-in-law gasped. “This is my son! My home!”
“Your son is a grown man. He chose a wife and started a family. And you keep pulling him around like a puppet.”
There was a cautious knock in the hallway. Then a woman’s voice:
“May I come in? It’s Vera…”
“Come in, come in,” Uncle Kolya waved his hand. “Perfect timing. We need a witness.”
Vera poked her head into the kitchen and looked around at the wreckage and the participants of the family council.
“Oh, am I interrupting?”
“You’ve been interrupting for a long time,” Naila Viktorovna muttered. “Always growing your ear to the wall.”
Vera took offense.
“Is it my fault your walls are thin? The whole building hears how you fight.”
“The whole building?” Uncle Kolya asked with interest.
“Of course!” Vera became animated. “Galina Petrovna from the first floor says something happens every day. Either Naila Viktorovna is yelling, or dishes are flying…”
“Vera!” the mother-in-law flared up. “Did you come here to spread gossip?”
“What gossip?” Vera struck a pose. “Does the truth hurt? Maybe it’s time to think about why all the neighbors only say bad things about you.”
Ilya turned pale. Liza covered her face with her hands. Airing dirty laundry in front of strangers was more than she could bear.
Uncle Kolya watched everything carefully while smoking his cigarette. Then he suddenly smiled.
“You know what, Naila… Let’s have a serious talk, you and I. Without witnesses.”
“What about?”
“About your future.” He rose from the chair. “Ilya, take your wife to the room and let her rest. Vera, go home. Naila and I are staying here.”
“But I wanted…”
“I said home!”
There was such an authoritative note in Uncle Kolya’s voice that Vera instantly vanished. Ilya hurriedly led Liza out of the kitchen.
And Naila Viktorovna was left alone with her brother-in-law, sensing that she was about to hear something very unpleasant.
“Sit down,” Uncle Kolya nodded at the chair. “And don’t play the martyr. We’ll talk like adults.”
Naila Viktorovna sat down, but she remained tense, ready to jump up and fight back at any moment.
“Listen, Naila. Your Seryozha, may he rest in peace, asked me before he died to look after the family. I promised him. But what you’re doing is not a family—it’s a madhouse.”
“I’m protecting my son!”
“From whom? His wife?” Uncle Kolya shook his head. “The girl is good and hardworking. Why are you picking on her?”
“Good?” Naila Viktorovna snorted. “She wants to drive me out of my own home!”
“Nonsense. She simply wants to live peacefully with her husband. And you don’t give them a minute of peace.”
Naila Viktorovna jumped up and began pacing around the kitchen.
“Kolya, you don’t understand! Ilya is all I have! I devoted my life to him!”
“Exactly. You devoted it. And now you demand that he live your life for you?”
Those words hit the mark. Naila Viktorovna stopped, her eyes filling with tears.
“What else do I have? I’m fifty-eight years old, and I’m alone…”
“Being alone was your choice,” Uncle Kolya said harshly. “I remember how the neighbors courted you after Seryozha died. You drove them all away. You said your son didn’t need a stepfather.”
“And I was right!”
“Right? Your son grew up, got married, and is living his own life. And what about you? You sit here, bitter at the whole world?”
Naila Viktorovna sobbed. But Uncle Kolya was not going to pity her.
“You have an education. Your hands haven’t withered away. You could work, you could build a personal life. But no—it’s easier to cling to your son and poison the life of his family.”
“You’re cruel…”
“I’m telling the truth. And I’ll tell you one more thing—if you don’t calm down, you’ll end up completely alone. Ilya will sooner or later fail to endure it and leave with his wife. And then what? Will you live out your days alone in this apartment?”
A heavy silence hung in the air. Naila Viktorovna stood there, hugging herself, crying quietly.
In the next room, Ilya was helping Liza into bed.
“Lie down, darling. Bring your fever down.”
Liza obediently lay down, but she did not let go of her husband.
“Ilyusha, I can’t live like this anymore. Every day there are scandals, every day I’m guilty of every sin…”
“Bear with it a little longer,” he stroked her head. “We’ll move out soon.”
“When is soon? We’ve been talking about this for a year, and nothing has changed!”
Ilya sighed heavily. He understood himself that living this way was impossible. But his mother was sacred to him. How could he leave her alone?
“You know,” Liza looked carefully at her husband, “Uncle Kolya is right. Your mother is not a weak old woman. She is a strong woman who has simply gotten used to controlling everyone.”
“Liza, don’t…”
“Yes, I will! She’ll destroy us if we don’t stop this! Look at yourself—you’re afraid to say even one extra word!”
Ilya lowered his head. Deep down, he knew his wife was right. But admitting it meant betraying his mother. And he couldn’t do that.
Muffled voices came from the kitchen. Uncle Kolya continued his lesson.
“Listen to me carefully, Naila,” he was saying. “I have a proposal. The little house at the dacha is empty. It’s good, with amenities. Move there for the summer. Think, rest from the city noise.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
“I’m offering you a way out. The dacha is yours. Seryozha registered it in your name while he was still alive. Live there, plant a garden, talk to the neighbors. And give the young couple a chance to live without your supervision.”
Naila Viktorovna wiped her tears and thought.
“And if they need my help?”
“If they need it, they’ll invite you. But by invitation, not whenever you feel like it.”
The proposal was tempting. At the dacha, she really did have friends with whom she could play cards and exchange gossip. And what did she have in the city? Four walls and constant conflicts with her daughter-in-law.
“All right,” she finally said. “I’ll try it for a month.”
But a month at the dacha changed nothing. Naila Viktorovna returned even angrier and more demanding. As if the rest had only added fuel to the fire of her dissatisfaction.
“I realized something there,” she declared from the doorway. “You just wanted to get rid of me! You thought the old fool would go there and forget herself?”
Liza silently met her mother-in-law in the hallway. Three weeks without scandals had seemed like paradise to her. Ilya had relaxed, started smiling, and they had even managed to go to the sea for a weekend. And now everything was returning to the way it had been.
Only now Liza had a trump card that she had not yet told anyone about.
She had seen the two lines on the test a week ago. At first, she didn’t believe it, so she took another one—the result was the same. Pregnancy. Long-awaited, hard-won pregnancy.
She and Ilya had been trying to have a child for three years. The doctors had shrugged: everything seemed normal, but it just wasn’t happening. And now it had happened. Precisely when peace had finally come to the house.
“Ilyusha,” she whispered to her husband that evening, “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?” He looked away from the television.
“I’m pregnant.”
Ilya froze with the remote in his hands. Then he slowly turned to his wife.
“Are you serious?”
“More than serious. I took the test twice.”
He hugged her so tightly that she almost couldn’t breathe.
“My God, Lizochka! Finally! I’m so happy!”
“Quiet, quiet,” she glanced at the door. “Your mother will hear.”
“So what? She’ll be happy about a grandchild!”
Liza shook her head. She knew her mother-in-law better than her husband did.
“First I’ll go to the doctor. I need to make sure everything is fine. Then we’ll tell her.”
But secrets do not last long in a small apartment. A week later, when Liza returned from the gynecologist with confirmation of the pregnancy, Naila Viktorovna was already waiting for her in the kitchen with a stone face.
“Well, did you get yourself knocked up?” she threw out instead of a greeting.
“What are you talking about?” Liza was confused.
“Don’t play the fool! I can see it. You’re throwing up in the mornings, you’re not drinking milk. So you got pregnant?”
Liza silently walked to the refrigerator and took out water. Her hands were trembling.
“You think now you can do anything?” her mother-in-law continued. “That I’ll walk on tiptoe now so I don’t disturb the little baby?”
“Naila Viktorovna, this is your grandchild…”
“My grandchild?” she snorted contemptuously. “How do I know whose child it is? Maybe you got pregnant by the neighbor and are pinning it on my son!”
Those words hurt worse than a slap. Liza went pale and grabbed the edge of the table.
“How dare you…”
“Just like that!” Naila Viktorovna stood up and loomed over her daughter-in-law. “You were married for three years and were an empty place. And then suddenly, as if on order, you got pregnant! Suspicious, isn’t it?”
The front door slammed in the hallway. Ilya had come home from work.
“Mom, I’m home! Liza, where are you?”
“We’re here, we’re here,” his mother called out. “Discussing joyful news!”
Ilya entered the kitchen and saw his wife barely standing on her feet and his mother gloating.
“What’s going on?”
“What’s going on, son, is that your little wife is soon going to make us grandparents,” Naila Viktorovna smiled venomously.
Ilya lit up.
“Liza! You told her?”
“She didn’t tell me, I guessed myself,” his mother interrupted. “And I’ll say this: she won’t get any help from me! Let her deal with her problems herself!”
“Mom, what are you saying? This is our child!”
“Our child?” She turned to her son. “Ilyusha, darling, don’t you understand? She’s luring you into a trap! She’ll give birth, and then you’ll be in her pocket forever!”
Liza couldn’t take it anymore. Tears streamed down her face.
“I… I can’t do this anymore…” She ran out of the kitchen.
Ilya rushed after her, but his mother stopped him.
“Stop! Let her cry. Maybe she’ll gain some sense!”
“Mom, what are you doing?! She’s under stress. It could harm the baby!”
“What baby?” Naila Viktorovna’s voice became icy. “Ilya, come to your senses! She’s deceiving you!”
At that moment, something inside Ilya finally broke. He looked at his mother—at that evil, distorted face—and understood: enough.
“Mom,” he said quietly but firmly, “tomorrow Liza and I are leaving.”
“Leaving where?”
“To Sochi. I have a friend there, he promised me work. We’ll live there.”
Naila Viktorovna was stunned.
“Are you joking?”
“I’m not joking. We can’t stay here anymore. You turned our home into hell.”
“Ilyusha!” She grabbed her son by the sleeve. “You wouldn’t abandon your own mother!”
“I won’t abandon you. But we won’t live together anymore. Forgive me, Mom. You wanted this yourself.”
And he went to his wife—to comfort her, calm her, and plan a new life. A life without constant scandals and reproaches.
Naila Viktorovna was left alone in the kitchen, finally realizing she had gone too far. But it was already too late.
Two years passed.
Liza stood on the balcony of their Sochi apartment, rocking one-year-old Mishutka in her arms. The baby was breathing sweetly in his sleep, his little nose pressed into her shoulder. Down below, the sea murmured, and the air smelled of magnolias and freedom.
“Sunshine, come eat dinner!” Ilya called from the kitchen.
She went into the room and laid her son in his crib. Their small apartment was cozy—light walls, children’s toys in the corner, photographs on the shelves. In one of them, the young parents smiled with their newborn son.
“How are things at work?” Liza asked, sitting down at the table.
“Great. My boss says I’ll probably get a promotion soon. And how’s freelancing going for you?”
“I have enough orders. The clients are happy.”
They ate a salad Liza had learned to make from a recipe online and told each other about their day. An ordinary family conversation—the kind they had once only dreamed of.
The phone rang unexpectedly. Ilya looked at the screen and frowned.
“Uncle Kolya.”
“Answer it,” Liza nodded.
“Hello, Uncle Kolya… What? When did it happen? … I see… Yes, of course we’ll come…”
Liza looked at her husband anxiously. His face had become serious.
“What happened?”
Ilya hung up and sighed heavily.
“Mom is in the hospital. A stroke.”
They rushed to Moscow the very next day. In intensive care, Naila Viktorovna lay small and pitiful, connected to machines. The doctor explained that her left side was paralyzed and her speech was impaired, but she would live.
“She understands everything,” the doctor said. “She just can’t speak yet.”
Ilya sat beside the bed and took his mother’s hand.
“Mom, it’s me. I came.”
Naila Viktorovna slowly turned her head. Tears stood in her eyes. She tried to say something, but only an unintelligible moan came out.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Everything will be all right.”
Liza stood to the side with Mishutka in her arms. The baby was sound asleep after the road. Her mother-in-law looked at them—at the daughter-in-law she had hurt so badly, and at the grandson she had never once seen.
Tears flowed down her cheeks even harder.
“She wants to apologize,” Liza said quietly. “I can see it in her eyes.”
Ilya nodded.
“Mom, don’t torture yourself. We’re family.”
They returned home a week later. Naila Viktorovna was still in the hospital, but the doctors promised to discharge her in a month. She would no longer be able to live independently—she needed constant care.
“We’ll take her in,” Ilya said that evening while they were putting Mishutka to bed.
“To Sochi?”
“Where else? She’s my mother.”
Liza was silent. Different feelings fought inside her chest—pity for the sick woman and fear that everything would go back to how it had been.
“Ilyusha, what if she starts again…”
“She won’t,” he shook his head. “You saw the way she looked at us. The illness changed her. She realized what she had done.”
“All right,” Liza took her husband’s hand. “But on one condition: at the first attempt to start a scandal, we take her to a nursing home.”
“Agreed.”
Naila Viktorovna arrived in Sochi in a wheelchair. Her speech had partially returned, her left arm barely moved, but she could walk with a cane.
At first, it was difficult for everyone. Liza cared for her mother-in-law, fed her, and helped her dress. In the evenings, Ilya massaged his mother’s arms and legs.
But there were no scandals. Naila Viktorovna seemed reborn. She thanked them for every little thing, asked forgiveness for the past, and watched with tenderness as her grandson took his first steps around the room.
“Lizochka,” she said one evening, “forgive me, foolish woman that I was. I poisoned your life.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” Liza said while ironing laundry. “The main thing is that now we live peacefully.”
“Peacefully… You know, I understand now—that is happiness. Not when everyone is afraid of you, but when everyone loves one another.”
Liza looked up. There was such sincere pain on her mother-in-law’s face that her heart tightened.
“I understand, Naila Viktorovna.”
“Don’t call me Viktorovna. I’m your mother now. Unless, of course, you object.”
Liza smiled—for the first time in all the years she had known her mother-in-law, she smiled at her sincerely.
“I don’t object… Mom.”
And that evening, when Mishutka was asleep and Ilya was reading on the sofa, the two women sat in the kitchen over tea. Naila Viktorovna awkwardly held the cup with her bad hand, and Liza helped her. And in that home, where scandals had once thundered, peace finally reigned.
Sometimes you have to lose everything to understand what truly matters. And the only things that matter are love and family. Everything else is empty.