The Former Mother-in-Law Demanded Lunch for Her Son and the Keys to My Apartment. But the Daughter-in-Law No Longer Lived at That Address.
“Tatyana, why aren’t you answering your phone? Vasya called. His stomach is acting up. I told him to come to you. Make him some chicken broth. And steam some cutlets too. He’s already turning green from those store-bought dumplings.”
Alla Arkadyevna’s voice came through the phone speaker as if she were giving the order for a tank division to advance. Not a shadow of doubt, not the slightest hint of a request. Only the reinforced-concrete confidence of a woman who believed that if she had once written you into her family tree, it meant lifelong servitude.
Tatyana, the manager of a pharmacy, carefully pushed shut the drawer with prescription medications and looked at her reflection in the glass display case. She was forty-five, and for the past six months — ever since the day she had left the courthouse with her divorce decree — she had finally started sleeping well.
For twenty years of marriage, she had worked as a navigator for finding men’s socks, a free laundry service, and an on-call chef. Vasily was a classic mama’s boy, whose domestic helplessness had been lovingly cultivated by Alla Arkadyevna. But six months earlier, Tatyana realized that her limit of patience had been reached. The divorce had been noisy, complete with theatrical fainting spells from her mother-in-law, but the result had been worth it — the silence in her apartment became her greatest gift.
“Alla Arkadyevna,” Tatyana said calmly, rearranging packages of vitamins. “Your son and I divorced six months ago. My field kitchen is closed for indefinite inventory.”
“A stamp in a passport does not cancel basic human decency!” the former mother-in-law protested, instantly switching to her favorite aristocratic tone. “A woman’s energy must continue nourishing a man even after marriage. It is an energetic bond!”
“Alla Arkadyevna, the energetic bond is severed at the exact moment the divorce certificate is issued at the registry office. After that, a man should be nourished by proteins, fats, and carbohydrates purchased with his own salary.”
“I came to you with an open heart, and you… selfish woman!” Alla Arkadyevna hissed into the phone so loudly it sounded as if a hot water pipe had suddenly burst inside an expensive boutique, then hung up.
Tatyana put away her phone with a faint smirk. Working in a pharmacy, she saw people every day trying to treat the consequences of stress using the wrong methods. Women bought Corvalol by the handful to “calm their hearts,” unaware of the most basic medical fact: those drops did not treat the heart muscle; they simply roughly slowed down the nervous system. What the heart really needed was magnesium, potassium, and the complete absence of toxic relatives within a one-kilometer radius. Tatyana took her dose of magnesium regularly, and she had successfully shown the main source of stress the door back in spring.
That evening, on her way home, she noticed familiar silhouettes near her apartment on the third floor from a distance.
Alla Arkadyevna was standing on the landing in her usual hat and synthetic coat, which she wore with such dignity one might have thought it was imperial ermine. Beside her, forty-seven-year-old Vasily shifted from one foot to the other. In one hand, he held a bulging plastic bag that betrayed itself with a clinking sound, and in the other, a large duffel bag.
“Oh, there you are,” Alla Arkadyevna said instead of greeting her, pursing her lips. “We’ve been standing here for twenty minutes. Open up. We need to have a serious conversation with you. First of all, give me a spare set of keys to the apartment.”
Tatyana stopped one step below them without taking the keys out of her purse.
“Why do you need keys to my apartment?”
“What do you mean, why?” her former mother-in-law asked, genuinely astonished, puffing out her chest. “You’re a single woman now, without a man. What if a pipe bursts? Vasya should have access to the home. And besides, he has nowhere to store his winter tires. He’ll bring them to your balcony on Saturday.”
Tatyana remained silent, watching with interest as this festival of pure, unclouded audacity unfolded. And her mother-in-law, mistaking the pause for submission, began laying out her strongest cards.
“Secondly,” Alla Arkadyevna said, nodding toward the bag in her son’s hands. “Vasya brought some shirts. Wash and iron them. He doesn’t get along with modern detergents. They make him itch all over. And you know exactly how his collars need to be steamed.”
Vasily fussily shook the second bag.
“Yes, Tanya, and wash these containers too while you’re at it. They’ve been lying in my trunk for a week, and they’ve started to smell. And Mom is right. Let’s be human about this. I’ll come for lunch on Sunday. You’re sitting at home anyway, bored.”
Tatyana looked at her ex-husband and his mother. The situation was so absurd that it did not even make her angry — only genuinely curious. They truly believed that divorce was just a piece of paper that freed them from responsibility but left them with every right to her life.
“So, keys, balcony space for tires, laundry service for shirts, and Sunday lunches,” Tatyana slowly listed, putting everything in order. “Have you forgotten anything?”
“Well, you could also come to my anniversary next week, just for decency’s sake, so we don’t embarrass ourselves in front of the relatives,” Alla Arkadyevna added graciously. “We are family! You are the mother of his child! Dashenka needs a father!”
Tatyana took a deep breath, inhaling the damp smell of the stairwell, and finally spoke. Her voice was calm, even, and cold as ice.
“Dashenka, who is twenty years old and lives in a dormitory, certainly needs a father. But Vasya needs a free cafeteria and a housekeeper. Alla Arkadyevna, don’t confuse a child with cutlets.”
The former mother-in-law was so stunned that her mouth fell slightly open, and she forgot all about her aristocratic manners.
“Is Vasya hungry?” Tatyana continued, looking directly into the eyes of her ex-husband, who immediately began examining his shoes. “Vasya is an adult. Vasya has hands, a salary, and a mother who is so worried about his nutrition. Store the tires at a paid facility, take the shirts to the dry cleaner, and you can simply throw the containers away. My home is not a branch of your storage room or a service center for former relatives.”
Alla Arkadyevna’s face turned blotchy red. She was not used to having her carefully honed manipulations smash against such hard reality.
“You shameless woman! You’ll come crawling back asking for help!” her mother-in-law’s voice trembled with theatrical grandeur. “Who will need you with all that pride of yours?!”
Tatyana did not answer. She took her keys from her purse, the key ring adorned with a new, heavy metal charm. She had bought it on the day she collected the documents from court — as a symbol of the beginning of her own free life. She inserted the key into the lock. It clicked softly and confidently.
“Do you know what the nicest thing is about my current situation?” she asked, standing on the threshold of her bright hallway that smelled of fresh coffee. “I no longer have to tolerate other people’s orders in my own home. Goodbye.”
She closed the door right in front of her former mother-in-law’s outraged face. For a few more minutes, muffled hissing and Vasily’s offended muttering could be heard outside: “Come on, Mom, I told you, she’s become completely unstable.” Then heavy footsteps sounded down the stairs.
Inside the apartment, it was quiet, cozy, and absolutely free. Tatyana took off her shoes and went into the kitchen. But then she suddenly remembered something.
She returned to the hallway, quietly opened the front door, and looked out onto the landing. Just as expected: whether out of spite or simple laziness, Vasily had left the bag with the dirty containers right on her doormat.
Tatyana looked at this symbol of her former family life, carefully hooked the bag with the toe of her house slipper, and pushed it out onto the concrete floor of the stairwell, away from her door.
“Deliveries of former obligations are no longer accepted at this address,” she said quietly.
The door closed, this time for good. Ahead of her was a beautiful, peaceful evening without steamed cutlets and other people’s problems.