Gennady placed two bank cards on the table. One was his. The other was mine. And he ran his finger between them, as if drawing a clear line.
“From today on, everyone pays for their own food. I’m tired of paying for what I don’t eat. Your salads – you pay. My meat – I pay. Fair.”
I was forty-nine. Twenty-two years of marriage. Two adult children – a son in the army, a daughter in St. Petersburg, in her third year of university. And here was my husband, dividing the kitchen into “mine” and “yours.”
I didn’t reply. I simply put my card in my wallet and left the kitchen.
That was three years ago.
I need to explain how we got here. Gennady always considered himself the provider. He worked as a site manager at a construction company and earned well – almost one hundred twenty thousand rubles.
I was an accountant at a management company, earning forty-five thousand. The difference was almost threefold.
For twenty years I managed the joint budget: groceries, utilities, kids, clothing – everything from one pot. And for twenty years it worked. Not perfectly, but it worked.
Then the kids moved out. And Gennady decided that without children we could live “differently.”
“Nin, look,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table, spinning a heavy watch on his wrist. He had bought it for one hundred eighty thousand rubles six months ago. “You eat your boiled fish, porridge, cottage cheese. I like proper meat. Steaks, ribs. Why should I pay for your diet, and you for mine?”
“Proper meat.” As if for twenty years I had been feeding him “improper” food.
I could have argued. But I didn’t. I was curious to see how it would end.
It ended simply. Gennady transferred seven thousand rubles to my card and said:
“Here. For a month. Eat what you want. I’ll buy my own food separately.”
Seven thousand. In 2023. Two hundred thirty rubles a day.
I didn’t scream. I went to the store and bought buckwheat, milk, bread, a pack of butter, ten eggs, and a head of cabbage. One thousand two hundred rubles.
That same evening, Gennady brought two ribeye steaks from “Miratorg,” nine hundred rubles each, a bottle of red wine, and a bag of arugula.
He cooked the meat in our shared pan. I sat at the same table eating buckwheat with butter. The smell of steak filled the kitchen – juicy, smoky, with pepper.
“Delicious,” said Gennady, wiping his mouth. He didn’t offer me any.
I washed my plate and went back to the room.
That night I counted. Not out of anger – out of habit. I’m an accountant. His “proper meat” cost twenty-five to thirty thousand rubles a month: steaks, smoked goods from specialty shops, cheeses from “VkusVill,” cognac on Fridays. Me – seven thousand. Buckwheat and cabbage.
After a month, I started a table in Excel. I recorded every receipt I found in the trash or on the table. I wasn’t snooping – he threw them away himself. I just needed the numbers. Exact numbers.
In the first month of separate meals, Gennady spent thirty-one thousand four hundred rubles on food. I – six thousand eight hundred. Of my seven thousand, two hundred remained.
I didn’t spend it. I put it in an envelope. The next month – the same. And the month after. The envelope lay in the drawer, under the linens.
After six months, what I had been waiting for happened. Gennady brought friends over.
Saturday, six p.m. I was washing the corridor floor when the door burst open and three men came in: Gennady, Oleg – our garage neighbor, and Styopa – his coworker from the construction site.
“Nin!” shouted Gennady from the hall. “Put something on the table! The guys are here!”
I wrung out the mop, placed the bucket, and stepped out.
“From whose budget?” I asked.
Gennady froze. Oleg and Styopa exchanged glances.
“What?” Gennady blinked.
“The table budget. Mine or yours?”
His neck started to turn red. He always flushed from the bottom up – from collar to ears.
“What are you saying here? In front of people?”
“You introduced the rules, Gena. Everyone pays for themselves. My budget – seven thousand rubles a month. Today’s the eighteenth. I don’t have enough for three guests.”
Oleg coughed. Styopa studied the baseboard.
Gennady pulled out his wallet, tossed two thousand rubles onto the cabinet.
“Here. Buy cold cuts and bread.”
I went to the store. Bought a loaf of bread, a piece of smoked sausage, a jar of pickles, a pack of tea. One thousand three hundred rubles. I put the seven hundred change back in the same place.
When I arranged everything on the table, Oleg looked at the sausage, bread, and jar. Then at me. Then at Gennady.
“Gena, why so modest?” he asked. “You earn well.”
Gennady silently got up, opened his fridge, took out cheese, ham, olives. Placed them beside it.
“Here,” he said. “This is mine.”
Oleg looked from “mine” to the “shared” table. Camembert cheese – to thirty-ruble bread. And he fell silent.
The men stayed for an hour. They spoke little. Oleg left first, citing his wife. Styopa followed.
Gennady turned to me.
“You did it on purpose, didn’t you? Humiliated me?”
“I bought with your money. Two thousand for three people – that’s bread, sausage, and pickles. Math, Gena.”
“You could have added from your own!”
“I have nine hundred rubles left for the month. I’m saving it for bread and milk.”
He slammed the bedroom door. Didn’t talk to me for two days. Then relented. But nothing changed. Neither the budget nor the rules.
I didn’t yet know that the main thing was still ahead.
Anniversary. Fifty-five years old. Gennady announced it a month in advance.
He sat in the kitchen on Sunday morning, drinking coffee from a large mug, scrolling through his phone.
“Nin,” he said without looking up. “I turn fifty-five in four weeks. I want to celebrate at home. About twenty people. Will you set the table?”
I reached for the kettle. My own mug – small, chipped handle.
“From whose budget?”
He lifted his head.
“What – again?”
“Gena, this isn’t ‘again.’ This is the rule you set. Everyone pays for themselves. A twenty-person banquet – that’s your cost, not mine.”
His neck turned red.
“Are you serious? I’m asking just once! Anniversary! Once in a lifetime!”
“You didn’t ask, you commanded. ‘Set the table’ – just like three years ago you said, ‘Eat yourself.’”
“And then? You won’t cook?”
I sipped my tea. Put down the mug.
“I will. For myself. As usual.”
Gennady stood. The chair creaked. His watch sparkled.
“You know how this will look? Twenty people will come, and your buckwheat will be on the table?!”
“The table will have what you pay for. You can order catering. Buy ready-made food. Oleg can help. But I will not cook a banquet for seven thousand rubles a month.”
The doorbell rang.
Gennady stood in the middle of the room. White shirt, arms crossed. Dramatic emptiness in his eyes. Just one plate. One mug of food.
The guests froze. Oleg scratched his head.
“Gena, are we early? Or late?”
“Fine, guys,” Gennady stood by the window, arms crossed. “Nin was joking.”
“This is no joke,” I said. “Three years ago my husband introduced separate meals. I live on seven thousand, he on thirty. For three years I’ve eaten buckwheat and boiled chicken while he cooks ribeye steaks.”
I never once asked him to add. Never caused a scene. I just accepted his rules.
Silence. Oleg’s wife clutched her handbag to her stomach.
“And now he wants me to prepare the anniversary table? For twenty people. From my seven thousand. I didn’t do it. I suggested ordering ready-made food. He didn’t want to. He thought I would give in.”
I looked at Gennady.
“Here’s my table, Gena. Chicken breast and buckwheat. As you wanted. Everyone – themselves.”
Gennady stood silently. His Adam’s apple moved up and down. His watch glimmered dimly in the chandelier light – one hundred eighty thousand rubles on his left wrist, not a penny on the banquet table.
Oleg coughed.
“Then maybe we’ll go to a restaurant? ‘Beryozka’ is nearby. We can chip in?”
Half the guests nodded. The rest were already on their phones to call a taxi.
Gennady grabbed his coat and left first. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t say a word.
The door closed.
I was alone. In the large room, at the table with the white tablecloth. One plate. Chicken breast. Buckwheat.
I ate it all. Down to the last grain. Drank the compote. Washed the plate. One plate.
Three weeks passed. Gennady returned at one a.m. after the anniversary. Smelled of cognac and cigarettes. Apparently they celebrated at “Beryozka.” Without me.
Since then he cooks for himself. Eggs in the morning, pelmeni in the evening. Sometimes sausage. He no longer buys steaks – either appetite gone or embarrassed.
The separate budget remained. Seven thousand for me, the rest for him. But he no longer says, “Eat yourself.” And doesn’t invite guests.
Oleg greets briefly, his wife doesn’t speak to me. Gennady’s cousin wrote in the family chat that I “put on a circus and humiliated the man for the whole neighborhood.”
Valentina said, “You were great. But harsh.” Then added, “Maybe too harsh.”
And I don’t know. Truly don’t know.
Every evening I wash my plate and look at the one next to it – his. Also one. Two plates in the dish rack. Two people in the apartment. And a gap between them, twenty-three thousand rubles wide.
