Late in the evening, I came home. It was Friday, the city choking in traffic, and my only desire was to fall face-first onto the pillow and not move a single part of me.
The key turned in the lock with the usual click, and the first thing I saw in the hallway were two huge, worn burgundy suitcases and a checkered shopping trolley, from which a bulb of onion stuck out.
My heart did a huge flip. Wild, irrational fear mixed with bewilderment. A break-in? No, these were far too shabby for a thief. I stepped into the kitchen, and that’s when the real shock hit me.
In my favorite armchair, by the window, which I had fought for legally against my ex-husband, sat **Galina Pavlovna**, my mother-in-law.
She examined my new curtains with a mixture of disdain and curiosity while sipping tea from my own porcelain cup.
“Hello, Galina Pavlovna,” I croaked, feeling my face burn. Perhaps from anger, perhaps from embarrassment.
She turned to me. Her face shone as if she had won the lottery, yet I could feel she was “doing me a favor” by being here.
“Oh, you’re here,” she drawled. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling, calling! Good thing the old key still works, Dima didn’t change the locks.”
Dima. My ex-husband. Who has been gone from my life for six months and, according to rumors, has been living with the hairdresser Lena for three months in a small apartment in the Southwest District.
“Galina Pavlovna, and where is Dmitrij? Have you called him?” I asked cautiously, buying time.
A storm was raging in my head. I desperately wanted to cry, but I held it back. I had been “her daughter-in-law” for too long to show weakness in front of her.
“I called. He’s coming now,” she waved me off. “Come on, help with the luggage. I’ll be staying here for a while.”
In her own apartment in Podolsk, there’s renovation going on; she couldn’t bear staying with the neighbors. She had decided to stay here. Good area, near the subway. I see you’ve tidied up—good job.
As she said this, she looked at me with slight contempt, as if I had failed to serve the guest properly.
“Galina Pavlovna,” I tried to speak slowly and clearly, “which son are you here to see?”
She sipped her tea, coughing slightly, then suddenly narrowed her eyes.
“Are you in your right mind?” she shouted. “Of course I’m here for Dima. Stop with this nonsense! I know you’ve always disliked me, but now is not the time for scorekeeping. My blood pressure fluctuates; I need peace.”
“Galina Pavlovna,” I sighed, leaning against the wall because my legs had turned to jelly, “we divorced six months ago.”
The cup in her hand froze. Her eyes narrowed. Then she set the cup down, which clinked plaintively against the saucer.
“Stop clowning around,” she said in an icy tone. “This is a foolish trick. I am his mother; I know everything is fine between you.”
“This isn’t a trick,” I nodded toward the suitcases. “You can call Dima. He’s with Lena now. This property, Galina Pavlovna, is mine.”
My mother gave it to me before the wedding. Dima had only lived here until he started drinking and wrecked the car. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I filed for divorce.
Her face first paled, then slowly turned beet-red. I knew the sequence: first shock, then denial, then rage.
“You’re lying!” she hissed, jumping up.
She clutched her chest. Normally, I would have run for the sedative at this point. Not today.
“We can call an ambulance if needed,” I said calmly. “But I won’t make your bed. And finish your tea.”
“You ungrateful creature!” she screamed. “I brought you into society! Got you a job through connections! I…”
“I was a courier earning 15,000 a month when I was a student,” I cut in. “And in return, I washed your underwear and gargled Dima’s throat after every drunken episode. We’re even.”
At that moment, someone rang the doorbell. Dima appeared on the threshold. Rumpled, in sweatpants, a bruise under his eye. He saw his mother, then me, and his face fell.
“Mom?” he croaked. “Why are you here?”
“My son!” Galina Pavlovna shrieked, throwing herself at his neck. “She says you divorced! She says you’re with Lena! That’s not true, right? Tell me she’s lying!”
Dima looked at me, then back at his mother. Honestly, I felt a bit sorry for him. He looked like a misbehaving puppy.
“Mom, yes, we divorced,” he muttered. “And where are you going with the stuff? I told you, I can’t stay here for now.”
“Where are you living then?!” she shouted, clutching his jacket.
“At a friend’s place,” Dima exhaled. “Lena’s mother moved in too, I got kicked out. I thought I could come here, but you have renovations. I have nowhere to live at all.”
A tense silence hung in the air. Galina Pavlovna slowly turned her head toward me. Her face twisted with disgust and hatred.
“This is all your fault,” she hissed. “You kicked your son out of the apartment. Now he’s homeless, and you’re sitting here in your palace.”
“Yes, I am sitting here,” I nodded. “In my own palace. The one I earned myself. And I won’t share it with anyone.”
Dima sighed, picked up a suitcase, and pulled his mother toward the door.
“Come on, Mom. Don’t embarrass yourself.”
She struggled, glancing back at me. I read everything in her eyes: “I will destroy you” and “help, I have nowhere to go.” I almost felt sorry. Almost.
When the door slammed behind them, I leaned against the wall and sank to the floor.
The silence almost shattered my ears. For half a year, I had been fixing this apartment, changing the curtains, throwing out socks from under the sofa. I thought I had gotten rid of all the “relatives.”
I was wrong. People like Galina Pavlovna always resurface, like reeds from a swamp, at the worst possible moment. But tonight I had won this battle. Tomorrow… tomorrow I would call the locksmith and change the locks.
Her cup, half-drunk, remained on the kitchen table. I poured the tea into the sink and threw the cup in the trash. Along with the last thread that tied me to that old life.
To the life where I was always accommodating, patient, and played the daughter-in-law. Now, another woman lives here. One who doesn’t open the door to suitcases.
