The freshly prepared family gatherings on Saturdays always carried a strange and difficult-to-explain tension that settled into the air of the apartment long before the very first guest rang the doorbell.
The living room always looked unnaturally tidy on those evenings, while the porcelain plates stood in perfectly straight rows on the table, and the kitchen overflowed with the smells of roasted meat,
fresh dill, and steaming soup, as if the entire apartment wanted to remind me that everything inside it existed because of my effort and exhaustion. I had already been awake since six in the morning,
while Vitaly slept peacefully in the bedroom because he naturally assumed that organizing the entire day belonged solely to me.
While the garlic pork slowly browned inside the oven, I was trying to manage three different tasks at the same time. In one hand I tightly held a wooden spoon, while with the other I chopped vegetables for the salad,
and meanwhile I constantly wondered what they would criticize this time. During the previous years I had learned that nothing was ever good enough for Tamara Eduardovna.
If the meat turned out tender, then she called it too greasy, if the dessert looked elegant, then she complained it was too expensive, and if absolutely everything came out perfectly,
then she simply started criticizing my appearance, as though that were the most important topic during family dinners.
The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the kitchen window and painted golden stripes across the floor, while I paused for several seconds just to catch my breath.
I was forty-three years old at the time, and yet I often felt like an exhausted servant inside my own home.
My work at a large trading company was difficult and demanding, but in the eyes of the family, office work seemed like some light and meaningless pastime that naturally left me enough energy to organize dinners for thirty people afterward.
Not long after five o’clock the doorbell rang, and from that short and impatient sound alone I already knew that Tamara Eduardovna had arrived first.
When I opened the door, the familiar mixture of strong perfume and medicine immediately flowed into the apartment. My mother-in-law slowly looked me over from head to toe, as if checking whether I matched her personal standards, and then stepped inside without even saying hello.
“Hopefully this time you didn’t burn the meat again, Marinochka,” she said with an effortless smile while taking off her coat.
Soon afterward Larisa and her husband Igor arrived as well. Larisa entered the apartment with a new hairstyle and bright red lipstick, moving through the rooms as though she had arrived at a restaurant
where everything naturally belonged to her. Igor had already started joking in the hallway, while Vitaly finally emerged from the bedroom looking sleepy and wearing a wrinkled T-shirt.
“Well, finally the company is here,” he laughed, as if he had worked all day just as hard as I had.
The table quickly filled with plates and noise. Spoons clattered, glasses touched one another, relatives spoke over each other all at once, and I kept getting up repeatedly to bring something from the kitchen.
Someone asked for bread, someone else wanted sauce, then another bottle of wine, and somehow nobody ever considered that perhaps I also deserved to sit peacefully and eat.
When I finally placed one of the large salad bowls in the middle of the table, Tamara Eduardovna immediately leaned forward and stirred the salad with her fork as though inspecting its quality.
“Marinochka, please don’t be offended, but there’s too much mayonnaise in this again,” she said in a voice that an outsider might have mistaken for kindness. “This kind of food isn’t good for you either, especially when you already barely fit into that armchair.”
Soft laughter spread around the table. Larisa quickly covered her mouth with her hand, but satisfaction flashed clearly in her eyes. I froze while holding the salad bowl, while Vitaly continued eating his meat without even lifting his head.
That was what hurt the most every single time. Not the insult itself, but the fact that my husband pretended not to hear it.
“The salad is fresh and made from quality ingredients,” I answered quietly.
“Well, of course we’ll eat it anyway,” Tamara Eduardovna sighed with theatrical sympathy. “I’m simply worried about you. A man needs a beautiful and well-groomed wife.”
Valentin Petrovich, my father-in-law, sat silently at the edge of the table while slowly turning an empty vodka glass between his fingers. The same tired indifference rested on his face that I had seen for years.
Sometimes it seemed as though he had surrendered long ago in the battle against his own family.
I returned to the kitchen for bread because I felt that if I stayed at the table even one minute longer, I would say something impossible to take back later.
My hand automatically touched the old metal cake server with the cracked handle that had rested beside the drying rack for years.
I had bought it for my very first apartment before marriage, and somehow it remained with me while almost everything else around me changed.
“Marina!” Larisa shouted from the living room. “Do you have real mustard, or only that cheap tube garbage again?”
I opened the refrigerator, and while looking at the shelves packed with food, I once again remembered that the previous day I had spent the equivalent of nearly fifty thousand forints at the supermarket.
Naturally, I had paid for everything with my own money because Vitaly constantly claimed his salary was being saved for some mysterious future investment.
When I brought back the mustard, Larisa did not even look at me. She simply took the jar from my hand as though I were an employee in my own home.
“Vitaly, are you going to the country house this weekend?” Larisa asked her brother. “We’d like to borrow your car because ours is in the repair shop again.”
Vitaly calmly swallowed his final bite.
“Take it. We’re staying home anyway. Marina has cleaning to do.”
My stomach tightened painfully. The down payment for that car had come from my tax refund and annual work bonus, while the loan payments were also coming from my account every month.
“Wonderful,” Tamara Eduardovna smiled with satisfaction. “Marinochka, you should at least do something with your hair. You look pale all the time, like someone constantly ill.”
I looked at her, and suddenly remembered again that she was wearing the expensive cardigan I had ordered online for her only days earlier. She had not thanked me then either, only remarked that “at least the color is acceptable.”
“I’m simply tired,” I replied.
“How can someone who sits in a warm office all day possibly be tired?” Larisa asked with a mocking smile. “Igor does real work in a warehouse. That’s difficult labor.”
Vitaly remained silent again.
Over the years, that silence slowly transformed inside me into something cold and heavy. At first I believed he simply hated conflict, but later I realized that remaining silent was easier for him than defending me.
The following months were exactly like all the previous ones. Larisa constantly borrowed money, Igor endlessly called Vitaly with problems that somehow always affected my bank account,
while Tamara Eduardovna considered it perfectly natural that I financed the family’s comfort.
One evening I came home especially late from work. My back hurt, my head pounded, and I wanted only several minutes of silence. Vitaly, however, was already sitting on the sofa with a beer in his hand.
“Mom’s turning sixty next month,” he said casually. “We’re hosting it here.”
I stopped in the middle of the living room.
“Here? How many people are we talking about?”
“Around thirty,” he shrugged.
At first I thought I had heard incorrectly.
“Vitaly, that’s going to cost an enormous amount.”
“There you go counting money again,” he muttered irritably. “It’s my mother’s birthday.”
“Then you pay for it.”
“My money is tied up in savings. I don’t want to lose the interest.”
I stood there in the kitchen while the soup slowly boiled on the stove, and for the very first time I truly felt that I was suffocating inside that life.
That night I could not sleep. Vitaly snored deeply beside me while I went into the kitchen, opened my laptop, and logged into online banking.
For hours I looked through transactions.
Larisa’s loan for dental treatment that eventually became a vacation in Sochi.
Tamara Eduardovna’s spa treatment.
Igor’s car repair.
The renovations at the country house.
The family dinners and celebrations.
Behind every number there was a memory, an insult, or a moment when I believed that if I gave enough, then perhaps one day they would truly accept me.
When I finally saw the total amount, I could not move for several minutes.
I had spent the equivalent of more than twelve million forints on them over five years.
At that moment something inside me broke forever.
On the day of the birthday dinner the apartment was overflowing with people. The table nearly collapsed under the weight of the food I had spent two full days preparing. The three-tiered cake waited inside the refrigerator covered in white icing and blue lettering.
Tamara Eduardovna sat at the head of the table like a queen.
“Marinochka, finally the fish has arrived,” she complained impatiently. “We thought you forgot it.”
Larisa once again made remarks about my weight, while the aunt from Krasnodar began lecturing that a woman should always remain grateful to her husband.
Vitaly remained silent once more.
At that point I slowly rose from the table, walked into the kitchen, and returned several moments later carrying the cake.
When I placed it at the center of the table, the entire conversation instantly stopped.
Across the cake, written in enormous blue letters, were the words:
“Paid for by Marina.”
For several seconds an icy silence filled the room.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Tamara Eduardovna asked with a strained smile.
“No,” I answered calmly. “This is the truth.”
My voice sounded surprisingly stable.
“I paid for this cake. Just like I paid for this dinner. Just like I paid for the car, Larisa’s debts, Igor’s repairs, and the expenses for the country house.”
Vitaly suddenly jumped to his feet.
“Marina, stop this immediately!”
I looked at him, and for the first time in years I felt absolutely no fear.
“No, Vitaly. For the first time, I’m not going to stay silent.”
The entire table stared at me in frozen silence.
“Over five years I spent the equivalent of more than twelve million forints on all of you. Meanwhile you constantly humiliated me, criticized me, and behaved as though everything was simply my obligation.”
Tamara Eduardovna turned pale.
“How dare you…”
“Because I’ve had enough,” I interrupted her. “You will never receive another cent from me.”
I slowly placed the old cake server with the cracked handle onto the top of the cake, then sliced through the perfect layer of icing.
“This is the final dinner you will ever eat with my money.”
Afterward I simply turned around and walked into the bedroom.
For a long time no sound came from the living room. Then slowly the chairs moved, quiet whispers began, and one after another the doors closed.
That evening, for the first time in many years, I finally felt that I was no longer breathing for other people, but for myself.
