— “Wretched?” — Larisa slowly turned her head toward her mother-in-law and let out a quiet laugh. — Then why has your family been living in my apartment for the past three years?
A silence fell over the table in an instant.
Until then, everyone had been pretending as if this evening were a completely ordinary, polite family gathering.
Valentina Egorovna carefully served salad onto the plates, Semyon Pavlovich arranged the side dishes as if it were the most important thing in the world,
Igor gently pushed Larisa’s plate closer to her, as if that could smooth over everything that had been hanging tensely in the air for hours.
And then Valentina Egorovna said that word.
Wretched.
Not quietly. Not accidentally. But with that familiar, sweetly poisonous smile with which she always made “just remarks,” behind which everyone knew perfectly well: this was not a joke, this was an attack.
And this time Larisa did not lower her head.
Did not go into the kitchen.
Did not pretend she hadn’t heard.
She placed her hand on the edge of the table and looked straight at her mother-in-law.
The room seemed to shrink. The walls drew closer, the air grew denser. Forks froze in mid-air. Even the murmur of conversation died out.
— Larisa, — Igor said quietly, tensely. — Don’t do this now.
But she did not look at her husband.
— Don’t do what? Your mother just called me wretched. In my own apartment. In front of guests. I think that’s reason enough to clarify a few things.
Valentina Egorovna froze for a moment. Then she leaned back, as if she had been bitten by an unpleasant mosquito.
— Listen to how you talk — she said coldly. — Are you already keeping track of who lives where?
— I didn’t start counting today — Larisa replied calmly. — I just said it out loud for the first time today.
The silence was now oppressive. The guests exchanged glances, someone cleared their throat, but no one dared to speak.
And suddenly Larisa realized she wasn’t even nervous.
Her hands weren’t shaking.
Her heart wasn’t racing.
Something much older, much deeper had happened inside her: as if an internal lock had finally clicked open and turned.
And with it, everything became clear.
Three years.
Exactly three years since it all began.
When Valentina Egorovna and Semyon Pavlovich sold their own apartment. They said it was too big, too noisy, too inconvenient. They wanted a new, smaller, more modern place, closer to the clinic, shops—more comfortable living.
The money was in Semyon Pavlovich’s account.
“Just a temporary solution,” they said then.
“Two months, at most three, until we find something.”
And Larisa, despite all her inner resistance, agreed.
She offered her own small apartment. The one she had inherited before marriage from her aunt. The place that was not just walls, but memories. Where she sat in the window as a child, where her aunt taught her to cook, where she first felt she had her own world.
She did not want to rent it out. Did not want to lose it.
But back then she still believed people kept their word.
The “temporary” turned into months.
Months turned into a year.
A year turned into three long, slowly poisoning years.
At first it was only small things.
A broken chair, which was “old anyway.”
A rug thrown out, “just a dust collector.”
Then objects disappeared. A lamp. An old book collection. Her aunt’s green-shaded floor lamp.
When Larisa asked, Valentina Egorovna only waved her hand:
— Oh come on, why do you need that junk? You never even used it.
And Igor always said the same thing:
— Mom doesn’t do it out of malice. Don’t take it to heart.
But every time she heard that, Larisa felt a little less of herself.
Then came the day she first heard the mother-in-law say in front of someone else:
“This is our apartment.”
And then she understood it had long stopped being temporary.
It was occupation.
Tonight would have continued like the previous years: small jabs, minor remarks, quiet swallowing.
But Larisa was no longer the same person.
— Wretched? — she repeated slowly. — Then can someone explain to me how it is that the wretched people own the apartment you’ve been living in for three years?
Valentina Egorovna’s face tightened.
— We are here temporarily!
— Three years — Semyon Pavlovich added quietly, speaking for the first time.
Everyone looked at them.
The man awkwardly put down his fork.
— This… didn’t exactly start like this — he said.
By now Larisa wasn’t even angry. She was tired. She had reached the end of a very long endurance.
— You know what’s most interesting? — she asked. — It was never about the apartment. It was that you slowly started treating it as if it were yours.
Valentina Egorovna snapped:
— Because we are family!
— No. — Larisa’s voice was sharp now, like a blade. — You are my husband’s family. And I am the woman who allowed you to live here. That is the difference.
Igor shifted as if he wanted to intervene, but he didn’t know what to say.
Because for the first time there was no prepared sentence.
Only uncomfortable truth.
The next hours were not an argument, but a slow unveiling.
Larisa spoke about the thrown-out objects.
About her aunt’s memories.
About decisions made without her in her own home.
Valentina Egorovna grew more and more agitated.
— They’re just objects!
— No — Larisa replied. — They are my past.
Semyon Pavlovich then spoke quietly:
— I was looking for that lamp too.
Silence.
— Valya said she gave it away.
Larisa looked at him.
And for the first time she didn’t feel anger, but something colder: clarity.
Every small lie, every omission, every “we’ll talk later” formed into one picture.
This wasn’t temporary.
It was appropriation.
By the end of the evening the guests had dispersed with awkward, hurried goodbyes. No one wanted to stay in the middle of the conflict.
Only Larisa, Igor, and the mother-in-law remained.
The air no longer held celebration.
Only tension and years left unspoken.
— You can’t do this — Valentina Egorovna said hoarsely. — Where are we supposed to go?
— You have one month — Larisa replied quietly.
— One month?! — the woman exploded. — We are not meant to be thrown onto the street!
— No one is throwing you onto the street — Larisa said. — But this is not your home.
Igor then spoke:
— Mom… this is too much.
And that sentence was louder than anything else.
Because for the first time he wasn’t asking Larisa to be quiet.
He was stopping his mother.
The following days passed slowly, heavily.
Phone calls.
Whispers.
Family messages.
“How could you do this?”
“Elderly people!”
“What has the world come to?”
Larisa did not respond to everything. Did not explain herself. She just watched reality slowly begin to realign.
Then she went to her apartment.
Alone.
And what she saw there closed everything.
Objects in boxes.
The past mixed with alien order.
And the realization that someone else had lived in her life for a long time as if it didn’t matter.
When Igor finally stood beside her, they no longer argued.
They just looked at the room.
— I’m sorry — the man said quietly.
Larisa nodded.
— I know.
— No, you don’t — he replied. — But at least now you’re not denying it.
The day of the move-out was quiet.
No big scene.
No tears.
Valentina Egorovna packed tightly pressed lips, as if every movement were a final attack.
Semyon Pavlovich said nothing.
And Igor just watched.
When the last door closed, Larisa stood in the middle of the apartment for a long time.
Then she opened the window.
Let in the air.
The silence.
Her own space.
And for the first time in a very long time, she didn’t have to explain anything to anyone.
Because the apartment was once again what it had always been:
hers.
