“My mom forbade me to rent out the apartment, so you’d better find a way to earn money for the car yourself,” my husband snapped at me.
Lena looked at her husband as if seeing him for the first time. There he was, standing by the window, adjusting the collar of his shirt—the same Andrei she had married a year and a half ago, the same kind, caring man who could cook borscht better than her grandmother and always brought her coffee in bed on weekends. But the words he had just spoken hung in the air between them like a glass wall.
“Say that again,” she asked quietly, though she had heard him perfectly well the first time.
“Lena, come on…” Andrei turned, and there was that awkward look in his eyes, the one people get when they realize they’ve said something wrong. “Mom thinks the apartment should stay in the family. What if something happens, you know? And we’ll buy a car once we’ve saved enough. You’re smart, you’ll find a side job.”
Lena slowly sank onto the edge of the sofa. Numbers were spinning in her head: thirty-five thousand a month—that’s how much they could make from renting out the one-bedroom in their district. Enough to cover the payments on a decent car, and still have some left over. And she didn’t need the car for vanity—after her promotion, she was constantly being sent to check contractors all over the city. You couldn’t get around on buses, and besides, it looked unprofessional.
“Andrei,” she began cautiously, “your apartment is sitting empty. Dust is collecting, the bathroom tiles have cracked from temperature changes. What’s the point of keeping it closed?”
“Mom says strangers might break something, or… well, you know, anything could happen.”
“Your mom.” Lena felt something inside her twist into a tight knot. “And your wife’s opinion doesn’t matter to you?”
Andrei came over and sat down beside her, tried to take her hand, but Lena pulled away.
“Lena, don’t be like that. Mom doesn’t mean us any harm. She just worries. Remember how Svetka’s tenants sold the fridge and moved out? Or how Aunt Valya’s wiring got burned out?”
“Aunt Valya’s wiring burned out on its own, it was a hundred years old! And Svetka’s story is just a scare tale for housewives. Andrei, we could do everything through an agency, check the tenants, sign a contract…”
“Mom thinks—”
“Mom, mom!” Lena exploded. “Am I your wife or your mom? I’m twenty-seven, I work from eight in the morning until seven at night, plus business trips, plus the house, plus cooking—because your precious mother at fifty-five suddenly forgot how to cook! And now I’m supposed to take on another job just to buy a car I need for work!”
Andrei turned pale. He clearly hadn’t expected such a reaction.
“Lena, calm down. The neighbors will hear.”
“I don’t care about the neighbors!” But her voice dropped on its own. The walls in his mother’s apartment were thin, and Galina Petrovna, his mother, was home. “Listen carefully. I’m offering a reasonable solution. We have unused property that could bring in income. I need a car for work. It makes sense to connect the two, doesn’t it?”
“But Mom…”
“Your mom lives in her own apartment!” Lena grabbed her head. “What does she have to do with it?”
At that moment, the living room door creaked open, and Galina Petrovna appeared. A short, plump woman with a neat perm and a perpetually discontent expression.
“What’s all the shouting about?” she asked, though her tone made it clear she had heard everything.
“Galina Petrovna,” Lena turned to her mother-in-law, “please explain why you’re against renting out Andrei’s apartment?”
“Why should I explain anything?” Galina Petrovna walked in and sat in her favorite armchair. “That’s our family apartment. It came from his grandmother; it’ll come in handy.”
“What for?”
“Anything can happen in life.” Her mother-in-law gave her a meaningful look. “Young marriages often don’t last. It’s good that my son will have somewhere to return to.”
Lena felt the blood rush to her face.
“So you’re counting on us getting divorced?”
“I’m not counting on anything. I’m just telling it like it is. As for the car…” Galina Petrovna shrugged. “You’ll buy one when you earn it. You won’t die riding the bus in the meantime.”
“Mom,” Andrei tried to intervene, but his mother cut him off:
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me! I’m right. A wife should support her husband, not demand that he squander property.”
“Renting out is not squandering!” Lena no longer tried to restrain herself. “It’s an investment! Do you even understand what you’re talking about?”
“I understand more than you do,” Galina Petrovna replied coldly. “I’ve lived a whole life, owned apartments back when you were still running around under the table. And let me tell you this: strangers in your home always mean trouble. Always. And if you’re so eager to work, then work more—maybe you’ll save up for a car.”
Lena looked at her husband. He stood with his head down, silent, waiting for the storm to pass.
“Andrei,” she called to him. “Say something.”
“What should I say?” He lifted his eyes. “Mom’s right. The apartment is a safety cushion. And we’ll buy a car once we’ve saved up enough.”
“Saved up? How?” Lena let out a nervous laugh. “On my salary? Yours barely covers groceries and utilities. And I have expenses too, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“You’ll find a side job,” Andrei repeated. “You’re smart, you can handle it.”
And at that moment, it hit Lena. Clear, final, irreversible. She looked at these two people—her husband and his mother—and realized that to them she was nothing more than a convenient addition to their settled life. Someone to cook, clean, bring in her paycheck, and not make a fuss. And if she did make a fuss, well then she was expected to work more and solve her problems on her own.
“You know what,” she said calmly, “you’re right.”
Andrei and Galina Petrovna exchanged surprised glances.
“What do you mean, right?” his mother asked in disbelief…
“I’ll manage. I’ll find extra work, save up for the car.” Lena smiled. “Only I won’t be cooking anymore. Or cleaning either. And my salary—I’ll spend it on myself. You two can manage on your own.”
“Lena!” Andrei grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong with you?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I just realized I married a mama’s boy.” She pulled her hand free. “And I realized it in time.”
The next day, Lena called her mother.
“Mom, can I move in with you? Just for a while.”
“What happened?” There was immediate concern in Tatyana Mikhailovna’s voice.
Lena told her. Briefly, without unnecessary emotion. Her mother listened silently.
“Come,” she said simply. “You can collect your things tomorrow.”
“Mom, maybe I’m making a mistake? Maybe I should have given in, tried to find a compromise?”
“Lenochka,” her mother paused. “Tell me, what compromise can there be between ‘no’ and ‘yes’? Between ‘my mother forbade it’ and ‘I am a grown woman’? Better tell me this: do you want to spend your whole life asking permission from a stranger?”
“She’s not a stranger…”
“She is, daughter. And she always will be. And your husband…” her mother sighed. “A husband should be on his wife’s side. Always. If he’s not, then what kind of husband is that?”
That evening, Lena was packing her things. Andrei sat on the bed, watching as she carefully folded her life into a suitcase.
“Lena, don’t make such a drastic move,” he tried once more. “We’ll work it out.”
“Work out what?” she didn’t turn around. “That you’ll ask your mother’s permission before making family decisions? Or that I’ll work three shifts to buy a car for work while your apartment just sits empty?”
“That’s not how it is…”
“It’s exactly how it is.” Lena closed the suitcase and turned to him. “Andrei, I loved you. Maybe I even still love you. But I can’t be married to a man who, at thirty, can’t make a decision without his mother’s approval.”
“And what if Mom dies?” he suddenly asked.
Lena froze.
“What did you just say?”
“Well, Mom’s not young anymore. What if something happens to her? Then we’ll live the way we want.”
Lena stared at him for several seconds. Then she picked up her suitcase.
“And that’s exactly why I’m leaving. Even now, you’re not thinking about us—you’re thinking about when the obstacle to our normal family life will disappear. You’re willing to wait for your own mother’s death, but not willing to simply tell her ‘no’ about something that concerns only the two of us.”
In the hallway, Galina Petrovna was waiting.
“Leaving?” she asked with satisfaction.
“I am.”
“And you’re right to. You two were never a match.”
Lena stopped at the door.
“Galina Petrovna, have you ever thought that you’re depriving your son of the chance to become a grown man?”
“My son will do just fine without you.”
“Your son, at thirty, can’t even decide about renting his own apartment without your permission. Is that normal?”
“That’s called caring for the family. You just don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand. I understand that for you, family means you and him. And a wife is just a temporary inconvenience.” Lena put her hand on the door handle. “You know what the saddest part is? He could have been a good husband. If only he’d broken free from you.”
A month later, Lena filed for divorce. Andrei didn’t protest—probably because his mother told him it was for the best. Lena just wanted to forget that year like a bad dream.
Another month later, she was transferred to another city—a good position had opened at the regional office. The salary was twice what she’d been making before. She saved for a car in six months.
Tatyana Mikhailovna helped her daughter pack.
“Do you regret it?” she asked.
“Regret what?”
“Not trying to fight for your family.”
Lena placed the last of her books into a box.
“Mom, what would I be fighting for? The right to make decisions in my own family? For my husband to take my opinion into account? That isn’t something you win through battle. That should be there by default.”
“Maybe he’ll change?”
“Maybe. When he realizes what he’s lost.” Lena sealed the box with tape. “But I won’t be waiting for that.”
Outside, it was a gray October day. Lena stood at the window, looking out at the courtyard where she had grown up, where she’d played as a child, where she had once dreamed of great love and a strong family. Those dreams hadn’t come true—but that didn’t mean life was over.
“You know, Mom,” she said, “maybe it’s even for the best. Good thing we never had kids yet. Can you imagine what it would’ve been like for them to grow up in a family where their father was afraid to upset his mother by saying ‘no’?”
“Lenochka, do you think you’ll meet someone else?”
“I do.” Lena smiled. “I definitely will. Only now I know what to watch out for. If a guy at thirty still lives with his mom not because she needs help, but because that’s what she wants—that’s the first warning bell. If he consults her about everything—the second. And if he says, ‘My mom forbade me to rent out the apartment, so you’d better earn money for the car yourself’—then that’s not bells anymore. That’s an alarm.”
Her mother embraced her.
“My clever girl. Just don’t be angry at all men.”
“Of course not.” Lena leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “I’ll just be more selective.”
Meanwhile, in a three-room apartment on the other side of the city, Andrei was washing the dishes. Galina Petrovna sat in the kitchen, sipping her tea.
“Why so quiet, son?” she asked.
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
Andrei set a cup on the drying rack and turned to his mother.
“Mom… maybe we were wrong back then.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Well, about the apartment. Maybe we really could have rented it out.”
Galina Petrovna put her cup down on the table with such force that Andrei flinched.
“Andrei! What are you saying? We agreed on everything. She wasn’t right for you. She was demanding. It’s good she left.”
“But she was right…”
“Right?” His mother stood up. “Right to demand that you go against me? Right to shout at me in my own house? Andryusha, she wanted to drive us apart!”
Andrei quietly continued unloading the dishes. He remembered how Lena used to make him breakfast in the mornings, how she laughed at his silly jokes, how she’d fall asleep on his shoulder when they watched movies. How her eyes had sparkled when she got her promotion. And how they went dim the day he told her about his mother’s ban.
“Mom,” he said softly, “what if I call her?”
“What for?”
“To try and explain…”
“Andryusha!” Galina Petrovna came over and took her son’s hands. “My boy, she left! She walked out without a word, without even trying to mend things. Is that what a woman who truly loves you would do? Forget her. You’ll find another, someone better.”
Andrei nodded. Mama always knew best. She always had.
At that same moment, Lena was on a train heading to a new city, a new job, a new life. Lights flickered past the window as she thought that sometimes losing something familiar is the only way to find something better.
In her handbag lay her phone, with several missed calls from Andrei. But she didn’t call back. Some conversations end forever. And that’s all right too.
The new apartment was quiet and spacious. Lena set the kettle on and sat by the window. Beyond the glass stretched a new city, new people, new opportunities. And far away, in that three-room apartment, a man washed dishes while his mother explained once again why his wife had been wrong.
And maybe one day he would understand. Or maybe he never would. Either way, it was no longer her concern.
