— I’m not throwing a wedding for two hundred guests, Pasha! You can feed your entire family yourself — I’m not giving a single penny for that! Either we just sign the papers, or there will be no wedding at all!
— So, shall we go with that Italian place, the one with the veranda? — Anya lazily ran her finger over the laptop screen, scrolling through photos of the sunlit hall. — I think it’s perfect. Our parents, Katya and Igor, and us. Six people. Cozy, without pomp — just like we wanted.
She spoke in a light, almost purring tone, full of confidence in their shared, long-ago decision. Their apartment — their small, cozy cocoon — seemed infused with that mood. The smell of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the scent of her perfume, and in the rays of the evening sun filtering through the clean glass, tiny dust motes danced.
Everything was in its place. Their future looked as clear and orderly as the tabs in her browser: “restaurants for small weddings,” “photographer for two hours,” “white sheath dress.”
— Yes, of course, darling. Whatever you say, — Pavel, sitting across from her, nodded a little too quickly and looked away. He rubbed the back of his neck — a gesture that always meant a touch of inner tension. — The veranda sounds great.
Anya didn’t think much of it. The past few weeks had been hectic, and she attributed his distraction to ordinary fatigue. She was happy — happy that they both wanted the same thing: a quiet, genuine celebration for themselves, not a performance for a crowd of half-strangers.
She was sure their relationship was built on that shared foundation — on the ability to listen to each other and distinguish what mattered from what was merely show. The quicksilver anticipation of a simple, elegant celebration filled her with energy.
At that moment, a key turned in the lock. Pavel flinched as if the sound were deafening. Anya raised her eyebrows in surprise, but he was already getting up from the table, heading for the hallway.
He returned a minute later. In his hands was a thin folder, and on his face played a strange, guilty, almost pleading smile. She had seen that smile only once before — when he confessed to accidentally washing her silk dress together with his jeans.
He silently approached the table and placed the folder in front of her. Without opening it, just placed it there. Anya looked at him, then at the folder, then back at him, waiting for an explanation. He merely shrugged vaguely and stepped toward the window, pretending to be deeply fascinated by the view of the neighboring building.
With mild confusion, she opened the folder. Inside were several A4 sheets, covered top to bottom in neat, almost calligraphic handwriting. They weren’t paragraphs — they were columns.
Numbered columns of names and surnames. Aunt Lyuba from Syzran. Cousin Oleg with his wife and three kids. Her mother’s colleague, Maria Stepanovna. The Nikiforov family — her parents’ friends from Saratov. And so on, and so on. She scanned the first sheet, then the second. The count ran into dozens.
Anya slowly lifted her head from the papers. The air in the kitchen was no longer cozy. It had grown dense, heavy — filled with the unmistakable smell of someone else’s will.
— What’s this? — she asked. Her voice was even, but there was not a trace left of the soft warmth that had filled it five minutes ago. She already knew the answer. She just wanted to hear him say it.
— It’s… Mom made a list, — Pavel finally turned from the window but didn’t dare come closer. He stayed two meters away, half in shadow, as if instinctively seeking shelter. — She says we have to invite everyone so no one gets offended.
His voice was quiet and oddly flat, devoid of conviction. He wasn’t defending a position — he was delivering it, like a postman bringing bad news he wasn’t responsible for.
That detachment infuriated Anya far more than if he’d raised his voice to argue. She slowly laid her hand on the sheets, as if trying to keep them pinned to the table, to prevent that foreign, brazen intrusion from spreading through their kitchen — through their life.
— Pasha, we agreed, — she said, articulating each word carefully. Her tone held no plea, only the cold statement of a fact he seemed to have forgotten. — Just the registration. Dinner for our closest ones. Six people. We’ve been discussing this for three months. We chose the restaurant. We don’t have the money for a banquet for your entire Saratov region. And, more importantly, we have no desire for it.
He hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. That simple, logical argument — once their shared axiom — had now become an obstacle he somehow needed to get around.
— Well, Anya… — he began in his most conciliatory tone, the one that always worked when he asked her for little favors. — Mom says it’s important for the family’s reputation. That it’s how things should be. It’s once in a lifetime, she says. She thinks it’ll show everyone how much they value me — and how they accept you… Otherwise, they won’t accept you.
The last phrase was barely a whisper, but it struck Anya like a slap in the face. There it was. It wasn’t about reputation or the feelings of faceless relatives. It was a ticket — an entry pass into their family, the price of which was the complete renunciation of her own opinion, her own desires, their shared plans.
She looked at the neatly written pages and saw not a guest list, but a detailed rulebook of a monastery she was being invited to join. Every name, penned in her future mother-in-law’s precise handwriting, wasn’t just a line — it was a little soldier in someone else’s army, assembled against her alone.
— Is your mother going to pay for this banquet? — she asked, her tone still even. — Will she find a restaurant that can take two hundred guests on two weeks’ notice? Will she handle all the logistics? Because I won’t. And I won’t spend our shared savings — the money we’ve been putting aside for the mortgage down payment — on a feast for people I’ve never even met.
Pavel grimaced, as though she had said something indecent. Conversations about money always made him uncomfortable, especially when he was in a losing position.
— What does money have to do with it? It’s about respect! You just don’t want to understand that it’s important to them. It’s tradition! That’s what they’re used to!
— It’s their tradition, Pasha. Not ours, — she cut him off. — You and I had an agreement. You agreed to it. Or have you been lying to me all these months?
— I didn’t lie to you, — his voice grew harder, but it wasn’t his own firmness; it was borrowed. He took a step forward, leaving the shadow, and now the light from the window fell across his angry face. — I just hoped you’d show some wisdom. That you’d understand family isn’t just the two of us. It’s about compromise. About being able to meet halfway.
He was speaking in rehearsed phrases, and Anya could almost feel the invisible presence of his mother behind him, feeding him these correct, deadly words. Compromise. Such a convenient word for one-sided surrender.
— Compromise means both sides give up something, Pasha. It’s when we find a solution together — one that works for both of us. But what you’re offering, — she nodded at the papers on the table, — isn’t a compromise. It’s an ultimatum. I’m being presented with the conditions under which I’ll be accepted into your family. And those conditions mean abandoning the decision we made together.
— Oh, stop with this “decision, decision” already! — he snapped, his composure cracking to reveal frustration and anger. — It’s just a wedding! One single day! Is it really that hard to do something nice for my mother, for my relatives? They’re not asking you to sell your soul! They just want to meet my wife, to share in our joy! But you’re acting like some selfish woman who only thinks about herself!
Selfish. There it was — the main accusation, the ultimate weapon reserved for when logic failed. It hit right on target, but the effect wasn’t what he expected. Nothing inside Anya flinched. On the contrary, everything solidified — crystallized into cold, sharp certainty.
She looked at him — the man she loved, the man she was going to marry — and saw not a kindred spirit, but a transmitter of someone else’s thoughts and desires. He wasn’t on her side. He wasn’t even in the middle. He had long since crossed to the other shore and was now simply trying to persuade her to swim across, leaving behind everything that was truly hers.
At that moment, she realized it wasn’t about the wedding. Not even about his mother. It was about him. About his inability to be a man, a partner, an independent being. About his readiness — in every conflict, in every uncertain situation — to choose not their small boat, but his mother’s great, reliable liner. And now he was merely offering her a place in the hold.
— If I give in now, Pasha, it won’t end. It’ll only begin, — she said quietly, but in the empty kitchen, each word sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. — First, it’ll be the wedding according to your mother’s script. Then we’ll choose an apartment where it’s convenient for her.
Then we’ll name our children based on the names she likes. And every time, you’ll come to me with that same expression, saying it’s “just necessary,” that we have to “show respect.” I don’t want that kind of life.
— You’re exaggerating! — he exclaimed, but his voice already carried a note of panic. He realized he was losing control. — It’s just one small concession! A tiny one, to make everyone happy! If you want to be my wife, you have to learn to be part of my family!
And that was the final straw. The point of no return. He had given her an ultimatum — direct and unmistakable. And she accepted it. Not in the way he expected. She straightened, and in her gaze appeared a steely resolve he had never seen in her before…
— I’m not throwing a wedding for two hundred guests, Pasha! You can feed all your relatives yourself — I’m not spending a single penny on that! Either we just sign the papers, or there will be no wedding at all!
The silence that followed her ultimatum was heavy and dense, like an unexploded shell. Pavel looked at her, and his face slowly changed. Confusion gave way to disbelief, and then — to blotches of crimson anger.
It was as if he was seeing her for the first time. Not his sweet, understanding Anya, but a stranger — someone unbending, someone who had dared to lay down her own terms to him, to his family.
— So that’s how it is, — he said, and his voice hissed with cold, bitter steel. — You’re ready to destroy everything? Our love, our future? For what? For a guest list? Do you even realize how petty that is? How selfish? My mother put her heart into this — she wanted to make a celebration for everyone — and you… you’re just spitting in her face.
He kept talking, the words spilling out of him faster, angrier. He accused her of disrespect, of callousness, of destroying his family before even joining it. He tried to wound her, to make her feel guilty, to provoke her into shouting back, to drag her once again into that thick, familiar swamp of arguments where he could still win.
But Anya wasn’t listening anymore. His voice had turned into background noise — like the hum of the refrigerator or the distant sound of cars outside the window. She wasn’t looking at him, but through him — at her own reflection in the dark glass of the kitchen cabinet. There she saw a woman with an absolutely calm, almost indifferent face.
Inside her, there was no storm, no hurt, no pain. Only emptiness. A clean, sterile emptiness where love had been just an hour ago. The amputation had happened — swift, without anesthesia or regret. The gangrenous part was cut off to save the rest of the organism.
She silently walked around the table. Pavel fell quiet for a moment, thrown off by her movement, expecting her to come closer, to hug him, to apologize. But she stopped beside the table — beside those damned sheets of paper.
Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, she raised her left hand. Her fingers were slender and graceful. On her ring finger, a small diamond glinted dully on a thin gold band. It was the symbol of their future — the promise they had made to each other.
She looked at the ring as if seeing it for the first time. Turned it slightly on her finger. Then, just as slowly and deliberately, she slid it off. A thin white mark remained on her skin. She didn’t throw it, didn’t let it clatter onto the table for dramatic effect.
Carefully, between two fingers, she placed it right in the center of the first guest list — directly on the name of some “Aunt Valya from Balakovo.” The small gold circle with its tiny stone looked oddly out of place, alien against the handwritten paper.
Then she gathered the sheets — one by one, aligning their corners. Before the stunned, speechless Pavel, she began folding them. First in half, so that the ring was enclosed inside.
Then once more, neatly, into a tight paper rectangle. She extended the folded packet toward him. He stared at the bundle in her hand, then at her calm, expressionless face, unable to grasp what was happening.
— Give this to your mother, — she said. Her voice was absolutely even, without a single tremor. — Tell her to add it to the list…
