“If you truly think your mother is the one in charge in our home, then I’m the outsider here!” the wife snapped, and slammed the door.
“Again you bought low-fat curd? It’s useless—nothing but watery mush.”
Olga lifted her eyes from her phone. Vera Semyonovna stood by the refrigerator, peering at the package through her glasses. Morning sunlight poured through the kitchen window, revealing dust motes floating in the air.
“I like this kind,” Olga said, setting her spoon down.
“You like it…” her mother-in-law scoffed. “A man needs proper food. Ilyusha grew up eating real homemade curd—I used to buy it at the market for him. And this? Pure chemicals.”
Ilya sat at the table, buried in his laptop. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, but he kept staring at the screen. Olga waited for him to say something—anything. The seconds dragged. Meanwhile, Vera Semyonovna pulled out a jar of sour cream, sniffed it, grimaced, and shoved it back.
“Ilyusha, want some porridge?”
“I do, Mom,” he muttered without looking up.
Olga put her spoon aside. Now the curd tasted bland. She stood, dumped what was left into the trash, and left the kitchen, feeling her mother-in-law’s gaze on her back. In the hallway she stumbled over a box—one of about twenty that had been lined up along the wall for the fourth month already.
Vera Semyonovna was supposed to stay with them for a week. Two at most. Renovations were starting in her apartment—pipes were being replaced along the whole riser, and they promised it would be quick. Ilya himself suggested she move in.
“Mom, why suffer through the dust and noise? We’ve got plenty of space.”
Olga nodded back then. They really did—an updated two-bedroom in a new building, with a roomy kitchen. Vera Semyonovna arrived with two suitcases and a bag. A week later, Ilya brought three more boxes.
“Mom says the repairs are dragging on. The workers found some new issues with the wiring.”
The boxes were stacked in the hallway. Then more appeared—dishes she “couldn’t bear to leave with strangers in the apartment.” After that, they hauled over the TV from Vera Semyonovna’s bedroom.
“She’s used to falling asleep to the news,” Ilya explained as he set it up in the living room, across from the sofa where his mother now slept.
Olga’s little work corner by the window had to be shifted. Her folders and paperwork were moved into the bedroom. The armchair she loved reading in was shoved into a corner—there it “got in the way.”
In the evenings, the television blared until midnight. Vera Semyonovna watched serials, flipping channels every fifteen minutes. Olga shut the bedroom door, but the sound still seeped through the cracks.
“Could you ask your mom to turn it down a bit?” she asked Ilya once.
“She’s not doing it on purpose. She just doesn’t hear well.”
Olga lay there with her eyes open, listening to someone on-screen sob about infidelity. Ilya turned toward the wall and, a minute later, started snoring.
On Saturdays Olga used to love cooking complicated dishes—digging up recipes online, buying unusual ingredients, spending half the day “working magic.” Now, every Saturday, Vera Semyonovna claimed the kitchen first thing in the morning.
“I’m baking pies,” she would announce. “Ilyusha loves cabbage.”
“I was going to—”
“Going to what? Another one of your experiments? Ilyusha needs real food. Home cooking.”
The kitchen filled with the smell of yeast dough and stewed cabbage. Olga sat in the living room with her laptop and ordered sushi. Ilya ate his mother’s pies and praised them. He said nothing about the sushi.
“Pans should be stored like this,” Vera Semyonovna rearranged the cupboards. “And pots go separately. What a mess you had here.”
“It was more convenient for me the other way,” Olga tried to object.
“Convenient!” her mother-in-law snorted. “I’ve been running a household for thirty years—I know what’s convenient.”
Ilya only shrugged. “What difference does it make where the pans are?”
It made a difference. Every morning Olga reached for the coffee pot where it had stood for three years—and hit a jar of buckwheat instead.
That evening Olga stayed late at the office. A coworker talked her into stopping by a café for a glass of wine. She got home around ten. The apartment was dark; only a thin stripe of light spilled from under the living-room door, flickering from the TV. She took off her shoes and went into the bedroom.
She switched on the nightlight—and froze.
Her bedside table was gone. In its place stood an old round stand covered with a crocheted doily. On top: a porcelain dog, an angel-shaped candleholder, and a vase of artificial roses. On the wall where her favorite Monet print had hung, a tapestry with deer now dominated the space.
Ilya slept facing the wall. Olga sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the porcelain dog. A piece of its ear had been chipped off, a crack smeared over with glue. The angel held a candle coated in dust. The roses had once been red, but had faded into a grimy pink.
Then she stood and opened the wardrobe. Her clothes had been shoved into the far corner, making room for her mother-in-law’s dresses in plastic covers.
“Ilya?” she called.
Her husband opened his eyes and turned his head lazily.
“Where is my bedside table?”
“Oh—Mom said to move it,” he yawned. “She said it’s better for feng shui. We put it in the storage room.”
“In storage? And my things? My documents, my makeup—”
“It’s all in a box. Don’t worry. Mom packed it neatly. Let’s sleep,” Ilya replied calmly and rolled onto his side. A minute later he was breathing evenly again.
Olga stepped onto the balcony. A lump rose in her throat. The night air was cold and smelled like rain. Down in the courtyard the streetlights glowed; someone was walking a dog—small, alive, not porcelain. Olga took out her phone and opened a chat with her friend Liza.
“Everything okay?” Liza typed almost immediately.
“Yes. Just tired.”
“Is your mother-in-law still with you?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, Ol.”
Olga put the phone away. The TV shut off in the living room. She waited until the footsteps faded, then returned to the bedroom. She lay down without undressing, on top of the blanket. The porcelain dog stared at her with glass eyes.
For the weekend Olga went to her parents’. Her mom fried pancakes, her dad fixed her old bicycle, her younger sister dragged her into watching a series. A normal house, where every object had been in its place for twenty years.
“How’s Ilya?” her mother asked over dinner.
“Fine.”
“And Vera Semyonovna? Still living with you?”
“The renovation’s taking longer.”
Her mother shook her head but said nothing. Her father cleared his throat into his fist. Her sister rolled her eyes. Everyone understood, but no one pushed advice. Olga was grateful for that.
On Sunday evening she didn’t want to go back. She stood on the commuter-train platform thinking: maybe one more day? But Monday meant work, and a meeting at nine.
Ilya opened the apartment door. He wore a strange, guilty smile.
“How was your trip?”
“Good. What happened?”
“Nothing. It’s just… Mom did a bit of… organizing.”
Olga walked into the bedroom and stopped in the doorway.
The room was unrecognizable. Heavy burgundy curtains replaced the airy white ones. An embroidered bedspread instead of their simple linen cover. Her dresser was gone. In its place, against the wall, stood an old glass-front cabinet. Inside: teacups, shot glasses, framed photographs.
“Where are my things?”
“In the closet,” Ilya fidgeted behind her. “Mom said the dresser was old, just collects dust.”
“That was my dresser. My grandmother’s.”
“Well… we can put it back later.”
“Put it back from where—from the dumpster?…”
Ilya didn’t throw it out—we moved it into the storage room. Olya, why are you reacting like this? It’s just furniture being rearranged.
Olga turned toward him. Ilya stood in the doorway of their bedroom—except it wasn’t really their bedroom anymore. It was Vera Semyonovna’s room now, decorated the way she liked it.
“Just furniture,” Olga echoed.
She walked to the wardrobe, pulled out a travel bag, and began packing: jeans, sweaters, underwear. Ilya stayed silent. Then he stepped closer.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to Liza’s. I’ll spend the night there.”
“Because of the curtains? Olya, that’s ridiculous.”
“Not because of the curtains.”
She zipped the bag, grabbed her purse and phone. Ilya stood in the middle of that чужая—foreign—bedroom, watching as she put her shoes on.
“Let’s talk. Mom really will be leaving soon…”
“If you truly believe your mother is the one in charge in this house, then I don’t belong here!”
Olga shut the door behind her, walked down the stairs, and went outside. It wasn’t raining, but the asphalt still shone with damp. She called a taxi.
Liza opened the door in pajamas, a face mask still on.
“What happened?”
“Can I stay with you for a while?”
“Of course. Come in.”
Liza’s place was tiny—a studio in an old building. But it was quiet. No TV blaring at night. No one shifting things around. There were potted plants on the windowsill, travel photos on the walls.
Olga slept on the couch. The first night she barely closed her eyes—she kept listening to the silence. In the morning Liza brewed coffee and set croissants on the table.
“Alright. Tell me.”
Olga told her everything: the boxes, the missing bedside table, the curtains. Liza listened and nodded.
“And Ilya does nothing?”
“He says it’s temporary. That I’m overreacting.”
“You’re not overreacting. You have every right to live in your own home in a way that feels comfortable to you.”
During the day Ilya called. Olga didn’t pick up. In the evening he sent a long message—asking her to come back, promising he’d speak to his mother. She didn’t reply.
A week passed. Olga went to work, came back to Liza’s, cooked dinner. They watched shows, drank wine, talked. The tension Olga had carried for months began to loosen its grip. She slept better. She stopped flinching at sudden noises.
On the eighth day, Ilya showed up outside her office. He was waiting by the entrance.
“Olya…” His voice sounded flattened, crushed. “Can we talk?”
She listened without a word.
He spoke in a messy rush—jumping over himself. He said he finally understood his mistake: staying silent, smoothing things over, pretending not to see. He had noticed how bad it was for her, but he thought it would all “settle down” on its own. And now the apartment felt empty—not because his mother had gone to stay with a friend, but because Olga wasn’t there.
“I’m not asking you to come back right now,” he said wearily. “I just want to talk. And I want everything to be different. I want you to know you have a place at home.”
His voice trembled.
Olga listened—and for the first time in a long while she didn’t feel angry. Only tired.
And yet, somewhere deep inside, something warm—barely there—began to return.
A week later Vera Semyonovna moved back into her renovated apartment. Ilya helped her carry the boxes himself, and between him and his mother there was a conversation he never would have dared to have before. Olga didn’t ask about it—he told her later on his own, not hiding how hard it had been to finally say everything out loud.
When Olga crossed the threshold of their apartment for the first time after the separation, it smelled like fresh air—Ilya had opened every window. In the bedroom there were no heavy curtains, no mother-in-law bedspread, nothing чужое—nothing that didn’t belong. Everything that was Vera Semyonovna’s had vanished.
“Let’s start over,” he said. “Your way.”
They brought back the dresser and the bedside table, put things where they belonged, hung up light curtains. Little by little the apartment began to look like a place where people live—rather than a battleground for territory.
When they finished, Olga stepped back a couple of paces and said:
“Now it’s truly ours.”
Ilya slipped an arm around her shoulders.
“It will be.”
That evening Olga made syrniki—the very ones Vera Semyonovna always dismissed as “wet mush.” Ilya ate them like he’d missed them for a long time, even though he’d always kept quiet before “so Mom wouldn’t get upset.”
“Thank you for coming back,” he said when they were sitting in the kitchen.
Olga smiled—calmly, without strain.
For the first time in a long while, she felt at home.
