My mother-in-law threw out my things while moving in her son’s favorite. She didn’t know the apartment was registered in my mother’s name
“Keys on the dresser, Polina. And don’t look at me like that. I didn’t sign up to nurse you after your ‘women’s procedures.’ Romochka has a new life now, and you’re here like a weed in a flower bed.”
Antonina Stepanovna stood in the middle of the hallway with her arms crossed over her chest. She smelled of lavender soap and something sickly sweet, a scent Polina had learned over five years of marriage to recognize as the smell of an approaching storm. Behind her mother-in-law, deeper in the corridor, Roman hovered. He did not look at his wife. He was carefully studying the toes of his house slippers, as if all the wisdom of the world were hidden in their fabric.
Polina leaned against the doorframe. Her abdomen was still aching after the surgery, and her head buzzed like an empty seashell. Being discharged from gynecology at three in the afternoon was not exactly the best time for a great migration of nations. She clenched the strap of the bag in her fist. Inside it were only slippers, a robe, and a pack of painkillers.
“Roman, are you serious?” Polina’s voice was quiet, almost colorless. “Right now?”
“Polya, what’s the point in dragging it out?” Roman finally raised his eyes, but immediately shifted them toward the mirror. “We talked about this. It’s cramped for us. It’s cramped for everyone. Mom needs peace, and I… I need to move on. Yulia has already brought her things. It doesn’t look good for a person to be standing in the doorway with suitcases.”
“A person?” Polina almost laughed. “So Yulia standing in the doorway is not okay, but me standing on the stairwell after anesthesia is perfectly normal?”
Antonina Stepanovna took a step forward, closing the distance between them. Her small bead-like eyes flashed with triumph. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Ever since the day Roman had brought “that gray mouse from the design bureau” into their ancestral nest. Her mother-in-law had always believed Polina was a temporary misunderstanding, a youthful mistake made by her perfect son.
“I’ve already packed your bundles,” Antonina snapped. “Put them by the elevator. Everything’s there: your rags and those stupid books of yours. I only kept the duck roaster. That’s a family item. It belonged to my mother. No need to drag it around the dormitories.”
Polina looked at the pile of black bags dumped near the elevator doors. The sleeve of her favorite cashmere sweater, a gift from her father, was sticking out of one of them. The bags had been torn open, as if her mother-in-law had checked whether the “freeloader” had grabbed an extra silver spoon.
At that moment, Yulia came out of the kitchen. She was about ten years younger than Polina, all sugary somehow, wearing a pink plush tracksuit that looked in this apartment with three-meter ceilings and stucco molding like a plastic cup on an antique table. Yulia was holding the very same double-walled glass mug that Polina had bought herself with her first bonus.
“Oh, hello,” Yulia squeaked, sipping tea. “I’m just… settling in. Antonina Stepanovna said this place is free now.”
Polina felt something click inside her. She did not break down into hysterics, did not fall apart in tears. It simply clicked, fitting into place like a part in a complicated blueprint. Suddenly, she remembered everything: how she had spent three years paying off a loan taken out for “renovations for Mom”; how she had drawn shopping mall plans at night while Roman was “finding himself” in online casinos; how she had politely smiled at Antonina Stepanovna while listening to lectures about how a real woman should be her husband’s invisible shadow.
“Free, then?” Polina straightened up. The pain in her abdomen had not gone away, but it faded into the background, drowned out by the icy cold in her chest. “Roman, are you sure this is what you want?”
“Polina, don’t make a scene,” her husband grimaced. “You always complicate everything. You have somewhere to go, don’t you? Go to your mother’s village, rest in the fresh air. It’ll be good for you after the hospital.”
“My mother doesn’t have a village, Roma. My mother only has a room in a communal apartment, which she rents out to help us pay for ‘our’ apartment.”
Antonina Stepanovna snorted.
“‘Help’! Counting her pennies. That’s it, this conversation is over. Roma, close the door. There’s a draft. Yulechka has a weak throat.”
The door slammed shut. Polina remained standing in the cold stairwell. The silence of the Stalin-era building was heavy, smelling of dust and old wood. She looked at her bags. Then she walked over and picked up the sweater. It was torn along the seam. Apparently, her mother-in-law had been in such a hurry that she had simply ripped things out of the closet.
Polina sat down on the suitcase. Her hand reached automatically into her bag. There, in the inner pocket next to her passport, lay a document she had not told her husband about for two years. A document she had arranged the day she accidentally saw Roman’s messages with “Yulia Bunny” on his phone. Back then, she had not left. She had wanted to see how far they would go. She had been waiting for the peak. And here it was: a dirty bag by the elevator and a girl in a pink robe.
She took out her phone. Her fingers did not tremble.
“Hello, Mom? No, everything is fine. Yes, they discharged me. Listen, please send me a scan of Grandfather’s deed of gift. Yes, that one. And also… call our district police officer, Stepanych. Remember, he helped you with the garage? Tell him I have an illegal takeover of property here and an attempted theft of personal belongings.”
Polina ended the call and looked at the massive oak door. Behind it, she could hear Roman laughing and dishes clinking. Yulia was apparently already making herself at home in the kitchen. Antonina Stepanovna was probably telling everyone how cleverly she had gotten rid of the dead weight.
They did not know one small detail. This apartment had never belonged to Antonina Stepanovna. Nor to Roman. Back in the distant year of 1998, Polina’s grandfather, an old architect, had bought this living space from the city through some complicated arrangements. And when Polina got married, he transferred it as a gift to her mother. With one condition: “While Polina is married, let them live there. But if anything happens, throw them out by the neck.” Polina herself had begged her mother not to tell Roman. She had wanted to believe he loved her, not the registration on Prospekt Mira.
She stood up. The pain was throbbing, but her mind was crystal clear. She would not go to the elevator. She would not collect her torn clothes. She would wait here.
Two hours passed. Polina was still sitting on the suitcase when heavy footsteps sounded in the stairwell. Stepanych, the district officer with the face of a tired bulldog, climbed up to the landing. Two uniformed young men followed him.
“Polina Arkadyevna?” Stepanych nodded toward the bags. “Is this your handiwork?”
“Mine, Comrade Major. Or rather, the creative result of my former relatives. Here is my hospital discharge paper. The apartment agreement will arrive by email in a moment. I’ll show it to you.”
Stepanych carefully examined the gynecology certificate, frowned at Polina’s pale face, and pressed the doorbell. Long and insistently.
Antonina Stepanovna opened the door. She was wearing an apron and holding a ladle. Seeing the police, she froze for a second, but immediately pulled herself together. Soviet-era resilience was the best armor.
“Oh, what’s the matter? We didn’t call the police. This citizen,” she nodded at Polina, “doesn’t live here anymore. She received her personal belongings in full.”
“This citizen does live here,” Stepanych replied in a bass voice, stepping into the hallway. “But you, Antonina Stepanovna, and your son — on what grounds are you here?”
“What do you mean, on what grounds?” Roman rushed out of the room, buttoning his shirt as he went. “This is my mother’s apartment! We’ve lived here for forty years! Well, I mean Mom has lived here, and I…”
“Forty years?” Stepanych smirked, taking Polina’s phone with the scanned agreement from her hand. “But this says the owner is Vera Pavlovna Krivtsova. And the ownership was registered on the basis of a deed of gift from 2010. And before that… Polina Arkadyevna, remind me?”
“Before that, Grandfather rented it from a foundation and then bought it in my mother’s name,” Polina added calmly. “Antonina Stepanovna lived here as a family member. By my goodwill. But goodwill, as you know, ended along with the anesthesia.”
Such silence hung in the hallway that they could hear the kettle boiling in the kitchen. Antonina Stepanovna’s face turned from triumphantly red to an ashen gray. She looked at her son, and there was so much primal terror in that look that Polina even felt pity for a second. But then she remembered the torn cashmere sweater.
“Roma… what is this?” her mother-in-law babbled. “Is she the owner?”
“Looks like it,” Roman turned pale. “Mom, but you said Dad had arranged everything… that we wer
e protected…”
“Your father only knew how to arrange debts!” Antonina Stepanovna shrieked, suddenly lunging at Polina. “You snake! You viper! You settled in, sniffed everything out! Took care of the old man to snatch the apartment? It won’t happen! I’ll sue! I’m registered here!”
“Your temporary registration expired six months ago,” Polina said. “I simply didn’t renew it. I thought, why wave papers around? We’re family. Turns out, we’re not. And since you are nobody to me, you have no right to be here.”
Yulia, who had been peeking over Roman’s shoulder, suddenly turned around quickly and disappeared deeper into the apartment. A minute later, she appeared with that same pink suitcase.
“Rom, I should probably go. This is some strange drama. You told me you had a castle, but this is… some kind of communal apartment. With doorbells.”
“Yulia, wait!” Roman tried to stop her, but Stepanych gently yet firmly blocked his path.
“All right, citizens. It’s late. The owner demands that you vacate the premises. Pack your things quickly and quietly. If I find even one more damaged item belonging to Polina Arkadyevna, besides the ones already on the stairs, we’ll file it as property damage.”
Chaos began. Antonina Stepanovna sobbed, clutching the duck roaster to her chest. Roman rushed between the closet and his mother, trying to stuff his shirts into a bag. Yulia was already standing by the elevator, nervously pressing the button.
Polina entered her bedroom. Someone else’s things lay on her bed — lace underwear, cheap perfume. The smell was unbearable. She walked over to the window. Down below, on Prospekt Mira, the streetlights were coming on. Kostroma was preparing for night.
Suddenly, a chill ran down her spine. In the corner of the closet, she noticed an old box. Her box. Her mother-in-law had not looked inside it. Polina opened it. Inside were drawings. Her first projects, the ones Roman had called “nonsense for girls.” And there, at the bottom, lay a voice recorder.
She pressed play.
“…we’ll throw her out, Romochka. Be patient. Once she has the operation, we’ll take her by the little white hands and send her to the village. The apartment is ours. I checked with a notary. The loose ends are hidden. And that girl… she’s stupid. She thinks we love her. The main thing is to make her sign the waiver of her share while she’s on pills…”
Antonina Stepanovna’s voice sounded clear, metallic. Polina turned off the recording. She had made it a month ago, accidentally leaving the recorder on in the kitchen. Back then, she had not believed her ears. She had thought it was just a cruel joke. Now the jokes were over.
Three hours later, the apartment was empty. Silence filled the hallway, broken only by dripping water in the bathroom. Stepanych left last, promising to “keep an eye on the entrance.”
Polina stood in the middle of the living room. Scraps of packaging lay on the floor, along with one of Yulia’s forgotten hair clips and dust. A lot of dust. Strange how quickly a home turns into ruins when pretense leaves it.
There was a quiet scratching at the door. Polina flinched. She looked through the peephole. Roman.
She opened the door without removing the chain. He stood on the landing alone. Without his mother, without Yulia, without arrogance. His hair was disheveled, his jacket unbuttoned.
“Polya… Let me in. I took Mom to my aunt’s place. She’s hysterical there. Yulia… Yulia went to a friend’s.”
“And what do you want, Roman?” She looked at him as if he were a stranger. It was amazing how quickly attachment disappears when you see someone’s true insides.
“Polya, we’re human beings. Five years. I love you. I just got confused. Mom pressured me, said you were infertile, that we needed an heir, while you kept running around your construction sites… I’m a fool, Polya. Forgive me. Let’s start over. The apartment is yours, I understand. Let it be yours. I’ll help. We’ll finish the renovation…”
Polina listened to him and felt a strange calm spreading inside her. Not triumph, not malice, but peace. Justice is not when the enemy is defeated. It is when you no longer need to justify yourself to him.
“Roman, look at the bags by the elevator,” she said quietly. “Do you see my sweater? Your mother tore it. Just like that. Out of spite. She wasn’t tearing the sweater. She was tearing me. And you stood there. Looking at your slippers.”
“Polya, I was afraid to upset her! She has blood pressure problems!”
“And you weren’t afraid to upset me? My stitches haven’t even been removed after the operation. You threw me out onto a concrete floor, Roma. You didn’t betray me. You betrayed us.”
She reached for the chain, but he shoved his foot into the gap.
“Polina, wait! Where am I supposed to go? I don’t have a penny. All the money is invested in the business, in the supply deal…”
“What supply deal, Roma?” she smiled bitterly. “The one I calculated for you three months ago? Today, I canceled all my signatures as lead engineer. Without them, your license is just toilet paper. Your boss already knows that the PromSnab project has been withdrawn by its author.”
Roman froze. His eyes widened.
“You… you did that? You ruined me?”
“No, Roma. You ruined yourself when you decided I was a weed in your flower bed. The weed has been pulled out. Now see how your flower bed grows without water and soil.”
She pushed the door. He automatically removed his foot.
“I’m staying,” she said finally. “In my apartment. In my life. And you… try learning how to tie your shoelaces without your mother. It helps you grow up.”
The lock clicked. Polina leaned her back against the door. Her heart was pounding somewhere in her throat. The heavy silence of the Stalin-era apartment now seemed cozy. She walked into the kitchen, took the very duck roaster her mother-in-law had been afraid to take in front of the police, and put it on the stove. Tomorrow, she would buy new curtains. Green ones, like a forest.
She picked up her phone and deleted Roman’s number.
Forever.
Ahead lay a long evening, the first peaceful night, and an entire life where no one would ever dare to tear open her bags again.