Kostya did not look up from his phone. He tossed the remark toward the entryway while Marina was unloading grocery bags from Pyaterochka.
“I promised Mom you’d take care of the shopping for the May holidays. And the cooking too. As usual.”
The bag of vegetables missed the cabinet and landed awkwardly. Tomatoes rolled across the linoleum. Marina picked one up; the skin split under her fingers, and cold juice ran down her wrist.
“You made that promise for me?”
“What’s the big deal? You do it every year. Lyokha will bring the firewood, I’ll handle the grill, and you’ll bring the food. Everything as usual.”
Everything as usual. There was no better way to describe it.
For ten years, every May holiday, Marina had bought groceries for Kostya’s entire extended family. She calculated portions, carried heavy bags, and stood at the stove in the country-house kitchen while everyone beyond the fence laughed, played badminton, and argued about seedlings.
Ten years—and not once had anyone asked, “Marina, is this actually convenient for you?”
During their first year of marriage, she had volunteered. She wanted her mother-in-law, Tamara Ivanovna, to like her. Marina had grown up alone with her mother in a small apartment in Tula; a big family traveling together to a country house seemed like something from a movie. That first holiday, she cooked as though taking an exam. Tamara Ivanovna had said, “At last, this family has a proper homemaker.”
It had not been a compliment. It had been an appointment to a position.
By the fifth year, Marina was making shopping lists in February. If she forgot that Lyokha’s first wife, Sveta, didn’t eat onions, there would be consequences—not from Sveta, but from Tamara Ivanovna, followed by three weeks of silence.
The previous year, Marina had spent eighteen thousand rubles on groceries. Making lists, shopping, cooking, and washing dishes for twenty people had all fallen on her shoulders.
“Kostya,” she said, wiping her hand with a paper towel. “I’m not doing it this year. I’m not shopping, I’m not cooking, and I’m not standing at the stove.”
He looked up from his phone, finishing his text message first.
“Marina, I already told everyone. Why are you starting this a week before the holidays?”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m ending it. Ten years is enough.”
Kostya gave her a look of irritated confusion. “What am I supposed to tell Mom? She’ll be offended.”
“With you. You’re the one who promised.”
He snorted, went into the next room, and called his mother. When he returned, his jaw was tight. “Mom wants to talk to you.”
“No. You can do the shopping yourself. Or, if you don’t want to, we won’t go.”
The words “we won’t go” sounded like an ultimatum, which Kostya always treated as a declaration of war.
“So you want Misha not to see his grandmother during the holidays?” he asked quietly. “Just because you’re too lazy to go to the store?”
Eight-year-old Misha was Kostya’s trump card. If she refused an obligation, she was depriving their son of family or fresh air.
“Misha will see his grandmother. I’ll go, but I’m not cooking. Buy the food yourself, ask Lyokha, or order ready-made barbecue kits. You’ll manage.”
They barely spoke for three days. On Thursday, Tamara Ivanovna called. Marina answered, not wanting a theatrical silent treatment—she simply didn’t want to cook.
“Marinochka,” her mother-in-law began carefully. “Kostya said you’re tired. But everyone is counting on you. Olya’s mother is coming, and she praises your stewed veal every time. Who will cook if not you?”
“Tamara Ivanovna, I’m not tired. I simply don’t want to. For ten years, my holidays have consisted of the stove and washing dishes. I want to relax.”
A dangerous pause followed.
“Marina, the country house is Kostya’s family home. You come there as his wife. And a wife is not a guest. A guest sits around. A wife gets up and helps.”
“Who decided that?”
“Life decided it. You’re not the lady of the house there. You’re a wife. Get up and go to the kitchen,” Tamara Ivanovna said, as if stating that water was wet. “I lived that way for forty years, and I never complained once.”
“I’m not complaining either. I’m simply not doing it.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t come at all.”
“I’ll come. But I won’t cook.”
On April thirtieth, they loaded the car with clothes, Misha’s football, and the lawn mower. There was no food. Kostya maintained a furious, lost silence all the way to the Moscow Region cottage settlement.
Tamara Ivanovna’s plot featured an old five-wall house covered in siding and a large veranda added five years ago. Several cars were already parked outside.
Entering the gate, Marina heard Tamara Ivanovna from the kitchen window: “Olya, cut the potatoes finely. And sort through the herbs.”
Olya, Lyokha’s twenty-eight-year-old wife of six months, stood at the sink. She wore a checkered apron Marina had forgotten there two years ago. Olya obediently peeled potatoes into a plastic bag so the sink wouldn’t clog.
“Oh, Marina,” her mother-in-law said, turning around. “Finally. Did anyone bring the meat?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t do the shopping.”
Tamara Ivanovna stared at her. “Kostya said you had come to an agreement.”
“We did not. I said no, and he heard me.”
“Marinochka,” she lowered her voice, glancing at Olya. “Don’t make a scene. There will be twenty people. Go buy the meat. I’ll transfer the money.”
“It isn’t about the money.”
Marina looked at Olya—at her lowered shoulders, at the apron—and recognized herself from ten years earlier. The same autopilot, the same desperate effort to be accepted.
Marina hung her jacket on a hook, walked out to the veranda, and sat down in a wicker chair. For the first time in ten years, she did not walk past it to the kitchen.
Kostya appeared ten minutes later, carrying damp firewood. “Marina, Mom says there’s no meat. What are we supposed to do?”
“Buy some. The store in Vereya is twenty minutes away. Get four kilograms of pork neck, chicken for the children, onions, vinegar, and bread.”
Kostya dropped his log, brushed off his hands, and drove off.
Through the thin wall, Marina heard Tamara Ivanovna speaking to Olya: “You see what the older daughter-in-law is like? We treated her as family for ten years, and now she turns up her nose at us.”
Marina did not move. She remembered how Tamara Ivanovna used to discuss Lyokha’s first wife, Sveta, in that exact tone.
Half an hour later, Misha ran over, out of breath. “Mom, Grandma says she feels sick because of you. She said you shouldn’t ruin the holiday.”
Marina pulled him onto her lap. “Grandma isn’t sick, Misha. She’s upset because I don’t want to stand in the kitchen and cook. Do I have the right to sit here with you?”
“You do,” Misha nodded seriously. “Grandma really isn’t going to die, is she?”
“No. Go play.”
Tamara Ivanovna hadn’t sent Misha because she felt ill; she knew Marina would surrender faster to her son. And Marina didn’t even feel angry. She understood that Tamara Ivanovna had lived as a servant for forty years without questioning it. By refusing, Marina was showing that those forty years of sacrifice hadn’t actually been necessary—a truth her mother-in-law could never admit.
Kostya returned an hour later with bags from Magnit: pork neck, chicken thighs, onions, vinegar, and bread. No herbs, sauces, or drinks for the children, because he had never made a list in his life.
“There,” Kostya said, dumping the bags on the outdoor table.
“Come on, brother,” Lyokha slapped his shoulder. “Start cooking. It’s your grill.”
Then Marina watched Kostya stare at the raw pork neck with complete helplessness. Previously, Marina had marinated and portioned everything the night before.
“Marina,” Kostya called from the grill. “Do I really have to marinate it?”
“Yes. Onions, vinegar, salt, pepper. Leave it for an hour.”
He chopped the meat unevenly and poured vinegar without measuring. Olya came out with a pot of potatoes, wanting to help him, but didn’t dare. Marina realized with a pang that her rebellion had doubled Olya’s workload; Tamara Ivanovna had simply shifted the burden to the younger daughter-in-law.
Guests began arriving. Olya’s mother brought pickled cucumbers and sausage. Kostya’s cousin Natasha arrived with her family, surprised by the bare table.
“Where is everything?” Natasha asked. “Usually it looks like a magic tablecloth set the feast by itself.”
“The magic tablecloth is on sick leave,” Marina replied.
Natasha snorted and added her own cheese and cold cuts to the table. Marina realized that if she hadn’t always monopolized the work, everyone else would have contributed long ago.
Kostya’s grilling was a disaster. The coals burned unevenly; the chicken was charred outside and pink inside.
“It’s raw,” Lyokha said, chewing a piece. “Move it to the side and cover it. Where’s the cauldron lid?”
Olya silently fetched the lid from the shed and wiped it clean.
The pork was tough and weakly seasoned—the result of stubbornness without skill. Twenty people sat around the table eating bad barbecue, Olya’s potatoes, Natasha’s cheese, and cucumbers from a jar. Tamara Ivanovna chewed in stony, intimidating silence. Everyone felt the tension, but Marina felt only the lingering exhaustion of a ten-year habit.
After lunch, Tamara Ivanovna washed dishes at the metal basin herself, rejecting Olya’s help: “Go. I’ll do it myself.” It was a jab aimed through the wall at Marina: If you won’t do it, I’ll do it at sixty-five.
Then Lyokha finished his drink and spoke to Kostya by the cooling grill. “Listen, next time let’s all contribute properly. We can get ready-made Myasnov barbecue kits for twenty people for twelve thousand rubles—six hundred per family. Then nobody gets burdened with all the work.”
“Why didn’t you suggest that before?” Kostya asked.
“Because Marina always did everything before. Why suggest anything when the system already works?”
It was simply a statement of fact. Convenient people are never asked what they want. Tamara Ivanovna heard every word, wiped her hands, and went inside.
That evening, while Misha chased a cat along the fence, Olya sat beside Marina on the veranda.
“Tamara Ivanovna gave me a menu list for June when Lyokha’s friends visit,” Olya said quietly. “I thought about refusing, but it feels awkward.”
“Olya, I can’t tell you what to do,” Marina said. “But I felt uncomfortable for ten years. I only found courage when I saw you in the kitchen wearing my apron.”
That night on the creaky upstairs sofa, Kostya stared at the ceiling. “You humiliated me today. I stood at the grill looking like an idiot. And Mom cried.”
“I didn’t humiliate you, Kostya. That was ten years without practice. I’m sorry your mother is upset, but I was unhappy for ten years standing at the stove while everyone relaxed, and nobody cared.”
He turned over and eventually fell asleep. Below them, floorboards creaked; Tamara Ivanovna wasn’t sleeping either.
Early the next morning, Marina went to the kitchen and automatically put the kettle on. When Tamara Ivanovna appeared in the doorway, looking old and stripped of her commander’s armor, Marina prepared two mugs of tea, adding two sugar cubes to her mother-in-law’s cup.
They sat in silence—not hostile, but peaceful, as if a space had finally opened where neither had to serve the other.
“Lyokha says they’ll order delivery in June,” Tamara Ivanovna said quietly. “Everyone will contribute.”
Marina nodded.
Before packing the car, Marina went to the outdoor kitchen, took her old checkered apron from the shelf, and stuffed it into her bag between Misha’s sneakers.