Your Apartment Should Serve Our Family!” her husband yelled. But he fell silent when he found his things in trash bags
Galina stood at the stove, flipping cutlets. Thirty of them, enough for a week. But the unexpected visit from her mother-in-law, Valentina Petrovna, and her sister-in-law, Vika, meant the cutlets would be gone by that evening.
Her husband, Sergey, sat at the table looking at his mother with the devoted gaze of a spaniel. Galina knew that look far too well.
Something was about to happen.
“Galochka, turn off the extractor fan. It’s so noisy, I can’t stand it,” Valentina Petrovna began in her creaky voice, pushing aside her half-finished cup of tea.
Galya flipped the switch.
“We talked it over, Sergey, Vika, and I,” her mother-in-law began, inspecting her manicure. “We decided this would be best for everyone. Tomorrow you’ll give Vika the keys to your grandmother’s apartment. You know, the one you inherited last month.”
Galya froze with the spatula in her hand. Oil hissed in the pan, splattering onto her apron.
“What?” she asked.
“Vika has nowhere to live,” Sergey said, raising his eyes. In them was a mixture of fear and arrogance. “She broke up with her boyfriend, and you have a two-room apartment downtown sitting empty. We decided Vika will live there until she gets back on her feet. For a year or two. Mom and I will pay the utilities.”
“‘We decided’?” Galina carefully placed the spatula on the holder. “Seryozha, that is my grandmother’s inheritance. I planned to rent it out. That money was supposed to go toward tutors for Artyom and dental work for me.”
Vika, who until then had been silently chewing on a gingerbread cookie, snorted.
“Oh, Gal, what tutors in first grade? Don’t be ridiculous. And your teeth are fine as they are. The family needs help, and you’re thinking about yourself.”
The word struck like a slap.
Galina lived in her mother-in-law’s apartment, where Sergey owned a one-third share. She scrubbed the floors, cooked for the whole crowd, endured her sister-in-law’s visits, and now she was the selfish one?
“I’m not giving you the keys,” Galina said calmly. “The apartment will be rented out. Market price is forty-five thousand. If Vika has forty-five thousand, she’s welcome.”
Valentina Petrovna turned crimson. She heaved herself up from the chair, looming over the table.
“Have you forgotten yourself, dear? Where do you live? In my home. Whose bread do you eat?”
“I earn more than Sergey,” Galina snapped. “And I’m the one who buys the groceries for this house.”
“That’s the family budget!” Sergey shrieked. “Are you going to start keeping score now?”
Valentina Petrovna slammed her palm on the table.
“Listen to me, girl. You came into this house with one plastic bag. We accepted you, gave you warmth and shelter. Now that apartment should serve the family, unless you’re separating yourself from us?”
Galina looked at her husband. He was nodding, agreeing with his mother.
“Mom’s right, Gal. This isn’t decent. We’re a family. Everything goes into the common pot. And you want to hide a piece for yourself? Who will need you with a child in your arms if we throw you out? Come to your senses.”
The fear of being left alone, the fear that had kept her obedient for years, suddenly evaporated.
She remembered how three months earlier Sergey, trembling with fear because of creditors after his failed startup, had begged her to sign papers.
“So they don’t take everything, Gal! We’ll transfer anything valuable, separate the accounts, notarize that our incomes are separate. It’s just a formality, only for court!”
And she had signed.
But not the way he thought.
She had gone to see her own lawyer, Tamara Nikolaevna.
“Fine,” Galina said. Her voice was even, emotionless. “I heard you.”
“That’s my clever girl,” her mother-in-law smiled broadly, taking it as surrender. “Tomorrow, the keys go on the table. And now bring the cutlets. Vika is hungry.”
Galina silently turned off the stove and took off her apron.
“The cutlets are raw inside. Finish frying them yourself.”
She left the kitchen, leaving them to celebrate their victory.
For the next two days, Galina behaved perfectly. Sergey, pleased that “the woman knew her place,” did not even ask why Vika still did not have the keys. He simply waved it off on his way to work.
On Wednesday morning, as soon as the door slammed shut behind Sergey and her mother-in-law left for the dacha “to check on the seedlings,” Galina dialed a number.
“The moving crew? Yes, the same address. We start in twenty minutes.”
Galina took out a folder of documents.
The marriage contract Sergey had signed in panic three months earlier. The property division agreement. Receipts. Every receipt from the last seven years, which she had kept in a shoebox because her mother had taught her, “A piece of paper is armor.”
Four sturdy men in work overalls entered the apartment.
“What are we taking out, ma’am?”
“Everything on the list.”
The neighbor, old Aunt Nyura, peeked out at the noise.
“We’re moving, Aunt Nyura. We’re going to do a full renovation.”
By four o’clock in the afternoon, Valentina Petrovna’s apartment had been transformed.
The washing machine Galka had bought with her bonus was gone, along with the two-door Bosch refrigerator. The curtains bought with her vacation pay had been taken down. The expensive LED bulbs had been unscrewed. The orthopedic mattress had been removed from the marital bed. The microwave, the living-room television, even the expensive German faucet in the bathroom had been dismantled.
In the middle of the empty living room, on the bare floor, stood only her mother-in-law’s old sofa from before the marriage and a peeling table.
Galina walked through the rooms.
She opened Sergey’s wardrobe. She did not pack his things. She simply swept them into large black construction garbage bags. Suits, shirts, socks — all mixed together.
She placed three tightly stuffed black bags on the stairwell landing, right by the elevator doors. On top, she taped a note:
“You said I came with one plastic bag. I’m leaving with what is mine. And yours is here. The apartment is free for Vika.”
As she was getting into a taxi with Artyom, her phone began to vibrate. Sergey was calling.
That evening, she sat in her inherited apartment.
The doorbell rang. Galina calmly finished her tea, checked that Artyom was in the back room watching cartoons with headphones on, and went to the door.
“Open up, you bitch!” Sergey shouted. “What the hell have you done?! You stripped the apartment bare! I’ll call the police!”
Galina opened the door. Sergey stood on the threshold, red-faced, sweaty, his jacket unzipped. Behind him loomed Valentina Petrovna, twisted with rage, and tearful Vika.
“The police?” Galina leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “Call them. I’ll show them receipts for every single thing I took. And the agreement where you, Seryozha, personally signed that all property purchased with my money is my personal property. Remember?”
Sergey choked on the air.
“You… you left my mother without a refrigerator!” Valentina Petrovna shrieked, trying to push forward. “Return everything immediately! This is robbery! We’ll file a complaint against you!”
“Go ahead,” Galina nodded. “And I’ll file a counterclaim. For extortion and psychological abuse. And by the way, Valentina Petrovna, do you remember that loan for the ‘dacha renovation’ Sergey took out a year ago? According to the documents, he took it for himself. And according to our marriage contract, our debts are now separate too.”
Her mother-in-law’s eyes widened. She looked at her son.
“Seryozha, what is she talking about? You said the loan was for the family…”
“For his family,” Galina smiled. “So you can pay it. From today on, I won’t put a single kopeck into your ‘commune.’”
“Galya, let’s talk,” Sergey said, his voice suddenly turning into a pathetic bleat.
He saw the bright hallway behind his wife, the boxes with new appliances. He realized that tonight he would have to sleep on the old sofa with broken springs, in an apartment without curtains, under his mother’s screaming.
“We got carried away. It happens. Why go this far? Come back, huh? Vika will go somewhere else. We’ll find her a room…”
Galka looked at him as if he were empty space.
“Real family doesn’t call a wife a freeloader with one plastic bag,” she said. “You wanted the apartment to work? It’s working. For me and my son.”
“And what about me?!” Vika cut in. “Where am I supposed to go?! Mom said I would live there!”
“You’re a grown girl, Vika. You’ll figure it out. And if not, you can live on the sofa I left you.”
She stepped back.
“Wait!” Sergey tried to grab the door. “Gal, you can’t just… What about Artyom? He needs a father!”
“A child doesn’t need a father who sees his mother as a free attachment. Child support is twenty-five percent of all your income, Seryozha. And God help you if you’re late by even one day. Tamara Nikolaevna, my lawyer, is already preparing the enforcement order. She’s a vicious woman. You know her.”
She saw Sergey’s lips begin to tremble.
He understood that this was not hysteria.
This was the calculation of a woman who had been treated like a fool for too long.
“You… monster,” her mother-in-law whispered, clutching her heart.
“No, Valentina Petrovna.”
Galina slammed the heavy metal door shut. The locks clicked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Behind the door came muffled shouts and swearing. Her mother-in-law was screaming at Sergey, and Vika was sobbing.
Inside the apartment, there was silence. No one demanded cutlets. No one turned on the television. No one looked her up and down, judging her.
She took out her phone and blocked three numbers.
“Mom, is Dad coming?” Artyom stood in the doorway, holding his tablet.
Galina crouched down in front of her son and looked into his eyes.
“No, Tyoma. Dad stayed in the past. And you and I are in the future.”