“My parents bought this apartment for me. Yours didn’t put a single penny into it. They are not going to live there,” the wife objected.
The apartment on Sadovaya Street smelled of wood and fresh plaster. Standing in the middle of the empty living room, where only a sofa covered in plastic and an enormous ficus tree remained, Anna felt a sharp pang of sadness.
The family was moving.
Their new apartment was spacious, with a separate room for their two-year-old son, Miron, and light gray walls. They had bought it with their joint savings and a great deal of help from Anna’s parents, Alexei and Galina.
Her husband Dmitry’s money had gone toward the renovation and furniture.
Anna looked around the kitchen. The cabinets were perfect, and the glass backsplash featured a printed design.
In the bedroom was a recessed niche that she and Dima had never managed to finish.
Everything in the apartment either belonged to her or had been purchased by her parents.
During their seven years of marriage, Dmitry had, of course, contributed to the household. He paid the utility bills and repaired the plumbing. But the walls, the floor space, and the legal ownership of those square meters belonged to Anna.
“Anya,” a voice called from the hallway.
Anna turned around.
Dmitry stood in the doorway with his phone pressed to his ear. His face looked tense and confused, as though he had just swallowed something extremely sour.
“That was Sveta,” he said, putting the phone into the pocket of his jeans. “My sister.”
“I could tell from your expression. Is something wrong with Miron?” Anna immediately tensed.
“No, Miron is fine. He’s asleep. It’s just… she made a suggestion.”
Dmitry scratched the back of his head, walked over to the window, and stared at the maple trees in the courtyard.
He hated conversations like this.
Anna knew the gesture well. Her husband was talking to the back of his own head instead of looking at her.
“What kind of suggestion?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“The empty apartment… this one…” He nodded toward the walls. “Sveta suggested that we let my parents live here temporarily.”
The silence became heavy.
Anna stopped breathing.
“Where?” she asked, even though she had heard him perfectly.
“Here. The apartment is empty anyway. My parents moved from the village and are renting some miserable place in Krasnogorsk. They’re paying an outrageous amount for two rooms.”
Dmitry began speaking faster, becoming more worked up as he tried to justify the idea.
“Svetlana said, ‘Why let a good apartment sit unused? Let our parents live there. It’ll be better for them, and you’ll have peace of mind too.’”
Anna exhaled slowly, trying to control the icy wave of anger rising inside her.
Peace of mind?
For her?
With Valentina Petrovna, her mother-in-law, whom she had met only six times in seven years and always in neutral places, taking command of an apartment purchased by Anna’s parents?
The same woman who had loudly told her friends at the wedding, “My Dima could have found someone wealthier, but I suppose being a good person is what really matters.”
The same woman who had shown up for Miron’s first birthday with expired cookies and spent an hour and a half insisting that “in the village, everyone feeds babies porridge from three months old, unlike this spoiled city girl.”
“No,” Anna said.
Dmitry flinched and turned around.
“Anya, just listen…”
“I said no.” Her voice was calmer than she had expected. “Dima, this is not open for discussion.”
“Why is it immediately not open for discussion?” He took a step toward her, exhaustion entering his voice. “I understand that you’re not thrilled about it. But parents are parents. They’re both seventy. They’re alone. They’re not strangers.”
“They are strangers to me,” Anna replied coldly.
Dmitry stopped as though she had said something indecent.
“Anna, that’s cruel.”
“It’s the truth.”
She unfolded her arms, realizing her fingers had gone numb.
“Dima, let’s look at the facts. This apartment belongs to my parents. They bought it for me. Your parents didn’t put a single penny into it. Not toward the renovation, not toward the furniture. Do you know how many nights I went without sleep while laying the laminate flooring myself because we couldn’t afford contractors? Do you remember how I assembled this kitchen cabinet by cabinet, screw by screw?”
“I know,” Dmitry said quietly.
“This apartment is my blood, my sweat, and my security. Your child slept in this room. And now your sister is suggesting that I simply let people who can’t stand me live here for free? People who have never once thanked me for anything?”
“They would pay the utilities,” Dmitry added quietly.
Anna almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
“Oh, how generous!” She even placed a hand against her chest. “The utilities! What about wear and tear? What about the risk that they’ll break something? What about my nerves every time I imagine Valentina Petrovna replacing my wallpaper with something ‘more practical’?”
“They wouldn’t do that…”
“Dima, stop!” Anna snapped. “When I first came to meet your mother, she said I was ‘not a homemaker, just a pretty doll.’ When we bought the new apartment and I showed her the pictures, the first thing she asked was, ‘Whose money paid for it?’ Not ‘Congratulations,’ but ‘Whose money?’”
Dmitry remained silent.
He knew his wife was right.
He knew his mother was a difficult person.
Valentina Petrovna believed her son owed her his life, and that such a debt could never truly be repaid.
Her phrase, “He must help his parents,” was not a request. It was a fact she believed in completely.
Svetlana, Dmitry’s older sister, had been a smaller version of their mother since childhood—just as pushy and convinced that the world had unfairly deprived her of something.
“And Sveta…”
Anna moved closer to her husband and looked directly into his tired gray eyes.
“Your sister said I should let your parents move into my apartment for free. Then, when I said no, she claimed you could have bought them an apartment with the money you and I had been saving together. Do you hear what I’m saying, Dima? She thinks our joint savings are your money. She doesn’t count the fact that I also worked, saved, and denied myself things for seven years.”
“I heard her,” Dmitry said dully. “She lost her temper.”
“She didn’t lose her temper. She said what all of them think. That you owe them. That you are obligated. That your wife is just some accessory attached to you, and her apartment is a shared resource they can use however they like.”
Anna’s voice shook, but she continued.
“And what about my mother, who sold her country house so she could help us buy the new apartment? What about my father, who took extra shifts starting at six in the morning? Did they help us for no reason? Don’t I owe them anything?”
At that moment, Anna’s phone rang.
The screen displayed: Sveta, Sister-in-Law.
Anna stared at the name for a second, then answered and turned on the speaker.
“Hello, Anya!” Svetlana’s voice was artificially cheerful, like a vacuum cleaner salesperson. “So, did Dima tell you about my brilliant idea?”
“He did,” Anna replied shortly. “I refused, just as I did last time.”
There was a pause.
Svetlana clearly had not expected such a direct answer.
“What do you mean, you refused?” Her voice became soft and coaxing. “Anya, think about it. Our parents aren’t eighteen anymore. Dad has heart problems, and Mom is practically alone in an unfamiliar city. Your apartment is empty. Can’t you act like a human being?”
“Svetlana, I’m going to answer you like a human being,” Anna said, trying to keep her voice steady even though she was boiling inside. “This apartment is not mine. It belongs to my parents—the people who have never asked us for anything. Your parents are strangers to me. They haven’t greeted me properly in seven years. They didn’t visit Miron when he was sick. They have never once looked after him. And now your mother wants to live in an apartment I renovated with my own hands? No.”
“Then make up your mind about whose apartment it is. Is it yours or your parents’?” Svetlana challenged her.
“That is none of your business!”
Anna felt Dmitry place a hand on her shoulder.
“And your parents are competent adults. They can rent an apartment, just like everyone else.”
“Oh, I see!” Svetlana’s voice rose into a shriek. “And here I thought we were relatives. Apparently, we aren’t. So that’s how it is, is it? Dima has suffered with you for seven years. He never bought an apartment of his own because everything went into your pocket. And now, when his elderly parents need help, you turn up your nose? You know what, Anya…”
“What?” Anna asked calmly.
“If Dima hadn’t married you, he would have bought himself an apartment years ago and helped his parents too! Now my brother can’t even speak for himself because you’ve created a matriarchy around him!”
“Sveta,” Dmitry interrupted. “That’s enough.”
“You stay out of it!” his sister shouted. “You’re completely under your wife’s thumb! Mom was right. You should have married Nastya. At least she was normal and didn’t put on airs.”
Without waiting for a response, Anna ended the call.
The phone rang again immediately.
Svetlana.
Anna rejected the call.
A minute later, Dmitry’s phone rang.
His sister.
Then, two minutes later, Valentina Petrovna called.
“Answer it,” Anna said wearily.
Dmitry picked up.
His mother’s sobbing, anguished voice burst from the speaker.
“Dimochka, my son, what are you doing? Are you throwing your mother out onto the street? Your father and I are spending our final years in a miserable hole while your wife sits comfortably with two apartments? You traitor! You’ve forgotten your own mother!”
“Mom, nobody is throwing you out,” Dmitry said, closing his eyes as though suffering from a toothache. “You’re living in a rented apartment. Everything is fine.”
“Fine? Fine?! We’re paying fifteen thousand rubles for an old Khrushchev-era apartment! Meanwhile, your precious Anya’s apartment is standing empty! Empty, do you understand? She wouldn’t even let a dog live there, let alone her husband’s parents! What kind of wife is that? What kind of family is that? Son, you owe us for raising you! And you obey her like a little boy!”
Anna looked at her husband.
He remained silent and listened, anguish visible in every line on his face.
“Tell her,” Anna said quietly. “Tell her the truth. Tell her you don’t owe them an apartment. Nobody owes anyone anything.”
“Mom…” Dmitry opened his eyes, and his voice trembled. “You’re wrong. The apartment isn’t ours. It isn’t mine, and it isn’t Anya’s. It belongs to her parents, and they decide what happens to it. They don’t want to rent it out.”
“Oh, Anya’s parents!” Valentina Petrovna’s voice dropped to a sinister whisper. “So that’s how it is. You belong to another family now, and you’ve sold us out? Thank you, son. We’ll remember this.”
“Mom, don’t give me ultimatums…”
“Ultimatums? I’m telling you this: either you persuade your queen to let us move into that apartment, or I’m taking every pill I have. I’m serious.”
Dmitry turned pale.
Anna frowned.
She had seen this performance once before, at his grandfather’s funeral, when Valentina Petrovna had thrown a tantrum because the inheritance had not been divided the way she wanted.
Back then, she had also threatened to “take everything.”
She had taken nothing.
But to Dmitry, the threat was terrifying.
He was a mama’s boy who had been trained from childhood to feel guilty about everything in the world.
“Mom, don’t talk like that,” Dima’s voice broke. “We’ll think of something.”
Very slowly, Anna turned toward him.
“What exactly are we going to think of?” she asked in an icy voice.
Dmitry gave her a pleading look.
The phone was still pressed to his ear.
He quickly said, “Mom, I’ll call you back,” and ended the call.
The empty apartment on Sadovaya Street fell silent.
Only the ficus leaves rustled in the draft.
“Anya…”
Dmitry sat on the windowsill and lowered his head.
“Anya, she’s old and unhappy. She’s afraid.”
“And that gives her the right to blackmail us with suicide?” Anna asked. “Dima, I love you. I love our son. I have honestly shared my life with you for seven years. But I will not allow your family to control something my parents gave me. If you take your mother’s side now…”
“I’m not taking her side.” He looked up at her. “It’s just… they’re my parents. I can’t abandon them.”
“Nobody is abandoning them to their fate.”
Anna walked over, sat beside him, and took his hand.
“They have pensions. You can help them financially. You can find them another rental apartment, somewhere cheaper. But not at the expense of my apartment. Not at the expense of my parents’ peace of mind. They’re not young either, you know, and they deserve respect too.”
“What will your parents say?” Dmitry asked quietly.
“I’ll tell them myself. And they’ll say exactly what I said: no. Your mother had a chance to build a relationship with me. She chose not to.”
That evening, after they had put Miron to bed in the new apartment, Anna called her parents.
Her father, Alexei, a former military officer, listened in silence.
Her mother, Galina, a gentle woman with an iron core, asked only one question.
“Have you already made your decision, sweetheart?”
“I have.”
“Then stand by it, and don’t blame Dima. He’s caught between two fires. But don’t give them the apartment. Under no circumstances.”
Two days later, Svetlana posted a message in the family group chat.
“How wonderful to discover that some people are relatives and others are complete strangers. Thank you for the lesson, Anna. We won’t expect any help from you again. Dima, you made your choice. Mom cries every day. Are you happy now?”
Anna read the message, sighed, blocked her sister-in-law’s number, and left the group.
Dmitry also said nothing.
Only that evening, while holding Anna in the darkness of their bedroom, he spoke.
“You know, I talked to Dad today. He said, ‘Son, your mother and I will work it out ourselves. You live your own life.’”
Anna turned toward him and pressed her face against his shoulder.
“And your mother?”
“Mom…” He sighed. “Mom still refuses to speak to me. She says I’m a traitor. But you know something? For the first time, I don’t feel as guilty as I usually do. Because I truly don’t owe her anything. I call them, visit them, and help them. But I’m not obligated to give away apartments that don’t belong to me.”
Anna said nothing.
She simply lay there, listening to Miron stirring in his sleep behind the wall, and thought that perhaps the most difficult kind of love was the kind in which you had to learn how to say no.
And sometimes, in order to preserve a family, you had to draw a very clear line between what belonged to you and what belonged to someone else.
The apartment on Sadovaya Street remained empty.
Anna installed motion sensors and locked the door with three separate locks.
Sometimes, she went there alone on the weekends with a book and drank tea in that same kitchen.