“Couldn’t you be bothered to stop by the store, dear guests? Then I can’t be bothered to feed you,” the hostess snapped.
“Couldn’t you stop by a store?” I asked, looking at Oksana’s empty hands as she stood in the doorway.
“Marina, we’ve just come from the road,” she said, already pulling Matvey’s jacket off without even looking at me. “We spent an hour in traffic. What store?”
Behind her, Sonya shifted from foot to foot, hugging a backpack with a tablet inside. Igor, my husband, came out of the room, saw his sister, and immediately seemed to deflate, as though he already knew how the evening would end.
I went back to the kitchen. An hour earlier, the refrigerator had been almost empty. I had eaten half of what was left for lunch and hadn’t bought more because I had planned to shop the next day.
So once again, I had to cook everything from scratch.
It had been like this for five years. Ever since Oksana gave birth to Sonya, she had developed a habit of dropping by without calling.
Sometimes it was, “We were nearby and decided to stop in,” and other times, “The kids missed Uncle Igor.”
It was sixty kilometers from their town to ours. It wasn’t like they lived around the corner and could casually pop in.
But she did.
Regularly.
As though our apartment were a twenty-four-hour cafeteria instead of a home for two people.
I spent three hours cooking that evening. Chicken, potatoes, vegetable salad, something for dessert for the children. I had to take things out of cupboards, chop vegetables, fry food, and keep checking the oven to make sure nothing burned.
Normally, chicken with a side dish already took more than an hour, and with dessert and salad added, those three hours at the stove disappeared quickly.
Igor came into the kitchen once, asked whether I needed help, and immediately went back to entertain his niece and nephew. That was how things usually worked with him. He didn’t cook, but he stayed with the kids and put cartoons on for them.
By the end, my hands were already aching from standing at the stove for so long. I immediately reminded myself that there was no point complaining.
The guests hadn’t exactly asked whether this was difficult for me.
Through the wall, I could hear Oksana telling my husband about her friend’s new job, the neighbors’ renovations, and everything else imaginable.
Everything except the one thing she might have asked at least once:
Was it hard for me to spend three hours alone in the kitchen?
Dinner went the way those dinners always did.
Oksana praised the chicken, then remarked that the potatoes could have been softer, as though that detail truly mattered.
Sonya fussed about the dessert. Matvey begged his uncle for his phone.
Igor obediently handed it over and stayed silent when his sister criticized my cooking in front of the children.
By the time they finally started getting ready to leave, it was almost ten at night.
“Marina, thank you. Everything was delicious,” Oksana said as she put on her jacket in the hallway. “Next time, if anything, we’ll definitely let you know in advance. I promise.”
I nodded, even though I knew exactly what that “promise” was worth.
It was far from the first time she had said it.
Not even the second.
I couldn’t say exactly how many times she had made that promise over five years, but there had been enough of them for me to stop believing it long ago.
The door closed.
Igor sat beside me in the kitchen while the dirty plates were still stacked near the sink.
“You’re angry,” he said.
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“I’m tired,” I replied. “Those are two different things, Igor.”
He said nothing, picked up a plate, and started washing it.
A small thing, but at least it was some kind of gesture.
A month later, Oksana came again.
This time, she gave us a whole thirty minutes’ warning.
A message appeared in the family group chat:
“We’re on our way to your place. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
I had been getting ready to go to the workshop to pick up an order, so I had to cancel everything on the spot.
During those four weeks, there had already been two more completely unannounced visits.
I had lost count by then because I had stopped deliberately keeping track.
Every time, it was the same thing.
An almost empty refrigerator by evening.
Three hours at the stove.
Criticism at the table in front of the children.
At the workshop that day, a customer spent a long time choosing flowers for a bouquet. I smiled, offered suggestions, and at the same time mentally calculated what I could quickly cook from whatever I had at home.
I got home in twenty minutes, rushed into the kitchen, and immediately began chopping vegetables without even changing clothes.
This time, when Oksana once again started explaining out loud why my mashed potatoes were “a little too runny,” I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Oksana,” I said calmly but firmly, “maybe next time you could let us know not half an hour before, but at least the day before? I need time to buy groceries and plan my day.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, as though I had said something completely inappropriate at the family dinner table.
“Marina, we’re family. What’s the big deal? Why would we need to tell you the day before? You always have everything at home. You’re the organized one in the family.”
“I have what I bought for myself for the week,” I replied. “Not extra food for four unexpected guests.”
Igor shifted as though he was about to say something, then stopped.
He stayed silent and stared at his plate as though there were something extremely interesting on it.
Oksana pursed her lips, offended.
“You make it sound like you’re not happy to see us at all. We’re not strangers. Matvey and Sonya call you Aunt Marina. Is it really so hard to feed your own relatives?”
That was what upset me most.
Not the request to feed them, but how easily she turned my exhaustion into my own guilt.
As though refusing to cook an entire meal from scratch every single time was some kind of betrayal of the family instead of a perfectly reasonable request.
“It is hard when you arrive without warning,” I repeated firmly. “I’ve already asked you six times to call in advance. Six times, Oksana.”
An awkward silence fell over the table.
Sonya stopped chewing and looked back and forth between me and her mother in confusion.
Matvey stared down at his plate, pretending not to hear anything.
Finally, Igor spoke.
“Oksana, she’s right. You need to warn us in advance. Seriously.”
It wasn’t much support, but at least it was something.
Oksana snorted, said that “next time she definitely would,” and the conversation moved on to something else—summer plans and the neighbors’ new car.
That evening, after the guests had left, I stood by the window and watched Oksana’s car pull out of the courtyard.
Without realizing it, my hands clenched into fists.
I immediately relaxed them.
It was stupid to be angry at an empty courtyard or a car that was already driving away.
“You do understand that she’s not going to change, right?” I said quietly to Igor.
“I know,” he replied just as softly. “But what am I supposed to say to make her finally understand?…”
The continuation is just below in the first comment.