The key jammed at a half turn. Valerija exhaled irritably and pulled harder on the handle. The expensive front door she had spent three weeks choosing finally gave way with an unwilling creak. Instead of the familiar, delicate scent of sandalwood, she was immediately hit by the smell of cleaning products and something heavy, oily, and cooked.
Valerija stepped inside and immediately stepped on something soft.She froze.She turned on the light.On the light stone floor lay a crumpled rug, and beside it stood three huge checkered travel bags, tightly wrapped with thick packing tape. An old, worn leather suitcase also waited there, as if it had long since moved in.
From the kitchen came the sound of a cheerful TV show: sizzling pans, a laughing host, a sense of home—alien here.Sztasz was supposed to be working until eight in the evening.Valerija slowly looked around the apartment, then stepped into the hallway.
On the dining table—on that expensive, carefully chosen veneered surface—there was a pile of boxes, bedding, and household items. As if someone had dumped another life on top of hers.A woman was standing by the sink.Rima Konstantinovna.
A burgundy robe tied with a towel, a metal sponge in her hand, scrubbing the stovetop with great enthusiasm, as if she had always lived here.“Rima Konstantinovna?” Valerija’s voice was quiet. Too quiet.The mother-in-law flinched, then smiled as if nothing had happened.
“Oh, finally! I’ve been cleaning since noon. Sztasz said you’re always working anyway, you don’t have time for the house. I thought I’d surprise you with dinner.”Valerija slowly looked around.The spices had been rearranged. The plants were placed in plastic bottles on the windowsill.
The order she had built over years had been reshaped, rewritten by foreign hands.“Whose are all the bags in the hallway?” she asked. “And… how did you get in here?”The mother-in-law smiled as if a child had asked a silly question.“My son gave me a key. The bags are mine.
My younger son, Igor, is starting a family, they’re expecting a child. I gave them my apartment. I have a place here.”Valerija did not respond for a moment.She just looked.At the apartment she had earned through four years of work. Nights, overtime, skipped medical appointments, denied clothes, postponed life.
Meanwhile, Sztasz had been “finding himself.”“This is the study,” Valerija finally said. “Not a storage room.”“Oh come on, Lerochka,” the mother-in-law waved her hand. “You’re a family. There’s enough space.”At that moment, something shifted in Valerija’s mind.
Three days ago there had been a housewarming party. Sztasz, with a glass in hand, had spoken grandly: how much they had worked, how much they had struggled.Then he hugged his mother and declared:“In this house, Mom is the boss. Her word is law.”
Valerija had stayed politely silent then.Now she understood: it wasn’t a speech. It was a plan.“Pack your things and leave,” she said quietly.The air froze.“What?” the mother-in-law turned slowly.“What you heard. Leave. Now.”The smile disappeared from her face.
“This is Sztasz’s apartment too!”“No.” Valerija took out her phone. “This is my apartment.”And she dialed.“You’re calling the police?” the mother-in-law’s voice sharpened.“An unauthorized intruder.”Suddenly, the kitchen fell silent.The water tap was turned off.
Only silence remained.With trembling hands, the mother-in-law called her son.Valerija sat down on the sofa. Her hands trembled slightly, but her mind was clear.The doorbell rang after a while.A police officer stood there.“Captain Morozov.”
The mother-in-law immediately launched into her words:“This is madness! She’s throwing me out of my son’s apartment!”The officer worked calmly. Documents. Questions.“Who is the owner?”“I am,” said Valerija.A moment.Then the decision:
“Ma’am, you have no legal right to be here. You must leave the property.”The bags started moving.The apartment slowly emptied.The lock clicked again.Silence.Valerija exhaled.Less than an hour had passed.Then Sztasz burst in.
“You called the police on my mother?!”“Why did you give her a key?”“This is my family too!”Valerija looked at him. Long. Tired. Clear.“Should I help you pack?”The sentence was simple. Final.Sztasz fell silent.Then he began packing.
Three weeks later, the divorce was finalized.There was nothing to divide.“You destroyed the family over an apartment,” the man said.Valerija laughed softly.“Not because of the apartment.”Then she stepped out into the street.The air was clean.
And for the first time in a long while, she felt no weight.She called a taxi.Went home.To her own apartment.Where, finally, no one needed permission to live her life.
