— “I’m leaving so you finally understand who you’ve lost!” Vitalik thundered with dramatic pathos while stuffing his socks into a sports bag.
One of the bundles flew like a projectile and narrowly missed knocking my favorite vase off the shelf. I leaned silently against the doorframe, watching the grand performance unfold.
Inside, resentment simmered, but at the same time I was fighting such a strong urge to laugh that I had to bite the corner of my mouth to keep from bursting out.
My husband — thirty years old, but a little boy at heart — was standing in the middle of my one-room apartment, which I had bought before our marriage, threatening to leave.
As if his absence alone would make the walls collapse and I would wither instantly like a forgotten geranium on the kitchen windowsill.
But it all started so innocently. As always, after a Sunday visit to his mother. Vera Timurovna was a phenomenon.
The kind of woman who could smile while saying things that make you want to see a psychologist — or tie a rope.
She knew how to “compliment” in a way that was actually an insult, and she gave advice in a tone as if she were commanding a military unit.
Vitalik always came back from her “recharged.” Tight-lipped, suspicious-eyed, nostrils flaring, as if even dust particles were personal attacks.
— “Mom says why are the towels hanging in the wrong order again in the bathroom?” he began already in the hallway, not even having taken off his shoes.
— “It creates visual noise and destroys the harmony of chi energy in the apartment.”
I sighed deeply and kept stirring the stew.
— “Vitalik, your mother last saw ‘chi energy’ in a 90s TV show. And the towels are there so you can actually dry your hands,” I replied calmly.
He walked over sulkily, looked into the pot, and pointed under the lid accusingly.
— “The vegetables are chunky again. Mom says a proper wife purées everything. It’s easier for a man to digest.”
I put down the wooden spoon.
— “Vitaly… your mother doesn’t have teeth because she’d rather buy a third porcelain set than go to the dentist. You, however, have teeth. Use them.”
That was the moment his face turned crimson.
— “You’re ungrateful!” he shouted. “My mother has a degree in household science!”
— “Your mother was a dormitory janitor all her life,” I replied with an icy smile. “She only calls herself a candidate because it sounds better.”
At that point, he decided to “teach me a lesson.”
— “Enough of this disrespect!” he declared, zipping up his bag. “I’m going to my mother’s for a week. Think about what kind of woman you are. When I come back, I expect order and a written apology!”
The door slammed.
The silence that followed felt like lungs filling with fresh air. It hurt at first. Then… relief.
The next day, my boss called me in.
— “Anna Sergeyevna, urgent project in Vladivostok. Three months. Double per diem, bonus — enough to buy a car.”
I felt like I had grown wings.
By the time I left the office, my phone was already ringing.
— “We’re basically homeless relatives, but we’ll pay well,” Lenka pleaded.
The plan formed in a single second.
The next day I left. Into my apartment moved the Gasparyan family: three children, a large Labrador, and two friendly but very loud adults.
A week later Vitalik returned triumphantly.
The key didn’t turn.
He rang the bell.
Barking.
The door opened, and there stood Armen, half-naked, holding a skewer.
— “What husband? We live here.”
When he called me, I was eating seafood in a seaside restaurant.
— “You left,” I said calmly. “The apartment is mine. I rented it out for three months.”
His mother called too. Screaming. I laughed.
Three months later I returned. The apartment was spotless. The faucet didn’t drip.
Vitalik appeared at the door two hours later — broken, pale.
— “Let’s start over…”
I stepped in his way with my suitcase.
— “Armen fixed the faucet in half an hour. You complained about it for a year.”
— “But I’m your husband!”
— “You were.”
I took the key from his hand and closed the door.
The click of the lock sounded like a starting pistol.
The start of a new life.
