09/17/2025
“Yes, it’s my apartment. No, my mother-in-law’s debts are not my problem. And yes—I’ve filed for divorce. I’m done being your ‘insurance policy.’”
“Do you want my mother to end up in the hospital with a heart attack?!” Nikolai exploded, slamming the TV remote onto the table like a gr***de.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Elena said wearily, still washing the dishes. “Let her first stop rummaging through my cupboards.”
“She wants what’s best for you!” Nikolai loomed over her, bearing down with his whole bulk. “She says you live like a college kid. You’re a grown woman! You have a family! A husband! And you live like you’re seventeen, not thirty-five!”
“Because it’s my apartment, Kolya. And if it’s convenient for me to keep the tea in the bottom drawer and not the top one—then that’s what I’ll do. Got it?”
He sighed with theatrical pain and rubbed his forehead.
“There you go again—everything is ‘mine, mine.’ Do you even notice you’re not living here alone?”
“I notice. Especially when someone barges into the bathroom while I’m showering because ‘his faucet is dripping.’ When someone else’s jars of pickled cabbage appear in my fridge. Or when my documents get touched without asking. I notice very well, Kolya.”
She turned off the water and dried her hands on a towel. Then she turned around.
“Tell me straight. Was it your idea to put the apartment in your name?”
He said nothing, pressing his lips together.
“Mom said it was ‘in the interests of the family.’ So everything would be proper. If something happens to me, the apartment won’t go ‘somewhere.’”
“Somewhere?” Elena smirked. “I have no brothers or sisters. The apartment is already bequeathed. Even if I disappear tomorrow—it will still be mine. Not your mother’s, Kolya. Sorry.”
“Mom just wants everything to be secure. She’s older, she worries…”
“She’s up to her ears in debt, Kolya. And I’ve already confirmed it.”
Silence. Thick.
Nikolai recoiled from the table and stared out the window. Outside, the wind stirred the leaves; May’s chill swept between the buildings.
“What… are you talking about…”
“You didn’t know? Or you pretended not to?” Elena folded her arms. “The bailiffs came. There was a letter in the mailbox. Your mother took out a microloan with you as the guarantor. She tried to pull it off quietly and hang it on you. And now that she’s realized it won’t work—she’s set her sights on the apartment. To sell it. Or use it as collateral. My apartment—as collateral! For her ‘treatment,’ ‘renovation,’ and ‘loan agreement obligations.’ I’m quoting, by the way.”
Nikolai stood there as if struck on the head by something heavy. He hunched over.
“She said it was just help…”
“Help? This is the fourth ‘help.’ Remember 2021? The electric scooter on credit? In your name. You paid it off for two years. And her? She’s changed, yes—but only for the worse. Now she plays subtler. Honeyed words—with poison in them. Until you sign. And then—that’s it. You’re the debtor. And I’m out of a home.”
He turned slowly. His gray eyes were heavy.
“But you can’t just… refuse her. She’s your mother…”
“And you can’t just betray me like that,” Elena said, her voice hard. “Because then it’s not a marriage. It’s a transaction. And in it—I have no say.”
She walked into the living room. The air smelled of new laminate—sterile and unwelcoming, like a one-night rental. The space she had restored after her grandmother’s death was becoming more and more alien with each new stunt of Margarita Vasilievna’s.
Elena sat on the couch and picked up the remote. She turned on the TV. A cooking competition was on, but she didn’t hear it.
“Did you really think I’d agree to this?” she heard behind her.
“I was hoping you were an adult,” Elena said quietly, without turning around. “And not a mama’s boy.”
He slammed the wardrobe door.
“That’s it! Enough! You have no right to talk to me like that! You don’t know what it’s like to be caught between two fires! You with your complaints, and she with her debts!”
“I’m that third fire, Kolya. Only you’ve already burned me down. Without remorse. Without insurance.”
“Elena…”
“Leave.”
“What?…”
Continued in the comments
