Three months ago, everything was different. Polina was returning home after long negotiations that made her head buzz, thinking about how September Kharkiv smelled completely different from the summer. Instead of dusty stuffiness, there was now a scent of decaying leaves and smoke from bonfires in the dacha plots outside the city.
The promotion, hinted at since spring, finally materialized into an offer to head the logistics hub in Odessa: a 40% higher salary, prospects she could only have dreamed of five years ago when she first joined the company as a regular dispatcher. At the entrance to her building, she was intercepted by Zinaida Pavlovna, a neighbor from the first floor, one of those spry pensioners who know everything about everyone and consider it not curiosity, but a civic duty.
— Polinka, wait a minute, — she called out, holding the shabby entrance door. — I have to tell you something.
— Good evening, Zinaida Pavlovna. — Polina stopped, although her feet were aching, and she wanted only one thing – to take off her shoes and lie down.
— Your husband came by today. With his mother and that pregnant sister of his. — The old woman lowered her voice, though there was no one in the courtyard. — They were looking at your apartment, walking around, measuring the rooms, discussing who would live where.
— What do you mean, measuring?
— Literally, my dear. His mother was talking so loudly, the whole building could hear: ‘We’ll give this room to Ulechka, we’ll make a nursery here. And Polinka will put up with it, where else would she go?’
Zinaida Pavlovna pursed her lips with the look of someone who always knew this wouldn’t end well.
— And she also said you have terrible taste. The room, she says, needs to be repainted, this poisonous color will hurt the baby’s eyes.
Polina was silent. The wind blew yellow leaves across the asphalt, and one of them stuck to her shoe, but she didn’t move.
— The main thing is, don’t stay silent, — the neighbor continued. — You tell them that this is your apartment, that your father gave it to you. I remember when you moved in, you were still single, doing the renovations.
— Thank you, Zinaida Pavlovna. — Polina finally moved. — I’ll handle it.
She didn’t make a scene that evening. She went up to the apartment, kissed her husband on the cheek, and heated up dinner. Viktor talked about work, his idiot boss, and his salary being delayed again. She nodded, her mind elsewhere.
She thought about how three weeks ago, he had brushed off the conversation about moving to Odessa: “What about Mom? She’s all alone.” How a month ago, when Ulyana announced her pregnancy, he had said: “She was abandoned, you understand? She needs help.” How six months ago, her mother-in-law first mentioned that a large apartment was too spacious for two, while “we have so many empty rooms.” Now the puzzle was complete. Viktor wasn’t just delaying a decision — he had already decided. With his mother. Without her.
— Why are you so quiet? — he asked as she was clearing the dishes.
— Just tired. The negotiations were tough.
— Oh, well, get some rest then.
He kissed the top of her head and went to watch football. Polina stood by the sink, looking at her reflection in the dark window, and felt something inside her slowly shift, like a mechanism that had been motionless for years had finally started working.
For four years, she had believed that family was about compromise, that love required sacrifice, that if she was patient, everything would work out. For four years, she had turned a blind eye to her mother-in-law’s unannounced visits, to the money Viktor sent his mother from their joint budget, to his constant “Mom said,” “Mom thinks,” “Mom knows best.” But now she realized she wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore.
The next morning, after her husband left for work, Polina called a realtor she knew.
— Petya, remember you said you had a client for a three-room apartment in the center, Shcherbakov? Yes, he’s still looking. He wants to gift it to his son for his wedding? Then show him mine….
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