“What a mess you’ve made in here, Alina!” her mother-in-law snapped, her voice thick and cutting enough to yank Alina straight out of the deep focus she’d been working in for hours. Alina flinched hard, like someone had clapped right beside her ear. Her tired fingers, which had been moving quickly over the mechanical keyboard, froze above the keys.
On the wide curved monitor, lines of code glowed softly across the screen, clean and orderly in a way the rest of the world never seemed to be. A second earlier, that screen had been her whole universe. She was deep in the architecture of a new database build and hadn’t even heard the front door unlock with someone else’s key.
She hadn’t heard anything except the familiar hum of the desktop tower and the steady inner voice walking her through the next step of the project. Only when she registered that someone had entered without warning did she slowly turn toward the doorway.
There, in the opening of what used to be the living room and had long since become her home office, stood two uninvited guests. Her mother-in-law, Ludmila, with her lips pressed tight and the look of a woman inspecting property she believed she had every right to judge. Behind her hovered Max, Alina’s husband, wearing that especially irritating expression of a man who knew better but had decided not to act like it.
He wasn’t there as Alina’s partner, and he certainly wasn’t there to defend their home. He was there as cover for his mother, a grown man standing behind her like a shield so she could say whatever she pleased. His presence alone gave her permission.
“I honestly don’t understand what you do in here all day,” Ludmila continued, stepping farther into the bright room. Her sharp eyes moved over the stacks of printed technical documents on the desk, then to the two empty coffee mugs near the monitor and the crumpled notes scattered across the couch.
In her mind, the room was filthy. Dust, disorder, neglect. The kitchen, she was probably sure, must be full of dirty dishes. And this careless daughter-in-law, instead of doing what a wife ought to do, just sat in a chair staring at a screen.
She should at least have washed her hair before her husband got home, Ludmila thought. Max worked hard all day, came home tired and stressed, and what did he get? No hot dinner, no tidy house, no warm welcome. Just this digital nonsense.
