I set the table as I did every day, put the kettle on, asked how his day went. He, not noticing the trap, began talking about work, about traffic, about trivialities, but I felt the tension between us growing because he looked more and more often toward the room where his mother sat.
When he finally started talking about her, repeating familiar phrases about how I needed to be more tolerant, that I reacted too harshly, that she was sick and defenseless, I realized: he was ready. His thoughts were structured, his words rehearsed. It was at that moment that I silently picked up the remote and turned on the TV. I didn’t say a word, just displayed the recording from the camera on the screen, and the silence in the room became deafening.
At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing, then he started smiling with disbelief, as if it were a bad joke. Then his face slowly changed, went pale, and I saw the struggle within him between the habit of defending his mother and the obviousness of what was happening.
On the screen, she rose from the chair, walked around the room, opened closets, took my things, and with every second his breathing became heavier. He jumped up, shouted, demanded I turn it off, said it was a montage, that I had gone crazy, that it was vile. But for the first time, I didn’t make excuses and didn’t argue. I simply played the next recording where she was talking on the phone. Her voice, calm and confident, rang out through the room, destroying the last doubts.
At that moment, she herself rose from the chair, no longer hiding. In her eyes, there was no shame or remorse—only rage at being exposed and resentment that her game had ended not by her rules.
She said she did it for him, that I was unworthy, that the apartment should stay in the family. Every word only confirmed what I already knew: she never saw me as a human being, merely a convenient object for manipulation. My husband stood between us, confused, broken. At that moment, I suddenly realized I didn’t love him the way I used to. Trust is a fragile thing, and it shattered not in a second, but slowly, day by day, while he chose not to hear me. I told him I wasn’t going to live in fear and doubt anymore, that this apartment is my home, and that I choose the truth, however painful it might be…
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