The moment Adelaide Ignatovna barged into the apartment dragging a suitcase behind her, Victoria was calmly sitting in the kitchen, enjoying some expensive, farm-fresh cottage cheese sweetened with honey. Adelaide, as Victoria secretly called her, glanced quickly at her without greeting and remarked loudly, “The floor in the hallway is uneven. The suitcase keeps catching on it.”
Victoria put down her spoon and looked at her husband, who immediately buried his face in his phone, as if seeking sanctuary in a prayer book. The tension only grew stronger.
“Where will I sleep?” Adelaide surveyed the place businesslike. “Oh, there’s dust everywhere. Don’t you use a rag for cleaning?”
“We have a guest room,” Victoria managed to say reluctantly. “There’s a proper bed there.”
“Proper,” Adelaide mocked as she headed into the guest room, acting like she already owned the place. “The blanket’s too thin. I won’t survive living in these conditions — my joints can’t handle it.”
Victoria followed silently, while Oleg stayed behind in the kitchen, cautiously like a mouse near a cat, yet fortunately, he didn’t bolt.
“When will the repairs start?” Victoria asked, folding her arms.
“Me?” Adelaide squinted. “Who knows? It’s summer now. Everyone’s on vacation. And I’m not planning to live under a ceiling with mold.”
“Are the repair papers ready?”
“Are you a notary or a building inspector?”
Victoria let out a quiet sigh, feeling as if something inside her silently cracked and slid downward. The realization dawned sharply: she was a stranger in her own home.
“You feel alien in your own space—that’s a feeling that silently breaks down the strongest spirits.”
The following three days resembled a pensioner-themed reality show. Each morning, Victoria left for work to find the apartment rearranged upon her return. Books had vanished from shelves, and the IKEA zebra rug was rolled up and shoved out onto the balcony.
“Disgusting,” Adelaide declared. “I wouldn’t lay down anything like this, even in the nineties. It’s just psychedelic.”
“That’s my rug, Adelaide Ignatovna. Oleg and I chose it together.”
“Oh, keep your Oleg to yourself. I gave birth to him before school. And you treat this place as if you’re just renting it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing, just thinking out loud. Old age, you know.”
On the fifth night, Victoria was awakened by a loud clatter. Her mind raced through possible horrors — a break-in? Or, as a secret hope, a stroke? She emerged into the dark hallway to find a figure shuffling in the living room.
“Mom!” Oleg hissed from the couch. “She’s looking for her phone charger.”
“At 3 a.m.?”
“What am I supposed to do, live by a strict schedule like in the barracks?” Adelaide snapped, phone in hand, hair tied back. “You’re supposed to be smart. But apparently, here, at your office, brains turn off during work hours.”
“In our office, no one rummages around the house at 3 a.m., for example.”
“Well, looks like we have different cultures,” Adelaide grinned. “The electricity got cut off because you didn’t pay the bill.”
“I— Oleg, did we pay the electricity this month?”
“Well, there was some malfunction, I’ll check,” he mumbled.
Victoria went back to the bedroom, suddenly realizing that losing was not about being humiliated but about losing the capacity to be surprised anymore.
On the next Saturday, Adelaide hosted a tea party, bringing along her school friend, Nina Pavlovna — a grandmother whose voice sounded as if she had been announcing toasts at funerals for forty years.
“So this is the daughter-in-law?” Nina observed appraisingly. “Hmm, why no children then?”
“That’s none of your business,” Victoria shot back firmly. “Or are you conducting a social survey?”
“Ha-ha, sharp-tongued,” Adelaide laughed insincerely. “Victoria likes jokes. Though her sense of humor must have been on sale.”
Victoria stood and walked to the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She sat down, expecting tears, but none came. Instead, she made a call to the property management company.
“Hello. Could you please confirm if there are any renovation works underway at Birch Street, house 3, apartment 41? Any applications submitted?”
“Checking now… No, there’s nothing recorded—no applications, no complaints, nothing.”
“Thank you. You’ve saved my life.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just thinking out loud.”
Oleg confronted Victoria that evening after she told him the truth.
“Are you saying my mother lies?”
“I’m not saying — I’m stating. No repairs are happening. She’s barged into our lives like a hammer through a microwave, and you let her.”
“She’s an elderly woman!”
“She’s a cunning woman, and you know it. You’re just afraid to admit it—to yourself, not me.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Finally! I almost forgot what it’s like to be blamed in your own house. Tell me, who do you live with? Me or her?”
“Don’t start…”
“Too late. It’s already begun.”
The next morning, Adelaide declared she would take the first bath. Victoria quietly packed her things, with no outburst or scenes. Before leaving, she looked back slowly at her mother-in-law.
“I hope that when I turn sixty, I can be just as lively, tough, cheeky, and utterly unbearable — at least half-time.”
“Running away?” Adelaide smirked. “Go on then. Oleg will stay with me anyway.”
“I’d be surprised if you hadn’t said that.” And she left.
For the first time in months, silence filled the corridor. It felt both calm and terrifying. This was not a final end — but rather the start of a new chapter in life, where it was clear: either she would survive or be wiped under the psychedelic rug.
Three months passed. Oleg stayed with his mother. Victoria lived alone in a rented one-bedroom apartment overlooking a fence and some laundry. She didn’t complain. Days were for the office, evenings for quietly watching shows and enjoying honest, if uneasy, silence.
At first, Oleg called a few times, fumbling apologies and suggesting meetings. Then he disappeared, only to call about something else entirely.
“Vika, hi… Mom is unwell. Could you come over?”
“Am I an ambulance now? Or are you mixing the queue for the therapist with Nina Pavlovna?”
“Not now, please. She specifically asked for you. I’m on a business trip, can’t get away.”
“Convenient. As usual. Where is she?”
“At the apartment. The ambulance already came, it was nerves and blood pressure. Well, you understand.”
She did. All too well. Still, she went, not out of pity but curiosity — wondering what new circus awaited.
Adelaide was lying in bed with an expression that suggested the roommate had cheated, her favorite cup was broken, and her TV show taken away all at once.
“Well, look who showed up,” she mumbled. “And no flowers.”
“Sorry, no mourning ribbon,” Victoria responded flatly. “Where’s the pain?”
“In my soul. But you wouldn’t understand. You have a calendar for six days ahead instead of a heart.”
“If you’re having a heart attack, I’ll call an ambulance. If it’s drama, give me the playbill and don’t bother me.”
Adelaide sighed. “I wanted to leave you everything.”
Victoria froze.
“Excuse me?”
“The apartment. I was thinking, Victoria’s got character but responsibility. Now I wonder if I should give it to Oleg and his new wife.”
Victoria sat down slowly, as if weighing a mine.
“What new wife?”
“Olya. Didn’t you know? They quietly got married last month. No fuss. At least she doesn’t yell and cooks cutlets just like we did at school.”
Something struck Victoria painfully — not jealousy, but a mix of anger, exhaustion, and a faint sense of relief. It was over. The file was closed.
“You know what, Adelaide Ignatovna,” Victoria stood. “Leave the apartment to anyone you want — to a cat, to your friend Nina if she lives three more years. It doesn’t concern me anymore.”
“You young people are so cold. You only know freedom, mortgages, borders…”
“And you’re cunning, smart, experienced, and knew exactly what you were doing. You invaded our marriage not for your son, but for control. You like being needed, but never learned what it means to be loved.”
“Ah, you…”
“Yes, me — the monstrous daughter-in-law who refused to let her life be crushed. Imagine that exists.”
She left, slamming the door hard enough to make the hallway mirror tremble.
A week later, Victoria received a registered letter — the will.
“So,” she muttered, “she couldn’t resist. Changed her mind.”
The document clearly stated the apartment would pass to Victoria upon Adelaide’s passing, on the condition that Victoria cared for her until the end.
Key Insight: Conditional inheritances often bind recipient’s responsibilities, creating complex emotional and legal dynamics.
Oleg seemed unaware. Two days later, he appeared unannounced.
“Hi,” he said as Victoria opened the door. “Can we talk?”
“About cutlets?”
“No, the will.”
Victoria leaned against the door frame.
“Your mother’s or your new wife’s?”
“Come on, I didn’t want things to turn out this way. Mom says you’ll inherit everything now.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think you shouldn’t… take advantage.”
She laughed bitterly, aloud.
“You’re still mama’s boy. Only now with a ring on your finger. Well done, Oleg. Not a man — an investment.”
“I came to talk…”
“I’m done. What we had, you revealed in two months. Go live with your cutlet empire. Send the will back to your mother. I won’t care for her. Let her will the apartment to a nurse.”
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious.”
He stood silently as she lit a cigarette — something she hadn’t done for two years but deemed appropriate this one time.
“You’ve changed,” Oleg said quietly. “You weren’t like this before — strong, smart, tired, angry.”
“Lonely,” she added with a sigh, nodding.
“Exactly. Now I’m alone, but at least it’s with myself and without your mother on my back.”
Late that evening, she sent a brief message to Adelaide Ignatovna.
“I will not accept your apartment. Find someone who will love you for who you are, not for the square meters. Just for you.”
Then she turned off her phone.
She knew she made the right choice, but her heart still ached. The scars from breaking free from such domination lingered, not from loss, but from enduring far too long.
Six months later, spring seemed born for someone else. Victoria had a new address — a rented one-room flat on the eighth floor with no view, but precious silence. No mother-in-law, no Oleg, no debates over bread slicing or jeans wearing. Work, friends, nightly calls to her mother — life gradually returned to normal. Not a victory or celebration, but a decent adult existence.
Then a sudden knock at the door made her heart skip.
“Who is it?” she asked, opening just enough to see a woman in her forties with a strained smile.
“Hello… I’m Olya, Oleg’s wife,” the woman said nervously.
“What do you want?”
“Can I come in?”
“Better tell me straight away. I don’t have much time — the kettle’s on.”
Olya swallowed and rushed her words as if fearing rejection.
“Adelaide Ignatovna is in trouble. She’s fallen and broken her hip. In the hospital now. Oleg is on a trip, I have kids to care for, and… well, she’s asking for you.”
Victoria sighed; life had a twisted sense of humor, and this joke was excessive.
“Alright. Send me the address. I’ll think about it.”
She visited the next day — not for Adelaide but for closure, final and clear.
Her mother-in-law lay like fragile porcelain with pale skin and stubborn eyes.
“Ah, you came,” she whispered. “Thought you wouldn’t.”
“I’m surprised myself. Are you alive?”
“For now. But temporarily. The doctor warned that without constant care, complications will come.”
“You’re bargaining with your will?”
Adelaide smiled wryly.
“I rewrote it. The apartment goes to my grandson now.”
“You don’t have a grandson.”
“He will be born. Olya’s pregnant.”
“Congratulations. Just note: he’ll live twenty years before adulthood, but the will acts faster.”
“That’s why I’m asking you to live with me, care for me. A nanny is too expensive.”
“Why me? You have daughter-in-law, son, friends.”
“Because you’re the only one who isn’t afraid to tell me the truth, who doesn’t pretend.”
Victoria sat on the bed’s edge.
- Truth carries a heavy price but sometimes remains the only genuine connection.
“And what do I get for honesty?”
“The apartment. The will backs to you again. I’ll sign it in front of you and notarize it.”
“How long do you think you have?”
“Why ask? Planning a vacation?”
They both laughed humanly for the first time in ages.
Victoria moved in a week later. She honestly warned she would be working, not playing nurse. Adelaide accepted; what else could she do?
They lived together for a month, quietly. No tantrums. They even talked sometimes, once watching a television show about divorces, laughing together.
“You know, at first I hated you,” Adelaide confessed. “You were too proper, too confident. I couldn’t stand women like you.”
“And I hated you for sticking your nose everywhere.”
“And now?”
“Now we’re like old mothers-in-law and ex-wives. Nothing to fight over. Both survivors of the same man.”
“Trophies, indeed.”
The ending came unexpectedly, as life often does.
Victoria returned home late one evening. The kitchen was silent, and in the living room, Adelaide sat in her chair with eyes closed.
“You fell asleep in an awkward position again,” Victoria grumbled. “Didn’t I warn you about your neck pain?”
There was no answer.
The funeral was modest. Victoria arranged everything. Oleg arrived only the next day, accompanied by Olya and a juice carton.
“I heard you lived with her again,” he said by the elevator.
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now you are a father. The apartment is mine. The will is legit. Care to object?”
“Did I have a choice?”
“No. Neither did she. She chose me because, in the end, she wanted to be not a mistress but simply a human.”
“You’ve changed,” he muttered.
“I’m just no longer a fool. Left when necessary. Returned when needed. And now — I’m leaving for good.”
He tried to reply, but she had already stepped into the elevator. Doors closed.
Two weeks later, she put up an ad to sell the apartment — a three-room flat in an old house with potential. She needed the money, but not for herself — for a fresh start.
On the Volga’s shore, in a small village, she bought a modest one-level house furnished simply, surrounded by elderly neighbors. None knew Oleg, Adelaide, or the Victoria who once silently endured being pushed out of her own kitchen.
She sat on the porch, a gentle breeze brushing past. For the first time in ages, a genuine smile spread across her face. Not out of courtesy, but because now, everything was truly hers.
Her life was hers too.
In conclusion, Victoria’s journey highlights the challenges of family dynamics complicated by intrusion and control. Her ultimate liberation came through strength, honesty, and setting boundaries, leading to a quieter, more authentic life away from toxicity. It serves as a powerful reminder that reclaiming one’s peace sometimes requires painful but necessary departures and the courage to embrace new beginnings.