“What kind of rubbish is this, Oxana?!” a voice boomed from the kitchen, followed by the crashing sound of porcelain breaking, reminiscent of a bad movie’s distorted audio.
Although she stood two meters away, Oxana flinched. Like every morning, Bogdan deliberately hurled his plate onto the floor. Today’s grievance was an under-salted omelet. Yesterday, it had been “tea too sweet,” and the day before that, “wrong socks hanging on the line.” These complaints multiplied like weeds in Aunt Nyura’s garden – neglect them, and they would sprout on their own.
“Can’t you see the salt right in front of you? Have you no hands?” Her voice resonated evenly, almost devoid of emotion, but her fingers trembled as if she gripped the steering wheel of a car racing at 150 km/h.
“Don’t you dare talk back!” Bogdan stormed to the table, seized the salt shaker, and shook it violently as though it was a tiny punching bag rather than a glass container. “I come home exhausted like a workhorse, and you, an accountant, can’t even cook a decent meal – what’s the point of you then?”
Softly, so quietly he might have missed it or ignored it on purpose, she replied, “Maybe there is no point.”
He scanned her from head to toe like an inspector examining an expired extinguisher.
“What did you just mutter? You think I don’t hear you? Say it again if you dare.”
Rising from the table, Oxana held her posture straight, her expression calm. Only her eyes betrayed her—sparkling with fatigue entwined with something new; neither fear nor despair, but something firmer, tougher, like a tooth aching against a sore cheek.
“Say it again? Fine. I said, maybe there’s really no point. Neither to you nor to me, as things are now.”
He froze. What he cherished most was when Oxana stayed silent, endured, whined softly but bent to his will. Yet, today, she stood tall.
“Have you lost your mind, or did your coworkers poison you? Or are you screwing someone else?” he yelled, tossing the salt shaker onto the floor where it clattered next to a table leg.
“Exactly,” she nodded lightly, a nearly imperceptible smile touching her lips. “With everyone—all the neighbors, Sergey from the tax office, the cashier at the grocery store. Everything that moves is mine.”
Bogdan stepped closer, his face flushed with rage, neck veins bulging as if preparing to choke her. Earlier, a loud shout and a few steps sufficed to make Oxana wilt like a March Christmas ornament. Yet today…
Today, she refused to retreat.
“Are you stupid? Don’t you understand you’re nothing without me?” he hissed. “Do you lack brains? You’re an accountant, not a woman. Without character or figure. I’ve been carrying you for twenty years—and you…”
“You’ve been living in an apartment that belonged to my mother, now mine, for twenty years. You’re not carrying me, Bogdan—I’m just putting up with you. For far too long.”
He stood stunned.
This wasn’t mere insolence; it was a declaration. As if today’s Oxana had arrived to visit yesterday’s self and swept all the chairs off the balcony.
“So, you’ve decided to kick me out?” he said softly, so quietly that genuine fear finally descended that morning.
“Not yet. But if you want to speed things up, go ahead.”
He circled her, flung open the fridge, slammed the door, grabbed a beer, and opened it with his teeth.
“Let’s see how long you last, accountant. But mind you, I’m not one to leave silently.”
Oxana exhaled slowly and heavily, as if the apartment’s oxygen had just run out. Then, she sat back at the table and lifted her fork. The omelet remained on the stove—fresh and properly salted.
Eating without tasting, she felt as though—for the first time in years—she was not swallowing herself whole.
That day at work, she lingered longer than usual during lunch with colleagues. She no longer hid away in accounting, pretending to “close the month.”
“Why are you so bold today?” Larisa, a forty-year-old controller with a gravelly voice, winked. “Putting your husband on a diet?”
“No,” Oxana replied, biting into a bun. “I just figured that a grown man could make his own lunch. After all, he’s not a baby.”
Larisa chuckled but seemed halted by something in Oxana’s face.
“Listen…” she quieted down as the others went for coffee. “If you ever need anything, just say so. My brother’s in the police; he’s no fool. Keep quiet but know I’ve got your back.”
Oxana nodded silently. Her eyes returned to their smooth, glass-like fragility. She wasn’t ready to speak—but hearing that was enough.
That evening, Bogdan parked himself in front of the TV again—beer in hand, football on screen. Yet, unlike before, he did not shout at the referee or swear at the commentator. He was watching but not really seeing.
Oxana passed by in a robe, hair wrapped in a towel. Her face was freshly washed, clean—and for the first time—peaceful. Almost too peaceful.
“I filed for divorce,” she said casually, as if talking about changing a water meter.
“What divorce?”
Silence thickened the room, settling heavily on her shoulders.
“You’re crazy,” he finally spat. “Who’s going to take someone like you?”
She smiled—not joyfully but with the quiet certainty of a woman who finally understood everything.
“I don’t need anyone. I like myself now. You—start packing.”
He jumped up and stood uncomfortably close, the scent of alcohol, anger, and desperation radiating from him. He still believed he could bend her.
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, Bogdan,” she stepped back slowly, careful not to shake. “I just don’t fear you anymore.”
“Who did you even talk to in your head?” Bogdan slammed his fist against the hallway cabinet, making the door shudder like an old woman at the bus stop. “What’s your plan, chicken? Divorce? You’ll die alone without me in that accounting office! Forget it! I won’t let you just kick me out!”
He ranted while she calmly zipped her jacket—deliberately slow to steady her trembling hands. For the first time in twenty years, she was leaving for work knowing she might not return to the same apartment—or anyone might not return at all.
“How many times do I have to repeat?” she turned. “I filed the papers. You have one week to find another place.”
“This is my apartment!” he bellowed, then coughed violently. Years of smoking and continuous yelling had taken their toll. “I lived here! I wallpapered this bedroom myself! I tiled the bathroom myself!”
“Wallpapered, tiled, ruined—it doesn’t matter. The apartment is mine, with legal papers to prove it. A gift from my mother, not a mortgage. If you doubt, call the notary.”
He refused to believe, not because he was unaware of the truth, but because he couldn’t accept it. The woman he had controlled for life now stood upright, like the arch at the registry office in ’98. Back then it was romantic—now it was deeply offensive.
“I’m warning you, Oxana…” His voice deepened menacingly. “If you don’t change your mind, things will get ugly. Your life will become hell. You might as well quit your job. I’ll tell everyone who you really are—a tramp. Don’t be surprised if your accounting department gets investigated tomorrow.”
She nodded calmly.
“Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I have both a recorder and a lawyer now. And if you raise a hand, there’ll be charges. Believe me, I’m not the woman who tolerated before.”
“You’ll be lost without me!” he yelled, rushing at her as if ready to slam her against the wall. But she didn’t flinch or step back. Instead, she pulled her phone from her pocket and held it up, screen facing him.
“Recording is on.”
He froze.
“Are you completely insane?”
“No, Bogdan. I’ve finally come to my senses.”
She left, closing the door behind her. He remained alone in the silence that somehow felt louder than his shouting. Never before had a woman left him. He always was the quitter, the decision-maker. But this time—he was cast out. And with a recording to prove it.
At work, her colleagues greeted her with knowing looks. Her “domestic storms” were no secret. Gossip spread faster than sales reports in accounting.
Bold realization: Oxana’s transformation was visible—she had shed an old skin and embraced a new strength.
“Why are you so bold today?” Larisa whispered during lunch. “You really filed for divorce? What about the screaming outside?”
“Not yet,” Oxana replied. “But I already have three neighbors on standby and the local cop’s number. So if it happens—it’s going to be interesting.”
“You’ve changed,” Larisa observed softly. “Like you’ve dropped a mask—or a skin.”
“Both,” Oxana nodded. “I realized life is one. To spend it in fear is like mopping the floor before death—pointless.”
However, Bogdan was unwilling to surrender.
That same evening he came home at six—sober but with a face that looked as if he’d swallowed poison. In his hands, trash bags, a suitcase, and a box labeled “For Oxana.”
She sat in the kitchen with her laptop, managing to work remotely thanks to her boss’s leniency: “Just don’t lose your mind, Ksyush, you’re the only one who understands where the money and the play money are.”
“What’s that?” she asked without looking up.
“A parting gift,” he sneered. “Almost a voodoo doll and a rat poison bottle inside.”
“Almost,” he smirked placing the box on the table. “Just a reminder that without me, you’re nobody. Good luck, accountant.”
After he left the room, she opened the box to find old photos, wedding album clippings, youthful letters—and a prenuptial agreement, crumpled and stained.
“Everything shared” was crossed out in red. The signature was not hers.
She did not cry or scream but quietly carried the box to the stairwell. There, she placed it carefully by the garbage chute with a note attached: “The story of an idiot. Free of charge.”
That night was difficult.
At 2:40 a.m., Bogdan began pounding on the door—not knocking but breaking.
“Open up, cow! Remember how you swore you loved me? Back in ’89 on the dorm bench! I gave you everything! You took everything! You killed me, bitch!”
From above, Grandpa Matvey peeked out in his robe.
“Dude, you got the wrong address—or century?”
“Shut up, old goat!”
“Don’t yell—I’ve been asleep since seven. Thanks to my pension.”
Oxana didn’t open. She sat hugging her knees on the hallway floor, heart hammering loudly in her temples like a drum. Her finger hovered over the call button on the phone.
After the third beat against the door, she pressed it.
“Police? Yes. Threat to life. Address: 18 Zarechnaya Street, apt 24. No, he’s still here yelling and pounding on the door.”
Bogdan was taken away—not in handcuffs but with a report. The officer was young but wore the weary look of a biology teacher.
“Will you file a complaint?” he asked.
Oxana glanced at Bogdan sitting in the vehicle, staring blankly and silently.
“Not now. But if he returns—yes.”
“He will come back,” the officer nodded. “People like him always do. Just not always alive.”
That night Oxana did not sleep. Her laptop was open on the kitchen table; her tea had gone cold. She stared out the window at the courtyard, once familiar as the lines on her palm but somehow new now—without him.
She did not fear. But she sensed something breaking inside her chest—not a crack, but a quiet fracture, like a tree in winter.
Not from terror. From freedom.
And that was even more terrifying.
Oxana awoke to a knock—gentle, polite, and almost timid. She checked the clock: 8 a.m. Saturday morning. Silent outside, snow not yet fallen, but the air smelled of January and emptiness, like a fridge after guests.
She rose—slowly, body aching like after a fight. The previous day felt less like the past and more like something ground through a meat grinder.
At the door stood Sveta from apartment five, wrapped in a robe, holding coffee.
“Are you okay?” she asked, immediately adding, “Sorry, but there’s a drama in the building chat. Someone saw your husband get punched. Police involved? You?”
“Me. Kind of,” Oxana smiled weakly. “The cop was just there to document.”
“You’re a beauty,” praised Sveta. “If needed, call me as a witness in court.”
“No court. I just want him out. Not vanished from the earth but from my life.”
“Well, not everything depends on you. Men are like mothballs: even after they’re gone, they stink for years.”
Bogdan came back on the third day, quietly, almost silently. He buzzed the intercom, didn’t bang or shout, waiting like a dog outside the door.
She did not answer.
He tried again forty minutes later but left. The next day, he returned with flowers—cheap bright red roses, resembling regret post-hangover.
“Oxana, I understand now,” he said through the intercom. “I snapped. You know me. I just… I can’t live without you. I can’t breathe. Everything feels wrong. The house is empty and cold.”
“Buy a heater,” she replied, hanging up.
On the fourth day, he didn’t come alone. His mother accompanied him—an old woman like a living relic, face worn and stern as a prosecutor’s.
“You promised to be his wife!” she screamed. “You swore in sickness and health! How can you just toss him out like a dog? He’s a man!”
“And what about me?” Oxana looked at her as if she were a dusty ceiling plaster. “Am I not human? Allowed to be shouted at, have plates thrown at me, or my wallet locked away like a child’s?”
“These are family matters! Every family has difficulties!”
“But ours have lasted twenty years. I’m an adult now and I’ve decided—I don’t want it anymore.”
“What do you even understand?” shouted the old woman spitting. “Who would want you now? You’re almost fifty, menopausal, with a mortgage written all over your face. You think anyone wants you? You’ll die lonely!”
“Better alone than under someone else’s boot,” replied Oxana calmly, closing the door behind her.
After that, Bogdan never came around again. He called, initially pleading, then threatening, ultimately indifferent but furious. She ignored the calls.
He tried to get her fired—called her workplace, spreading rumors she “stole, partied, and did sex reports in Excel.” The office laughed it off, passing it to her as a joke.
She stopped fearing.
First, for herself. Then for loneliness. Then for the unknown future.
About a month later, she received a letter: a pre-trial claim demanding “fair compensation” for shared property, even though the apartment was a gift from her mother, the furniture came from her bonuses, and the TV was won at a corporate event he was late to because he was drinking.
She wept—not out of fear, but nausea.
Larisa sat beside her.
“If you want, I can give you my ex’s number. He’s a lawyer. A nasty guy but a beast in court. Looks like a sloth but talks like a guillotine.”
“Thanks,” Oxana wiped her eyes. “Never thought I’d say this… but yes, please.”
In March, court. An hour and a half. No compensation granted. No rights to the apartment. Bogdan didn’t show—sent a fumbling lawyer instead.
The judge was a woman with a tired face, fidgeting with a ring during the whole trial. At the end, she looked at Oxana gently and said, “Congratulations. You are free.”
Oxana left the courtroom feeling as if she’d emerged not from a trial, but from a dungeon. For the first time, she breathed freely.
That spring, she renovated—not relying on any designer, simply painting walls a light color. She discarded the chair Bogdan loved to sit in, commanding the TV. She bought a bean bag and sat in it reading for the first time in her life. She gazed at a ceiling free of stains or cobwebs—only light. Her own light.
Neighbors brought furniture—some a chair, others a dresser. Their support was genuine, not sympathetic, but human.
Sveta gifted her a cactus.
“This is so you stop watering others. Let it survive on its own.”
Oxana laughed and didn’t notice her laughter melting into tears—warm, not bitter—the kind one cries when an ending is simultaneously a beginning.
Sometimes she awoke at night to silence, heart racing: where is he? Didn’t come? Not creating a scene? Then relief flooded her—he would not return. Never.
She lived—alone and freely. Each morning, brewing her own coffee, adding exactly two teaspoons of sugar—the perfect amount, unlike his dictated one.
And every time she looked into her cup, she thought: this is freedom. Not words, papers, or filings. But these two teaspoons—mine.
On the stairwell, someone had posted a notice: “Raising funds for stairwell repairs. Voluntary contributions only.”
Oxana took a pen and signed first.
- Name: Oxana S.
- Amount: 500 rub.
- Note: “Life has become easier. Thank you.”
Without looking back, she walked down the stairs.
In summary: Oxana’s story is a powerful journey of resilience and self-discovery. Through courage and determination, she reclaimed her life, proving that freedom often begins when the old ties are broken.