Marina stood by the window, looking out at the gray February courtyard. The snow had already turned black, becoming a dirty slush that the janitors were unsuccessfully trying to clear from the asphalt. She could hear Dima moving around in the kitchen, pouring himself tea after work. An ordinary Monday evening. An ordinary apartment in an ordinary building on the outskirts of the city.
“Marish, do you remember I told you that Mom and Seryoga were planning to renovate?” her husband’s voice sounded a little too casual, which immediately put her on alert.
Marina turned around. Dima was standing in the doorway of the living room with a mug in his hands, and his face showed that special mixture of guilt and stubbornness she had learned to recognize over seven years of marriage.
“You did,” she answered briefly, then turned back to the window.
“You see, things are really bad over there. Seryoga got fired, he has no money left for rent, so he moved back in with Mom. And in that two-room apartment of theirs… You saw it the last time we were there. The wallpaper is peeling off, the bathroom tiles are cracked, the linoleum in the kitchen is worn through. How is anyone supposed to live like that, huh?”
Marina said nothing. She knew where this was going.
“So they decided to fix everything up. Not anything luxurious, just the basics, so it would be normal. Seryoga is thirty-two. It’s time for him to start a family, but how is he supposed to bring a girl home if the place looks like that?”
“Dima,” Marina turned and looked straight at him. “How much?”
He looked away.
“Well… Two hundred and fifty thousand would be enough for them. They’ve already made an estimate and arranged things with the workers. Nothing too complicated, just the essentials.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” she repeated, and there was no question or surprise in her voice. Only exhaustion. “The money we saved for our bathroom. The very same money I worked extra shifts for over a year and a half, refusing myself new clothes and basically everything else.”
“Marinka, please understand! This is my mother. My brother. They’re in a difficult situation, and you and I…”
“And you and I what?” She felt something dark and heavy beginning to boil inside her. “Everything is perfect for us, right? Our bathtub isn’t leaking? The tiles aren’t falling off? The grout hasn’t turned so black that no cleaning product can fix it?”
“We can wait another year. It’s not fatal!”
Marina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Don’t lose it. Don’t shout. Stay calm, like an adult.
“Dima, let me remind you. In September, your mother lived with us for two weeks because they were replacing a pipe in her apartment. I cooked for three people, cleaned, washed her laundry. In October, your brother took our car for a month because he supposedly needed it for work. The same job he was later fired from for drinking, by the way. In November, your mother asked to ‘borrow’ thirty thousand for medicine. She still hasn’t paid it back. For New Year’s, we bought them gifts worth twenty-five thousand because you said, ‘They’re close family, we can’t give them some nonsense.’”
“What does any of that have to do with this?”
“It has everything to do with it. Your family has been living at our expense for years!” she raised her voice despite promising herself she wouldn’t shout. “And whenever I even try to object, you start shaming me. You say I’m heartless, that they’re family, that how could we not help them.”
Dmitry set his mug down on the coffee table with such force that tea splashed out.
“Yes, I say that! And I’ll keep saying it! Because it’s true! You only think about yourself, about your own comfort, about some bathroom, while my mother is sixty years old and deserves a peaceful old age!”
“And don’t I deserve anything?” Marina’s voice trembled. “I work six days a week, then I come home and cook, clean, do laundry. On weekends, I take extra shifts so we can save at least something. Two years ago, I gave up professional development courses because your mother’s teeth started hurting and she needed an expensive crown. I…”
“Marina, enough!” he waved her off like an annoying fly. “You’re deliberately throwing everything together now just to make me feel guilty. My family has always been ready to help. Remember when your father ended up in the hospital? Who was the first to help with money?”
“Dima, my father died four years ago. Your mother
gave us fifty thousand, which we paid back three months later. That was the only time in all these years.”
“Well, there you go! They helped, didn’t they?”
Marina walked over to the sofa and sat down. Her strength suddenly ran out.
“You don’t want to hear me,” she said quietly. “You never want to hear me. For you, only your mother and brother exist. And I… I’m just supposed to be convenient. I’m supposed to agree, smile, and give away everything we have.”
Dima sat down beside her, his voice becoming softer.
“Marinka, come on. I love you. Just understand, they’re my family. I can’t refuse them. Especially now, when Seryoga is going through such a rough patch. He’s a grown man, he’s ashamed to live with his mother. We need to help him get back on his feet.”
“Seryoga is thirty-two,” Marina repeated tiredly. “This is the third time in five years he’s been fired. Every time for the same reason: he shows up drunk. He has no desire to change anything because he knows Mom will always take him in, and you will always give him money. Why should he make any effort?”
“You have no right to talk about my brother like that!”
“I have the right to tell the truth. Especially when that truth concerns our money and our life together.”
Dima got up and paced around the room. Marina saw the muscles working in his jaw. That meant he was angry but trying to hold himself back.
“Fine,” he finally said, and cold determination appeared in his voice. “Then let’s do it this way. Either you agree to help my family, or I stop all these attempts to conceive a child.”
Marina froze. For several seconds, she simply stared at him, unable to believe what she had heard.
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me. We’ve been trying for two years, and nothing is working. You want a child—I know that. I want one too. But if you can’t do something as basic as understand my family’s situation, then maybe we shouldn’t have children at all. Because a child needs a mother who knows how to think not only about herself.”
Something inside Marina quietly clicked into place. As if she had been walking down a dark corridor for a long time, feeling her way forward, bumping into walls, and now she had suddenly stepped into the light. And she saw everything exactly as it really was.
“If you’re giving me an ultimatum, then I’m leaving you,” she said. Her voice was even and calm, and that calm surprised even her. She was simply tired of being obedient.
Dmitry turned to her with a bewildered smirk.
“What are you talking about? What do you mean, leaving?”
“Exactly what I said. I’m leaving you. I’ll file for divorce.”
“Marisha, stop being ridiculous. Are you trying to scare me? Fine, fine, I got carried away. No ultimatums.”
“Dima, I’m not being ridiculous,” she stood up and looked him in the eyes. “I’ve finally understood what’s happening. For two years, we haven’t been able to conceive a child. I’ve gone through all the tests. Everything is fine with me. The doctors say the problem isn’t with me. But you refuse to get checked. Why?”
“We’ve already discussed this. All the men in my family are healthy. They all had children. My grandfather had five, my father had two. The problem is definitely not with me.”
“Definitely not with you,” she repeated. “Even though you refuse to take the simplest test. Because if it suddenly turns out that the problem is with you, this whole illusion about the healthy men in your family will collapse. And you’ll have to admit that you aren’t quite as perfect as you like to think.”
“Marina, that’s nonsense!”
“It’s the truth. Just like the fact that you’ve been using me for years. I work, earn money, invest in this home, in our life. And again and again, you give everything to your mother and brother. I wanted a child. I dreamed of having my own family. Instead, I live in some parallel reality where I’m supposed to serve grown men who can’t even fix their own bathroom or keep a job.”
“Okay, stop!” Dmitry finally realized how serious the situation was. “Marina, let’s talk calmly. I understand, you’re tired. Maybe you really should take a day off and rest. We all say things in the heat of the moment sometimes…”
“This isn’t the heat of the moment, Dima. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I just didn’t have the courage to admit to myself that our marriage isn’t a marriage. It’s a convenient arrangement for you, where I play the role of nanny and wallet for your family. And my wishes, my dreams, my life—none of it matters at all.”
She went into the bedroom and took an old sports bag down from the top shelf.
“What are you doing?” Dmitry stood in the doorway, and for the first time that evening, uncertainty could be heard in his voice.
“Packing. I’ll spend the night at Lena’s, and tomorrow I’ll start looking for a rental apartment.”
“Marisha, wait! We can discuss this!”
“It’s too late to discuss it. I tried to discuss it for two years. Every time your mother or brother wanted something, I tried to explain that we also had plans, that we also needed to spend money on ourselves. And every time, you told me I was selfish. That family is sacred. But for some reason, when you say ‘family,’ you only mean your mother and brother. And I don’t seem to exist in that family at all.”
Marina began putting clothes into the bag. Dmitry stepped into the room.
“Fine! Fine, I won’t give them money! We’ll renovate the bathroom, okay? Just don’t leave.”
She stopped and turned to him.
“Dima, do you really not understand? It’s not about the bathroom money. It’s about the fact that you just blackmailed me with a child. You said you would stop trying to have a baby if I didn’t hand over everything we had saved to your family. You used my greatest desire as a tool of manipulation. And that… that simply cancels everything.”
“I wasn’t blackmailing you! I just wanted you to understand that…”
“That my desire to have children is less important than your brother’s desire to renovate his apartment? I understood. I understood everything.”
Dmitry sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he muttered. “It’s just that Mom called and cried. She said Seryoga was doing really badly, that he was depressed. That if we didn’t help him now, he would completely fall apart.”
“Seryozha fell apart a long time ago,” Marina said harshly. “And he will keep falling apart because you and your mother constantly cushion every blow for him. He doesn’t want to work—you feed him. He drinks away his salary—you give him money. He can’t rent an apartment at thirty-two—you start renovations at someone else’s expense. More specifically, at my expense.”
“Marina, this is my family…”
“And what am I? Who am I? I’ve been your wife for seven years. Am I really not family?”
He was silent. And in that silence lay the answer to all her questions.
Marina zipped up the bag.
“I’ll call a lawyer. The apartment is in your name, I won’t demand anything. Just a divorce.”
“Wait, what about the child? You wanted one so badly…”
She looked at him for a long time.
“I wanted a child with a man who loved me. With a man for whom I mattered. But you… You love your mother and brother. That is your choice, and I respect it. But I can no longer live in this triangle, and I don’t want to.”
Marina left the apartment without looking back. Outside, it was cold, and snow had begun falling in large wet flakes. She called a taxi and sat down on the bench by the entrance.
Her phone vibrated—Dmitry was sending messages. First angry and accusing. Then pleading. Then angry again. She didn’t reply.
It was a strange feeling, as if an enormous weight had fallen from her shoulders. For the first time in a long time, Marina felt like she could breathe deeply.
The future was uncertain. A rental apartment, perhaps financial difficulties for a while. A divorce. But ahead of her there was also freedom. The chance to live for herself. The chance to meet someone who would value her not as a source of money and free labor, but as a partner.
The taxi arrived ten minutes later.
A year and a half passed.
Marina was sitting in a café across from work, drinking a cappuccino and scrolling through the news on her phone. Her hand instinctively rested on her rounded belly—six months pregnant, and soon it would be hard for her to bend down.
“Hi, Marishka,” a familiar voice made her look up.
Dmitry stood by her table with an awkward smile. He had changed a lot—he looked older, gaunt, with deep lines around his mouth.
“Hi, Dima,” she nodded. “Sit down if you want.”
He uncertainly lowered himself into the chair opposite her.
“I heard you got married.”
“Yes. Eight months ago.”
“And right away…” he nodded toward her belly.
“Yes, right away,” she smiled. “We found out two months after the wedding.”
Dmitry looked at his hands gripping the edges of the table.
“So the problem really was with me,” he said dully.
“Looks like it,” Marina didn’t lie or comfort him.
“I got checked afterward. After we divorced. The doctor said… Well, it could have been treated. I just needed to go in on time.”
They were silent for a while.
“How is your mother? Seryozha?” Marina asked, more out of politeness than anything else.
“They’re fine. They did the renovation, by the way. Seryoga found a new job. Seems to be holding on so far. Mom is healthy. She asked me to say hello if I saw you.”
“Say hello to her from me too.”
Another pause, long and awkward.
“Marina, I… I wanted to say something. You were right. About everything. I used you. I didn’t value you. I only thought about Mom and my brother, and I didn’t care about you. Forgive me.”
She looked at him—at this man she had once loved, with whom she had lived for seven years. And she felt neither anger nor resentment. Only calm.
“I forgive you, Dim. I forgave you a long time ago.”
“Thank you,” he stood up. “Well, I’ll go. I wish you happiness. You and the baby.”
“Thank you.”
Marina watched him leave—hunched, aged, with empty eyes. Then her gaze fell on her phone, where the lock screen showed a photo of her and Anton at a health resort, hugging and laughing.
Anton. Her husband. The man who had treated her as an equal from the very first day. The man who, after she told him about her previous marriage, immediately went and got his health checked. The man who said “our money,” not “mine” and “yours.” The man who asked for her opinion on every issue. The man who was just as happy to learn about the pregnancy as she was.
Marina finished her coffee, left a tip, and went outside. It was the beginning of September, a warm, sunny day. Ahead of her was an ordinary workday, then home, dinner with her husband, conversations about the future, about what color stroller to buy and what to name the baby.
An ordinary life. But such a happy one.
She smiled at her thoughts and walked toward the bus stop. Somewhere back in the past remained the obedient Marina, who had been afraid to object, afraid to demand respect for herself, afraid to leave. And here, in the present, walked a completely different woman—free, loved, and happy.
And all because one day, she had found the strength to say:
“If you’re giving me an ultimatum, then I’m leaving you.”
