— What do you mean, the delivery has been rescheduled? Are you people in that call center even sane?! — Marina pressed the smartphone hard against her ear, unsuccessfully trying to shout over the screech of a hammer drill working somewhere on the floor above. — I didn’t cancel anything! My delivery was scheduled for today between twelve and three! Order number seven hundred forty-two, modular sofa!
“Miss, I can hear you perfectly well,” the furniture hypermarket dispatcher droned monotonously and completely indifferently into the phone. “I’m looking at our database. At nine this morning, we received a call from the second contact number listed in your contract. The customer gave the contract number, her passport details, and personally confirmed the cancellation of the blue sofa delivery. She asked for your initial payment to be transferred to another item currently in stock. The price difference was already paid in cash at our central branch literally an hour ago. The truck with the new shipment has already left the warehouse for your address.”
“What customer?! What cash difference?!” Marina clenched her free hand into a fist so tightly that her short nails painfully dug into her palm. “I’m standing in the middle of a concrete shell. I waited three months for this furniture! I paid for the sofa in full from my personal credit card, from my own bonus! You had no right to change anything without my personal presence and signature!”
She ended the call and angrily shoved the phone into the back pocket of her jeans, which were smeared with construction dust. At that very moment, the lock in the front door clicked dryly. Marina spun around sharply, almost tripping over a ten-kilogram plastic bucket of white primer.
Lyudmila Zakharovna was standing in the doorway. Her mother-in-law was wearing an impeccably clean beige cashmere coat and expensive suede boots, which looked utterly absurd among the cement crumbs, protruding wires, and rolls of construction underlayment piled in a heap. She slowly pulled off her leather gloves, carefully stepped over an aluminum level lying on the floor, and walked with a confident, proprietary stride straight into the center of the future living room.
“Lyudmila Zakharovna, can you imagine what those idiots from the store have done?” Marina began harshly, advancing on her mother-in-law. “They’re saying someone called this morning from your number, the one Oleg left as a backup for the couriers, and canceled my order! They transferred my money to some completely different junk from the warehouse!”
Her mother-in-law calmly looked around at the bare concrete walls, covered with fresh gray patches of rough plaster. With the toe of her clean suede boot, she pulled over the only wooden stool that had survived in the chaos, disdainfully wiped dust from it with the edge of her glove, and sat down regally.
“I canceled your order for that hideous blue sofa! In my apartment, where my son lives, we will put normal furniture, chosen by me, not that monstrosity you ordered! And I don’t care that you paid with your card!” her mother-in-law declared, proudly sitting on the stool in the empty living room, after her daughter-in-law learned that the furniture delivery would not arrive today because her mother-in-law had called the store, introduced herself as the customer, canceled everything, and ordered a luxurious Baroque-style set instead.
Marina froze. Inside her there was neither shock nor confusion — only a concentrated rage that flared instantly. She stared at her husband’s mother, who sat with her back perfectly straight, her chin lifted victoriously.
“What did you just say?” Marina said, enunciating every word. “You took my passport details from the contract that was lying in the kitchen folder? You disposed of my money?!”\
“Your money?” Lyudmila Zakharovna twisted her lips contemptuously, crossing her arms over her chest. “There is no such thing as your money in this family, Marina. You live here on sufferance. This apartment came to me from my mother, and I allowed you two to live here. I allowed you to renovate it, even though everything suited me just fine. But that doesn’t mean you’ll drag all kinds of cheap trash into my home. Your blue sofa is the height of bad taste. It looks like a cheap cot for a waiting room near a railway station.”
“It’s modern minimalism, and it was bought specifically for the design project Oleg and I agreed on!” Marina stepped right up to the stool, looming over her mother-in-law. “I waited three months for this model! I paid two hundred thousand rubles for it! You simply took and stole my money!”
“I have the right to everything within these walls,” Lyudmila Zakharovna snapped, not moving a millimeter away from her furious daughter-in-law. “You are an ordinary freeloader. Be grateful that I’m even spending my time ennobling this concrete barn. I added one hundred and fifty thousand from my personal savings and bought a proper set. Real wood, gold patina, Italian velour. It’s classic Baroque; it always holds its value. It looks expensive and respectable. And whatever you picked out is cheap garbage for beggars.”
“Baroque?!” Marina laughed bitterly, gesturing at the gray walls and the plastic pipes sticking out of the floor. “You bought armchairs with gold molding for an apartment where the rough floor hasn’t even been poured yet? You blew my money on gaudy trash that won’t even fit here by size!”
“Shut your mouth and don’t you dare speak to me like that!” her mother-in-law barked, abruptly rising from the stool. Ugly burgundy blotches spread across her well-groomed face. “I am the rightful owner of this apartment! And everything here will stand where I decide! The truck with the movers has already pulled into the yard. They’ll bring up the furniture now, and you will silently watch real style appear in my home!”
“Where do you think you’re going?! Stop right there, I said!” Marina roared, planting herself firmly in the doorway and spreading her arms to the sides.
Two sweaty movers in blue overalls froze on the landing. In their hands they held a massive, monstrously bulky armchair. Through the transparent packaging film, burgundy velour upholstery with an embossed monogram pattern could be seen, while the curved claw-like legs were generously covered with shiny gold paint. All this pompous luxury looked like a wild mockery against the bare concrete, the shabby stairwell walls, and the construction dust swirling in the air.
“Bring it in, boys, bring it straight into the living room!” Lyudmila Zakharovna commanded, decisively advancing on her daughter-in-law from behind. “Don’t pay attention to that lunatic. She is nobody here, and her name means nothing. I’m the customer, I paid, and I say where to put it!”
“You are not carrying that ugly crap into my apartment!” Marina braced her palms against the doorframes, feeling her fingers go numb from the strain. “I’m calling the dispatcher right now and arranging a return! Take this junk back to the truck!”
The movers exchanged uncertain glances, clearly not wanting to get involved in a family showdown, but the weight of the massive chair was making itself felt. One of them exhaled heavily and took a step forward.
“Miss, we have to go, we still have three more addresses on the schedule,” the worker muttered, readjusting his grip on the slippery film. “We were told to deliver and unload. Let us through, or we’ll rupture ourselves.”
“Get out of the way, freeloader!” Lyudmila Zakharovna shoved Marina sharply and forcefully in the shoulder.
The blow was unexpected. Marina staggered, her sneaker slipped on the cement crumbs scattered across the floor, and she instinctively stepped back, clearing the passage. That brief moment was enough for the movers to squeeze into the narrow corridor with the enormous chair. They dropped it with a crash right in the middle of the living room, raising a cloud of acrid gray dust that immediately settled on the expensive burgundy velour and golden backs.
“Where are you putting it?! There’s plaster and primer everywhere!” Marina tried to grab the second mover by the sleeve, but her mother-in-law roughly knocked her hand away again.
“Get the hell out of here!” Lyudmila Zakharovna roared, finally losing all semblance of humanity. Her face twisted with a grimace of genuine hatred. She looked around in search of a weapon, rushed to a torn paper bag of construction debris, and snatched out a heavy chunk of dried plaster.
Marina had no time to react. The rock-hard lump struck her chest with a dull thud, leaving a huge white mark on her black T-shirt. The plaster shattered into pieces, and gray dust flew into her face, filling her eyes and nose and settling in her hair.
“Are you completely insane?!” Marina coughed, wiping cement from her face and backing deeper into the room. “What are you doing?!”
“I’ll throw you out of here altogether, you pauper!” Her mother-in-law bent down and grabbed a long, sharp offcut of metal drywall profile, swinging it threateningly at her daughter-in-law. “You think you can tell me what goes where in my own apartment! You should be praying that I haven’t tossed you and your beggarly taste out onto the street! You counted pennies for three months for your miserable sofa, while I furnished half of your little den with one receipt! Because I can afford it, and you can’t!”
At that moment, the movers, realizing that the situation was spiraling out of control and beginning to smell like a serious fight, hurriedly retreated to the landing for the second batch of furniture, leaving the women alone.
Lyudmila Zakharovna, feeling completely untouchable on her own territory, hurled a piece of dirty foam plastic at Marina, then threw a handful of construction screws. They scattered across the concrete floor with an unpleasant metallic clatter. One of the black screws painfully grazed Marina’s cheek, leaving a stinging red scratch.
“Get out of the room while the furniture is being brought in!” her mother-in-law kept screaming, ignoring the fact that the hem of her perfect cashmere coat was already covered with a thick layer of construction grime. “You are nobody here! Nobody! Your entire role is to serve my son and stay out of sight! The only thing that belongs to you here is your dirty underwear in the washing machine! The apartment is mine, and the rules here are mine!”
Marina stood in the middle of the construction chaos, breathing heavily. Her chest rose and fell from the burning, primal rage pulsing in her temples. She looked at the ridiculous, enormous Baroque chair towering absurdly among bags of cement and plastic pipes, at her mother-in-law, crazed by her own power, with a piece of metal profile in her hands, and felt the last threads of patience snap inside her. The absurdity of what was happening seemed like a bad dream, but the acrid dust on her teeth and the stinging scratch on her cheek were too real.
“Bring in the sofa!” Lyudmila Zakharovna commanded toward the hallway, looking triumphantly at her frozen daughter-in-law and tossing the metal profile aside. “Right here, by the window! And be careful not to scratch the gold patina against these disgusting bare walls!”
The movers barged back into the apartment, struggling to drag in a huge corner module upholstered in the same burgundy velour. Marina no longer tried to stop them. She slowly shook pieces of plaster off herself and clenched her jaw tightly, watching this circus of freaks. A perfectly clear, cold plan had formed in her mind. She was waiting for only one thing — for Oleg to come home from work. The man who was supposed to stop this madness and put his deranged mother in her place. The husband for whom she had gotten involved in this cursed renovation, worked overtime, and spent all her bonus money on furniture.
“Sign here, the acceptance certificate,” the senior mover boomed in the hallway, handing Lyudmila Zakharovna a crumpled form against the backdrop of towering piles of burgundy velour. “And we’ll be on our way.”
Her mother-in-law carelessly scribbled her signature on the paper, disdainfully shook cement dust from the sleeve of her cashmere coat, and pointed the workers to the exit. The front door lock clicked dryly, cutting the apartment off from the stairwell. The living room now looked surreal, almost absurd. Three enormous, potbellied pieces of furniture with ornate gold carving and glossy upholstery were roughly wedged between stacks of drywall, plastic pipes, and open bags of construction mixtures. The massive sectional sofa blocked half the room, its carved back pressed directly against the uneven concrete wall with wires sticking out for future light fixtures.
The key turned in the lock again. This time, the footsteps were familiar and measured. Oleg entered the hallway. With a habitual gesture, he hung his formal office jacket on a hook, pulled off his leather shoes, and walked into the living room in his socks.
“What’s with the cardboard warehouse on the landing?” he began, but stopped mid-sentence, staring at the burgundy magnificence that had occupied almost all the free space in the unfinished room.
His gaze slid helplessly over the curved golden claw legs, moved to the torn bags of plaster, then stopped on his mother’s dirt-streaked face and, finally, on his wife. Marina stood by the window. Her black T-shirt was covered with white blotches of dried mortar, her hair was tangled with construction dust, and a fresh deep scratch from the screw that had struck her stood out clearly crimson on her cheek.
“Oleg, it’s very good that you came right now,” Marina said in an even tone, devoid of any emotion, looking her husband straight in the eyes. “Your mother called the furniture store this morning. She used my passport details from the contract, introduced herself as the customer, and canceled the delivery of the sofa I had fully paid for with my bonus. She transferred my money toward this Baroque misunderstanding, adding cash on top. When I tried to stop the movers from coming in, she began throwing pieces of plaster and a metal profile at me.”
Oleg blinked repeatedly, shifting his stunned gaze from his wife to his mother. Lyudmila Zakharovna was not embarrassed in the slightest. She proudly thrust out her chest and folded her hands over her stomach, her entire posture demonstrating absolute confidence in her own rightness and superiority.
“I saved your apartment from ugliness,” his mother-in-law declared categorically, not letting her son get a word in. “What she ordered is suitable only for some cheap railway-station flophouse. I added my savings and bought a real classic. This is my home, Oleg. My living space. And I will not allow some freeloaders to ruin its appearance with cheap mass-market junk. I’ve already paid for everything, and the furniture has been delivered. The matter is closed permanently.”
Marina did not start another argument. She kept staring steadily at her husband. A cold, precise mechanism was working inside her. She had laid out the bare facts before him: theft of money by deception, damage to property, physical aggression from his mother. She was waiting for a manly act. Waiting for Oleg to take out his phone, call the movers back, force his mother to return the stolen amount, and show her the door. In the situation that had unfolded, this was the only logical and adequate outcome.
Oleg sighed heavily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He walked over to the nearest burgundy armchair, ran his finger over the monogram embossed in the velour, and grimaced when he noticed that a thick layer of construction dust had immediately settled on his dark office trousers. He carefully brushed off his pant leg, straightened his tie knot, and looked at Marina. There was no outrage on his face, no anger at his deranged mother, no sympathy for his filthy wife. Only the deadly fatigue and irritation of a man who had been torn away from his personal comfort for the sake of a quarrel.
“Well, bunny, Mom has more experience. Let’s just give in so we don’t fight,” Oleg said, spreading his hands with a guilty half-smile. “A sofa is a sofa. What difference does it make what we sit on? Besides, it’s natural wood. Look how expensive it looks. The money stayed in the family, and Mom even added her own. What’s the point of making a scandal now and dragging furniture back and forth? We’ll leave it as it is, and your bonus… well, we’ll figure out later where to put it.”
Her husband’s words fell onto the concrete living-room floor heavily and inevitably, like lead weights. At that moment, for Marina, it was not just the marriage that collapsed — Oleg himself collapsed, shattering into small, pathetic fragments. The man with whom she had planned a future, shared everyday life, and for whom she had worked herself to exhaustion at two jobs, turned out to be an absolute nothing. A spineless coward who did not care in the least about his wife’s humiliation, about stolen money, or about his own mother’s blatant insanity. Only one thing mattered to him: that no one bother him and that he not have to clash with his mother, risking the loss of comfortable living in her apartment.
Lyudmila Zakharovna snorted victoriously, brushing an invisible speck from the hem of her dirty coat. She had won this battle, finally and unconditionally asserting her power over this territory and showing her daughter-in-law her true, lowest place in the family food chain.
Marina did not move. Her face turned into a frozen, impenetrable mask. Not a single muscle twitched, not a single emotion broke through the dense layer of acrid dust on her skin. She slowly shifted her gaze from her mother-in-law’s smug face to her husband, who was shifting from foot to foot, then looked at the pompous burgundy sofa. There was no longer resentment, anger, or any desire to prove anything in her mind. Only crystal-clear, ice-cold emptiness and absolute, one-hundred-percent understanding of exactly what she would do in the next second.
“So you are seriously suggesting that I leave this burgundy garbage in the apartment and forget about two hundred thousand of my bonus?” Marina’s voice sounded completely even, without the slightest emotional coloring.
She looked at her husband without blinking. Inside her, a ringing, absolute vacuum had formed, in which there was no longer any room for attempts to save this marriage.
“Well, what else do you suggest we do?” Oleg jerked his shoulder irritably, glancing with disgust at his dust-covered shoes. “The movers have left. The furniture is already here. Mom changed the order and paid for everything. Are we really going to start a showdown now over the shape of the armrests? Let’s just accept it as a fact. Consider it time saved on choosing. Let’s go have dinner. I’m exhausted from work.”
Marina silently turned away from her husband. She took several measured steps to the corner of the room, where, near bags of dry putty, stood an unopened ten-kilogram plastic bucket of deep-penetration acrylic primer. The liquid inside was intended to bond bare concrete permanently to finishing materials. Anyone who had ever done renovations knew perfectly well: if that sticky, concentrated chemical got onto fabric or dried on a surface, it would be physically impossible to wash off.
She bent down, hooked her fingers hard under the edge of the dense plastic lid, and tore it off with a sharp crack. A specific, pungent smell of synthetic glue immediately filled the air.
Marina lifted the heavy bucket by its metal handle. The muscles in her back tensed under the weight, but her movements remained precise and deliberate. She walked to the very center of the living room, stopping exactly between the massive burgundy sofa, the pompous armchairs, and Oleg, who had frozen in confusion.
“What are you thinking of doing?” Oleg frowned, taking an uncertain step toward her. “Put that back. You’ll smear the floor.”
Marina did not dignify him with an answer. She simply tipped the bucket sharply forward.
The thick, cloudy-white liquid crashed onto the concrete floor covered with a layer of cement dust with a heavy splash. Marina moved her hands to the sides, generously pouring the primer in a wide semicircle. The sticky wave instantly reached the curved wooden legs of the Baroque armchairs, greedily soaking into the porous surface of the gold paint. Large white splashes flew thickly onto the expensive Italian velour upholstery, leaving ugly stains against the burgundy background that immediately bit into the pile.
Marina flung the remaining mixture from the bucket directly under her husband’s feet. A white puddle covered his feet with a squelching sound. The primer instantly soaked through the fabric of his socks, flooded into his shoes, and settled in thick sticky drops on the perfectly pressed trousers of his work suit.
“Are you completely insane?!” Oleg screamed hysterically, jumping aside and trying to shake off the quickly thickening mess. “This suit cost fifty thousand! My shoes!”
“Since your mother is in charge in this apartment,” Marina said in a metallic, cold tone, unclenching her fingers and dropping the empty plastic bucket right into the middle of the spreading white puddle, “let her renovate it herself. At her own expense, with her own hands, and around her own Baroque furniture. You two are perfect for each other.”
She turned and walked into the hallway, calmly stepping over the construction debris.
Behind her, in the living room, the very wild scandal whose epicenter she had been in for the past half hour erupted instantly — only now in an entirely different configuration. Oleg, feeling the acrid chemical tightening the skin on his feet and ruining his expensive shoes beyond repair, instantly lost all his feigned peacekeeping. His tolerance for his mother’s antics evaporated the exact moment his own personal comfort suffered.
“What the hell did you drag this burgundy coffin in here for?!” Oleg roared, his face twisted with anger as he turned to Lyudmila Zakharovna. “Who asked you to stick your nose into our orders and cancel the delivery?! Now I’m standing knee-deep in this glue, and my suit is ruined!”
“How dare you shout at me?!” his mother shrieked at once, staring in primal horror at the ruined velour, which was visibly becoming covered with a hard white crust. “I invested my money here! I bought you normal furniture, and your crazy wife destroyed it! You must force her to clean everything and return every kopeck to me!”
“What kopeck?!” Oleg’s voice broke into a hoarse shout. He began frantically wiping his trousers, smearing the primer even worse. “You staged this circus! Why the hell do I need your gold and monograms in the middle of concrete?! You ruined my things, you ruined my evening, you ruined everything! Take your movers, take this glue-soaked trash, and get out of here!”
“You ungrateful bastard!” Lyudmila Zakharovna grabbed a piece of drywall from the floor and hurled it at her son with force. “I try for him, I spend money, and he throws me out of my own home! Fine, live in this pigsty if you like it so much!”
Marina stood in the hallway, methodically lacing up her sneakers. Choice insults reached her ears as mother and son generously showered each other with abuse while standing in the middle of the drying puddle of construction chemicals. Oleg shouted at his mother about his ruined clothes and her arbitrariness; Lyudmila Zakharovna shrieked at her son about his weak character and her wasted savings. Their tandem was collapsing before her eyes, burying the remnants of family ties beneath it.
Marina took her jacket from the hook and grabbed the backpack with her work laptop. She did not go back into the room for the rest of her things. The bills she had paid for rough work and building materials no longer mattered. It was a perfectly acceptable price for the instant destruction of illusions.
She opened the front door, stepped out onto the dusty landing, and turned the key in the lock twice, leaving it sticking out from the outside.
The next day, exactly at nine in the morning, Marina paid the state fee through her banking app and filed for divorce. She never returned to that apartment again…
