Part 1. The Glass Tower of Illusions
Ulyana loved silence. For a screenwriter who created worlds out of the chaos of thoughts, silence was not merely the absence of sound, but a canvas. In their spacious apartment, which she had bought two years before meeting Eduard, the panoramic windows faced the sunset side of the city, flooding her desk with thick amber light.
Eduard, her husband, an illustrator with delicate fingers and an eternally absent gaze, had seemed like the perfect addition to this world. He was quiet, drew his fantastical monsters, and, as Ulyana had thought, valued personal space. They had registered their marriage just a month earlier, quietly, without any pompous celebrations, deciding that the money would be better spent on a trip.
The idyll cracked the moment Ulyana’s phone received a notification that her fee for the pilot episode of a new detective series had been deposited.
Eduard entered the study silently, like a cat that had smelled fish. He stood behind his wife and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Has it arrived?” he asked softly, though an unfamiliar, tense note rang in his voice.
“Yes. The channel approved the revisions,” Ulyana stretched, feeling a pleasant tiredness. “We can book a table at that rooftop restaurant.”
Eduard walked around the desk and sat opposite her, pushing aside a stack of drafts. His face became serious, almost solemn.
“Ulyana, we need to discuss resource distribution. Now we are a family, a single organism.”
“That sounds reasonable,” she nodded, not expecting a trap. “We agreed, didn’t we? We contribute to shared expenses, and the rest is each person’s private matter.”
“No, you didn’t understand,” Eduard shook his head, as if explaining a theorem to a child. “That isn’t how things are done in our family. In our lineage, my mother has always managed the financial order. She knows how to accumulate funds. This helps avoid unnecessary expenses and impulsive purchases.”
Ulyana froze. For a moment, she thought she had misheard.
“Wait. Are you saying I’m supposed to transfer my salary… to your mother? To Tamara Pavlovna?”
“Exactly. I transfer my fees to her too. She keeps a ledger and plans major purchases. If you need something — tights, coffee, whatever — you simply submit a request, and Mother allocates the funds. It’s very convenient, Ulya. Money in one pair of hands is power.”
Ulyana leaned back in her chair and studied her husband carefully. Sitting before her was not a talented artist, but a cult follower preaching absurdity.
“Edik, are you joking right now?” Her voice turned cold. “I’m not an ant in an anthill. I’m an adult. I’m thirty years old. I earn enough not to ask some other woman for money for sanitary pads.”
“She is not some other woman, she is your mother-in-law!” Eduard raised his voice, and hurt flashed in his eyes. “You are showing disrespect for tradition. You’re selfish, Ulyana. I thought we were one whole, but you…”
“And I am a person with a bank account and common sense. No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“No, I won’t give a single kopeck. We have our own family, Eduard. Or do you think we are a branch office of your mother?”
Eduard jumped up, red blotches spreading across his face.
“You’ll regret your greed! Mother knows life better than we do. You’re destroying trust right at the beginning of our path!”
He stormed out of the room, slamming the door loudly. Ulyana remained sitting in the silence, which now felt not like a creative canvas, but like the stillness before a storm. She remembered a line from an old rejected script of hers: “You want me to hand over all my savings to your mother?” Nadezhda asked in surprise… Back then, the producer had said it was too cartoonish, that things like that didn’t happen in real life.
“They do,” Ulyana whispered into the emptiness. “Apparently, things even worse than that happen.”
Part 2. The Scent of Vanilla and Betrayal
The next day, instead of trying to make peace with her sulking husband, who was demonstratively sleeping on the sofa and communicating only in single-syllable phrases, Ulyana made a phone call.
Marina, Eduard’s sister, agreed to meet at a small pastry shop in the city center. Ulyana had seen her sister-in-law only a couple of times. At the wedding, Marina had kept to herself, looking at her brother with pity and at Ulyana with sympathy — the nature of which the screenwriter had not understood then.
The pastry shop smelled of cinnamon and roasted almonds. Marina, a woman with sharp features and tired eyes, ordered black coffee without sugar.
“So he demanded that you ‘contribute to the common fund’?” Marina smirked after listening to Ulyana’s disjointed story. She did not look surprised.
“Yes. He said Tamara Pavlovna is an economic genius.”
Marina laughed, but the laugh was dry, like the crack of a breaking branch.
“A genius, yes. A vacuum-cleaner genius. Listen to me carefully, Ulyana. Run. Or, if you can’t run, protect your pockets like the Brest Fortress.”
“Why don’t you communicate with them? Edik says you have a difficult character.”
“I have an excellent character. I just know how to count. Five years ago, I worked two jobs and saved for a mortgage. Mother convinced me that it was safer to keep the money with her. ‘I’ll put it in at a good interest rate,’ she said. ‘We’re family.’ Do you know how it ended?”
Ulyana shook her head, feeling a chill creep down her back.
“When I found an apartment and asked for my money back, it turned out there was no money. Edik had needed a powerful new tablet and a trip to Italy ‘for inspiration.’ Mother decided his talent mattered more than a roof over my head. And when I caused a scandal, I was declared an ungrateful daughter, a mercenary creature who counted every kopeck from her own mother.”
“Did he know?” Ulyana asked quietly. “Did Eduard know it was your money?”
“Of course. He believes everyone owes him. He is talent, he is genius, and the rest of us are service staff. Mother convinced him that he is a prince, and all the women around him exist only to ensure his comfort. To them, you are not a wife now. You are a new resource. Fresh blood.”
Marina took a sip of coffee and looked Ulyana straight in the eyes.
“He won’t back down. His mother has already wound him up. They work as a pair: he pressures you emotionally, she pressures you with ‘respect for elders.’ If you give in even once, they’ll gut you.”
“I won’t,” Ulyana said firmly, gripping her cup so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “But I’m not going to simply leave either. I want to see just how far their nerve will go.”
“Oh, believe me, there is no bottom there,” Marina smiled sadly. “Take care of yourself.”
Part 3. The Electronics Hypermarket
A week passed in a state of cold war. Eduard played the role of offended virtue, periodically sighing so loudly that Ulyana’s jaw tightened. He was waiting for apologies and, of course, a transfer of funds.
Ulyana’s anger transformed. First there had been hurt, then bewilderment, and now there came an icy, calculating fury. She saw how her husband secretly called his mother, how he whispered complaints to her on the balcony, receiving new instructions.
On the day she received the second part of her fee, Ulyana decided to act. Her old computer mouse was malfunctioning and causing pain in her wrist. She went to a huge electronics store, glittering with display windows and screens.
She chose a professional model — ergonomic, expensive, and incredibly comfortable. The mouse cost twenty-five thousand rubles. For Ulyana, it was a work tool, an investment in her health.
She tapped her card against the terminal. The payment beep sounded like the shot of a starting pistol.
Less than three minutes later, the phone in her hand vibrated. The screen showed: “My Love.” Ulyana smirked and answered.
“What did you buy?!” Eduard’s voice broke into a falsetto.
“A computer mouse. Mine broke.”
“For twenty-five thousand?! Are you out of your mind?!” he shouted so loudly that Ulyana had to move the phone away from her ear. “Mother needs medicine for her joints, we were planning to set money aside for repairs at the dacha, and you buy… a mouse?!”
“Edik, it’s my money. I earned it by sitting at a computer for twelve hours a day. My hand hurts.”
“Your money is our money! And Mother manages our money! That’s it, my patience has run out. You’re going to her right now. We need to have a serious talk. Mother will explain to you how a decent woman behaves in a family!”
“All right,” Ulyana replied calmly, looking at the receipt. “I’ll come. It really is time to dot every i.”
There was so much metal in that “all right” that any reasonable person would have become wary. But Eduard, blinded by greed and his mother’s teachings, heard only obedience. He did not know that Ulyana was not coming to apologize. She was going to write the finale of this drawn-out drama.
Part 4. The Stuffy Living Room with Carpets
Tamara Pavlovna’s apartment resembled a museum of Soviet petit-bourgeois life: heavy dusty curtains, glass-fronted cabinets full of crystal that was never used, and the smell of stale things.
Her mother-in-law sat enthroned in an armchair like a queen in exile. Eduard paced nervously around the room. As soon as Ulyana crossed the threshold, he rushed toward her.
“Show it! Show me that receipt!” he demanded, stretching out his hand.
Ulyana calmly took out the box with the mouse and the receipt. Tamara Pavlovna put on her glasses, studied the amount, and theatrically clutched her heart.
“My God… Twenty-five thousand… On a trinket. Ulyana, dear, this is a crime against the family! Edik is wearing last year’s sneakers, and you…”
“Edik can earn money for his own sneakers,” Ulyana cut her off without taking off her coat. “And I earned money for what I need.”
“How dare you speak to Mother like that?!” Eduard shrieked. He flew toward Ulyana, his face twisted with rage. “You don’t understand words! Then we’ll act differently.”
He sharply yanked the strap of the handbag hanging from his wife’s shoulder. Ulyana had not expected physical aggression and did not have time to react. Eduard tore the bag away and shook its contents onto the sofa. Lipstick, keys, passport… And a bank card.
“Aha!” he cried triumphantly, grabbing the plastic rectangle. “Now justice will be restored. Tell me the PIN code! We’ll transfer everything to Mother’s account right now so you stop wasting money!”
“Eduard, put the card down,” Ulyana’s voice became quiet and frightening.
“PIN code!” he shouted, spraying saliva. Tamara Pavlovna nodded approvingly from the armchair.
“That’s right, son. Teach that spendthrift a lesson. Let her know her place.”
Ulyana slowly took out her phone.
“Speakerphone,” she said, looking her husband in the eyes. “Hello, bank? I want to block my card. Yes, it’s lost. No, stolen. Yes, right now.”
“What are you doing?!” Eduard froze, realizing that his prey was slipping away.
“The card has been blocked,” the operator’s emotionless voice announced.
“You bitch!” Eduard roared and lunged at his wife, trying to snatch the phone.
At that moment, something switched inside Ulyana. The anger that had accumulated over the week transformed into cold, precise calculation. She did not step back. She did not scream.
When Eduard’s hand reached toward her face, Ulyana stepped forward. Her fingers, accustomed to tapping on keys, clamped around her husband’s nose with a steel grip. She squeezed so hard that the cartilage crunched.
“Ow-ow-ow!” Eduard howled, staggering back.
He tried to strike her with the back of his hand, but Ulyana dodged and drove the sharp toe of her boot into his shin with all her force. Then, using the momentum of his fall, she delivered a ringing slap that snapped his head backward.
Eduard lost his balance. He tried to grab the edge of the table, but his hand slipped, and he collapsed to his knees, absurdly sticking his backside into the air. Without giving him time to recover, Ulyana gave him a solid kick below the back.
“Cl-cl-cluck!” Eduard made a strange, gurgling sound, like the clucking of a terrified chicken, and buried his face in the carpet pile. Blood ran from his nose, and beneath his eye an enormous bruise was already swelling purple.
Tamara Pavlovna squealed and tried to stand up, but got tangled in her blanket and plopped back into the armchair.
“You… you killed him!” the mother-in-law shrieked.
Ulyana fixed her hair, calmly gathered her things from the sofa, and took back the now-useless card. She approached Eduard, who was moaning and curled up on the floor. He was holding his swollen nose and looking at her with animal terror. His right eye was swelling shut before her eyes.
“Listen to me, ‘head of the family,’” she said clearly. “The apartment we live in is my property, bought before marriage. Your things will be gone from there by this evening. I’ll change the locks in an hour.”
“But… we’re…” Eduard mumbled nasally, swallowing tears and blood.
“I’m filing for divorce. And yes, I’ve consulted a lawyer. All those gifts and gadgets you bought with ‘shared’ money, the ones you don’t have receipts for, but there are witnesses who saw you using them — that is marital property subject to division. But you don’t have anything, do you? Everything is with Mother?”
She turned her gaze to Tamara Pavlovna.
“So live on Mother’s savings. I hope they exist.”
Part 5. The Gallery of Broken Hopes
Three days passed. Eduard sat in his mother’s kitchen, pressing ice to his blue-black face. His nose was swollen and looked like an eggplant, and walking hurt because of the sprain he had suffered when he fell.
But the worst pain was not physical.
That morning, he tried to log into his work account on a freelance platform to take an order — he had no money even for cigarettes. The password did not work. He restored access and discovered with horror that the profile had been blocked for violating the rules: someone had sent the administration evidence that the portfolio contained other people’s work.
But the real blow was still ahead.
The doorbell rang. A courier had arrived with a registered letter. It was a notice terminating his contract with the publishing house for which Eduard had been illustrating a book series. As it turned out, the controlling stake in the publishing house was owned by an old friend of Ulyana’s — the same one with whom she had drunk coffee in that very pastry shop.
Limping, Eduard went to his mother.
“Mom, I need money. Urgently. For a lawyer, for doctors… My nose needs to be set privately, the clinic has a waiting list. Give me money from our fund.”
Tamara Pavlovna looked away. She nervously fingered the fringe of the tablecloth.
“Son… You see, this is a difficult moment…”
“Mom, give me my money! I transferred seventy percent of my earnings to you for three years! There should be hundreds of thousands there!”
“Edik, don’t shout…” she shrank back. “I invested it. In a very promising cooperative. Golden Horizon.”
“And?” Eduard felt cold inside.
“It… they closed last week. They said on TV it was a pyramid scheme. I wanted the best, son! I wanted to multiply it!”
Eduard sank onto a chair. He made the same sound he had made during the fight — a muffled, pitiful clucking.
He had lost his wife. He had lost his home. He had lost his reputation. He had been beaten by a woman he had considered weak. And now he had learned that his mother, that “financial genius,” had flushed all his money down the toilet.
The ringing of the phone tore through the silence. It was Marina, his sister.
“Well, brother,” his sister’s voice was cheerful. “Ulyana told me about the show. They say you now look like a panda with its tail ripped off.”
“Marina, help…” he rasped. “Mom lost everything. I have nothing to live on.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Marina asked in surprise. “Your family has financial order. Go to the cashier. Oh, yes, Ulyana asked me to pass along a message: she bought a new mouse. Even better than the old one. And it works perfectly.”
Beeps.
Eduard looked at his reflection in the dusty glass of the cabinet. Staring back at him was a beaten, pathetic loser with a bruise across half his face, a man who had wanted to be a king but had ended up not even a pawn, just a piece knocked off the board. The contempt he had so generously given his wife had returned to him like a boomerang, multiplied by icy calculation and rage. He was ruined, humiliated, and locked in an apartment with his mother, who was guiltily frying cheap cutlets because there was no money left for anything else.
