“Veronica, why doesn’t it smell like anything in here today?”
Arkady stopped in the kitchen doorway and sleepily rubbed his stomach beneath his gray sweatshirt. The clock showed half past twelve. Usually, by this time, their spacious three-bedroom apartment was already filled with delicious aromas: meat roasting with garlic, rich borscht simmering on the stove, or fresh pastries baking in the oven.
But today, everything was completely different.
The stove gleamed spotlessly. There wasn’t a single pot or frying pan on it. Not even the faintest hint of lunch being prepared hung in the air.
Meanwhile, Veronica stood in front of the hallway mirror, carefully fastening a delicate silver chain around her neck. She was wearing an elegant dark-blue dress she had bought about a month earlier.
“Because there’s nothing cooking today,” she replied calmly without even turning around.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I’m not cooking anything today. I’m going out.”
“Where are you going?” Arkady blinked several times, finally waking up completely. He leaned heavily against the doorframe.
“What about Mom? And Aunt Raya and her husband? They said they’d be here by two!”
“Then you can spend time with them,” Veronica said, picking up the handbag she had prepared in advance.
“Are you serious right now?”
“Absolutely. You know where the kettle is. The tea is in the cupboard. And if you search the freezer carefully, you might even find a package of dumplings that’s been there since last month.”
The tradition of holding family lunches every Saturday had begun about three years earlier. That was when Arkady’s mother, Klavdia Mikhailovna, had confidently declared that relatives needed to see one another much more often. Besides, her son had a large apartment with enough space for everyone.
From that day on, almost every weekend became another work shift for Veronica—one for which nobody even properly thanked her.
On Saturdays, she got up at seven in the morning. She chopped vegetables, marinated meat, baked some dishes, boiled others, prepared appetizers, and covered the enormous oak table—which Arkady had bought especially for family gatherings—with food.
Then came the second part of the program.
Klavdia Mikhailovna inevitably remarked that the meat was a little dry, the salad could have used more salt, and the main course should have been served earlier.
When the relatives finally left, Veronica spent several more hours at the sink, dealing with a mountain of greasy plates, salad bowls, glasses, and pots. Sometimes she didn’t finish until late at night.
“Oh, not this again!” Arkady frowned and walked into the hallway, positioning himself so that he almost blocked his wife’s path to the door. “What do you mean, order food?”
“Anything. Pizza, sushi, pies. Delivery is fast these days.”
“You know perfectly well that Mom doesn’t eat that kind of food!” Arkady exclaimed. “She has problems with her pancreas! She needs proper, hot, home-cooked food!”
Red blotches gradually spread across his cheeks.
Arkady genuinely couldn’t understand what was happening. For years, everything had worked in a perfectly predictable way: his relatives announced that they were coming, and Veronica prepared the table for their arrival. All he had to do was take a shower, change his clothes, and sit down with everyone.
And now, for some reason, the familiar system had suddenly stopped working.
“Then make your mother oatmeal with water,” Veronica said with a faint smirk. “The oats are in the bottom drawer.”
“Do you even hear yourself?”
“Or you could cut a piece off your wonderful oak table. You said you bought it espec—”
“Very funny!” Arkady raised his voice.
He clenched his fists and nervously shifted from one bare foot to the other.
“I worked nonstop all week! I have one proper day off! I have the right to sit peacefully with my family at a well-prepared table!”
Veronica slowly straightened.
Until that moment, she had been trying to remain calm, but her husband’s final statement destroyed what was left of her restraint.
“So you think I spent the entire week relaxing somewhere with a cocktail in my hand?”
She gave Arkady a hard look.
“I work too—every weekday from nine in the morning until six in the evening. The only difference is that when you come home, you collapse onto the sofa and pick up your phone. When I come home from my regular job, I begin another shift in front of the stove.”
“Cooking for the family is a normal woman’s responsibility!” Arkady blurted out, repeating a phrase Veronica had heard more than once from Klavdia Mikhailovna.
“Really? And is buying all the groceries with my own money also one of my responsibilities?”
Arkady immediately fell silent and looked away.
About six months earlier, he had been the one to suggest changing the rules regarding their family finances. He explained that he had bought a new car and now had to make loan payments, so it would be more reasonable—at least temporarily—to keep their finances separate.
They agreed to split only the utility bills, while each of them would pay for everything else independently.
For some reason, however, Arkady had preferred to forget about their weekly Saturday feasts. As a result, the expensive groceries for Klavdia Mikhailovna—fresh veal, red fish, and other delicacies—were always purchased with Veronica’s card.
“Last Saturday was the final one,” she said clearly.
Veronica didn’t take her eyes off her husband.
“Especially after your mother poked her fork into the trout I’d spent a considerable amount of money on and then declared that it had been frozen several times.”
“She was only expressing her opinion!”
“And you sat there smiling with satisfaction. That’s enough, Arkady. The show is over. I’m not working as your unpaid servant anymore.”
“Veronica, stop this. Mom will be offended.”
“Today is Rimma’s fiftieth birthday. I told you about it three weeks ago. But as usual, you only heard the things that concerned you.”
She firmly moved the bewildered Arkady away from the front door and reached for the lock.
“If you leave now, we’re going to have a serious argument!” her husband threatened.
Then he added emphatically:
“I will not tolerate this kind of treatment!”
“You’ll tolerate it. And if you don’t like it, stand in front of the stove yourself. It’s your choice.”
Veronica stepped across the threshold, and the door closed behind her.
The landing was cool and quiet. She took the elevator downstairs, walked out of the building, and breathed in the damp autumn air with pleasure.
For the first time in three years, her lower back didn’t ache on a Saturday, and her hands didn’t smell of onions.
Music thundered through the restaurant, guests talked cheerfully, and glasses clinked from time to time. Rimma was celebrating her fiftieth birthday in grand style and had invited only those whom she genuinely wanted by her side.
Veronica sat at the beautifully arranged table and slowly ate a magnificent julienne. The most pleasant thing wasn’t even the dish itself, but the realization that someone else had bought the ingredients, someone else had cooked it, and someone else would wash the plates after the celebration.
About two hours later, her phone vibrated inside her handbag.
Her husband’s name appeared on the screen.
Veronica calmly dabbed her lips with a napkin, apologized to the woman sitting beside her, and stepped into a quiet lobby decorated with tall mirrors.
“Yes?” she said in a perfectly calm voice.
“Veronica, it’s a complete nightmare here!” Arkady almost shouted.
In the background, Klavdia Mikhailovna’s shrill, indignant voice could be heard clearly.
“This is absolutely outrageous disrespect!” her mother-in-law complained loudly. “A mother comes to visit her own son, and there isn’t even anything to eat! Apparently, nobody was expecting us at all!”
“What happened, Arik?” Veronica asked with a smirk. “Did you burn the oatmeal?”
“They’re already here! Aunt Raya and her husband came too! We’re sitting at an empty table!”
Her husband was on the verge of becoming hysterical.
“Mom is horrified! She’s checking her blood pressure! Veronica, where is the food?”
“I told you before I left: order something. What’s stopping you?”
“The prices!” Arkady roared.
Judging by the change in background noise, he had stepped onto the balcony. Klavdia Mikhailovna’s voice became more distant, replaced by the sound of passing cars.
“I checked the delivery app! One decent set of food costs almost half my monthly car payment! And there are five of us!”
“So?”
“Even pizza costs a fortune! They’ve completely lost their minds! You could eat for a week with that kind of money! I’m not paying that much for one miserable lunch!”
“What an interesting thought,” Veronica drawled, resting her shoulder against the cool wall.
She admired her neat, freshly done manicure.
“So you don’t want to spend your own money?”
“That’s not the point! Their prices are several times higher than they should be!”
“But when I spent a substantial amount at the grocery store every Friday for your Saturday gatherings, you didn’t seem to mind. After all, your mother likes high-quality farm meat, doesn’t she?”
Arkady fell silent.
For several seconds, Veronica could hear nothing but the noise of the city.
“Veronica, please,” he finally said in a completely different voice.
His former self-confidence had vanished. Now Arkady sounded almost pitiful.
“Could you come back? You could quickly boil some potatoes and make a salad.”
“A salad?”
“There are pickled vegetables in the pantry. I promise I won’t ask for any more expensive groceries. Mom is even willing to eat pasta with canned meat now.”
Veronica looked at herself in the mirror.
A well-groomed woman in a beautiful dark-blue dress stood before her, with neatly styled hair and a peaceful expression. There was no kitchen apron, no exhaustion, and no smell of fried onions clinging to her hair.
“You know what, Arkady?” she said calmly. “Pickles are actually an excellent option.”
“There, you see! I told you! When will you be here?”
“Open a jar and slice some bread. You’ll have a wonderful festive table. As for me, I’m going back to the party, and I intend to dance. Today, I’m having a proper day off.”
“You have no right to treat my mother this way!”
“I already have. Goodbye, Arkady. Enjoy your meal.”
She ended the call, switched her phone to silent mode, and returned it to her handbag.
She suddenly felt incredibly light inside.
Veronica returned home late that evening, feeling completely calm. The celebration had been wonderful. She had laughed, danced, and, for the first time in a long while, truly felt rested.
The hallway was dark when she entered.
The heavy smell of overheated cooking oil and cheap sausages drifted through the apartment.
Veronica took off her shoes, walked into the kitchen, and turned on the light. What she saw deserved special attention.
The sink was overflowing with dirty plates, cups, and forks. A blackened frying pan containing the remains of some failed dish sat on the stove. Crumbs, used napkins, and several empty mayonnaise packages littered the enormous oak table.
Arkady sat in the living room, staring motionlessly at the switched-off television.
“So you came back after all,” he muttered without turning around.
“I came back,” Veronica replied evenly.
She stopped in the doorway.
“Mom left in tears. She said she would never come here again. She called this house inhospitable.”
“What a loss,” Veronica said with obvious irony. “I can’t imagine who will explain to me that I cooked the fish incorrectly now.”
“You destroyed our family tradition!” Arkady finally turned around sharply.
He looked exhausted and deeply offended.
“I didn’t destroy anything. I simply stopped paying for your tradition and working as its serving staff. Those are two different things.”
“A wife is supposed to take care of her husband and his family.”
“And a husband, incidentally, is supposed to take care of his own wife. And one more thing: we have separate finances. Have you forgotten? It was your idea. Your car, your expenses, and your guests.”
Veronica nodded toward the kitchen.
“So you’ll wash all the dishes your relatives left behind yourself.”
“I don’t even know how to clean grease like that!”
“You’ll learn. The sponge is beside the sink, and the dishwashing liquid is next to it.”
She calmly turned around and went to the bedroom, leaving her husband alone with the filthy kitchen and the family’s new rules.
There was no shouting, no smashed plates, and no hours-long argument.
The rules had simply changed from that moment onward.
Three weeks later, Saturday came around again.
Veronica was in no hurry. She brewed coffee in a cezve and occasionally looked out the window. A cold autumn rain was drizzling outside, while the wind scattered yellow leaves across the wet pavement. Inside the apartment, everything was peaceful, warm, and comfortable.
Arkady hurried around the hallway. He pulled on his jacket, glanced at the clock, and held a large bag filled with plastic containers.
“Are you going to your mother’s?” Veronica asked casually.
She poured fresh coffee into a cup and took a pleasurable sip.
“Yes. Now they meet at Aunt Raya’s place on Saturdays,” Arkady replied curtly, trying not to look his wife in the eyes. “Mom said she would never set foot in this apartment again. She’s still terribly offended.”
“I don’t know how we’ll survive such a loss,” Veronica said with a faint smile. “What’s in the bag?”
“I bought some pies on the way. And sliced meat,” her husband admitted reluctantly.
He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other.
“Mom said everyone has to bring their own food from now on. Aunt Raya immediately announced that she wasn’t going to feed a crowd for free every week. Her income isn’t unlimited.”
“Give them my warmest regards,” Veronica said with a completely sincere smile.
Arkady left.
The door closed, and the lock clicked twice from the outside.
Veronica picked up her cup of coffee and went into the living room. She had only one plan for the entire day: to curl up on the sofa beneath a soft blanket and read her new book.
And now, no mountain of dirty pots could take this Saturday away from her.
