About an hour before the guests were due to arrive, I went out to the veranda for some napkins and noticed a wooden planter of basil on the floor. That morning, it had been on the kitchen windowsill. Gleb had also left a basket of onions and a couple of jars of homemade pickles there. I had planned to serve the pickles with dinner.
“Why did you move all this out here?” I asked.
From the living room, my husband replied that the kitchen was cramped enough already, especially with six people coming for dinner. I took the basil straight back to the window. The temperature was expected to drop to around five degrees that night, and I wasn’t going to leave it on the cold veranda. I put the pickles in the pantry, followed by the basket of onions.
A few minutes later, Gleb came into the kitchen. When he saw the basil, he frowned.
“I already put that away.”
“I noticed.”
“It would have been fine out there for one evening.”
“Who’s it bothering here?”
Gleb straightened the edge of the tablecloth. After a pause, he answered, “No one. I just want everything to look tidy.”
I had cleaned the kitchen that morning, so a lack of space clearly wasn’t the issue. I didn’t want to start an argument right before the guests arrived, so I said nothing. But I took note of exactly which things my husband had decided to hide from view.
My parents had given me this house two years before our wedding, when they decided to move to the city. It was nothing fancy: an ordinary brick house in a village about thirty kilometers from the regional capital. It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a veranda, and a plot of land.
For the first year of our marriage, Gleb and I rented an apartment. Then the landlady told us she planned to sell it, and I suggested we move into my house for a while.
“Until spring at the latest,” Gleb said at the time. “In the spring, we’ll find somewhere closer to work.”
But by spring, the search for another place had somehow fallen by the wayside. It took my husband about forty minutes to drive to his office, he could park easily in the yard, and he gradually turned the smaller bedroom into a home office. First we moved in his desk, then we bought a comfortable chair, and later Gleb mounted two shelves on the wall himself. We split the utility bills, and we both bought groceries. Gleb also replaced the light fixtures in the hallway and repaired the gate with my father. We made no major changes to the house while we lived there together. He never hesitated to help my parents, either, so for a long time I took his first odd remarks as jokes that simply didn’t land.
The first truly unpleasant conversation happened before a dinner with his colleagues. I was standing in front of the mirror choosing earrings while Gleb buttoned the cuffs of his shirt. In an offhand tone, he suddenly asked, “If the house comes up in conversation, can we avoid going into the details?”
“What details?”
“You know, who gave it to you, where you grew up, all that. We can just say we live outside the city.”
At first I laughed. I thought he was only worried I might launch into another long story about my family.
“I could make up a new address while I’m at it.”
“Don’t start. I want to have a pleasant evening without endless talk about the village, the vegetable garden, and everything else.”
I put on the earrings and let the subject drop. At the restaurant, one of Gleb’s colleagues complained about how expensive rent had become, then asked how long ago we had bought our house outside the city.
I didn’t even have time to open my mouth.
“We’ve been settling in for three years now,” Gleb said. “It’s a good location, and we have a place of our own.”
Strictly speaking, Gleb hadn’t said he had personally bought the house. But that was certainly how his answer sounded. I could have cleared it up with one short sentence, but I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to create an awkward moment in front of people I was meeting for only the second time.
On the drive home, though, my irritation finally broke through.
“Why couldn’t you just say my parents gave me the house?”
Gleb changed lanes before answering.
“Because he didn’t care. He was asking about living outside the city, not whose name is on the deed.”
“Then why did you specifically ask me not to say anything before we went to the restaurant?”
“Because sometimes you start a story with your great-grandfather. I didn’t want to spend the whole evening listening to people discuss how you grew up among the vegetable beds.”
“For the record, I grew up in a perfectly ordinary house, not ‘among the vegetable beds.’”
“There you go. You’re starting already.”
We barely spoke for the rest of the drive. We didn’t return to the subject at home, either, and the next morning we both went to work.
A couple of months later, Gleb invited friends over for the weekend. He bought the groceries himself, washed the veranda that morning, and fixed a loose door handle. Then he began studying the kitchen as though he had never seen it before.
“Do these jars have to stay right here?”
There were four jars of different grains on an open shelf, plus two filled with dried apples.
“Where else should I put them?”
“Put them in a cupboard.”
“The dishes are in there.”
Gleb cleared a little space on the shelf, moved one of the jars, and gave an irritated sigh.
“We have a nice house. Why make it look like a village shop?”
“Because there’s buckwheat on a kitchen shelf?”
“Because too many things are always out in the open.”
I decided to give in and moved the jars to the pantry. I didn’t want to ruin the weekend with another argument. But the next day, I put everything back. Gleb noticed but said nothing.
A few weeks later, my husband was talking on speakerphone with his old friend Matvey. After discussing cars, Matvey complained about how cramped his apartment was and admitted he was thinking of moving outside the city, too.
“You’re lucky,” he said. “You’ve got your own house and a yard.”
“Yeah,” Gleb replied. “Nothing could drag me back into an apartment now. At least here I feel like the man of the house.”
I heard those last words as I walked down the hall. Later, while sorting the clean laundry, I asked, “Do you really think of yourself as the owner of this house?”
“What else am I supposed to think when I’ve lived here for three years?”
“You could think of yourself as the husband of the woman who owns it.”
Gleb gave a short laugh, though there was no real amusement in his voice.
“This is exactly why I can’t stand talking about the paperwork. The moment it comes up, I sound like some tenant.”
“Nobody called you a tenant.”
“But you can always remind me who owns the house when it suits you.”
This time, it was harder to argue back. During several earlier fights, I really had told him, “If you don’t like it here, nobody’s making you stay.” At the time, I thought I was defending my right not to put up with hurtful jokes. Now, suddenly, the words sounded different to me.
“Yes, I said that,” I admitted. “And I was wrong. But you shouldn’t tell the story of this house differently every time just because the truth makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not telling it differently. I just don’t think I need to announce to every person we meet what your parents gave you.”
That was the end of the conversation. About an hour later, we were sitting side by side, looking online for a present for his mother.
Another month passed before Gleb suggested hosting a dinner at our house. Matvey and Inna were coming, along with another married couple. My husband handled most of the preparations: he ordered the main dishes, bought dessert, and moved the table. I made a salad and planned to open some homemade pickles to go with it. That was the day Gleb moved the basil, the basket of onions, and the jars out to the veranda.
The guests arrived at around seven and parked in the yard. Matvey had never been to our house before, so he almost immediately asked for a tour. Gleb showed him around. He led his friend through the living room, showed him the office and the veranda, and explained how the heating worked and where it was best to park in winter.
“It’s such a difference after an apartment,” he said. “At least you’ve got room to move here.”
At dinner, we started out talking about road repairs, work, and vacation plans. Inna asked if it was difficult to clear the yard of snow in winter. The other woman asked how long our morning commute took. Gleb answered every question about the house in detail, and with obvious pleasure.
After a while, Inna noticed the basil by the window.
“Does yours really last until autumn? No matter how often I try growing it, mine dies within a month.”
“It needs plenty of light,” I said. “In winter, I just move the pot closer to the window.”
“Do you grow anything in the summer?”
“Some herbs, cucumbers, a few tomato plants. Nothing much.”
Gleb leaned back in his chair and smirked.
“With us, it always starts as ‘nothing much.’ Then suddenly half the kitchen is covered in jars.”
“You made sure nobody would see them today,” I said.
Inna looked first at Gleb, then at me.
“What jars?”
“Just ordinary jars of pickles.”
Then Gleb made a mocking comment from the other end of the table.
“Looks like you can’t get rid of those village habits.”
He said it lightly, almost carelessly, clearly expecting the guests to laugh along.
Matvey reached for the salad, then stopped. Inna quit stirring her tea. Silence settled over the table. Nobody smiled.
“Gleb, then explain why you’ve been living in a house that belongs to me for the past three years,” I asked.
The smile vanished from my husband’s face.
“Why are you bringing this up right now?”
“When should I bring it up? You’re the one who just raised the subject.”
“I was joking.”
“Well, I don’t find it funny.”
“You didn’t have to start an argument in front of the guests.”
“But you’re the one who made that remark in front of them.”
Inna asked someone to pass the salad, and Matvey hurriedly started a conversation about vacations with the other couple. No one tried to reconcile us, shame either of us, or say who was right. About an hour later, the guests began to leave.
After everyone had gone, Gleb stayed out in the yard for a while as I cleared the food from the table. He came into the kitchen just as I was closing the refrigerator door.
“Well, are you happy now?” he asked.
“No.”
“You certainly showed everyone who really owns this house.”
“I didn’t say anything about the deed.”
“You didn’t need to. Your question was enough.”
Gleb took off his jacket, hung it neatly over the back of a chair, and sat down at the table.
“Do you even understand how this looks to other people? I’m forty years old, living in my wife’s house, which her parents gave her. Anyone would think I’ve landed myself a pretty sweet deal.”
“Has anyone ever said that to you?”
“No one would say it to my face.”
“Then why are you ashamed in advance of something other people might never even have thought?”
For a while, Gleb stared silently out the window. Then he ran a tired hand over his face.
“Because I don’t like the situation myself. A proper man should provide a home for his family, not move into his wife’s place.”
I had never heard him explain it that way before.
“So to feel like a proper man, you need to make me look ridiculous?”
“I’m not making you look ridiculous. You take every comment as a personal insult.”
“Tonight, at the table, that comment was about me.”
“But you really did grow up in a village. What did I say that wasn’t true?”
We were starting to circle back to the same arguments. I poured myself a glass of water, sat down across from Gleb, and spoke much more calmly.
“All right. Let’s stop picking apart each other’s words. We need to live separately for a while.”
Gleb was so surprised he asked me to repeat myself.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. You’ll find an apartment and move your things there at your own pace. I’m not asking you to leave tonight with a few bags in your hands. And there’s no reason for me to move out of here.”
“So you’re throwing me out of the family because of one bad dinner?”
“I’m asking you to move out of the house because all our conversations before tonight have gone nowhere. Dinner just made that clear.”
Gleb was quiet for a moment, then took out his phone.
“Fine. Suppose I start paying you separately every month to live here. Would that solve the problem?”
“No. This has nothing to do with money.”
The very next day, Gleb began looking for a rental apartment. He ruled out several immediately: some were too expensive, while others were inconvenient for work. About a week and a half later, he found a suitable one-bedroom apartment only fifteen minutes from his office. He met the landlady, signed the lease, paid the deposit, and covered the first month’s rent.
The move took two weekends. Gleb packed his clothes in large bags, put his books in cardboard boxes, and carefully wrapped his monitor in a blanket. He had to take the desk apart because it wouldn’t fit through the doorway of the new apartment in one piece. Matvey helped with the heavy things. Throughout all of it, he never said a word about our marriage or our relationship.
We didn’t divide every last cup we owned together. Gleb took the things that were clearly his: his tools, computer, coffee grinder, and clothes. We decided to leave the things we had bought together as they were for the time being.
On the second weekend, Gleb finished clearing out his old office, checked the cupboard one last time, and carried his final box into the hallway. Then he took out his keys and removed the house key and the key to the gate. He placed both on the cabinet.
“I don’t have any other copies.”
“Okay.”
Just before leaving, Gleb stopped by the door.
“I still don’t think you’re completely right about any of this.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“And I’m not planning to file for divorce tomorrow.”
“I’m not planning to, either. Not at the moment.”
Gleb picked up the last box and went out into the yard. A minute later, I heard the engine start. My husband closed the gate behind him, got into his car, and drove away.
After he moved, we mostly communicated by text, and only about practical matters. A few days later, Gleb remembered he had left a ladder and a set of winter tires in the shed. On Saturday, he called from the gate. I went out, opened it, then unlocked the shed.
As Gleb carried the tires to his car, I asked, “How’s the apartment?”
“Small. And the upstairs neighbor starts drilling at eight every morning.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
Gleb smiled, too.
“But it only takes me fifteen minutes to get to work now.”
“That’s something.”
He closed the trunk, said goodbye, and drove off. We never returned to what had happened at dinner.
The following week, I asked a contractor to measure the window in the room that had been Gleb’s office. A noticeable draft had been coming through the old frame for ages, but we had kept putting off replacing it. The contractor took the measurements, entered the details into his phone, gave me an approximate time frame, and left.
After he was gone, I removed the remaining shelf brackets from the wall and brought in two boxes of books from the living room. I hadn’t yet decided what to do with the newly empty room.
By evening, the house looked almost the way it used to. The basil was green on the kitchen windowsill, the jars stood in the pantry, and the spot in the yard where Gleb usually parked his car was empty.
