From the very morning, Anfisa was out of sorts. And that was putting it mildly. She had already berated herself a hundred times for giving in to her husband Maxim’s persuasion.
“Fool, spineless fool!” she scolded herself.
The worst thing was that nothing could be changed now. Once she had agreed, there was no going back.
As luck would have it, Anfisa’s immediate boss, Nikolai Pavlovich, also seemed to have snapped today. He appeared to be deliberately trying to load her up with as many tasks as possible.
By lunchtime, she was practically dead on her feet. She dreaded the thought that after work she still had an exhausting shift waiting for her at home. Even the approaching weekend didn’t bring any joy—in fact, quite the opposite…
“Anfis, you in here?” asked her colleague and friend, Marina, peeking into the office. Anfisa, seizing a moment alone, was stretching her cramped feet, sore from her tight shoes.
There was a strict dress code in their office.
“I’m waiting for you by the cafeteria,” said Marina. “It’s our lunch break, after all.”
“Marin, I can’t. I’m exhausted,” Anfisa confessed.
After a quick glance at her friend, Marina didn’t need to ask any questions. She grabbed her phone and dialed a number.
“Two set lunches to the office,” she said into the receiver, giving their office number.
Having placed the order, Marina sat down across from Anfisa.
“Has the boss been running you ragged already?” she asked, nodding toward the reception area.
“Him, and not just him,” Anfisa replied wearily. “I came to work already drained. Max and I fought half the night. Tomorrow, his relatives are coming to visit.”
Anfisa cursed under her breath.
“What relatives?” asked Marina, immediately perking up.
“My husband’s folks,” Anfisa grumbled. “As the saying goes: ‘The plane’s landing, the wheels are worn down, we weren’t expecting you, but here you are anyway’!”
“Well, you should’ve refused from the start!” Marina admonished her. “I managed to chase off all of Pasha’s relatives from our place a long time ago.”
“I couldn’t,” Anfisa spread her hands. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Then let Max send them away before they arrive,” Marina persisted. “He can turn them around halfway here, or at least find them an apartment or a hotel. Why on earth should you have to carry his relatives on your back?”
Anfisa only sighed and waved her hand dismissively.
“Max convinced me, and I agreed…”
Marina rolled her eyes.
“Where are they coming from, anyway?” she asked.
“From a village…”
“Oooh, you’re in for it,” Marina looked at her friend as though she were doomed. “I never thought your Max would throw you under the bus like this.”
“Me neither,” Anfisa admitted honestly. “We’ve only been living together for less than a year. We didn’t even have a wedding ceremony—just got married at the registry office. So I’ve never met any of them until now. And suddenly, here they are, landing right on my head.”
“My sympathies…”
Marina clearly recalled something from her own experience and smirked. There was a knock at the door. A courier stood on the threshold, holding two set lunches. Marina paid and began to unpack the food.
“How many people are coming?” Marina asked.
“His parents, sister, and nephew… All in our two-room place!”
“A traveling madhouse,” Marina agreed.
She finished dealing with the packaging and placed Anfisa’s portion in front of her: soup, stew, salad, and crispy croutons. Then she started eagerly eating her own food.
“Office work is an eternal struggle,” Marina said with her mouth full. “Before lunch you fight hunger, after lunch you fight sleep.”
Anfisa let out a humorless laugh. Judging by their boss’s zeal today, the only kind of sleep she’d be getting after lunch would be the eternal kind…
“Go ahead, eat,” her colleague encouraged her. “You’re going to need your strength.”
Anfisa glanced at the food in front of her and grimaced.
“I can’t,” she said miserably. “All I can think about is spending half the night slaving away in the kitchen, cooking… So much for wanting to relax on a Friday evening.”
Marina just sighed sympathetically, continuing to wolf down her lunch. Meanwhile, a painful memory from Anfisa’s distant youth stabbed at her heart.
She was seventeen, standing at the sink washing a mountain of dirty dishes. Her mother, Elena Georgievna, already quite tipsy, staggered into the kitchen.
“Anfiska, come on,” she slurred to her daughter. “They’re about to make another toast…”
“Mom, but I’ve still got all this…” The girl nodded at the full sink, but her mother stubbornly pulled her away.
“Come on, you can finish washing up later!”
This was all happening on Anfisa’s own birthday.
Yes, Elena Georgievna loved celebrating it and having guests over, but the entire burden of hosting inevitably fell on the birthday girl’s shoulders. Her father, Alexei Petrovich, would start drinking in honor of his beloved daughter’s birth from the early morning onward.
And so it went year after year, until Anfisa was finally able to get as far away from her parents’ home as possible. After that, she learned to hate her own birthday.
When she started working here, she wrote her date of birth on the HR form but asked the head of HR not to publicize it in any way. She felt nauseated at the thought of possible congratulations and well-wishes.
Anfisa had only been working here for a year, and as it happened, her first birthday on the new job fell on a Saturday—tomorrow, in fact. She was overjoyed that colleagues wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The risk of them organizing some celebration was practically zero.
But then her husband, Maxim, came up with the idea of throwing a party for the occasion. Out of the blue, he practically informed her that his relatives were coming solely to celebrate her birthday. Anfisa never expected such a blow from her dear spouse.
“Max, I told you how much I hate this day!” Anfisa was on the verge of tears.
“Anfis, but you’ve never met my relatives, and they haven’t met you either, even though we’ve been living together for a year! I thought this was the perfect chance for everyone to finally meet.”
“And who decided it was such a great idea? You? You forgot to ask me?”
Anfisa was ready to explode. Maxim did his best to calm her.
“Anfis, just bear with it for a couple of days, please,” Maxim pleaded. “It’s their first time coming.”
So Anfisa gave in, and from early morning she had been unable to forgive herself for that surrender.
Marina did manage to convince Anfisa to eat, for which she was immensely grateful. Because even after lunch, Nikolai Pavlovich did not slow down in his flurry of tasks.
During a brief lull, Anfisa’s phone rang. She heard her mother, Elena Georgievna, on the line, sounding unsure.
“Daughter,” her mother slurred, “I want to wish you a happy birthday, my golden sunshine…”
“Mom, you’ve got it mixed up,” Anfisa said, lowering her voice. “It’s tomorrow.”
She looked around to make sure no colleagues overheard.
“Oh, right,” her mother giggled with a hiccup. “Then happy early birthday.”
“Thanks,” Anfisa replied coolly. “How are you guys?”
“Doing fine. Missing you!”
“How’s Dad?” Anfisa smirked.
“Dad’s fine… We’re celebrating.”
“I see.”
Saying goodbye, Anfisa quickly ended the call. She looked at the clock and saw that there was only one hour left in the workday. Time had flown by unnoticed. Normally, that would have made Anfisa happy, but today the prospect of going home so soon did not fill her with joy. Just then, her boss called her.
“Anfisa Alekseyevna, could you come to my office, please?” said Nikolai Pavlovich.
Feeling doomed, Anfisa headed for her boss’s office.
The moment she crossed the threshold, she froze. Almost all her colleagues were there. Marina was holding a big cake, someone else had a bunch of balloons. At the boss’s signal, everyone sang a well-known birthday tune and handed Anfisa the cake, a gorgeous bouquet, and a beautiful vase bought collectively as a gift. Anfisa was touched. She cut the cake and handed out slices to her colleagues, who then dispersed back to their offices, leaving her and Nikolai Pavlovich alone to eat their pieces.
“Anfisa Alekseyevna, I hope you can forgive me for pushing you so hard today,” he said. “You’ve been on track for a bonus, and I wanted you to finish this project exactly today. Your bonus has already been approved, and you’ll see it in your account within the hour.”
“Thank you, Nikolai Pavlovich,” Anfisa said, stunned.
In the hallway on her way out, Marina caught up with her.
“Just keep your husband’s relatives in line!” she said, giving her friend a pep talk. “Good luck, dear. Hang in there!”
The moment Anfisa stepped into her apartment, she sensed there were strangers inside.
Indeed, in the kitchen, two women—one around fifty, the other in her thirties—were busy at the stove. They had to be her husband’s mother and sister. Seeing Anfisa, they smiled broadly and greeted her warmly. An eleven-year-old boy, presumably Maxim’s nephew, came into the kitchen and also greeted her. But Anfisa didn’t respond and shot out of the kitchen like a bullet.
“Max!” Anfisa yelled.
“You’re home already?” Maxim asked, stepping out of the bedroom. “We were in there with my dad…”
A man of about fifty-five, looking very much like Maxim, emerged from the bedroom.
“Well, hello, daughter,” he said with a warm smile.
But Anfisa’s anger could not be stopped.
“What is your family doing in my kitchen?” she railed at her husband. “You said they’d be arriving tomorrow!”
Max glanced awkwardly at his father, then quickly ushered Anfisa onto the balcony to talk.
“Calm down,” he said. “My mom and sister decided to lighten your load so you wouldn’t have to kill yourself cooking after work. They even brought all the groceries themselves. And Dad and I finally fixed that pesky closet door in the bedroom.”
Right then and there, Anfisa felt terribly ashamed of her behavior. On top of everything else, she learned that his relatives had rented a short-term apartment in their same building, so they weren’t even planning to stay with them. Anfisa broke down in tears and hurried to greet everyone properly, apologizing all the while.
The next day was the celebration.
As the guest of honor, Anfisa sat at the table listening to toasts and well-wishes directed at her. The dishes were replaced one after another, the plates taken away and washed, but Anfisa didn’t have to lift a finger.
Maxim’s relatives wouldn’t let her do anything, taking care of everything themselves. Even Maxim’s eleven-year-old nephew, Romka, was dutifully running back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, helping his mother and grandmother.
When the festivities ended, Anfisa discovered both the living room and kitchen perfectly cleaned. That evening, Maxim’s relatives headed home. After seeing them off at the train station, the couple decided to walk for a bit. Suddenly, Anfisa stopped short and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder without a word.
“What’s wrong, Anfis?” Maxim asked gently.
“Thank you,” she whispered, pressing herself close to him.
They stood that way for a while before continuing on. For the first time, Anfisa felt happy on that day.
