“I don’t need invitations — I’m your husband’s mother!” my mother-in-law shouted as she burst into the apartment.
“But we didn’t invite you,” Natasha said in confusion.
“I don’t need any invitations, I’m your husband’s mother!” her mother-in-law declared loudly, stepping decisively into the apartment. “Now let’s see what you’ve been feeding Volodya.”
She took off her boots and strode toward the kitchen with the confidence of someone who considered herself the rightful mistress of the home.
Natasha stood there, practically speechless. To say she was outraged would be a major understatement. Volodya wasn’t home. Which meant her mother-in-law, Vera Ivanovna, had let herself in with a key. But Natasha knew for certain there had only been three sets: one for her, one for her husband, and one spare. So had Volodya made another key behind her back and given it to his mother? That was crossing every possible line.
Ignoring Vera Ivanovna’s irritated muttering, Natasha calmly tied the belt of her robe and went to wash up. It was early morning, and soft sunlight poured through the windows of their new, spacious apartment. She and Volodya had bought it with a mortgage, spent many years paying off the loan while denying themselves a lot, and had only moved in a couple of weeks earlier.
While the new place was still being built, the couple had lived with Volodya’s mother. Vera Ivanovna had a harsh personality, and living under her roof had been a real ordeal, at least for Natasha.
It had started almost immediately.
On the very first day after the wedding, her mother-in-law came up to Natalia, looked her over carefully, and said:
“Hm… I can’t say I’m thrilled with you, daughter-in-law. In fact, I’m not especially pleased to share my home with another woman. But since Volodenka made his choice, I have no option but to accept it. Now, these are your duties: in the morning, you make your husband breakfast; before work, you do a bit of light tidying up — dusting, washing the sink, nothing difficult. After work, you wash the floors and make dinner so there is always food in the house. And on weekends you must…”
Natalia, who had always believed she could get along with anyone — especially her husband’s mother — listened in disbelief. Was this woman really planning to control every aspect of the young couple’s life? She and Volodya had their own home, their own rules. Natasha knew that Vova respected his mother, but not to this extent — letting her give orders and dictate their daily routine.
Natasha looked at her mother-in-law closely. Standing before her was a short, stocky woman a little over fifty. She wore a dark skirt of some indeterminate color that reached mid-calf and a gray sweater. She barely used makeup, and her hairstyle was plain, as if she had no interest in looking attractive. Natasha even found herself thinking that Vera Ivanovna might cut her own hair — it looked that simple and unadorned.
“But we didn’t invite you,” Natasha stammered.
“I don’t need invitations. I’m your husband’s mother!” her mother-in-law shouted as she burst into the apartment. “Now let’s see what you’ve been feeding Volodya.”
She kicked off her boots and confidently walked into the kitchen as if she were the mistress of the house.
Natasha stood there, literally open-mouthed. To say she was outraged would be an understatement. Volodya was not home. That meant her mother-in-law, Vera Ivanovna, had let herself in with some key. But Natasha clearly remembered: there had only ever been three sets of keys to the apartment. One for her, one for her husband, and one spare. So Volodya had made another key for his crazy mother behind her back and given it to her? That was too much!
Ignoring Vera Ivanovna’s grumbling, Natasha calmly tied the belt of her robe and went to wash her face. It was early morning, and the gentle sun was softly shining through the window of their magnificent new apartment. Natasha and Volodya had bought it with a mortgage, spent many years paying it off while denying themselves everything, and had finally moved in just a couple of weeks ago.
All the while their new home had been under construction, the couple had lived with Volodya’s mother. Vera Ivanovna was not known for her gentle nature, and life in her house, at least for Natasha, had been sheer hell.
It had started like this.
On the very first day after the wedding, her mother-in-law approached Natalia, looked her up and down critically, and said:
“Well… I can’t say I’m thrilled with you, daughter-in-law. In fact, I’m not exactly happy to share my home with some woman. But since my Volodyenka chose you, it’s my duty to accept it. Your responsibilities are as follows: in the morning, make your husband breakfast; do some light cleaning before work — dust here and there, wash the sink, little things like that. After work, wash the floors, cook dinner, and make sure there is always food in the house. On weekends you must…”
Natalia, who had been sure she could get along with anyone, especially with her husband’s mother, practically family, listened in disbelief. Was this woman really planning to organize the newlyweds’ life as she saw fit? She and Volodya had their own family. Natasha knew that Vova respected and honored his mother deeply, but to such an extent that he would let her boss them around and set their schedule…
Natasha looked at her mother-in-law’s face. Before her stood a short, sturdily built woman in her early fifties, dressed in a gloomy, indeterminate-colored skirt of the old-lady kind that fell to mid-calf, and a gray sweater. She hardly wore any makeup, styled her hair simply, and clearly made no effort to look attractive. Natasha even wondered whether she cut her own hair — the hairstyle looked that primitive.
The expression on Vera Ivanovna’s face was distinctly unfriendly. One look at her gave the immediate impression that this woman was very dissatisfied with something. A crease between her brows, thin lips that seemed never to smile.
Sunny, cheerful Natasha, who had always been loved and spoiled by her parents, instantly felt the rays of happiness inside her begin to fade. She understood: life in this house would be hard.
That very evening, Natasha wept bitterly when she and her husband were finally alone in the apartment. Her mother-in-law had gone to church — she was a religious woman who tried to observe rituals strictly — and Natasha cried out:
“Volodya! I’m not going to live with your mother! It’s impossible! Let’s rent a room, go anywhere. I can’t stay here. Look at this apartment — it’s dark and gloomy.”
“My dear Natasha, sweetheart, we’ll have to endure it,” her husband coaxed. “You know we have to pay off the mortgage. But as soon as we do, I promise we’ll move out right away. For now we’ll rent the place out to close this burden faster. Yes, my mother has a difficult character, but that’s because she raised me alone and had to work hard. Just hold on for a few years, and then everything will be ours.”
“It’s such a pity my parents are gone and we can’t live with them,” Natasha cried. “You would see they were completely different. They knew how to give warmth to people. Our home was always so good and peaceful.”
“It’s all right, darling, in time you and Mom will get along,” Volodya said, stroking his crying wife’s head. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see. She’s kind, just strict. And besides, she promised to help with the mortgage.”
“All right,” Natalia said, blowing her nose and wiping away her tears tiredly. “But promise me you’ll protect me.”
“Of course, my treasure! I love Mom, but I won’t let anyone hurt you, not even her.”
From that day on, Natasha’s life became very strange. From morning till night she did housework, constantly washing, scrubbing, and cleaning something. She even ran off to work with relief, just to spend some time in a place where smiling, laughing loudly, and drinking coffee during breaks were not forbidden and did not make her feel like a criminal.
Vera Ivanovna, constantly making sure her daughter-in-law knew how clumsy and incapable she was, taught her how to cook Volodya’s favorite dishes, how to iron his shirts a special way, how to scrub pots until they shone, how to clean so as not to disturb her husband — meaning only when he was out — and how to arrange things only the way he was used to.
Natasha forgot what it was like to go to a museum or a café with friends, to take courses, to pursue her hobby. Her mother-in-law considered all of that a waste of time. A married woman, she taught Natalia, had to devote herself entirely to her family.
Little by little Natasha withered, gradually sinking into sadness. Her friends, seeing that it was impossible to drag her anywhere, impossible to visit her, and that she always nervously cut phone conversations short the moment she heard her mother-in-law’s footsteps, eventually stopped calling. At first they urged Natasha to move out with her husband or even divorce him if he was such a weakling and couldn’t stand up to his mother, but she would shake her head:
“Where would I go? My parents are gone, and their apartment was sold to pay off a debt they didn’t have time to settle. Besides, I love Volodya.”
“But you work! Rent yourself a one-room flat, and life will get better,” her friends said all at once. “Natashka, you can’t live like this! You’re not yourself anymore. You’ve become a shadow of who you were. You’ll drive yourself into an early grave — and for what??”
But Natasha would quietly reply:
“No, girls. I got married, so this is how it must be. Fate…”
Eventually, her friends gave up.
“As you wish! But we warned you. Think about it — when you grow old and look back, what will you have seen in this life?”
Her husband never protected Natasha at all. He silently supported his mother, even though he had promised his wife to help her in the difficult task of dealing with her mother-in-law. In fact, it was comfortable for him: two women did nothing but serve him.
Years passed. Natasha’s life resembled Groundhog Day: in the mornings she automatically made breakfast, then packed a homemade lunch for both herself and her husband, cooked the night before — her mother-in-law believed canteen food was harmful to her darling son, and since Natasha cooked so much, there was enough left for her too — and went to work. By the way, she no longer liked her job, and it was no longer an escape: a good, understanding, humane boss had quit, and in his place they brought in some representative of office plankton who adored regulations, immediately banned tea breaks and conversations on any topic except work, and vigilantly monitored whether colleagues were late. At the same time, labor productivity mysteriously plummeted: where before employees could spend half the day drinking tea and then throw themselves into solving a problem and brilliantly handle even the hardest task together, now everyone was on their own and stewed in their own mess as best they could.
Gossip and backbiting began. Boredom and melancholy flourished in the office.
After work, at exactly 5:00 p.m., Natasha went home. While her colleagues at least occasionally went to the theater or movies or traveled to the sea, Natasha and Volodya went nowhere. His mother considered that too expensive and, besides, a meaningless waste of time.
So Natasha went home, where she cleaned, cooked dinner, and prepared lunch for the next day. Before bed she watched some movie and simply lived through its heroine — because she had long since ceased to have a life of her own.
Vera Ivanovna was always gloomy. Once Natasha caught herself thinking that in all those years she had never once seen a normal smile on her mother-in-law’s face, except perhaps an occasional smirk. Her mother-in-law spoke clearly, quickly, and confidently, and looked at everyone with disapproval. Whatever her daughter-in-law did, she could never please her husband’s mother.
At some point Natasha suddenly realized she could not go on. She began slipping into utter apathy, into an existence that had not the slightest meaning. On top of that, she could not get pregnant — she believed that a child would give meaning to her life and bring hope and some joy back into it.
And then one day Volodya came home beaming.
“Natasha! Mom!” he shouted from the doorway. “That’s it — our building is finished, we’re moving into our own apartment soon!”
But Natasha no longer had the strength to be happy. She had no strength for anything. Her mother-in-law merely pressed her thin lips together:
“And what are you so happy about? You still have the mortgage to pay. Stay here with me for now — at least life is cheaper this way. We buy groceries together, and I pay the utilities…”
Natasha raised her head, which had long been habitually lowered. Her eyes met her mother-in-law’s.
“Volodya,” Natalia said clearly and calmly to her husband, without looking away, “if we stay here even one more week, I will die. Do you hear me, Volodya?”
“Dear Lord, what nonsense your wife is talking…” Vera Ivanovna began to wail.
But her son, looking closely at his wife’s pale face, suddenly found the courage to object to his mother:
“Mom, please be quiet. We’re moving out. We’re moving after the weekend.”
Natasha burst into tears. The apathy began to retreat, giving way to other feelings — anger, joy, satisfaction — in short, all the feelings Natasha had suppressed inside herself for many years.
And the couple really did move out. Natasha seemed transformed: in her own apartment she blossomed, looking ten years younger. She flitted around the house, happily doing cosmetic repairs with her husband, and in the mornings she would throw open the windows and listen to birds singing — their building was near the city park. Natasha suddenly called her friends and demanded that they take her with them immediately to the next exhibition and to a café.
“And in general, we need to meet more often,” Natasha said. “Girls, life is only one — let’s give ourselves pleasure whenever we can.”
Her friends shouted “Hooray!” and were practically ready to throw their bonnets in the air. Natasha had come back to life!
As for her mother-in-law, for a while she seemed to quiet down. She was utterly amazed that her son and daughter-in-law had stepped out of line.
And then Vera Ivanovna showed up at their home uninvited, as if it were still her territory. As if she had the right. Natasha washed her face, pinned up her hair, put cream on her face — all the while listening to the nonstop grumbling coming from the kitchen. Then she went up to her mother-in-law and stood in the doorway, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Vera Ivanovna, no one invited you here. This is not your home, but mine and Volodya’s. There is only one mistress here, and that is me. And it is for me to decide what to feed my husband and when to clean — or not clean. If Volodya wants to visit you, he may do so at any time, and I won’t object. But I will never come to your place again. And I do not want to see you in my home. So here is God, and there is the threshold. Is that clear? If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.”
Vera Ivanovna stood there petrified. But at the mention of the police, she ran into the entryway, quickly pulled on her boots, and snatched up her coat.
“And give me the keys, please,” Natasha said coldly, holding out her hand.
Her mother-in-law threw the keys on the floor.
“No wonder I couldn’t stand you from the very beginning!” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Never mind, I’ll tell Volodya — you’ll get divorced and be left with nothing.”
“You may tell Volodya whatever you like,” Natasha replied. “But as it happens, he now lives his own life. Sorry about that. He has become an adult, as he recently realized. And he will decide for himself what to do.”
Her mother-in-law hurried down the stairs.
And Natasha smiled and went into the kitchen to drink coffee with a croissant. Yes, everything had changed. Volodya really had grown up — he understood that his wife was a true treasure, while his mother had spent all those years acting like a vampire, slowly sucking the life out of his daughter-in-law.
Though sometimes, apparently, he still weakened — why else had he made his mother a key? But never mind, little by little he would rid himself of his dependence on her completely and finally separate from her for good. Now his family was Natasha. The two of them were happy together. They did what they wanted, made plans, and carried them out.
Their life would be wonderful! And they would surely have a child — now a baby would want to be born to such happy and free parents. Only good things lay ahead!
As for the mother-in-law… well, she had two choices: remain as she was and live out her days in loneliness and bitterness, or open her heart, ask her son and daughter-in-law for forgiveness, and begin a new life, learning to love and cherish those she loved.
Which would she choose? That was entirely up to her — Natasha no longer cared. From now on, she confidently steered her own ship through life.
The sun was shining, and a light breeze blew through the open window.
“Hello, new day!” Natasha said aloud. “You will be exactly as I want you to be!”
And she poured herself a second cup of excellent Americano.
Things were far more complicated in Kristina and Sergey’s family. They returned from vacation, but instead of peace and comfort, chaos awaited them in the apartment. The moment they crossed the threshold of their home, they found themselves caught in a tangled web of deception and secrets.
