My hard-earned three-room apartment—the one I bought before marriage through years of relentless work and an early-paid mortgage—turned into a branch of a student dorm exactly six months ago.
As practice shows, sincere concern for others always seems to begin with an attempt to settle comfortably into someone else’s living space.
It all started when my sister-in-law’s son got into a university in our city. My sister-in-law, Marina, lives in a remote district town. She dismissed the dormitory option immediately: the crowd there was supposedly dubious, the boy would quickly go astray, and without hot home-cooked meals he would ruin his stomach.
My newly made husband Vadim sang like a nightingale back then, gazing into my eyes with the devotion of a golden retriever:
“Lenusya, just for a couple of months! The boy is sheltered, unprepared, the conditions there are awful. Ilyusha will find a part-time job and rent a room. We’re family, we have to support young talent!”
This “young talent,” twenty-year-old nephew Ilyusha, never looked for a job. The only thing he looked for was sausage in my refrigerator, and he devoured the food supplies with the inevitability of a locust swarm descending on fertile land.
In six months, this two-meter-tall infant had not managed to buy even a single roll of toilet paper for the house. But he regularly brought giggling girls into my apartment while Vadim and I were at work, and left mountains of dirty dishes in the sink, growing there like a scenic crop.
Vadim responded to my perfectly logical complaints like a true failed peacemaker. He avoided my eyes, fussed around, and muttered that throwing a child out onto the street would be the height of cruelty, and anyway, we just had to endure it—the boy was adapting to the big city.
The climax of this festival of audacity came on Thursday evening. Marina had specially taken a couple of days off before the weekend and came from her province to check on her precious boy.
Present in the arena were: sister-in-law Marina, mother-in-law Antonina Pavlovna, my husband, Ilyusha enthusiastically chewing away, and my friend Sveta, who had stopped by to borrow a baking pan and ended up with a front-row seat to the show.
“Lenochka, we had a little discussion and, in the interests of caring for the younger generation, decided that Ilyusha will stay with you until graduation,” sister-in-law Marina declared flatly, confidently scooping herself a serving from the salad bowl large enough to feed a division.
“It’s hard for him to bounce between rented rooms, and stress is bad for his studies.”
I looked at Ilyusha. The student weighed close to a hundred kilos, had the rosy complexion of a sturdy village lad, and at that exact moment was actively “stressing” by stuffing a fifth slice of roast pork into himself.
“And one more thing, Lena,” Marina continued.
“Since he’s living with you permanently, he needs to be registered there. Temporarily, of course! Strictly as a family initiative, so he can be attached to a decent clinic. How can he manage without doctors?”
Sveta coughed and smiled at such brazen nerve.
Antonina Pavlovna nodded majestically, adjusting the massive gold chain on her ample chest.
“This is your womanly duty, Elena. A wife’s wisdom lies in unconditional acceptance of her husband’s family. We are one whole now. What is yours is ours. You need to think more broadly instead of wasting away over your precious square meters.”
I turned to Vadim. My lawful husband had suddenly found a fascinating little stain on the tablecloth and was studying it with great care. He clearly understood that his female relatives had completely lost all sense of boundaries, but he chose to stay silent and play along for the moment.
No doubt in his bright head a plan was already forming: agree now, then somehow tactfully let the whole thing fizzle out later, so as not to offend his mother and not to fight with me.
“You know,” I said in an even, almost gentle tone, looking straight into my mother-in-law’s eyes,
“Blessed is he who believes; warm is the world to him.”
“What do you mean by that?” Antonina Pavlovna asked, lifting her chin arrogantly.
“I mean I completely agree with you,” I replied with a sweet smile, folding my hands together.
“You’re right. Tomorrow I’ll deal with the paperwork. Ilyusha really does need guarantees and stability.”
A collective sigh of relief passed over the table. Vadim beamed, proud that his ostrich strategy had worked. Marina gave Sveta a triumphant, condescending look, as if to say: see, this is how daughters-in-law are handled.
I started Friday morning productively: I took an unpaid day off from work. First, I stopped by the magistrate’s court and filed for divorce. After lunch, I called a locksmith who installed the most reliable and expensive lock cylinder on my door.
That evening Vadim and Ilyusha were returning from a football match. I could vividly imagine the idyllic picture: two well-fed, contented men approaching the apartment where coziness, comfort, and a tireless service unit supposedly awaited them.
But the key would not go into the lock.
The door opened from the inside. There I stood in a comfortable house outfit, and behind me, calmly looming, was the local police officer, Captain Smirnov.
Fortunately, neither my husband nor especially his nephew had ever been registered in my apartment. I had shown the captain a fresh extract from the property registry and the blank registration stamps in their passports, explaining that I was expecting a visit from unregistered individuals refusing to leave my property voluntarily, and that I needed the presence of a law enforcement officer to prevent a scandal.
In the spacious hallway, lined up in perfect geometric order, stood cardboard boxes. Exactly nine of them.
“Lenusya, what kind of joke is this? Did the lock jam or what? And why do we need the police?” Vadim blinked in confusion, shifting his gaze from me to the man in uniform.
“No joke at all, Vadim. The things are packed very neatly. Ilyusha’s game console and sneakers are in the blue boxes, your sweaters and razor are in the green ones,” I said, handing my husband a thick white envelope.
“And here is a copy of my divorce petition filed with the magistrate’s court. And the mailing receipt with the tracking number—your copy I thoughtfully sent by registered mail to your mother’s address. We have no children, and there is nothing for us to divide.”
My husband’s face fell as if he had just received a bill for someone else’s unlimited loan. Behind his uncle, Ilyusha stopped chewing his gum in alarm.
“Lena, are you out of your mind?! You’re destroying a family over some registration? I would have handled it myself!” Vadim’s voice broke into a shrill squeal.
“I just didn’t want to contradict Mom and my sister at the table and cause a scene! I thought later, quietly, through family connections, we’d find Ilyukha a dorm room!”
“There may have been worse times, but never baser ones,” I said with a calm shrug.
“You chose to be a convenient son and brother entirely at my expense. My home is not a holiday resort for overgrown freeloaders. Get out. The captain will make sure you don’t forget anything on the landing.”
“How dare you?!” Vadim tried to step forward, but Captain Smirnov pointedly adjusted the belt at his waist.
My husband stopped instantly.
I silently shut the door and, with deep satisfaction, turned the latch on the new lock.
Within five minutes my phone was exploding with notifications. I cold-bloodedly switched it to silent mode, made myself some green tea, and stepped out onto the enclosed balcony. From my floor there was a magnificent view of the courtyard parking lot—the perfect orchestra seats for the final act.
Puffing and groaning, Vadim and Ilyusha emerged from the entrance. They were hauling their belongings as mournfully as if they were bricks for building an Egyptian pyramid.
My almost-former relatives piled the boxes on the asphalt near the bench and sat on top of them. Vadim gestured furiously, shouting into his phone. Ilyusha scrolled gloomily through his feed.
The show began about forty minutes later. A yellow taxi screeched into the courtyard. Marina sprang out of it like an enraged fury. Right behind her, groaning loudly, climbed out Antonina Pavlovna.
“Are you a man or an empty shell?!” Marina’s booming voice rang across the courtyard, scattering the pigeons.
“How could you let that… throw my boy out into the street?!”
“Marina, what was I supposed to do?!” Vadim whined, flinging his hands about nervously.
“She brought a police officer! She changed the locks! She filed for divorce!”
My mother-in-law wailed loudly across the whole yard:
“She’s disgraced us! Disgraced us in front of the neighbors! Lenka!”
Antonina Pavlovna threw back her head and stared up at my balcony.
“Fear God! Let the child back in, it’s night outside!”
I opened the window just a crack. The air was fresh and pleasant.
“Antonina Pavlovna,” I said calmly, my voice carrying over the street noise,
“you yourself said yesterday: what’s mine is ours. So take your treasure home with you.”
On the neighboring balconies grateful spectators were already appearing. My friend Sveta from the floor below was openly cracking sunflower seeds, leaning on the railing.
“I’ll sue you! For taking the law into your own hands!” screeched Marina, trying to shove one of Ilyusha’s huge boxes into the taxi trunk.
The dimensions did not match. The taxi driver, a grim, sturdy man, got out of the car and barked:
“Hey, lady, this isn’t a truck! Either pay extra for oversized luggage, or walk!”
In the end, they had to call a second car. Vadim fussed around the boxes under the condemning stares of the elderly women from the courtyard. Ilyusha got a sharp slap on the back of the head from his mother after dropping a bag of sneakers into a puddle, and my mother-in-law drank sedatives straight from the bottle, heavily slumping onto the worn-out bench.
An hour later, this circus finally left my courtyard. According to rumor, that very night Vadim had to rent a room for his nephew on the outskirts at his own expense.
Never let anyone mistake your delicacy for weakness: once someone has comfortably placed their feet on your neck, they will never remove them voluntarily.
