I stood by the window of my new apartment and watched as, down below, my former mother-in-law dragged bags filled with her son’s belongings toward a taxi. Andrey trotted after her like a beaten puppy. Funny — just a month ago, I had been the one packing suitcases under her poisonous comments.
“Mom, maybe we should talk to her again?” his pitiful voice carried up to the third floor.
“Stop humiliating yourself! It’s her own fault — she doesn’t know how to keep a husband. You’ll live with your sister; at least she knows how to cook!”
And it had all started with an ordinary family dinner…
“Too salty again,” Valentina Pavlovna said with disgust, pushing her plate away. “Andryusha, how can you eat this?”
I silently took her plate away. Fourteen years of marriage had taught me one thing: you don’t argue with your mother-in-law. Especially when she comes “to stay for a week” and remains for two months.
“Mom, the soup is fine,” my husband muttered without looking up from his phone.
“Fine?” she threw up her hands theatrically. “Your sister Katya cooks so well you’d lick your fingers! She called yesterday, said she was making cutlets from my recipe. But this one…” She nodded in my direction. “She can’t even make soup.”
I kept washing the dishes, counting to ten in my head. To a hundred. To a thousand.
“Speaking of Katya,” Valentina Pavlovna turned to her son. “Did you take her the money? She’s on maternity leave, they’re having a hard time right now.”
“I’ll take it tomorrow, Mom.”
“Tomorrow, tomorrow… What, are you stingy with your own sister? Look at your wife, spending money on manicures, while our Katyusha can barely make ends meet!”
I did my own manicures. I had for a year. Ever since Andrey started “helping” his sister.
“You know what,” my mother-in-law suddenly perked up, “since you took money to your sister, let her feed you too! Go to her for a bowl of soup. At least they cook like normal people there!”
Andrey laughed nervously.
“Mom, why are you saying that…”
“What did I say wrong? The truth! If you had married a normal woman instead of this…” She looked at me meaningfully. “You’d be living like a human being!”
I turned off the water and slowly turned toward them. Victorious sparks danced in Valentina Pavlovna’s eyes — she was waiting for me to lose control. As usual.
“You know what, Valentina Pavlovna,” I said, drying my hands on a towel, “you’re absolutely right.”
She froze.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Andrey really should go to his sister for soup. And not just for soup. He should move in with her altogether. That’s what you’ve been trying to achieve for two months, isn’t it?”
“Lena, what are you talking about?” Andrey jumped up from his chair.
“Your mother is right. Katya cooks better, Katya is a better housewife, Katya is better at everything. So why do you need me?”
“Lena, stop throwing a tantrum,” my mother-in-law tried to take control of the situation, but I was no longer stopping.
“No tantrum. Just logic. Andrey, pack your things. Tomorrow we’ll go to a lawyer and file for divorce.”
“Are you out of your mind?” my husband turned pale.
“Not at all. Valentina Pavlovna, you won. Take your son. There’s just one small detail…”
I pulled a folder of documents out of the desk drawer. The very folder I had been preparing for the last two weeks while my mother-in-law was intoxicated by her own manipulations.
“This apartment is registered in my name. It was my father’s wedding gift to me. The car is also in my name, if you remember, Andrey, because you had problems with your credit history back then. The summer house is my inheritance from my grandmother. And what is registered in your name?”
My husband was silent. Nothing was registered in his name except the loan for the television.
“Oh yes,” I continued, “the bank account. Our joint one. Although I’ve already closed it. Here is the statement — I transferred half to your personal account. Eleven thousand rubles. Enough to get you started.”
“You can’t just throw him out!” my mother-in-law shrieked.
“Why not? You were the one who suggested he go live with his sister. I’m simply agreeing.”
“This is his home too!”
“Legally, no. But I’m not cruel. I’ll give him a week to pack. Valentina Pavlovna, you can help your son move. I’m sure Katya will be delighted.”
I turned and went to the bedroom, leaving them in complete confusion in the kitchen.
The following days were like a bad play. Andrey alternated between begging, threatening, and trying to seduce me. My mother-in-law swung between attempts to pressure me with pity and outright insults.
“You’ll be lost without him!” she shouted. “Who needs you at forty-two?”
“We’ll see,” I answered calmly, continuing to put his things into boxes.
On the third day, Katya called.
“Lena, what are you doing? Mom said you’re kicking Andrey out?”
“Your mother said he’d be better off living with you. I agreed.”
“But I… I have a husband, two children, a two-room apartment…”
“That’s all right, you’ll make room. At least your brother will help. And your mother will move in with you too — she loves your cooking so much.”
“What mother?! My relationship with her isn’t…”
“Katya, you’ll figure it out somehow. You’re family.”
I hung up without listening to her panicked objections.
By the end of the week, Andrey realized I wasn’t joking. Valentina Pavlovna quieted down too, especially after Katya gave her a scandal over the phone — apparently, she wasn’t exactly eager to take in her brother and mother.
“Lena, let’s talk calmly,” Andrey said, sitting across from me on the last evening. “We’ve been together for so many years…”
“For fourteen years, I endured your mother’s rudeness. For fourteen years, I listened to her tell me what a bad wife I was. For fourteen years, you gave money to your sister while I carried all the expenses. Do you know how much I transferred to Katya over the years? Almost two million. I wrote everything down.”
He lowered his eyes.
“And do you know what’s funniest?” I smirked. “Your mother was right about one thing. Katya really does cook better. Because she has time — she doesn’t work. Unlike me, the person who supported this family.”
“Lena, forgive me… I’ll change…”
“It’s too late, Andrey. Your mother outplayed herself. She wanted to get rid of me? Fine. The only problem is that along with me, you’re losing the roof over your head and your source of income.”
On the day they left, something happened that I hadn’t expected. Valentina Pavlovna knocked on my door.
“Lena, may I?”
I nodded. She looked as though she had aged ten years.
“I… I want to apologize.”
“There’s no need, Valentina Pavlovna. What’s done is done.”
“But maybe you’ll think it over? Andrey really loves you…”
“Loves me?” I laughed. “Do you know what he told me yesterday? That without me, life would be hard because he’d have to pay rent himself. Is that love?”
She was silent.
“You got what you wanted. But you failed to consider one thing — I’m not the downtrodden housewife you saw in me. I’m the head of a department at an IT company, with a salary four times higher than your son’s. I simply loved him and didn’t advertise it. And he… he got used to everything happening on its own.”
“Katya doesn’t want to take us in,” my mother-in-law said quietly.
“That is no longer my problem. You said it yourself — go to her for a bowl of soup.”
And that was how I ended up standing at this window, watching them leave.
My phone rang. It was my friend Marina.
“Well? Have the parasites left?”
“They’ve left.”
“Listen, you’re amazing! I couldn’t have done that.”
“You know, Marina, I just got tired of fighting windmills. Valentina Pavlovna wanted to push me out? She got what she wanted. Only the result wasn’t the one she was counting on.”
“Did Katya take them in?”
“I have no idea. Andrey wrote that they’re renting an apartment. Valentina Pavlovna will live with them and help with money — she has a good pension, after all.”
“Right, the pension she spent on herself while living with you for free.”
I smirked. Down below, the taxi started moving. Andrey turned around and looked up at the windows. I stepped back into the room.
“You know what’s most ironic?” I said to Marina. “Katya called a week later. She was crying. She said their mother had driven her to a nervous breakdown. She demands that everything be done her way. Katya’s husband is already stuttering about divorce. And Andrey… Andrey really does go to her for a bowl of soup now. Every day. Because he doesn’t know how to cook for himself, and he has no money for cafés.”
“Karma?”
“Just the logical conclusion. Valentina Pavlovna spent her whole life turning her children against each other, and me against everyone. Now she’s reaping what she sowed. Katya can’t stand her but has to take her in. Andrey is angry at his mother for ruining his marriage, but he has nowhere else to go. And I… I’m finally free.”
After hanging up, I walked through the apartment. Quiet. Clean. No one criticized my soup. No one demanded money for a sister. No one told me what a bad wife I was.
On the kitchen table lay a note from Andrey: “Lena, if you change your mind, call me.”
I picked up the note and, without reading it again, threw it into the trash can. Right on top of the wedding photograph I had taken down from the wall yesterday. In the picture, Valentina Pavlovna was standing between us with the expression of someone who looked as if she were the one getting married.
You know, revenge is a dish best served cold.
But sometimes, it’s enough to simply stop cooking.
And let those who criticized your soup try making it themselves.
As for me? I ordered sushi, opened a bottle of good wine, and for the first time in fourteen years, felt at home.
In my own home.
Where no one would ever again say that my soup was unworthy of their exquisite taste.
