“Go back home to your mom, Vadim. I don’t need a delivery boy around here anymore.”
c
“Go back home to your mom, Vadim. I don’t need a delivery boy around here anymore.”
The door slammed, leaving her ex-husband stranded in the hallway with his bulging gym bag. Natalia turned the lock and leaned her back against the cool wall of the entryway.
For the first time in twelve years, her home was precisely the way she wanted it.
It all started two months ago with an ordinary phone call that Natalia had been forced to overhear through the thin walls of their Soviet-era apartment block.
“I tolerate her in my house purely out of pity, Zoya.”
Tatiana Pavlovna was broadcasting into the phone deliberately loudly—loud enough to be heard even through the closed door of the bathroom, where Natalia was scrubbing a stain out of a children’s jacket.
“A total nobody. If it weren’t for my Vadik, she’d be begging on the streets with a cup. I’m carrying my cross, Zoechka! What else can I do? I just endure it.”
Natalia rinsed her hands under the stream of water, shook the drops off over the sink, and wiped her hands on a potholder.
Two women under one roof is always a trial, especially when one considers herself the supreme ruler of the universe and the other is simply trying to survive in a tiny, cramped space. Twelve years of marriage in someone else’s apartment had trained Natalia to keep her guard up. She didn’t argue, she didn’t react to the snide remarks; she just quietly took care of the housework, her job at the supermarket, and raising her son.
“Look at how many years I took care of Mikhail!” the mother-in-law kept going through the wall, switching to a new topic. “Who made him his little soups? Me! Who dusted every speck off him? Also me! I poured my whole soul into that old man. Completely wore myself out.”
Natalia only smirked to herself.
Uncle Mikhail, the mother-in-law’s second cousin, had passed away a month and a half ago. The old man had lived in a nice two-bedroom apartment right by the subway line. For the past four years, Tatiana Pavlovna had been putting on a performance for all the neighbors called “The Holy Martyr.”
Once a week, she would buy a pack of cheap chicken backs and boil them down into a thin broth. She would pour this concoction into an empty mayonnaise bucket and solemnly carry it off to her sick relative. That was the extent of her grand devotion. Cleaning, washing up, or simply sitting down to talk—Tatiana Pavlovna never had the time.
The front door clicked open in the hallway.
Natalia peeked out of the kitchen. Vadim was shuffling on the threshold. He hurriedly yanked off his jacket, missed the hook entirely, and cast a shifty glance around. The husband looked rumpled, his hair disheveled.
“Is Mom around?” he asked in a low voice, avoiding his wife’s eyes.
“Suffering with Zoya on the phone,” Natalia replied dryly. “Talking about how hard she worked herself to the bone for Grandpa Misha again.”
Vadim shifted from foot to foot.
“Here’s the thing, Natash…”
He faltered, glancing sideways at his mother’s closed door. “I went over to Uncle Misha’s apartment. I wanted to change the locks so we could rent it out. Mom told me to.”
The door flew open immediately. Tatiana Pavlovna glided out of the room. She had already managed to stash her phone in the pocket of her lounge pants, her eyes flashing greedily.
“Well? Did you change them?” she demanded, cornering her son right away.
“No, Mom.”
“What do you mean, no?” the mother-in-law indignantly asked, putting her hands on her hips. “Didn’t I tell you to get it all done today? A realtor is already waiting there; I called her. An apartment by the subway line is no joke. We’ll rent it out and put the money in savings. And as for this one…”
She dismissively nodded toward Natalia.
“As for this one, we’ll ship her off to the dacha to weed the garden before winter. Since she’s completely useless around the house. At least she can earn her keep. Hand over the apartment keys, I’ll go down there myself and deal with the contractor. You absolute moron.”
Vadim took a step closer to the front door, as if preparing for a quick getaway.
“It’s not going to work, Mom. There are already new owners.”
A heavy silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by the dripping faucet. Tatiana Pavlovna froze with her mouth half-open.
“What do you mean, new owners?” her voice cracked into a shriek. “What nonsense are you spewing? Uncle Misha was all alone! I’m his only living relative! I gave him my best years!”
“Calm down, Mom.”
“I’ll show you calm down!” Tatiana Pavlovna slammed her fist onto the kitchen table. “Who dared take my apartment?! It’s a scam! I’m going to the police!”
Vadim looked guiltily at Natalia, and then back at his mother.
The continuation is in the first c0mment 
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