“You expect me to cook for your mother every single day?!” Yulia snapped without turning around.
She slammed the pot onto the stove. Boiling water splashed over the edge of the burner and hissed as it hit the hot metal. Steam curled up toward the ceiling where an old chandelier with three shades hung—one of them had been burned out for years.
Sasha stood in the doorway, absently rubbing his wedding ring with his thumb. In the frying pan, the cutlets were finishing—his mother preferred them with rice, never with potatoes. The air was heavy with the thick smell of fried onions.
Yulia brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. A hair tie and a bracelet—his gift from their last anniversary—slid around her wrist. She let out a long breath and gripped the edge of the sink with both hands. In the window glass, the kitchen reflected back at her: the mess on the table, the dirty dishes, a plastic bag of medicine next to the bread box.
“Yul, not right now,” Sasha said, exhausted.
She turned. Tears shone in her eyes, her lips quivering. Something boiled over on the stove—milk ran across the enamel surface toward the flame.
The cutlets went cold. Yulia moved them onto a plate and wiped the stovetop with a wet rag. Sasha still hovered in the doorway—he didn’t leave, but he didn’t dare step inside either.
Three months earlier, Anna Petrovna had been in the hospital after a minor stroke. Her right hand wouldn’t cooperate, speaking was difficult, and it was Yulia who had suggested it herself:
“Let’s bring her to live with us. How can she stay alone in that apartment?”
Back then Sasha had hugged his wife and kissed her. Yulia worked as a nurse at the local clinic; she knew how to care for patients like that. It had seemed manageable.
The first weeks were calm. Anna Petrovna barely got up from the sofa in the living room. Yulia brought her pills and checked her blood pressure twice a day. Her mother-in-law thanked her for everything and tried not to get in the way. In the evenings they watched TV—fashion shows, soap operas. Anna Petrovna told stories about Sasha as a boy, how he was scared of the vacuum cleaner, and she showed them old photos.
But slowly, something changed.
Yulia came home from work—dinner needed to be cooked. In the morning before her shift—breakfast and her mother-in-law’s medication. Weekends—groceries, laundry, cleaning. And Anna Petrovna started offering advice:
“Yulechka, you should cut the carrots thinner for soup.”
“In my day we washed the floors every day.”
“Sashenka likes his cutlets softer—don’t fry them so much.”
Yulia nodded and redid things. After a twelve-hour shift in the treatment room, she’d come home and put the apron on again. Her mother-in-law would sit in the kitchen and watch.
“Oh, Yul, you oversalted it again. You know my blood pressure…”
Sasha stayed quiet. He began “working late” more and more. Yulia could see he was tired—but for some reason that silence made her angrier than anything, as if she were the only one hauling this load.
Yulia shoved the door open with her shoulder—three grocery bags from Pyatyorochka in her hands, soaked through. Her keys slipped and fell. She had to set the bags on the filthy mat and bend down. Something crunched in one bag—eggs, most likely.
The kitchen smelled like boiled buckwheat. Anna Petrovna sat with her back to the door, pressing the phone to her ear out of old habit even though it was on speaker.
“…Oh, Valya, of course Yulechka tries,” she was saying. “But she cooks… not the way we do. Always rushed. Young people today—always in a hurry…”
Yulia froze. Milk started leaking from a torn corner—punctured by the keys. A white stream crept across the linoleum.
“…Yesterday she made borscht—the meat was tough, the cabbage was overcooked. I told Sashenka, ‘You need to teach your wife.’ And he keeps defending her…”
Without a sound, Yulia lifted the bags and walked into the bathroom. She locked the latch, turned the shower on full blast, and sat on the edge of the tub in her wet coat.
The mirror showed a stranger. Mascara had run in black tracks. A gray strand at her temple—when had it appeared? Her hands shook; iodine was embedded under her nails. On her ring finger, her wedding band looked dull.
She bit her knuckles so she wouldn’t scream. Her phone buzzed in her pocket—Sasha: Running late. Eat without me.
Yulia stared at the message until the screen went dark. Inside her, something quietly snapped—like a dry branch breaking.
She turned off the shower. In the mirror: a pale face, damp hair stuck to her temples. How many days had it been since she’d smiled? She dried off, pulled on an old sweater and soft sweatpants, and went back to the kitchen.
The fridge hummed when she opened it. The ground meat in its plastic bag had thawed. Yulia took out an onion, an egg, and a little bread for crumbs.
Oil sizzled on the stove, spattering her sleeve. She flipped the cutlets—golden, almost celebratory—yet she felt no joy. The buckwheat in the pot had set into a solid lump, just like she had—tired and silent.
Half an hour later, the front door slammed.
“Hey,” Sasha said as he came in, taking off his jacket. “Smells good.”
Yulia didn’t answer. She simply put the cutlets on a plate and set it in front of him like a server.
He sat down and rubbed his hands together.
“Thanks… Mom! Dinner’s ready!” he called toward the other room.
From behind the door came the scrape of slippers and a soft cough.
Yulia suddenly breathed out, as if she’d been holding it for months.
“Sasha… I can’t do this anymore.”
“Not now,” Sasha sighed, not looking up from his plate. “Mom will hear.”
“You know what she told her friend today?” Yulia’s voice shook. “That I’m a terrible homemaker. That I can’t even make soup properly.”
“She didn’t mean it,” Sasha said. “She just has her own way of doing things.”
“Her own way?!” Yulia shot to her feet. “So I’m supposed to get used to working like a draft horse, is that it?”
“Don’t yell,” Sasha frowned, glancing at the door.
“I will yell!” Yulia’s voice cracked. “She’s your mother, not mine! Why am I the one who has to stand at the stove every day, run to pharmacies, and listen to her judge me over every little thing?!”
At that moment, the bedroom door opened quietly. Anna Petrovna stood on the threshold, her brow furrowed as if she was trying to piece together what the argument was about.
“What’s going on, kids?” her voice trembled.
No one answered. Sasha stared at his plate as if it were an anchor.
Anna Petrovna walked slowly to the table and lowered herself into a chair. She picked up her fork and, with a trembling hand, pried off a small piece of cutlet.
“Looks like I’m in the way,” she said so softly her words almost disappeared.
The sentence hung in the air like a heavy curtain.
Yulia wanted to speak—to explain, to apologize—but she couldn’t. Everything that had built up over months had turned into a hard knot in her throat.
Anna Petrovna chewed slowly. Each movement looked difficult, as if she were swallowing not food but hurt. Sasha sat opposite her, eyes down.
“Mom… nobody thinks that,” he finally forced out.
“They do,” she said, setting down her fork and carefully dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “I’m not deaf, Sashenka. I hear everything. And I see it.”
She stood, steadying herself with one hand on the table.
“Tomorrow I’ll call Valya,” she added after a short pause, and headed toward the door. “A room opened up at her place. I’ll move there for a while—so I won’t be in anyone’s way.”
Yulia spun around.
“Anna Petrovna, wait—”
“What is there to wait for?” the old woman didn’t turn back. “You need to live your own life. You’re still young.”
She paused in the doorway as if she wanted to add something, but only shook her head and went back into her room.
The door closed softly. In the silence, they could hear the bed creak, then a light cough.
Yulia stood in the middle of the kitchen, not knowing what to do. She wanted to run after her mother-in-law, to explain that it wasn’t like that—but her legs wouldn’t move.
Sasha buried his face in his hands.
“What am I supposed to tell her?” his voice wavered. “That we’re kicking her out?”
Yulia came over and sat beside him.
“We’re not kicking her out,” she said quietly. “It’s just… maybe she really will be better there. With her friend. Where no one is shouting, where it’s calm. She feels everything, Sasha.”
Her face looked exhausted, but not angry. Dark circles under her eyes, a thin crease between her brows. Strands of hair had fallen loose from her ponytail, and she smoothed them back as if apologizing for how worn-out she looked.
And suddenly Sasha saw how much she had changed over these months. The Yulia who used to laugh in the mornings had become quiet—like someone constantly listening for footsteps, afraid she’d be called, blamed, demanded from.
“Yul…” He exhaled heavily, like he was dropping a stone from his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I’ve been hiding behind work this whole time. I thought it would sort itself out. But it only got worse.”
She rested her head on his shoulder.
“I’m not a saint either,” she whispered. “I’m just tired. Every day is the same. And then I feel ashamed that I snap at her.”
In the morning, Yulia woke up not to an alarm, but to a smell.
Warm, slightly sweet, floury—like childhood. Pancakes.
When she stepped out of the bedroom, sunlight was already pushing through the curtain. In the kitchen, Sasha—wearing her blue apron with daisies—was flipping a thin pancake with a wooden spatula. Next to him on the stove stood a pile of finished ones—golden, a little uneven, but unmistakably homemade.
Anna Petrovna sat at the table, peeling apples with a small special knife—the same one she used to carve little stars from carrots for the grandchildren.
“…And then he’s standing there covered in flour and crying!” she was saying animatedly, looking at her son. “He goes, ‘Mom, the pancakes burned!’”
Sasha laughed.
“Mom, stop telling my childhood stories,” he said, blushing but smiling.
Yulia paused in the doorway. For the first time in three months, no one was waiting for her to make breakfast. No one was calling, “Yul, where’s the salt?” or “Yul, pass me the towel.”
On the table there was already sour cream, gooseberry jam, sliced cheese.
“Good morning,” she said softly.
Sasha turned and smiled the way he used to—in their first years together.
“Sit down, Yul. Mom and I had a little meeting.”
“A meeting?” she raised an eyebrow, but she was smiling.
“Yeah. We decided—we’ll cook in turns. Me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Mom will handle light cleaning. And you…” he paused, “…you’ll actually rest sometimes.”
Anna Petrovna nodded without lifting her eyes.
“I can fold laundry too. And I talked to the neighbor—Margarita Ivanovna will come every other day to do injections and check my pressure. It’s not free, of course, but we can manage with my pension.”
Yulia lowered herself into a chair. Sasha slid a plate of hot pancakes toward her.
She picked one up and took a bite. Crisp edges, warm center.
Sasha poured tea for all of them.
“You know,” he said, “I realized we’ve been living next to each other, not with each other. I want it to be different.”
Anna Petrovna placed her hand over their joined fingers.
“The important thing is you understood,” she said. “The rest takes time.”
A week passed. Rain drummed on the metal ledge outside and streamed down the window in thin rivers. On the windowsill, the ficus unexpectedly pushed out a new leaf.
“Look at that,” Anna Petrovna said, touching the young leaf. “I thought it was done for. And then it went and came back to life.”
They drank tea at the table. Yulia adjusted the old plaid blanket on Anna Petrovna’s shoulders—it smelled faintly of mothballs. Sasha read the nurse’s schedule off his phone—tomorrow at ten she would come.
“And on Saturday Mom and I will make borscht,” he added. “You rest.”
The clock in the hallway chimed nine. Before, its ticking used to irritate Yulia, like it was counting down her strength. Now it sounded peaceful—like the pulse of a home that had finally learned how to breathe again.
Yulia took another cookie. For the first time in a long time, she actually felt hungry.
