“I’m buying the studio next door,” Oksana said, setting down her fork. Max stopped chewing. “Here? On your landing?
”
“Right through that wall. ” She kept her voice calm, but the pride slipped out anyway. “Fresh renovation, warm floors in the bathroom, new wiring, a separate circuit for the stove. The owners are already packed and need the money fast.
I looked at it today, and I’ll put down the deposit tomorrow. ”
“Then we can move in,” Max said, and his whole face opened. “No more paying strangers twenty-five thousand a month. We’ll save for our own place.
”
Solomiya had gone still. “Can we discuss this calmly? ”
“What is there to discuss? ” Max laughed.
“Mama just gave us the perfect solution. ”
“Your mother gave us a solution that is convenient for her,” Solomiya said quietly. “Right on her landing. We won’t even have time to close our door before she walks in with advice.
”
Oksana set her palms flat on the table. “I have never come to your home uninvited. ”
“It’s not about invitations. It’s about distance.
I want my own home, where I am the mistress. Not three meters from my mother-in-law. ”
Oksana saw Solomiya’s elbow dig sharply into Max’s side. Max flinched, then mumbled as if reading from a script: “Maybe, Mama, we could look somewhere else.
Not on the same landing. It’s too close. ”
The warmth drained from Oksana’s face. “You don’t mean that, Maxym.
I saw your eyes when I told you. You were happy. And I saw her push you under the table. ”
Solomiya’s face went pale.
“Yes, I pushed him. Because he was afraid to tell you the truth. We decide as a family. I am not going to live within three meters of my mother-in-law.
”
“Then ask your own parents to buy you an apartment in the district you prefer,” Oksana said. “I don’t let anyone tell me where to put my own money. I’m still buying the studio. Maxym can live there if he wants.
You are free to live elsewhere. ”
Solomiya stood, knocking her chair back. “So this is an ultimatum. ”
“No.
It’s called I won’t let anyone climb on my head. Do you feel the difference? ”
“Your son is a grown man, but you want him tied to your skirt. ”
“I want him to stop paying strangers rent,” Oksana replied quietly.
“You’re the one turning that into a scandal. ”
Solomiya turned to Max. “Are you coming? ”
Max raised his head.
He looked like a boy caught between a broken window and the truth. “I’ll stay. We need to talk. ”
“Then talk.
For a long time. ” Solomiya snatched her coat, yanked the door open, and slammed it so hard the frame shook. Oksana lowered herself back into her chair. The dumplings had gone cold.
The wine stood untouched. She poured two glasses and set one in front of her son. He didn’t take it. He sat with both hands over his face, breathing hard.
“Maxym, what was that? ”
“She’s not trying to control me,” he said into his palms. It didn’t sound convincing. “She gave you an order and you obeyed it in front of me.
Six months of marriage, and you can’t say an honest sentence without her elbow in your ribs. Think about that. ”
He did not answer. “I’m not telling you how to live,” Oksana said.
“But I’m not letting you tell me what to do with my savings either. I am buying this studio. A flat will never hurt us. The money would only depreciate while the apartment gains value.
You two can decide what to do with your own lives. ”
Max left an hour later. He talked for a while about the new equipment at the garage, about a difficult engine job that had come in, about everything except his wife. Then he put on his jacket, nodded at the door, and said he would go home and sort things out.
Three days later he appeared at her door with a sports bag and a face like wet ash. Oksana didn’t ask. She stepped aside. He dropped the bag in the hallway and fell onto the couch.
She sat across from him and waited. “We argued all night, every night,” he said. “She says you humiliated her. She says you’re trying to control our lives.
I told her you never called her anything like that. She said I was a mama’s boy. She said I took your side. She said you planned all of it just to split us apart.
”
Oksana listened without interrupting. “Then she threw her own parents at me. ‘Let my parents buy us an apartment, since they can’t. ‘ She knew it would hurt.
She knew they don’t have that kind of money. She said it to make me feel small. ”
“What happened then? ”
“Yesterday I came back from work and she was gone.
Her things were gone. The rented apartment was empty. She left a note: ‘Come find me when you decide who matters more. ‘”
He finally looked up.
“Mama, what do I do? ”
Oksana folded her hands. “You’re twenty-six years old, Maxym. You have a trade, a clear head, no bad habits.
You don’t owe anyone your life. If you run after her now to apologize for something you didn’t do, you will spend the rest of your life running. Today it’s the studio. Tomorrow it’s don’t see your mother.
The day after, quit your job. ” She paused. “Is that what you want? ”
“No.
”
“Then you’ve already made your choice by coming here. You chose not to be a pawn. That is the right choice. ”
That night Maxym slept on the fold-out bed in her living room.
In the darkness he said, “I’m not a mama’s boy. ”
Oksana went on smoothing the blanket. “I know. You’re a man who wants peace in his own family.
That’s different. ”
She couldn’t sleep. She put on her robe, took the new key from the pocket, and stepped out onto the cold landing. The lock of the neighboring door clicked open and the empty studio flooded with cold electric light.
She walked to the window and stood there, looking at the yellow lights of the city in the dark glass. The flat was bought. The keys were in her pocket. She had given her son a safe landing place.
The rest was not hers to decide. She wouldn’t interfere, and she wouldn’t let anyone wipe their feet on her either. The next week was harder on Maxym than any repair he’d ever done. He called Solomiya and asked her to meet him at a café near her work.
She came with her chin up, sure he had come to beg. He put the key to the new studio on the table between them. “Move in,” he said. “No rent.
We’ll save for the future. ”
She pushed the key back. “I’ll come back only if your mother sells this apartment and buys us another one in the district I choose, registered to both of us. ”
He studied her face.
He had loved her at the altar six months ago. Now he saw that the address was not the point. The point was power — her power over him. He didn’t argue.
He paid for the coffee, stood up, and walked away. A few days later he rented a small truck and carried his own few boxes out of the rented apartment and into the bright studio. He arranged the kitchen, made the bed, set up his tools on the windowsill. He didn’t feel whole, not yet, but he felt clean again.
He was rebuilding himself in a room of his own. One Saturday morning Oksana came over with a large ficus in a ceramic pot. “For the housewarming,” she said, and placed it on the wide windowsill. “Plants make a home.
”
He was unpacking a box of tools in the sunlight. She watched him for a moment, then thought: life writes strange scripts, but a person who doesn’t lose himself because of another person’s pressure is someone who will survive. She left him alone and quietly closed the door behind her.
