“Where did you find this sad excuse for a notarial will, Olga Mikhailovna?” I handed the paper back to my mother-in-law, keeping my voice steady. “The stamp is blurred, and the signature looks nothing like my grandfather’s.”
She sat in my favorite armchair — the one she had quietly claimed months ago. Her lips tightened, and her eyes flashed with that familiar cunning. Beside her lounged her daughter Svetlana, who had been “temporarily” living with us for six months after her divorce.
“Dear Ksenia,” my mother-in-law cooed, “old papers fade. But the point is clear: your grandfather left the apartment to his eldest daughter. Meaning me. Meaning my son.”
I set the obvious forgery down. It was the third “miraculously discovered” will in three months. Each one somehow pointing to my apartment as their family inheritance.
“Olga Mikhailovna,” I said, “this apartment came to me from my parents. Officially, through the notary, registered in Rosreestr. Your mythical grandfather has nothing to do with it.”
Svetlana jumped in with her usual mouthful of sunflower seeds, shedding shells everywhere. “Ksyusha, why so hostile? We’re family!”
Then my husband Denis came home — and the show began. His mother dissolved into tears, claiming I accused her of lying. Denis immediately took her side, barely glancing at the fake document.
I had heard enough.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go to a notary tomorrow. Verify this ‘will.’ And clarify property rights.”
Silence. Then excuses, manipulations, emotional pressure. They insisted they were just interested in “family history.” Meanwhile both women had been living in my apartment for half a year without paying a kopeck, while renting out their own place for income — and rummaging through my documents.
I finally told Denis the truth:
“Your mother and sister are trying to take my apartment.”
He refused to believe it. He insisted we “share everything as a family.” But the forged papers, the endless snooping, the constant pressure — it all pointed to one goal.
So I drew a line.
“You all have until tomorrow evening to move out.”
Another performance followed: heart attacks, screams, tears, accusations that I was “destroying the family.” Denis declared that if I forced them out, he would leave too.
“That’s your choice,” I said.
By the next evening they packed their things — slowly, loudly, resentfully. Denis left with them, dropping his keys on the table.
When the door finally closed, I walked through the silent apartment, opened all the windows, and breathed for the first time in months.
Later, my friend Anya called.
“Any regrets?”
“No,” I said. “I realized something important: a home is only a home when there’s respect. Better to live alone in my own space than be a guest among liars.”
I made tea, sat in the armchair that was finally mine again, and let the quiet fill the rooms.
For the first time in half a year, the apartment felt like home.
