“You always have some kind of problems,” snorted the husband, methodically working with a spoon. The omelet in his plate was disappearing at the speed of light. “Pour me some coffee instead. Then you can pretend.”
– Dad, maybe Mom really isn’t feeling well? – Rita stood up to pour her father some coffee, and Lena screamed, grabbed her stomach with both hands, turned pale, and sweat appeared on her forehead.
– Mom, what’s wrong? – the daughter was scared. – An ambulance?
“No need,” Lena shook her head, “it should pass soon.”
“I’m telling you, it’s a show for the crowd,” Boris cleaned his plate with a piece of bread and put it in his mouth. “Well, where’s my coffee?”
She was in no hurry to drink her coffee, she watched with all her eyes as her mother suffered from pain and tried to hide it. Only when she groaned and bent over did Rita lose her temper and dialed the number to call a doctor.
The elderly doctor who arrived examined Lena.
“Have you been to the hospital with these symptoms yet?” he asked her questions, tapping her stomach.
– No, why? I thought it was a common disorder, – Lena groaned.
– Get ready for the hospital, – the doctor put the instruments in a suitcase. – I suspect that an operation will be necessary. In any case, you will be examined and a final decision will be made.
“Is this necessary?” Boris intervened, looking into the room. “Can’t she be treated at home?”
– Are you a surgeon and will you operate on her at home? – the doctor’s sarcasm did not escape Lena and Boris.
Boris snorted and left. Lena began to pack her things for the hospital.
– Mom, are you staying for long? – Rita looked upset.
– Oh, I don’t even know. I didn’t plan to get sick. But I’ll try to get discharged as soon as possible. Maybe I’ll manage without an operation.
– Of course, it will be okay, – the husband went out into the hallway to see his wife off. – And don’t linger there. Otherwise, I know you, you’ll start inventing illnesses for yourself so you don’t have to go home.
– When did this happen? – Lena was taken aback by Boris’s statement. Of all people, she, even when she was sick, never ran to the hospital, she endured everything on her feet. With a temperature of 39, she made pelmeni because her husband wanted some at home. And not just any time, but right now. And when she got a chill in her back and could barely walk, she had to clean up water from the bathroom floor because of a burst pipe. Boris had a cut finger and couldn’t do it.
“What if there’s an infection?!” he objected to Lena when she asked him to help her. “There will be blood poisoning and I’ll die. No, go ahead, you do it yourself.”
And she herself, with groans and tears, collected this water.
Rita, returning from the institute, took the rag from her mother and, scolding her father, cleaned up the remaining water.
“You’re too young to talk to your father like that,” Boris scolded her in a raised voice.
“Don’t yell at your daughter,” Lena couldn’t stand it then. “She said everything right – you’re always looking for excuses for yourself.”
And now she was leaving for the hospital, not even imagining how this hospitalization would end.
On the first day in the hospital, she was prescribed all sorts of tests and underwent examinations.
The next day, during her rounds, the attending physician looked at her medical history and warned her that surgery was inevitable.
“Don’t worry, this is a normal routine operation. Everything will be fine,” he reassured Lena, seeing the fear in her eyes.
Lena dialed Boris’s number.
“The subscriber is out of network coverage,” the robot replied. Then she called her daughter.
– Rita, where is your father? I can’t get through to him, – Lena was worried before the operation, and Rita understood it from her voice.
– There he is, watching TV. Dad, – she shouted to her father, – Mom, it’s you!
– What else does she want? – Lena heard her husband’s displeased voice. – Hello!
“I’m going to have the operation after all,” Lena was no longer worried, but angry at her husband. Was it possible to show at least some humanity?!
– Well, congratulations! And what do you want from me? – Boris barely got into the essence of the conversation, all his attention was focused on the screen. There, female models walked the catwalk in swimsuits.
“You cook your own food at home when Rita is studying,” Lena gave instructions to her husband.
– Why me? Actually, I work too. I found a housekeeper! – Boris waved his hand.
– Borya, I’m not joking! – the metal in his wife’s voice made Boris calm down. – My daughter has a session, and she needs to pass it well. And you at least get your butt off the chair sometimes!
Lena could be very tough when it came to her daughter.
“Okay, okay,” the husband waved her off again and hung up.
After the operation, Lena needed time to recover. She was left in the hospital for observation for several days. Boris never called her or visited her during these days. But his daughter ran every day and brought her what the doctor allowed.
– Ritul, they feed me here, – Lena scolded her daughter jokingly, but she was pleased that she had such a responsible and sympathetic child. – And what about college? When do you manage to do everything?
– It’s all right, Mommy! I have a long-lasting battery, – the daughter joked. She just didn’t want to upset her mother by saying that she didn’t want to go home. Father had become completely lazy. He won’t get up from the couch or computer chair again. Rita remembered the week without her mother.
– Daughter, there’s a whole mountain of dishes there! There’s not a clean plate left. Maybe you should start cleaning already? And your excuses about the institute are no reason to let the house go! – Boris scolded Rita when she came home from the institute.
– Margarita, I’m all in work, – the father shouted to his daughter from his room, – cook me some pelmeni, or something! I have an important project!
Rita quietly approached her father from behind and managed to notice that this “important project” was a computer game that her “very busy” father was playing. True, he quickly minimized the game, and then some graphs and numbers remained on the screen. Rita only got angry.
– Maybe you should go to your mom at least once? – Rita tried to hide the irritation in her voice.
– Why? You go, don’t you? – he was surprised. – Why are we all hanging around there? She’ll start to think she’s a princess. Then we’ll be able to fulfill all her whims at the snap of a finger. She’s been hanging around in that hospital for too long as it is. She needs an operation, you see! She could swallow pills at home without an operation.
“I think I’m the one fulfilling all your whims now,” Rita vented her irritation on her father. “How does she even live with you all this time?!”
– What are you talking about? – Boris frowned. – You’re a snot, you want to lecture me?! If you don’t like it, the doors are over there! You feed her, water her, teach her…
“I’m studying myself,” Rita reminded him, “on a budget, if you didn’t know. And I know where the doors are. As soon as I get a job, I won’t stay here for another day!”
– Well, well, – the father grinned, – I’ll see how you come running in a week, asking to come back. And while you’re living here, bring me some coffee!
Rita didn’t tell her mother any of this. There was no reason for her to be nervous. She might even run away from the hospital ahead of time. It would only get worse.
– Is your father so busy that he couldn’t come even once? – this question had been intriguing Lena all these days that she had been in the hospital bed. She smiled. – I’m not contagious.
“He doesn’t leave the computer,” the daughter neither told the truth nor lied.
“Women’s husbands come to them several times a day,” Lena whispered to her daughter. “They even asked me if I had a husband or not. No one has ever seen him.”
“It would be better if it didn’t,” Rita blurted out. She immediately bit her tongue, but it was too late.
– So, spill it! – Lena became very serious. Rita already regretted that she had been so unrestrained, but she knew that her mother would still find out the truth. And then she had to tell her mother how her father behaved.
– How do you live with him? – Rita looked at her mother, trying to understand how she took her story. Lena was thoughtful, as if trying to make some decision.
“You know what, go live with grandma for a while,” Rita’s mother smiled and patted her hand. “We’ll have to do some preventative maintenance after we get back.”
– How are you alone? It’s impossible to make him do anything! – Rita exclaimed in surprise. – He doesn’t care about anyone, as if no one else exists.
– Let’s see how much he needs a family. If nothing changes, we’ll take drastic measures, – Lena became serious. – And you go to grandma’s today. Let him live alone for a few days. Tell him that you have an off-site practice.
Lena stayed in the hospital for a week in total. Rita went to her grandmother three days before her mother was discharged.
Arriving home, Lena found an enraged Boris.
– What the hell? What kind of field trips do students have? – he was indignant, expressing all this to his wife, who had just returned. – There is no wife or daughter at home!
– What, do you have some kind of problem? – Lena grinned. – Is there no one who will serve His Majesty? I’m not in the mood to lecture you now, the doctor told me to be less nervous, to rest more. Otherwise, I’ll end up in the hospital again and not for a week.
She went into the bedroom, made her bed, lay down, taking a book with her.
– I don’t get it, why are you sprawled out? – Boris was taken aback by his wife’s outburst. – The house is empty, not a crumb of bread!
– Are you deaf too? Lazy, deaf, egotistical? – Lena looked at him over the top of her book. – I just told you – I can’t be nervous. And housework is very stressful, from what I can see. You’re such a psycho, doing all the housework alone. Go out, get some fresh air, and stop by the store while you’re at it. What do you want for dinner?
“Plov,” Boris was still in shock and answered almost without thinking.
– Well, buy everything for the plov. I’ll write a list, – Lena wrote a list on her phone and sent it to her husband in a message. Yes, I can’t do that, otherwise I’ll immediately relapse! So here’s another list.
She sent him another SMS. Boris glanced at both lists.
“What am I, a pack horse? This is half the store!” he said indignantly.
– Okay, then you can ignore the first list, – Lena shrugged, – but the second one is absolutely not an option! I need to eat consistently, regularly, otherwise – goodbye home, hello hospital ward!
“What, should I sit here hungry or eat your broccoli?” he muttered under his breath and left the house.
“That’s it, I brought everything, go cook,” Boris returned from the store, sweaty from being unaccustomed to it.
“I can’t, the seam hurts, I’m afraid it will come apart,” Lena had already found a recipe for pilaf on the Internet and sent it to her husband via message.
– Are you kidding me? – Boris roared. – What am I, a cook? I’ve never done this and I don’t plan to!
– Okay, don’t do it. Did you buy some bread? Butter? Make yourself some sandwiches, I hope you can do that? – Lena was calmer than ever. – But I definitely need to eat. It’s starting to rumble already, – she put her hand to her stomach. – Do you want to listen?
– Oh, come on! – Boris got mad. – What are you supposed to do with your cabbage?
Lena sent him this on his phone too. Two hours later Boris brought her vegetable puree and apple compote. And the aroma of pilaf wafted from the kitchen.
– Borya, you are simply an ace at cooking! – Lena praised him admiringly after trying the food. – Even I can’t do that!
Boris frowned, but only for show, in reality he was ready to smile. “No way, if you give in now, they’ll sit on you and dangle their legs,” he thought to himself. And Lena noticed his confusion. But this time she decided to slow down with the assignments.
– Borechka, the doctor also told me that I can’t bend over for a month. And I feel that it smells of dust, – the next morning Lena sneezed demonstratively. – We need a general cleaning. Take down the curtains, wash them, wash the floors, beat the carpets.
– Well, now! – Boris grinned. – Found a sucker! I knew it would all start with the store and end with repairs.
– Okay, I’ll have to do it myself! – She got out of bed, groaning, went to the bathroom, took a bucket and poured water into it.
“Oh!” she gasped loudly, clutching her stomach.
“Get out of here already,” Boris threw her out of the bathroom, “we don’t need to live alone for another month.”
Lena, smiling slyly, went to the kitchen to put the kettle on, and Boris started cleaning.
By evening he could barely move his legs, but the apartment sparkled, the curtains smelled of cleanliness and freshness, the carpets had said goodbye to all their contents, accumulated over the years of their existence, because earlier there was no way to force Boris to beat them out.
“Would you like some tea?” Lena asked him.
– Well, come on! – the husband snapped good-naturedly, – I can barely stand on my feet.
– Oh, really? – Lena pretended to be surprised. – But you said that housework was easy as pie!
“Well, I told you,” Boris muttered.
— And you were still sitting at home. You didn’t work eight hours at work, you didn’t sit through four classes at the institute, and then you didn’t run to the store for groceries that you had to drag home in full bags, like yesterday. You had to stand at the stove for another two hours. And so on every day. Work, shopping, laundry, cleaning, cooking. You have to bring it and fetch it. I think your daughter’s question — how do I still live with you — was quite appropriate. I just hoped that at least a drop of conscience would wake up in you on its own, without a kick. I hoped in vain.
But I see how well you can handle all this. So from now on, if family is important to you, we share the responsibilities. And you forget about your finger snaps, like in a restaurant. And now, I’ll bring you some tea. You deserve it.
“Just tea?” the husband sighed sadly.
“Just tea for now,” Lena laughed. “I’m afraid the stitches will come apart!”
