“Well, since you have plenty of money now, you’ll buy me an apartment,” Tamara Sergeyevna said without the slightest hint of embarrassment, pushing her cup of tea aside.
Olga froze with a folder of documents in her hands. Just a few minutes earlier, she had simply shown Maxim a bank statement—they had been discussing their plans for the future. Her mother-in-law had been sitting nearby, supposedly flipping through a magazine. But apparently, she had seen the figures.
“Excuse me, buy you what?” Olga asked slowly.
“An apartment. A proper one. In a good neighborhood. It’s your turn to solve my problems. I didn’t raise my son just so I could suffer in my little two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts in my old age.”
Tamara Sergeyevna had already moved closer and begun discussing which neighborhood would suit her better—somewhere near the metro or perhaps closer to a park. Maxim remained silent, looking away. The folder in Olga’s hands suddenly seemed to weigh twice as much.
Olga and Maxim had been married for eight years. They had met at university and married almost immediately after graduation—young, in love, and far from wealthy.
They had started out with very little. They lived in an apartment provided by Olga’s parents, tried to manage their money wisely, and often talked about what they wanted their lives to look like in a few years.
Then, gradually, things began to improve. Maxim got a job as an engineer at a design bureau. The work was stable, without any spectacular career breakthroughs, but reliable. Olga joined a large company as an ordinary specialist.
She was not the type to stand still. She took on additional projects, attended courses in the evenings, and spent weekends reading professional literature while Maxim watched football.
“You work too much,” he would sometimes say without taking his eyes off the screen.
“I’m building a career,” she would reply briefly.
Several years later, her efforts paid off. First came a promotion to senior analyst, then an offer to head a department. Along with the new position came a very different salary.
Olga did not change her habits. She continued saving part of her income every month and did not allow herself unnecessary extravagances. There was no more luxury in their lives than before, but there was now a financial cushion—quiet, dependable, accumulated little by little.
Her mother-in-law, Tamara Sergeyevna, lived alone in a two-bedroom apartment in the northern part of the city. The building dated back to the Soviet era, with creaking floors, a cramped kitchen, and an elevator that worked only when it felt like it. Still, viewed objectively, the apartment was perfectly livable.
But Tamara Sergeyevna saw things differently.
Every family dinner inevitably turned to the same subject.
“If only I had an apartment closer to the center…” she would sigh while stirring her tea.
“If only the building were newer, with a concierge at least…”
“If only I had a proper elevator instead of that rusty iron coffin…”
Maxim would nod automatically. Olga remained silent. In the past, she had considered it nothing more than the ordinary grumbling of an older woman who was lonely and wanted attention. Nobody took the complaints seriously.
Everything changed one day when, during one of those dinners, Maxim casually mentioned his wife’s new position.
Tamara Sergeyevna straightened in her chair, and something new appeared in her eyes.
Something resembling calculation.
At first, her mother-in-law dropped hints—carefully, almost imperceptibly.
In front of guests, she suddenly began telling everyone what a wonderful daughter-in-law she had: intelligent, successful, a highly paid executive.
“Our dear Olga is a very important person now,” she would say with a pride that somehow felt false.
It made Olga uncomfortable. She did not like having her achievements paraded in front of strangers.
Soon, the tone changed.
“Well done. You’ve made a good life for yourself,” Tamara Sergeyevna would say, giving her daughter-in-law an appraising look. “Now you can afford anything.”
“Some people your age are already buying apartments for their parents,” she would add casually while spreading butter on a slice of bread.
At first, Maxim laughed it off.
“Mom, don’t get ahead of yourself,” he would say with a smile.
But gradually, the laughter disappeared. More and more often, during dinner, he would say thoughtfully:
“It really is difficult for Mom to travel across the whole city. It’s far, there’s traffic, it’s inconvenient.”
“Maybe we should help somehow?” he would add without looking at Olga.
Each time, Olga clenched her teeth and remained silent.
Her money—the money she had spent years saving by sacrificing vacations and unnecessary expenses—had somehow suddenly become a shared resource. Nobody had asked what she was saving it for. Nobody had shown any interest in her plans.
The final straw came through an accidental revelation. When Olga happened to meet one of her mother-in-law’s friends, the woman cheerfully announced:
“Tamara says she’ll be moving soon! So you’re buying her an apartment. How wonderful of you!”
Olga smiled and said nothing.
But inside, something clicked with cold, perfect clarity.
While she had been working weekends to finish a quarterly project, she had already been included in someone else’s plans.
Without being asked.
As though it were self-evident.
For the first time, she admitted the truth to herself directly: they did not see her as a person here.
They saw her as a wallet.
The anniversary celebration of Maxim’s cousin was held at a café on Sadovaya Street. There was a large table, noisy relatives, endless toasts, and the smell of roasted meat.
Olga sat beside her husband and felt reasonably comfortable—until Tamara Sergeyevna raised her voice above the general noise and announced loudly and ceremoniously:
“Soon I’ll be moving closer to the city center! Olga promised to help.”
Olga nearly choked on her juice.
“I promised no such thing,” she said evenly.
Silence fell over the table. Several pairs of eyes turned toward her.
Tamara Sergeyevna forced a smile.
“Oh, come now, dear. You have the money. You said yourself that you’ve saved plenty.”
“Having money does not mean I am obligated to buy someone an apartment,” Olga replied, trying to keep her voice calm.
Her mother-in-law did not back down. She straightened and began talking—quietly at first, then louder and louder—about how she had raised her son alone, how she had denied herself everything, how she had invested her last penny in his education.
Her voice broke at exactly the right moment.
Several relatives nodded sympathetically.
Someone muttered:
“She is his mother, after all…”
Maxim touched Olga’s elbow.
“Don’t make a scene,” he whispered. “We’ll sort it out later.”
Olga looked at him.
He was not defending her.
He was asking her to be quiet.
And in that moment, she understood the most important thing: her husband did not think his mother’s demands were excessive.
He thought they were reasonable.
And he thought Olga’s refusal was the problem that needed to be hidden from public view.
A few days later, Tamara Sergeyevna called and announced that she would drop by “just for a minute.”
She arrived carrying a thick folder of printed pages—real estate listings marked with red highlighter and covered with notes in the margins.
“Look, here are three options.” She spread the papers across the kitchen table like playing cards. “This one is closer to the metro, this one has a large kitchen. This one is on the fourth floor, but there’s an elevator.”
“We haven’t agreed to anything,” Olga said.
“Well, then let’s agree now. How much can you put down immediately?”
Silently, Olga got up, brought her laptop and a folder of documents, and placed several pages filled with figures on the table.
“What is this?” Tamara Sergeyevna asked warily.
“My savings,” Olga said evenly, without anger. “My retirement account. My investment portfolio. My emergency fund. Planned renovation expenses. Family goals.”
Her mother-in-law frowned.
Olga turned to the next page.
“And this is an analysis of your spending over the past three years. Your trip to the seaside last August. Your new television. Replacing the kitchen cabinets. Renovating the bathroom.”
Tamara Sergeyevna went pale.
“You are not struggling financially,” Olga continued. “You are not asking for help because you’re in trouble. You simply want to live better at my expense.”
The conversation exploded.
Her mother-in-law shouted about ingratitude and heartlessness. Maxim tugged at his wife’s sleeve and whispered:
“Just give in to her. What does it cost you?”
But Olga stood straight and remained silent.
She did not apologize.
The following morning, her phone began ringing nonstop.
First came a call from Maxim’s aunt, then some distant relative, then her mother-in-law’s neighbor, who, judging by his tone, had already heard every detail.
Tamara Sergeyevna’s version of events had spread throughout the entire extended family: the daughter-in-law had become arrogant, thought too highly of herself, and abandoned an elderly woman to fend for herself.
“Do you realize how this looks from the outside?” Maxim’s aunt scolded over the phone. “She’s his mother!”
“If you believe buying her an apartment is such a necessity,” Olga replied calmly, “then you’re welcome to raise the money yourselves.”
The silence on the other end was eloquent.
The aunt quickly ended the conversation.
After the third such phone call, the number of people eager to lecture Olga about someone else’s supposed obligation noticeably declined.
Maxim watched everything in silence.
He saw how, one by one, the calls stopped. He saw that not a single relative offered any real assistance—they were only too happy to give advice when someone else’s money was at stake.
That, it seemed, affected him more than any argument could have.
That evening, he went to see his mother alone.
He returned late, looking tired, and sat down beside Olga on the sofa.
“I talked to her,” he said quietly. “Honestly. I explained that her demands were unfair. That she can’t behave this way.”
Olga nodded and said nothing.
But for the first time in a long while, she felt that the air in the room had become a little easier to breathe.
The tension faded slowly, but eventually it did fade.
Tamara Sergeyevna remained in her two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts. Over time, it became clear that Olga’s suspicions had been correct all along: there had never been any real necessity for her to move.
The elevator worked. There was a store in the neighboring building. Her health allowed her to travel wherever she needed to go.
She simply wanted something better.
At someone else’s expense.
At family gatherings, Tamara Sergeyevna became more restrained. Maxim learned to tell his mother “no”—briefly and without lengthy explanations. It was difficult for him, but he tried.
Olga continued working and managing her money as she saw fit.
One evening, as she closed her laptop after another workday, she reflected on one simple observation:
The more visible someone’s success becomes, the faster people appear who are ready to declare it shared property.
The important thing is to calmly remind them, before it’s too late, whose hard work made that success possible.
