“Oh, you’re finally here! I was just wondering where to put a desk for the boys so they’ll have a comfortable place to study.”
Alina froze in the doorway before she had even stepped fully inside. Her fingers dug painfully into the handles of the large bag stuffed with cleaning supplies. The recently renovated studio apartment still smelled of paint, plaster, and construction dust. The room was almost empty, yet Galina Nikolayevna was confidently pacing around the middle of it as though she had considered the place her own for years.
Alina’s mother-in-law held a metal measuring tape in one hand, periodically pulling out the yellow strip and measuring one wall after another.
“How did you get in here?”
Alina slowly placed the bag beside the wall and entered the apartment.
“The usual way. I opened the door with a key.”
Galina Nikolayevna seemed not to notice the displeasure in her daughter-in-law’s voice and gestured vaguely toward the entryway.
“Seryozha stopped by this morning and left me a set. He asked me to water the flowers until you moved tenants in here. So I came, took a proper look around, and decided that renting the place out was a foolish idea.”
Alina leaned her shoulder against the doorframe.
The future tenants were not supposed to receive the keys for another two days. She had deliberately set aside time today to put the apartment in perfect order after the renovation: wipe away the dust, wash the windows, clean the plumbing fixtures, and make sure everything was ready for them to move in.
There had never been any plants in the studio.
That meant Sergey had invented the story about the flowers solely so he could give his mother the keys without having to explain too much. Apparently, he had once again been unable to say no to Galina Nikolayevna and had come up with the first excuse that entered his head.
“We have more important concerns now than the miserable amount you’d earn from tenants, by the way.”
Her mother-in-law walked over to an empty wall, pressed the end of the tape measure against it, and sharply pulled out the strip. The metal made an unpleasant scraping sound.
“What concerns?”
Alina spoke calmly, although the familiar irritation was already rising inside her.
“Seryozha’s nephews will be starting their studies soon. You remember Zhenya and Sasha, don’t you?”
Galina Nikolayevna looked at her daughter-in-law over the top of her glasses.
“My cousin called today. She was practically in tears. The boys weren’t given places in the dormitory. They said everything was full. And renting a separate apartment costs such a frightening amount these days. So we decided they could stay here for the time being. It’s fortunate that there’s an apartment available.”
“Who is going to stay here?”
Alina straightened and walked into the middle of the room.
“Zhenya and Sasha, of course! They’re not children anymore, naturally, but we can’t leave our own relatives out on the street!”
Galina Nikolayevna sounded genuinely offended by the question and adjusted the collar of her old-fashioned cardigan.
“They’re family, after all, and the apartment is standing empty. My cousin and I have already arranged everything. The boys will arrive with their belongings tomorrow.”
Now many things were beginning to make sense.
Sergey had always loved impressing his numerous relatives. During the first months of their marriage, he had talked about this studio as though he had personally spent years saving for it and denying himself every luxury.
He enjoyed looking like a successful man in front of his mother—a man who had provided his family with property through his own efforts.
At the time, Alina had chosen not to embarrass her husband. She had not argued with him in front of his relatives or corrected him about where the apartment had come from. Now it appeared that Sergey had interpreted her silence as permission to continue telling his attractive little story.
“Neither Zhenya nor Sasha will be moving in here, Galina Nikolayevna.”
Alina walked over to the window and opened it wide. The noise of traffic immediately flooded the room.
“And why not?”
Her mother-in-law’s voice suddenly grew louder.
“Because the apartment is being prepared for tenants.”
“But Seryozha said you were planning to let strangers live here anyway! What difference does it make to you? You should help your own family instead. All the boys need is a roof over their heads. It won’t make you poor.”
“It makes a significant difference. Strangers pay rent. Your relatives, as I understand it, intend to live here at my expense. I have no intention of engaging in that kind of charity. We still haven’t finished paying off the mortgage on the apartment where we currently live. I need the income from this studio.”
“Oh, look at you, the shrewd businesswoman!”
Galina Nikolayevna threw up her hands theatrically.
“Money is supposed to benefit the family, not disappear to goodness knows where! You registered the studio after you were married, which means it’s jointly owned! And here you are, acting like the sole owner. Your husband has absolutely no objection to his relatives staying here. Why else would he have given me the key?”
Alina stared silently at her mother-in-law.
There was indeed no point in trying to explain anything to Galina Nikolayevna without Sergey present. For many years, the woman had held one simple belief: everything belonging to her son automatically concerned her as well. In this family system, her daughter-in-law had always remained an outsider who, for some inexplicable reason, interfered with their ability to make the correct decisions.
“Fine. If Sergey truly has no objection, we’ll clarify that right now.”
Alina took her phone from the pocket of her lounge trousers, selected her husband’s number, and called him.
He answered only after several rings.
“Alina, I’ve just finished with a client and I’m heading to the car. What happened?”
“Something has happened, Seryozha, and it’s quite urgent. Come up to the studio. Your mother and I are here waiting for you.”
There was a brief pause at the other end of the line.
“With Mom? What is she doing there?”
Sergey broke off halfway through the question.
“I’ll be right up. Give me about five minutes.”
He immediately ended the call.
Alina put away her phone.
Galina Nikolayevna smiled with satisfaction. Apparently, she had decided that the matter would now be settled conclusively in her favor.
“Excellent. Your husband will come and explain how decent people are supposed to treat their relatives. There’s no need to create a scene over nothing. You’d better get a bucket and wash the windows. The boys will arrive tomorrow, and the glass is covered in streaks.”
Alina did not even bother answering.
She calmly took a sponge and a bottle of cleaning solution from the bag she had brought and began scrubbing the gray construction dust from the windowsill.
They did not have to wait long.
A few minutes later, the front door slammed. Quick footsteps followed, and a slightly breathless Sergey appeared in the room.
“Son!”
Galina Nikolayevna immediately turned her attention to him.
“Your wife and I were just deciding where to place the boys’ sofa. I said it would be cold beside the window, but she keeps arguing! And she’s speaking to me as though I were some stranger who wandered in off the street to beg for something!”
Sergey did not answer his mother immediately. First, he looked at Alina, and then he averted his eyes.
“Mom… why did you come here?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I only left you the key so you could check whether the faucet was working properly after the renovation.”
Alina slowly dropped the sponge into the bucket.
“What faucet, Sergey?”
She straightened.
“Your mother has already arranged for your nephews to move in. Tomorrow, she intends to settle two grown men here and let them live rent-free.”
“Why do you immediately assume it would be rent-free?”
Sergey spoke quietly, stubbornly looking away.
“Aunt Anna said she would cover the utility bills. Alina, they’re genuinely in a difficult situation. They have nowhere to stay. I thought they could live here for a month, maybe two at most. Would it really hurt us?”
Alina crossed her arms over her chest.
“Who exactly do you mean by ‘us,’ Sergey?”
Her husband finally looked at her.
“You promised your mother that her relatives could live here without consulting me?”
“I didn’t promise her anything!”
Sergey immediately raised his voice.
“I only mentioned that the apartment was currently vacant and that, purely theoretically, we might be able to arrange something. Mom, I asked you to discuss it with me first!”
“What is there to discuss?”
Galina Nikolayevna genuinely did not understand their indignation.
“You’re the man. You bought the property, so it’s your decision! Why are you making excuses to your wife? You both pay for your current apartment, which means this studio is family property too. Of course you have every right to help your relatives!”
The room became unusually quiet after those words.
Alina looked at her husband and felt her last doubts disappear.
Until today, she had wanted to believe that Sergey was merely incapable of resisting his mother’s pressure. She had assumed he had given her the keys simply to make her leave him alone.
But now the truth was clear.
For years, her husband had encouraged his family to believe that the studio had been acquired through his hard work and their joint marital funds. Whenever his mother drew conclusions based on that story, Sergey never corrected her.
“Seryozha, tell your mother the truth.”
Alina spoke quietly but so distinctly that Sergey immediately tensed.
“What truth?”
Galina Nikolayevna became wary.
“Alina, that’s enough.”
Sergey lowered his voice and stepped closer.
“There’s no need to cause a scandal over something so trivial. We’ll discuss it calmly at home. Mom, go home for now. We’ll settle everything ourselves.”
“Absolutely not!”
His mother raised her chin.
“I’m not going anywhere. The driver downstairs is already unloading a bag. I brought the boys some old curtains, plates, a cooking pot, and a few other household things. They can’t move into an empty room! Are you my son or not? You said you would help!”
Alina continued looking only at her husband.
“Seryozha, I’m listening.”
He grimaced.
“Explain to your mother who this studio belongs to.”
Sergey let out a heavy sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Red blotches appeared on his cheeks.
For a man who had spent years carefully maintaining the image of a successful homeowner and provider, making this admission was not easy.
Especially in front of his mother.
“Mom… this studio isn’t ours,” Sergey finally managed to say.
Galina Nikolayevna stared at her son for several seconds, clearly unable to understand what she had just heard.
“What do you mean it isn’t yours?”
She even blinked several times.
“You bought it a few years ago. You told us yourself how many trips you made, how you handled all the paperwork, and how you met with the real estate agent!”
“I did make those trips.”
Sergey lowered his gaze.
“But I wasn’t the one buying it. The apartment belongs to Alina. Her aunt transferred it to her as a gift before our wedding. I have no claim to this property.”
Galina Nikolayevna’s hand twitched involuntarily.
The metal measuring tape snapped sharply back into its case.
Her mother-in-law froze.
She shifted her stunned gaze from her son to her daughter-in-law, and her former self-assurance visibly vanished from her face.
“What do you mean… it was a gift?”
She struggled to get the words out.
“But you said you had done it together… that you had worked and saved… You even told everyone that at the wedding!”
Alina walked over to the stool where the spare set of keys lay and picked them up.
“Sergey likes telling impressive stories when he wants to appear more successful than he really is.”
She turned toward her mother-in-law.
“In reality, Galina Nikolayevna, you are currently standing in an apartment that belongs exclusively to me. You are trying to move people I barely know into it without my consent. So cancel the transportation of their belongings. Your nephews will not be living here. The tenants will move in two days from now, and they have already paid a deposit.”
Her mother-in-law’s expression changed instantly.
“Alinochka, surely you understand what an embarrassing position this puts us in?”
Her voice had suddenly softened, although it was noticeably trembling.
“What are we supposed to tell the relatives? Everyone will think we simply threw the boys out onto the street! Their travel expenses have already been paid, and they’ve packed all their belongings!”
“That isn’t my problem,” Alina answered without hesitation.
“When you decided what to do with my apartment, you somehow didn’t consider it necessary to ask my permission. And your son, Galina Nikolayevna, chose to lie to both you and me because it is easier for him to please everyone than to tell the truth just once.”
“But Seryozha… You couldn’t possibly have been deceiving me all this time, could you?”
Galina Nikolayevna looked hopefully at her son.
Sergey, however, turned toward the window.
He stared down as though the passing traffic had suddenly become extraordinarily fascinating.
His mother waited several more seconds for some kind of explanation from him.
None came.
An offended expression spread across her face. She finally realized that the son whose support she had expected had created this situation himself—and now preferred to remain silent.
“How cunning you are,” Galina Nikolayevna hissed as she grabbed her handbag.
“I always knew you arranged everything solely for your own benefit. Never mind. Life is long. One day, you’ll remember how greedy you were.”
She turned abruptly and headed for the door.
A few seconds later, the front door slammed loudly in the entryway.
Silence descended over the studio.
Only the steady noise of traffic drifted in through the open window.
Sergey continued standing with his back to Alina, clearly in no hurry to turn around.
“Alina, did you really have to do that?” he finally asked quietly.
“You could simply have told Mom that the apartment had already been rented out. Why did you have to make me look like that in front of her?”
Alina looked at her husband.
“Because I’m tired of paying my share of the mortgage on our jointly owned home while you pretend to be a wealthy property owner using the apartment my aunt gave me.”
She put the keys into her bag.
“And one more thing. Since you’re so generous and can’t bear to leave your relatives without help, there’s nothing stopping you from renting an apartment for Zhenya and Sasha yourself. You can pay for it from your own income.”
Sergey spread his hands helplessly.
“You know I’m going through a difficult financial period right now…”
“Then you’ve been given an excellent opportunity to learn how to say no to your mother.”
Alina swung her backpack over her shoulder and walked toward the exit.
Sergey remained alone in the empty room.
That evening, he came home later than usual.
He was carrying an enormous bouquet of chrysanthemums.
Her husband tried to behave as though everything that had happened during the day could simply be left in the past. He bustled around the kitchen, put the kettle on, brought out some sweets, and attempted several jokes. Then he spent a long time explaining how difficult it had been for him to look his mother in the eye.
“You know what she’s like,” Sergey said in his defense. “She immediately starts pressuring me. If you tell her no, you have to endure a week of phone calls afterward. I just didn’t want a conflict.”
Alina accepted the flowers.
She placed them in a vase.
She listened to her husband until he had finished.
She did not argue with him again.
Later, she silently opened her banking app and transferred Sergey exactly half the amount of the next mortgage payment for their jointly owned apartment.
She added a short note to the transfer:
“Starting this month, each of us pays half.”
His response arrived almost immediately.
Sergey sent several messages in a row, but Alina did not read them.
She turned her phone facedown and continued drinking her tea.
The following morning, before work, she stopped by the studio and called in a locksmith.
The lock on the door was replaced.
Only Alina kept the new set of keys.
Just in case.
