Larisa Petrovna walked over to the window and pulled the tulle curtain aside, watching as her son Dima helped his wife Katya take the last boxes out of the trunk. They were moving in today, and the apartment was supposed to become their shared home—at least for a while, until the young couple saved enough money for a place of their own.
“Mom, we’re almost done!” Dima shouted from below, waving his hand.
Larisa Petrovna smiled and stepped away from the window. The three-room apartment on Voykovskaya had enough space for the three of them. She had even cleared out the larger room for the newlyweds, leaving the smaller one for herself. It was her sacrifice, her contribution to their family happiness.
Katya climbed the stairs with a heavy bag, her fair hair disheveled and her cheeks flushed from the effort. The girl worked at a large IT company—something to do with marketing, Larisa Petrovna had never really paid attention. The important thing was that her daughter-in-law earned a decent salary. Dima had once let slip that Katya made more than one hundred and twenty thousand.
“Larisa Petrovna, can I leave the bag in the hallway for now?” Katya asked as she stepped over the threshold. “I’ll unpack later.”
“Of course, Katyenka, leave it there. Make yourself at home.”
That “make yourself at home” sounded warm, almost sincere. Larisa Petrovna really was trying to be kind. She understood that relations with a daughter-in-law were delicate and required diplomacy. At least during the first few months.
The next day, when the young couple had gone to work, Larisa Petrovna met her friends in the courtyard. Galina Ivanovna and Lyudmila Semyonovna were already sitting on the bench by the entrance, discussing the latest news.
“Well, now the young ones are living with you. Getting used to each other?” Galina Ivanovna asked, narrowing her eyes slyly.
“So far, everything seems fine,” Larisa Petrovna said, sitting down beside them. “Katya is not a bad girl, hardworking. They pay good money at that IT company of hers.”
“How much does she make?” Lyudmila Semyonovna asked with interest.
“Almost one hundred and thirty, maybe more. Plus all kinds of bonuses.” Larisa Petrovna lowered her voice, though there was no one around. “Dima said last month they gave her a fifty-thousand bonus for some project.”
Her friends whistled.
“Your Dima is lucky,” Galina Ivanovna remarked. “And you get seventeen thousand as a pension. Seems unfair somehow.”
“Well, they’re young. They need to save for an apartment,” Larisa Petrovna shrugged, though something pricked inside her.
Lyudmila Semyonovna leaned closer.
“Listen, Larisa, do you know young people now only use cards? I watch my granddaughter—she’s completely forgotten about cash. Pays for everything with her phone.”
“So what?” Larisa Petrovna didn’t understand.
“So if she has cash lying in her wallet, she won’t even remember how much was there. She doesn’t count it for weeks. Sometimes months.”
Galina Ivanovna giggled.
“Exactly! My niece is the same. She gets her salary, withdraws some cash, stuffs it into her bag—and forgets about it. Then she wonders where the money came from.”
Larisa Petrovna fell silent. The thought was strange, almost indecent, but it lodged in her head and would not go away. That evening, she secretly watched as Katya came home from work and carelessly tossed her handbag onto the small cabinet in the hallway—as always. The black leather bag, clearly not cheap, stayed there until morning. Katya did not even look inside it before bed.
That night, Larisa Petrovna tossed and turned for a long time, convincing herself it was nonsense, that she would not do it. But curiosity and some strange feeling of resentment—at what? youth? easy money?—pushed her toward the hallway.
The bag stood in the same place. Larisa Petrovna looked around, though everyone in the apartment was asleep, and carefully unzipped it. Inside was the usual women’s set: lipstick, a small mirror, wet wipes, a bunch of keys. And a wallet. Small and pink.
Her hands trembled as she opened it. In the bill compartment lay several thousand rubles—five thousand-ruble notes and three five-hundred-ruble notes. Larisa Petrovna pulled out one thousand, then thought for a moment and took another five hundred. The money quickly moved into the pocket of her robe. Her heart was pounding as if she had committed the crime of the century.
At dinner, Katya was her usual self—cheerful, talking about work, laughing at Dima’s joke. Not a hint that she had noticed the missing money.
Three days later, Larisa Petrovna repeated the operation. This time she took two thousand. Katya still noticed nothing—or pretended not to.
“You know,” Larisa Petrovna told her friends a week later, “young people really don’t pay attention to cash. They’re all in their phones.”
Galina Ivanovna nodded knowingly.
“I told you! Well, have you started saving for a fur coat?”
Larisa Petrovna had been dreaming of a mink coat for three years. The one hanging in her closet had been bought back in the nineties; it was worn out and out of fashion. A new one cost around eighty thousand—an unthinkable amount for a pensioner. But now there was a chance.
“Little by little,” she admitted in a whisper. “I’ve already put aside twelve thousand.”
By the end of the second month of living together, Larisa Petrovna had grown bolder. She already knew the young couple’s schedule, knew when Katya moved money from one bag to another, when she went to the ATM. Usually, her daughter-in-law withdrew five to seven thousand in cash—“for small expenses,” as she explained to Dima. And that money stayed in her bag for several days.
Larisa Petrovna began taking two or three thousand a week. Carefully, little by little. Her stash grew. In the dresser, inside a shoebox, there were already forty-eight thousand rubles. Less than halfway remained until the fur coat.
But in early October, something changed. Katya became thoughtful and often looked at her phone with a puzzled expression. One evening, Larisa Petrovna overheard the young couple talking in their room.
“Dima, something strange is going on with my money,” Katya said. “I’m sure I withdrew seven thousand on Monday, but there are three left in my wallet.”
“Well, you must have spent some,” Dima replied absentmindedly, buried in his laptop.
“I did, but not four thousand! I write down my expenses. Coffee, lunches, taxis—it came to one and a half thousand at most.”
“Maybe you lost it somewhere? Or wrote it down wrong?”
“Maybe,” Katya said uncertainly.
Larisa Petrovna stepped away from the door and returned to the kitchen. Anxiety stabbed beneath her ribs, but she brushed it aside. Katya could not prove anything. These were just suspicions.
A few days later, something new appeared in the hallway. Larisa Petrovna did not notice it at first—a tiny black box on the top shelf of the closet, half-covered by a scarf. Only two days later, when her mother-in-law accidentally brushed the scarf while taking out an umbrella, did she get a better look at the device.
A camera.
Small, but clearly working—a tiny red light was glowing.
Her blood ran cold. The camera was pointed directly at the cabinet where Katya left her bag.
How many days had it been there? What had it managed to record?
Larisa Petrovna rushed to her room and took out the box with the money. Forty-three thousand. She had to return it, urgently return it! But how? Simply put it back in the bag? That would be suspicious. Katya knew exactly how much she was supposed to have.
For several days, the mother-in-law lived in tension, not touching Katya’s bag but also not daring to return the stolen money. The young couple behaved as usual, although Larisa Petrovna caught strange glances from her daughter-in-law—studying, cold.
At the end of October, Katya received a bonus. Larisa Petrovna found out by chance, overhearing a joyful conversation at dinner.
“Can you imagine, Dima? Sixty thousand!” Katya was glowing. “They paid it for the quarter. Tomorrow I’ll withdraw it in cash, take half to my parents for renovations, and put half into our emergency stash.”
“Wow! That’s my clever girl,” Dima said, hugging his wife.
Larisa Petrovna smiled along with them, but inside her stirred that same old resentment. Sixty thousand—as a bonus. And she received seventeen thousand as a pension and was expected to be grateful.
The next evening, Katya came home from work with an envelope. Larisa Petrovna saw her daughter-in-law put the money into her bag after counting the bills. Thirty thousand—exactly half the bonus. They lay there in a thick bundle, provoking, tempting.
“She won’t remember the exact amount anyway,” Larisa Petrovna thought. “She’ll think she gave her parents more.”
In the morning, after the young couple left, her mother-in-law stood in the hallway for a long time, fighting with herself. The camera had not blinked its red light for a long time—maybe Katya had decided she was mistaken and turned it off? Or maybe the battery had simply died?
Larisa Petrovna opened the bag. The money was in an envelope, in a separate pocket. She took out the envelope, pulled out ten thousand-ruble bills, folded them, and hid them in her pocket. Then, after thinking for a moment, she took five more.
Fifteen thousand.
There was very little left until the fur coat.
That evening Katya came home late from work, exhausted. At dinner she was silent. Dima tried to get her talking, but she answered in monosyllables. After the meal, his wife locked herself in their room. Larisa Petrovna heard her speaking quietly on the phone, then silence fell.
The next morning, the atmosphere in the apartment was tense. Katya and Dima got up early and got ready for work in complete silence. The mother-in-law tried to be invisible, but she felt something heavy and stormy hanging in the air.
That evening, when Dima had not yet returned from work and Larisa Petrovna was cooking dinner, Katya entered the kitchen. Her face was pale, her lips pressed together.
“Larisa Petrovna, I need to talk to you.”
“Of course, Katyenka, I’m listening,” her mother-in-law said, continuing to chop onions, trying to look casual.
“Please look at me.”
Larisa Petrovna raised her eyes. Katya stood by the table, holding a tablet.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked, turning the screen.
On it, the camera recording was clearly visible. The hallway, the cabinet, the bag. And the figure of Larisa Petrovna opening the bag, taking out the wallet, taking money. The date and time were in the corner of the screen. Not one recording—a whole folder of files, each with a date.
“I…” Larisa Petrovna felt the ground slip from under her feet.
“What did you think? That I wouldn’t notice?” Katya’s voice trembled, but she held herself together. “I checked for two weeks. I wrote down every kopeck, withdrew identical amounts. And every time, money disappeared. And yesterday you took fifteen thousand from my bonus. Fifteen thousand!”
“Katya, wait, I can explain…”
“Explain?!” her daughter-in-law raised her voice. “What is there to explain? You stole from me for two months! I counted it from the recordings—you took more than fifty thousand rubles!”
“I thought… you wouldn’t notice…” Larisa Petrovna sank onto a chair; her legs would not hold her. “I needed a fur coat so badly, and you have so much money…”
“I have?!” Katya was almost in tears. “Do you know how much I work? How much overtime, how many nerves? I earn that money! And you just take it, as if it costs nothing!”
At that moment the door opened, and Dima came in. He immediately felt the tension.
“What’s going on?”
Katya silently handed him the tablet. Dima watched the recording, and his face changed—first confusion, then shock, then something like pain.
“Mom… is this true?”
Larisa Petrovna remained silent, staring at the floor.
“Mom, I’m asking you—is that you?”
“Yes,” she breathed barely audibly. “I wanted a fur coat… I thought Katya wouldn’t notice, she has so much…”
“You think I don’t know your mother has been stealing from me?” Katya’s voice sounded tired and bitter. “I’ve known for two weeks. I hoped I was wrong, that it wasn’t true. Every day I watched those recordings and couldn’t believe it. But yesterday, when half my bonus disappeared…”
“Katya, please forgive me,” Dima said, stepping toward his wife, but she pulled away.
“I don’t blame you, Dima. But I can’t live in a house where people steal from me. I can’t wake up every day and be afraid to leave my bag in the hallway.”
“I’ll return the money!” Larisa Petrovna jumped up. “I’ll return everything, down to the last kopeck!”
“It’s not about the money!” Katya finally broke down, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s about trust! You are Dima’s mother. We were supposed to be one family. And you… How could you?”
A heavy silence hung in the room. Larisa Petrovna cried, dropping her head into her hands. Dima stood in the middle of the kitchen, lost, not knowing whom to approach, whom to comfort.
“We’re moving out,” Katya finally said. “We’ll rent an apartment. We don’t have enough for a mortgage yet, but I’m not staying here.”
“Katyush, let’s think about it,” Dima began.
“I already have. I thought about it for two weeks.” She wiped away her tears. “I need to pack my things.”
She left the kitchen. Dima looked at his mother for a long, heavy moment—a look full of disappointment, shame, and incomprehension—then followed his wife.
Larisa Petrovna remained sitting alone in the kitchen. The half-chopped onion lay on the cutting board; the pot on the stove was cooling. In the dresser, inside the shoebox, lay fifty-eight thousand rubles—almost the full price of the fur coat. But now the money seemed dirty, alien, useless.
The next day, the young couple began packing their things. They moved silently, methodically. Larisa Petrovna tried to speak to them, to apologize once more, but Katya pretended not to hear, and Dima only shook his head.
Before leaving, Katya approached her mother-in-law. Her face was tired, her eyes red.
“I don’t want to file a police report,” she said quietly. “For Dima’s sake. But we won’t come back. Consider it this way: you bought yourself a fur coat. And loneliness along with it.”
They left, taking the last boxes with them. The apartment emptied and became too large. Larisa Petrovna walked through the rooms, and the echo of her steps rang in the emptiness.
On the desk in the young couple’s bedroom lay a note from Dima:
“Mom, we’re not asking you to return the money. Buy yourself the fur coat. When we cool down, we’ll call.”
Larisa Petrovna took the bills and stared at them for a long time. Then she walked over to the window. Down below, the young couple were loading their things into a taxi. Katya hugged Dima, and he kissed her. They looked exhausted, but they were together—one whole against the entire world.
The car drove away. Larisa Petrovna remained at the window, clutching the money in her hand.
There was enough for the fur coat.
But there would be no one to wear it for, no one to show it off to.
Her friends in the courtyard would never know the true price of that coat.
But she would remember it forever.
