Nina loved Saturday mornings. Saturday was the one day when there was no need to hurry anywhere. She could lie there with her nose pressed into Kolya’s shoulder, listen to the street waking up outside the window, and think about something pleasant. For example, about the fact that they had already saved two hundred and forty thousand in the account, which meant they had a little less than two years left before reaching the cherished million. Then there would be a three-room apartment in a new neighborhood, a children’s room with yellow curtains, and maybe a dog. Or a cat. Or both.
“What are you thinking about?” Kolya asked sleepily, without opening his eyes.
“Yellow curtains.”
“I see,” he smiled, not understanding, and pulled her closer.
They had been married for three years. Kolya was twenty-eight, Nina was twenty-six. They both worked, both were building careers, both wanted to live for themselves first — travel the world a little, get on their feet, feel solid ground beneath them before putting down roots. Their decision had been conscious, discussed, and hard-won through long evening conversations over tea. No pressure, no rush. They both knew what they wanted.
Only his mother-in-law, Valentina Petrovna, did not believe it.
Valentina Petrovna was a large, loud woman who was absolutely convinced of her own rightness on every possible matter. She had raised two children — Kolya and his younger sister Lena — without a husband, who had left when Lena was three, and since then she believed she was entitled to special respect. In her view, that respect meant that everyone around her should accept her words as instructions for action.
Things had gone wrong with Nina from the very first glance.
“Too skinny,” she told Kolya after their first meeting. “Women like that don’t give birth.”
Kolya had brushed it off then, deciding that his mother was simply worried, simply observing. But Valentina Petrovna was not simply observing — she was methodically, consistently, and without the slightest embarrassment constructing her own version of reality, in which Nina was to blame for the absence of grandchildren.
At every family gathering, at every convenient opportunity, she managed to slip in some remark. Sometimes she sighed, “Others have already had two children, and you’re still traveling.” Sometimes, while pouring tea, she would casually drop, “They say if you wait too long, later it may not work at all.” Or, looking at Nina with exaggerated sympathy, she would say, “The important thing is not to worry. Medicine is so advanced now, they treat all sorts of things.”
At first, Nina kept silent. Then she began answering briefly and coldly. Then she and Kolya had a conversation, Kolya talked to his mother, his mother got offended, cried, said that nobody understood her, and a week later everything repeated itself.
“She does it on purpose,” Nina told Kolya. “She knows perfectly well that we decided this ourselves. She just wants to hurt me.”
“She isn’t evil,” Kolya replied. “She’s just… like that.”
“‘Like that’ is not an excuse.”
He agreed. He talked to his mother again. His mother got offended again. The circle closed.
Valentina Petrovna found out about the savings account by accident — Kolya let it slip in front of her that he and Nina were saving for an apartment. His mother said nothing then, but Nina saw something flash in her eyes. Something unpleasant.
“You shouldn’t have told her,” she said to Kolya afterward.
“Oh, come on. What is she going to do, take it?”
“I don’t know. But it would have been better if you hadn’t said anything.”
Kolya brushed it off again. In general, he was a gentle, kind-hearted person who preferred to think well of people. It was both his strength and his vulnerability.
Lena, Kolya’s younger sister, was a beautiful, flighty girl of twenty-three who had an enviable talent for getting herself into trouble. She changed jobs, changed hobbies, changed boyfriends — and at some point, she stopped paying attention.
She told her mother about the pregnancy in November. Nina found out from Kolya, who had found out from his mother, who had called in a panic and cried into the phone for half an hour. The father of the child — a certain Artyom, whom Lena had been dating for six months — was ready to marry her. Lena was thinking.
She thought for a long time — too long. By the time she finally decided to keep the baby, the pregnancy was already too far along for any other option. Her mother breathed a sigh of relief. Lena set one condition: a wedding. A real one. With a banquet hall, a white dress, live music, and no fewer than fifty guests.
“I’m not just signing papers at the registry office,” Lena declared firmly.
Artyom shrugged — he seemed ready to agree to anything, as long as everyone stopped bothering him. His parents spread their hands helplessly: they had no money. The bride’s parent, meaning Valentina Petrovna in proud solitude, also spread her hands: no money.
Nina heard these conversations in passing and understood everything. She understood even before Valentina Petrovna called and said she wanted to come over “to talk.”
“Kolya,” Nina said that evening, “she’s coming for money.”
“Nin, you’re jumping straight to…”
“Kolya. She’s coming for money.”
He said nothing. Which meant he understood too.
Valentina Petrovna came on Sunday afternoon, just after Nina had finished washing the dishes after lunch and was about to sit down with a book. She entered the hallway, took off her shoes, walked into the kitchen, looking around like someone who had not been there for a long time and was not particularly glad to be back, and sat down at the table without waiting to be invited.
“Is Kolya home?” she asked, looking past Nina.
“I’ll call him.”
Kolya came out of the room looking like a man walking into an interrogation. He sat opposite his mother. Nina remained standing by the stove, arms crossed.
Valentina Petrovna began from afar — with Lena, with her condition, with how inconvenient it all was, and how she, as a mother, could no longer sleep at night. Then she moved on to Artyom — not a bad young man, he worked, but he had no money, and his parents were simple people. Then she got to the wedding. To how Lena deserved a proper celebration, how she was still a daughter, how one could not just quietly sign papers and pretend nothing was happening.
Nina listened and understood exactly where all of this was going.
“And so I thought,” Valentina Petrovna finally said, looking at Nina with an expression that was apparently supposed to mean goodwill, “you and Kolya aren’t having children yet anyway. You said yourselves you aren’t in a hurry. And your money is just sitting there, piling up. Give your savings to your sister-in-law for the wedding, and when you give birth, she’ll pay you back.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Nina slowly turned her head and looked at her mother-in-law. Valentina Petrovna looked back calmly, even with a certain superiority, like a person who had just said something perfectly reasonable and was waiting for gratitude.
“That’s our money,” Kolya said quietly. “We saved it for an apartment.”
“So what?” Valentina Petrovna shrugged. “The apartment isn’t going anywhere. You’re young, you’ll save again. But Lena is pregnant now, she needs help. This is family, Kolya. Family should help.”
“We would help,” Kolya said, “if we were asked. But we don’t have that kind of money to give for a wedding.”
“Yes, you do,” his mother said curtly. “I know how much is there.”
Nina felt her cheeks begin to burn.
“You know how much is there?” she asked slowly.
“Well, Kolya mentioned it once…”
“Kolya said we were saving for an apartment. He did not say you could decide what to do with that money.”
Valentina Petrovna looked at her with cold irritation.
“I am not talking to you.”
“You are in my apartment,” Nina said. “You are talking about my money. So you are talking to me.”
“It’s Kolya’s apartment too.”
“Jointly acquired property. And the savings account is joint too. Which means half of it is mine. And I say no.”
Valentina Petrovna pursed her lips. Then she looked at her son with the kind of look people give a child when they expect him to finally come to his senses and put a rebellious toy back in its place.
“Kolya, say something to her.”
Kolya was silent.
“Kolya,” his mother repeated, and her voice took on that special tone Nina had studied down to the last note over the past three years — the tone of a woman used to being obeyed. “You understand that your sister needs help. Lena is alone now. It’s hard for her. You are her brother.”
“I am her brother,” Kolya said. “But I am not going to pay for her wedding with our money.”
Something twitched in Valentina Petrovna’s face — surprise, almost hurt. She clearly had not expected that.
“So some…” Valentina Petrovna made a vague gesture toward Nina, “is more important to you than your own sister?”
“Nina is my wife. And you are in her home.”
Valentina Petrovna leaned back in her chair. She was silent for a moment. Then she said quietly, almost thoughtfully, and that was more frightening than shouting:
“I knew from the very beginning that she was the wrong woman. I told you. There were better options. You didn’t listen. And she…” She looked at Nina. “She won’t give you children. I was always sure of it. Three years have passed. Nothing. Not because you ‘aren’t in a hurry.’ Because there’s nothing to give.”
Nina felt her patience snap. It did not hurt — she had long grown used to these hints, these looks, this endless “others already have children.” Nina threw away the last scraps of politeness she had kept out of courtesy, out of respect for her husband, out of unwillingness to start yet another family scandal.
“You have completely lost your shame,” Nina said. Her voice sounded even. Then louder.
“You have completely lost your shame! To come into someone else’s home, demand money no one promised you, and at the same time insult the person you’re asking for that money! Do you even understand what that is called?”
“Don’t shout at me,” Valentina Petrovna said coldly. “I did not come to see you. I came to see my son. This is none of your business.”
“This is my apartment! My money! How is it none of my business?”
“Kolya,” his mother turned to her son as if Nina were not even in the room, “control your wife. Teach her to respect her elders before it’s too late.”
At that moment, Kolya stood up.
Nina saw him rise — slowly, heavily, like a man who had been sitting on something uncomfortable for a long time and had finally decided to get up. He was tall, her Kolya, and when he stood like that, with his shoulders straightened, he seemed broader and firmer than usual.
“Mom,” he said, “enough.”
“What?”
“Enough. You’ve said enough.” He spoke evenly, without shouting, and that was more frightening. “My wife is right. You came into our home, demanded our money, and insulted Nina. I will not allow you to treat her like that. Not in our home, not anywhere!”
“Kolya, I only…”
“No, Mom. We’ve talked to you about this many times. Do you remember? We asked you not to make hints, not to talk about children in front of everyone, not to humiliate Nina. You didn’t hear us. Maybe now you will.”
Valentina Petrovna looked at him like someone who had just been struck by something she had not expected. She opened her mouth, closed it. Then she said, her voice trembling:
“So you’re on her side.”
“I’m on our side,” Kolya said. “Nina and I are one side. That’s what happens when people get married.”
“And Lena? Lena doesn’t matter to you?”
“Lena matters. But we will not pay for her mistakes. She is an adult. Let her get married in the way they can afford. That’s normal. There is nothing shameful about a modest wedding.”
“She doesn’t want a modest wedding!”
“That is her problem,” Nina said. Quietly and very clearly. “She is twenty-three. She got herself into this situation. Let her get herself out of it.”
Valentina Petrovna stood up. She tugged her sweater straight. She looked at Nina for a long moment — the way one looks at something unpleasant.
“I’ll leave, of course,” she said. “But I’ll remember this.”
“And so will I,” Nina replied.
That night, Nina could not fall asleep for a long time. Kolya snuffled beside her — he had the ability to let go of heavy things quickly, a special talent that Nina both valued and slightly envied. She lay in the dark, stared at the ceiling, and replayed the scene again and again.
Give your savings to your sister-in-law for the wedding, and when you give birth, she’ll pay you back.
That was exactly how it had been said. Calmly, possessively, as if they were not talking about someone else’s savings but about something self-evident. As if Nina were something like a safe — standing quietly in the corner, collecting money, waiting until the right person came along.
Nina thought about how long this had been going on. Three years. Three years of hints, sighs, sympathetic looks. Three years of explanations — we decided this ourselves, we are not in a hurry, we want to get on our feet first. Three years in which those explanations were either not heard or declared excuses.
She was not infertile. She was healthy. She and Kolya had been checked — just for themselves, because Nina wanted to know for sure. Everything was fine. She had not told her mother-in-law because she believed she did not owe an account of her health to an outsider. And Valentina Petrovna — despite everything that connected them through Kolya — was exactly that to Nina. An outsider. A stranger.
Maybe that was cruel. Maybe they should have sat down from the beginning, talked, explained — not coldly, as she usually did, but properly, openly. Maybe then everything would have turned out differently.
But Nina looked at the ceiling and understood: no, it would not have. Because the problem was not misunderstanding. The problem was that Valentina Petrovna had decided from the very beginning that Nina was not the right one. Not the right woman for her son. And everything else — the assumptions about infertility, the complaints about children, the story with the savings — were all just different ways of saying the same thing: you are a stranger here.
Nina turned onto her side and closed her eyes. In his sleep, Kolya quietly placed his hand on her shoulder — without waking, instinctively, as he always did.
She thought: maybe this is exactly why she loves him. For that calm, unconscious “I’m here.”
Lena got married in March. There was no banquet hall, no live music, no fifty guests. There was a small meal in Valentina Petrovna’s apartment — about twelve people, Olivier salad, roast chicken, and a cake from a bakery. Nina and Kolya came too. Nina smiled, congratulated them, clinked glasses. She did everything properly.
Lena did not look at her. Artyom drank nervously and explained something to his father. Valentina Petrovna busied herself in the kitchen and did not meet Nina’s eyes once.
In April, Lena and Artyom moved in with her mother — they had nowhere else to go. Artyom’s parents lived in a one-room apartment with his younger brother, a student. Renting a place while heavily pregnant made no sense and there was no money for it anyway. Valentina Petrovna made room.
In June, a boy was born. They named him Misha.
Nina found out from Kolya — he had gone to the maternity hospital. He came back tired and a little bewildered.
“How is Lena?” Nina asked.
“Fine. The little one screams, but he’s healthy.”
“Good.”
They were silent for a while.
“Mom asked me to tell you…” Kolya began, then stopped.
“What?”
“That she would be glad if you came by to meet your nephew.”
Nina thought for a moment.
“I’ll come,” she said. “Later. When everything settles down a little.”
Kolya nodded. They both understood that “later” might not be very soon.
In the fall, Nina found out — by chance, from Kolya, who had found out from Lena, who had called to complain — that life in her mother-in-law’s apartment had become unbearable.
Misha cried at night. Artyom came home from work angry and exhausted. Lena was angry at Artyom and at her mother. Her mother was angry at Lena and at Artyom. Everyone was angry at Misha, although Misha was not to blame for anything. Scandals happened every other day.
“Lena takes after Mom completely,” Kolya said. “Same character, exactly. They won’t be able to live together.”
“I know,” Nina said.
“Don’t you feel sorry for Mom?”
Nina thought about it. She tried to find something inside herself resembling pity — pity for that large, loud woman who now did not sleep at night because of her grandson’s crying, who endured cramped living and scandals she herself did not know how to avoid.
She found nothing.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
Kolya sighed. He seemed to have expected a different answer. But he did not argue — he knew there was nothing to argue about.
In November, exactly one year after that ill-fated news of Lena’s pregnancy, Nina and Kolya sat at the table in the evening and counted. There were three hundred and eighty thousand in the savings account. Less than a year and a half remained until they reached a million.
“Can we still manage to go somewhere this year?” Kolya asked.
“If in December, then yes.”
“Where do you want to go?”
Nina propped her cheek on her palm and looked out the window, where the first snow already lay beyond the glass.
“Somewhere warm.”
Kolya smiled and reached for the laptop to look up tickets.
Nina watched him and thought that she did not regret a single decision they had made. Not the decision not to hurry. Not the decision to save. Not what they had said to her mother-in-law that day.
Especially the last one.
Because there was a feeling in it that the world was, after all, arranged fairly. That you could not humiliate a person for years, demand their money, tell them to their face that they were defective — and receive nothing in return.
Valentina Petrovna had received something. Not from Nina — from life. From her own daughter, who was of the same breed. From the cramped apartment and a baby crying at three in the morning. From the quarrelsomeness she herself had raised in Lena, because Lena truly had taken after her mother in every way.
Nina was certain that Valentina Petrovna had finally gotten what she deserved.
Not because Nina wished her harm.
Simply because justice is slow, but inevitable.
And outside the window, the snow kept falling and falling, tickets to Tenerife in December were not expensive at all, and the yellow curtains in the children’s room had not gone anywhere.
They would simply wait a little.
Just a little.
