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 called from below, waving his hand.
Larisa Petrovna smiled and stepped away from the window. The three-room apartment in Voykovskaya had enough space for the three of them. She had even cleared out the large room for the newlyweds, taking the smaller one for herself. It was her sacrifice, her contribution to their family happiness.
Katya came up the stairs carrying a heavy bag, her blonde hair disheveled, her cheeks flushed from the physical effort. The girl worked at a large IT company, something to do with marketing — Larisa Petrovna had never really gone into the details. The important thing was that her daughter-in-law had a decent salary. Dima had once let slip that Katya earned 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, Katyusha, 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 a delicate matter, requiring diplomacy. At least in 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, it seems all right,” Larisa Petrovna said, sitting down beside them. “Katya is a decent girl, hardworking. They pay good money in that IT company of theirs.”
“How much does she make?” Lyudmila Semyonovna asked with interest.
“Close to one hundred and thirty, maybe more. Plus all kinds of bonuses.” Larisa Petrovna lowered her voice, though there was no one around. “Dima said they gave her a fifty-thousand bonus last month for some project.”
Her friends whistled.
“Lucky Dima,” Galina Ivanovna remarked. “And you get seventeen thousand in pension. Somehow that doesn’t seem fair.”
“Well, they’re young. They need to save for an apartment,” Larisa Petrovna shrugged, but something stung inside her.
Lyudmila Semyonovna leaned closer.
“Listen, Larisa, do you know that young people nowadays only use cards? I watch my granddaughter — she’s completely forgotten about cash. She pays for everything with her phone.”
“So what?” Larisa Petrovna did not 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 for months.”
Galina Ivanovna giggled.
“Exactly! My niece is the same way. She gets her salary, withdraws some cash, stuffs it into her bag — and forgets about it. Then she’s surprised: where did this money come from?”
Larisa Petrovna fell silent in thought. The idea was strange, almost indecent, but it settled in her head and would not leave. That evening, she secretly watched as Katya, returning from work, carelessly tossed her purse onto the little cabinet in the hallway — as always. A black leather bag, clearly expensive, stood there until morning. Katya did not even look inside it before going to bed.
That night, Larisa Petrovna tossed and turned for a long time, convincing herself that 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 was still in the same place. Larisa Petrovna looked around, although everyone in the apartment was asleep, and carefully unzipped it. Inside was the usual set of women’s things: lipstick, a compact 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 — 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 anything missing.
Three days later, Larisa Petrovna repeated the operation. This time she took two thousand. Katya still did not notice anything, or pretended not to.
“You know,” Larisa Petrovna told her friends a week later, “young people really are careless with cash. Everything is on their phones now.”
Galina Ivanovna nodded knowingly.
“I told you! So, have you started saving for a fur coat?”
Larisa Petrovna had dreamed of a mink coat for three years. The one hanging in her closet had been bought back in the nineties, worn out and out of fashion. A new one cost around eighty thousand — an unthinkable amount for a pensioner. But now a chance had appeared.
“A little at a time,” 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, in a shoebox, there were already forty-eight thousand rubles. Less than half the way remained to 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 pretty sure I withdrew seven thousand on Monday, but there are three in my wallet.”
“Well, you must have spent some,” Dima answered absentmindedly, buried in his laptop.
“I did spend some, but not four thousand! I write down my expenses. Coffee, lunches, taxis — at most it came to one and a half.”
“Maybe you lost it somewhere? Or wrote it down wrong?”
“Maybe,” Katya said uncertainly.
Larisa Petrovna moved away from the door and returned to the kitchen. Anxiety stabbed under her ribs, but she brushed it off. 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 right away — 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 against 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 aimed directly at the little cabinet where Katya left her bag.
How many days had it been there? What had it already recorded?
Larisa Petrovna rushed to her room and took out the box with the money. Forty-three thousand. She had to return it, urgently! But how? Just put it back in the bag? That would look suspicious. Katya knew exactly how much she should have.
For several days, the mother-in-law lived in tension, not touching Katya’s bag, but also not daring to return what she had stolen. The young couple behaved as usual, although Larisa Petrovna caught strange looks from her daughter-in-law — studying, cold looks.
At the end of October, Katya received a bonus. Larisa Petrovna found out by accident, 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 their renovation, and put half away for us.”
“Wow! That’s my clever girl,” Dima said, hugging his wife.
Larisa Petrovna smiled along with them, but inside, that same old resentment stirred again. Sixty thousand — as a bonus. And she received seventeen thousand as a pension and was supposed to be grateful.
The next evening, Katya came home from work with an envelope. Larisa Petrovna saw her daughter-in-law transfer the money into her bag after counting the bills. Thirty thousand — exactly half of the bonus. It lay there in a thick stack, provoking her, tempting her.
“She won’t remember the exact amount anyway,” Larisa Petrovna thought. “She’ll think she gave more to her parents.”
In the morning, when the young couple had left, the 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 the envelope, in a separate pocket. She took out the envelope, pulled out ten one-thousand-ruble notes, 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 to reach the cost of the coat.
That evening, Katya came home late from work, tired. At dinner, she was silent. Dima tried to get her talking, but received only one-word answers. After eating, her daughter-in-law locked herself in the room. Larisa Petrovna heard her speaking quietly on the phone, and 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 stay unnoticed, 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 tightly together.
“Larisa Petrovna, I need to talk to you.”
“Of course, Katyusha, I’m listening,” the mother-in-law said, continuing to chop onions and trying to look casual.
“Please look at me.”
Larisa Petrovna raised her eyes. Katya was standing by the table, holding a tablet.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked, turning the screen around.
On it, a recording from the camera was clearly visible. The hallway, the cabinet, the bag. And the figure of Larisa Petrovna opening the bag, taking out the wallet, and removing money. The date and time were in the corner of the screen. Not one recording — an entire folder of files, each with a date.
“I…” Larisa Petrovna felt the ground disappear beneath 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 the same 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’s worth nothing!”
At that moment, the door opened and Dima walked in. He immediately sensed 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 said nothing, staring at the floor.
“Mom, I’m asking — is that you?”
“Yes,” she breathed almost inaudibly. “I wanted a fur coat… I thought Katya wouldn’t notice, she has so much…”
“You think I don’t know that 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 home where someone steals 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 all of it, every kopeck!”
“It’s not about the money!” Katya finally broke down, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s about trust! You’re Dima’s mother. We were supposed to be one family. And you… How could you?”
A heavy silence hung in the kitchen. Larisa Petrovna cried, dropping her head into her hands. Dima stood in the middle of the kitchen, lost, not knowing whom to go to, 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.”
“Katyusha, let’s think about this,” Dima began.
“I’ve already thought about it. For two weeks.” She wiped her tears. “I need to pack.”
She left the kitchen. Dima looked at his mother — a long, heavy look filled with disappointment, shame, and incomprehension — and followed his wife.
Larisa Petrovna remained sitting alone in the kitchen. The half-cut onion lay on the board, the pot on the stove was cooling. In the dresser, in the shoebox, lay fifty-eight thousand rubles — almost the full price of the fur coat. But now that money seemed dirty, чужое, unnecessary.
The next day, the young couple began packing their things. They moved silently, methodically. Larisa Petrovna tried to speak to them, to apologize again, 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 are not coming 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 out and became too large. Larisa Petrovna walked through the rooms, and the echo of her footsteps rang in the emptiness.
On the table 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.”
On the table 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 picked up the bills and stared at them for a long time. Then she walked to the window. Down below, the young couple was loading their things into a taxi. Katya hugged Dima, and he kissed her. They looked tired, but they were together — one whole against the entire world.
The car drove away. Larisa Petrovna remained by 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.
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 called from below, waving his hand.
Larisa Petrovna smiled and stepped away from the window. The three-room apartment in Voykovskaya had enough space for the three of them. She had even cleared out the large room for the newlyweds, taking the smaller one for herself. It was her sacrifice, her contribution to their family happiness.
Katya came up the stairs carrying a heavy bag, her blonde hair disheveled, her cheeks flushed from the physical effort. The girl worked at a large IT company, something to do with marketing — Larisa Petrovna had never really gone into the details. The important thing was that her daughter-in-law had a decent salary. Dima had once let slip that Katya earned 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, Katyusha, 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 a delicate matter, requiring diplomacy. At least in 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, it seems all right,” Larisa Petrovna said, sitting down beside them. “Katya is a decent girl, hardworking. They pay good money in that IT company of theirs.”
“How much does she make?” Lyudmila Semyonovna asked with interest.
“Close to one hundred and thirty, maybe more. Plus all kinds of bonuses.” Larisa Petrovna lowered her voice, though there was no one around. “Dima said they gave her a fifty-thousand bonus last month for some project.”
Her friends whistled.
“Lucky Dima,” Galina Ivanovna remarked. “And you get seventeen thousand in pension. Somehow that doesn’t seem fair.”
“Well, they’re young. They need to save for an apartment,” Larisa Petrovna shrugged, but something stung inside her.
Lyudmila Semyonovna leaned closer.
“Listen, Larisa, do you know that young people nowadays only use cards? I watch my granddaughter — she’s completely forgotten about cash. She pays for everything with her phone.”
“So what?” Larisa Petrovna did not 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 for months.”
Galina Ivanovna giggled.
“Exactly! My niece is the same way. She gets her salary, withdraws some cash, stuffs it into her bag — and forgets about it. Then she’s surprised: where did this money come from?”
Larisa Petrovna fell silent in thought. The idea was strange, almost indecent, but it settled in her head and would not leave. That evening, she secretly watched as Katya, returning from work, carelessly tossed her purse onto the little cabinet in the hallway — as always. A black leather bag, clearly expensive, stood there until morning. Katya did not even look inside it before going to bed.
That night, Larisa Petrovna tossed and turned for a long time, convincing herself that 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 was still in the same place. Larisa Petrovna looked around, although everyone in the apartment was asleep, and carefully unzipped it. Inside was the usual set of women’s things: lipstick, a compact 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 — 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 anything missing.
Three days later, Larisa Petrovna repeated the operation. This time she took two thousand. Katya still did not notice anything, or pretended not to.
“You know,” Larisa Petrovna told her friends a week later, “young people really are careless with cash. Everything is on their phones now.”
Galina Ivanovna nodded knowingly.
“I told you! So, have you started saving for a fur coat?”
Larisa Petrovna had dreamed of a mink coat for three years. The one hanging in her closet had been bought back in the nineties, worn out and out of fashion. A new one cost around eighty thousand — an unthinkable amount for a pensioner. But now a chance had appeared.
“A little at a time,” 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, in a shoebox, there were already forty-eight thousand rubles. Less than half the way remained to 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 pretty sure I withdrew seven thousand on Monday, but there are three in my wallet.”
“Well, you must have spent some,” Dima answered absentmindedly, buried in his laptop.
“I did spend some, but not four thousand! I write down my expenses. Coffee, lunches, taxis — at most it came to one and a half.”
“Maybe you lost it somewhere? Or wrote it down wrong?”
“Maybe,” Katya said uncertainly.
Larisa Petrovna moved away from the door and returned to the kitchen. Anxiety stabbed under her ribs, but she brushed it off. 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 right away — 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 against 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 aimed directly at the little cabinet where Katya left her bag.
How many days had it been there? What had it already recorded?
Larisa Petrovna rushed to her room and took out the box with the money. Forty-three thousand. She had to return it, urgently! But how? Just put it back in the bag? That would look suspicious. Katya knew exactly how much she should have.
For several days, the mother-in-law lived in tension, not touching Katya’s bag, but also not daring to return what she had stolen. The young couple behaved as usual, although Larisa Petrovna caught strange looks from her daughter-in-law — studying, cold looks.
At the end of October, Katya received a bonus. Larisa Petrovna found out by accident, 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 their renovation, and put half away for us.”
“Wow! That’s my clever girl,” Dima said, hugging his wife.
Larisa Petrovna smiled along with them, but inside, that same old resentment stirred again. Sixty thousand — as a bonus. And she received seventeen thousand as a pension and was supposed to be grateful.
The next evening, Katya came home from work with an envelope. Larisa Petrovna saw her daughter-in-law transfer the money into her bag after counting the bills. Thirty thousand — exactly half of the bonus. It lay there in a thick stack, provoking her, tempting her.
“She won’t remember the exact amount anyway,” Larisa Petrovna thought. “She’ll think she gave more to her parents.”
In the morning, when the young couple had left, the 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 the envelope, in a separate pocket. She took out the envelope, pulled out ten one-thousand-ruble notes, 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 to reach the cost of the coat.
That evening, Katya came home late from work, tired. At dinner, she was silent. Dima tried to get her talking, but received only one-word answers. After eating, her daughter-in-law locked herself in the room. Larisa Petrovna heard her speaking quietly on the phone, and 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 stay unnoticed, 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 tightly together.
“Larisa Petrovna, I need to talk to you.”
“Of course, Katyusha, I’m listening,” the mother-in-law said, continuing to chop onions and trying to look casual.
“Please look at me.”
Larisa Petrovna raised her eyes. Katya was standing by the table, holding a tablet.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked, turning the screen around.
On it, a recording from the camera was clearly visible. The hallway, the cabinet, the bag. And the figure of Larisa Petrovna opening the bag, taking out the wallet, and removing money. The date and time were in the corner of the screen. Not one recording — an entire folder of files, each with a date.
“I…” Larisa Petrovna felt the ground disappear beneath 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 the same 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’s worth nothing!”
At that moment, the door opened and Dima walked in. He immediately sensed 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 said nothing, staring at the floor.
“Mom, I’m asking — is that you?”
“Yes,” she breathed almost inaudibly. “I wanted a fur coat… I thought Katya wouldn’t notice, she has so much…”
“You think I don’t know that 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 home where someone steals 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 all of it, every kopeck!”
“It’s not about the money!” Katya finally broke down, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s about trust! You’re Dima’s mother. We were supposed to be one family. And you… How could you?”
A heavy silence hung in the kitchen. Larisa Petrovna cried, dropping her head into her hands. Dima stood in the middle of the kitchen, lost, not knowing whom to go to, 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.”
“Katyusha, let’s think about this,” Dima began.
“I’ve already thought about it. For two weeks.” She wiped her tears. “I need to pack.”
She left the kitchen. Dima looked at his mother — a long, heavy look filled with disappointment, shame, and incomprehension — and followed his wife.
Larisa Petrovna remained sitting alone in the kitchen. The half-cut onion lay on the board, the pot on the stove was cooling. In the dresser, in the shoebox, lay fifty-eight thousand rubles — almost the full price of the fur coat. But now that money seemed dirty, чужое, unnecessary.
The next day, the young couple began packing their things. They moved silently, methodically. Larisa Petrovna tried to speak to them, to apologize again, 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 are not coming 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 out and became too large. Larisa Petrovna walked through the rooms, and the echo of her footsteps rang in the emptiness.
On the table 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.”
On the table 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 picked up the bills and stared at them for a long time. Then she walked to the window. Down below, the young couple was loading their things into a taxi. Katya hugged Dima, and he kissed her. They looked tired, but they were together — one whole against the entire world.
The car drove away. Larisa Petrovna remained by 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.
