Seven thousand four hundred and twelve rubles.
Svetlana checked the balance on her card for the third time, as though the numbers might somehow increase. There were nine days left until payday, the refrigerator was empty, Temka’s kindergarten fee had to be paid, and that very morning Yevgeny had said that the advance payment at work had been delayed.
«Zhenya,» she called without looking up from her phone. «You definitely said the advance would come on the twentieth, right? We’re cutting it really close.»
Yevgeny jerked on the sofa as though he’d been caught doing something wrong.
«Well… yes. The twentieth. Maybe a little later.» He buried himself in his phone again, and Svetlana didn’t notice anything suspicious at the time. «We’ll get through it, Sveta. It wouldn’t be the first time.»
We’ll get through it.
His favorite phrase.
Yevgeny used it to patch every hole in their life, like a bandage that fell off an hour later.
They had been together for six years and had married after only five months of dating—quickly, for love—and during the first few years, Svetlana had been almost happy. Yevgeny was kind and easygoing, knew how to make her laugh, and used to make coffee in the mornings and bring it to her in bed.
He worked as an electrician for a property management company. He didn’t earn much, but he had golden hands and took side jobs on weekends, so they managed to get by.
Svetlana worked as a nurse at the local clinic, holding one and a half positions because a single salary in their town barely covered utilities.
They lived in a rented two-bedroom apartment. Neither of them owned property, and they had been trying to save for a mortgage down payment, though somehow the money never accumulated.
They had a four-year-old son, Temka, lively and cheerful like his father, always smiling.
They might have gone on living that way.
If it hadn’t been for Nina Valentinovna.
Yevgeny’s mother was the kind of woman who didn’t see her son as a separate adult human being, but as an eternal extension of herself. She had been widowed young and raised Zhenya alone, and that word—alone—had become the main argument of her entire life, the trump card she pulled out in every disagreement.
«I raised you alone.»
«I gave you everything.»
«Who else do I have but you?»
Yevgeny had grown up with a deeply ingrained sense of guilt toward his mother, and nothing seemed capable of erasing it.
Svetlana hadn’t understood this immediately. At first, she had simply thought he was a caring son. What could be wrong with that? He helped his mother hang curtains, brought groceries, fixed a leaking faucet. Perfectly normal.
But gradually, a different and far more troubling picture emerged.
Nina Valentinovna called her son three times a day. She expected him to come at her first summons—to change a light bulb she could easily have changed herself, pick up a parcel, or simply sit beside her for a while.
And Y—to changeevgeny would drop everything and rush over, abandoning his home, his wife, his day off, or the repair he’d promised to finish a month earlier.
«Zhenya, she’s not alone in the world,» Svetlana would say cautiously. «She has friends. Neighbors. Surely you don’t have to change every single light bulb for her.»
«Sveta, she’s my mother.» Yevgeny would spread his hands apologetically. «She’s lonely. What am I supposed to do, refuse her?»
He couldn’t refuse her.
Ever.
The word seemed to vanish from his vocabulary whenever Nina Valentinovna was concerned.
And Svetlana learned to live with it. She didn’t approve, but she tolerated it.
For a while.
The turning point came at the beginning of autumn, when the whole family went to Nina Valentinovna’s house for Sunday lunch.
She had set the table, bustled around, served Zhenya the best pieces of food, and gave Temka candy before dinner even though he wasn’t supposed to have sweets before eating—but try explaining that to a grandmother.
Then, over tea, as Nina Valentinovna poured from the teapot, she casually remarked:
«I’ve been thinking. I ought to go to the seaside. Somewhere warm, in the sun. Warm up my bones.»
«Then you should go, Nina Valentinovna,» Svetlana replied innocently. «It’s the velvet season now. Prices are lower. You could stay at some boarding house.»
Her mother-in-law pursed her lips and looked at Svetlana as though she’d just said something unbelievably stupid.
«A boarding house?» she repeated with mild disgust. «No, Svetochka. Boarding houses are for poor people. I’ve spent my entire life saving money and denying myself everything while raising my son. I deserve a proper vacation. A good hotel, all-inclusive, right by the sea. Like a human being, not eating in some communal dining hall with plastic spoons.»
Svetlana slowly set down her cup.
Numbers were already clicking through her mind. She was used to calculating things. Her work demanded it, and life had taught her the same habit.
«Nina Valentinovna,» she began gently, «a trip like that would cost one hundred and fifty thousand rubles at the very least. Maybe even two hundred thousand with flights and your all-inclusive package. That’s… that’s a huge amount of money.»
«So what?» Her mother-in-law lifted her chin. «You only live once. Don’t I deserve one decent vacation in my entire life?»
«You do,» Svetlana agreed patiently. «But we simply don’t have that kind of money right now. We’re saving for a mortgage, Temka has kindergarten fees, we pay rent… Where are we supposed to find two hundred thousand rubles?»
And then something happened that Svetlana would later remember as the first real warning sign.
Nina Valentinovna didn’t argue with her.
Instead, she simply turned toward her son, rotating her entire body away from her daughter-in-law, and started speaking as though Svetlana weren’t sitting at the table at all.
«Zhenechka. My son. I’m the only mother you have. I raised you. I stayed awake at night. I gave you my last bite of food. Remember how I worked two jobs just to buy you boots? And now you’re going to begrudge your own mother a vacation?»
«Mom, I…» Yevgeny shifted awkwardly in his chair, his eyes darting around. «It’s not that I don’t want to…»
«Then what is it?» Nina Valentinovna raised a handkerchief to her eyes, though they were completely dry. «So your wife matters more to you than your mother. I understand. I raised a son only to regret it.»
«Mom, don’t say that.» Yevgeny became visibly uncomfortable. «I’ll think of something. Don’t cry.»
«Zhenya.» Svetlana tried to catch her husband’s eye. «What do you mean, you’ll think of something? We don’t have that kind of money. You know that.»
But Yevgeny was no longer looking at her.
He was looking at his mother, at her handkerchief, at her tightly pursed lips, and Svetlana could see the mechanism of guilt switching on inside him—the same mechanism Nina Valentinovna had been perfecting for thirty-five years.
A mechanism that never failed.
They drove home in silence.
Temka fell asleep in the back seat while Svetlana stared at the road, trying to find the right words to avoid turning the conversation into an argument.
«Zhenya,» she finally said. «I understand that it’s hard for you to refuse your mother. I really do. But two hundred thousand rubles is impossible. That’s a year and a half of our mortgage savings. That’s everything we have. You can’t seriously be considering this, can you?»
«I’m not considering anything,» Yevgeny muttered without taking his eyes off the road. «Why are you getting worked up? Nobody’s going anywhere.»
«Are you sure?»
«I’m sure, Sveta. Leave me alone, okay? I already feel sick enough.»
Svetlana left him alone.
And, truth be told, she believed him.
She wanted to believe him.
She decided her husband would do what he always did—sigh, suffer under the burden of guilt, and eventually let the matter disappear, as it had so many times before. His mother would whine for a while, then forget about it.
That had happened before.
But this time something was different.
Yevgeny started acting strangely. He became withdrawn, answered in short phrases, sat on his phone in the evenings, and turned off the screen whenever Svetlana approached.
A couple of times, she heard him talking quietly to his mother in the kitchen. The moment Svetlana entered, he stopped.
Once, she caught sight of some envelope on the bedside table, but when she tried to look at it, Yevgeny quickly hid it.
«What’s that?» she asked.
«Just junk mail,» he said dismissively. «They brought a bunch of stuff from the post office.»
Svetlana frowned and tilted her head as she studied her husband.
Something about his nervousness didn’t add up.
But she didn’t press him. She had extra shifts, then Temka caught a cold, then something else came up, and her unease drowned beneath the whirlpool of daily life.
That was a mistake.
About three weeks passed.
It was an ordinary Thursday. Svetlana had just returned from a shift, exhausted and dreaming of a hot shower and silence.
The moment she stepped through the door, the doorbell rang.
Nina Valentinovna stood outside, dressed up, her hair freshly styled, wearing a new coat and glowing like a Christmas shop window.
«Svetochka!» her mother-in-law sang as she floated into the hallway without waiting to be invited. «I’ve come with news! Is Zhenechka home?»
«He’s in the kitchen.» Svetlana stepped aside in confusion. «Come in. Has something happened?»
«Something has happened, all right!» Nina Valentinovna strode into the living room, taking off her coat as she went, then dropped onto the sofa with the triumphant air of a winner. «Zhenya! Son! Come here and make your wife happy, or I’ll tell her myself!»
Yevgeny came out of the kitchen.
And Svetlana immediately—immediately—understood that something was terribly wrong.
Her husband had the same guilty expression Temka wore after breaking a cup and hiding the pieces under the sofa.
He wouldn’t look at her.
«Make me happy about what?» Svetlana asked, glancing from her husband to her mother-in-law. «What happened?»
«The trip!» Nina Valentinovna announced triumphantly, throwing up her hands. «It’s booked! Turkey, five stars, right by the sea, all-inclusive! For two weeks! The flight is in twelve days! Oh, I’d stopped even dreaming of it, but what a wonderful son I have! Not like some people who promise and then forget. My son actually did it! A real man, just like his father, may he rest in peace.»
Svetlana stood in the middle of the room, and her mother-in-law’s words seemed to reach her through water.
Turkey.
Five stars.
Booked.
Two hundred thousand rubles that they didn’t have.
Money they hadn’t had yesterday.
Or a month ago.
«Booked,» Svetlana repeated slowly. «What do you mean, booked? With what money?»
«Oh, Svetochka, what difference does it make where the money came from?» Nina Valentinovna waved dismissively. «The important thing is that my son took care of his mother. That’s what it means to raise a boy properly. You could say you got lucky with your husband. Appreciate him.»
Svetlana looked at Yevgeny.
He was examining his socks with such intense concentration that one might have thought he’d never seen them before.
«Zhenya.» Svetlana’s voice became quiet and perfectly even—the way she spoke when everything inside her had begun to tremble. «What money was used to book the trip?»
«Sveta, let’s talk later, okay?» he mumbled, nodding toward his mother. «Mom’s here. Not in front of her.»
«Nina Valentinovna.» Svetlana turned to her mother-in-law, struggling to keep her expression under control. «Please excuse us. Zhenya and I need to talk. Privately. As a family.»
«Yes, yes, of course. I only stopped by anyway. I’ve got a thousand things to do. I have to pack my suitcase!» Her mother-in-law sprang up happily and kissed her son on both cheeks. «Zhenechka, thank you, darling. You’ve made your mother so happy. I’ve already told all my friends how well you take care of me. They’re all jealous!»
She fluttered out, leaving behind a cloud of overly sweet perfume and ringing silence.
The door closed behind her.
«Where did the money come from, Yevgeny?» Svetlana turned toward her husband.
She used his full name, which meant things were serious.
And he knew it.
«Two hundred thousand. Where did it come from?»
«Sveta, just don’t shout…» Yevgeny finally raised his eyes, and they held not so much guilt as a kind of pathetic plea. «I’ll explain everything.»
«I’m not shouting. I’m asking. Where did the money come from?»
«I…» Yevgeny swallowed. «I took out a loan.»
The word fell into the room like a stone.
For several seconds, Svetlana stood in silence, absorbing it.
«A loan,» she repeated. «What loan? When? How much?»
«Two hundred and twenty thousand.» Yevgeny spoke quickly and awkwardly, as though trying to rush through an unpleasant part of a conversation. «For three years. A personal loan from the bank. Well, two hundred went toward the trip, and there was a little left over, just in case. Sveta, I couldn’t refuse her. You saw Mom. You saw how she was acting… She’s alone. She deserves it. I couldn’t do it, do you understand? I simply couldn’t.»
Blood rushed to Svetlana’s face.
Her hands clenched into fists on their own, her nails digging into her palms.
«Two hundred and twenty thousand rubles,» she said, pronouncing each word separately, as if tasting it. «With interest. For three years. Do you understand how much that is per month?»
«Well… around eight thousand. Nine with interest.»
«Nine thousand rubles a month.» Svetlana gave a short, frightening laugh. «Yevgeny, how much do you earn? Twenty-eight thousand. Ten goes to rent. Five goes to kindergarten. Everything else is supposed to cover food, clothes, and Temka, and we’re already stretched so thin that for the last six months I haven’t been able to buy myself a pair of pantyhose without recalculating the entire budget three times. And now you’re adding another nine thousand a month to that hole? So your mother can vacation in a five-star hotel?»
«Sveta, I’ll pay it off…»
«With what?» Her voice cracked. «What exactly are you going to pay it with? We already barely make ends meet!»
Yevgeny fell silent.
And then he said the words that made Svetlana’s vision go dark.
He said them quietly, almost casually, as though they were self-evident.
«Well… you’ll help. We’re a family, aren’t we? Together. I thought the two of us could manage. You work one and a half shifts.»
There it was.
That had been his entire plan.
Svetlana slowly lowered herself onto a chair because her legs had suddenly stopped supporting her.
«Wait.» She looked up at her husband. «Let me make sure I understand this correctly. You took out a loan. Secretly. Without asking me. Two hundred and twenty thousand rubles. For your mother’s vacation. And you planned to repay it with me? With my salary? Is that why you kept quiet for three weeks, hid the envelope, and turned off your phone whenever I came near?»
«What was I supposed to do?» Yevgeny jumped up and started pacing around the room. «If I’d told you, you would’ve forbidden it! You would’ve caused a scandal, just like you’re doing now! And Mom would’ve cried! I’m caught between two fires, do you understand? I didn’t know what to do!»
«You didn’t know how to tell your wife that you’d gone into debt and expected her to carry the burden,» Svetlana nodded. «But somehow you knew perfectly well how to run to the bank for your mother’s vacation.»
«Sveta, don’t twist things…»
And then something inside her broke.
Everything that had been accumulating for years—every Saturday abandoned because his mother needed a light bulb changed, every «I’ll think of something,» every «She’s my mother»—rose up all at once.
«You took out a loan to please your mother, and now I’m supposed to pay for it?!» Svetlana shouted, leaping to her feet.
Yevgeny recoiled.
He had never seen his wife like this before—not forgiving, not patient, not saying, «We’ll get through it,» but with an expression on her face that genuinely frightened him.
«Can you even hear yourself?» she continued, the words rushing out one after another as if a dam had burst. «Your mother wanted five stars. Not a boarding house, not a vacation she could afford—no, she wanted to live properly so she could boast to her friends! And instead of saying, ‘Mom, we don’t have that kind of money,’ you chained yourself to three years of debt! And you presented me with a done deal! You assumed I wouldn’t go anywhere, that I’d do what I always do—endure it, help, pull us through! So your mother can lie on a beach while I’m back here darning pantyhose and paying off interest!»
«She’s not some ‘mother lying on a beach’!» Yevgeny snapped. «She raised me! Alone! Do you have any idea how hard it was for her? And once in my life… once in my life I wanted to do something nice for her!»
«At my expense!» Svetlana cut him off. «At Temka’s expense! At the expense of our mortgage, which now won’t happen for another five years because you’ve sunk everything into this vacation! Zhenya, we have a child! He needs new sneakers because he’s outgrown his old ones! And you’re thinking about five stars and all-inclusive!»
«Don’t drag Temka into this!»
«I’m not dragging him into anything. I’m thinking about him! Unlike you!» Svetlana was breathing heavily. «Did you think about us even once before you signed those bank papers? For one second? Or did you immediately start imagining how happy Mommy would be?»
Yevgeny said nothing, opening and closing his mouth.
He had no answer.
And out of helplessness, he went on the offensive—as people often do when they know they’re wrong.
«You know what?» he muttered. «You’re just greedy. You resent spending money on your mother-in-law. All you women are the same. All you want is to separate a husband from his mother.»
Svetlana froze.
She looked at her husband for a long moment and, for the first time in six years, saw him completely.
Without excuses.
Without «but he’s kind.»
Without «at least he doesn’t drink.»
She saw an adult man incapable of telling his mother no, yet perfectly capable of secretly going into debt behind his wife’s back and calling her greedy when she refused to pay for it.
«Greedy,» she repeated quietly. «I understand.»
She stood and walked into the bedroom.
Yevgeny started to follow but stopped in the doorway, unsure of what she was doing.
Svetlana opened the wardrobe, pulled out his sports bag, and threw it onto the bed.
Without a word, she began packing his belongings into it—T-shirts, jeans, the charger from the bedside table.
«What are you doing?» Yevgeny’s voice trembled.
«Helping you pack.» Svetlana didn’t turn around. «You’re going to your mother’s. Since she’s more important to you, go live with her. And while you’re there, the two of you can think about how to repay the loan. Without me.»
«Sveta, have you lost your mind?» Yevgeny turned pale. «Where am I supposed to go? This is my home too!»
«No.» Svetlana finally turned around, and there was no anger left in her voice now, only icy clarity. «This is a rented apartment. The lease is in my name. I pay the rent from my salary, by the way, because all your money goes to yourself and your mother’s whims. So legally and practically, I decide who lives here. And I’m telling you to pack.»
«You have no right to throw me out!»
«And did you have the right to take out a two-hundred-and-twenty-thousand-ruble loan without my knowledge?» Svetlana zipped the bag closed. «So much for discussing rights. Take it. And don’t forget your toothbrush.»
Yevgeny stood there, confused, unable to believe she was serious.
He was used to Svetlana being forgiving, used to every argument being forgotten by morning, used to apologizing and being forgiven.
Even now, he thought this was just another storm to wait out.
«Sveta, let’s not get carried away,» he said in a softer tone, stepping toward her. «Look, I can talk to the bank. Maybe arrange some restructuring. Lower the monthly payment. Mom will go on her trip, come back, and everything will settle down. Forgive me, you know I’m an idiot. I just wanted to do something nice for my mother. I didn’t think.»
«You didn’t think.» Svetlana nodded. «That’s the whole problem, Zhenya. You never think. You think about your mother, but not about us. And you know what? I’m tired of thinking for you. For both of us. I’ve been doing it for six years. Enough.»
«Is this really because of money? You’re destroying our family over some two hundred thousand rubles?»
«It’s not because of money.» Svetlana placed his bag by the door. «Money is only the final straw. And I’m not the one destroying this family. You are—every single time you choose your mother over us. And that was the last time I watched you do it.»
In the hallway, Yevgeny made one final attempt.
«What about the trip?» he asked miserably. «Mom has already told everyone. I can’t cancel it. She wouldn’t survive it. Imagine the embarrassment.»
And that was it.
The final point.
Svetlana even smiled bitterly.
«You see?» she said. «At this exact moment, you’re not worried about our marriage, or our son, or the fact that you’ve just been thrown out of your home. You’re worried that your mother will be upset and embarrassed in front of her friends. Thank you, Zhenya. You just explained everything about yourself more clearly than I managed to understand in six years.»
The door closed.
Svetlana leaned her back against it and stood there for a moment.
Temka emerged sleepily in pajamas covered with little cars.
«Mommy, where did Daddy go?»
«To Grandma’s, sweetheart.» Svetlana picked up her son and held him close. «To help her.»
«Will he come back tomorrow?»
«I don’t know, darling.»
The next few weeks merged into one long gray blur.
Yevgeny moved in with his mother.
At first, he called angrily.
«You’re heartless.»
«You threw out the father of your own child.»
«Mother was right when she said I shouldn’t marry you.»
When anger failed, he switched to self-pity.
«Sveta, I miss you.»
«Let’s try again.»
«I understand everything now.»
Svetlana listened in silence.
Sometimes she didn’t answer the phone at all.
Meanwhile, Nina Valentinovna flew off to Turkey.
She sent Zhenya photographs of herself tanned, wearing a sunhat, holding a cocktail against the background of a turquoise sea.
And somewhere behind that all-inclusive, five-star, beachfront paradise, the meter on the loan kept ticking away—a loan someone would have to repay.
Svetlana filed for divorce a month later.
Not in the heat of anger.
She had thought it through and weighed everything carefully.
She spoke to a lawyer—a free consultation through an acquaintance connected to the clinic—and he explained something unpleasant.
«Your husband took out the loan while you were married,» the lawyer said, sorting through the papers. «And debts acquired during marriage are generally considered joint liabilities under the law, even if the loan was issued in only one spouse’s name.»
«But I didn’t know about it! He took it out secretly!»
«That’s the difficulty.» The lawyer spread his hands. «Proving that the money wasn’t spent on family needs but on personal expenses—his mother’s vacation—will be difficult. If he tells the court that you knew and approved, or that the money went into the family budget, the court may divide the debt equally. So you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that part of the repayment may be assigned to you.»
Svetlana listened as her heart sank.
It meant that even after divorcing him, she wouldn’t be completely free.
A piece of a stranger’s useless debt would continue following her like a shadow.
The court hearing was ordinary and uneventful.
Yevgeny sat there quietly, looking worn out, never meeting her eyes.
The divorce itself was straightforward. Temka remained with his mother, and child support was ordered.
But the loan turned out exactly as the lawyer had predicted.
The court recognized part of the debt as joint marital debt, and Svetlana was assigned her share of the payments.
Not all of it.
But enough to hurt.
It was infuriatingly unfair—to pay for her mother-in-law’s two-week tan when she never wanted to see the woman again.
After leaving the courthouse, Svetlana stopped on the steps.
A fine autumn rain was falling, gray and tedious.
She stood there thinking.
Now she had someone else’s debt around her neck, a divorce, a child, and one and a half jobs.
Financially speaking, she was in the red.
Deep in the red.
And yet…
Svetlana opened her umbrella and walked down the wet steps.
She thought of the debt not as a punishment, but as a price.
The price of never again having to hear, «We’ll get through it.»
The price of never again seeing guilty, shifty eyes.
The price of never again being treated as a spare wallet for someone else’s whims.
Expensive.
But she was willing to pay.
When Svetlana got home, she did something she’d been meaning to do for a long time.
She sat at the table, took out a sheet of paper and a pen, and rewrote her entire budget from scratch—without Yevgeny, without his side jobs that could never be relied upon anyway, and without his personal spending.
It was tight.
Extremely tight.
Her share of the loan consumed a painful amount.
But the numbers worked.
Barely.
If she saved.
If she picked up extra shifts.
If she forgot about new pantyhose and cafés for a year.
It worked.
And most importantly, for the first time in six years, it was her budget.
Only hers.
There would be no sudden line item labeled «Mom’s vacation.»
No secret loan appearing from nowhere.
No bill for someone else’s whim.
Every number on the page was honest, hers, understandable.
And strangely enough, she found it easier to breathe than she had in years.
Several months later, Yevgeny called one final time.
His voice was dull.
«Sveta. Mother came back from the seaside happy. She’s tanned. And now I’m stuck paying off this loan forever. I didn’t think back then. I really didn’t think at all.»
«I know, Zhenya,» Svetlana replied calmly. «You never think.»
«Maybe… maybe we could still try again? I’ll change.»
«No.» There was neither anger nor resentment in her voice, only tired determination. «You won’t change. And I don’t want to spend another six years finding out. We each pay our share and move on with our lives. That’s fairer. Goodbye.»
Svetlana ended the call.
She walked to the window.
Outside, Temka was playing soccer with the neighbor boys in his new sneakers.
She had bought them after all, setting aside the money from three extra shifts.
Her son laughed, fell down, got back up, and ran again.
Svetlana watched him and mentally counted the months until the final payment on that damned loan would leave her account.
It would take a long time.
More than two years.
But she knew she would make it.
On her own.
Without anyone else’s empty promises that somehow, «We’ll get through it.»
And when she finally paid it off, it would be her victory—hard-earned and clean, without a single kopeck of someone else’s debt remaining.
Then she could begin saving again.
For something truly hers.
Something real.
Something no one’s mother could take away.
She turned away from the window, opened the drawer, and pulled out the sheet of paper with her budget.
She read it again.
Thought for a moment.
And at the very bottom, beneath all the numbers, she added one small line for the future:
«The seaside. When the loan is paid off.»
No five stars.
No all-inclusive.
Just the sea.
For herself and Temka.
Their own.
