The number on the phone screen was wrong. Galina stared at it as the elevator carried her up to the twelfth floor, unable to believe that only a little over four thousand rubles remained in their joint account after payday—her payday, just two days earlier.
Not one hundred and four thousand. Not forty-four thousand. Four.
The elevator jerked and stopped. Galina stepped out without putting her phone away. She opened the transaction history. Right there in the hallway, outside her apartment door, she read the line that made her fingers tighten around the phone: transfer. Recipient: Lidia V. Amount: almost her entire monthly salary.
Lidia Vyacheslavovna.
Her mother-in-law.
It took Galina three attempts to get the key into the lock.
To understand why those four thousand rubles on the screen hurt so much, one had to know what every line on Galina’s payslip had cost her. She had fought her way to the top slowly and stubbornly. She had started as an ordinary specialist at an insurance company, taking on assignments that others refused, staying late, studying, and moving from company to company, clawing her way toward a higher salary each time.
By the age of forty, Galina was managing an entire regional division at a large company and earning very good money—around two hundred and fifty thousand rubles a month, sometimes even more with bonuses.
She was rightfully proud of that money. Not because she liked to boast—on the contrary, she rarely mentioned the amount—but because she knew its true cost. She knew how many sleepless nights and frayed nerves stood behind every number.
Anatoly earned considerably less. He worked as a service adviser at an auto repair shop and made about seventy thousand rubles a month, but that had never bothered Galina. Money was not the most important thing, she believed. What mattered was that he was a good, dependable man who did not drink, was skilled with his hands, and could fix anything around the house.
When they married, after living together for a couple of years, Galina herself suggested opening a joint account. At first, Anatoly resisted, saying it felt awkward because she contributed much more. Galina dismissed his objections.
They were a family. What was the point of separate accounts? Everything belonged to both of them.
She had genuinely believed that. She had even been proud that she did not count every penny or reproach her husband for earning less. They were mature adults, she thought. Their marriage was built on trust.
Most of the family’s expenses really did fall on her shoulders. The mortgage payments came from her salary. The car, vacations, renovations, and major purchases were all paid for primarily by Galina. She did it willingly because she loved both her husband and the life they had built together. Anatoly contributed to their everyday expenses, and that seemed sufficient. Neither of them complained.
There was only one particular weakness Anatoly had: his mother.
Lidia Vyacheslavovna, a woman in her sixties, lived separately in her own apartment, but she never took a single step without her son. They spoke on the phone every day. He visited her every weekend. Every little issue had to be handled through Anatoly.
A light bulb had burned out. She needed help making a doctor’s appointment. Something had gone wrong with her pension payments.
Anatoly came running at the first call, and Galina had always accepted it calmly. She was his mother, after all, and she lived alone.
Galina did not interfere.
Not until it began affecting money.
Her money.
Galina dropped her bag in the hallway and walked into the kitchen, where Anatoly was frying something and humming under his breath.
“Tolya, explain this to me.” She placed her phone on the table with the screen facing upward. “Where did my salary go?”
Anatoly turned around, glanced at the screen, and froze with the spatula suspended above the frying pan.
“Oh. Well. I transferred it to Mom.”
He said it so calmly, so casually, as though they were discussing a few hundred rubles for groceries.
“To your mother,” Galina repeated. “More than two hundred thousand rubles. My entire salary. You gave it to your mother.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Anatoly switched off the stove and turned toward his wife. “Her kitchen is ancient. It’s practically falling apart. The cabinets are twenty-five years old, and the doors are coming off. I thought we could renovate the kitchen and make her happy. It’s a joint account, so I…”
“A joint account!” Galina raised her voice, feeling the blood rush to her face. “Tolya, the joint account is for managing our household together, not for you to dispose of my salary on your own! Did you ask me? Did you say even one word to me before making that transfer?”
“It’s not like I gave it to a stranger. I gave it to my mother. She’s my mother, and…”
“That is my money!” Galina even struck the table with her palm. “Mine! I earned it through my own hard work! And you simply took it and gave it away without even asking! Do you understand what you’ve done?”
Anatoly frowned and looked away.
“Why are you immediately dividing everything into mine and yours? We’re a family. I thought you’d be happy that we helped Mom.”
“We?” Galina gave a bitter laugh. “We didn’t help her, Tolya. You helped her—with my money. There is a very big difference.”
The argument that evening lasted a long time. Galina said everything she had to say: that he did not respect her work, that he had no right to treat someone else’s money that way, and that the very least he could have done was warn her.
Anatoly alternated between making excuses, acting offended, and asking her not to make such a big issue of it. Eventually, he sat across from her and took her hands in his.
“Galya, forgive me. I honestly didn’t think it through. I was wrong. It won’t happen again, I promise. I only wanted to do something good for my mother. But I understand now—I should have discussed it with you. That’s it. I promise this will never happen again.”
And Galina gave in.
Not because she did not care about the money. She did—very much. But she loved her husband and did not want to destroy their marriage over one mistake, even if it was a major one.
She told herself that people made mistakes. The important thing was that he had understood what he had done.
She swallowed her resentment, just as she had swallowed many smaller grievances before. By then, Lidia Vyacheslavovna’s new kitchen had already been ordered. The money was gone and could not be returned.
Galina decided to let it go.
At least he had learned his lesson.
A month passed peacefully. Anatoly was affectionate and attentive. He brought his wife coffee in bed, and Galina nearly forgot the incident.
Nearly.
Then her next salary arrived.
This time, Galina checked the account immediately. Something inside her had tightened—a vague, uneasy premonition.
The morning after the payment came through, she opened the banking app.
And she saw exactly what she had feared.
The money was gone again.
Another transfer.
The same recipient: Lidia V.
Once again, almost the entire amount.
For several seconds, Galina simply stared at the screen without blinking. Then she stood up, walked into the bedroom, where Anatoly was still asleep, and switched on the light.
“Get up.”
Anatoly stirred and squinted.
“Galya, what is it? It’s still early…”
“Get up, I said.”
There was something in her voice that made her husband sit up immediately.
“Explain to me why it happened again. Why was money transferred from my account to your mother again? Why, Tolya? We discussed all of this a month ago!”
Anatoly rubbed his face and looked away—the same posture as last time. Galina had already learned it by heart.
“Galya, it’s just that… Mom didn’t have enough to finish the kitchen. She still needed appliances—a stove, a refrigerator. I thought you wouldn’t notice so quickly. I was going to tell you later…”
“You were going to tell me later.” Galina laughed, briefly and without the slightest trace of amusement. “So once again, behind my back and without permission, you transferred my salary to your mother. And you planned to present it to me as a completed decision. Again.”
“What was I supposed to do? Leave my mother with a half-finished kitchen?”
“What does that have to do with me?!” Galina was almost shouting. “What do I have to do with any of this, Tolya?! She is your mother! You want to buy her a kitchen? Save money from your own salary, take out a loan, do whatever you want! But do not touch my money!”
“There you go again with your money,” Anatoly muttered as he pulled on his T-shirt. “You keep repeating the same thing. Some wife you are. Is renovating your mother-in-law’s kitchen in her old age really such a terrible crime?”
And at that moment, Galina finally understood.
Completely.
It was not about the kitchen.
It was not about the appliances.
It was about the fact that Anatoly had turned her work, her career, her sleepless nights, and her frayed nerves into a convenient wallet from which he could take money whenever his mother wanted something.
He did not see her labor when he looked at her salary. He simply saw money sitting in a joint account—money he believed he could spend because they were “a family.”
And somehow, “family” always meant his mother.
It never meant Galina’s interests.
Galina slowly sat down on the edge of the bed. Something inside her burned out—quietly, without an explosion.
All that remained was cold clarity.
“Do you know what the most disgusting part is?” she said evenly. “You don’t even understand that what you did was wrong. You genuinely believe you had the right to do it. That is the most frightening thing of all.”
“What did I do that was so terrible? I helped my mother!”
Galina stood up. She walked to the wardrobe, opened the door, and looked at the neat rows of his shirts—the shirts she ironed every weekend.
Then she turned around.
“You gave my salary to your mother again? Then pack your things and go live with her. I’m not sponsoring the two of you anymore!” his wife snapped.
Anatoly froze with one arm still halfway through the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“You… Are you serious?”
“I have never been more serious.”
“You’re throwing your husband out because of money? Because of my mother’s kitchen?!”
“It’s not because of the money, Tolya.” Galina crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s because, for the second time in two months, you reached into my pocket, lied to me, and did whatever you wanted. It’s because my words mean nothing to you. The kitchen is only the trigger. The real issue is that you do not respect me. Not in the slightest.”
Then everything exploded.
Anatoly jumped up and began pacing around the bedroom, waving his arms. He shouted that she was heartless, that she was throwing him into the street, that his mother was sacred to him, and that a normal wife would understand.
Galina did not retreat a single step.
She had already made her decision while sitting on the edge of the bed, in that exact moment of cold clarity.
“A normal wife,” she repeated after her husband had finally run out of breath. “Do you know what a normal husband does? He doesn’t steal his wife’s salary twice and call it helping.”
“I didn’t steal anything! It’s a joint account!”
“Which we are closing. Today.”
Until the very end, Anatoly did not believe she was serious. He assumed she had simply lost her temper and would calm down as she always had before.
He packed his bag deliberately slowly, glancing at his wife from time to time to see whether she might change her mind.
Galina did not.
She sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and did not look in his direction.
“I’m going to Mom’s,” Anatoly announced from the doorway, already holding his bag. “Since that’s how you want it. I’ll stay there for a while. When you calm down, you’ll call me.”
“I won’t call,” Galina replied calmly without raising her head. “And since you’re going there, you may as well stay where you sent my money. You can enjoy the new kitchen while you’re at it.”
The door slammed.
They did not have children. It simply had not happened. They had kept postponing it until “later, when everything was settled.” Then Galina had reached her late thirties, and the subject had quietly disappeared from their lives.
Now, sitting in the empty apartment, she thought about it almost with relief.
There would be no custody battle, no traumatized child, and no agonizing decisions.
There was only her and the choice she had made.
The very next day, Galina went to the bank and closed the joint account. She transferred everything to a personal account, ordered a new card, and changed all her passwords.
It was a strange feeling—as though she were taking back something she had placed at everyone’s disposal so long ago that she had almost forgotten what it felt like for her money to belong only to her.
She dealt with the mortgage as well. The apartment was registered in her name, and she had been the one making the payments, so there were no complications.
Lidia Vyacheslavovna called several days later. Her voice rang with outrage.
“Galina! What are you doing? You threw Tolya out of the house! What for?! The man never said a bad word to you. He brought everything into the home, and you threw him out! You’re destroying your family over some money!”
“Hello, Lidia Vyacheslavovna.”
“Don’t try to avoid the question! Explain how you can behave like this! He loves his mother and wants to help her, and you begrudge him that! You have more money than you know what to do with, yet you couldn’t spare enough to renovate your husband’s own mother’s kitchen!”
Galina moved the phone to her other ear and sat down.
“Lidia Vyacheslavovna, do you even know whose money Tolya transferred to you? Did he tell you it was my salary? All of it? Twice? Did he tell you he took it from me without permission?”
There was a hesitation at the other end of the line.
Apparently, Anatoly had not mentioned that particular detail to his mother.
“Well… it was joint money. Family money…”
“It was not joint money. It was mine. I earned it. And he spent it as if it belonged to him, twice, secretly. Do you consider that normal?”
“But it was for a good cause!” Lidia Vyacheslavovna replied, quickly recovering. “It was for the kitchen! He didn’t drink it away or waste it! He helped his mother!”
“For a good cause,” Galina said with a bitter smile. “Except that for some reason, I am always the one who pays for these good causes, while he receives the gratitude. You know what, Lidia Vyacheslavovna? I did not give you that kitchen. Tolya gave it to you—at my expense. So take it up with him. Do not involve me in this anymore.”
“Shameless woman!” her mother-in-law shrieked. “I always told Tolik you weren’t the right woman for him! Coldhearted! Money matters more to you than family!”
“Money matters to me exactly as much as the work required to earn it,” Galina replied evenly. “And I have no need for a family that treats me like a wallet. Goodbye.”
She ended the call.
There was no point in arguing any further. Lidia Vyacheslavovna and her son lived within the same system of beliefs—a system in which the daughter-in-law’s money was somehow not entirely hers, but a common resource available for the needs of their family.
Trying to convince people like that was a waste of energy.
The divorce was more difficult than Galina had expected.
Not legally—the legal process was actually simple. Most of the property belonged to her, and there was almost nothing to divide.
The emotional part was difficult.
They had spent fifteen years together, after all. There had been good years, laughter, trips, and quiet evenings.
Galina caught herself automatically reaching for Anatoly’s favorite cheese at the store, only to place it back on the shelf. In the evenings, she sometimes listened for the sound of his key turning in the lock.
It never did.
Anatoly tried to return several times. He called and sent messages. Once, he came to the apartment and stood outside the door, saying that he understood everything now, that his mother was not to blame, and that he had been a fool.
Galina listened from the other side without opening the door.
“Tolya,” she finally said. “I could have forgiven you once. I did forgive you. And then you did it again. Immediately. Do you understand? The problem is not that you made a mistake. The problem is that my forgiveness meant nothing to you. You did not value it at all.”
“Galya, I’ll never…”
“Don’t. Go home. You have a new kitchen there now.”
Her friends reacted differently. Some supported her immediately, while others shook their heads and said she had divorced over money, that she had acted too hastily, that good men were difficult to find, and that she should have simply tolerated it, kept him under tighter control, and monitored the account.
At first, even Alla, her closest friend, belonged to that group.
“Galya, so he bought his mother a kitchen,” Alla said one evening over a glass of wine. “It’s not like he was supporting a mistress. Maybe you were too harsh.”
“Alla, you don’t understand.” Galina gently swirled the glass as she looked at the dark wine. “It is not about the kitchen or his mother. It is about the fact that he took something that belonged to me twice, without permission. He lied. And not once—not once—did he think about how it would make me feel. Had he come to me and said, ‘Galya, Mom needs help. Let’s help her together. We’ll contribute this much from your salary and this much from mine,’ I would have been the first to agree. I am not greedy. But he didn’t ask me. He simply made the decision. He acted like the owner of something that belonged to someone else.”
Alla fell silent and turned her wineglass between her fingers.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “you’re right. I hadn’t looked at it that way before. It really isn’t about the kitchen.”
“Exactly,” Galina nodded. “Today it’s a kitchen. Tomorrow it’s a car for his brother. The day after tomorrow, it’s something else. And every time, it comes from me, without my involvement. I don’t want to live that way. I would rather be alone and remain the owner of my own labor.”
Gradually, Galina’s life settled into a new rhythm. She threw herself into her work, and her work rewarded her. She was offered the leadership of a new and even larger division, with business trips and responsibilities on a genuinely impressive scale.
Previously, she might have refused. Anatoly had disliked it when she traveled for long periods. He would complain that the house had no mistress while she was away.
Now there was no one whose permission she had to seek.
Galina accepted without hesitation.
For the first time in many years, her salary belonged entirely to her.
Every last kopeck.
She could save it, spend it, help anyone she wanted, or refuse to help anyone she did not want to—and she did not have to answer to anybody.
She continued helping people, incidentally. She contributed toward her niece’s education, paid for her own parents’ renovations, and lent money to a friend during a difficult period without ever saying, “Make sure you repay me.”
The difference was that these were now her decisions—conscious choices, rather than money silently removed from her pocket.
Galina never saw Lidia Vyacheslavovna or Anatoly again.
She heard indirectly that her now ex-husband was still living with his mother, in the apartment with that same renovated kitchen. He had not found a better job and was still working at the same auto repair shop.
She also heard that Lidia Vyacheslavovna now complained about her son no less than she had once complained about her daughter-in-law. Without Galina’s salary, there was noticeably less money in their lives, while their old habits remained unchanged.
Galina did not look back.
One day, shortly before New Year’s, she was sorting through the wardrobe when she found a stack of his forgotten shirts—the same shirts she had once ironed every weekend.
She stood there for a moment, holding one of them in her hands.
Once, the sight would have made her heart ache.
Now she felt nothing.
She simply folded everything neatly into a bag and took it to a clothing donation center the following day. Someone else might find the clothes useful.
When she returned home, she poured herself a glass of good wine. She could afford good wine now without glancing anxiously at the price.
Then she stood for a long time beside the large window, looking out at the evening city, where thousands of windows glowed in other people’s homes.
Somewhere behind one of them, resentment was living out the remainder of its life.
But it was not her resentment.
It belonged to someone else.
Galina no longer felt resentment.
All that remained was a calm, solid certainty that she had realized the truth in time.
She had understood her own worth before it was completely scattered across other people’s kitchens.
And that knowledge warmed her better than any wine.
