“You are obligated to pay for Alinochka’s university tuition and rent her an apartment in the city center! It’s not as if your family budget has limits—you both earn good salaries, and the girl needs a proper start in life!”
Anna stopped chopping carrots for a moment. The knife froze in midair above the cutting board, from which several orange cubes had already fallen onto the countertop. The kitchen smelled of fried onions, dill, and shameless, undisguised entitlement. Galina Petrovna, Anna’s mother-in-law, sat at the dining table with her hands majestically folded over her ample chest. She was wearing an elegant burgundy blouse, the one she usually reserved for visits to the clinic or serious conversations requiring maximum dramatic effect.
Anna slowly put down the knife, wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, and looked at her husband’s mother. She was forty-two years old. She worked as a senior logistics manager at a large transportation company, spending every day sorting out problems with trucks, broken axles somewhere outside Chelyabinsk, and missing shipping documents. She had a steely character, but at home she always tried to be gentle and avoid conflict for the sake of peace in the family. Right now, however, a dull irritation was beginning to boil inside her.
“Galina Petrovna,” Anna began, trying to keep her voice as even as possible. “Alina’s tuition at the design faculty costs two hundred and fifty thousand rubles a year. On top of that, renting an apartment downtown is another forty thousand a month. Misha and I are paying a mortgage, we have a car loan, and our own son is in his third year of university in another city. Why on earth should we fully support your twenty-two-year-old daughter?”
“Because you’re family!” her mother-in-law exclaimed indignantly, theatrically placing a hand over her heart. “Your Artyom gets a scholarship, and he can unload freight cars at night if necessary—he’s a strong young man. But my Alinochka is sensitive, creative. She can’t be distracted by odd jobs; she has a delicate nervous system. Besides, Mikhail is her older brother! He’s obligated to take care of his little sister. He works as a cost engineer at a construction company, and you’re in management. Don’t pretend you’re poor, Anya. I see what kind of sausage you buy, and I noticed you renovated the hallway.”
Heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor. Mikhail, Anna’s husband, who had just returned from work and changed into his house clothes, entered the kitchen. He was a large, calm man with prematurely graying temples and a habit of carefully considering every word before speaking. Misha had heard the entire conversation from the bathroom while washing his hands, and his face was now darker than a thundercloud.
“Mom.” Mikhail walked over to his wife and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, making it clear that he was on her side. “I think you’ve completely lost touch with reality. Anya and I don’t work ten-hour days to finance the whims of a grown woman who has already changed two private universities in three years because she was ‘trying to find herself.’ Alina is an adult. If she wants to live downtown, she can get a job as a barista, waitress, whatever. She can switch to part-time or distance study. We’re not giving a single kopeck toward her rented apartment.”
His mother gasped, grabbing the edge of the table as though her legs had suddenly given way, despite the fact that she was sitting securely on a sturdy oak chair.
“My son… How can you say such a thing? I raised you! I spent sleepless nights looking after you! And you… you’re simply greedy! You’ve always listened to your wife more than your own mother! She’s the one turning you against your sister!”
“Mom, stop this performance,” Mikhail said wearily but firmly. “Anya has nothing to do with it. This is my decision. Every month I send you fifteen thousand rubles for your blood-pressure medication and utilities because your pension is small. We help you as much as we can. But I’m not going to let Alina live off us. This conversation is over. If that’s the only reason you came here, you’d better go home.”
Galina Petrovna raised her head proudly, pursed her lips, and, without saying another word, marched into the hallway. The front door slammed so hard that the glasses in the cabinet rattled. Anna exhaled with relief and rested her forehead against her husband’s shoulder. He gently embraced her and kissed the top of her head.
“I’m sorry about that circus, Anyuta,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She and Alina have completely lost touch with reality. Don’t worry. I’ll never let them drain money from our family.”
Anna knew her husband would keep his word. Their relationship had always been built on mutual support. When they first got married, they had nothing except ambition and an enormous desire to build a life together. They had endured rented rooms, cheap pasta bought on sale, and sleepless nights with little Tyoma.
In those days, Galina Petrovna had been completely absorbed in her second husband, with whom she had Alina. Mikhail had always been something of an unwanted reminder to her—a child from her first, unsuccessful marriage. Alina, by contrast, became the light of her life, a late-blooming flower who was allowed absolutely everything.
His mother’s second husband had turned out to be unreliable. He liked to drink and eventually disappeared to parts unknown, leaving behind, according to Galina Petrovna, nothing but debts. From then on, she cultivated the image of an unfortunate woman struggling alone to raise a child and constantly appealed to everyone’s sympathy.
The next day Anna arrived at the office of the Siberian Route transportation company at eight in the morning. Problems began immediately. The driver of a truck carrying perishable goods to Novosibirsk wasn’t answering his phone, customers were calling nonstop, and the accounting department’s software had frozen.
Anna ran around like a squirrel in a wheel. She juggled two phones at once, checked route sheets, and argued with mechanics because a vehicle inspection hadn’t been completed on time. By lunchtime, her head was buzzing like an electrical transformer.
Her colleague Rita, a dispatcher, placed a plastic cup of dreadful vending-machine coffee in front of her.
“Vasilyevna, breathe,” Rita said, sitting down on the edge of the desk. “We found the truck. Seryoga’s phone just died, and the charger in his cigarette lighter burned out. He’s on schedule. But look at you—you’re pale as a ghost. Family sucking your blood again?”
Anna took a sip of the bitter coffee and briefly told her about her mother-in-law’s visit the previous evening. Rita, a hardened woman who had seen just about everything, merely snorted.
“Oh, Vasilyevna, been there, done that. Women like that don’t give up easily. Now she’ll start working on the guilt. She’ll call your husband, cry into the phone, and tell him she and her darling daughter are eating their last dry crust of bread without even a pinch of salt. Keep your guard up. I once felt sorry for my sister-in-law and let her stay with me for a month. Six months later, I practically needed the police to get her out.”
Rita’s words proved prophetic.
Throughout the following week, Galina Petrovna systematically bombarded Mikhail’s phone. She called early in the morning and late at night, complained about terrible pains in her heart, and said Alina had been crying day and night because she was being thrown out of her dormitory for breaking the rules and would now have to sleep at the train station.
Mikhail grew angry and tried to reason with his mother. He explained that Alina could move in with her, into her spacious three-room apartment. But Galina Petrovna countered that Alina had no proper conditions for creativity there and, besides, it was difficult for her to commute to the university.
The situation became increasingly tense. Mikhail slept poorly and grew irritable. Anna could see how much her husband was suffering. Despite his mother’s selfishness, he loved her, and the guilt Galina Petrovna so skillfully imposed on him was slowly eating away at him from the inside.
On Wednesday evening, Mikhail called Anna at work. He sounded guilty and confused.
“Anyuta, I need a favor. I urgently need my old medical records from the company clinic. I have a medical examination tomorrow for clearance to work at heights, and without those records they’ll reject me. They’re still at Mom’s place, in that old wall unit in the living room. I’m at a work site outside the city and won’t have time to stop by. Mom and Alina went to some free breathing-exercise class and won’t be back until late. You still have a key to their apartment, right? Could you stop by after work, find the records, and bring them home?”
“Of course, Mish, don’t worry,” Anna agreed. “I’ll stop by, find them, and bring them back.”
That evening Anna parked her car beside the old nine-story prefabricated apartment building where her mother-in-law lived. She went up to the correct floor and opened the door with the familiar turn of the key.
The apartment smelled of dust, old belongings, and some kind of sweetish incense Alina liked. Anna went into the living room. A massive Soviet-era wall unit made of dark polished wood occupied nearly an entire wall. Mikhail had told her his documents were in the bottom drawer of the secretary cabinet.
Anna opened the stiff cabinet door. Inside was complete chaos: old postcards, electricity bills from five years earlier, balls of thread, scattered photographs.
She began carefully sorting through stacks of papers, searching for the gray cardboard folder containing Mikhail’s medical records. While pulling out another pile, Anna accidentally caught a thick plastic binder that had been shoved into the far corner beneath a heavy volume of an encyclopedia. The binder slipped out and landed on the floor with a dull thud, scattering some of its contents across the worn carpet.
Anna crouched down to gather the papers.
Her eyes happened to catch a familiar word: “Agreement.”
Almost mechanically, she turned the page over. It was a recent lease agreement for non-residential commercial premises.
Anna frowned and began to read.
The document clearly stated that Galina Petrovna was leasing out a one-hundred-square-meter commercial pavilion at a large construction market on a long-term basis. The monthly rent was ninety thousand rubles. The tenant was a reputable trading company. The agreement had been signed three years earlier and had been regularly renewed ever since.
Anna sank onto the carpet as a flame of icy rage ignited inside her.
She began examining the other documents in the binder.
There were bank statements. Galina Petrovna’s account contained a seven-figure sum.
There were also documents concerning the inheritance she had received after the death of her second husband.
It turned out that he had left her not debts, as she had tearfully told everyone, but a highly profitable piece of commercial real estate.
Everything suddenly fell into place in Anna’s mind. The numbers balanced perfectly.
Galina Petrovna received a respectable pension as well as substantial income from renting out the pavilion. Her monthly income exceeded one hundred and thirty thousand rubles.
Yet for years she had been extracting money from Mikhail for “medicine,” making him pay her electricity and water bills, and complaining about her poverty.
Meanwhile, her mother-in-law had apparently been carefully accumulating all her income in the bank, probably saving for an apartment for her beloved daughter so she wouldn’t have to spend a single kopeck of her own money on current expenses.
They wanted Mikhail and Anna to cut back on their own spending, deprive themselves and their son, and pay for Alina’s whims—all while Galina Petrovna was sitting on a pile of money.
Anna took out her phone. Her hands trembled with indignation, but she forced herself to calm down.
She took clear photographs of every page of the lease agreement, all the bank statements, and the property ownership certificate. Then she carefully placed all the papers back into the plastic binder, returned it to its place beneath the encyclopedia, found her husband’s medical records, closed the cabinet, and left the apartment, locking the door securely behind her.
Anna drove home in the middle of an emotional storm.
She thought about how Mikhail had deprived himself of things he wanted, refused to buy new fishing equipment, and taken on extra work just so he could send his mother those fifteen thousand rubles every month, sincerely believing that she was barely able to afford bread.
It was betrayal of the lowest kind.
A mother’s betrayal.
That evening, when Mikhail came home, Anna said nothing.
She knew something like this shouldn’t be discussed in the heat of emotion after a difficult day at work. She needed the right moment to settle the issue once and for all.
That moment came the following Sunday.
Galina Petrovna, apparently deciding that her strategy of exhausting Mikhail with phone calls wasn’t producing results quickly enough, moved on to direct negotiations.
She called Mikhail on Saturday and sweetly announced that she had baked his favorite cabbage pies and that she and Alina would visit the next day so they could “make peace and discuss everything as a family.”
Mikhail wanted to refuse, but, to his surprise, Anna agreed.
“Let them come, Mish,” she said, her eyes gleaming mysteriously. “We really do have something to discuss. It’s time to put all the cards on the table.”
At exactly one o’clock on Sunday afternoon, the doorbell rang.
Galina Petrovna swept into the hallway carrying a platter of pies covered with a snow-white napkin.
Alina trailed behind her, demonstratively rolling her eyes and making it clear with her entire demeanor how bored and disgusted she was to be in what she apparently considered a proletarian apartment.
She was wearing a new designer sweatshirt and turning the latest-model smartphone over in her hands.
They went into the kitchen. Anna had set an attractive table and brewed good tea.
At first, the conversation went nowhere. Galina Petrovna asked Mikhail about work, while Alina poked at her salad with a fork and occasionally glanced at her phone screen.
Finally, her mother-in-law sighed heavily, pushed her cup away, and launched her offensive.
“Mishenka, Anya, please don’t be angry with an old fool like me. I’m only worried about the children. Misha, my pension is tiny—you know that. Pharmacy prices are so high you might as well hang yourself. And poor Alinochka has nowhere to live. The dormitory landlady is demanding six months’ rent in advance. The poor girl is wasting away; she’s lost weight. Come on, we have to find some solution. You’re not going to leave us out on the street, are you? Misha, couldn’t you at least cover half the rent? And maybe help a little with her tuition…”
Alina twisted her lips into an expression as though Tosya Kislitsyna from the film The Girls had suddenly discovered there would never again be any jam sandwiches in the world.
She gave a theatrical sniff and said:
“Yes, Kostik, you’re my brother. And actually, I also need a MacBook for university. My old laptop can’t handle the graphics programs.”
Mikhail frowned, apparently preparing to launch once again into a lengthy explanation that they had no spare money, but Anna gently placed a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.
She stood, went over to the dresser where she had left a prepared envelope, then returned to the table.
“Galina Petrovna,” Anna said, her voice calm but edged with steel. “How is your tenant at the construction market doing? The one renting your pavilion on Stroiteley Street? I hope he’s paying on time? No delays?”
A dead silence descended over the dining room.
Galina Petrovna froze with a piece of pie in her hand. The color rapidly drained from her face, leaving it an ashen shade.
Alina stopped chewing and stared wide-eyed at Anna.
“W-what pavilion?” her mother-in-law finally forced out, her voice cracking treacherously. “What are you making up, Anya?”
Without saying a word, Anna took the printed photographs from the envelope and spread them like a fan across the table in front of her husband.
“Here’s the commercial property lease agreement in your mother’s name, Misha. Ninety thousand rubles a month. And here are statements from an investment account containing enough money to buy three apartments like the one Alina wants—right now, in cash.”
Mikhail picked up the papers.
He read them for a long time, carefully studying every line and checking the seals and signatures.
With every passing second, his expression hardened.
A vein bulged in his neck.
He raised his eyes to his mother.
There was neither rage nor fury in his gaze—only such profound disappointment that Galina Petrovna became genuinely frightened.
“Mom…” Mikhail said hoarsely. “You make almost a hundred thousand a month from rent. You have millions in the bank. And all this time you’ve been taking fifteen thousand from me every month for your pills? You made me feel worthless, like a terrible son, because I couldn’t support your daughter? You wanted my wife to deny herself everything and wanted us to go into debt for Alina while you sat there accumulating your fortune?”
“Mishenka!” Galina Petrovna leaped to her feet, knocking over the chair. Red blotches spread across her face. “You don’t understand! That money is Alinochka’s dowry! She needs a proper start! And you’re a man—you’re supposed to earn your own money! What do those few kopecks mean to you? You’re young, you’ll earn more! And that poor girl doesn’t even have a father!”
“You went through our things!” Alina shrieked, jumping up after her mother. “That’s illegal! You violated our privacy! I’m going to report you to the police!”
“Go ahead,” Anna replied calmly as she gathered the papers back into the envelope. “And while you’re at it, you can explain to the tax authorities why your mother is renting out commercial property without registering as an individual entrepreneur and without paying taxes on one hundred and thirty thousand rubles of monthly income. I think they’ll be very interested in seeing these printouts.”
Alina immediately fell silent and snapped her mouth shut.
Galina Petrovna attempted her signature performance—a heart attack—grabbing the left side of her chest and slowly collapsing onto the small sofa.
But Mikhail didn’t even move to offer her a glass of water.
“Get up. Both of you. And get out of my house,” Mikhail said, each word falling heavily like a stone. “I never want to see either of you here again. Forget my phone number. You will never get another ruble from me. Not one kopeck.”
“My son, you can’t do this to me!” his mother-in-law sobbed, realizing that her manipulation was no longer working.
“I said GET OUT!” Mikhail roared so loudly that the glassware in the cabinet rattled.
Five minutes later, the front door slammed shut behind the unwanted guests.
The apartment suddenly felt easy to breathe in again.
Mikhail walked to the window, braced both hands against the sill, and stared outside for a long time.
Anna came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his broad back.
He was hurting. She knew that.
But it was a cleansing kind of pain, like finally opening and draining an old abscess.
Several months passed.
Late autumn arrived. The trees outside the transportation company’s office shed their last leaves.
Anna sat at her desk, sipping hot tea with lemon and reviewing the latest delivery schedules. Life had settled into a calm, predictable rhythm.
The changes were remarkable.
Once Mikhail stopped sending monthly payments to his mother, it was as though a heavy sack had been lifted from his shoulders.
He and Anna were finally able to pay off their car loan six months ahead of schedule and began saving money to buy a small country property by a lake—something they had dreamed about for years.
The constant financial strain that had hung over them for so long disappeared without a trace.
Mikhail began smiling more often, joined a gym, and no longer flinched every time his mobile phone rang.
At first, Galina Petrovna tried to use other relatives to pressure him.
An aunt from Saratov called and attempted to shame Mikhail for “abandoning his mother to fend for herself,” but after Mikhail briefly explained the actual financial situation of the supposedly “destitute” pensioner, the accusatory phone calls stopped for good.
Through mutual acquaintances, Anna learned that Galina Petrovna’s plan to preserve her capital had begun to fall apart.
When Alina realized that her brother would no longer finance her comfortable lifestyle, she threw a massive tantrum and demanded that her mother withdraw money from the account.
In the end, Galina Petrovna was forced to buy her daughter a one-bedroom apartment, significantly depleting her savings.
But Alina still didn’t have enough money for a luxurious lifestyle and, much to her outrage, had to get a job as an administrator at a beauty salon, working shifts.
One evening, Anna was returning home from work.
Mikhail was waiting for her outside the entrance to their building. He was smiling mysteriously and hiding something behind his back.
“Greetings to the hardworking soldiers of the logistics front,” he said, kissing his wife on the cheek. “I brought you something.”
He pulled a thick folder of documents from behind his back.
“What’s that?” Anna asked in surprise.
“A preliminary purchase agreement. For that property by the lake—the one with the little house. I paid the deposit today. Next weekend we’ll go and figure out where to put the sauna and where you’re going to plant your beloved hydrangeas.”
Anna laughed and wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck.
At last, everything in their family was the way it should be.
No one else’s schemes.
No manipulation.
No one bleeding them dry.
Just the two of them, their plans, and the life they had honestly earned for themselves.
