My blood boiled when she started lecturing my little boy again. Who gave her the right? One more second and I could barely stop myself from grabbing her perfectly styled hair. They say a mother’s instinct is stronger than any wild animal, and at that moment I was ready to prove it. Who knew how this visit would end? Olga, my Vadim’s sister, apparently considered herself an expert on raising children, even though she kept her own kids on an extremely tight leash. She could boss her own children around all she wanted, but she had better not even think about trying to re-educate my Kiryusha.
After yet another remark directed at my son, I found myself near the bathroom, where I unintentionally overheard a phone conversation.
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“Listen to what I’m telling you,” Olga whispered into the phone as she stood in front of the mirror. “She has such a collection of skincare products, it’s unbelievable! Can you imagine? The whole set costs fifteen thousand! That’s half my salary! I’m telling you, she must be having an affair with her boss. Otherwise, where would she get that kind of money?”
I froze in the doorway with my arms crossed over my chest. Olga had conveniently left the bathroom door open, which worked in my favor.
“It’s much simpler than that,” I said in an icy tone. “You get a degree, find a decent job, and do your work properly. Management notices your effort and rewards you with a good salary. No flirting required. But gossiping behind someone’s back is low. Put the cream back when you’re finished.”
I walked away from the bathroom, burning with anger like an overheated frying pan.
Olga was always like this—constantly looking for faults in me and collecting dirt. I wondered what I had ever done to her and my mother-in-law. Or was it simply ordinary jealousy?
“What happened, Tanya?” my husband asked when he noticed my gloomy expression. “Did you see a ghost? Although I think they usually wander around at night, and it’s broad daylight now.”
“Everything’s fine,” I waved him off. “I just burned myself with steam while covering the kettle whistle. It doesn’t hurt as much now. I put some cream on it.”
“Tanya, this cream is absolutely miraculous!” Olga’s cheerful voice sounded behind me. “Thank you. I think I’m getting younger right before my own eyes.”
“Just don’t overdo it,” Vadim smirked. “You might end up turning into a baby. Who will marry you then?”
Olga’s face immediately darkened.
Marriage was a sore subject for my husband’s sister. She had been married twice, both marriages unsuccessfully, and she had children from two different husbands. Olga was forever searching for her other half. As the saying goes, peace was only something she could dream about. Although, as far as I knew, there were very few men eager to call Olga their wife.
“Vadim, instead of giving your older sister advice about cosmetics, you should watch your son!” Olga frowned. “I just walked past his room and saw him teasing the cat with a laser pointer.”
“But children and pets both love that game,” I shrugged. “Why scold him for it?”
“You’d be better off giving him a book. At five years old, he should already be learning how to read,” Olga muttered.
Apparently, she was uncomfortable that I had caught her talking about me with her mother. But conversations like that were nothing new to me. I knew perfectly well how both my mother-in-law and Olga felt about me.
“Come on, everyone, let’s try to get along,” I said, trying to ease the tension. “We’re about to have tea and cake. Vadim, by the way, it’s your favorite.”
Tea passed in complete silence.
Apparently Olga really was embarrassed that I had overheard her gossiping with my mother-in-law, because she spent the entire time staring intently at the contents of her plate.
Kiryusha, on the other hand, talked nonstop.
“Mom, today I watched a video about the pyramids. Planet people built them. That’s what the bearded man said.”
“Sweetheart, the correct word is ‘aliens,’ not ‘planet people,’” I corrected him. “And that’s a controversial subject. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“Kirill!” Olga suddenly exploded. “You’re not supposed to talk at the table! Didn’t they teach you that in kindergarten?”
“Olga, don’t you dare raise your voice at my child, understood?” I went pale with anger. “We raise Kiryusha differently from the way you raise your children. Neither Vadim nor I see anything wrong with talking at the table. In fact, conversation brings a family closer together.”
“Today it’s talking at the table, tomorrow it’ll be smartphones, and the day after tomorrow…” Olga started singing the same old tune again.
To be honest, I was tired of having my husband’s sister in our home, so I decided on a small trick.
“Everyone, why are we sitting around at home? The weather outside is wonderful. Let’s go to the park. Any objections?”
“Yay!” Kiryusha clapped his hands. “The park! The park! Can we feed the ducks in the pond?”
“Of course,” I smiled indulgently. “We’ll buy the freshest loaf so the birds can enjoy it.”
Vadim seemed to understand what I was doing and enthusiastically supported me.
“Exactly! We’re wasting away inside these four walls. And these are the last warm days of summer. Olga, what about you? Are you coming?”
“No, I’m going home,” my sister-in-law replied gloomily. “Mom is probably wondering where I am, and she must be tired of being alone with my little troublemakers.”
I noted with disapproval that Olga constantly referred to her own children as “troublemakers.” I would never stoop to something like that.
On the way to the park, Vadim and I started talking while Kiryusha ran ahead of us.
“Listen, I can’t stand your sister’s visits anymore,” I sighed, watching our son. “She’s constantly snooping around, collecting gossip, twisting information, and then reporting everything to your mother.”
“Tanya, I understand,” my husband spread his hands helplessly, “but how am I supposed to tell her not to come? Besides, Olga is simply bored, so she comes to visit me.”
“Then please explain to your sister that I won’t allow her to lecture our child or give us advice about raising him,” I told Vadim. “It really bothers me when a woman who is practically a stranger to him teaches our little boy what is right and wrong. She can’t sort out her own life, yet she keeps interfering in other people’s.”
Vadim promised to talk to his sister, and we closed the subject.
Apparently, my husband’s words finally got through to her. Olga stopped visiting us, but instead she developed a habit of constantly calling Vadim.
“How else can I explain it to you?” my husband snapped into the phone one day. “You need to right-click, then find ‘Copy’… Did you find it? Now open the folder you need and click ‘Paste.’ See? What do you mean it didn’t work?”
“What kind of distance-learning course are you teaching over the phone?” I asked in surprise after Vadim ended the call. “First Olga tormented us with her visits, and now with phone calls. Why is she so interested in our family?”
“She’s typing some school essay for her daughter, but she still doesn’t understand even the simplest things,” Vadim chuckled. “So I’m giving her a crash course. Computers for beginners, you could say.”
I nodded.
Of course, how was a simple cafeteria cook from a factory supposed to know how to use office software? She needed the help of a specialist like my Vadim. My husband was a programmer.
“Better by phone than in person,” I muttered under my breath. “At least all that gossiping will stop. I was starting to feel like an intelligence agent had infiltrated our home to collect compromising information. And if there were no facts, she’d simply invent them.”
“Who are you talking to?” Vadim asked. “You’re walking around muttering to yourself.”
“I enjoy talking to intelligent people—in other words, myself!” I laughed. “You’re busy teaching computer literacy courses.”
Olga disappeared from our lives for quite a while and showed no signs of activity until an important day arrived—Vadim’s thirtieth birthday.
I had planned to organize a grand celebration and book a restaurant hall so we could invite all our friends and acquaintances, and we had quite a lot of them.
“Come on, there’s no need for all that,” my husband objected. “Maybe I’m getting old, but I want to celebrate my anniversary in a small circle, only with the people closest to us. We won’t invite anyone specially. Whoever remembers can come.”
“Whatever you want, darling,” I shrugged. “After all, it’s your celebration.”
Since my husband’s birthday fell on a weekday, we decided to celebrate on Saturday.
I started preparing on Friday as if I were getting ready for New Year’s Eve. I chopped salads and marinated meat for shashlik, which Vadim cooked wonderfully in the oven.
My parents couldn’t attend their son-in-law’s birthday celebration because they were staying at a health resort, but they sent warm congratulations and promised him a luxurious gift.
My mother-in-law didn’t come either, claiming she wasn’t feeling well.
In the end, only Olga arrived, wearing an elegant dress.
“My dear little brother, congratulations from our entire family on your anniversary!” Olga began congratulating Vadim the moment she stepped through the door. “Please accept this scarf as my gift.”
“A scarf?” Vadim muttered in surprise. “It’s not exactly cold yet… But thank you anyway.”
“What smells so delicious?” Olga sniffed the air like a hunting dog. “Is that shashlik? How wonderful… I can’t even remember the last time I had roasted meat. Tanya, put a few pieces aside for Mom and my little troublemakers afterward, okay?”
“No problem,” I replied. “There’s plenty. There’ll be enough for everyone. I also prepared some treats for my nephews since you didn’t bring them.”
“They’re being punished,” Olga answered coldly. “They don’t wash their dishes, and that’s a serious offense.”
“Olga, what exactly do you do in that cafeteria of yours?” I laughed. “At the very least, you ought to be commanding a battalion of soldiers with that iron personality.”
“Children need to be taught household responsibilities, otherwise they grow up lazy, just like your Kiryusha,” Olga suddenly blurted out.
That was downright rude.
But I restrained myself because I didn’t want to ruin my husband’s celebration.
All evening Olga talked nonstop like a radio that couldn’t be switched off, barely allowing Vadim or me to say a word. Our friends who had promised to come were delayed and told us to start without them.
Kiryusha ate quickly, thanked us, and asked permission to play right there in the living room.
“Of course, son. Bring your toys in here,” Vadim told him. “Why sit alone in your room like a little owl?”
Kiryusha ran off to get his toy cars, but on the way he accidentally bumped into Olga’s handbag, which was lying on an armchair.
The bag fell to the floor, and various women’s belongings spilled out of it.
Absolutely nothing terrible had happened.
Olga, however, thought otherwise.
She jumped to her feet and started yelling at Kiryusha.
“Can’t you watch where you’re running? What if my compact mirror had broken?! You little troublemaker!”
“I’m not a troublemaker! I’m a person!” my son replied proudly.
And he was absolutely right.
“You dare talk back to me?!” Olga screamed. “I’ll… I’ll put you in the corner!”
Then my sister-in-law raised her hand toward Kiryusha.
Like an enraged panther, I sprang toward Olga and caught her arm.
“My dear sister-in-law, you are not the mistress of this house, so don’t give orders here,” I said sharply.
“You’re not the mistress here, so don’t give orders,” I told my sister-in-law.
“Did you see what your little son did?” Olga refused to calm down.
“I did,” I shot back. “He knocked over a cheap handbag filled with even cheaper cosmetics. If I hear you threaten him with the corner again, or if I ever see you raise your hand at him one more time, you’ll be the one looking for a corner to hide in. Is that clear?”
“Vadim, are you going to let your wife speak to me like this and just stay silent?” Olga tried to find support from her brother.
But he was unhappy with her behavior too.
“Olga, you really crossed the line,” Vadim said calmly. “I won’t allow anyone to raise a hand at my son, including you.”
“Oh, is that how it is?” Olga shouted, her face turning red. “Then I’m leaving, and I’m taking my present back with me too! Understand, brother?”
“Well, if you think that’s necessary…” Vadim shrugged. “No one is stopping you. Go.”
Olga grabbed the scarf, quickly got dressed, and left.
After the door slammed shut behind her, Vadim and I looked at each other.
“It’ll be more peaceful without Olga,” my husband suddenly smiled. “She really did forget the basic rules of decency. I think she’ll eventually realize it herself and apologize.”
“Don’t you feel bad about losing your present?” I grinned. “It was such a beautiful scarf…”
Vadim didn’t answer.
Instead, he took me by the hand and pulled me toward the room.
“Our son is waiting for us. Come on, let’s go calm him down. It is a celebration, after all.”
