My husband promised my mother-in-law a full renovation of her summer house—at my expense. I had a promise of my own, too…
“You don’t understand, Lena, it’s my mother! Her blood pressure spikes every time she sees the rotten boards on the veranda. We have to do this renovation for her. I already promised.”
Oleg stood in the middle of the kitchen with his hands on his hips, posing like Atlas holding up the entire family’s well-being on his shoulders. The only problem was that this Atlas was wearing stretched-out sweatpants, and the “world” he planned to save was supposed to be repaired using my annual bonus and the money I had set aside for new teeth.
“Wait,” I said slowly, lowering my teacup as carefully as I could so the porcelain wouldn’t clink and betray the fury boiling inside me. “You promised your mother a full-scale renovation of her dacha. With a sauna too, from what I heard on the phone? Using my money?”
“But we have a shared budget!” my husband cried, taking a step back. “I contribute too, by the way! I’ll supervise the workers!”
“Oleg, last month you ‘supervised’ the changing of a light bulb, and we ended up without electricity for two days,” I replied calmly. “And the money on that card is my project bonus and the savings I put aside for dental implants. So you want your wife walking around toothless while your mother steams herself in a cedar barrel?”
Oleg puffed up, trying to arrange his face into an expression of wounded virtue.
“Material things are meaningless, Lena. What matters is the emotional comfort of loved ones. Mom said the sauna would cleanse our karma.”
“Your mother doesn’t cleanse karma, she dirties it with her demands,” I snapped. “And I’m not giving you the money.”
“Too late,” my husband muttered, looking away. “I already ordered the log frame. I paid the deposit with my credit card. I said you’d settle the debt tomorrow and pay the rest.”
Oleg looked like a guilty cat who was still convinced he’d be fed sour cream anyway, because “where else is she going to go?” He twitched one shoulder nervously, as if trying to shake off an invisible flea.
On Saturday we drove out to Tamara Ivanovna’s dacha. A “family council,” as my mother-in-law called it. Her daughter Sveta was there too—a thirty-five-year-old woman whose greatest achievement in life was her professional ability to suffer from lack of money without ever having worked a single day.
Tamara Ivanovna greeted us like a landowner inspecting her estate.
“Lenochka, darling!” she sang, kissing the air ten centimeters from my cheek. “How wonderful that you came. I was thinking—plain timber is so ordinary. Let’s order rounded logs and a Finnish stove. I saw it in a magazine, it’s very trendy now.”
“Tamara Ivanovna,” I smiled with the kind of smile usually used to scare debt collectors, “a Finnish stove costs as much as an airplane wing. And our budget is three kopecks and Oleg’s enthusiasm.”
“Oh, don’t play poor!” my mother-in-law waved it off, adjusting her sunhat. “I know you’re a department head. Surely you can make an effort for your beloved mother-in-law. Money is energy—you mustn’t hold on to it too tightly, or the Universe gets offended.”
“The Universe, Tamara Ivanovna, is usually offended when people spend their pension on lottery tickets and then demand renovation money from their daughter-in-law,” I said in an icy tone.
My mother-in-law choked on air, coughed, and clutched at her heart, but when she saw I wasn’t rushing for the Corvalol, she straightened right up again.
Her face twisted as if she had bitten into a lemon thinking it was a marshmallow.
“Mom, don’t get upset!” Sveta cut in, chewing an apple from my grocery bag. “Lena’s just raising her price. By the way, Len, if you’re hiring a crew anyway, maybe they can insulate my balcony too? You know, while they’re at it. Family discount. There’ll be materials left over, right?”
“Of course, Sveta,” I nodded. “We’ll build you a wonderful little hut on the balcony out of sawdust and old roofing felt.”
Sveta choked on the apple, turned red, and shot her brother an angry glare.
She reminded me of a bloated toad that had been offered a plastic button instead of a fly.
That evening the real performance began. They set the table on the veranda. Oleg poured homemade liqueur, and after a couple of shots Tamara Ivanovna decided it was time to go on the offensive.
“I look at you, Lena,” she began in the sweetest voice, “and I think how lucky you are to have my son. Another man would drink and beat you, but mine is practical, a good provider, devoted to his mother. And yet you keep holding back. I heard you wanted to replace your car? Why would you need that? It’s dangerous for a woman to drive anyway. Better to invest in real estate. In the family nest!”
“In your nest, Tamara Ivanovna, cuckoos keep laying eggs, and somehow I’m the one expected to feed them,” I said calmly, cutting myself a piece of шашлык. “And by the way, Oleg promised the renovation would be paid for out of his own pocket.”
“What belongs to the husband belongs to the wife, and vice versa!” Sveta shrieked. “Why are you so greedy? We’re family!”
“Family is when people support each other, not milk each other dry,” I replied. “Oleg, did you tell your mother I agreed to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for the stove?”
Oleg tucked his head into his shoulders.
“Well… I thought we’d work it out…”
“I already ordered it!” my mother-in-law announced triumphantly. “They’ll bring it tomorrow. Payment on delivery. Lenochka, have your card ready.”
That was too much. They weren’t asking—they were informing me of a decision already made. In their minds, my money had already been divided, chopped up, and spent. I looked at those satisfied faces, shiny with grease from grilled meat, and felt something click inside me. The self-pity vanished. All that remained was cold calculation.
“So they’re bringing it tomorrow?” I repeated.
“At ten in the morning,” Tamara Ivanovna nodded importantly. “And don’t be late with the transfer, the driver is nervous.”
“All right,” I said, standing up from the table. “Enjoy your meal. I’m going to bed.”
The next morning I was awakened by the sound of an engine. A truck was standing outside the gate. The movers were already unloading bricks and some expensive-looking blocks. Tamara Ivanovna was running around them like a field commander in a flowered robe.
“Careful! That’s Italian ceramic!” she shouted. “Oleg, go receive it! Lena, where’s your phone? Transfer the money!”
Oleg, groggy and rumpled, ran up to me.
“Len, hurry up, it’s one hundred and eighty thousand with delivery.”
“One hundred and eighty?” I asked with feigned surprise. “You told me one hundred and fifty.”
“Well… the exchange rate changed, and Mom also wanted a forged weather vane.”
“A forged weather vane?” I repeated. “Obviously essential. So we can know which way the wind is blowing through an empty head.”
Oleg turned crimson.
“Enough with the sarcasm! Just pay already, people are waiting!”
Tamara Ivanovna was already waving at us.
“What’s taking you so long? Payment goes to the foreman’s phone number!”
I stepped out onto the porch, stretched, and said loudly enough for the movers and the neighbors to hear:
“Oleg, I don’t have any money.”
Silence fell. Even the birds stopped chirping. My mother-in-law froze with her hand still in the air.
“What do you mean, you don’t have any money?” my husband rasped. “You showed me the app… there were three hundred thousand there!”
“There were,” I agreed. “But then I remembered that I had a promise of my own, too.”
“What promise?” Sveta screeched, bursting out of the house…
“You don’t understand, Lena, it’s Mom! Her blood pressure spikes whenever she sees the rotten boards on the veranda. We have to do this renovation for her. I already promised.”
Oleg stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands on his hips, posing as Atlas holding the vault of family well-being on his shoulders. The truth was, this Atlas was wearing stretched-out sweatpants, and the “vault” was supposed to be repaired with my annual bonus and the savings I’d put aside for new teeth.
“Wait,” I said, slowly setting down my teacup, trying not to let the porcelain clink and give away the rage boiling inside me. “You promised your mother a full-scale renovation of her dacha. With a bathhouse too, from what I heard on the phone? Using my money?”
“But we have a shared budget!” my husband cried, taking a step back. “I contribute too, by the way! I’ll supervise the work crew!”
“Oleg, last month you ‘supervised’ changing a light bulb, and we were without electricity for two days,” I shot back calmly. “And the money on that card is my project bonus and the savings for my dental implants. You want your wife walking around toothless while your mother steams herself in a cedar barrel?”
Oleg puffed up, trying to give his face the expression of offended virtue.
“Material things are fleeting, Lena. What matters is the emotional comfort of loved ones. Mom said the bathhouse will cleanse our karma.”
“Your mother doesn’t cleanse karma, she dirties it with her demands,” I snapped. “And I’m not giving you the money.”
“Too late,” my husband muttered, looking away. “I already ordered the log structure. Paid the deposit with a credit card. Told them you’d settle the debt tomorrow and pay the rest.”
Oleg looked like a naughty cat, certain it would still be fed sour cream because, well, where was she going to go? He jerked his shoulder nervously, as if trying to shake off an invisible flea.
On Saturday we drove out to Tamara Ivanovna’s dacha. A “family council,” as my mother-in-law called it. With her was my sister-in-law, Sveta—a thirty-five-year-old woman whose greatest life achievement was the professional ability to suffer from lack of money without having worked a single day in her life.
Tamara Ivanovna greeted us in the pose of a landowner inspecting her estate.
“Lenochka, dear child!” she sang out, kissing the air ten centimeters from my cheek. “How wonderful that you came. I’ve been thinking: a simple log frame is so ordinary. Let’s order rounded timber and a Finnish stove. I saw it in a magazine—it’s all the rage now.”
“Tamara Ivanovna,” I said with the kind of smile that usually frightens debt collectors, “a Finnish stove costs as much as an airplane wing. And our budget consists of three kopecks and Oleg’s enthusiasm.”
“Oh, don’t play poor!” my mother-in-law waved me off, adjusting her panama hat. “I know you’re a department head. For your beloved mother-in-law, you can make an effort. Money is energy—you mustn’t clutch at it, or the Universe will be offended.”
“The Universe, Tamara Ivanovna, usually gets offended when someone spends her pension on lottery tickets and then demands renovation money from her daughter-in-law,” I remarked in an icy tone.
My mother-in-law nearly choked on air, coughed, and clutched at her heart, but when she saw I wasn’t running for the Corvalol, she straightened up at once.
Her face twisted as if she’d bitten into a lemon thinking it was a marshmallow.
“Mom, don’t worry!” Sveta cut in, chewing on an apple from my grocery bag. “Lenka’s just driving up the price. By the way, Len, since you’re hiring a crew anyway, maybe they could insulate my balcony too? While they’re at it, you know, as family. There’ll be materials left over.”
“Of course, Sveta,” I nodded. “We’ll build you an excellent little hut on your balcony out of sawdust and old roofing felt.”
Sveta choked on the apple, turned red, and shot an angry glare at her brother.
She reminded me of a bloated toad that had been handed a plastic button instead of a fly.
By evening, the real show began. They set the table on the veranda. Oleg poured fruit liqueur, and after a couple of shots Tamara Ivanovna decided it was time to go on the offensive.
“I look at you, Lena,” she began in the sweetest little voice, “and I think—you’re lucky to have my son. Another man would drink, beat you, but this one is hardworking, he takes care of his mother. And yet you keep pinching pennies. I heard you wanted to change your car? Why would you need that? It’s dangerous for a woman to drive anyway. Better to invest in real estate. In the family nest!”
“In your nest, Tamara Ivanovna, cuckoos keep laying eggs, and for some reason I’m supposed to feed them,” I said calmly, cutting a piece of shashlik. “And by the way, Oleg promised the renovation would be paid for out of his own pocket.”
“What’s a husband’s is a wife’s and vice versa!” Sveta shrieked. “Why are you so mercenary? We’re family!”
“Family is when people support one another, not milk each other dry,” I replied. “Oleg, did you tell your mother that I agreed to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for the stove?”
Oleg hunched his head into his shoulders.
“Well… I thought we’d come to an agreement…”
“I already ordered it!” my mother-in-law announced triumphantly. “They’re delivering it tomorrow. Payment on delivery. Lenochka, have your card ready.”
That was too much. They weren’t asking—they were presenting me with a fait accompli. In their minds, my money had already been divided up, sawed apart, and spent. I looked at those satisfied faces, shiny with greasy meat, and felt something inside me click. Self-pity vanished. Only cold calculation remained.
“So they’re bringing it tomorrow?” I repeated.
“At ten in the morning,” Tamara Ivanovna nodded importantly. “And don’t be late with the transfer—the driver is a nervous type.”
“All right,” I said, getting up from the table. “Enjoy your meal. I’m going to bed.”
In the morning I woke to the sound of an engine. A truck was standing by the gate. The movers were already unloading bricks and some expensive-looking blocks. Tamara Ivanovna was running around them like a regiment commander in a flowered robe.
“Careful! That’s Italian ceramic!” she shouted. “Oleg, go receive it! Lena, where’s your phone? Transfer the money!”
Oleg, rumpled and sleepy, ran up to me.
“Len, hurry up, it’s one hundred and eighty thousand with delivery.”
“One hundred and eighty?” I asked, feigning surprise. “You said one hundred and fifty.”
“Well… the exchange rate changed, and Mom also wanted a wrought-iron weather vane.”
“A wrought-iron weather vane?” I repeated. “Very necessary. So we can know which way the wind is blowing in an empty head.”
Oleg flushed dark red.
“Enough with the sarcasm! Just pay already, people are waiting!”
Tamara Ivanovna was already waving at us.
“What are you dragging your feet for? Payment goes to the foreman’s phone number!”
I stepped out onto the porch, stretched, and said loudly enough for both the movers and the neighbors to hear:
“Oleg, I don’t have any money.”
Silence fell. Even the birds stopped chirping. My mother-in-law froze with her hand raised.
“What do you mean, you don’t?” my husband croaked. “You showed me the banking app… there were three hundred thousand there!”
“There were,” I agreed. “But then I remembered I had a promise of my own.”
“What promise?” Sveta screeched, rushing out of the house.
“Five years ago, I promised myself that if I ever saved up a solid amount, I’d fulfill my dream. And yesterday, while you were all dividing the skin of a bear you hadn’t killed yet—and my bank account—I transferred all the money.”
“To where?!” the relatives gasped in chorus.
“To a dental clinic,” I smiled with all my still-imperfect teeth. “Full prepayment for implants, veneers, and treatment. And I bought a vacation package too. To a seaside health resort. For two weeks. My flight is tonight. The taxi is already on its way.”
Tamara Ivanovna grabbed the fence to keep from falling.
“You… you spent Mom’s bathhouse money on your teeth?!” Oleg shouted. “You selfish woman!”
“And you’re a freeloader who wanted to make a name for himself at someone else’s expense,” I answered calmly. “I warned you: my money is my money.”
“What about the stove?!” my mother-in-law wailed, seeing the movers exchange nervous glances. “They won’t leave!”
“That’s your problem,” I said, taking the suitcase I had packed during the night. “Oleg’s the ‘manager.’ Let him deal with it.”
Then the stocky driver stepped forward.
“So, хозяева, are you paying or not? Otherwise we load it all back up, but for the wasted trip and the loading and unloading, you owe us thirty grand.”
“Oleg!” Tamara Ivanovna shrieked. “Do something!”
Oleg lunged at me and grabbed my arm.
“Lenka, don’t be stupid! Cancel the transaction! Get the money back!”
“You can’t,” I shook his hand off easily. “These are medical services under contract. And the plane ticket is nonrefundable.”
“Then borrow it! Take out a loan!” my husband shrieked.
“A loan? But you’re the man of the house, the head of the family. You take it out. In your own name.”
“My credit history is bad!” he blurted out, then froze.
“Oh, really?” I laughed. “So you were planning to take out a loan in my name?”
“You’re supposed to help your family!” Sveta jumped in. “Mom is under stress!”
“Sveta, stress is being thirty-five years old, living off your mother’s pension, and still demanding a heated balcony,” I shot back. “Go get a job—maybe then you’ll earn enough for a brick or two.”
Sveta opened her mouth, but no words came out, and she only made a strange sound like a balloon deflating.
She stood there with bulging eyes, like a fish thrown ashore right into the Sahara Desert.
A yellow taxi pulled up to the house. I rolled my suitcase toward the gate. Behind me, a drama on a Shakespearean scale was unfolding.
“Load it back up!” the driver shouted. “Thirty grand for the trip!”
“I don’t have it!” Oleg squealed.
“Mom, use the funeral money!” Sveta demanded.
“I won’t!” Tamara Ivanovna screeched. “That’s sacred! Let Oleg sell a kidney!”
I got into the taxi and rolled down the window.
“Oleg, I left the apartment keys on the side table. While I’m gone, pack your things. I’m filing for divorce and division of property. Though there’s not much to divide—the apartment is premarital, the car is mine. And the credit debt for the log-frame deposit is yours alone. Good luck.”
The taxi pulled away. I watched in the rearview mirror. Oleg was running in circles between his screaming mother, his sobbing sister, and the sullen movers, who had already started tossing the “Italian ceramic” right into the mud by the roadside, since no one was going to pay for careful reloading.
Tamara Ivanovna clung to the fence and seemed to be cursing either the day I came into their lives, or the day she decided I was some spineless fool who could always be used.
I leaned back against the seat. Ahead of me lay the sea, new teeth, and most importantly, a new life without parasites. My phone chimed: a message from the bank—“Payment successful.”
Never before had parting with money brought such a sweet, intoxicating feeling of freedom.
