My mother-in-law changed the password to my office, I cut off the internet, and she spent a long time staring at the wall lamp.
I inserted the key into the lock and instantly knew: someone чужой had been in the apartment. Not because of the smell of unfamiliar perfume, and not because of extra shoes in the hallway—Lyudmila Stepanovna always took her shoes off and neatly hid them in the closet. I felt it from the sound. From my office came the brisk, rhythmic clacking of keys. That is how people type when they are trying very hard to look busy, but are really just pretending.
“Margarita? You’re home early,” Lyudmila Stepanovna fluttered into the hallway, pulling my office door closed behind her.
She did not look me in the eyes. Instead, she studied with great attention my brass keychain with a little bear on it, which I had just placed on the small table. She adjusted a loose strand of her perfectly styled hair.
“My site wrapped up earlier,” I walked past her without even taking off my coat. “What were you doing in there?”
“Oh, just dusting!” she waved her hands, and I noticed her fingers trembling slightly. “You know Deniska says you always have piles of papers in there. I just wanted to help. Like family.”
I pulled the door handle. The office greeted me with silence and the smell of her hairspray. My work laptop was open. I sat down in the chair and touched the trackpad. The screen lit up, asking for a password. Out of habit, I entered my mother’s birth date, then my old school number, then the name of our first dog.
“Incorrect password. Two attempts remaining.”
I slowly turned toward the door. Lyudmila Stepanovna stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She was no longer pretending to fuss about. There was something new in her gaze—cold, calculating. She looked at me as if I were not her daughter-in-law, but an inconvenient mistake in her personal plans.
“The password doesn’t work,” I said. My voice sounded surprisingly steady.
“Ah, yes,” she smiled with only her lips. “Like I said, I was dusting. I must have pressed something by accident. And then I thought, since it had already happened, I should set something more secure. You leave everything out in the open. You never know who might walk in.”
She was “dusting.” Did she also cover the estimating software with dust? Continued in the comments.
I inserted the key into the lock and immediately knew: there was someone чужой in the apartment. Not because of the smell of someone else’s perfume, and not because of extra shoes in the entryway—Lyudmila Stepanovna always took her shoes off and neatly hid them in the closet. I felt it from the sound. From my study came the brisk, rhythmic clacking of keys. That is how people hit a keyboard when they are trying very hard to look busy, but are really just pretending to work.
“Margaret? You’re early,” Lyudmila Stepanovna fluttered out into the hallway, pulling the door of my study shut behind her.
She would not look me in the eye. Instead, she stared very intently at my brass bear keychain, which I had just set on the little table. She tucked back a loose strand of her perfectly styled hair.
“My site wrapped up early,” I said, walking past her without even taking off my coat. “What were you doing in there?”
“Oh, just dusting!” She waved her hands, and I noticed her fingers trembling slightly. “You know Deniska says you always have piles of papers in there. I just decided to help. Like family.”
I yanked the door handle. The study greeted me with silence and the smell of her hairspray. My work laptop was open. I sat down in the chair and touched the trackpad. The screen lit up, asking for a password. Out of habit, I typed in my mother’s birthday, then the number of my old school, then the name of our first dog.
“Incorrect password. Two attempts remaining.”
I slowly turned toward the door. Lyudmila Stepanovna stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She was no longer pretending to bustle around. Something new had appeared in her gaze—cold, calculating. She was looking at me as if I were not her daughter-in-law, but some inconvenient mistake in her personal plans.
“The password doesn’t work,” I said. My voice sounded surprisingly steady.
“Oh, right,” she smiled with her lips only. “Like I said, I was dusting. I accidentally pressed something. And then I thought, since it had already happened, I should set something more secure. You keep everything out in the open. You never know who might come in.”
She was dusting. Did the estimating software get covered in dust too?
“What’s the new password?” I began speaking more slowly, feeling everything inside me turn to stone.
“We’ll discuss it tonight when Denis gets home. You see, Rita, family means transparency. My son and I feel that you spend too much time in that… virtual world. We decided you need a digital detox. At least for a week.”
She turned and walked to the kitchen, humming some little tune. I stared at the black laptop screen. In there was the cost estimate for the reconstruction of the bridge over the Kacha. The coefficients, the deadlines, the hidden work items. My life for the past three months.
I had known Lyudmila Stepanovna for five years. She was one of those women who bake pies with poison wrapped in powdered sugar. But until that day she had never touched my work. Work was taboo. Denis always said, “Mom just cares.” Mom cared so much that little by little my friends, my hobbies, and even my right to choose the color of the curtains had disappeared. Now she had gotten to my passwords.
I walked into the hallway. My hands were ice cold. I went to the router hanging above the front door. I reached up and simply pulled the power cable out of the socket. Then I opened the breaker panel in the stairwell and flipped the switch for our apartment’s internet line.
“Rita!” came a shout from the living room. “What happened? My series got interrupted!”
I went back into the study. Sat down. Took an old notebook and a pen out of the desk drawer.
“We’re having technical work done, Lyudmila Stepanovna,” I shouted back. “The whole line is down. They said it will not be fixed until tomorrow.”
I heard her hurry into the hallway. Heard her clicking the router switch. When she appeared in the doorway, she was no longer smiling. Her face had gone gray, and her eyes had narrowed to slits.
“Turn it back on right now,” she demanded.
“I can’t. The provider said there’s a break in the main line.”
She had not been watching a TV series. She had not gone pale because of a TV series.
She did not leave. She walked into the room and began staring at the wall lamp—an old sconce with a frosted shade that had come with the apartment from the previous owners. She stared at it so long and so hard that it seemed as if she were waiting for the lamp either to start talking or to explode. Her gaze moved to the wire disappearing into the wall, then back to the shade.
“What do you see there?” I asked.
She flinched, looked at me, and in that moment I understood: she was not just being difficult. She was afraid.
That entire evening the apartment was so quiet you could hear the neighbors three floors up moving chairs. Denis was late. Lyudmila Stepanovna came into my study three times—just to stand there. She no longer tried to teach me about life or advise me on the proper way to brew fireweed tea. She would walk to the window, pull the curtain aside, look out at the empty courtyard, and then, inevitably, her gaze would return to the wall lamp.
I pretended to write in the notebook. In reality, I was counting seconds.
“Margaret, come see me,” I wrote to my husband in a messenger app, knowing he would only get the message when he entered our home Wi-Fi zone. Oh, right. There was no Wi-Fi.
I moved my phone from the left edge of the desk to the right. Then back again.
If she had changed the password, then she knew the old one. How? Denis. Only Denis could have given it to her.
When my husband finally came home, he did not even have time to take off his coat. Lyudmila Stepanovna intercepted him right in the hallway. They whispered there for ten minutes. All I could hear was a hiss—my mother-in-law’s low, pressing voice and Denis’s defensive muttering.
“Rit, why are you acting like a child,” Denis came into the study, trying to look upbeat. “Mom just wanted to tidy up. So she changed the password, big deal. Let her tell you what it is, and then you can turn the internet back on. She’s expecting… an important email. From social services.”
“From what social services office, Denis?” I raised my head. “It’s seven in the evening. Social services do not send emails at this hour. And why is the password to my laptop being discussed by the whole family except me?”
Denis hesitated. He began twirling his keys on his finger—a bad habit he had when he was lying.
“Well, we’re family. Shared space and all that. Mom says you’ve been corresponding with some suspicious people in there. Clients and all…”
“Clients are the people who pay the money we used to buy this laptop, Denis.”
“Do not start,” he winced. “Just tell me how to turn the internet back on. Mom’s nervous.”
I stood up. Walked right up to him. Denis was a head taller than me, but right then he seemed small and oddly transparent.
“The password,” I said.
“What?”
“The password to my laptop. Let her say it. Right now.”
Lyudmila Stepanovna stood behind him. Slowly, letter by letter, she said:
“D-E-N-I-S-0-1.”
I could not help it—I laughed. Bitterly, so hard it hurt.
“Amazing originality. Denis, are you serious? You gave her access to my work files so she could put your name on the login screen?”
“It’s a symbol!” my mother-in-law shouted from the hallway. “A symbol of who is in charge in this house!”
I nodded.
“Fine. Now I know the password. As for the internet—I’m not turning it back on until I understand what you were doing for two hours. Denis, step aside.”
I went into the kitchen and poured myself some water. My hands were no longer shaking. That strange stage of calm had arrived, the one where you understand there is nothing left to save—the house is burning, and all you can do is watch the flames.
“Rita, do not turn this into a scandal,” Denis followed at my heels. “Turn the router on. Mom’s not feeling well. Her blood pressure is up.”
“Then let her lie down. Blood pressure falls better in the dark.”
I saw Lyudmila Stepanovna freeze again in the living room doorway. She was staring at that lamp again. But now she was not just looking at it—she stepped up to it and carefully touched the frosted glass shade with the tips of her fingers.
She is looking for a camera. She thinks I have been spying on her.
I remembered that a week ago Lyudmila Stepanovna had suddenly started asking how much a “smart home” system cost. I had brushed it off, told her we had ordinary outlets and ordinary light fixtures. But apparently she had not believed me.
“Denis,” I set the glass on the table. “Did your mother log into online banking?”
My husband froze. The keys stopped spinning on his finger.
“Why would she? She has her own… on her phone…”
“There’s a limit on her phone. On my laptop, the passwords for all our accounts are saved. Including the one where we were saving for the down payment on your new car.”
I saw Denis go pale. Truly pale, blue under the eyes. He slowly turned toward his mother.
“Mom? You said you just needed to print a recipe…”
“What accounts, Deniska!” my mother-in-law’s voice broke into a shriek. “She is lying! She wants to turn us against each other! I just… I wanted to see how much she really earns! I have a right to know how much comes into this family!”
I went back to the study. Typed in “DENIS01.” The screen unlocked. I did not open the estimate files. I opened the browser history.
There were no recipes there. No social services office. There were websites for microfinance organizations. Dozens of tabs. “Loan in 5 Minutes,” “Money Until Payday,” “Approval Without Guarantors.”
And in the recycle bin were scans of my documents. My passport. My SNILS.
I stared at those files and felt a throbbing start at the back of my head. She had not just been “caring.” She had been trying to take out loans in my name, using my own computer. And the only thing that had stopped her was the SMS confirmation that was supposed to come to my phone. But because my phone had been with me at the site, she had decided to wait. And changed the password so I would not see the open tabs if I came back early.
But why was she so afraid of the lamp?
I stood up and walked to the sconce. Lyudmila Stepanovna lunged at me, trying to grab my hand.
“Do not touch it!” she screamed. “You’ll break it!”
I pushed her away—not hard, but firmly. I touched the shade. It was hot. Not from the bulb—the lamp had been off for an hour. It was hot on the side where the wire disappeared into the wall.
I understood everything in a single second.
“Denis,” I called. “Come here.”
My husband came in, looking at both of us with horror.
“Do you know why the internet does not work?” I asked, staring straight into Lyudmila Stepanovna’s eyes. “Not because I turned it off. But because your mother tried to connect some device to our network. And it shorted out the line.”
I twisted the shade sharply. It came off its mounts. Behind it, in the niche where there had once been a junction box, lay a small black device with a blinking red light. A thin wire ran from it, connected directly to the lamp wiring.
“What is that?” Denis reached out.
“That is a tiny makeshift mining rig,” I pulled out the little box. “Or a transmitter. Lyudmila Stepanovna, did you decide to turn our apartment into a money-laundering hub?”
My mother-in-law suddenly sank to the floor. Right there by the doorframe. She covered her face with her hands.
“They promised me…” she whispered. “They promised that if I installed this thing and gave them access to a powerful computer, they would wipe out all my debts. For my granddaughter’s tuition… I wanted what was best…”
“What granddaughter, Mom?” Denis clutched his head. “We do not have children! We are still saving!”
“Igor’s daughter! In Samara!” she shouted. “She is applying to university! They do not have any money!”
Igor was Lyudmila Stepanovna’s older son. The favorite. The one who did not call for years unless he needed money.
I looked at the black device in my hand. It was still blinking. Even without internet it was trying to send something. Find a network. Reconnect to its owner. The apartment is in my name.
That thought floated into my head like a life buoy. Loans, mining, hacked passwords—all of it had happened on my property.
“Call the police, Denis,” I said.
“Rita, come on… it’s Mom…”
“Either you call the police, or I call a lawyer and file for divorce right now. With your mother’s debts included in the division. How many years do you think document forgery and illegal use of computing resources adds up to?”
Lyudmila Stepanovna raised her head. There was no fear left in her eyes. Only pure, undiluted hatred.
“You were always trash,” she hissed. “Cold, calculating estimator. You even translate feelings into kopecks.”
“I translate reality into kopecks, Lyudmila Stepanovna. And right now the reality is this: you have just stolen three years of our lives.”
I walked into the hallway. Took out my phone. Locked every account. One by one. Click-click. Just like those keys she had used to imitate work.
The police arrived forty minutes later. Two gloomy guys in jackets that smelled of tobacco and cheap coffee. They turned the black box over in their hands for a long time, exchanging looks. One of them, with tired eyes, sat down at my desk and began writing the report.
“A miner,” he concluded. “Though some kind of homemade one. Most likely they were routing traffic through it too. You know what that means?”
I nodded. I knew. It means your computer becomes part of a huge network through which people in masks buy and sell things a decent cost engineer is better off never knowing about.
Denis sat in the kitchen. He did not come out to the police. He just sat there staring into an empty cup. Lyudmila Stepanovna locked herself in her room. Not a sound came from inside.
“Are you going to file a statement?” the policeman asked without looking up. “Against a relative?”
I looked at the closed kitchen door. Looked at my laptop, with the greasy print of Lyudmila Stepanovna’s fingers still smeared across the screen—apparently she had tried to wipe it clean.
“I am,” I said. “For unlawful access to information and fraud.”
The policeman sighed. Looked at me with a strange sort of sympathy.
“It will be hard for you. She is family after all.”
“The family ended with the password ‘DENIS01,’” I replied.
The paperwork took three hours. Lyudmila Stepanovna was eventually brought out of the room. As she passed me, lips pressed thin, she still cast sideways glances at that same lamp. Probably thinking there was still something valuable left there.
When the door closed behind them, the apartment became very empty. Not the “ringing emptiness” people write about in novels, but the ordinary household silence of realizing that tomorrow you will need to call someone to patch the hole in the wall behind the sconce.
I went into the kitchen. Denis had still not moved.
“She’s gone to the station,” I said. “A lawyer will probably meet her there.”
“Rit,” he lifted his eyes. “Why did you do it like that? We could have just thrown her out. Sent her to Igor.”
“To Igor? With what money? She poured all her savings into this ‘scheme.’ And she tried to use ours too. Do you really not understand that she nearly got us sent to prison?”
Denis said nothing. He stood up and walked to the window.
“I’ll pack my things tomorrow,” he said quietly. “I can’t stay here. It feels like those… little lights are blinking everywhere.”
I did not try to stop him. I did not say that “everything will work out.” I just watched him hunch over as he stood by the window.
He knew. He could not have helped knowing she was up to something. He had just been afraid to ask.
I went back to my study. Took the brass bear keychain off and turned it in my hands. The bear was heavy, solid.
I opened the laptop. The bridge estimate had to be submitted in two days. I deleted Lyudmila Stepanovna’s entire search history. Emptied the recycle bin with the scans of my documents.
Then I walked to the wall and ripped out the remaining wires leading to the wall lamp. The copper core gleamed in the light of the ceiling fixture.
I sat down at the desk. My fingers settled onto the keys out of habit.
104,200.
That was the amount of the first transfer she had managed to send from my reserve account to some anonymous wallet. I saw it in the last second before the bank blocked the transaction.
The money returned to the account ten minutes later—the bank handled it cleanly.
I closed the bank tab and opened the estimate file. Section: “Demolition Work.”
Denis came into the room with a large sports bag. He stood in the doorway, waiting for me to say something. For me to turn around.
I did not turn around. I was entering the concrete coefficients. The numbers fell neatly into place, line by line. It was the only order I could restore now.
Denis stood there another minute, then left. The front door creaked. The lock clicked.
I leaned back in the chair. Only the overhead light was on in the room. In the place of the wall lamp yawned an ugly hole with scraps of wallpaper around it.
I exhaled. The phone on the desk vibrated. A message from Igor, Denis’s brother:
“What have you done? Mom’s at the police station! You’ll choke on that money!”
I blocked the contact.
Then I took a pen and, in the old notebook where my mother-in-law had tried to write down passwords, I wrote in large letters: “Buy spackle. Change the locks.”
I laid the pen on top of the notebook. My fingers were no longer ice cold.
I walked to the window and pulled the curtain shut, hiding the empty yard and the lights of a чужой city.
