“Keys on the table, and I don’t ever want to see you again!” Marina said harshly to her mother-in-law.
“You thought I would stay silent while you dragged my name through the mud? You were wrong. There are different rules in my home now.”
Galina Sergeyevna froze with a cup of tea in her hands. For a second, her face twisted, as if a mask had slipped off it.
“Marinochka, what are you saying?” Her voice trembled, her eyes filling with tears. “Son, look at her… She’s at it again…”
Her husband, standing in the kitchen doorway, frowned.
“Marina, why are you starting this? Mom was just drinking tea.”
I looked at my husband, who believed in his “saintly mother,” and at the woman who had been systematically destroying my life for the past two weeks. Inside, I felt empty and cold.
A stranger’s laughter in my own apartment
It all began two weeks earlier. I was coming home from work, exhausted. In my bag was the last bit of change until payday. My bonus had been delayed, and the mortgage on my pre-marital apartment had swallowed almost everything. I dreamed of only one thing: silence, a hot shower, and a cheese sandwich.
As I approached the door, I heard a little laugh. I knew that laugh: Galina Sergeyevna. I opened the door. In the hallway stood her worn-out “goodbye youth” boots, and the apartment smelled of Valocordin mixed with cheap powder.
“Oh, Marinochka!” she floated out of the kitchen, straightening her knitted cardigan. “I came over… They’re replacing the pipes at my place, so much noise, so much dust… My son said I could stay with you for a couple of days. You don’t mind, do you? I’ll be quiet, just sit with my little book.”
She looked at me with those blue eyes of hers, and I felt ashamed of my irritation. Really, she was an elderly woman, pipes being repaired…
“Of course, Galina Sergeyevna. Make yourself comfortable.”
If only I had known then what that “staying for a couple of days” would turn into.
The first three days were quiet. Galina Sergeyevna really did sit in the corner with a book. Only later I noticed that it was always the same book, and the page did not turn for hours.
But then she began to “help.”
“Marinochka, I tidied up your dresser. There were papers lying around, it looked untidy… I put them in a folder and placed it in the cabinet.”
I nodded, swallowing my irritation. Then strange things began happening in the building chat. I rarely went there, only when necessary, but then our neighbor, old Valya, met me by the elevator and looked at me with such pity.
“Marinka, you should get some rest. You look awful, and that smell… well, you understand. Your mother-in-law says you get very tired, that you relieve stress…”
“What smell?” I did not understand.
“Well… alcohol,” old Valya whispered. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t tell anyone. I feel sorry for you.”
I was stunned. Me? Alcohol? I drank a glass of wine on holidays, and I had gastritis!
That evening, I opened the chat and found a message from “Galina S.”:
“Girls, please don’t make noise in the evening. Marinochka comes home from work exhausted, she needs sleep… Her nerves are bad, you understand. And sometimes there is such a smell… well, probably medicine or tinctures.”
It looked like concern, but in reality, it was a label.
I looked at my mother-in-law, who was sitting on the sofa, buried in her phone. Her fingers twitched as if she were catching fleas on the screen. The screen went dark, and she nervously tapped it to make it light up again.
“What are you reading, Galina Sergeyevna?”
“Huh?” She flinched, hiding the phone. “Oh, nothing… the news. The world is frightening, Marinochka.”
Piece of evidence number one
On Friday, I reached into my jewelry box to put on earrings. It was our anniversary, and my husband and I were going to a restaurant, with money from one of his side jobs, thank God. In the box lay one gold earring with topaz. The second one was gone. I searched everywhere, lifted the rugs, moved the sofa — nothing.
“Galina Sergeyevna, have you seen it?”
“Oh no, Marinochka. Maybe it rolled somewhere? Or maybe you lost it last time? Your memory hasn’t been very good lately… well, you know yourself, you’ve become distracted.”
I said nothing, but suspicion crept into my soul. I had taken off the earrings the night before and put them in the jewelry box. I remembered it clearly.
Then I decided to check the “utilities” envelope. I always set cash aside out of habit. There had been fifteen thousand rubles in it. I opened the drawer — the envelope was empty. Heat rushed through me.
“Sergey!” I called my husband. “Did you take money from the envelope?”
“No,” he said, surprised. “Why would I? I have money on my card.”
“And your mother?”
Sergey turned crimson.
“What are you implying? Mom is a saint. She would never take a single kopeck that wasn’t hers! Marina, you’re seriously losing it. Maybe you spent it yourself and forgot? You should see a doctor…”
He looked at me with pity and… suspicion. I understood then: the seeds sown by his “caring mother” had sprouted. He thought I drank and forgot things.
A quiet investigation
I did not scream or cry. I switched into “chief accountant” mode.
On Saturday, when they went for a walk in the park, I put an old smartphone on charge in the hallway. I aimed the camera at the dresser where the jewelry box and documents lay, covered the phone with a scarf, leaving only the camera lens exposed.
Then I sat at the computer, opened online banking, and checked the card statement. Small charges: 150 rubles, 300 rubles, 500 rubles. Recipients: Stoloto, WinLine, Google Play Garena.
Every day, ten times a day, while I was at work.
I remembered how she had asked for my phone “to make a call because she had run out of money,” and how once I had caught her holding my bank card — “Oh, it fell, I picked it up.” The picture came together. She was a gambling addict. A quiet, intelligent old lady draining her pension, and now my money too, into online lotteries and slot games.
That evening, I lay awake and listened. A rustle in the kitchen. A quiet whisper. I got up and tiptoed to the door.
“…yes, just a little more… I almost won it back…” Galina Sergeyevna whispered. “Tomorrow I’ll definitely get lucky… Son won’t find out… I’ll put it back for her later, when I win… And for now, let them think she’s… well, you know.”
In the morning, thunder struck over breakfast. Galina Sergeyevna sat pale, clutching her heart.
“Seryozha…” she said in a weak voice. “I have to tell you. Yesterday I saw… Marina got up at night. She… she was drinking from a bottle right in the kitchen, and the money… she was giving it to someone in the stairwell. I’m afraid for her.”
Sergey looked at me. There was no love in his eyes. There was fear and disgust.
“Marina, is that true?”
“It’s a lie,” I said calmly. “Your mother is lying.”
“Don’t you dare!” He slammed his fist on the table. “Mom would never lie! I’ve noticed it for a long time! Money disappears, you’re nervous, there’s a smell from you… Enough. I’m blocking your access to our joint account and taking your card until you get treatment.”
He reached for my bag.
At that moment, I understood: I had been cornered, turned into an alcoholic and a thief in my own home. I did not give him the bag. I stood up.
“Don’t touch it,” I said quietly. “Now both of you watch.”
I took out my phone and connected it to the television using screen mirroring.
“Video from yesterday, 2:30 p.m.”
Our hallway appeared on the screen. Galina Sergeyevna walked up to the dresser, glanced around, opened my jewelry box, took out the second topaz earring, and put it into the pocket of her cardigan.
Sergey froze.
“She… she was tidying up…” he muttered.
“Let’s keep watching. My card statement. Here are the charges: online casinos, lotteries. The time matches the moments when your phone, Mom, was ‘dead,’ and you took mine.”
Galina Sergeyevna sank into her chair.
“And finally,” I said, turning on the voice recording of the nighttime whisper. “I almost won it back… let them think she’s…”
The silence in the kitchen became thick.
“Mom?” Sergey turned to her. “You gamble?”
“It wasn’t me!” she shrieked. “It’s edited! She set all this up, the drunk!”
I walked up to her.
“Keys on the table, and I don’t ever want to see you again!” I said harshly. “You thought I would stay silent while you dragged my name through the mud? You were wrong. There are different rules in my home now.”
She tried to cry, but no tears came. The mask had slipped completely. Sitting before us was not a “saintly mother,” but a pitiful old woman who had been caught stealing.
“Seryozha, tell her!” she pleaded.
Sergey was silent, staring at the TV screen where his mother was stealing his wife’s earring.
“Leave, Mom,” he said dully.
“What?! You’re throwing your mother out? Because of this…”
“Leave!” he barked. “You stole money from us, slandered Marina, you… you’re a monster.”
She left ten minutes later, throwing curses and shouting that we would regret it. I immediately called a locksmith.
“Emergency visit, lock cylinder replacement.”
While the locksmith worked, I packed Sergey’s things.
“You too,” I said, placing the suitcase in the hallway.
“Marina, what did I do?” he said, confused. “I didn’t know! I’m on your side!”
“You believed her, not me,” I answered. “You wanted to take my card. You called me a drunk. Since your mother is a saint, go to your saint. I don’t feed parasites — or traitors.”
“But the apartment…”
“The apartment is mine. I bought it before marriage. You are nobody here. Out.”
That evening, I washed the floors, scrubbing so hard my hands hurt. I wanted to wash away the smell of lies, Valocordin, and fear. I found the earring at a pawnshop on the next street. Galina Sergeyevna had dropped the receipt in the hallway while putting on her shoes. I bought it back, but she had already sold the second one.
I sat in the kitchen and poured myself tea. Silence. No one rustling. No one whispering.
I took out my phone and wrote in the building chat:
“Dear neighbors! Galina Sergeyevna no longer lives with us. If she asks you for money ‘for her daughter-in-law’s treatment,’ do not believe her. This is fraud. A police report has been filed. Respectfully, Marina.”
I pressed “Send.”
I did not feel happy. I felt calm.
I had taken back my life and my home.
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