— An hour of nannying costs six hundred rubles. That’s twelve hundred from you, Lenochka. Transfer to my phone number—you know it.”
Larisa Pavlovna wasn’t joking. She stood in the doorway of my entryway, adjusting her flawless blowout, holding a small leather-bound notebook in her hands. In it, she had just—right in front of me—made an entry with a thin gold-plated pen.
I froze with one boot on. The wet, slushy air blowing in from the stairwell felt warmer than my mother-in-law’s gaze.
“Twelve hundred from you. Market rate.”
“Mom, are you serious?” Oleg’s voice came from the kitchen, muffled. He’d heard everything, but as usual he was hoping the storm would pass by on its own.
“That’s right, son.” Larisa Pavlovna snapped the notebook shut with a dry click. “I’m a modern woman—I’m sixty, not a hundred. My resource is time. And time, as the coaches like to say, is money. You asked me to watch my grandson for two hours? I did. Service rendered. Kindly pay.”
Silence hung in the hallway, broken only by the hum of the freezer. I stared at the woman who had been living in my apartment for a year now—“temporarily,” while the renovation on her two-room place dragged on as long as an autumn rain.
Oleg and I had squeezed ourselves in, given her a room, endured her remarks about “not-clean-enough floors” and “unhealthy food.”
And now—there was a price list.
“All right, Larisa Pavlovna,” I straightened up, zipping my boot. My fingers moved perfectly. Inside, something suddenly went cold and clear. “You’re right. Any work should be paid.”
I took out my phone, opened the app, and transferred the money.
“Good girl,” my mother-in-law nodded, and her phone immediately chimed in her pocket.
“Clean relationships are the key to a strong family. Nobody owes anybody anything for free.”
She went back to her room, humming something from an ’80s pop song, and I stayed in the hallway. Oleg came out, guiltily avoiding my eyes.
“Len, don’t start. She’s older, those self-development courses online… She’s my mom.”
“Of course she is,” I agreed, taking off my coat. “And she’s absolutely right, Oleg. We’re just behind the times.”
Back then I didn’t know that evening would become the point of no return. You’ve probably noticed: the worst part of family fights isn’t the shouting. The worst part is when one of you suddenly goes quiet and starts agreeing.
A new reality
All the next month we lived by the rules of “market relations.”
Larisa Pavlovna blossomed. She wasn’t just a grandma anymore—she felt like a businesswoman. Every morning began with her demonstratively drinking coffee (my good, whole-bean coffee, the kind I ordered online) and reviewing her schedule.
“Today I can take Nikita for a walk from two to four,” she would announce, spreading a thick layer of butter on a crunchy baguette. “But it’s a day off, so I charge double.”
And we paid. Oleg grimaced but made the transfer. He was too embarrassed to refuse his mother and too embarrassed to admit to me that it was absurd. And I… I stayed silent.
I watched.
I watched her occupy the bathroom for ages, pouring out half a bottle of my shower gel. How she left the lights on in every room (“It’s dark for me—my eyes aren’t what they used to be!”).
How she asked us to buy red fish because “everyone recommends omega,” and how that fish disappeared from her plate without waiting for our dinner.
“Lenochka, the laundry powder is running out—get that Japanese one, it washes my blouses better,” she’d toss over her shoulder.
Before, I would’ve just bought it. I’d grumble to myself, but I’d buy it. Now I simply nodded and went to the computer.
“What are you doing up for a second night?” Oleg asked once, peering at the monitor.
“Bringing work home,” I lied, minimizing the spreadsheet window. “We need money. Nanny services are expensive these days.”
If you’ve ever kept a household budget, you know how sobering numbers are. But my spreadsheet was special. It wasn’t just a list of expenses. It was a dossier—meticulous, emotionless, backed by receipts and service rates.
By the end of November, Larisa Pavlovna had gotten a taste for it. She bought new boots, signed up for a pool, and even started hinting that “a nanny needs indexation,” because prices in stores were rising.
“You do understand,” she’d say over dinner. “I spend my energy. And resources have to be replenished.”
I looked at her and smiled—the kind of smile that usually makes pointless office chatter stop on the spot.
“Of course, Larisa Pavlovna. Energy is capital.”
December 1st
The day of reckoning came.
That morning my mother-in-law marched into the kitchen fully dressed up: a new blouse, expensive perfume (Oleg’s gift for Mother’s Day). She sat at the head of the table like a meeting chair and placed her famous notebook in front of her.
“So, my children—shall we look at the month’s results?” Her voice rang with anticipation.
“I calculated everything. In November I did thirty-two hours of work with my grandson. Plus twice I cooked borscht at your request—that counts as chef services, I calculated it at the minimum rate. So, you owe me…”
She named the total. Oleg set his cup down loudly on the table. The sum was hefty—almost twenty thousand. With our mortgage and a child, it was a noticeable hole in the budget.
“Mom, have some conscience…” my husband started.
“Quiet, Oleg,” I cut him off gently. “Mom is right. A deal is a deal.”
I stood up, walked to the printer on the windowsill, and picked up a single printed page. The paper was still warm.
“Larisa Pavlovna, I prepared too,” I said, laying the sheet on top of her notebook. “Since we’ve moved to market relations, I decided it would be fair to keep records on both sides. You’re a modern woman—you value accuracy, don’t you?”
My mother-in-law lifted an eyebrow in surprise, reached for her glasses, and took my sheet.
“What is this?”
“A reconciliation statement,” I explained, pouring myself water. My hands were completely steady. “Please review it. Everything is itemized.”
Household arithmetic
Larisa Pavlovna adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. At first she read quickly, with a slight smirk—confident it was some silly joke. But as her eyes moved down the lines, the smile vanished.
I paid my mother-in-law a salary for a month—then presented her with a bill for soup and rent.
The room went so quiet I could hear the clock ticking in the entryway.
“What are these numbers?” Her voice lost its velvety, boss-like tone. “Rent for living space… fifteen thousand?”
“That’s below market, Larisa Pavlovna,” I said calmly, taking a sip of water. “A one-bedroom in our area goes for thirty. A room in a renovated apartment—eighteen minimum. I gave you a family discount.”
She exhaled loudly and kept reading. A finger with a perfect manicure stopped on the next line.
“Food… twelve thousand? You’re charging me for food? Me—your mother?!”
“Your basket is premium, Mom,” Oleg suddenly chimed in. He walked up and looked at the sheet over her shoulder. I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. “Fish, cheeses, that same coffee. In a café you’d spend more. This is all by receipts—Lena attached copies on the second page.”
Larisa Pavlovna read on, and red blotches of outrage rose up her neck.
“Utilities, internet, appliance depreciation… Laundry and cleaning services… Lena, you charged me for washing my blouses?!”
“You said it yourself: any work should be paid,” I spread my hands without changing my posture. “I load the machine, hang the laundry, iron it. That’s my time. My resource. At a dry cleaner it would cost three times as much. I calculated at the minimum rate.”
I knew the best part was next—the final line. The total.
“And the total…” Larisa Pavlovna stumbled. “Total payable from my side… twenty-eight thousand rubles?!”
She threw the sheet onto the table. It slid across the smooth surface and stopped by my mug.
“This is cynicism!” she shouted, standing up. The chair screeched across the tile. “I watched my grandson! I gave my energy! And you… you’re billing me for a bowl of soup and a corner in your apartment? Oleg, are you going to allow this?”
Oleg said nothing. He looked at his mother with a long gaze, tiredness written in it—years of being “loved” only on conditions.
“Mom,” he said quietly. “You offered this format yourself. You said, ‘Nobody owes anybody anything for free.’ Lena just balanced the books.”
“How dare you…” Larisa Pavlovna breathed fast, like she couldn’t get enough air in a room full of numbers and facts. “I’m leaving immediately! You’ll never see me in this place again!”
“As you wish,” I nodded. “You don’t have to transfer anything. We’ll write it off as a farewell gift. We’re civilized people, after all.”
Silence at cost price
Packing took exactly an hour. No long goodbyes. Only the zipper on the suitcase and the click of heels. The renovation in her apartment, it turned out, could absolutely be finished while living there personally.
When the door slammed behind my mother-in-law, a ringing, blessed quiet settled over the apartment—not the tense silence that had hung for the last month, but a light, transparent one.
Oleg and I sat in the kitchen. He turned an empty cup in his hands.
“You were harsh with her,” he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. More surprise.
“I just accepted her rules of the game,” I replied, looking out the window where the first winter snowfall was starting.
“You know, sometimes people think their attitude toward loved ones is a currency that only goes up. And then it turns out the exchange rate dropped a long time ago.”
That evening I deleted that spreadsheet from the computer. The file went to the trash.
I didn’t feel triumphant. Fighting with family is always hard.
But when I walked into the bathroom and saw my shower gel standing on the shelf exactly where it belonged, I understood one important thing.
Sometimes, to keep peace in a family, you have to show its real price once—and not be afraid that someone will refuse to pay.
Because peace in your own home is the one thing you can’t economize on.
And what would you do in a situation like that? Do you think a “bad peace” and patience are better than that kind of honest arithmetic? After all, she is still his mom…
