The kettle had gone cold two hours earlier. Anna sat in the kitchen — in one hand, a mug with a layer of hardened milk foam on the surface, in the other, a dashcam. Her mother-in-law had said that something seemed wrong with it: it kept showing a “memory full” notification even though she cleared it every time she got into the car. Maria Stepanovna had hinted that it would be nice if they bought her a new one, since the young couple both worked and had enough money, while she lived on a pension. Anna promised she would take a look, and if she could not figure it out, she would tell her husband to pick out a new one as soon as he returned from his business trip to St. Petersburg.
After inserting the dashcam’s memory card into her laptop, Anna planned to check whether everything was fine, format it, and make sure it had really been cleared. But for some reason, the files refused to delete. Thinking that the problem was with the memory card rather than the dashcam itself, Anna decided she would simply put a new card in for her mother-in-law — but then her gaze fixed on a video that had been recorded very recently. Without quite knowing why, driven by curiosity, Anna opened the file.
The camera was shaking. It was the windshield of the old Lada Kalina. She recognized the dust on the dashboard, the crookedly stuck-on icon of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker — “good enough,” as always. At first, the video showed only the road. A residential district. The turn toward the school. A traffic light. Everything gray, dull, November-like.
And then she heard her mother-in-law’s voice.
“I’m telling you, Lyudochka, she’s gotten completely out of hand! She comes home from work, collapses onto the couch, and pretends she’s plowed like an ox all day. But I know perfectly well she spends all day in that office of hers sitting on her backside! She does not want to take care of her husband at all! And she does not think much about the child either. Kiryushka runs around all day screaming. He’s already wrung every last nerve out of me. I tell her that a child needs to be raised properly if he is going to grow up normal, but she does not listen at all.”
There was the sound of a turn signal. Anna did not immediately realize they were talking about her. The blinker went quiet. The car stopped.
“All right, I’m here. Wish me luck, my friend. That’s it. I’m hanging up for now. I’ll wait for her, and then I’ll call you back and tell you the results.”
The engine died. Had the camera gone dark? No. It was just a black screen. But the sound remained. A car door slammed. Somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking. The silence lasted a minute. Two. Five. Anna’s eye started twitching. She wanted to turn it off, but her fingers seemed glued to the mouse and would not obey.
The scrape of a key in the ignition. The engine started. And suddenly another voice could be heard, right next to the car. Different. Female. Young, bright, slightly husky.
“So, Maria Stepanovna, have you decided? What if he does not bite?”
Her mother-in-law laughed so predatorily that a chill ran down Anna’s skin.
“He’ll bite. Where’s he going to go? You just do your part. Seryozhka is a handsome man, he earns good money, and that one… ugh, it makes me sick to look at her. Just make your move the right way when he comes back from his trip. Say you’ve wanted to see him for a long time — after all, you were friends as children. I’ll cover for you.”
“And what if his wife finds out?” the young voice asked.
“And who’s going to tell her? You? Me?” Maria Stepanovna snorted. “She won’t find out. And if she does, let her get lost. You and Seryozha will have a good life, and I’ll help you with Kiryushka too. Just don’t miss your chance, Lizonka. Men are weak. They melt from a little affection. I know my son.”
Anna sat there without breathing.
Lizonka. The daughter of her mother’s friend. The very one who had been ogling Seryozha at the last birthday party. The one who giggled and batted her eyes. The same one her mother-in-law had called “such a sweet girl.”
“And what if he refuses?” Liza asked again.
“He won’t. I’ll help you. We’ll drive that little wife of his out. The main thing is that you really want this. So? Deal?”
There came a sound like hands clapping together. They had agreed on everything. Anna felt sick with disgust. This was her mother-in-law, the woman who had told Anna to call her Mom and come to her if she ever needed anything. The sheer absurdity of it made Anna want to laugh.
“All right, I’m off,” Liza’s voice drifted away. “It’s settled, Maria Stepanovna. As soon as he comes back, let me know, and I’ll start making my move.”
A gate slammed — not a car door. The engine roared. Once again, the gray ribbon of road. Her mother-in-law was driving home.
Anna stared at the screen. She felt horrible. She knew that right now her mother-in-law would be bringing Kiryushka back from kindergarten. She always picked up her grandson and stayed with him until the parents came home from work. Only today Anna had gotten home early… How was she supposed to behave without letting on that she knew the truth about her mother-in-law’s conspiracy with her friend’s daughter? And if she said something?
“Anya? Well, that’s news! I didn’t think you were home already. Why didn’t you call? If you got off early, you could have picked up Kiryushka yourself,” her mother-in-law grumbled, approaching her daughter-in-law.
By then Anna had already closed the folder with the video and put a new memory card into her mother-in-law’s dashcam. Pulling a polite smile over her face, she tried to act as though nothing unusual had happened.
“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. And really… I should have picked up my son myself. I only made you worry and go to the trouble for nothing,” Anna forced herself to say.
Anna lived with it for two weeks. She smiled when her mother-in-law dropped by “just for a moment.” She nodded sympathetically when the older woman complained about her blood pressure and the weather. She took the pies Maria Stepanovna offered her. She praised them. She tried to pretend that nothing had changed, that everything was still in its place.
Her husband returned from Petersburg on Saturday. Tired, smelling of smoked fish — the usual scent of train travel — and coffee from the road. Right from the doorway he hugged his wife, buried his nose in the top of her head, and exhaled, “I missed you.” Anna pressed herself against him for a second, allowing herself to relax. She needed to prepare herself to tell him the whole truth. She could not just blurt it all out.
Anna waited until night. Until Kiryushka was asleep. Until the television behind the wall went silent — her mother-in-law, as usual, was “helping” and had stayed overnight. Anna and her husband lay in the dark, and she stared at the ceiling.
“Seryozh,” she called softly. “I need to show you something. But first promise me you’ll listen to the end. Don’t interrupt. Don’t run to your mother with questions. Just watch it, and then we’ll talk about everything.”
“What kind of secrets are these?” the man frowned.
“It concerns your mother,” Anna replied just as quietly, pulling up the video file on her phone that she had sent to her cloud storage.
“Don’t tell me she’s found herself a man,” Sergey smirked.
“If only… Watch.”
She handed him the phone. She herself froze. She listened to the hiss of the speaker. To her husband’s silence at first. To how, at Liza’s voice, he suddenly sat up in bed. To how, at the words “we’ll drive her out,” he made a strange sound — something between a laugh and a sob.
The video ended. Silence. Anna lay curled up into a ball, waiting.
“That is…” her husband’s voice had gone hoarse. He cleared his throat. “That is definitely my mother?”
“Who else could it be? You can see it yourself — it’s from her dashcam, and that same… daughter of ‘Mom’s friend’ is calling her by name.”
The man got up. Walked barefoot across the room — the floorboard creaked. Sat down again. Anna watched him, trying to understand what exactly he was feeling in that moment.
“Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“I wanted to understand what to do. I thought maybe I could sort it out myself. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe she… wasn’t serious. But today I saw the way she talked to you at dinner. The way she looked at me. And I realized: she was serious. She has already decided everything. All that is left is to pair you up with Liza.”
Sergey was silent for a long time. Then his heavy hand rested gently on his wife’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not know. I could not even imagine that my own mother… All right. What are we going to do?”
“Wait. She’s going to arrange the meeting. You’ll go.”
“What do you mean?” Sergey jerked his hand away. “You’re suggesting I…”
“We’ll play by your mother’s rules, since that’s what she wants so badly. We’ll put that Liza in her place… so they won’t be tempted to make plans behind our backs again.”
A week passed in tension. Her mother-in-law became a frequent guest in their house, humming under her breath, watering the violets, lovingly packing lunch containers for Sergey to take to work, and casually dropping remarks like:
“Do you remember Liza, Nina Ivanovna’s daughter? She was asking about you. Says you’ve grown into such a good man — what a pity you’re married. And I laughed and said: married doesn’t mean forever.”
Sergey pretended not to hear. Anna pretended to smile. Kiryushka pretended to finish his porridge while actually smearing it around his plate.
On Friday evening, her mother-in-law stepped into the kitchen where Anna was washing dishes. She stood behind her. Too close. She spoke softly, confidentially:
“Anyechka, forgive me if I ever said anything wrong. I’m from the old generation, sometimes I blurt things out without thinking. But you know I love you like my own daughter.”
Without turning around, Anna pressed the sponge against the plate harder than necessary.
“Of course, Maria Stepanovna. I understand everything.”
“That’s my good girl,” her mother-in-law patted her on the shoulder. “Seryozha is lucky to have you. Just hang in there. Tomorrow I’m meeting a friend, so I will not be able to come help, and besides, it’s a day off, you’ll be home — I won’t get in your way. Spend time with your husband, enjoy yourselves.”
Anna’s heart gave a jolt. Tomorrow. Saturday. The perfect day for an “accidental” meeting. She unclenched her fingers, set down the sponge, wiped her hands, turned around, and smiled that same smile she had learned to force onto her face ever since the day she saw the recording.
“Of course, go ahead. Get some rest. We’ll manage on our own here.”
Saturday morning was full of bad premonitions. Sergey went to the garage — he needed to check the car. Anna knew that very soon his mother would call him and ask him to stop by the café near the train station where she was supposedly meeting “a friend.” She would surely ask him to bring the bag she had allegedly left at their apartment after spending the night there.
Anna sat in the kitchen, drinking tea and looking out the window. Kiryushka was drawing a dragon and sniffling softly. The phone was silent. Then — a call. Not from Sergey. From her mother-in-law. The woman complained that she had forgotten her handbag at their place, and her apartment keys and all her bank cards were inside. She asked that her son bring it to the café where she was relaxing with a friend. An expected move. She called her son too. He stopped by the house from the garage and exchanged a glance with his wife. They nodded to each other. It was time to act.
Sergey called a taxi, leaving the car with his wife and son, who were supposed to follow after him. He wanted to show Anna that Liza meant nothing to him, put an end to everything, and bring his mother’s little play to a graceful close.
The moment had come.
Anna sat in the car across the street from the café Uyut, parked so that she could see the entrance while remaining unnoticed. The tinted windows helped. Kiryushka fidgeted with a tablet in the back seat. Anna watched the windows.
There they were. A table by the window. Her mother-in-law bustling about, sliding pastries closer to Liza. Liza… tall, thin, in a tight-fitting dress, hair loose, lips pouting. The full classic set. Sergey sat across from the girl with an unreadable expression on his face.
Anna gripped the steering wheel.
Liza laughed, leaned toward Sergey, touched his hand. Her mother-in-law lit up, nodded eagerly, chattered away. Idyllic. The conspiracy in action.
And then Sergey raised his hand. He stopped the whole masquerade with one gesture. Took out his phone. Showed Liza something. She went pale. Recoiled. At first his mother did not understand, then she leaned toward the screen — and her face twisted into a grimace of horror.
Sergey stood up. He said something — calmly, quietly. Liza jumped to her feet, grabbed her handbag, and ran out of the café. His mother remained sitting there, as though nailed to her chair.
Sergey bent down to her, said something in farewell, and walked out.
Anna watched him cross the street to their car. Watched him sit down in the passenger seat, close the door, lean his head back, and shut his eyes.
“That’s it,” he exhaled. “I showed them the video. I told them that if anyone ever tries to interfere in our family again, I’ll send that video to every relative, to all of Mother’s friends, to everyone possible. And I told Liza she’d better look for another well-off groom, because I’m not attracted to skin and bones, and in any case I don’t need anyone except my beloved wife and son. Liza left. Mom… I don’t know. She’s still sitting there.”
Anna said nothing. She looked at the windows of the café. Her mother-in-law had not moved. She simply sat there, staring at one point. All her plans had collapsed, and the woman was no doubt in despair, because her son had stood by his wife, and she had failed to get rid of the daughter-in-law she disliked.
“What did she say to you?” Anna asked quietly.
“She said she wanted what was best. That I deserved happiness. That Liza is a good girl.” He gave a bitter smirk. “And I asked her: and Anna? Who is she? She smiled at you for years, gave birth to your grandson, ate your pies, put up with everything. Who is she?”
“And what did she say?”
“Nothing. She kept silent. Then she said, ‘You don’t understand, son. You’re still young.’ And I said, ‘I understand everything, Mom. And now the choice is yours. If you want to see your grandson — apologize to Anna. For real. And stop this circus. If you don’t — goodbye.’ She is not planning to apologize, but that is her business, not ours.”
Anna nodded. She looked at her husband and felt something tremble inside her. She was grateful that Sergey had taken her side and supported her — his wife, not his mother, who had wanted to turn his life upside down. Whether Maria Stepanovna apologized now or not did not really matter anymore. Anna knew she would never be able to trust her mother-in-law the way she once had, which meant she would have to rethink her work schedule and pick up her son from kindergarten herself from now on. But that was even for the best. Anna would be able to spend more time with her family. Exactly as her mother-in-law had wanted.
