This day was supposed to be one of the happiest. Vlad had thought of everything down to the smallest detail. His bride deserved the best of everything. Although Alina always said that their love was what mattered most, he wanted to surround her with a real fairy tale. She deserved the best engagement and wedding. After all, it’s a huge event that happens once in a lifetime. Waking up early and taking a shower, Vlad managed to call his bride to make sure she was just as excited about the celebration as he was. Although it was not yet the wedding, but the engagement, the celebration was still grand. Vlad and Alina invited all their relatives, with whom they wanted to share their joy, and close friends.
Approaching the desk drawer where a silver-colored velvet shell-shaped box lay, Vlad took it out, opened it to look at the rings again, and make sure he had made the right choice. However, the rings were not inside.
His smile immediately slid off his lips. A pounding began in his temples. Where had they gone? Vlad certainly hadn’t taken them out. He thought that maybe his sister had decided to show them to one of her friends, or his mother? They just hadn’t put the rings back in place… where else could they have disappeared from the apartment? There were definitely no thieves!
Taisiya Nikolaevna calmly sipped her tea in the kitchen. She smiled at her son who burst in and shook her head.
«Look how pale you are! Did you change your mind about getting married? Or did the bride run away? I hope she isn’t foolish enough to do that… after all the money you poured into this engagement.»
«Where are my rings, Mom?» Vlad asked, feeling that he was about to get an answer to his question. «The box in the drawer is empty. The rings couldn’t have just left the house on their own.»
«Of course, they couldn’t. Rings don’t grow legs. I pawned them and bought your sister a dress. Now why are you looking at me like that? You didn’t want to give money, so I found it myself. We are still going to your engagement, after all.»
Vlad felt like he could sink through the floor. His throat tightened with steel chains. Even breathing was hard.
«If you want, go and redeem them. You spent so much money on the restaurant and the event… and the cost of those rings is simply unimaginable!.. And if you don’t want to redeem them, then buy some gold-plated ones. Your bride can do without gold. I really don’t understand why you started pampering her from the start of the relationship. She’ll sit on your neck and dangle her legs, and we can’t expect any help from you then?»
Vlad finally managed to swallow the saliva that had gathered in his throat. His hands clenched into fists.
«There, in that cupboard, lies the pawnshop receipt. It’s near the house, if you decide to go redeem them.»
«What pawnshop? Why should I have to redeem rings now? You know I’ve practically spent all I had!.. Payday is still a few days away, and I need those rings today!»
«Is that my problem? I told you that Ksyusha needed a new dress. We’re not going to look like poor relatives at your engagement. We have to shine. It’s your sister!»
«Ksyusha’s closets will soon burst from all those dresses. Wasn’t there anything in that abundance she could choose from?» Vlad hid his irritation, but it still painfully scratched at him, realizing that something urgent had to be done.
And what? He could call his boss and ask for an early transfer of money, but that wasn’t likely to happen because you can’t bypass accounting, and there everything was strictly by the hour. He could borrow from a friend, but he wasn’t about to sit, frantically calling each one.
«She specifically wanted the dress we bought. It’s from the new collection. Expensive, I agree… but we are your closest relatives, so we must look the best. Ksyusha will be the real queen of this celebration.»
The queen of the celebration was supposed to be Alina, but apparently, Taisiya Nikolaevna completely forgot that it was her son’s engagement, not her daughter’s. Vlad sharply turned around, took the pawnshop paper, decided how to proceed, and returned to the room. He looked over the packed suitcases he planned to move to the apartment in a few days. They had just finished renovating it and hadn’t yet brought in the furniture, but now he decided he’d rather sleep on the floor for a while than stay in a house where his own people could easily rob him.
Vlad could not reconcile himself to his mother’s action. When Taisiya Nikolaevna took her daughter to the beauty salon, claiming she should look the best of all, Vlad took action. Arranging with a friend with a van to help move his things was not difficult. Although he wanted to look refreshed for the celebration, it was a pleasant trouble.
Vlad promised himself that no one would dare interfere with making the engagement perfect. And he began to figure out how to handle everything quickly with minimal losses. He did it much faster than he expected.
The apartment smelled of fresh renovation. He felt happier. His father had given him the apartment. Although his mother was against his father attending his son’s engagement, the man still invited his father and his family. He didn’t understand why he should choose between his parents. If they couldn’t preserve their relationship, the child was certainly not to blame for their mistakes. Vlad wanted to communicate with his father; they had a lot in common, and his wife and her daughter turned out to be much nicer than his mother and sister, who were constantly scheming. Now they had set him up, but the main issue was resolved, and the rings were back in their place.
Dressed in a dark blue suit and a pristine white shirt, hair neatly done, Vlad looked at his reflection in the mirror. Now he was a groom, soon to be a husband, and would need to protect his family from outsiders. He was sure his mother would not forgive him for the step he had taken. She would remind him of it for a long time if she even continued to communicate with him at all, but it was better to assert his position now than to endure when something similar happened again. And it was sure to happen. How many families had been destroyed because of parents’ meddling? Vlad thought he was lucky with his in-laws. Right after meeting them, they said they wouldn’t interfere in the young couple’s relationship, and if they needed something, they should ask for help directly.
«As long as you don’t ask for help, be it advice or money, we won’t interfere,» said his future father-in-law.
They never interfered in their daughter’s affairs, tried to guide her while she was growing up, explained what «good» and «bad» were, but at the same time allowed her to make her own mistakes if they saw that their stubborn daughter was going headlong and didn’t want to listen.
Meanwhile, Vlad’s mother constantly told him how he should live, what to wear, which girls to date. She condemned his choice right away: she said that Alina was too simple and unworthy to date such a successful handsome man, let alone marry him. Of course, Vlad had shown his position then, but apparently, that wasn’t enough.
His mother was used to the fact that her son constantly provided them with everything they needed, spending most of his salary on them. If Ksyusha needed new expensive gadgets, Vlad bought them without thinking. If his sister wanted a new dress, he gave her the money. Just once he refused, and what did it all lead to? His mother decided everything her way. She probably thought he was lying, that he had plenty of money left. Even if he had, it was his money. He planned to buy good furniture for the apartment and then save for the wedding and a trip. No one helped him except his father. His mother always spent her free finances on Ksyusha; her salary quickly ran out, and she demanded money from her son. She didn’t even ask—she demanded. Probably, that was Vlad’s main oversight. He had always indulged his mother and sister to such an extent that they weren’t ashamed to take the rings from his room and pawn them.
Calling a taxi because he didn’t feel like driving that evening, since there would be sparkling wine on the table, and the young couple would surely have a glass each as it was their celebration, Vlad went to pick up Alina.
In her simple, inexpensive dress, she looked incredibly delightful. Unlike Ksyusha, Alina never spent money on expensive branded clothes, but she still dressed tastefully. Vlad felt that even in worn-out clothes, his bride would outshine any expensively dressed lady at any party because the main beauty was hidden in her eyes, radiating kindness and a soul-warming light.
«I am so lucky to be with you,» Vlad said, squeezing his beloved girl’s hand.
Many guests had already gathered. They approached the young couple and congratulated them, some asking when they would be able to celebrate at their wedding.
Vlad’s phone rang. Apologizing, he left Alina with her parents and went outside to answer his mother, as he had to «explain» what had happened.
«Vlad, what’s going on? We were delayed at the beauty salon!.. We came home, and my room is turned upside-down. And Ksyusha’s dress is nowhere to be found.»
«That’s right. The dress is nowhere to be found because I pawned it and redeemed my rings from the pawnshop. As for the room—that’s because you knew where to find the rings in my room, but I didn’t know where you hid the receipt for the dress, so I had to try hard to find it. Sorry, I didn’t have time to clean up after myself.»
«How dare you rummage through my room and dig through my personal things?» Taisiya Nikolaevna flared up.
«You set a good example, Mom. If it’s permissible for you to rummage through my desk and take my things, why can’t I do the same?»
Vlad spoke evenly, though emotions raged inside him. He couldn’t understand how his mother had the audacity to demand anything from him. She had acted wrongly, and now she was demanding as if she had been robbed.
«Notice, I didn’t take anything that wasn’t mine; I just took back my own.»
Taisiya Nikolaevna was fuming, and Vlad understood how angry his mother was at that moment, but he didn’t plan to justify himself or ask for forgiveness. He was sure he had acted correctly.
«You behaved very badly. You can’t even imagine what a position you’ve put your sister and me in. Poor Ksyusha is distraught. Of course, now she won’t want to go to your engagement.»
«I’m not insisting.»
Taisiya Nikolaevna sobbed and vented her grievance on her son. She screamed that she would never forgive him for such an act, and if he now chose his bride and didn’t plan to continue helping his real family, then he would lose his relatives.
«If a real family and relationships for you mean financial support and fulfilling all whims even in such a deceitful way, then so be it. I am ready to lose that. You can still wear many outfits that are bursting your closets and come to our engagement… However, I must inform you that I will no longer let such things slide. I will soon have my own family. I am not refusing to help you if there is an urgent need for something, but I will no longer spend money on expensive branded clothes for my sister.»
«Then don’t call us anymore and ask how we are! You’ll crawl back and beg for forgiveness. There are many girls in this life, but a mother is one.»
Vlad hung up. He didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty. Taisiya Nikolaevna had acted disgustingly by resolving the issue of buying a dress for her daughter in such a way, but Vlad had managed to put everything back in its place. He didn’t plan to dwell on it. If his mother really didn’t want to communicate with him anymore, that was her right. She had driven his father away just the same and then said that he wasn’t interested in the children at all. Vlad was glad that he hadn’t believed her and had repaired his relationship with his father. Now he saw how his mother could act if rubbed the wrong way.
Exhaling a cloud of steam from his mouth, Vlad smiled. He didn’t want to spoil the mood for his bride on such a wonderful day, nor did he plan to turn her against his mother. Vlad decided that he would not tell anyone about what had happened, and now… he would simply rejoice together with Alina. After all, they would soon be husband and wife.
A few months later, the young couple got married. Taisiya Nikolaevna refused the invitation to the wedding, continuing to show everyone that her son had betrayed her. However, Vlad wasn’t much troubled by this. He wasn’t going to force someone to love him and accept him as he was. Probably, his mother didn’t love her son at all, considering she acted as if he had robbed her, left her on the street, rather than just taken back his own. Vlad had eventually told Alina about what had happened before the engagement because it would have been worse if she had found out from someone else about the reason for her mother-in-law’s absence at the wedding. Alina didn’t condemn him; on the contrary, she supported her husband because sometimes you have to take a step into adult life… and if the parents don’t agree, aren’t ready to accept it—they need time. However, in their situation, time solved little, as Taisiya Nikolaevna was angry not because her son had moved away from her and started his own family… she was angry because she no longer received the money he used to bring home and couldn’t spoil her favorite daughter, whom she always wanted, since she had never even pretended to be happy about her son’s birth.
