Lena jumped when her phone vibrated in her hand. A text message from the bank: “Cash withdrawal: 45,000 rubles.” Her heart dropped somewhere into her stomach. She reread the message, then again. Her hands began to tremble.
“No way,” she whispered, hurriedly opening the banking app.
The balance showed zero. The entire advance payment she had received just three days ago was gone. Lena sat down on a bench near the office where she had worked as an accountant for five years and tried to figure out what was happening. The card was in her wallet; she hadn’t given it to anyone. The PIN code was known only by…
Only Igor. Her husband.
But that was absurd. Why would Igor take her card? Everything was shared between them; they made all financial decisions together. So it must be fraudsters. Somehow they stole the data, hacked it, deceived. Lena frantically dialed the bank’s number.
“Block the card, please! I’ve been robbed!”
The operator politely explained the procedure, assured her that the card was blocked, and that she needed to file a report for fraudulent operations. Lena barely listened, hung up, and ran home. Forty-five thousand! That was a quarter of their monthly budget—money for groceries, utilities, mortgage payments.
In the entrance hall, she was punching the intercom code with trembling fingers. On the fourth floor, she almost tripped over the rug—she was in such a hurry to get home. The keys rattled in the lock as she tried to fit them into the keyhole.
“Igor!” she shouted, not even taking off her jacket. “Igor, where are you?”
He came out of the kitchen with a cup of tea in his hand, calm as always after work. A systems engineer, accustomed to a measured life and logical decisions.
“What happened? You’re acting crazy.”
“I’ve been robbed!” Lena waved her phone. “Someone withdrew my entire salary! Forty-five thousand!”
Igor put the cup on the table, frowned.
“How did someone withdraw it? Where’s the card?”
“The card is with me, here it is!” Lena pulled out her wallet. “So they must have stolen the data or somehow found out the PIN code. I’ve already blocked the card; tomorrow I’ll go to the bank to file a report.”
She spoke quickly, nervously pacing the room. Igor was silent, and something in his silence made her stop.
“What?” she asked, staring at his face. “Do you know something?”
Igor sighed heavily, rubbed his forehead with his palm.
“Lena, listen…”
“Listen? Just say it!”
He looked away, glanced out the window, then back at her.
“I withdrew your salary. Bought a gift for my mom. You wouldn’t have allowed it,” the husband admitted to his stunned wife.
Lena felt the world tilt. She stood and stared at Igor, not sure if she heard him right.
“What… what did you say?”
“I took money from your card. For my mom’s gift. Her anniversary is next week—sixty years. I wanted to buy her a new TV, a big, nice one. You wouldn’t have agreed.”
Lena slowly sank onto the sofa. Her legs were giving out.
“You… stole? From me?”
“What do you mean ‘stole’?” Igor nervously paced the room. “We’re family; everything is shared. I just knew you’d be against it.”
“Shared means deciding together! But you took it without asking, secretly! Like… like a thief!”
“Don’t talk nonsense. That’s my mother; she’s sixty years old. You can’t leave her without a proper gift on such a date.”
Lena jumped up from the sofa. Anger surged in waves, from her fingertips to the top of her head.
“Your mother! Who in all seven years of our marriage hasn’t helped us with a single kopek! Who has savings accounts in three banks! And when we asked her to lend money for the down payment on the mortgage, she said: ‘Earn it yourselves, then buy it!’”
“She’s not obliged to help us.”
“But we’re obliged to buy her a forty-five-thousand-ruble TV?”
“Lena, calm down. I already ordered it; it will be delivered tomorrow. A very good model, sixty-five inches, smart TV.”
Lena felt something inside burst.
“Cancel it!”
“What?”
“Cancel the purchase! Right now!”
“Lena, but…”
“No ‘buts’! You stole my money and spent it without my consent. Cancel it!”
Igor pressed his lips together. In his eyes appeared the expression Lena hated the most—stubborn and impenetrable.
“I won’t cancel it. My mother worked her whole life, raised me alone after my father died. She deserves a good gift.”
“And what about me? Don’t I deserve honesty from my own husband?”
“You do. But you know how you’ve become towards my mother. You take everything she says as an attack.”
“Because your mother is a poisonous snake!” Lena exploded. “From the first day I met her, she disliked me! Remember what she said at our wedding? ‘Igor could have found someone better.’ And when we lived with her the first year, she found a reason to criticize every day. I dusted poorly, I oversalted the soup, I came home late from work. Every day, Igor! And you were silent!”
“She just wanted everything to be good…”
“She wanted to drive me out! And you know it perfectly well!”
Igor turned to the window. Outside, streetlights were coming on; the evening of a normal workday, which suddenly became a turning point.
“Maybe so,” he said quietly. “But she’s my mother. I can’t let her down on such a day.”
“But you can let me down,” Lena said bitterly. “Your wife.”
“That’s different.”
“What’s different?”
Igor didn’t answer. Lena looked at his profile and suddenly realized she didn’t know this man. Seven years of marriage, and she didn’t know he was capable of this.
“I’m going to the bank,” she said. “I’m canceling the payment.”
“It’s too late. The money’s already debited, the product ordered.”
“Then cancel the order.”
“Lena…”
“Cancel it, or I’ll file a report for fraud. I’ll go to the police too. Theft from a bank card is a criminal case.”
Igor turned to her. There was something new in his gaze—cold and resolute.
“Try it.”
Lena looked at her husband in confusion. This man who had woken up and fallen asleep next to her for seven years, shared a bed with her, made plans for the future. And suddenly he was ready to go against her for the sake of a mother who couldn’t stand them.
“Fine,” she said quietly. “I’m changing all passwords in the banking apps now. And the card codes. You’ll never have access to my money again.”
“As you wish.”
“And you’ll be sleeping on the couch.”
“As you wish,” Igor repeated.
Lena went to the bedroom and locked the door. She sat on the bed and cried—from hurt, from anger, from everything falling apart before her eyes. She took out her phone and began changing passwords. Then she called the online store where the order was most likely placed. But they said the delivery could no longer be canceled—the product was already on the way.
In the morning she woke up with swollen eyes. Igor had already left for work; on the couch lay a crumpled pillow and blanket. On the kitchen table was a note: “Sorry. But I couldn’t do otherwise.”
Lena crumpled the note and threw it in the trash.
At work, she told her colleagues what had happened. They gasped, were outraged, and advised her to get a divorce immediately. But Lena was not ready to make drastic decisions yet. It was Igor, her husband, the father of her future children. Maybe they would figure it out somehow, talk calmly…
In the evening he came with flowers. White roses, her favorite.
“Lena, let’s talk,” he said, handing over the bouquet.
“Did you cancel the order?” she asked, not taking the flowers.
“I can’t. The TV has already been delivered to my mom.”
Lena nodded.
“Understood. Then there’s nothing to talk about.”
The next days passed in cold silence. Igor slept on the couch; they greeted and said goodbye to each other like neighbors sharing a communal apartment. Lena felt a wall growing between them, higher and thicker each day.
On Saturday was the mother-in-law’s anniversary. The day before, Igor said:
“Tomorrow is mom’s birthday. Will you go?”
“No.”
“Lena, enough already. It’s a family celebration.”
“For you, family is you and your mother. And I’m just extra here.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“It’s not silly. You made a choice. Now live with it.”
Igor left alone. Lena stayed home, watched a series, and thought it was all over. You can’t live with a person who doesn’t consider you an equal partner, who makes decisions for and against you.
Late at night, Igor returned home. Lena was already lying in the bedroom but was not asleep. She heard him walking around the apartment, rustling papers, searching for something. Then he quietly opened the bedroom door a bit.
“Lena, you’re not asleep?”
She didn’t answer.
“Mom was very happy with the TV,” he said into the darkness. “She even cried. Said now it will be like the cinema.”
Lena was silent.
“Lena, I know I was wrong. But…”
“But you don’t regret it,” she said without turning around.
“I regret how it turned out. I regret that we quarreled.”
“But you would have bought the TV anyway.”
A long pause.
“Yes,” Igor said honestly. “I would.”
On Monday, Lena took a day off and went to a lawyer. Then to the registry office to file for divorce. When Igor saw the official papers on the table in the evening, he was silent for a long time while reading.
“Seriously?” he finally asked.
“And you thought I would live with someone who doesn’t respect me?”
“I respect you.”
“Respect is when you ask for my opinion, not steal money at night.”
Igor sat opposite her at the kitchen table. He looked tired and aged.
“What now?”
“Now we divorce. We sell the apartment, pay off the mortgage debt, split the rest in half.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“That’s your right. But we won’t live together anyway.”
He nodded, got up from the table.
“I have something else to say,” he said, stopping at the door. “I took a loan. For the same TV. The money I withdrew from your card, I returned to the account.”
Lena looked at him in surprise.
“Why?”
“I realized you were right. I shouldn’t have done that. Here,” he pulled out a bank statement from his pocket. “Your forty-five thousand is there.”
“And the TV?”
“The TV stays with mom. I’ll pay off the loan.”
Lena took the statement, looked at the numbers. The money was indeed returned.
“That doesn’t change anything,” she said quietly.
“I know,” Igor nodded. “I just wanted to be honest. At least now.”
He went back to his couch. Lena sat in the kitchen for a long time, looking at the statement and thinking how sometimes understanding comes too late.
A month later, the divorce was finalized. Igor moved to his mother’s place—temporarily, he said. The apartment was put up for sale. Lena found a rented one-room flat in a neighboring district and quietly began a new life.
Sometimes she wondered if things could have been different. If Igor had simply honestly said that evening, “Lena, I want to give mom a nice gift. Let’s discuss it.” Maybe they could have found a compromise. Maybe she would have agreed to a smaller amount, or they would have taken a loan together.
But he chose lies and deceit. He chose his mother over his wife. And that was a choice Lena could not accept.
And in the mother-in-law’s new apartment, there really was a huge TV, sixty-five inches. Igor told his friends that his mother was very pleased with the gift. But he still had to pay off the loan. And living alone in a cramped mother’s apartment was not very comfortable.
But he made his choice. And now he lived with its consequences—alone, with his conscience and a huge TV for his mother.
