— And what if your son did that to you?!” her mother-in-law shot back with a counterargument.
“He wouldn’t!” Rita forced out through clenched teeth and ended the conversation. What was the point of going round and round in circles?
“Your mother called again,” Rita said in response to the questioning look from her husband, Grigory, who came into the room and caught the tail end of the call.
“Block her number,” Grigory said darkly. He went over to the window and began silently staring out at the autumn scenery. His hands were clenched into fists, his lips pressed into a thin line.
Rita fell silent. She was baffled. How could anyone drive someone as kind, decent, and nonconfrontational as Grisha to this state? Yet his mother had managed.
It had somehow worked out that from early childhood Grigory’s relationship with the female half of the family hadn’t been great. His mother and younger sister, Klava, seemed to band together against him and his father. There were taunts, nagging, nasty little jokes, and a disdainful attitude.
That was exactly how Grigory and Klavdia’s mother had treated her husband all her life—and she’d passed it on to her daughter “by inheritance.” Objectively, there was nothing bad about the husband, Pyotr Borisovich. He was a model family man, brought everything home, practical, handy with his hands. Only he was very kind and accommodating. Grigory took after his father in character.
Olga Yefimovna, on the other hand, was flighty, loud, and willful. She often had migraines, and during those hours everything irritated her—especially her husband. And her son.
But not her daughter. Klava her mother loved devotedly, selflessly. Sometimes Klavochka’s care could even make the migraine go away. The girl would give her mother a headache pill, then bring a basin of water, a stool, and a towel, set it all beside her mother’s bed where she lay, and after dipping the towel in the water and wringing it out, she would gently press it to her mother’s forehead.
Olga Yefimovna would smile gratefully. Klavochka would carry the basin back to the bathroom, then sit down on the little stool near her mother and read her books aloud, occasionally looking at her parent with a gaze full of compassion. Pyotr Borisovich and Grisha would tiptoe around the house, afraid to disturb the idyll.
A couple of hours later, Olga Yefimovna would get up energetic and full of strength, loudly announcing to everyone that the migraine attack was over. And at once she would start issuing instructions to her son and husband. There was plenty to do around the house.
If Olga Yefimovna always looked at Klavochka with love and admiration, her son irritated her. She would grimace and pull faces, often scold him, boss him around, mock him. She believed ridicule was the best method of upbringing.
Under his mother’s close scrutiny, Grisha really did often become clumsy and careless—he could break something, spill something, drop something. He studied average, “not like Klavochka, the straight-A student”…
Sometimes on weekends Grisha and his father would go fishing, or into the woods for mushrooms. Klava and their mother didn’t like those activities and stayed home. Without the men, they threw themselves a real celebration: baked something sweet for tea, then sat for a long time in the kitchen, listened to music, chatted about all sorts of nonsense, and flipped through women’s magazines. Sometimes they’d set up a beauty salon at home: did skincare with different masks, dyed their hair, built new hairstyles, did manicures.
When Pyotr Borisovich and Grisha returned from their trips, they weren’t greeted warmly—because simply by being there, the men immediately got in their way.
Pyotr Borisovich didn’t take his wife’s nitpicking seriously and taught his son to do the same.
“Your mother will grumble, grumble, and then stop. That’s what women do—grumble,” Pyotr Borisovich would chuckle quietly, slyly winking at his son while his wife wasn’t looking. Grisha would smile and wink back. They had their own secret society.
Unfortunately, Pyotr Borisovich died young. A severe illness took his life. Before he passed, he charged his son not to abandon his mother—to be a man, to help her and his sister…
That year Grisha turned twenty-three, and he was still studying at university. Klava was in tenth grade. Their mother still admired her; her daughter was headed for a gold medal.
“Not like Grishka, who barely got in—an irresponsible good-for-nothing and a talentless fool, God forgive me…” Olga Yefimovna would sigh theatrically, fluttering her mile-long eyelashes and adjusting her hair with plump hands heavy with rings. She was always done up—even at home. Hair and makeup.
Grisha often felt as if his mother was playing a role on stage. Her facial expressions, gestures, and remarks were so exaggerated. It was painful to hear, but Grisha kept quiet. He remembered his father’s instructions—his composure, generosity, and the humor with which he treated his wife. Over many years of marriage, his father had adapted, grown used to it. But more and more Grisha came to the conclusion that it was exactly this atmosphere and this attitude from his mother that had driven his father to an early grave. Surely he suffered—he just didn’t show it, like a real man…
Time passed. Grisha met Rita. They fell in love and got married, started renting an apartment. That’s how Grigory moved away from his mother and sister. Still, he kept the word he’d given his father. He didn’t leave his mother and sister without help—he supported them.
Despite her excellent grades, Klava didn’t get into university: she aimed for an overly prestigious faculty. Most likely it was the result of her mother’s constant admiration, which planted in Klava’s pretty head the idea that she absolutely had to study at the best university, in the most prestigious faculty. Deep down, Olga Yefimovna dreamed her daughter would find a suitable groom there.
“Mom overestimated Klava’s abilities,” Grisha told Rita. “She should’ve studied even better to get in there.”
Klava didn’t get in, and their mother turned to Grisha for help. He had to help pay for tuition at another university. Their mother had been so sure Klava would be accepted by that “star university” that she convinced her not to submit documents anywhere else. “No point scattering,” she kept repeating. The deadlines for budget-funded places were missed, so they had to enroll on a paid contract at an ordinary “non-star” university with lower fees, so she wouldn’t lose a year and sit idle.
Grisha helped his mother too: gave money for medications, sponsored major purchases, drove over with the car, bought groceries, fixed things around the house—drilled, screwed, tightened.
Olga Yefimovna and Klava didn’t change their attitude toward Grisha. They still looked down on him. And demanded even more help.
Rita couldn’t stand them. Her sister-in-law and mother-in-law reminded her of the mother and daughter from the cartoon The Wonderful Little Bell, where Lusha, egged on by her mother, asked the magical bear for “two chests full of treasures,” “two herds of horses,” and so on—more and more. Nothing was ever enough for them.
Rita would grit her teeth, while Grisha mumbled about the promise he’d made his father and went off to “help.”
Everything changed after sad news: Olga Yefimovna’s elderly mother, Zinaida Sergeyevna, died. Grigory and Klava’s grief-stricken mother inherited a spacious three-room apartment from Zinaida Sergeyevna.
“I’m going to sell it,” Olga Yefimovna sobbed, sitting at the memorial meal at a café table.
Rita and Grisha organized everything, since Klava “didn’t understand any of this,” and their mother was completely crushed and cried all the time.
“As if I understand…” Rita quietly fumed at Klava. “It’s my first time dealing with anything like this—thank God, all of mine are still alive…”
“We need to help Mom,” Grigory repeated his familiar phrase. “Who else if not us?”
“Right,” Rita agreed sarcastically.
“I’ll sell the apartment,” Olga Yefimovna kept saying. “Why do I need it? And I’ll split the money equally between the children—that will be fair.”
In that moment Rita thought: maybe her mother-in-law wasn’t hopeless after all. Maybe there was something human in her. Rita and Grisha were saving for their own apartment, and that money would’ve helped them a lot.
Time passed. Olga Yefimovna officially inherited the property—and suddenly changed her mind about selling her mother’s apartment.
“Grisha, don’t be offended, but I’m going to sign it over to Klavochka,” she announced when Grigory and Rita came to visit. “If something happens, who’s going to care for me in old age? Not you—Klava! So she needs help. And you’re a man; you should provide for your own family and secure housing.”
For the first time in his life, calm, accommodating Grigory swore loudly—and obscenely—and had a vicious fight with his mother. He was that hurt. But the worst was seeing his sister’s satisfied face as she calmly watched her brother “lose it.”
“I’m not made of iron! How long am I supposed to put up with this?!” Grisha fumed when he and Rita got home from Olga Yefimovna and Klava’s place—Klava still lived with their mother then. “Why promise in the first place? I wasn’t even expecting it, really. Who asked her to say it? We already started making plans…”
“It didn’t happen without Klava whispering in her ear,” Rita said. “She’s right there next to her, so she sang into her ears.”
“Of course. And Mom thought about it and remembered that Klavochka is her favorite—and I’m just the spare part, so why would I need money?” Grigory said sadly.
After that, it was like a switch flipped. He stopped going to his mother entirely.
“It’s like my eyes opened!” Grigory told his wife. “Mom isn’t old—she works, gets a salary and a pension; Klava works too. They should have more than enough money. Why do I keep pouring everything into that place like it’s a bottomless pit? Let them hire professionals—have them replace toilets and faucets, fix the wiring, hang shelves and curtain rods. All this time I never got one kind word—just wasted money and time.”
“And meanwhile we can’t save for an apartment,” Rita noted. “The beaten one is carrying the unbeaten one.”
“I was carrying,” Grisha corrected. “I won’t anymore!”
Time passed. Grigory and Rita lived peacefully and happily. They saved money, bought a two-room apartment with a mortgage, had a son—who, in his three years, never even knew his paternal grandmother. After the conflict they didn’t communicate with Olga Yefimovna.
And then, out of nowhere, Grigory’s mother called and asked him to come over with Rita to help clean the apartment.
“My joints hurt, I can’t do anything,” Olga Yefimovna declared.
“Ask Klava,” Grigory advised, utterly surprised by the sudden call—his mother spoke as if nothing had happened. “Klava promised to ‘take care of you,’ so let her help.”
“Klava got married a year ago and moved with her husband to another city,” his mother said reluctantly.
“And I suppose she rents out your apartment?” Grigory couldn’t resist the jab. “So she has money—let her pay for a cleaning service. Professionals will do it.”
“She does rent it. But she has no money,” Olga Yefimovna answered pitifully. “They rent a place there, had a baby—there’s no money to pay for cleaning for me. They need money more than I do.”
Grigory didn’t listen to any more about his “unfortunate” sister and ended the call.
“They didn’t even bother to invite us to the wedding,” he remarked.
“And would you have gone?” Rita asked doubtfully. “Do you even need that?”
“I don’t,” Grigory agreed with a sigh.
“Yeah… Nothing changes. Klava needs money. And we don’t. We have a child too, a mortgage, but… No… It’s always ‘no’ for us…”
That same evening Klava called. She told her brother he was a cruel, heartless person. He’d offended their mother, upset her. You can’t do that! He needed to help her.
While her husband told his sister where to go and put her number on the blacklist, Rita thought about how shameless people could be.
“Mom made her choice back then, five years ago, when she signed Grandma’s apartment over to Klava,” Grigory said grimly. “So let my sister ‘take care’ of her now—look after her and help her. If it’s something serious—life and death—I’ll come. Otherwise… Let her not count on it.”
Grigory didn’t answer his mother’s calls, and Olga Yefimovna began calling Rita—shaming her and appealing to her conscience. She talked about how you can’t treat your mother that way—it sets a bad example for their little son. What if he grows up and treats them the same?
“He won’t!” Rita snapped. “Because I won’t treat him that way! And if we have a second child—and maybe even a third—I will split everything, absolutely everything, equally between them! Because it’s a crime to single out one child and deprive the other!”
As she said all this, Rita realized her mother-in-law wasn’t listening or understanding. Because if she had understood, she would never have acted so unfairly back then.
“From the beginning it was all predetermined. I just didn’t notice—or didn’t want to notice—because it was easier to carry out Dad’s request,” Grigory said darkly. “But I’m apparently not as saintly as Dad. I can’t do it…”
“You’re wonderful,” Rita said, and hugged her husband. “And I love you very much
