If self-importance could be turned into electricity, my husband could light up an entire neighborhood by himself. Stas had invited everyone over for what he called “just a simple Saturday dinner.” He said he missed them, wanted a cozy family evening. I actually believed him. I set the table, brought out the hot dishes, arranged the plates.
Then I realized why he had really gathered them.
His relatives spread out through our living room as if they hadn’t come for dinner at all, but to deliver a verdict. And Stas, looking like a talk-show host and a prosecutor rolled into one, solemnly announced that tonight there would be a trial over my “criminal extravagance.”
I wasn’t afraid. I simply looked at him with the calm curiosity of a seasoned entomologist watching a beetle foolish enough to crawl across a highway.
Stanislav stood in the middle of the room with his shoulders thrown back so wide that the buttons on his shirt seemed ready to surrender. He looked like a puffed-up turkey that, by some bizarre mistake, had convinced itself it was an eagle soaring above the mountains. Around him, on my sofa and in my armchairs, sat the audience: his mother, Anna Georgievna, with the expression of wounded virtue; his cousin Lenochka, whose envy of me was visible from orbit; and Uncle Borya, who appeared to care only about the caviar sandwiches.
“Ilona, we’re gathered here because things cannot go on like this,” Stas began, pausing dramatically. His voice trembled with the thrill of his own importance. “You’ve completely lost all sense of limits. A family is not a bottomless pit!”
I stirred my tea slowly with a spoon.
“Go on, darling,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I was just wondering what my Saturday evening was missing—a good movie or a circus performance. I see you decided to combine both.”
Anna Georgievna immediately pressed her lips together until she resembled an old purse cinched shut with string.
“Ilonochka, don’t be sarcastic,” she hissed, adjusting the large brooch on her chest. “Stasik means well. He is the head of the family, after all. And you behave as though money grows on trees. My son works himself to death!”
“To death?” I repeated, arching an eyebrow. “Anna Georgievna, ‘working to death’ is what people do in coal mines. When a man spends three hours a day playing Tetris in the office and then comes home to collapse on the sofa, mourning the cruelty of the world, that’s called something else.”
“You’re belittling his contribution!” Lenochka squealed. She was wearing a blouse I’d seen on clearance three years ago, but carried herself as though she had personally bought half of Milan. “Stas is a man! He needs inspiration, and you keep nagging him!”
Encouraged by the support, Stas straightened up even more. He swept his family with the look of a conqueror.
“Exactly!” he declared, raising a finger. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve prepared a list of complaints. Point one: irrational spending. Last month, you bought yourself a coat. Ilona, you already have a jacket! Why do you need a coat?”
“So I don’t look like an overgrown teenager, unlike certain people who still wear T-shirts saying ‘Beer Baron,’” I replied evenly. “And for the record, Stasik, I bought that coat with my own bonus.”
“The family budget should be shared!” my husband barked, slamming his palm onto the table. Uncle Borya’s plate jumped, but with remarkable reflexes he saved his sandwich. “And you’re hiding your income! That, by the way, is financial abuse!”
I almost choked on my tea laughing.
“Financial abuse? Stas, have you learned some new words? Impressive. But let’s get back to reality. You make forty thousand, five of which go to gas for your precious car—the one that breaks down more often than you meet your marital obligations—and another five go to lunches. I cover the mortgage, the utilities, and the groceries. What exactly is this ‘shared pot’ you dream of? The one where you scoop from it with a ladle while I keep filling it?”
Stanislav turned red. His cheeks grew so flushed you could have fried eggs on them. Clearly, he had not expected me to start bringing up actual numbers in front of his mother.
“Money isn’t the most important thing!” he shot back, changing tactics and reaching for moral superiority. “Respect is what matters! You don’t respect me. You make decisions on your own. You even picked the wallpaper for the hallway without me!”
“Because if I’d waited for your decision, we’d still be living in a cave with prehistoric drawings on the walls,” I snapped. “You spent six months choosing a bath mat, Stas. Six months. And in the end, you bought one that sheds the moment it touches water.”
“That was a design choice!” he yelped.
“That was an idiot’s choice,” I corrected sweetly. “Just like the idea of gathering everyone here for this… little tribal council.”
Anna Georgievna evidently decided it was time to unleash the heavy artillery. She sighed deeply and pressed a hand to her chest.
“Oh, son, I warned you…” she moaned. “A woman is supposed to be the neck that guides the head. But this… this is a hydra. Ilona, dear, how can you behave like this? A man wants to feel like the master of the house. Just humor him. Give him the money, let him manage it. He knows better where to invest!”
There it was. The word invest rang out like an alarm bell. I knew Stas’s talent for “investing.” His ventures usually ended in either piles of useless junk or some shady pyramid scheme promising 200% returns in two days.
“Mom,” Stas announced grandly, looking down at me, “I’ve made a decision. Starting today, all finances are under my control. Ilona, you will give me your cards. I’ll allocate what you need for household expenses. That will be fair. I’m the man—I should carry the responsibility.”
Lenochka nodded like one of those bobblehead dolls.
“That’s right, Stasik! It’s long overdue to put this… emancipation in its place.”
Uncle Borya stopped chewing and looked at me with interest. Even he could tell something explosive was about to happen.
I rose slowly. Walked to the window. Adjusted the curtain. The room fell silent. Stas was smiling, convinced I had been broken and was considering surrender. In his mind, he was already spending my paycheck on new rims for the car and maybe a fishing rod.
I turned toward them with the warmest smile I could produce.
“You know, I’m actually very glad we started talking about responsibility and investments,” I said softly. “Stas, you’re absolutely right. There should be no secrets.”
My husband tensed. A flicker of doubt crossed his face, but his pride was still blinding him.
“Well, finally,” he muttered. “Hand over the cards.”
“The cards can wait,” I replied, walking to the writing desk and taking out a blue envelope. “Since we’ve decided to be honest in front of the family… Anna Georgievna, you do love your dacha outside Moscow, don’t you? The greenhouse, the roses, the fresh air…”
My mother-in-law stiffened. Her instincts, unlike her son’s brain, worked flawlessly.
“What does my dacha have to do with this?” she asked warily.
“It has everything to do with it,” I said, turning the envelope in my hands. “Because your brilliant son, this ‘captain of the family ship,’ took out a microloan against your property last week. For a ‘sure thing.’ I believe it involved reselling some graphics cards that turned out to be defective.”
The room fell so silent that Lenochka’s stomach could be heard growling. Stas’s face shifted from bright red to sickly gray.
“You… you’re lying…” he croaked, his voice cracking into a teenage squeak.
“Lying?” I pulled the paper out of the envelope. “Here’s the notice. It arrived this morning, Stasik. You’re still registered at your mother’s address, but for some reason you had the mail redirected to mine. Forgot? Or were you hoping to intercept it? So, Anna Georgievna, if your ‘investor’ doesn’t come up with one hundred and fifty thousand by Monday, your roses will belong to the collection agency ‘Fast Money.’”
The effect was like a bomb going off in a sealed room. Anna Georgievna slowly turned to face her son. In her eyes burned such raw fury that any tiger in the jungle would have chosen vegetarianism rather than face that look.
“Stas?” she asked quietly. “You mortgaged… the family nest?”
“Mom, I meant well!” Stas squealed, backing toward the wall. All his grandiosity vanished in an instant. “The plan was solid! My partner let me down! I would’ve paid it all back with interest!”
“You little parasite!” Anna Georgievna shouted, forgetting all about her arthritis and high blood pressure as she leapt off the sofa with the energy of an Olympic champion. “I’ll show you ‘investments’! I’ll show you ‘my partner let me down’! Your father’s dacha! You wretch!”
Lenochka instantly assessed the situation, realized the free banquet was over and Waterloo was beginning, and snatched up her handbag.
“Oh no, I have to feed my cat!” she squeaked, darting for the door and nearly knocking over Uncle Borya.
Uncle Borya, wisely deciding the sandwiches were no longer worth it, also began edging toward the exit, mumbling something about an iron he had forgotten to unplug.
“Ilona!” Stas pleaded, trying to hide behind an armchair from his advancing mother. “Tell her! We have a family budget! Give me the money! We’re family!”
I folded my arms across my chest and smiled at the circus unfolding before me.
“Stasik,” I said gently, “you were the one who said five minutes ago that a man must carry responsibility. So carry it. And my money, as you so eloquently put it, is ‘financial abuse.’ I wouldn’t want to abuse you. Deal with it yourself.”
By then Anna Georgievna had caught up with him and was landing solid blows with her handbag, which, judging by the sound, contained either a brick or at least a volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
“By Monday!” she shouted. “You’d better have that money! Or I’ll curse you, you disgrace!”
That entire noisy, shrieking procession spilled out into the hallway. I calmly closed the door behind them and locked it twice. Their shouting echoed from the stairwell for quite a while after.
I went back into the living room. On the table lay the lonely sheet with the list of my “sins,” written up by my husband. I picked it up, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it neatly into the trash.
Bullseye.
My soul felt astonishingly light. As though I had finally taken off a pair of tight shoes I had been wearing for years, too afraid to admit they hurt.
An hour later, my phone buzzed with a message from Stas: “Mom calmed down, but she wants the money. Ilona, please, lend it to me! I’ll pay it all back, I swear! I understand now, I was wrong.”
I sat down in my armchair and typed back:
“Sorry, darling. I’ve just invested all my available resources into protecting my nervous system. Smooth sailing, Captain.”
And the moral of the story is simple: never let anyone climb onto your shoulders, especially if they have muddy boots and oversized ambitions. Financial independence is the best beauty treatment a woman can have—it smooths away the wrinkles of worry and gives her eyes that particular steel-bright look that sends shameless people running.
