“What kind of debt is my mother-in-law demanding from me? I never took anything from her,” Yevgenia said, dropping a torn notebook page onto the countertop with a dull thud. “Pasha, explain to me where this figure of two hundred and forty thousand came from. Did we take out a mortgage from her or something?”
Pavel sat across from her. He looked like a schoolboy caught smoking behind the garage—shoulders slumped, fingers nervously tracing the edge of a napkin.
“Zhenya, don’t go on the defensive right away. Mom thinks hard times have come. You see what prices are like in the stores. She started replacing the wiring, and the work crew gave her an estimate high enough to send anyone’s blood pressure through the roof. Money is tight. So she decided to… balance the family accounts.”
“Balance the accounts?” Yevgenia picked up the sheet with two fingers as if it were contaminated. “Let’s read through this brilliant business plan. First item: ‘Imported stroller, gifted — 45,000. Adjusted for inflation and moral depreciation — 60,000.’ Pasha, she gave it to us when Vanya was born. With balloons and a toast to her grandson’s health!”
“She says it was an investment in our comfort. And now she needs an investment herself. The circle of family support, apparently.”
“Let’s keep going,” Yevgenia said, pressing her nail into the middle of the list. “‘Weekend nanny services. Rate — 500 rubles an hour. Total for two years…’ Are you serious? She sent us a bill for playing lotto with her own grandson?”
“Mom said she was spending her personal time, time she could have monetized. Knitting custom orders, for example. That’s her logic, Zhenya. A very specific market-driven kind.”
The lock on the front door clicked dryly. Tamara Igorevna had her own set of keys, which she kept “just in case of an emergency,” though no literal fires had ever broken out in this family—only emotional ones like this.
The mother-in-law walked into the kitchen as if she owned it, holding a new leather handbag in front of her like a shield. She swept her gaze across the table, spotted the “document,” and nodded with satisfaction, not wasting time on greetings.
“So, you’ve reviewed it. Good. We won’t be drinking tea. Straight to the point. Deadline: the end of the month.”
Yevgenia silently stood up and poured herself a glass of water. She needed something to cool herself down before she exploded.
“We’ve looked it over, Tamara Igorevna,” she said, her voice flat and even, like a news anchor reading a script. “I just don’t understand the nature of this arrangement. Are you trying to monetize the past?”
“It isn’t the past, dear, it’s assets,” the older woman said, running a finger across the windowsill to check for dust. “I invested in your household so you could get on your feet. Now I’m retired, the renovation is stalled, the pipes are leaking. I didn’t come to strangers—I came to family. Debts should be repaid.”
“Mom, you even included the zucchini from your garden,” Pavel finally said, looking up. “And priced them like they came from a luxury grocery store?”
“And did you think they jumped out of the ground on their own?” his mother snapped. “That took labor, back pain, fertilizer! I calculated everything fairly. I even gave you a family discount. If you had hired an outside nanny, you would have gone broke. So don’t complain.”
Yevgenia let out a slow breath. Instead of arguing, she opened a drawer, pulled out a calculator, and placed it in front of her mother-in-law.
“All right then. If it’s the market you want, then the market it is. I accept your rules.”
Tamara Igorevna smiled victoriously, smoothing the folds of her skirt.
“That’s more like it. I knew you were a reasonable woman. No unnecessary hysterics.”
“I just have a counteroffer,” Yevgenia said, turning the page over to the blank side and picking up a pen. “Let’s do a mutual settlement. Pasha, start listing things. Last summer we renovated Tamara Igorevna’s enclosed balcony. You insulated it, and I did the plastering.”
“That happened,” her husband nodded, and a spark of interest flickered in his eyes.
“Finishers are expensive these days. Post-renovation cleaning service—minimum seven thousand. Write that down. Next. Tamara Igorevna, six months ago you were down with pneumonia. I came to see you every day from the other side of the city.”
The smile slipped off her mother-in-law’s face, replaced by suspicion.
“What are you implying? I was sick! Family is supposed to help!”
“And grandmothers are supposed to spend time with their grandchildren out of love, not by the hour, if we’re talking about family values,” Yevgenia said, writing quickly, the numbers falling across the page in neat lines. “But since we’re apparently running a business here… meal delivery services, caregiver services, cost of medication. Gas. Pasha drove us—that’s ‘Comfort Plus’ pricing, since the car was clean and the driver was polite.”
She spoke in short, hard phrases, hammering each word down.
“Trips to the country house. Every weekend. Train tickets cost money, taxis from the station cost money too. Wear and tear on our car. And the cherry on top: three years ago, we gave you one hundred and twenty thousand for dental implants. You said, ‘We’ll settle up later.’ Well, now is later.”
The daughter-in-law drew a heavy line under the figures and turned the page toward her mother-in-law.
“By my modest calculations, once we subtract your list from ours, you still owe us thirty-eight thousand rubles. Repayment deadline: one week. We need to book Vanya an orthodontist appointment, and those prices are brutal too.”
Tamara Igorevna stared at the numbers, and the air in the kitchen turned thick and heavy.
“Pasha!” she shrieked, turning to her son. “Are you really going to let her humiliate your mother like this? I stayed up nights raising you, and this is what I get… an invoice?!”
Pavel looked at his mother, then at his wife. He had stopped fidgeting with the napkin.
“Mom, Zhenya’s right. You were the one who brought a calculator into our home. Don’t be offended that we learned how to use it too. A family isn’t supposed to be an accounting office. But if you want purely financial relationships, the result isn’t in your favor.”
“How dare you… I…!” Tamara Igorevna jumped up so fast the chair let out a pitiful squeak. She grabbed her handbag and stormed into the hallway. A second later, the front door slammed, leaving behind the scent of expensive perfume and the bitter aftertaste of a scandal.
“Are you really going to ask her for those thirty thousand?” Pavel asked quietly.
“As if we need them,” Yevgenia said, crumpling the sheet and tossing it into the trash. “A family should never turn into a bank. But we are taking back her keys.”
Pavel walked over to his wife and rested his hands on her shoulders.
“Well, at least now we know exactly how much ‘free’ zucchini really costs.”
