“Nadyusha, sweetheart, can you hear me?” Regina Nikolaevna’s voice came through the phone sounding both pitiful and demanding at once. “I urgently need a new vacuum cleaner. The old one is completely dead, can you imagine? It’s throwing sparks. I’m afraid it’ll start a fire.”
Nadya held the phone between her shoulder and ear while buttering bread for her younger daughter. Liya was already at the table with a bowl of porridge, while Nelly was whining and asking for juice. In the bedroom, Vitya was snoring after working the night shift at the car wash.
“Regina Nikolaevna, things are actually tight for us right now,” Nadya began, but her mother-in-law cut her off at once.
“How can they be tight? You both have jobs! It’s only eighteen thousand. I already picked out a good one, German-made.”
“You see, we just paid for daycare, and we made the mortgage payment…”
“Mortgage, mortgage!” Regina’s tone sharpened instantly. “And what am I, not your real family? I’m all alone after the divorce, abandoned, no one needs me anymore. At least my son could help. Where is he anyway? Sleeping, I suppose?”
Nadya glanced at the clock. Nine on a Sunday morning. Vitya had gotten home at five and collapsed the moment he came in. She did not want to wake him.
“He worked all night…”
“All night working, and still can’t help his own mother,” Regina sighed dramatically. “Tell him when he wakes up. Or you transfer the money yourself if he’s that tired. My bank card is the same one.”
Nadya clenched her teeth. In the last three months, ever since her mother-in-law announced her divorce from Viktor Pavlovich in October, they had already bought her a kettle for three and a half thousand, winter boots for six, a microwave for eight, and a blanket for two and a half. Twenty thousand in three months. Their entire household income was eighty thousand for four people, and half of that went straight to the mortgage.
“I’ll talk to Vitya,” was all Nadya managed to say.
“Yes, do that. Because I truly don’t know how I’m supposed to survive. Alone, abandoned, no money…”
When the call finally ended, Nadya sank into a chair. Liya watched her with wide, attentive eyes.
“Mom, why does Grandma Regina cry all the time?” the little girl asked.
“She’s having a hard time right now, sweetheart,” Nadya said, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “Eat your porridge.”
At that very moment Nelly spilled the juice all over the table. Nadya jumped up and grabbed a cloth. As she wiped the sticky puddle, one thought kept circling in her head: they still had not saved enough for Liya’s new boots. The girl was wearing the old pair, and they were already too small. Nelly needed a spring jacket too.
Vitya did not come out of the bedroom until eleven. He looked crumpled and sleepy. He poured himself some water from the kettle.
“Your mother called,” Nadya said, laying the household expense notebook in front of him. “She wants a vacuum cleaner. Eighteen thousand.”
Vitya stretched and yawned.
“Well, if she needs it…”
“She told me recently, ‘How can there be no money? Tell Nadya to transfer it, I urgently need a new vacuum cleaner!’”
“Vitya!” Nadya flipped the notebook open to the right page. “Look for yourself. This is what we bought her in October. This in November. This in December. Twenty thousand in three months! We have two weeks until payday and only eight thousand left for food and bus passes. Eight thousand for four people!”
He looked at the notebook and scratched the back of his head.
“Mom’s alone now. Dad left. She’s having a hard time.”
“And we aren’t?” Nadya’s voice shook. “Your mother has a salary! She earns thirty-two thousand at the post office!”
“So what? Utilities, groceries…”
“Vitya, we have utilities and groceries too. Plus two children and a forty-thousand-ruble mortgage every single month!”
They stood facing each other in the cramped kitchen. From the next room came the muffled sounds of the girls playing with dolls.
“Don’t yell, the kids will hear,” Vitya muttered, turning toward the window.
“I’m not yelling. I just want you to understand that we cannot keep buying your mother everything she asks for. Liya needs boots. Nelly needs a jacket. We ourselves are wearing old things.”
“Mom doesn’t ask every day,” he mumbled.
“Every month!” Nadya jabbed her finger at the notebook. “October, November, December, January. Four months in a row!”
Vitya fell silent. Then he sighed.
“All right. I’ll talk to her. I’ll tell her we can’t right now.”
He got dressed and took the girls out for a walk. Nadya stayed behind in the kitchen, staring at the columns of numbers in the notebook. Eighteen. Six. Eight. Three and a half. Two and a half. Together they formed one large, ugly problem she had no idea how to solve.
The next day, Monday, she told her coworker Tamara everything. They were standing near the staff entrance of the supermarket during a smoke break. Well, Tamara was smoking. Nadya had simply stepped outside for some air.
“My dear girl,” Tamara said, taking a drag and blowing smoke aside, “your mother-in-law is using you. She’s planted herself around your neck and made herself comfortable.”
“But she really is having a hard time after the divorce…”
“A hard time?” Tamara smirked. “She makes thirty-two thousand, you said? Lives alone? How much can utilities possibly cost?”
“I don’t know. Maybe four thousand.”
“There you go. That leaves twenty-eight. For one person. Meanwhile you have eighty thousand for four people, and forty of that goes to the apartment. Do the math.”
Nadya went quiet. She had never looked at it that way. She had always assumed that if her mother-in-law complained about money, then things must truly be bad.
“Maybe she has debts?” she suggested weakly.
“Debts.” Tamara gave a skeptical snort. “My sister went through the same thing. Her mother-in-law kept demanding things. Buy this, buy that. Until the daughter-in-law finally put her in her place. Know what they found out? The woman had money. She just liked being fussed over. So she kept demanding it.”
“What did your sister do?”
“She said it straight: I have my own family and my own problems. If you want a normal relationship, let’s have one. If you only want to ask for things, then no thanks.”
Nadya went back to her register deep in thought. Maybe Tamara was right. Maybe she simply needed to find out whether Regina Nikolaevna really had money problems at all.
On Tuesday evening, Nadya was picking Nelly up from daycare when she ran into Olesya, her mother-in-law’s neighbor from the same landing. They knew each other casually, though not well.
“Oh, Nadya!” Olesya smiled. “So you’re buying your mother-in-law a new vacuum cleaner, huh?”
Nadya stopped dead.
“How do you know about that?”
“Well, I saw her yesterday carrying a huge box out of Eldorado. She said her children had given it to her. I remember thinking how wonderful it was that her kids took care of her.”
For a second, the world seemed to dim around Nadya. Yesterday? Yesterday, when Regina had called and demanded money for a vacuum cleaner?
“Are you sure it was yesterday?” she asked.
“Yes, Sunday. I was coming back from the store. Regina Nikolaevna even complained about how hard it was to carry such purchases alone.”
Nadya took Nelly’s hand and walked home as if on autopilot. One thought kept pounding in her head: so her mother-in-law already had a vacuum. A brand-new one. Bought with her own money. And yet she was calling them, asking them to pay for another?
The moment she got home, she called Vitya. He was at work and didn’t answer immediately.
“Vitya, your mother bought herself a vacuum cleaner on Sunday. Before she called us. Her neighbor saw her.”
“That can’t be,” he said, disbelief clear in his voice. “Mom wouldn’t lie.”
“Olesya isn’t lying. She saw her carrying the box from the store with her own eyes.”
“Maybe the neighbor got it wrong. Or maybe it was something else.”
“Vitya!”
“Nadya, I’m at work. We’ll talk tonight.”
He hung up. Nadya stood in the middle of the room, boiling inside. Nelly was tugging at her sleeve.
“Mommy, look what I drew!”
She forced herself to breathe, looked at the drawing, praised her daughter, and started making dinner. But the thoughts would not leave her alone.
The next morning, Wednesday, Nadya made up her mind. She fried a batch of cottage-cheese pancakes at dawn, packed them into a container, and after lunch went to see her mother-in-law.
Regina Nikolaevna opened the door in her house robe and looked surprised.
“Nadya? I thought you were at work.”
“I had the day off,” Nadya lied. “I made some pancakes and thought I’d bring you some.”
“Oh, thank you, sweetheart!” Regina beamed. “Come in, come in.”
Her apartment was a small one-bedroom place, but tidy. Nadya stepped into the room, glanced around, and saw it at once. In the corner by the balcony door stood a brand-new vacuum cleaner. Bosch, judging by the logo. Clearly expensive.
“Oh, that…” Regina noticed where she was looking and began speaking too fast. “Viktor Pavlovich bought it for me. But he picked the wrong one! It’s so inconvenient, too heavy. I need a different one, something lighter.”
Nadya stared at the vacuum. It looked untouched. Some of the packaging film was still on it.
“Then why do you need another one?” she asked as calmly as she could.
“Well, because this one doesn’t suit me!” Regina threw up her hands. “I told you, it’s неудобный—awkward. I didn’t even try it. I wanted to return it, but I lost the receipt.”
They sat for another twenty minutes. Regina complained about life, about her ex-husband, about being lonely. Nadya nodded at the right moments, but barely listened. In her mind, a picture was forming, and she did not like it.
As Nadya was leaving, Regina asked,
“So what about the vacuum cleaner? Has Vitya spoken to you?”
“He has,” Nadya said, pulling on her coat. “We’ll think about it.”
“Just don’t take too long. I really do need it. I’m practically living without a vacuum cleaner.”
Out on the landing, Nadya leaned against the wall. Her hands were shaking. So that was it. Her mother-in-law was lying. Looking her right in the face and lying without the slightest embarrassment.
That evening, when Vitya came home, she told him everything and said she had seen the vacuum with her own eyes.
“Mom said Dad bought it,” Vitya said, standing with his back to her by the window.
“Vitya, your father doesn’t buy her things. He just gives her money every month voluntarily. And it’s still not enough for her.”
“How do you know?”
“Let’s call him and ask.”
He was silent for a moment, then nodded. Nadya pulled out her phone and found Viktor Pavlovich’s number. She had stayed on decent terms with her former father-in-law, and he sometimes came by to see the granddaughters.
“Viktor Pavlovich, good evening,” Nadya said. “I have a question. Did you buy Regina Nikolaevna a vacuum cleaner?”
“A vacuum cleaner?” Genuine surprise rang through the phone. “No, I didn’t buy Regina anything.”
“Thank you.” Nadya ended the call and looked at her husband.
Vitya sat on the sofa staring at the floor. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said softly,
“So she’s lying.”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
Nadya sat beside him.
“I don’t know. Maybe she wants attention. Or maybe she truly believes we owe her help.”
“She gets forty-seven thousand a month,” Vitya said slowly, doing the math. “From Dad plus her salary. She lives alone. Utilities maybe four thousand. What happens to the other forty-three?”
“Exactly.”
“We need to talk to her,” he said, lifting his head. “I’ll talk to her.”
The next day, Thursday, he went to see his mother after work. Nadya stayed home with the children, but he promised to call as soon as he was done.
The phone rang two hours later. Vitya spoke in a low, shaken voice.
“She shouted. Said you’re turning me against her. Said I believe my wife more than my own mother.”
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing. Then she started crying, talking about how she raised me all by herself. Even though we both know that isn’t true. Dad was always there.”
“Vitya…”
“I don’t know what to do,” he sighed. “She’s my mother.”
Nadya closed her eyes. She wanted to yell, to throw something, to shake sense into him. But she understood. He had spent his whole life yielding to his mother. This would not be easy for him.
“All right. Come home. We’ll talk.”
On Friday evening, while picking Nelly up from daycare, Nadya ran into Olesya again. She looked tired after work, but when she saw Nadya, she smiled.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Fine,” Nadya said, not really wanting to talk, but Olesya clearly noticed something in her face.
“Listen,” she said, stepping closer and lowering her voice, “it’s none of my business, of course. But your mother-in-law… she buys something new every week. A hairdryer, a coffee maker. And then she tells all the neighbors she has no money and her children don’t help her.”
Nadya felt something twist hard inside her.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Last week I saw her outside an appliance store with about five huge shopping bags.”
“Did you happen to take a picture?”
Olesya paused, then pulled out her phone.
“Wait… yes, actually. I sent one to my friend that day, we were together. Here.”
She turned the screen toward Nadya. There was Regina Nikolaevna stepping out of the store loaded with bags. The date in the corner read January 12. Five days earlier.
“Can you send it to me?” Nadya asked.
“Of course.”
On the way home, Nadya felt something heavy growing inside her. Anger? Hurt? She could not tell. She only knew that this could not go on.
At home she showed the photo to Vitya. He stared at the phone for a long time, then leaned back against the sofa.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, sounding completely lost.
“End it,” Nadya said, sitting beside him. “Vitya, listen to me. Your mother is deceiving us. She buys herself whatever she wants and then asks us for money, knowing perfectly well that we are barely managing ourselves. Liya is walking around in tight boots. Nelly needs a jacket. And in three months we gave your mother twenty thousand!”
“I know, but…”
“No more ‘but.’ Either we keep buying her everything and sink ourselves into debt, or we tell the truth.”
Vitya said nothing. She could see him wrestling with himself. At last he nodded.
“Let’s invite her here. Sunday. We’ll all talk.”
On Saturday, Nadya’s mother, Svetlana Borisovna, came over. Nadya had asked her to stay with the girls while they talked to Regina. After hearing the whole story, her mother shook her head.
“You’re doing the right thing, sweetheart. These money fights are poisoning your marriage, and the girls feel the tension. Yesterday I asked Liya how she was doing, and she said, ‘Grandma, Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to fight again, are they?’ Children notice everything.”
“I know,” Nadya said, rubbing her face wearily. “That’s why it has to stop.”
At two o’clock on Sunday, the doorbell rang. Regina Nikolaevna arrived dressed up, hair set, wearing a new blouse. Svetlana Borisovna took the girls into the other room and turned on cartoons.
“Come in, Regina Nikolaevna,” Nadya said, opening the door wider.
“Oh, Nadya!” her mother-in-law said as she stepped inside. “Did something happen? You sounded so serious on the phone.”
“Please, sit down. Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you.”
They sat at the table. Vitya beside Nadya. Regina opposite them. Her mother-in-law was smiling, but there was caution in her eyes.
“Regina Nikolaevna,” Nadya began calmly, “we wanted to talk about money.”
“Money?” Regina frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong,” Nadya said, “is that I can’t tell whether you truly need help or whether you simply want us to buy you things.”
Regina’s face stiffened.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Nadya opened the notebook.
“In the last three months we bought you a kettle, boots, a microwave, and a blanket. Twenty thousand rubles. At the same time, you receive fifteen thousand from Viktor Pavlovich plus your salary of thirty-two thousand. That’s forty-seven thousand a month. You live alone. Your utilities are about four thousand. So you have forty-three thousand left. More than we have for four people.”
Regina turned pale.
“Are you spying on me? Counting my money?”
“No. I’m trying to understand why you ask us for money when you clearly have enough of your own.”
“I have expenses! Groceries, clothes!”
“Regina Nikolaevna,” Vitya finally said, stepping in, “last Sunday you bought yourself a vacuum cleaner. Bosch. I saw it in the corner. And afterward you called us and asked for money for another one.”
His mother opened and closed her mouth. Then she said quickly,
“My ex-husband bought that one, but it’s inconvenient!”
“Mom, I called Dad. He didn’t buy you anything.”
Silence dropped over the room. Regina looked from her son to her daughter-in-law and back again. Then her face twisted.
“So this is an interrogation now? You investigated me? You decided I’m deceiving you?”
“Aren’t you?” Nadya asked quietly.
“I don’t owe you any explanation!” Regina suddenly snapped, leaping to her feet. “My money is mine, I can spend it however I please!”
“Then why do you keep asking for ours?” Vitya stood too. “Mom, we have two children. We pay forty thousand a month for our mortgage. We are barely making ends meet!”
“You’re saying that to me?” Regina’s voice trembled. “To your own mother? The woman who gave birth to you and raised you?”
“You and Dad raised me together. Don’t say you did it alone.”
“That’s enough!” She grabbed her handbag. “It’s her—this Nadya—she’s poisoned you against me! I always knew she was no good!”
“Mom, wait,” Vitya said, stepping in front of the door. “Let’s talk like adults.”
“I don’t want to talk to either of you!” Regina shoved past him and yanked the door open. “As far as I’m concerned, I no longer have a son!”
The door slammed shut behind her. Vitya stood in the middle of the room, pale. Nadya came over and put her arms around him.
“You did the right thing.”
“I shouted at my mother.”
“You told the truth. That isn’t the same thing.”
Svetlana Borisovna stepped out of the other room.
“The girls are asking what happened. They heard shouting.”
“Tell them everything’s okay,” Nadya said, wiping her eyes. “We’ll come in a minute.”
The week that followed was heavy and silent. Regina Nikolaevna did not call. Vitya grew gloomier every day and barely spoke. Nadya tried to support him, but she could see he was blaming himself.
Then, on Wednesday evening, when he came home from work, his phone rang. It was his mother. He looked at the screen, then at Nadya.
“Answer,” she said.
He picked up.
“Hello?”
“Vitenka,” Regina said softly, stripped of her usual dramatic tone. “Can you come by? I need to talk to you.”
“Now?”
“If you can.”
He left forty minutes later. Regina met him at the door, let him in without a word, and sat down on the sofa, patting the seat beside her.
“Sit.”
He sat warily. She looked tired, older somehow.
“You were right, son,” she said slowly. “I… I let myself fall into something ugly. After the divorce, I felt so hurt, so alone. Viktor Pavlovich left for another woman. Thirty-five years together, and just like that he walked away. As if I no longer mattered.”
Vitya said nothing. He listened.
“And I started thinking that if my children took care of me, bought me things, then I must still matter. Then I wouldn’t be alone. Do you understand?”
“But Mom,” he turned toward her, “we love you anyway. Why did you have to lie?”
“I don’t know.” Regina lowered her head. “At first I asked for the kettle, and you bought it. It felt so nice. Then the boots. And again you didn’t refuse me. I wanted more. Every purchase felt like proof that I was still important to you.”
“You are important to us. But we have our own family now, two children. We can’t keep buying you everything.”
“I understand that now,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “I was wrong. Wrong toward you. Wrong toward Nadya especially. I said terrible things to her.”
Vitya hugged his mother. She leaned into his shoulder and quietly sobbed.
“Will you come tomorrow?” he asked. “Will you speak to Nadya?”
“Will she let me?”
“Nadya is a good person. She will.”
The next evening, Friday, Regina came to their apartment carrying sweets for the girls. She stood awkwardly in the entryway, almost like a stranger.
“Come in,” Nadya said, opening the door to the room.
They sat down at the table. The girls were playing in the other room, and Vitya turned on the television to give the two women space to talk alone.
“Nadyusha,” Regina said, folding her hands in her lap, “I want to apologize. I behaved terribly. I demanded things, I lied, I manipulated. You had every right to stop me.”
Nadya nodded.
“I didn’t want to hurt you. We really are struggling.”
“I know. Vitya told me everything. About the mortgage. About the children needing clothes. And all I was thinking about was myself.”
“Was it really that hard after the divorce?”
“It was hard,” Regina sighed. “But not because of money. Because of the loneliness. Thirty-five years with someone, and then suddenly you’re alone. It frightened me. So I convinced myself that if you bought me things, it meant I was still needed.”
Nadya was quiet for a moment. Then she said,
“Regina Nikolaevna, you matter to us whether we buy you something or not. Come visit. Spend time with your granddaughters. We’re happy to see you. But asking for money like that—that isn’t right.”
“I won’t do it again,” Regina said, meeting her eyes. “Honestly. I understand my mistake now.”
“Then let’s just try to have a normal relationship. The way it should be.”
Regina nodded. Then, after a pause, she added,
“You know what I realized this past week? What I’m missing is connection. Other people. I go to work, then I come home, and that’s it. I don’t go anywhere. I don’t see anyone. I’m lonely, and I started demanding attention in the worst possible way.”
“Maybe you should sign up for something,” Nadya suggested. “A swimming class. Yoga. Anything.”
“I’ve thought about it,” Regina said thoughtfully. “Maybe I will.”
Two weeks later, near the end of January, Regina came over again. This time for no reason at all. She played a board game with Liya and Nelly and laughed when the younger one tried to cheat with the dice.
In the kitchen, Nadya and Vitya were making dinner together. He slipped his arms around her from behind.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not giving up. For helping me finally grow up.”
Nadya turned to face him.
“We got through it together.”
Outside, January snow drifted down, wrapping the city in white. From the other room came the girls’ laughter and Regina’s voice saying, “No, no, Nellyusha, you can’t do that! That’s cheating!”
Nadya smiled.
Their family had found a kind of balance. Not a perfect one, but a real one. A place where each person understood the others’ boundaries and respected them. A place where no one had to purchase love with money, because it was already there. Sometimes people simply needed to be reminded of that.
Vitya set the plates on the table and called everyone to dinner. Regina walked into the kitchen holding both granddaughters by the hand. Liya was telling a story about daycare, while Nelly kept interrupting her. An ordinary family evening. Ordinary, and deeply precious.
Nadya looked at her husband, her mother-in-law, her daughters.
And she thought: this is what happiness is.
Not money. Not things.
Just having people beside you who truly understand one another.
Even if it takes conflict, honesty, and painful truth to get there.
