My Mother-in-Law Called My Mom to Shame Her Over a Gift. She Didn’t Know Her Voice Message Had Been Sent to Me
The frosting wouldn’t thicken. Natasha had already been whipping it for twenty minutes, changing the speed and adding powdered sugar one pinch at a time, but it still ran off the whisk like water. The microwave clock showed a quarter to midnight. Two neat sponge-cake layers were cooling on the rack—her second attempt, because she had burned the first ones and thrown them in the trash before Seryozha could see them.
Seryozha appeared in the kitchen wearing nothing but his underwear, barefoot and squinting against the light.
“Natasha, are you serious? Just buy one from Tortugalia tomorrow. Mom won’t know the difference.”
“She will. Last year she said store-bought cakes were for people who were too lazy to bake.”
“She says a lot of things.”
He stood there for a moment, scratched his chest, and went back to bed. Natasha took another carton of cream from the refrigerator—thirty-three percent fat, costing four hundred and twenty rubles—and started over.
Galina Petrovna was turning sixty-eight. It wasn’t a milestone birthday, so there was no real obligation to celebrate it. The previous week, Seryozha had said he would simply transfer some money to her and let her choose something for herself. Natasha had nodded, but then she thought that sixty-eight was the final year before the big round anniversary. The following year there would be chaos, a crowd of relatives, and a restaurant. This year, however, they could arrange a warm, intimate celebration at home. For her. Just because.
The idea grew over the course of three days. Natasha contacted Tamara Yevgenyevna and Zoya, her mother-in-law’s friends, with whom she went to the clinic for treatments every Tuesday. Both women were delighted and promised to come. Natasha planned the menu: beef tongue with horseradish, dressed herring salad, chicken with prunes, two other salads, and a platter of sliced meats and cheeses. There would also be a honey cake that Galina Petrovna had once complimented.
“I’ll tell you this,” her mother-in-law had said after tasting a slice of Natasha’s cake at a family lunch. “Your honey cake is decent. Not like my mother’s, of course, but decent.”
Natasha spent more than four thousand rubles on groceries, using money she had been saving for a pair of spring boots. She spent another thousand on balloons and a “Happy Birthday” banner. When Seryozha saw the balloons, he raised an eyebrow.
“Mom isn’t five years old.”
“They’re for the atmosphere. A celebration should feel like a celebration.”
Seryozha shrugged. He was accustomed to not arguing about things he didn’t understand.
On Saturday morning, Natasha got up at seven to finish the salads, set out the plates, and polish the glasses. Seryozha inflated the balloons while complaining that the helium was making his head spin, even though there was no helium in them—he was blowing them up with his mouth. Their small two-room apartment in Butovo, with its walk-through kitchen, began to resemble a children’s party. Pink, white, and silver balloons floated near the ceiling, a banner hung above the living-room door, and the table was covered with a tablecloth Natasha had bought especially for the occasion.
Galina Petrovna arrived at two. She entered, stopped in the hallway, and looked around at the balloons.
“Is all this for me?”
“For you,” Natasha said with a smile. “Happy birthday, Galina Petrovna.”
Her mother-in-law was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“Well. It looks festive.”
In her vocabulary, that counted as approval. Natasha breathed a sigh of relief.
Tamara Yevgenyevna and Zoya arrived together, carrying flowers. Tamara, a small and loud woman, immediately clapped her hands.
“Galya, just look at how much effort your daughter-in-law has made! I wish I had one like her.”
Galina Petrovna nodded with restraint, but Natasha could see that she was pleased. At the table, her mother-in-law ate with a good appetite and asked for a second helping of chicken twice. When Natasha brought out the honey cake—a real three-layer cake with “To Galina Petrovna, with love” written in frosting—Galina Petrovna blinked rapidly and said:
“Well, would you look at that. It’s beautiful.”
Zoya took a photograph of the cake on her phone. Tamara raised a glass of fruit compote and made a long, tearful toast about how Galya deserved the very best. Seryozha sat beside his mother and added more salad to her plate, while Natasha thought: This is why I did it. For these two hours around the table. For the sight of her mother-in-law sitting at the center, surrounded by people who had come especially for her.
The guests left around seven. Galina Petrovna stayed a little longer and helped clear the table, silently and efficiently, the way she was accustomed to doing things. At the door, she turned around.
“Thank you, Natasha. Everything was good. I’ll tell you this—I wasn’t expecting it.”
Natasha hugged her. Her mother-in-law returned the embrace quickly and awkwardly, like someone who wasn’t used to being hugged.
Seryozha fell asleep at ten, passing out in front of the television with the remote control still in his hand. Natasha carefully removed it, muted the television, and went into the kitchen. A mountain of dishes was waiting for her. Their dishwasher was small and only held four place settings, so half of everything still had to be washed by hand.
She was washing the last salad bowl when the phone on the table lit up. It was a message from Galina Petrovna. A voice recording sent shortly after midnight.
Natasha dried her hands on a towel, picked up the phone, and pressed play.
Her mother-in-law’s voice sounded tired and sour, completely different from the voice that had thanked her four hours earlier.
“Tamara, you saw it yourself. They put on a whole circus for me. Balloons like at a children’s party. Little salads from Pyaterochka. I’m sitting there feeling ashamed while Zoya is looking and you’re looking, and my table looks like something from a funeral, except they’ve hung balloons everywhere. I’ll tell you this: it would have been better if they’d given me money instead of humiliating me with that circus. Seryozha clearly had nothing to do with it. Natasha decides everything. And of course she tried to save money. Why spend anything on your mother-in-law, right?”
Thirty-eight seconds.
Natasha stood there with the phone pressed to her ear by her still-damp hand. Then she listened to it again. It was the same voice—calm and habitually lecturing.
The message had not been intended for her. Natasha’s number and Tamara’s number were next to each other in the recent calls list. It was a mistake. An ordinary mistake made by an older person using a phone.
Natasha placed the salad bowl in the drying rack. She hung the towel on its hook and sat down on a stool.
She hadn’t bought the groceries at Pyaterochka. She had gone to Miratorg and to the market for the beef tongue and good sour cream. She had bought farm-raised chicken and paid twice the usual price. She had spent two evenings baking the cake because her first sponge cake hadn’t turned out properly. The white tablecloth had cost nine hundred rubles.
Seryozha’s snoring came from the bedroom. Natasha stared into the dark hallway but did not get up.
In the morning, Seryozha packed his bag. He was leaving for a three-day business trip to Tula to supervise the installation of equipment at a factory. He worked as an engineer for a company that installed ventilation systems, and they always had more orders than usual in the spring.
“Why do you look so gloomy?” he asked as he zipped his bag.
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“You should’ve left the dishes until morning.”
“It’s fine.”
He kissed her on the temple, picked up his bag, and left. The door slammed shut. Natasha stood in the hallway and wondered whether she should tell him. Should she call him while he was in the taxi? Should she forward the voice message?
She didn’t call.
Instead, she listened to the recording again. In the daylight, with a clear head, it sounded even worse. It wasn’t anger—it was indifferent certainty. Galina Petrovna wasn’t complaining. She was stating facts, as casually as if she were discussing the weather. In her eyes, Natasha wasn’t a daughter-in-law who had tried her best. She was a member of the service staff who had performed poorly.
Natasha deleted the voice message.
For two days, she lived in a strange silence. She went to work—she was an accountant at a construction company, and it was reporting season, with endless papers and spreadsheets—and by evening, she would almost forget about it. But at night, the voice returned.
“It would have been better if they’d given me money.”
On the third day, her mother called.
Lyudmila Fyodorovna began indirectly, asking about Natasha’s health, Seryozha, and her work. Then she fell silent.
“Natasha, Galina Petrovna called me.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, she spoke indirectly, you know. She said the birthday celebration had been modest. She said you had tried, of course, but…” Her mother hesitated. “She said your father and I hadn’t given her anything. And that, to put it mildly, it was inappropriate.”
Natasha closed her eyes.
It was true that her parents had not given Galina Petrovna a separate gift. Her father was in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, and her mother traveled across Podolsk by bus every day to visit him. Natasha had told her, “Mom, don’t worry about it. I’ll give her something from all of us.”
She had bought her mother-in-law a set of good Librederm cosmetics that Galina Petrovna had once praised. It had cost two thousand three hundred rubles.
“Mom, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I understand, but she spoke as though we were obligated to give her something. Maybe we really should have at least sent a card?”
Her mother’s voice sounded thin and guilty. Lyudmila Fyodorovna had spent her entire life worrying about offending people. She had worked at the post office for thirty years and was accustomed to being polite to everyone. Now a woman she barely knew had called and declared her guilty—and her mother had accepted the verdict.
“Mom, listen to me. Dad is in the hospital. You have more important things to think about than gifts. Galina Petrovna knows that.”
“She said the hospital wasn’t an excuse.”
Natasha imagined Galina Petrovna deliberately finding her mother’s number and calling her specifically to express her displeasure. She hadn’t called Natasha or Seryozha. She had called a sixty-five-year-old woman who had done absolutely nothing wrong.
“Mom, forget about it. This isn’t your problem. I’ll deal with it.”
She didn’t deal with it.
Seryozha returned from Tula on Thursday. He brought a traditional Tula gingerbread in a beautiful box, placed it on the table, and said, “This is for you, my banquet-planning heroine.”
He smiled. Then he called his mother and spent twenty minutes talking and laughing with her. From the kitchen, Natasha heard him say:
“Mom, Natasha really did try hard for you. Tell her thank you again, all right?”
His mother’s distant, cheerful voice came through the phone.
“Of course, of course, Seryozhenka. Everything was wonderful.”
Natasha sliced the gingerbread. The knife cut through the dense pastry, dividing the word “Tula” in half.
She could walk over to him right now and say, “Listen to what your mother says behind our backs.” She could tell him about her own mother—about how Galina Petrovna had called an older woman whose husband was recovering from surgery and accused her of being stingy.
Seryozha ended the call and came into the kitchen.
“Mom is happy. She says her friends are still talking about the party. I think Tamara wants the same kind of birthday celebration for herself.”
“That’s good,” Natasha said.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
“I’m tired. It’s the reports.”
He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and buried his nose in her neck. He was warm, familiar, and completely unsuspecting. Natasha stroked his hand and thought: If I tell him, he’ll be upset. He’ll try to sort it out, call his mother, and she’ll deny everything—or, even worse, accuse Natasha of eavesdropping. Seryozha will be trapped between us. He doesn’t know how to choose sides. He’ll suffer, and nothing will become better for anyone.
Natasha remained silent.
A week later, Galina Petrovna called her as though nothing had happened. Her voice was calm and businesslike.
“Natasha, I need you to do something for me. I have to go to the clinic on Kashirka, but I don’t know how to make an appointment through that internet of yours. Can you do it?”
“Of course, Galina Petrovna. Read me your insurance policy number.”
Her mother-in-law dictated the numbers while Natasha entered them on the mos.ru website and thought: So this is how it is. You called my celebration a circus. You called my mother and upset her. And now you call me as though nothing happened—because, for you, nothing did happen. You simply said what you thought in your usual voice to your usual friend. I was never supposed to hear it.
“I booked you for Wednesday at ten thirty. With a general practitioner.”
“Thank you, Natasha. You’re indispensable to us.”
Natasha ended the call and stared at the screen for a long time.
Indispensable.
Convenient, obedient, indispensable.
The months passed. Natasha did not confront her mother-in-law, become openly cold, or cut her out of her life. She simply stopped trying. It didn’t happen in a single day. It happened gradually, almost imperceptibly to everyone except Natasha herself.
On International Women’s Day, she did not call Galina Petrovna first. She sent a short message with a ready-made greeting card from the internet. Her mother-in-law either did not notice or pretended not to.
When her mother-in-law’s birthday approached, Natasha said to Seryozha:
“This time, you decide how we’re going to celebrate. She’s your mother.”
He was surprised, but he agreed. He reserved a table at an inexpensive café near his mother’s home, the kind of place that served business lunches and had plastic flowers on the tables.
“Shouldn’t we at least have a homemade cake?” he asked.
“Order one from Tortugalia. Your mother said herself that store-bought cakes are just as good.”
Seryozha looked at her for a long moment, studying her carefully. But he did not ask any questions.
April nineteenth. The Beryozka Café on Akademika Korolyova Street.
A table beside the wall with four chairs. Seryozha, Natasha, and Galina Petrovna. Tamara and Zoya had not been invited; Seryozha simply hadn’t thought of them.
The cake was from Tortugalia—a standard Napoleon cake in a transparent plastic box. Seryozha placed an envelope beside it. Five thousand rubles. He and Natasha had agreed on the amount in advance.
“Happy birthday, Mom,” Seryozha said, embracing her.
“Happy birthday, Galina Petrovna,” Natasha said.
She smiled politely and evenly.
Her mother-in-law sat down and looked over the table. A menu in a folder. Napkins in a glass. A cake in a box. An envelope.
“Thank you,” she said.
She picked up the envelope, looked inside, and placed it in her handbag.
They ordered their food. Galina Petrovna chose chicken Kyiv and a Caesar salad. She ate in silence. Seryozha tried to maintain a conversation, talking about work, the neighbors, and renovations in the entrance hall of their apartment building. His mother answered in monosyllables.
“What about Tamara and Zoya?” she suddenly asked.
“We didn’t invite them,” Seryozha replied. “We decided to keep it within the immediate family.”
Galina Petrovna nodded and placed her fork on the edge of her plate.
“Last year felt more… heartfelt. Do you remember, Natasha? You baked that cake. A honey cake, I think.”
Natasha took a sip of coffee.
“I remember, Galina Petrovna. But you said yourself that money would be better.”
Silence fell over the table.
Seryozha looked at Natasha and then at his mother. Galina Petrovna raised her eyes toward Natasha—quickly and sharply—and then immediately looked away.
“I never said that.”
“Then I must have imagined it,” Natasha said calmly, without applying any pressure. “Would you like more coffee?”
Seryozha opened his mouth and then closed it again. He did not understand what had just happened, but he could feel that something had tightened between the two women—and that he was standing directly in the middle of it.
Galina Petrovna finished her chicken. They cut the cake there at the table. The waitress brought disposable plates. The store-bought Napoleon was sickeningly sweet, with white cream that stuck to the roof of the mouth. Her mother-in-law ate her entire slice.
An hour later, Natasha stood up.
“Galina Petrovna, we need to go. Seryozha will drive you home.”
“I’ll take the metro. There’s no need.”
“Mom, I’ll drive you,” Seryozha said.
“There’s no need.”
She stood and buttoned her coat. She looked at Natasha for no more than a second. There was something in her expression that resembled confusion, but Natasha wasn’t certain. With Galina Petrovna, it was impossible ever to know for sure.
“Thank you for lunch,” her mother-in-law said.
She turned and walked toward the exit.
Seryozha began fussing with his jacket, the bill, and the tip. Natasha gathered the disposable plates from the table—hers, Seryozha’s, and her mother-in-law’s. She stacked them together and placed the paper napkins on top. Then she picked up the empty cake box, with nothing but crumbs left at the bottom, and carried it to the trash bin near the entrance.
The lid of the bin fell shut with a metallic clang.