“Mom is counting on us for the payments,” Vadim announced, carefully soaking up the last bit of sour cream from his plate with a piece of bread.
He said this with the tone of a government official delivering a new, non-negotiable decree. He even lifted his chin a little for extra emphasis, causing a crumb to fall from his lip right onto the clean tablecloth.
I gently placed my cup of coffee on the table. In our family, the word ‘payments’ lately meant just one thing. In a few days, after a long audit, the tax office was finally supposed to transfer my property tax refund.
For anyone who’s never dealt with this process, let me clarify one small but crucial detail. Getting a tax refund for buying real estate is not like winning the lottery, snagging an unexpected bonus, or receiving a sudden windfall. It’s simply the return of my own income tax. The same thirteen percent that the authorities have been deducting for years from my hard-earned, fully legal salary as a financial analyst. To get this money back, I gathered documents, filled out declarations, waited three months for a desk audit, and regularly checked my taxpayer account online.
I had every right to that refund. Three years ago, two months before Vadim and I registered our marriage, I bought a spacious two-room apartment. I paid for it with years of savings and money left over from selling my grandma’s inheritance. I remember the place when it was just bare concrete walls and the smell of primer. I picked out the tiles on sale myself, fought with the workers, and cleaned the construction dust off the windows on my own. Every last square inch and strip of baseboard was mine. Vadim only moved in once he became my husband, bringing with him an impressive collection of fishing rods, two suitcases of clothes, and the rock-solid confidence that his very presence blessed the place.
“So, which payments exactly is Zinaida Pavlovna expecting?” I asked, watching as my husband popped the soaked bread into his mouth and closed his eyes in satisfaction.
“Well,” Vadim looked at me with the condescension of someone explaining multiplication tables to a child. “Your tax refund, of course. It’s a decent amount. Mom’s about to start building a bathhouse at the country house. Ilya and I had a talk and decided this money would be perfect for a good, high-quality log structure.”
I froze, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what I’d just heard. ‘Ilya and I had a talk and decided to use your money.’ Ilya is my husband’s thirty-five-year-old younger brother—a man with a delicate and complicated soul who’s spent the last decade searching for his true purpose. He’s tried running a healthy eating vlog, raising pedigree snails for sale, and now he’s simply recovering from his latest burnout. While he’s been finding himself, Zinaida Pavlovna has fed, clothed, and housed him, occasionally tapping into her eldest son’s finances.
“So you all held a meeting,” I repeated slowly, tasting every word. “And made a decision. Democracy sure works in fascinating ways in your family. At what point were you planning to involve the person who actually owns the money in your vote?”
Vadim frowned in annoyance. He genuinely disliked it when I slipped into my work mode, analytical and sharp. He much preferred it when I just nodded along with whatever was decided.
“Anya, come on, why are you starting this? We’re one family. This money is basically the budget gifting you something for nothing. Consider yourself lucky. Mom needs a bathhouse. Last year, Maria Ivanovna’s son-in-law built her a two-story one out of timber, and Mom couldn’t sleep the whole season, she was so upset, always popping pills. Besides, the doctor told Ilyukha to use the steam room because of his vascular dystonia—it’s good for his blood vessels.”
Charming. Turns out the tax office just hands out money left and right, and my ultimate purpose in life is to make sure Ilya gets preventative care for imaginary conditions, so that Zinaida Pavlovna can show up the neighbor at the dacha.
“Vadik,” I folded my hands on the table. “Let’s clear up some basic financial concepts. This isn’t ‘luck.’ These are my taxes. This is a refund for my apartment, which neither you, nor your mom, and certainly not your Ilya with his dystonia, have anything to do with. I planned to add this money to my savings and put it in a high-yield account. Or maybe take care of my teeth—implants cost as much as half a local car these days.”
My husband’s face took on an expression of deep, almost biblical disappointment. He looked at me as if I’d just suggested putting his mother in a nursing home.
“Teeth?” he echoed reproachfully. “Anya, seriously, your teeth can wait a couple years. The bathhouse is real estate. It’s our family home base! It’s your mother’s health! Don’t you get how much this means to her? She’s already found a crew. We’re going to the dacha on Saturday—she wants to show you the project and talk over everything.”
“Oh, so I’m even invited to the presentation?” I smirked, gathering up the dishes. “How flattering. Usually, investors get a heads-up beforehand.”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” Vadim grumbled, heaving himself up from the table. “Mom treats you like family, and here you are, sitting on your money like a miser. We’re married. Your income is our joint income. That’s the law, you know.”
He marched off into the living room with pride, leaving me alone with the dirty plate and a sudden revelation. Funny how when it comes to my extra income, Vadim remembers the Family Code perfectly. But two months ago, when he got his yearly bonus and secretly bought himself a state-of-the-art gaming laptop for a hundred and fifty thousand, that law about shared earnings completely vanished from his mind. Back then, he just called it ‘a toy to help him de-stress.’
By the weekend, I’d had some time to think it over, and my curiosity started to outweigh my irritation. I really did want to see just how far people can go when they’re absolutely sure of themselves but totally lacking in common sense. So, on Saturday morning, we got in the car and headed off to my mother-in-law’s dacha.
The entire drive, Vadim couldn’t stop telling me about the health benefits of using the bathhouse and how amazing our summer evenings would be there. I only half-listened, my attention drawn to the trees rushing past the window as I mentally calculated all the possible scenarios that could unfold.
Zinaida Pavlovna greeted us at the porch of her brick house. She was a large, commanding woman with a flawlessly sculpted hairstyle lacquered to perfection. Somehow, even when she was working in the strawberry beds, she managed to look like an inspector from the Ministry of Agriculture, about to start writing fines for improper manure handling.
In the gazebo, cobbled together from old planks, the table was already set. On a plastic sunflower-patterned tablecloth, slices of sweating cheese were arranged next to some doctor’s sausage of a suspiciously pale pink shade and a huge electric kettle. At the table, Ilya sat deeply engrossed in his phone, not even looking up when we arrived. He just gave a vague grunt by way of greeting while scrolling through the news feed.
“Anechka, my dear girl, come in!” My mother-in-law threw her arms open as if I had brought her the keys to a brand new foreign car. Given how much a good log house costs these days, that comparison wasn’t far from the truth.
We sat down at the table. The plastic chairs creaked plaintively under us. Zinaida Pavlovna wasn’t one to waste precious time on small talk about the weather or zucchini harvests. She always preferred to get straight to the point and think big. Sliding the plate of sausage to the edge of the table, she ceremoniously unfurled a large sheet of poster board onto the tablecloth.
“Here!” she declared, catching her breath as she smoothed the edges of the blueprint with her plump hands. “The project. Two floors. Downstairs, a steam room made of prime Altai cedar, a washing room with a pouring bucket, and a spacious relaxation room. Upstairs, an attic with big windows. That will be Ilyusha’s billiard room. He’s been wanting a place to concentrate for ages.”
I leaned over the blueprint. Someone had painstakingly marked everything out with a pencil and ruler. The project clearly required serious investment.
“It looks beautiful,” I admitted sincerely as I studied the layout. “But who’s the sponsor behind this architectural masterpiece? Altai cedar isn’t cheap nowadays, not to mention the delivery costs.”
My mother-in-law gave me a slightly reproachful look, as if I were a child who didn’t quite get it or was a bit slow on the uptake.
“Who else, Anechka? We talked it all over as a family. Vadik said you’re getting the state bonus in your account any day now—for the apartment. So we all thought, why let that money just sit on your card and get eaten away by inflation? It should go into something lasting! Health! Family!”
“State bonus?” I couldn’t help but give a short smile. “Zinaida Pavlovna, that’s a tax refund. It’s just the return of my own paid taxes.”
— Oh, who cares what your accountants call it in their paperwork! — she waved her hand dismissively, as if swatting away a pesky fly. — The main thing is that it’s easy money, totally unexpected! You didn’t even have to do anything to earn it—just filled out a form and sent it off. And think about it: a real bathhouse! Imagine, you come home from work tired on Friday, we’ll steam up a fresh oak broom for you, brew some healthy herbal tea… Pure bliss! And just wait—our neighbor will be green with envy.
— I have high blood pressure, — I calmly reminded her, looking my mother-in-law straight in the eyes. — The doctors strictly forbid me from using saunas or being exposed to sudden temperature changes. My blood vessels just can’t handle that kind of happiness.
For a few seconds, everyone around the table stopped chewing and clinking their forks. Somewhere in the distance, a lawnmower droned on monotonously. Ilya finally tore his eyes away from his phone and shot me an obviously annoyed look.
— Then you just won’t go in the steam room, — he declared with great wisdom, as if he’d solved some complex puzzle. — You can relax in the lounge, sit on the couch, and drink tea from a thermos. What, you’re going to be stingy with your relatives? And by the way, Mom isn’t getting any younger. She needs to improve her health, not get stressed out.
I shifted my gaze from Ilya to my mother-in-law, and then to my husband. Vadim sat there with an important, puffed-up look, clearly reveling in the united and close-knit family he believed he’d created.
— Zinaida Pavlovna, — I spoke evenly and clearly, making sure every word carried over the fresh air of the country house. — A sauna is a wonderful idea. And taking care of our health is truly important. But the money I’m expecting has already been allocated. I have my own very strict financial plans, which absolutely do not include buying Altai cedar, pouring concrete, or building a billiard room on the second floor.
My mother-in-law froze, her piece of sausage still halfway to her mouth. A deep crimson blush spread quickly over her cheeks.
— What do you mean, allocated? — she faltered for a moment, but then her voice turned sharp and demanding. — Vadik said the money was free! That you hadn’t even decided what to do with it yet!
— Vadik was mistaken, — I replied sweetly, giving my husband a smile, who suddenly became very interested in the pattern on the tablecloth. — Vadik is fond of making things up sometimes, especially when it comes to other people’s budgets and other people’s plans.
— Other people’s? — Zinaida Pavlovna slammed her cup down on its saucer so hard that tea splashed right onto the drawn-up billiard room plans. The paper instantly puckered. — You’re husband and wife! Everything in this house is shared! What right do you have to hide this kind of money from your family when we’re supposed to be building right now?!
— Exactly! — Ilya chimed in, realizing his dream of a billiard table was rapidly slipping away along with his hopes for a comfortable retreat. — You became part of this family, you need to understand our priorities. Mom already worked everything out with the foreman. Tomorrow morning we’ve got to pay a hefty down payment for the materials, or else someone else will get all that timber.
I felt something click inside me, like an invisible switch being flipped. My analytical mind instantly started connecting the dots.
“Tomorrow? An advance?” I turned to my husband. “Vadim, where exactly are we supposed to get an advance from tomorrow morning if my tax refund won’t arrive for at least another five to seven days?”
His ears went bright red. He suddenly looked away and started poking the edge of his plate with his fork, very intently.
“Well…” he mumbled, avoiding my gaze. “The foreman said that lumber prices are going up literally every week. We had to lock in the price quickly while they were offering a discount. I… actually, I took out a personal loan through the app. In my name. Three hundred thousand. Just enough to hand over the advance and pour the foundation faster. And when your refund comes in, we’d just pay it off at once. It’d take five minutes, tops.”
Everyone in the gazebo fell silent all at once. The only sound was the neighbor’s dog barking its head off in the yard next door.
I stared at my husband, feeling an odd, almost unfamiliar emotion. It wasn’t anger or resentment. It was pure, scientific curiosity about the scale of human naïveté. He took out a personal loan. At a sky-high interest rate. In his own name. To build a sauna for his mom. Planning to pay off that loan with my refund, something he hadn’t even bothered to tell me about ahead of time, dropping the news on me over a piece of bologna.
“Brilliant move,” I finally said, breaking the silence. “It’s like Wall Street on a field trip. So you voluntarily dove into debt with a ridiculous interest rate to buy wood for Ilya’s entertainment, and then made me the general sponsor of this whole thing without even asking me?”
“Oh stop with your ‘my opinion, my money’ nonsense!” Zinaida Pavlovna exploded. She heaved herself up from the table, looming over us. “You live in our family, in our house! My son treats you like a queen! Does he pay the utility bills for you? He does! Does he bring food into the house? He does! And here you are, pinching pennies from your own mother-in-law when all she wants is to warm her bones in her old age!”
“We pay the utilities strictly half and half,” I calmly corrected, looking at the furious woman. “And Vadim buys exactly the amount of groceries he eats himself in front of the TV in one evening. Let’s be direct and honest, Zinaida Pavlovna. The apartment is mine. I paid the taxes from my own salary. The refund goes into my personal account. And I alone will decide how it is spent.”
“You’re a calculating, heartless egotist!” Ilya spat, tossing his phone onto the table. “We’ve opened our hearts to you, accepted you as one of our own—and you’d choke over a few pieces of paper! You begrudge something for your own family!”
“Ilya, my dear,” I looked at my brother-in-law with genuine pity. “If you truly need a billiard room so badly, get a steady job. They say daily work builds character. You could even haul the logs for the construction site yourself—it’s a great warm-up and excellent for staving off dystonia. Free and good for you.”
“How dare you boss my son around!” Zinaida Pavlovna clutched at the collar of her blouse, dramatically faking a sudden attack. The move was clearly perfected over the years and looked ridiculously staged, like something out of a bad movie. “Vadik! Do you hear how she talks to us?! Say something! Make her show some respect! Are you the man of the house or what?!”
Vadim jumped up so fast that the lightweight plastic chair toppled over onto the grass.
“Anya, you’re crossing the line! Apologize to my mother right now! And I don’t want to hear any more of this about ‘your money.’ You’ll transfer it all to my account the day it comes in—every last penny. I’ll pay off this loan myself before the interest starts piling up. That’s my final word, and don’t you even think about arguing with me.”
I stood up slowly from the table, taking a deep breath of pine, the scent of barbecue roasting somewhere nearby, and the promise of freedom from someone else’s madness that was finally drawing close.
“Your final word, Vadik, was said the moment you clicked ‘Agree’ on the loan agreement,” I replied, keeping my voice calm, almost gentle. “I wish you both a wonderful weekend. Don’t forget to dry out the blueprint, otherwise the measurements will run and your foundation will turn out crooked.”
I turned around and calmly walked down the path towards the gate.
“Where do you think you’re going?! Stop right there! How are you even getting back to the city—my car is here!” my husband shouted after me, clearly stunned by this turn of events.
“By train, Vadik,” I replied without looking back as I unlatched the gate. “Just forty minutes with the rhythm of the wheels, and I’ll be home. In my own apartment.”
The train station was just a short walk away. As I strolled along the dusty cottage road, overtaking other weekenders pulling carts, I felt a perfect, unshakeable calm inside. You know that rare feeling when all the scattered fragments suddenly come together into a clear, complete picture? Up until today, I kept trying to find some kind of compromise, telling myself that Vadim was just too attached to his mother, that they simply had a strong family tradition of mutual support. But today the fog finally lifted. They never saw me as a full member of the family with a voice of my own. To them, I was just a convenient resource. An endless ATM who also cooked for free and kept the house clean.
Once I got back to the city, I stepped into my hallway. The apartment felt surprisingly quiet and clean. No one was banging the fridge door looking for their greasy snack, no one was scattering socks everywhere, and no one was telling me how I should be eternally grateful to share a roof with such an amazing and generous person.
I made myself a strong, fresh cup of tea, opened my work laptop, and logged into my online bank.
Thanks to modern technology, everything can be done in just a few clicks now. I opened the settings on my personal account, the one where my tax refund was supposed to arrive. I carefully checked all the details to make sure Vadim had no access to it—honestly, he never even asked, always preferring that I simply transfer my share for daily expenses onto his main card myself.
After that, I found the right section in the menu and with just a couple of clicks opened a deposit. The very one I’d been considering for so long. The “Maximum Profit” plan—no withdrawals allowed for twelve months without losing all the accumulated interest. It felt like my solid legal and financial shield against any intrusions. The moment the money comes in, it’ll go straight there.
That evening, Vadim didn’t come home. Apparently, he stayed at the summer house to calm his upset mother and come up with a new master plan for extracting my rebellious hundreds of thousands. He only showed up the next day, late Sunday evening. He looked gloomy, extremely focused, carrying himself like a tired man weighed down by the burden of responsibility for all his misguided relatives.
He walked into the kitchen where I was calmly having roasted fish for dinner, silently poured himself a glass of cold water from the filter, and sat down heavily across from me.
“I decided to give you some time to cool off and reflect on your behavior,” he said in a patronizing, lecturing tone. “You lost your temper yesterday. It happens with women, especially with work stress and nerves. I get it, and I don’t hold it against you. Mom, of course, cried a lot after you left. Her blood pressure shot up, she had to take pills. But she’s a wise woman, called me this morning and said she’s ready to forgive you.”
I almost choked on a piece of fish.
“Forgive me? For what exactly? For not jumping at the chance to pay for cubic meters of Altai cedar for her unemployed baby boy?”
“Anya, please stop being sarcastic, we’re adults here,” Vadim grimaced in annoyance. “Early this morning I sent a large advance to the foreman from the credit money. Tomorrow at dawn, the first batch of materials will be delivered and they’ll start digging. There’s no turning back now. Let’s settle this calmly. As soon as you get your tax refund, you transfer it to me—no drama, no arguments. I’ll immediately pay off that ridiculous loan. And we’ll forget this whole summer house incident ever happened.”
He looked at me with such confidence that I almost had to laugh. He truly believed his plan was flawless. That his condescending tone would make me feel ashamed of my supposed ‘stinginess’ and I’d immediately rush to give him the money he wanted.
“Vadik,” I set my utensils at the edge of the plate. “I don’t think you understood me at all. Or maybe you just didn’t hear me yesterday over the neighbor’s lawnmower. My money isn’t going into this construction. Not a cent.”
“What do you mean, not a cent?” His eyebrows shot right up. “Did they refuse you in the paperwork? Did they find a mistake in your tax return?”
“The tax office checked and approved everything a while ago. The money will be in on Tuesday morning. But I won’t be transferring a single ruble to pay off your personal debts.”
Vadim leaned forward, nearly knocking over his glass of water. His patronizing smile vanished in an instant, replaced by pure, unmistakable anger.
“Have you completely lost your mind with your obsession about saving? Didn’t I speak clearly? I’ve already paid a non-refundable deposit! Now I’ve got a massive debt with crazy interest rates! How am I supposed to make those monthly payments to the bank?!”
“And how do you think?” I widened my eyes, genuinely surprised. “With your own salary, obviously. You’re a grown man, a provider, you make strong decisions. You took on the responsibility with the bank— so pay according to the schedule. That’s basic financial responsibility. And Ilya can get a job as a loader at the building supply store, help his older brother pay off the debts. Because you’re a close-knit family, right? You never leave your own in trouble.”
“I already spend half my salary on this apartment!” he shouted, jumping up from the table. “I buy expensive groceries for the house! I pay the utility bills every month! You just sit here with everything ready-made and only top up your own accounts!”
There it is, the moment of truth. I’ve been waiting such a long time for him to finally drop that old ‘provider’ argument.
I calmly stood up, walked to the hallway dresser, pulled out my work tablet, and opened up a spreadsheet in Excel with all our expenses. After all, I’m an analyst, and I love concrete numbers. Numbers don’t freak out, don’t try to manipulate, and never ask you to build a sauna. Numbers just show the plain, boring truth.
“Let’s see who’s really doing what around here, Vadik,” I turned the tablet screen right toward his face. “Here’s a detailed table of our everyday expenses for the last six months. I keep it for myself. The red column is what you transfer. The blue one is what I spend. We split utilities evenly—no complaints there. But food… You contribute exactly fifteen thousand rubles to our shared budget each month. I add twenty-five thousand more. And still, I eat mainly oatmeal with water, veggies, and chicken breast, while you insist on fancy Miratorg steaks every night, pricey dry-cured sausage, and you regularly buy imported craft beer.”
Vadim opened his mouth, trying to interrupt me, but I raised my hand, signaling for silence.
“Wait, there’s more. Let’s keep going. All the household supplies, laundry gels, shampoos, dishwashing tablets—all bought by me. Cat food and vet bills? Also me. The repair for your car last month, when the strut broke—you took thirty-five thousand from our shared vacation fund and never put it back. And now here’s the most interesting part. I recently analyzed your regular money transfers, ever since you asked me to set up autopayments for you last month. Every single month, like clockwork, you wire your mom twenty thousand rubles. How did you label that? ‘For vitamins and support.’ Meanwhile, your perfectly healthy brother Ilya just lounges at her place all day playing video games.”
My husband turned pale. Clearly, he hadn’t expected me to be so aware—down to the details—of his little secret acts of charity.
“She’s my own mother! I have every moral right to help her!” he tried to go on the offensive, raising his fists.
— You absolutely have that unquestionable right, — I agreed willingly, keeping my voice calm. — But for some reason, you decided to help your mother at my personal expense. Because those twenty thousand you send Zinaida Pavlovna every month for vitamins are missing from our shared family budget for groceries, and I’m quietly covering for it out of my own pocket. So, Vadik, starting today, we’re making a major change to the rules of the game in this house.
— What new rules? — he snapped, clearly starting to lose confidence and his footing.
— Very simple and straightforward ones. Separate finances. The right shelf in the fridge is yours, the left shelf is mine. We’ll split water and electricity bills exactly down the middle, strictly according to the statement. There won’t be any more ‘shared emergency funds’ in the drawer. Your salary is now solely your business – as well as your steaks. And that huge loan for your mom’s sauna? Also, entirely your individual problem.
— You… you’re just a greedy, mercenary woman! — Vadim spat out, his shoulder jerking in anger. He was literally shaking with rage. The illusion of an obedient, convenient, wealthy wife crumbled right before his eyes, and he had no idea how to put it all back together. — If you do such a vile thing to me, I’ll file for divorce immediately!
I looked at him calmly, without any drama or theatrics.
— That’s not a threat, Vadim. It’s simply the logical conclusion of a project that’s become very unprofitable for me. If you want to file for divorce, the registry office in our district opens on Tuesday at nine in the morning. Your passport is in your jacket.
He shot into the hallway, grabbed his car keys off the shelf, missed slipping his foot into his sneaker the first time, and slammed the door so hard that the door frame creaked in protest.
The money from the tax office came in on time, as promised in the notification—right on Tuesday morning. The amount was exactly what I’d expected, down to the last ruble. I glanced at the push notification on my phone screen, smiled with satisfaction, and within three minutes, transferred everything to that special savings account. Now those funds were locked in for a year at sixteen percent annual interest. Working only for me—not for fancy cedar panels or someone else’s show-off games with the neighbors.
Toward evening, part two of our dramatic little concert began.
First, Vadim called my cell. His voice was hoarse, broken, and absolutely panicked.
— Anya, — he started, not bothering with greetings or pleasantries. — Tell me they haven’t sent you anything from the budget yet.
— They have, Vadik. Early this morning.
— Thank God! — he breathed out loudly into the phone. — Send me the needed amount right now to my phone number. Hurry!
— I can’t, — I said, pinning the phone between my ear and shoulder as I leisurely poured myself a fresh coffee. — The money is already in a fixed-term deposit. If I withdraw it, I’ll lose all the interest I’d earned for the entire year. I already explained all this to you in detail on Sunday.
There was a long, dragging silence on the line, interrupted only by his heavy and rapid breathing.
— You… you couldn’t have done something so cruel. You knew all about my loan!
“I knew. And I told you directly that I’m not going to pay your bills. Something not going according to plan?”
“Something not going to plan?!” he shouted so loudly the phone speaker crackled. “The foreman arrived an hour ago! Brought half the materials to the site. He’s demanding the second half of the payment for the work, otherwise they won’t even unload the logs—they’ll just drive them away! Mom is having a terrible meltdown, Marya Ivanovna is smirking over the fence! And my card is completely empty! The loan money only covered the wood itself, I have absolutely nothing left to pay the workers!”
“What a terrible shame,” I clicked my tongue sympathetically, taking a sip of coffee. “So what about your Ilya? Isn’t he going to chip in from his own savings for the family’s benefit?”
“What savings? He hasn’t had steady work for three years! Anya, I’m begging you, please withdraw that cursed money! Forget about your interest, you can save it up later! Mom is really unwell, we might actually have to call an ambulance for her from the city!”
“Vadim,” my voice lost any trace of sympathy. “Let me make this clear for you. I do not fund other people’s ambitions or their ‘projects of the century.’ Zinaida Pavlovna wanted to one-up the neighbor—but at my expense. You wanted to play the generous, good son—but again, at my expense. And now that it turns out wishes cost real money, your mom is having a meltdown, and you’re running around in a panic. Figure it out yourselves.”
I calmly ended the call and added his number to my block list for the next 24 hours. I needed a quiet evening and some peace after my workday.
The next few weeks were incredibly eventful, and I watched everything unfold from a distance. Honestly, it felt a bit like I was a biologist observing the strange behavior of small rodents under sudden stress.
Vadim never actually went to the registry office to file for divorce. Apparently, after calculating the cost of even the tiniest one-bedroom apartment rental in our city and comparing it to the massive new loan payment he had, he quickly realized that male pride was a luxury he simply couldn’t afford right now.
He returned home quiet, agreeable, and very somber. Every single day, he transferred exactly half of the utility bills to me without a word. In the evenings, he bought the cheapest pasta on sale at the local supermarket and cooked it for dinner, swallowing hard and sadly watching as I roasted chicken and vegetables. The strict split budget turned out to be a harsh reality, one his doting mother clearly hadn’t prepared him for.
Disaster finally struck the grand bathhouse project at the dacha, and honestly, it was only a matter of time. The foreman, still waiting for the second half of his cash payment, flatly refused to unload the expensive timber. He made quite a scene, loudly demanding compensation for the pointless haul of his truck. Realizing in horror that her free personal bank (me) had closed its doors for good, Zinaida Pavlovna tried to borrow money from the neighbors, including Maria Ivanovna. Rumor has it Maria Ivanovna laughed so loudly she chased away every crow in the neighborhood.
continued in the comments.
So, the foreman hauled the logs back to the warehouse, leaving deep ruts from the truck all over the once-perfect lawn. The plot laid out for the foundation soon became overgrown with weeds. By September, only a few pegs with string were left to remind anyone of the great construction plans. Now, Zinaida Pavlovna stared out the window at this masterpiece, counting up how much her eldest son already owed to the bank. Ilya, having lost all hope for his own billiard room or a comfortable life, sank into a deep funk. He dramatically announced that his talents were withering in this unbearable atmosphere and moved in with a ‘spiritually enlightened’ young woman who spends her days making lopsided clay whistles.
Zinaida Pavlovna called me only once—and from someone else’s phone. She tried to start in with accusations, calling me a ‘viper who destroyed a strong family.’ I very politely suggested she cover the rotting timbers with a tarp before they were completely ruined, and then I hung up.
And Vadim… Vadim is now dutifully making payments every month on his three-hundred-thousand loan, which comes with sky-high interest. Out of his own salary. Considering he’s used to never denying himself anything, every transfer seems to cost him dearly, like he’s ripping the money straight from his heart. Each payday, when he gets that short bank notification about another payment going through, he sighs so heavily and with so much despair, it’s as if he’s a barge hauler dragging against the current.
Last night, I took a peek at my bank’s mobile app. Thanks to monthly interest capitalization, my savings account had grown by a very nice sum. I sat on my own balcony, in my very own, honestly earned apartment, sipping good, fresh coffee, and I realized something about justice. Justice isn’t when everyone suddenly becomes good, apologizes, or finally admits their mistakes. Justice is when arrogance becomes painfully expensive for the arrogant—and you end up comfortably ahead, with your nerves intact and your savings growing.
In the end, his mother really was counting on him for those payments. And now he’s finally doing it. Every month. Straight to the bank.