“Son, the safe is empty! Where’s the money?!” Larisa Nikolaevna’s voice came from the bedroom before I had even managed to take off my shoes.
I stopped in the hallway.
Someone had already searched the apartment thoroughly. One of the dresser drawers had been pulled open, a kitchen cabinet door was hanging ajar, and an unzipped bag containing documents lay on the bed. Boxes of winter clothes had been taken out of the wardrobe.
Pavel was standing beside the open safe.
“What are you doing here?”
Larisa Nikolaevna turned around as though my unexpected return was merely preventing her from dealing with an important family matter.
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. Pavel said the money was kept here.”
I looked at my husband.
He pushed the safe deeper into the wardrobe and finally turned toward me.
“Let’s stay calm. Mom doesn’t have enough money for an apartment. We were going to talk about it.”
“You had to search my entire apartment in order to have a conversation?”
Pavel said nothing.
Larisa Nikolaevna picked up a box from the floor and placed it on the bed.
“No one searched anything. I was looking for an envelope. Pavel said you kept a large amount of money at home.”
“How did you know where it was kept?”
My mother-in-law looked at her son.
That brief glance told me everything I needed to know.
I walked over to the wardrobe, put the boxes back, and picked up the bag containing my documents.
“Get out of this room.”
“First explain where the money went,” Larisa Nikolaevna said. “I need to give them an answer about the apartment by Friday.”
“I’m not discussing your apartment right now.”
Pavel stepped between us.
“Don’t turn this into something it isn’t. Mom came here to talk.”
I pointed toward the open safe.
“This is how she talks?”
He irritably ran his hand along the edge of the wardrobe.
“You’re the one making everything complicated.”
It became clear that I wasn’t going to get any real explanation while his mother was there.
“Larisa Nikolaevna, leave the key and go.”
For several seconds, she stood beside the bed without moving.
“What key?”
“The one you used to enter my apartment while I wasn’t home.”
Pavel immediately intervened.
“I gave her a spare key. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.”
My mother-in-law removed a key from her key ring and placed it on the dresser.
“Wonderful. Are you happy now?”
“Now leave.”
Larisa Nikolaevna picked up her handbag and headed toward the hallway.
Near the front door, however, she stopped.
“I hoped you were capable of treating family properly.”
I didn’t answer.
A minute later, Pavel and I were alone.
He went back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.
“Why did you have to throw Mom out?”
I remained standing.
“How does she know the safe combination?”
Pavel rubbed his chin.
“I told her.”
“Why?”
He looked away toward the table.
“Because she needs money.”
Only then did the conversation finally reach the real issue.
“How much?”
Pavel paused.
“One million.”
I slowly took off my jacket and hung it in the hallway. There was no longer any reason to hurry.
“You wanted to ask me for a million rubles?”
“Not exactly like that.”
He got up from the table and started speaking faster.
“Mom found a good apartment. She’s short on money. You had that amount sitting at home anyway, and you didn’t buy the car. I thought we could help.”
“You thought we could help, or you had already decided something?”
“What difference does it make?”
“A big one.”
Pavel irritably pushed his chair aside.
“Why is it perfectly normal for you to help your mother, but suddenly impossible when it comes to mine?”
For the first time during the entire conversation, I heard not a request, but an accusation.
And I remembered several questions he had asked recently—questions that, until that evening, had never seemed connected.
On May 15, my plan to buy a used car from an acquaintance had fallen through. The seller initially wanted to be paid in cash, but on the day of the sale, she changed her mind about selling the vehicle.
The money remained at home.
Pavel had seen the envelope and knew how much was inside.
That spring, I had inherited a bank deposit worth 1,480,000 rubles. It wasn’t a family secret. My husband had seen the documents and knew that I had already promised most of the money to my mother.
She was selling her old apartment and looking for something smaller. She didn’t have quite enough money for a suitable option.
After the car purchase fell through, Pavel asked about the cash twice.
First, he asked whether I was looking for another car.
I told him I had postponed the purchase.
He immediately followed up with another question.
“So the money is still at home?”
At the time, I didn’t think much of it.
Later, he brought up the subject of buying an apartment for Larisa Nikolaevna. I suggested that we discuss helping her from our shared household budget.
Pavel replied that a small amount wouldn’t be enough for his mother.
That was where the conversation ended.
At least, that was what I had believed.
On May 18, I transferred 1,200,000 rubles to my mother, just as we had agreed in the spring. I returned the remaining 280,000 rubles to my bank account.
I didn’t tell Pavel.
After his questions, I no longer felt comfortable keeping that much cash at home.
Now the reason behind those questions was standing right in front of me.
“Where’s the money?” Pavel asked again.
I took out my phone and opened the transfer receipt from May 18.
He read the information on the screen.
His expression didn’t change immediately. At first, he seemed to be checking the date, then the amount.
“You already transferred it?”
“Yes.”
“One million two hundred thousand?”
“Yes.”
I put my phone away.
Pavel paced several steps around the kitchen.
“And you didn’t even discuss it with me?”
“We’re not discussing my transfer right now. We’re discussing why your mother knew the combination to my safe and came here looking for my money.”
He stopped beside the table.
“I already explained. She doesn’t have enough.”
“That explains why she wanted the money. It doesn’t explain why you decided to give her the safe combination.”
Pavel irritably picked up his keys from the table.
“You’re blowing an ordinary family situation completely out of proportion.”
“An ordinary family situation is when someone asks me first.”
He didn’t respond.
I remembered the first thing Larisa Nikolaevna had said.
She hadn’t asked, “Can you help?”
She hadn’t suggested, “Let’s discuss it.”
She had demanded, “Where’s the money?”
She hadn’t come to ask for it.
She had come to collect money she believed had already been promised to her.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
Pavel started fastening the pocket of his jacket even though he wasn’t preparing to leave.
“That you would probably help.”
“Was that all?”
“What else would I have said?”
He answered too quickly.
I didn’t continue questioning him.
“You’re staying at your mother’s tonight.”
Pavel looked up.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Because of one conversation?”
I pointed toward the bedroom.
“Because of everything that happened before the conversation.”
He tried explaining again that he had given his mother the spare key a long time ago, that he had only given her the safe combination that morning, and that Larisa Nikolaevna had supposedly decided on her own to check the safe.
It didn’t change anything.
Pavel had provided her with everything she needed.
That evening, he packed a sports bag and left.
I stayed in my apartment.
I didn’t immediately put everything back in its place. First, I organized the documents, checked the drawers, and returned the boxes to the wardrobe.
The key Larisa Nikolaevna had left behind was still lying on the dresser.
Beside that key were far too many answers to questions that hadn’t even existed that morning.
On Friday, my mother called me.
I was at work, so I stepped away from my desk so my colleagues wouldn’t hear the conversation.
“Larisa Nikolaevna is messaging me,” Mom said. “She’s asking me to return the transfer.”
“Asking?”
“She was asking at first. Now she’s explaining that Pavel promised her everything and that the apartment deal fell through because of you.”
I froze beside an empty meeting area.
“What exactly did he promise?”
Mom opened the messages and summarized several of them for me.
Larisa Nikolaevna wrote as though my million rubles had already been included in her financial calculations before the day she came to my apartment.
Pavel hadn’t simply hoped that he could persuade me.
He had told his mother in advance that she would have the money.
“Don’t answer her anymore,” I asked.
Mom was silent for a moment.
“I can return the transfer if that would make things easier for you.”
“No. We agreed on this back in spring.”
After the call, I didn’t immediately return to my desk.
Now I understood why Larisa Nikolaevna had demanded to know where the money was when I first walked into the apartment.
As far as she was concerned, the matter had already been settled.
All that remained was to hear how Pavel planned to explain it.
On Saturday, he came to collect his belongings.
He entered the apartment alone and immediately started packing boxes. He folded his clothes, collected his tools from the balcony, and gathered his cables and chargers.
I didn’t interfere.
When the final box was sitting in the hallway, Pavel sat down on a chair.
“Mom gave up on that apartment,” he said. “Without the million, she can’t afford it.”
I placed his sports bag beside the boxes.
“She messaged my mother and said you promised her the money in advance.”
Pavel slowly ran his hand across the top of the box.
“I told her we were helping.”
“Before you spoke to me?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
This time, however, there was nowhere left for him to hide.
“Yes.”
I sat down opposite him.
Pavel explained that Larisa Nikolaevna had found an apartment and asked him for help. He had assumed convincing me would be easy. After all, I was already planning to give money to my own mother, so he assumed I would agree to his request as well.
“So you promised her a million first, and only afterward planned to speak to me?”
“I was sure we would come to an agreement.”
“We didn’t.”
Pavel pressed his lips together and looked back at the box.
“That’s why I asked Mom to talk to you.”
“And gave her the safe combination.”
He nodded.
Now everything finally made sense.
Larisa Nikolaevna hadn’t accidentally ended up with the spare key.
She hadn’t accidentally received the safe combination.
She hadn’t accidentally learned about the cash.
Pavel had first made a decision about money that didn’t belong to him. And when I failed to agree with his plan, he decided to increase the pressure by involving his mother.
There was no longer any room to call this a simple family misunderstanding.
“I want a divorce.”
Pavel looked up.
“Because of a million?”
I pushed his box closer toward the entrance.
“You never had that million. The problem is that you had already decided what to do with it.”
He sat silently for a while.
“There’s really no way to fix this?”
“No.”
Pavel picked up his boxes and sports bag.
Before leaving, he removed his key to the apartment from his key ring and placed it beside the one his mother had returned two days earlier.
I didn’t stop him.
On May 27, we filed for divorce together. We had no children, and there was no apartment to divide because I had owned it before we got married.
Our marriage officially ended on June 29.
Pavel never brought up the money again.
Larisa Nikolaevna gave up on the apartment she had chosen that same Saturday. She didn’t have the million Pavel had promised her, and she could no longer count on receiving my money.
My mother kept the 1,200,000 rubles for her apartment purchase, exactly as we had agreed in the spring.
I didn’t buy a car.
For a while, I took the bus to work, while the remaining money stayed safely in my bank account.
Once I had the finalized divorce documents in my hands, I moved the safe into the storage room and changed the combination.
Inside were my passport, documents for the apartment, and backup bank cards.
Two returned keys were still lying on the cabinet in the hallway.
I picked them up and put them inside a drawer.
Neither of them belonged to Pavel or his mother anymore.