“Stop pretending to be all hurt and innocent, I can’t stand looking at that twisted face of yours!” Ruslan slammed the wardrobe door so hard that the wooden hangers inside rattled.
He stood in the middle of the bedroom in just his socks and wrinkled pants, feverishly pulling his formal blue tie from the closet. His chubby cheeks trembled slightly, and his lower lip stuck out in a pout—exactly like a five-year-old boy denied his dream toy at the store.
Elena sat silently on the edge of the neatly made bed. Her hands rested calmly on her knees. September sunlight slipped through the yellowed leaves of the old maple outside, scattering dull amber spots across the floor.
“We’ll be celebrating the anniversary without you—Mom says your presence ruins her mood, and this should be a joyful party!” he spat out, finally wrestling the knot on his neck into place. “And stop looking at me like that. Mom’s right. You’re always walking around with that look on your face, like the whole world owes you something. It’s her sixtieth birthday, she deserves to spend this day with people who honestly love her!”
“Does it not bother you at all that half the cost of this banquet at the ‘Volga’ restaurant was covered by my own savings from maternity leave?” Elena asked quietly. Her voice was even, almost casual, though something inside her chest was trembling in a small, unpleasant way.
Ruslan whipped around. His round brown eyes flashed with a mean, bratty spark. He stomped his foot, making the carpet on the floor bend slightly.
“There you go again with your petty counting! Mom always said—you’d remind her of every penny! You’re so petty and cold-hearted! If it weren’t for my mommy, we’d be starving right now! She brings us her potatoes and jams from her own garden! Do you ever think about how hard she works to grow all that?”
Elena drifted back in her mind to three days ago, when that same ‘caring’ potato sat rotting in dirty bags in their hallway. Lidiya Ivanovna had dumped the lumps of dry clay and potatoes right onto the laminate floor, waved her chubby hand with chipped purple polish in a grand gesture, and sped off in a taxi, claiming she had a ‘migraine from all this city stress.’ Elena had to clean up all that mess herself while Ruslan carefully rubbed menthol balm into his mother’s temples.
Lidiya Ivanovna was an incredibly messy woman, yet somehow always managed to seem like the innocent victim to everyone around her. In her own two-bedroom apartment on Lenina street, chaos ruled: cheap candy wrappers had been piling up behind the couch for years, onion peels dried out on the kitchen table, and the dust was so thick and gray that you could write in it with your finger. Yet the mother-in-law loved to boss people around. She’d call Ruslan five times a day, coo at him with ‘my little bunny,’ then suddenly switch to a commanding tone, demanding he bring her some special marshmallows from a bakery across town or imported eye drops right now.
And Ruslan would run. He would drop everything and run, always looking at his mother for approval. He worked as a regular veterinarian at the local clinic, earned modestly, but spent all his spare cash on his mother’s whims. Just like now, he was spending Elena’s nerves.
“I’m not going to beg for my money back, Ruslan,” Elena said, standing up from the bed and walking to the window. “If Lidiya Ivanovna thinks my face will ruin her family album photos, let her have her celebration. But know this: that was the last time I finances her royal demands.”
“Keep your money, then!” her husband shouted, pulling on his jacket. “Tonight, mommy will transfer every last cent back to you! She doesn’t need your charity!”
He stormed out of the bedroom, slamming the front door behind him. Moments later, the screech of brakes from his old Lada echoed under the window—Ruslan always drove recklessly when he was upset.
Elena was left alone in the empty apartment. There were no tears inside her, just a strange, cold determination. She walked to the dresser, opened the bottom drawer, and took out a small velvet box. Inside was an antique gold ring with a large alexandrite, a gift from her grandmother. It was the only thing of true value in her life.
Lidiya Ivanovna had been eyeing that ring for a long time. At every family dinner, she’d repeat the same line: “Oh, Yulenka, what a stone… It would suit my best dress so well. Older women in our region are supposed to wear noble stones, and you young ones just don’t appreciate them.” Elena always changed the subject, but her mother-in-law never gave up, working quietly through her son. The night before, Ruslan even hinted that the best gift for his mother’s birthday would be that very ring. “Do you really begrudge it for Mommy?” he whined in the evening. “She gave her whole life for me!”
Elena clenched the little box in the pocket of her house cardigan. The clock on the wall read eleven in the morning. The banquet at Volga was set for four o’clock. She had enough time.
She got dressed, threw on a light coat, and headed outside. Autumn Torzhok greeted her with the scent of wet asphalt and the rustle of fallen linden leaves. Elena walked confidently toward the central market, where an old acquaintance—Mikhail the jeweler—worked in a small booth.
“Yulya? What brings you here?” Mikhail looked up from his magnifying glass, polishing a silver chain with a flannel cloth.
“Misha, I need a copy made,” Elena said as she placed the ring on a soft velvet pad. “A very precise one. From the cheapest alloy, with glass instead of alexandrite. Can you do it in three hours?”
The jeweler examined the ring carefully, then looked at Elena’s pale face. He’d known her family for a long time and understood the storm clouds hanging over their home.
“I can make it, sure, I’ve got a similar mold,” he replied, shaking his head. “But why do you need this, Yulya? The real stone is unique, it changes color in different light. A fake will be obvious if you look closely.”
“The person it’s meant for won’t bother checking the details,” Elena said with a bitter smile. “She only cares about the gesture itself. Please do it. I’ll pay you double the usual rate.”
At exactly half past three, Elena picked up two rings from the jeweler’s studio. One was heavy, matte gold with a genuine deep gemstone that shimmered purple under the pavilion’s artificial lights. The other was a light, shiny imitation with a bright pink glass stone—flashier and more eye-catching at first glance.
Elena hid the real ring in the farthest pocket of her bag and placed the fake inside the branded velvet box. Before leaving the pavilion, she stopped at the notary office on the next street and filed an official statement. Just in case. The real storm for her family was still ahead.
She took the bus to the “Volga” restaurant. City streets were jammed with cars; everyone seemed to be rushing somewhere on this pre-weekend evening. In front of the restaurant, Lidia Ivanovna’s guests were gathering—distant relatives from the countryside, neighbors from her building, and a couple of friends from the sewing factory. Everyone was dressed up, holding lush bouquets of gladiolus and boxes of chocolates.
Ruslan stood by the door, beaming like a freshly polished samovar. He laughed heartily as his aunt from Konakovo congratulated him, clutching a giant bottle of champagne. But the instant he saw Elena, his laughter stopped. He turned pale and stepped forward, blocking her path to the hall.
“Why are you here?” he hissed, glancing at the guests. “I told you clearly… If Mom sees you, there’ll be a scene! Leave right now, don’t embarrass me in front of everyone!”
“I’m not staying for your party, Ruslan,” Elena replied quietly, but loudly enough for the nearby relatives to hear. “I just brought a gift for Lidia Ivanovna. Please give it to her from me. I think it will lift her spirits.”
She handed him the velvet box. Ruslan took it automatically, peeked inside, and gasped. His eyes widened in delight. He looked at his wife with something almost like regret flickering in his gaze for just a second.
“Yulka… you actually gave it up?” he muttered. “Well, thank you… Mom is going to be so happy! Go home, I’ll come by tonight and we’ll settle everything, okay?”
Elena didn’t reply. She turned around and walked away from the glowing restaurant windows. She felt unexpectedly light, as if she’d just shrugged off a huge, burdensome sack of dirty laundry. She knew the real drama was just beginning.
While Elena sat on a bench in a nearby square, music was already blaring from inside the “Volga” restaurant.
“Pour more wine for our dear guest! Can’t you see their glass is empty?” Lidia Ivanovna called out, showing off in front of the semicircle of the table as she rolled her plump shoulder.
Her fake, syrupy-sweet voice managed to drown out even the clinking of forks and the hum of the festive hall. The mother-in-law sat at the place of honor, constantly adjusting the greasy collar of her new green lurex dress, which she’d already splattered with sauce in the first twenty minutes of the feast.
Ruslan, who was sitting to his mother’s right, instantly jumped up from his seat. His round face was shining from all the food and drink, and his eyes followed every move Lydia Ivanovna made with devoted attention. He started bustling around, grabbing the heavy bottle from the table and began eagerly pouring more cognac for the man in the expensive gray jacket sitting across from them.
This man’s name was Arkady Lvovich. He had supposedly come from Tver on business, but it was no accident he ended up at the birthday party – all evening, Lydia Ivanovna kept gently hinting to her relatives that he was her ‘longtime and very influential patron.’ Arkady Lvovich himself carried himself arrogantly, accepting Ruslan’s attentions with a sense of superiority, yet every so often, his cold, piercing gaze returned to the birthday woman’s plump fingers.
And Lydia Ivanovna definitely had something to show off. A fake ring with a bright pink glass gem now adorned her mother-in-law’s middle finger. She kept stretching out her hand, admiring how the cheap jewel sparkled garishly and vividly under the crystal restaurant chandeliers.
‘Look, Arkasha, just see what an antique piece this is,’ she said with exaggerated coyness, holding her finger right up to the guest’s face. ‘A real alexandrite! A unique family heirloom. My daughter-in-law Yulka brought it just before the party. She finally understood, silly thing, who’s supposed to wear noble stones like these.’
Ruslan nodded eagerly in agreement:
‘Yes, Mama, Yulia ran over herself, begged you to take it. She knows we’re nothing without you. You’re the main one in our family!’
Arkady Lvovich leaned forward slightly to examine the ring. A strange, barely noticeable smirk flashed across his well-groomed face, enhanced by a neatly trimmed gray beard. He carefully took Lydia Ivanovna by the hand and tilted her finger toward the light. The cheap pink glass, unlike real alexandrite, didn’t even try to change color in different lighting—it stayed just as loudly pink as a cheap piece of candy.
‘Well, it’s certainly a remarkable piece, Lidochka,’ Arkady Lvovich said quietly, a subtle mocking tone in his voice. ‘Very… modern work. Tell me, does your daughter-in-law happen to understand anything about paperwork?’
‘Oh, what would she know!’ Lydia Ivanovna waved it off, taking a sip from her glass. ‘She can’t see past her needles and patterns. A plain little mouse.’
Meanwhile, Elena was sitting on a bench in a nearby park. The autumn evening was quickly growing darker, the linden trees rustled with dry leaves, and the air carried a clear scent of impending rain. She held her mobile phone in her hands. Opening her banking app, she froze, staring at the screen.
The very sum she had contributed to her mother-in-law’s banquet had just been returned to her account—Ruslan, buoyed by the success of the ‘gift,’ had kept his promise and sent the money back down to the last penny, without even wondering how his mother, who was drowning in debt, got such funds. Elena, however, knew exactly where it came from. Her mother-in-law had spent the last six months secretly trying to sell her share of an old village estate left by her late husband, and Arkady Lvovich happened to be the very buyer who had promised cash on nothing but his word.
Elena’s phone buzzed in her hand. Mikhail’s number flashed on the screen.
“Yulia, are you there?” he spoke quickly. “Listen, this is important… Your Ruslan came to see me a couple of days ago, you know. Asked me how much an antique ring with alexandrite might be worth. I gave him the real, high price. He got really excited. And today, one of my friends who’s an appraiser at the central pawn shop called me. He said some lady in a green lurex dress stopped by right before the banquet and asked for an urgent loan with that ring as collateral.”
Elena gave a bitter smile and tightened her coat around her.
“So? Did they give her the money?”
“No way! The appraiser nearly kicked her out with a scandal, saying it was a worthless alloy and the stone was just glass from a kid’s set. She made a scene, shouting that she’d been robbed. Yul… they’re going to figure out who gave them that fake. Your Ruslan is going to be furious.”
“Let him be, Misha. Thank you,” Elena replied quietly and ended the call.
She stood up from the bench. The scheme she had set in motion turned out to be deeper and more dangerous than she expected. Her mother-in-law had wanted to secretly pawn the ring to pull off some trick with Arkady Lvovich, but ended up with a worthless fake. And the most interesting part was that this “protector” from Tver seemed to know all too well the real value of both the authentic ring and the imitation.
Elena started walking home. A fine September drizzle began to fall, making the asphalt glisten under the few streetlights in Torzhok. She knew Ruslan would come home late. And he didn’t come home alone.
Around midnight, a furious, impatient knock echoed in the hallway. The door crashed open so loudly the mirror in the corridor shook. Ruslan stood on the threshold—his jacket askew, tie undone, face red with anger and alcohol. Behind him, Lydia Ivanovna stood catching her breath and leaning on an umbrella. Her green dress was rumpled, and her right hand’s purple manicure clawed nervously at her leather purse.
“What… what have you done?!” Ruslan screeched from the doorway, not even bothering to take off his dirty shoes. “What did you give my mother?! We invited an important guest to the restaurant, mom was showing off that ring, and Arkady called it cheap junk in front of everyone! Mom almost had a stroke! Why did you hide the original, you thief?!”
Lydia Ivanovna stepped forward, her eyes darting around the hallway, searching for Elena’s bag.
“Where’s the ring, Yulka?!” her mother-in-law rasped, dropping any pretense of refinement. “Where’s my property?! You gave me a fake just to embarrass me in front of Arkady? I swear, we’ll toss you out of this apartment in just your underwear! Ruslan, check her bag!”
Elena stood calmly by the door to the room. The tight knot that had tormented her for years had finally disappeared. She wasn’t afraid anymore. Instead, a cold, fierce confidence began to grow inside her.
“Go ahead and look,” she said quietly, folding her arms across her chest. “But keep this in mind, Ruslan. While you were drinking vodka in the restaurant and showing off my fake, Arkady Lvovich wasn’t wasting his time.”
Ruslan froze, his hand reaching for the rack of bags. Lidiya Ivanovna stopped as well, her chubby cheeks quivering.
“What… what are you talking about? What does Arkady have to do with this?” her husband mumbled, casting a suspicious look at his wife.
“He has everything to do with it,” Elena stepped forward, her voice ringing out like a gunshot in the hallway’s silence. “Arkady Lvovich is my late mother’s brother. The very uncle Arkasha who moved to Tver twenty years ago. And he didn’t come here to bankroll your precious mommy, but to find out where the money from the sale of half our family’s village house went—the half that Lidiya Ivanovna secretly registered to herself with forged documents. And he recognized this ring instantly. Because he was the one who gave it to my mom long ago.”
A silence fell so deep in the entryway, you could hear the steady September rain brushing against the window outside. Lidiya Ivanovna slowly sank onto the dirty ottoman by the door, her mouth opening and closing in desperate gulps for air, like a fish stranded on the shore.
“Ruslan, darling, she’s lying, don’t listen to her!” Lidiya Ivanovna clung desperately to her son’s sleeve with plump fingers, leaving a dirty sauce stain from the restaurant on his expensive jacket. “What half of the house? What brother? Your mother is an honest woman! This snake just wants to turn us against each other and steal your apartment!”
But Ruslan didn’t move. All his bravado, all that fleeting drunken courage he’d had when he burst into the hallway, vanished in an instant. His round face turned from crimson to ashen gray. His eyes darted from his wheezing mother to the calm, collected Elena, and in his gaze, a creeping panic took root—the fear of a little boy who knows he’s done something terrible and there’s nowhere left to hide behind mommy’s skirt.
“Yulia… is it true?” he asked quietly, his voice cracking. “About Arkady Lvovich… and the house? Did you… did you know?”
“I found out about it yesterday, Ruslan,” Elena stepped back, deeper into the room. “When Uncle Arkasha called me himself from Tver. He saw a listing for the sale of our family estate. Lidiya Ivanovna thought no one would check anything in the region. That she could quietly forge my late mother’s signature on old sale documents, privatize the whole plot, and list it for three million.”
The mother-in-law on the ottoman began to wail—a guttural, defeated sound, like a beaten dog. Her fake ring with a pink glass stone slipped off her swollen finger and rolled across the laminate flooring, coming to a stop right next to Ruslan’s dirty shoes. She wasn’t in charge anymore. All her queenly bearing and arrogant look had vanished. Sitting at the threshold now was just an ordinary, foolish woman, caught red-handed in her lies.
“You—you gave me that ring yourself!” Lidiya Ivanovna shrieked, jabbing her short, fat finger at Elena. “This is theft! This is a setup! Ruslan, call the police!”
“The police?” Elena smirked, her smile full of icy contempt that made Ruslan flinch. “Go ahead, call them, Ruslan. But keep in mind, Uncle Arkady has already been sitting at the station on Kirova Street for an hour, filing a fraud report about the property. All the original estate documents have been added to the case. Your mom couldn’t even be bothered to find a proper lawyer—she forged the paperwork herself, thinking nobody in this small town would notice.”
Ruslan slowly crouched down right in front of his mother. His hands shook so badly, he couldn’t even hit the right spot on his phone screen with his finger.
“Mom… why?” he whimpered, looking up at Lidiya Ivanovna. “You told me you inherited this house from your aunt… You asked me to help sell it, said we’d use the money to buy me a new car… Mom, you set me up! I signed everything as your representative! They’ll throw me out of the clinic in disgrace!”
Instead of replying, Lidiya Ivanovna slapped her son sharply. Her plump hand, with a purple-painted nail, struck his cheek with force.
“Shut up, you fool!” she barked, her usual sickly sweet tone completely gone. “Crybaby! Who do you think I did all this for? For you, you idiot! So you wouldn’t have to go running around for that broke seamstress! And you… you couldn’t even keep your woman in line! Pathetic!”
Ruslan clutched his burning cheek. Tears—real, childish ones—sprang from his eyes. He squatted there in the dirty hallway—a thirty-four-year-old man just crushed in front of his wife by his own mother.
Elena watched the scene unfold, and any last drops of pity she had for Ruslan finally died inside her. How did she live with him for three years? How did she put up with his constant complaints, his endless whining, his blind, slavish devotion to this despotic and foolish woman?
“It’s midnight,” Elena said calmly. “Ruslan, pack your mother’s things. And yours too. This apartment belongs to my parents. Tomorrow morning the owner will come change the locks.”
“Yulia… Yulichka, wait,” Ruslan threw himself at her feet. “I’m sorry, it was a mistake, please forgive us! I didn’t know, truly I didn’t! I trusted Mom! Tomorrow I’ll withdraw every statement, we’ll confess everything, we’ll return the house to Arkady! Just don’t kick us out, Yulya! I’ve nowhere to go, Mom’s apartment is still under renovation, the toilet’s broken… Yulia!”
“Your mom’s place on Lenin Street is just fine, Ruslan. Like mother, like renovation. You two can stuff candy wrappers behind the couch together.”
Elena took a step back and closed the door in his face, locking it behind her.
There was noise behind the door for a long time. Lidiya Ivanovna cursed out her son, threw shoes at the wall, screaming at him to ‘show that upstart who runs this house.’ Ruslan whimpered pathetically as he rustled plastic bags, gathering his things. Elena sat on the bed in the dark, listening to the cold September rain outside. It felt like years of rot and sickness were finally leaving her home. Continued in the comments.
About an hour later, the front door finally banged shut. An unusual, ringing silence filled the apartment. The only sound was the steady, calming ticking of the old wall clock in the kitchen.
Elena walked to the window. Downstairs, in the dim glow of the streetlamp, two figures slowly made their way through the rainy haze toward the bus stop. Lidia Ivanovna leaned heavily on a broken umbrella, while behind her, bent under the weight of two huge checkered bags, trudged her beloved son. Ruslan kept stumbling in the darkness, and his mother would turn around and wave her hands at him furiously. They were heading back to their usual, grimy, stuffy life—the one they once tried to pull Elena into.
Elena opened her bag and took out the velvet box holding her grandmother’s real ring. In the half-light of the room, the alexandrite looked almost black, deep and mysterious. She slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly, as if it had always belonged there.
The next morning, right at nine, there was a knock at the door. It wasn’t Ruslan. Instead, standing at the threshold was a sturdy man in work overalls—the locksmith. Beside him, Uncle Arkasha smiled, holding a bag of warm croissants from a café.
“Well, Yulenka, shall we start over?” Uncle Arkasha asked kindly as he walked into the hallway.
“Let’s start, Uncle Arkasha,” Elena smiled, handing the locksmith new lock cylinders.
When the old, loose lock mechanism flew out of the keyhole with a whistle, Elena realized her past life was over for good. And despite the clouds and the rain outside, this September day became the purest, happiest celebration of her life—a celebration where she would never again need someone else’s permission just to be happy.