On Saturday, Daria planned to sleep in until at least nine. She didn’t quite make it: at half past eight, Anton woke her up.
He went out to take out the trash, came back, headed to the kitchen to put the kettle on, and then peeked into the bedroom to announce:
“There’s some kind of dowry at our door.”
“What do you mean, dowry?”
“Two bags. Huge ones.”
Daria threw on her robe and walked out to the hallway.
Sure enough, right by the door stood two tightly packed bags. The corner of a white bedsheet peeked out of one. On top was a note.
“Wash and iron by lunchtime. I’ll stop by in the evening.”
There was no signature.
None was needed.
Daria silently picked up the note with two fingers and handed it to her husband.
Anton read it.
“Mom, right?”
“No, the self-service laundromat is just trying to expand their customer base.”
He grimaced.
“Dash, why are you getting upset so early in the morning?”
Daria glanced at the clock. Eight thirty-two.
“I haven’t even had my coffee yet. I’m not the one getting worked up—I’ve already been loaded with laundry.”
She only brought the bags into the hallway because leaving them in the stairwell was silly. But she didn’t carry them to the washing machine.
Three months ago, she would have.
Three months ago, everything looked completely different.
Valentina Petrovna owned a small one-room apartment near the train station. She inherited it from her aunt a few years back. At first, her mother-in-law thought about letting someone stay there long-term, but after working out the numbers, she decided to rent it out short-term.
The business actually went pretty well for her.
Business travelers, families passing through, parents of students, people coming for medical appointments—the apartment was rarely empty for more than two or three days.
A woman named Larisa helped with cleaning. Valentina Petrovna paid her two and a half thousand for getting the apartment ready after guests. Supplies—paper, tea, sugar, shampoo—she bought separately.
One day, Larisa got sick.
That day, Valentina Petrovna called Daria around ten in the morning.
“Dashenka, I have a catastrophe.”
And it wasn’t a burst pipe, a fire, or even a broken window.
At four o’clock, a family from Perm was arriving, and nobody had cleaned the apartment after the last guests.
Daria worked as a procurement specialist at a small trading company. Five days a week—working from home, nine to six. That Saturday, she had planned to finally organize her closet and meet up with a friend in the evening.
But helping out her mother-in-law just once really didn’t seem like such a big deal.
“Alright. Give me the address and tell me where to find all the cleaning stuff.”
“I’ll bring you everything myself. You’re saving me.”
Valentina Petrovna brought the keys, fresh linens, towels, and a bag of cleaning supplies.
Daria thought she’d be done in about an hour and a half.
An hour and a half later, she realized just how optimistic that had been.
She had to throw out a container of unfinished pasta from the fridge. In the bathroom, there were damp towels, hair in the drain, and an empty shampoo bottle that someone had kindly put back on the shelf.
Two cups with dried coffee sat on the kitchen counter. A lone teaspoon lay on the windowsill.
Daria cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, mopped the floors, changed the bed linens, counted the towels, wiped down the fridge, and checked all the dishes.
Then she found a man’s sock under the bed.
She brought the sock to Valentina Petrovna, who had come to inspect the apartment before the new tenants moved in.
“Is this included in the rental price, or can I throw it away?”
Her mother-in-law burst out laughing.
“Toss it. Oh, Dasha, you did such a great job. It’s even cleaner here than it was with Larisa.”
That should have been Daria’s first warning sign.
But Daria just smiled.
At four o’clock, she waited for the new tenants, handed them the set of keys, showed them where the towels were kept, and headed home.
She didn’t see her friend that evening.
But six days later, Valentina Petrovna called again.
“Dasha, are you free tomorrow by any chance?”
Daria was free.
Another week later, the question sounded different:
“Dasha, tomorrow the apartment will be free after twelve. The new tenants arrive at five.”
Daria didn’t immediately realize this wasn’t just a heads-up.
“And?”
There was a pause on the other end.
“Well, it needs to be cleaned.”
“What about Larisa?”
“I haven’t started looking for anyone else yet. You did such a great job last time.”
This is when Daria really should have said “no.”
But Valentina Petrovna added:
“If it’s inconvenient for you, of course, I can think of something else.”
And Daria agreed again.
She thought that “for now” meant a week or two.
Turns out, “for now” can last for months.
At first, the apartment popped up in Daria’s life only on Saturdays.
Then it was Wednesdays too.
Then, Valentina Petrovna created a family chat. It used to be for birthday plans, BBQs, and sharing photos of the nephew, but now, among the congratulatory messages, other notices appeared:
“Checkout on Tuesday at 12. Next guests at 4.”
And then:
“Need more tea.”
And another:
“Check the spoons, there should be six.”
One day, Daria really did count only five spoons.
She took a picture of the drawer and sent it to her mother-in-law.
Valentina Petrovna called back in a minute.
“See! I knew it. Someone took one.”
“Maybe it got put somewhere else.”
“Where else can you put a spoon?”
“Valentina Petrovna, sometimes people do things you just can’t explain.”
Ten minutes later, the missing spoon turned up in a bag of oatmeal.
But that evening, her mother-in-law still told her son:
“Good thing Dasha is watching after everything. She’s got a keen eye.”
Daria couldn’t recall when exactly she shifted from being someone who helped out once, to being the one with the ‘keen eye.’
At least she didn’t have to pay for the apartment’s groceries herself. She bought whatever Valentina Petrovna asked for, sent the receipts, and her mother-in-law transferred the money.
But somehow, her time was automatically considered free.
And apparently, only Daria’s time.
The first time she told Anton she was tired, he was sitting in the kitchen eating a sandwich.
“Tired from work?”
“From your mom’s apartment.”
“What’s the big deal there?”
Daria stopped slicing the tomato.
“Are you serious?”
“It’s just cleaning. A couple of hours.”
“Then let’s do it together next time.”
Anton shrugged.
“Sure, let’s do it.”
The next time was on a Sunday.
Daria handed her husband a clean set of bed linens and said:
“Start with the bedroom. I’ll do the bathroom.”
Forty minutes later, she peeked in on him.
Anton stood by the bed, holding the duvet cover and peering inside as if he might find the answer to the meaning of life in there.
“It’s wrong.”
“What is?”
“The duvet cover.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It has an inconvenient opening.”
“All these sets have the same kind of opening.”
“Then they’re all wrong.”
Five minutes later, Anton announced that his lower back was throbbing.
And ten minutes after that, he suddenly remembered something:
“Hey, I totally forgot. I need to check the oil.”
Darya slowly turned towards him.
“Right now?”
“I’ve been meaning to do it for a while.”
“Of course. The oil’s been waiting for exactly this duvet cover for three weeks.”
Anton ended up leaving after all.
After that, Darya started keeping track of the time.
Not for an argument.
At first, she was just curious to see how long her husband’s “couple of hours” really lasted.
The first cleaning took three hours and twenty minutes.
The second one—three hours and forty minutes.
If she needed to bring home laundry, run two washes, dry everything, and iron it, Darya wouldn’t do anything else that evening.
Sometimes she’d be folding the last towel at eleven at night.
And on top of all this, she worked her own five-day work week.
Valentina Petrovna told a very different story about the apartment.
At Anton’s sister’s birthday, she sat at the table surrounded by relatives and happily explained:
“It’s a nice little apartment. Especially in the summer. The main thing is to keep control of everything yourself—almost no expenses that way.”
At that moment, Darya was serving herself some salad.
“What about cleaning?” Anton’s aunt asked.
“Oh, the cleaning isn’t a big deal,” Valentina Petrovna waved her hand. “We’re all family. We help each other out.”
Darya glanced at her husband.
Anton was carefully picking bones out of his fish.
Later, at home, she asked him:
“So do your mom and I help each other out?”
“Of course.”
“Remind me, how does she help me?”
Anton paused to think.
“Why are you framing it like that?”
“I’m just trying to remember.”
“Mom’s apartment brings her extra income. It’s hard for her to manage on her own.”
“So if I’m struggling at work, does your mom come do my reports for me?”
Anton laughed.
“That’s different.”
And that’s exactly what annoyed Darya the most.
Everything always seemed to be ‘different.’
Her last Friday of September had been booked for ages.
Back in August, Darya bought two tickets to the theater. She and her friend Lena had been planning to go for six months, postponing it three times already.
At half past five, Darya closed her work laptop, headed for the shower, and had just started putting on her makeup when her phone rang.
Valentina Petrovna.
“Dasha, we have a change.”
“We have” had long meant her mother-in-law’s apartment.
“What change?”
“The last guests left early. Everything needs to be prepped quickly tonight. Tomorrow morning, new guests come for just one night, and on Sunday at noon, they leave—another group checks in at five.”
Darya checked the time.
“I can’t do it today.”
Her mother-in-law clearly wasn’t expecting that answer.
“Why not?”
“I’m going to the theater.”
“Today?”
“Yes. Today.”
“Can’t you reschedule?”
Darya even put down her mascara brush.
“Reschedule what?”
“Well, the theater.”
“Valentina Petrovna, the play is tonight at seven. I didn’t set the date.”
“Dasha, the clients can’t wait, either.”
“That’s why you’ll have to handle it without me tonight.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Then her mother-in-law switched to a different tone:
“To be honest, I really don’t get you. You spend all day at the computer. It would do you good to step away sometimes and do something real.”
Daria glanced at her laptop—the one that brought her a paycheck every month.
“In that case, you can deal with something real today.”
And she hung up.
Anton, catching the end of their conversation, walked out of his room.
“Why’d you talk to my mom like that?”
“I told her I can’t help.”
“You could’ve said it a little nicer.”
“Maybe. Call her and say it nicely then.”
He didn’t say anything back.
Daria went to the theater.
She put her phone away in her bag and didn’t check it again until after the show.
There were two messages from Valentina Petrovna.
The first one said:
“I cleaned it myself.”
The second message arrived an hour later:
“Barely managed to scrub that frying pan clean.”
Daria didn’t reply.
The next morning, two bags of laundry appeared outside their door.
At this point, everything started to make sense.
Her mother-in-law cleaned the apartment herself yesterday, took all the dirty laundry, and then decided that Daria should still be the one to wash and iron it.
Anton read the note again.
“Maybe she just left it so she wouldn’t have to carry it later?”
Daria looked at the phrase, ‘Wash and iron by lunchtime.’
“Yeah. That’s exactly what storage looks like.”
She brewed some coffee, made herself some eggs, and ate a peaceful breakfast.
The bags sat in the hallway.
At ten, they were still there.
At ten thirty, nothing had changed.
At five to eleven, Valentina Petrovna called.
“Dasha, did you see the laundry?”
“I saw it.”
“I left two sets. There are also some towels.”
“I noticed.”
“Okay. I’ll come by around six to pick them up then.”
“Valentina Petrovna, I won’t be washing them.”
This time, the pause was even longer.
“What do you mean, you won’t?”
“I mean exactly that.”
“So what am I supposed to do with them now?”
“The same thing you did before I started working for free in your apartment.”
Valentina Petrovna arrived forty minutes later.
Anton opened the door and could tell from his mother’s face that it wouldn’t be a peaceful Saturday.
She walked into the kitchen, took off her jacket, and placed her bag on a chair.
“By the way, I was cleaning until ten last night.”
Daria sat at the kitchen table with her laptop, catching up on work emails she hadn’t finished on Friday.
“I believe you.”
“You left the frying pan covered in grease. The bathroom mirror is all smudged. Do people really live like this at home?”
“Some do, maybe.”
“And now there’s the laundry, too.”
Daria closed her laptop.
“Valentina Petrovna, how much did you pay Larisa for cleaning?”
Her mother-in-law frowned.
“What’s Larisa got to do with this?”
“How much?”
“Two and a half thousand.”
“For one cleaning?”
“Yes. But I really don’t see why we’re discussing a third party right now.”
Daria nodded.
“I didn’t get it before. Now I do.”
“What do you get?”
“That work stopped being considered work the moment family members started doing it.”
Anton stood by the window.
“Dash…”
She raised a hand.
“Wait. I’m not trying to fight. I just want to make an agreement, once and for all, so we never have to revisit this.”
Valentina Petrovna pressed her lips together.
“I never forced you.”
Daria glanced toward the hallway, at the two bags with the note ‘by lunchtime.’
“Of course.”
Her mother-in-law looked there too.
“Well what was I supposed to do? It’s too much for me alone.”
“Hire someone.”
— These days, everyone wants money for who knows what.
Daria even smiled.
— Now we’ve finally reached the best part.
She stood up from the table.
— Valentina Petrovna, either you pay me for my work, or find yourself another unpaid helper.
— Dasha!
— So what bothered you more—me saying ‘unpaid’ or ‘helper’?
— I’m upset you brought up money with your own family.
— Fine. I won’t take money from family then.
Valentina Petrovna looked at her son with a triumphant smile.
Daria finished:
— And I also won’t be working in your apartment anymore.
The victory on her mother-in-law’s face lasted about two seconds.
— So that’s how it is.
— Exactly.
— I thought families help each other.
— I helped you once. Then a second time. Then you started sending me a schedule of arrivals.
— Was it so hard for you?
Daria opened the notes app on her phone.
— Three hours and twenty minutes. Three forty. Four ten, including a trip to the store. Plus laundry in the evening. Those were the last three times.
Anton looked at his wife.
— You kept a record?
— After you told me it was only a couple of hours, yes.
Valentina Petrovna turned to her son.
— Anton, please, say something to her.
And Anton said exactly what Daria expected him to say.
— Dasha, it really is hard for Mom.
She didn’t argue.
She took a piece of paper, wrote down the apartment address, and handed it to her husband.
— The guests check out tomorrow at noon. The next ones arrive at five. Valentina Petrovna told me this yesterday.
Anton looked at the paper.
— And?
— You’ll help your mom.
— Me?
— You’re her son. It’s even more appropriate this way. She definitely won’t take money from you.
— I actually had plans for tomorrow…
— To check the oil?
Anton shot her a look.
Daria continued, calm now:
— For months, you’ve been telling me it’s easy and only takes a couple of hours. Tomorrow you’ll see for yourself.
Valentina Petrovna tried to step in:
— Anton shouldn’t do it. He has back problems.
Daria almost laughed.
— His back only hurts near a duvet cover, and gets better by the car. Such a selective illness.
— Enough, Dasha, — Anton grumbled.
— I’m finished.
On Sunday at half past twelve, Anton went to his mother’s place.
Daria stayed home.
She didn’t try to prove anything or even ask how the cleaning was going.
At two, her husband sent a message:
“Where does she keep spare sponges?”
Daria replied:
“Ask your mom.”
Forty minutes later:
“How do you clean the stove?”
She answered the same way.
At four, Anton called.
— Are you free now?
— Yes.
— There’s a duvet cover here.
Daria closed her eyes.
— Anton.
— I just wanted to ask.
— No.
— Alright.
He got home after six.
He sat in the kitchen, took off his watch, and placed it in front of him.
Daria set a plate of dinner in front of him.
— So, how were those ‘couple of hours’?
He looked at her, not nearly as sure of himself anymore.
— Definitely not just a couple.
— Imagine that.
— And people are such pigs.
— Sometimes.
— There was a candy wrapper under the bed.
— Terrible.
— I’m serious. I just finished vacuuming—then Mom says: now the bathroom.
Daria sat across from him.
— Did you think once you finished vacuuming, a band would play and the cleaning would be over?
Anton smirked.
Then he said:
— I was wrong.
Daria didn’t say anything.
She didn’t need a speech.
It was much more interesting to see what would happen next.
That happened a week later.
Valentina Petrovna found a new helper.
Her name was Olga. She had spent years cleaning apartments after short-term rentals, and she explained her terms right away.
Cleaning costs two and a half thousand.
Laundry and ironing all the linens after one guest stay: nine hundred rubles.
If you call last minute and she has to urgently rearrange her plans—that’s another seven hundred.
The owner buys the supplies themselves or reimburses her with the receipt.
Valentina Petrovna tried to haggle at first.
Olga calmly replied:
“Then look for someone cheaper.”
So the math had to be done.
There had been eight guest turnovers the previous month.
If Darya had still been paid at the old rate for Larisa, one cleaning would have cost two and a half thousand.
Eight cleanings made twenty thousand.
Laundry and ironing at the new price added another seven thousand two hundred.
That’s twenty-seven thousand two hundred rubles.
That was the real cost of what had been considered her ‘free help’—just for the previous month.
Anton found out that number from his mother.
“Can you imagine, if there are eight turnovers again this month, it’ll be over twenty-seven thousand!” Valentina Petrovna exclaimed over the phone.
He was silent.
A month ago, he would have said Darya could at least help out sometimes.
This time, he asked:
“Mom, after all your expenses, how much do you actually make from the apartment?”
“I still make a decent amount.”
“Mom, then it’s just a business expense.”
Valentina Petrovna even asked again:
“Are you on her side now, too?”
“I’m on the side of anyone who has ever cleaned that bathroom, even once.”
They never discussed the topic again.
For the first few weeks, her mother-in-law was distant with Darya.
At family dinners, she spoke mostly with her son and didn’t mention the apartment at all.
Darya didn’t ask any questions, either.
She wasn’t going to demand apologies for every duvet she had washed.
It was enough for her that the guest schedule had disappeared from the family group chat.
A month later, Valentina Petrovna called herself.
“Dasha, will you be home on Saturday?”
Darya was a bit wary.
“Yes, for now.”
“I baked a pie. I’ll bring you half. There’s no way I can eat it all by myself.”
Darya almost asked if there was a set of bed linens hidden inside the pie, but bit her tongue.
Her mother-in-law really did show up with pie.
No bags.
They had tea together.
Valentina Petrovna shared that Olga did a good job, though in her words, “charges like it’s a surgery.”
Darya grinned.
“At least now you don’t have to scrub pans after the guests.”
“That’s true.”
Her mother-in-law paused, then added:
“I guess I really did get used to you doing everything back then.”
It wasn’t a heartfelt apology or a sudden realization.
But for Valentina Petrovna, it was a serious admission.
Darya nodded.
“The main thing is everything’s sorted now.”
And with that, the topic was closed.
A couple weeks later, Valentina Petrovna stopped by her son’s place and, in passing, complained:
“Olga really is expensive, after all.”
Anton was sitting on the couch, folding their household laundry.
He picked up a duvet cover, looked at it, and grinned:
“Mom, after personally getting to know that thing, I’m honestly surprised she doesn’t ask twice as much.”
Darya heard this from the kitchen and laughed.
Anton did finally learn how to put on a duvet cover.
But most importantly—he never again called it “a couple of hours’ work.”