The Missing Earrings
“Kostya, did you open my earring case?”
Konstantin did not answer from the other room right away.
“What case?”
Lidia stood in the entryway, holding a bag of groceries in one hand and an empty jewelry box in the other.
The earrings had been inside it only an hour earlier.
She remembered that clearly.
That morning, Lidia had taken them out of the drawer, tried them on in front of the mirror, and decided to wear them to a colleague’s birthday celebration that evening. So she would not have to search for them later, she had left the case on the entryway console beside a small makeup bag.
Then she had gone to the store.
Now the case was open.
And empty.
“The gold earrings I bought recently.”
 
“No, I didn’t touch them.”
Konstantin appeared in the doorway of his study.
He was wearing lounge pants and an old T-shirt. He had spent the morning trying to fix a computer that had been freezing constantly for the past several days.
“Why?”
“They’re gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
Lidia turned the case upside down.
That did nothing to make its emptiness easier to believe.
Galina Petrovna came out of the kitchen.
Her mother-in-law had arrived about an hour earlier to bring her son some car documents and collect an old folder she had left at their apartment during the summer.
At first, she had planned to leave almost immediately, but Konstantin had asked her to wait until he finished with the computer. He wanted to drive her home afterward.
“What’s missing?” she asked.
“My earrings.”
Lidia put the grocery bags on the floor.
It was too early to panic.
Perhaps she had absentmindedly moved them herself, although she had no memory of doing so.
“I’ll check.”
She went into the bedroom.
First, she searched the dresser. The rest of her jewelry was there, along with her watch, several small boxes, and warranties for household electronics.
Then she checked the bathroom, the pockets of the jeans she had worn that morning when she went out for coffee, the pocket of her cardigan, her makeup bag, and even the shopping bag from the jewelry store that, for some reason, was still sitting on the top shelf of the wardrobe.
The earrings were nowhere to be found.
When Lidia returned to the entryway, Konstantin was already looking beneath the console.
“Maybe they fell?”
“Both of them at once?”
“You never know.”
He lifted a scarf from the floor.
Nothing.
Lidia had bought the earrings three weeks earlier.
It had not been an impulsive purchase. After receiving her annual bonus, she had finally decided to buy the beautiful gold earrings she had wanted for a long time. For several weeks, she and her friend Irina had visited different stores, comparing designs, trying on one pair, and then returning to reconsider another.
In the end, Lidia chose a small pair set with stones.
They had cost nearly ninety thousand rubles.
She understood perfectly well that this was a considerable sum. That was why she always returned them to their case after wearing them. In general, she treated expensive possessions carefully.
Losing both earrings within an hour without even leaving the apartment was nearly impossible.
“Did you put them on this morning?” Konstantin asked.
“I tried them on.”
“Maybe you left them near the mirror?”
“I already checked.”
Galina Petrovna stood near the kitchen, watching them search.
Lidia looked at her—not because she had already decided to accuse her, but because one detail had suddenly returned to her mind.
While Lidia had been at the store, her mother-in-law had remained in the apartment with Konstantin. But her husband had spent almost the entire time in his study.
Galina Petrovna, meanwhile, had gone into the bedroom for about ten minutes.
When Lidia returned, her mother-in-law had explained it herself.
“I was looking for my charger. I thought I might have left it here.”
At the time, that had not seemed unusual. Galina Petrovna sometimes charged her phone at their apartment and had once forgotten her cable there.
Now the incident looked different.
Still, Lidia did not jump to conclusions. She searched the apartment one more time. She lifted the bedspread, looked under the bed, and checked the bathroom shelf again.
When she returned to the hallway, Galina Petrovna had already put on her coat.
“I think I’ll go,” she said. “Kostya can look at the documents later.”
Konstantin leaned out of the study.
“Mom, I was going to drive you.”
“There’s no need. The bus will be here soon.”
Her mother-in-law picked up her large leather handbag from the floor.
Lidia watched her for several seconds.
She remembered a conversation from two weeks earlier, when Galina Petrovna had noticed the earrings during a family lunch.
“Are those new?”
“Yes.”
“Gold?”
“Yes.”
Her mother-in-law had asked for a closer look. Lidia calmly removed one earring and placed it in her palm.
“They’re beautiful.”
Galina Petrovna turned the earring over between her fingers.
 
“They must have been expensive.”
Lidia had not wanted to discuss the price, but her mother-in-law asked directly. When she heard the amount, she shook her head.
“Almost ninety thousand for two tiny things?”
“I liked them.”
“I would never pay that much.”
The conversation could have ended there, but Galina Petrovna added:
“Allochka turns thirty next month. A nice pair of earrings would be useful for her. You already have plenty of jewelry.”
Lidia had merely smiled.
“Then you’ll have to choose a gift for Alla.”
Her mother-in-law did not reply.
Lidia had not attached any importance to the exchange. Galina Petrovna enjoyed giving financial advice to people who had never asked for it. She could decide that her niece should not have bought an expensive phone, that Konstantin did not need tires of a particular brand, that Lidia had paid too much for her coat, or that a neighbor should have repaired her old sofa instead of replacing it.
But her opinions had always remained just that—opinions.
Galina Petrovna had never taken anyone else’s property before. At least, Lidia had never noticed her doing anything like that.
Now her mother-in-law already had one hand on the door handle.
Lidia asked in a perfectly calm voice:
“Galina Petrovna, where did you move my earrings?”
Her mother-in-law froze.
Only for a second.
Then she spun around sharply.
“I haven’t even seen them today.”
Lidia did not answer immediately.
Now that was interesting.
She had not asked, “Did you take my earrings?”
She had not said, “Give them back.”
She had not even said that she suspected Galina Petrovna.
She had simply asked where the earrings had been moved.
Yet her mother-in-law had instantly understood which earrings she meant.
“I didn’t ask whether you had seen them,” Lidia said.
“Then what are you asking?”
“Where you moved them.”
“I didn’t move anything.”
Konstantin came out when he heard their voices.
“What’s going on?”
Galina Petrovna turned toward him.
“Exactly—what is going on? I was about to go home, and now I’m being interrogated.”
“No one is interrogating you,” Lidia replied.
Konstantin looked at the empty case.
“Let’s search everything again, calmly. Maybe they really fell somewhere.”
His mother flushed.
“Why should I stand here and wait while you search for your belongings?”
“Mom, because you were here.”
“So what?”
“Nothing. The earrings were here this morning, and now they’re gone.”
“You were here too!”
“And I’m not trying to leave.”
Galina Petrovna tightened her grip on the handles of her handbag.
“How lovely. A man’s own mother comes to bring him documents, and suddenly she’s suspected of theft.”
Lidia noticed that no one had used the word “theft.”
She glanced at her husband.
Konstantin appeared to have noticed it too.
“Mom, no one said that.”
“As if it isn’t obvious what you mean.”
His mother reached for the door again.
Then Lidia remembered another conversation.
A few days earlier, Galina Petrovna had called Konstantin. Lidia had been sitting beside him on the sofa and had unintentionally overheard part of it.
His mother had asked him to help pay for Alla’s birthday gift. Konstantin’s younger sister would soon turn thirty, and she had told their mother she wanted earrings—good gold ones.
Galina Petrovna decided to collect money from the relatives and buy exactly that.
Konstantin had refused—not harshly. He had simply explained that he could not give fifty thousand rubles toward his sister’s present at the moment. They already had several significant expenses that month, and he needed to replace something in his car.
His mother had taken offense.
“Your sister only turns thirty once.”
“I’ll give her however much money I consider reasonable.”
“That won’t be enough for decent earrings.”
“Then choose a different pair.”
The conversation had ended without a resolution.
 
At the time, Lidia had not connected it to her own purchase.
Now the coincidence was impossible to ignore.
Even so, she was not prepared to rummage through another person’s handbag or conduct a search at the front door. She had no intention of doing that.
Instead, Lidia took out her phone.
“All right. I’ll call the restaurant and say I’m going to be late.”
Konstantin turned toward her.
“You weren’t leaving for another couple of hours.”
“Now we don’t know how long the search will take.”
She found the restaurant’s number in her messages.
“Those earrings cost almost ninety thousand rubles. I’m not leaving this apartment without them tonight.”
Galina Petrovna suddenly set her handbag back on the floor.
“Wait.”
Lidia paused.
“What?”
“Maybe they really are somewhere around here.”
“That’s why we’re looking.”
For some reason, her mother-in-law unzipped her handbag, although no one had suggested checking it.
She began rapidly sorting through its contents: a wallet, tissues, documents, a small bag, her glasses, a charging cable.
Then her hand stopped.
“Well, would you look at that…”
She pulled a small bundle wrapped in a paper tissue from a side pocket.
“What is it?” Konstantin asked.
Galina Petrovna unfolded one edge.
Gold flashed beneath the paper.
Lidia silently held out her hand.
Her mother-in-law placed the bundle in her palm.
Both earrings were inside.
“Can you imagine?” Galina Petrovna said quickly. “Somehow they ended up in my bag.”
Lidia opened the tissue completely.
Both earrings were intact. She checked the clasps and then looked at the empty case, still sitting on the console.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they climb out of the case by themselves?”
“Maybe I caught them on something by accident.”
“With what?”
Galina Petrovna opened her mouth but had no answer.
Konstantin took the tissue.
“Mom, the earrings were inside a box.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
She instantly realized her mistake.
“Well, Lida said so.”
“I said my earrings were missing,” Lidia replied. “I never said in front of you that they had been inside the case.”
Her mother-in-law gave her an irritated look.
“Don’t nitpick every word.”
Konstantin no longer looked confused.
“Mom, how did Lidia’s earrings get into your bag?”
“I already told you. I don’t know.”
“Wrapped in a tissue?”
Galina Petrovna remained silent.
“So the earrings somehow wrapped themselves in paper and slipped into the side pocket?”
“Don’t speak to me in that tone.”
“What tone am I supposed to use?”
Lidia put the earrings back into their case.
She had no desire to argue. The facts were already in front of them. Everything else depended only on how long Galina Petrovna intended to keep pretending it had been an accident.
“I wanted to look at them,” her mother-in-law finally said.
Konstantin slowly turned toward her.
“So you looked at them.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you put them in your bag?”
“I got distracted afterward.”
Lidia snapped the case shut.
“A moment ago, you said you hadn’t seen them at all today.”
“Because the two of you came at me together.”
“I asked you one question.”
“What difference does it make now? They’ve been found.”
Galina Petrovna picked up her bag again.
“That’s it. I’m leaving.”
“No,” Konstantin said.
His mother turned around.
 
“What now?”
“Finish explaining.”
“What is there to explain?”
“Why did you take the earrings?”
“I already told you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
The room fell silent.
Konstantin rarely spoke firmly to his mother. Usually, he was the first to end family disputes. He would agree to change the subject, redirect the conversation, or simply leave the room.
This time, he stayed.
“If you only wanted to look at them, why did you wrap them up and put them in your bag?”
Galina Petrovna sat on the edge of the ottoman.
“I wanted to show them to Alla.”
For the first time, Lidia genuinely frowned.
“My earrings?”
“Just to show her.”
“Without my permission.”
“I was going to bring them back.”
Konstantin stared at his mother for several seconds.
“Does Alla know?”
“What difference does that make?”
“I’m calling her now.”
“Don’t drag your sister into this.”
That response was revealing enough.
Konstantin took out his phone.
Galina Petrovna tried to stop him.
“Kostya, don’t turn this into a circus.”
“I’m not doing anything of the sort.”
He called his sister.
Alla answered quickly. The conversation lasted less than a minute.
“Hi. Did Mom mention anything to you today about Lida’s earrings?”
A pause.
“I understand.”
Another few seconds passed.
“No, everything’s fine. I’ll explain later.”
He ended the call.
“Alla has no idea what you’re talking about.”
Galina Petrovna exhaled angrily.
“I hadn’t had time to tell her yet.”
“Then you didn’t take them just to show her.”
“What do you think I planned to do?”
Konstantin said nothing.
Neither did Lidia.
Perhaps that silence affected Galina Petrovna more than any question could have.
She looked first at her son and then at her daughter-in-law.
“Why are you both staring at me?”
No one answered.
“Fine.”
Galina Petrovna stood.
“I wanted to give them to her.”
Konstantin seemed unable to understand the words at first.
“What?”
“To Alla.”
“You wanted to give her Lidia’s earrings?”
“It’s her thirtieth birthday.”
“And?”
“Lidia already has other jewelry.”
Lidia was almost astonished by the simplicity of the explanation.
“So that means these could simply be taken?”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“Then what did you say?”
Galina Petrovna began speaking faster.
“You can buy yourself another pair. It’s not as though you spent your last money on them. Allochka can’t afford things like that right now. She has a mortgage and expenses piling up everywhere. She’s turning thirty, and I wanted her to have a proper gift.”
Konstantin rubbed a hand over his face.
“Mom, are you serious?”
“What’s so terrible about it? I was going to talk to Lidia afterward.”
“After you gave them away?”
“Well…”
Galina Petrovna looked aside.
Lidia already knew the answer, but she asked anyway.
“How were you planning to explain that my earrings had disappeared?”
Her mother-in-law was silent for a long time.
Then she said:
“I wouldn’t have explained it right away.”
 
“And later?”
Galina Petrovna waved a hand impatiently.
“I would have said you must have lost them somewhere. You had worn them before.”
Konstantin went completely still.
Even his voice sounded different when he spoke again.
“So you deliberately took the earrings and planned to convince Lidia that she had lost them herself?”
“Don’t make me sound like a criminal.”
“I only repeated what you just said.”
“I would have found some way to sort it out later.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!”
Galina Petrovna raised her voice.
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead!”
Lidia looked at her and suddenly realized she did not want to know anything else—not the exact plan, not when her mother-in-law meant to present the earrings to Alla, and not what new story she would have invented a week later.
The earrings had been found. Her property had been returned.
Everything else was no longer about jewelry.
Lidia opened the console drawer, placed the case inside, and said:
“Galina Petrovna, give us back the spare key.”
Her mother-in-law did not understand immediately.
“What key?”
“The key to our apartment.”
Several years earlier, Lidia and Konstantin had given her a spare set in case one of them went away, forgot their keys, or an emergency required someone to enter the apartment.
Until that day, Lidia had never given it a second thought.
Now she did.
“What does the key have to do with this?”
“Give it back.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Kostya.”
Galina Petrovna turned to her son.
“Are you hearing this?”
Konstantin hesitated for only a moment.
“Lida, maybe not right now?”
“Right now is exactly when.”
“We’ve already settled everything.”
“That is why it has to happen now.”
Her husband looked at his mother.
Galina Petrovna waited for him to defend her.
“Couldn’t we simply agree that nothing like this will happen again?” Konstantin asked.
Lidia met his gaze calmly.
“Your mother took an expensive item from my home, hid it in her bag, and planned to give it to someone else. Then she intended to convince me that I had lost it myself. Which part of that am I supposed to treat as an ordinary family misunderstanding?”
Konstantin had nothing more to say.
Galina Petrovna rose indignantly.
“Good Lord, I’ll give your key back.”
She opened her bag, pulled out a key ring, and began searching through it.
It took her a while to find the right one.
Lidia recognized it by the small blue keychain.
Her mother-in-law removed the key from the ring and placed it on the console.
“Satisfied?”
“Yes.”
Galina Petrovna zipped her bag shut with an angry jerk.
“I was trying to do something nice for Alla.”
“Not with my belongings.”
“As if you would even miss them.”
Lidia opened the front door.
“Goodbye, Galina Petrovna.”
Her mother-in-law’s face reddened, but she did not continue the argument. She stepped into the corridor and walked toward the elevator.
Konstantin closed the door.
For several seconds, he stood with his back to his wife.
Then he looked at the spare key on the console.
“I didn’t know she was capable of something like that.”
“Neither did I.”
“Are the earrings all right?”
Lidia took out the case and inspected them once more.
“They’re fine.”
Konstantin sat down on the ottoman.
“At first, I honestly thought you had moved them somewhere.”
“I doubted myself too.”
“It’s a good thing you stopped her at the door.”
Lidia checked the time. She had less than two hours before meeting her colleagues.
“I need to get ready.”
“You’re still going?”
“Of course.”
“After all this?”
“What am I supposed to do—sit at home now?”
She went into the bedroom.
In the end, she chose a different pair of earrings. It was not because she was afraid to wear the gold ones. Her mood had simply changed, and she wanted something less elaborate.
Konstantin stayed home.
Lidia reached the restaurant almost on time. Her colleague was celebrating with a small group. Around the table, they talked about work, summer vacations, and someone’s plans for October. Lidia quickly let herself enjoy the evening and did not tell anyone why she had nearly been late.
Halfway through dinner, a message arrived from her husband.
“Alla called. Mom told her everything.”
 
Lidia read it and put her phone away.
A minute later, another message appeared.
“Alla is horrified. She says she never asked for anything like that.”
That was exactly what Lidia had expected.
Alla genuinely wanted earrings for her birthday, but wanting a gift and agreeing to accept stolen jewelry were two entirely different things.
Later, Alla called Lidia herself.
Lidia stepped out of the dining room and into the corridor.
“Lida, I don’t even know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything.”
“I honestly didn’t know.”
“Kostya already told me.”
“Mom said she had found a present for me. I thought she had bought something.”
“It’s all right. I’m not blaming you.”
Alla was quiet for a moment.
“No, it isn’t all right. I just had an argument with her.”
“That’s between the two of you.”
“I mean it. Please don’t think I would ever accept something like that.”
“I don’t.”
The conversation ended quickly.
That was precisely why Lidia had always gotten along with Alla. She could be capricious, take too long to choose a present, or complain to her brother about her expenses, but she did not consider other people’s belongings her own.
Alla was not the problem.
Lidia returned home around midnight.
Konstantin was still awake. The kitchen light was on.
“Did you have a good time?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
The spare key his mother had returned lay on the table.
“I think we should change the lock cylinder tomorrow,” Lidia said.
Konstantin looked surprised.
“Why? We have the key back.”
“What if she made a copy?”
“Mom would never do that.”
He was about to continue, but stopped.
After what had happened that day, the statement sounded unconvincing even to him.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll change it.”
“I can call a locksmith myself.”
“Let me do it.”
Lidia did not object.
The next day, Konstantin found a locksmith who came by after lunch. The job did not take long. He removed the old cylinder, installed a new one, and tested the keys.
Lidia received her set.
Konstantin received his.
They kept the spare at home.
They made no more copies for relatives.
Galina Petrovna did not call all day.
That evening, however, she sent Konstantin a long message. He read half of it, set his phone aside, and then picked it up again.
“What does she say?” Lidia asked.
“That you turned me against her.”
Lidia was attaching a new keychain to her keys.
“Convenient.”
“She also says the earrings would have stayed in the family anyway.”
“Especially since they were mine.”
Konstantin gave a humorless laugh.
“I told her I was done discussing it.”
“Good.”
He paused.
“The worst part isn’t even that she took them.”
Lidia looked at him.
“Then what is?”
“That she planned to look you in the eye afterward and tell you that you must have lost them yourself.”
On that point, Lidia agreed with him completely.
If the earrings had simply vanished, she would have kept searching for a long time. She would have retraced her steps through the store, the car, and the bathroom. Eventually, she might have decided that she really had misplaced them.
Then she would have begun doubting her own memory.
All the while, Galina Petrovna would have known exactly where they were.
She would probably have attended her daughter’s birthday, seen the same earrings on Alla, and invented yet another explanation.
 
Lidia closed the console drawer.
“That’s why she will never have a key again.”
“She won’t,” Konstantin said.
And with that, the matter was settled.
A few days later, Alla visited her brother alone. She brought the documents that Galina Petrovna had failed to give Konstantin that Saturday.
In the entryway, she noticed the new set of keys.
“Did you change the lock?”
“Yes,” Lidia replied.
Alla nodded.
She did not ask why, nor did she try to defend her mother.
Before leaving, she paused beside the door.
“By the way, I chose some earrings for myself.”
“What kind?”
Alla showed her a photograph on her phone.
They were small gold hoops, nothing like Lidia’s earrings.
“They’re nice.”
“I like them too. Kostya will give me whatever amount he had planned, Mom can add something if she wants, and I’ll pay the rest myself.”
“That sounds perfectly reasonable.”
“That’s what I told Mom.”
Alla put her phone away.
“She got offended.”
“She’ll get over it.”
Alla laughed.
“That’s exactly what I think.”
After the door closed behind her, Lidia noticed the jewelry case on the console.
The same one.
She had worn the earrings again the day before and had left the box there that evening.
Lidia opened it.
Both earrings were inside.
Konstantin walked past, noticed what his wife was doing, and stopped.
“Checking?”
“It’s a habit now.”
“Maybe you should keep them in the bedroom.”
 
Lidia closed the case.
“No. It can stay exactly where I leave it.”
She picked up her handbag and walked into the other room.
The entryway was left with a new lock, new keys, and a closed jewelry box.
No one considered its contents available for distribution among the relatives anymore—not without the owner’s permission.