The evening light reluctantly filtered through the tulle on the windows when Mikhail threw open the apartment door with such force that it slammed against the wall. Anna flinched, not tearing her eyes away from the laptop screen where she was once again rereading the technical assignment from a client in Moscow. The woman had ordered a set of jewelry for her daughter’s wedding and was incredibly picky—she had already asked for revisions to the sketch three times.
“Still on the computer,” Mikhail remarked, throwing his briefcase onto the couch. “Great. I thought, maybe today my wife will greet me like a human.”
“Hello, darling,” Anna turned toward him, quickly saving the file. “How was work?”
“Wonderful,” Mikhail mumbled, pulling off his tie. “The boss yelled even more passionately than usual in the meeting. The clients are demanding the impossible, the accounting department is dragging their feet on paperwork, and of course, I’m responsible for everything. The usual story.”
Anna looked at her husband—tired, irritated, with deep wrinkles around his eyes that seemed to have appeared only recently. She wanted to get up and hug him, but there were unfinished brooches on the table, and her phone was buzzing with notifications from customers.
“Maybe I’ll make some tea?” she suggested. “We can talk?”
“Talk?” Mikhail surveyed the room with the eye of an inspector. “What are we going to talk about? How you spent the whole day playing with your little crafts while I was slaving away for our well-being?”
On Anna’s table, there really was a creative mess—pieces of fabric, spools of silk thread, boxes of pearls and vintage buttons, and three unfinished brooches that people were already asking to buy. But how could she explain that to her husband, who only saw it as “child’s play”?
“I was working, Misha.”
“Working?” Mikhail sat on the edge of the couch without taking off his shoes. “Anna, listen carefully. Work is when you wake up at seven in the morning, fight traffic to get to the office at rush hour, spend eight hours solving other people’s problems, and take responsibility for everything. Not sitting at home in slippers playing artist.”
“I’m not playing…”
“Not playing?” Mikhail got up and walked over to the table. “What is this then?” He poked his finger at the materials scattered across the table. “Children’s art for adults? Housewife therapy?”
Anna felt a surge of resentment inside. If only he knew how many hours she had spent picking out exactly these materials. How long she had searched for vintage pearl buttons, how carefully she selected each pearl. How many sketches she redrew before finding the perfect composition.
“This is serious work that requires skill and time…”
“Serious work!” Mikhail laughed, but his laugh was bitter. “When are you going to find a real job, dependent? Anna, I need a woman, not a housewife! Do you understand the difference? I need a life partner, a companion, not… not a retired mom who spends the whole day on trinkets.”
“What’s wrong with being at home?”
“What’s wrong?” Mikhail started pacing nervously between the kitchen and the living room. “What’s wrong is that I feel like the only adult in this family! The only one thinking about money, about the future, about how we’re going to live!”
Anna silently put the pearls into a box. She thought about money much more often than Mikhail suspected. She thought about the thirty-two thousand rubles she had to pay for the mortgage tomorrow. That the car loan payment would come the day after—another eighteen thousand. That the expensive salmon Mikhail loved was running out in the fridge.
“Do you know what I thought about on my way home today?” Mikhail continued. “I thought: I’ll come home, and my wife will ask how my day went, maybe support me. Ask me how my day went. And what do I find? You’re sitting there, glued to the screen, not even properly saying hello.”
“Sorry, I was busy with an important order…”
“Important order!” Mikhail stopped in front of her. “Anna, wake up! What orders? Who’s going to order these…” he waved disdainfully at the table, “things?”
“People order them,” Anna said quietly. “More than you think.”
“Really? And how much do you make from this?” Mikhail sat down across from her, crossing his arms. “Come on, brag about your earnings. A thousand rubles a month? Two? Enough for thread?”
Anna lowered her eyes. Last month, she made 114,000 rubles. Almost two and a half times more than Mikhail. But how could she say that? How could she explain that her “things” were being bought in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg? That she had regular clients who were willing to wait months for their orders?
“More than you think,” she repeated.
“More than I think?” Mikhail nervously laughed. “Anna, I think you make zero rubles, zero kopecks. Because your hobbies are as useful as milk from a goat.”
“Misha, you don’t understand…”
“I don’t understand? What’s there to understand?” Mikhail stood up and began walking around the room again. “You know what I heard at work today? Sergey says his wife went to courses, got a degree, and became a designer. Now they both earn, they plan to buy a bigger apartment, have kids.”
“And can’t we have kids?” Anna asked cautiously.
“On what?!” Mikhail exploded. “On my salary? Anna, do you have any idea how much it costs to maintain our lifestyle? The mortgage is thirty thousand. The car loan is eighteen. Utilities are seven. Food, gas, clothes, your creams and shampoos…”
Anna listened, thinking about how Mikhail had no idea who was actually paying most of those bills. That his salary would only be enough for utilities and the simplest food.
“…and all of that on one salary!” Mikhail concluded. “You think it’s easy? You think I’m not tired of this burden of responsibility?”
“Of course, you’re tired,” Anna agreed.
“Exactly! And you’re sitting here with your…,” he jabbed at the desk again, “toys, thinking life’s a bed of roses.”
“I don’t think life’s a bed of roses.”
“Yeah? Then what do you think?” Mikhail came closer. “You think we live in plenty just by magic? Where do we get this furniture?” He gestured around the room. “This tech? This food in the fridge?”
Anna kept silent. The furniture had mostly been bought with her money. The tech, too. And the food in the fridge—expensive cheeses that Mikhail ate without a second thought, red fish, premium meats—all of this was far from cheap, as he thought.
“Silent?” Mikhail nodded, satisfied. “Because you have nothing to say. At least you’re frugal. So, we get by somehow, thanks to your thrift.”
Anna almost laughed. Thrift! If only he knew how much she had spent just on materials for the current orders. Fine Chinese pearls, silk from Italy, vintage hardware from France. But every purchase paid off many times over.
“You know what, Anna?” Mikhail sat in the armchair and looked at his wife seriously. “I’m tired of being the only breadwinner in this family. Tired of feeling like I’m carrying everything on my shoulders.”
“And what do you suggest?”
“I suggest you grow up and get a real job. In an office, with colleagues, with a salary. So we can be equal partners, not like now—one works, the other plays.”
“And what if I don’t want to work in an office?”
“You don’t want to?” Mikhail raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Then what do you want? To sit at home for the rest of your life making crafts?”
“I want to do what I’m good at.”
“You’re good at it?” Mikhail skeptically looked over her workspace. “Anna, listen to yourself. You’re thirty-four years old. You’re an adult woman. And you sound like a teenager who doesn’t want to go to college because she likes drawing in a sketchbook.”
Anna felt her cheeks burn with resentment. A teenager! If only he knew the responsibility she felt for each client. How she worried about every order, how she worked late into the night to get everything just right.
“Misha, you have no idea how serious this is…”
“Serious?” Mikhail stood up. “Fine, let’s get serious. Show me the documents. Your work record, income statement, tax returns.”
“I’m self-employed,” Anna said quietly.
“Self-employed!” Mikhail laughed. “Oh my God, Anna, this is a comedy! You registered as self-employed for your crafts? Seriously?”
“For a real business.”
“What business?” Mikhail walked over to the table and picked up one of the unfinished brooches. “This? Anna, look at this—who’s going to buy this thing? And for how much? Five hundred rubles? A thousand?”
Anna watched as her husband turned the brooch in his hands, which would go to Moscow tomorrow for fourteen thousand rubles. The piece she had worked on for three days, carefully choosing every detail, every shade.
“More than you think,” she said.
“More than I think?” Mikhail placed the brooch back. “Okay, then, name the price. How much is this beauty?”
Anna hesitated. Should she tell the truth? But Mikhail wouldn’t believe it anyway.
“Let’s say a few thousand,” she said evasively.
“A few thousand!” Mikhail threw up his hands. “For one brooch? Anna, are you out of your mind? Who’s going to pay a few thousand for a piece of fabric with buttons?”
“People pay for exclusivity.”
“Exclusivity,” Mikhail mimicked. “You know what? Stop fantasizing. Tomorrow you’re going to look for a job. A real job.”
“And if I don’t?”
Mikhail stopped and looked at his wife for a long time.
“Then I’ll have to reconsider our relationship,” he finally said. “Because I don’t want to carry this family on my shoulders for the rest of my life. I need a partner, not a dependent.”
“I’m not a dependent,” Anna quietly protested.
“Yeah? Then who are you?” Mikhail sat back in the chair. “Who’s paying for this apartment? For the car? For food? For everything else?”
“You are,” Anna said, and it was almost true. Formally, the documents were in her husband’s name. He didn’t know that the money came mostly from her account.
“Exactly. I am.” Mikhail nodded. “And I’m tired of it. Do you understand? I’m tired of being the only adult in this family.”
The next morning, everything changed.
Mikhail was getting ready for work and accidentally knocked Anna’s tablet off the dresser. The screen lit up, showing a notification from the bank: “Funds received: 22,000 rubles.”
Mikhail froze. Twenty-two thousand? Where did this come from?
He grabbed the tablet. The password? Anna had always been careless about security, so the combination “1234” worked. The screen showed the banking app with a balance of 184,000 rubles.
“What the…?” Mikhail whispered.
His heart started pounding. He opened the transaction history and couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Deposit. Wildberries. 8,500 rubles.” “Deposit. Private individual. 15,000 rubles.” “Deposit. Ozon. 6,300 rubles.” “Deposit. Etsy. 8,900 dollars.”
Eight thousand nine hundred dollars! For what?!
“Anna!” he called with a trembling voice. “Anna, get in here, now!”
She appeared in the doorway with a cup of coffee, wearing a bathrobe.
“What’s going on? You’re shouting across the apartment…”
“Anna,” Mikhail pointed at the tablet, “what is this?”
She glanced at the screen and blushed slightly.
“This… my banking business. You weren’t supposed to look.”
“You weren’t supposed to look?!” Mikhail jumped up. “We’re husband and wife! Anna, where did you get all this money?”
“I told you—it’s from orders.”
“From what orders?!” Mikhail shook the tablet. “Anna, this is almost two hundred thousand rubles! On your card! Where did it come from?!”
“From crafts,” she replied quietly.
“Crafts?! Are you kidding me?” Mikhail flipped through the transaction history. “There are deposits every day! Thousands, tens of thousands! For what? For these brooches of yours?”
“Not just for brooches,” Anna sat on the edge of the bed. “Sit down, I’ll explain.”
“I’m not sitting down! Explain while standing!”
“Okay,” Anna sighed. “Misha, I work. I really work. I have a big client base, regular orders, international sales.”
“International sales?” Mikhail asked again. “What international sales?”
“Through online platforms. Etsy, for example.” Anna took the tablet and showed him her profile. “Look.”
Mikhail stared at the screen. Professional photos, thousands of reviews, a five-star rating.
“But this… this is a real store,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Anna nodded. “And not just on Etsy. I have accounts everywhere, practically everywhere.”
“And how much…” Mikhail swallowed. “How much do you make?”
“Depends. On average, seventy to eighty thousand a month.”
Seventy thousand a month. That was his salary!
“And in good months?” Mikhail asked hoarsely.
“Sometimes more than a hundred. In December, for example, I made one hundred and twenty.”
Mikhail collapsed onto the bed, unable to believe what he was hearing.
“So… so you make more than me?”
“Looks like it.”
“And these eight thousand dollars?”
“An order for the USA. A wedding jewelry collection. I spent a month on it.”
“A month…” Mikhail was silent, processing what he had just heard. “Anna, and our expenses… the mortgage, loans…”
“I pay most of them,” she admitted quietly. “Your salary would only cover utilities and food.”
“Only utilities…” Mikhail repeated. “So I’ve been living off you?”
“It looks like we’re living together,” Anna said softly. “As a family.”
“But why… why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Anna shrugged.
“Why would I? You were so proud of supporting the family. I didn’t want to destroy your confidence.”
Mikhail covered his face with his hands. All the words he had said yesterday now felt like mockery. His accusations toward his wife, who had been earning more than him. His demands for her to find a “real job.” His disregard for her “crafts.”
“My God, what an idiot I am,” he whispered. “What an idiot…”
“You’re not an idiot,” Anna sat next to him and hugged her husband. “You just didn’t know.”
“I should have known! I’m your husband! How could I not care about what you’re actually doing?”
“You cared. You just saw it as a hobby.”
“A hobby…” Mikhail laughed bitterly. “A hobby that brings in one hundred thousand a month. And my serious job—less.”
“Misha, it’s not about who earns more.”
“Then what is it about?” Mikhail raised his head. “Anna, I said some horrible things to you yesterday… I called you a dependent, I accused you of sitting on my neck…”
“You didn’t know the truth.”
“And now I know. So what now?” Mikhail stood and walked to the window. “How do I live with this? How do I look you in the eyes?”
“As usual,” Anna replied simply. “We’re family. Did anything change just because you found out the truth?”
“Everything changed,” Mikhail said softly. “Absolutely everything.”
Anna stood up and walked over to him.
“Do you want me to show you how it all works? Show you the workshop, tell you about the orders?”
Mikhail turned to his wife. There was no triumph or reproach in her eyes. Only softness and understanding.
“I want to,” he nodded. “I want to know who you really are. And what I’ve been living all these years.”
They walked over to the desk, and for the first time, Mikhail truly looked at his wife’s world—the world he had always thought of as a child’s hobby.