— “No, Mom! I’m going to rent it out for now. We’ll use that money to renovate our new apartment with Dima! And later, when the renovation is finished, we’ll use it to pay down the mortgage!” Lena laid out for her mother the plan for the apartment her parents had bought her back when she’d just moved up to the upper grades.
— “Yeah… You didn’t live in it very long, daughter!”
— “Three years—do you call that not long?” Elena smiled wryly. “First I lived there alone after university, and then Dima and I moved in together!”
— “Still not long!” her mother replied. “Well, never mind—at least our future grandkids already have a place waiting! Now we just have to wait for them!” Zinaida Pavlovna added with a slightly crafty smile.
— “Oh, Mom, hold your horses with the grandkids!” Lena laughed. “First we want to…”
— “Don’t tell me you two are going to build careers, ‘live for yourselves,’ or any of that nonsense, Len! Your father and I managed just fine with you and your sister! We built our careers and raised both of you into smart girls! Anyone who says it’s impossible is just lazy and doesn’t really want anything—or they’re afraid!”
— “No, Mom! I’m not planning to chase promotions and all that! My job is already more than enough—I barely have time to breathe! Dima is different, though; he has a whole plan with scenarios laid out in detail. I’ve told him many times you can’t foresee everything, but… that’s just how he is! And we do want kids—just after we finish the renovation,” Lena answered Zinaida Pavlovna.
— “What if it works out for him, Len? Besides, your Dima is smart and responsible! You should believe in him more and support him!”
— “You think I don’t support him? That’s pretty much what I do most of the time!” Lena laughed at her mother’s words. “But still—until we finish the renovation, we’re not really talking about kids! We just want everything to be ready by the time the little ones arrive!”
— “That’s the right approach!” said Galina Pavlovna to her daughter. “And your father and I will help anyway, if needed! So keep that in mind!”
— “Mom, I never doubted you and Dad—not even the tiniest bit! It’s Dima who has doubts about his own parents! At first I didn’t get it—I thought he was exaggerating about his parents and sister—but then I realized they really only remember he exists when they need something from him! Whereas Angela, his sister—pampered to the skies and not fit for anything—they always adore and dote on her!”
— “I’m not very well acquainted with your husband’s parents, dear… We haven’t seen each other often, and always with you and Dima there, but even those few times were enough to understand they love the daughter more! I just sat there at our first meeting and couldn’t believe my ears—how they praised that… what’s her name? Angela?—when she barely finished school! I never understood that kind of favoritism between children!”
— “I don’t understand it either, Mom! So I don’t even want to discuss it! I just know we won’t be like that!”
— “You won’t love your children that way because you grew up in harmony—where you and your sister were equally loved and got equal punishment for misbehavior! But as for Dima—don’t speak too soon! Who knows what kind of father he’ll turn out to be?”
— “He’ll be just like me, Mom! What’s there to see?” Lena didn’t understand.
— “I hope so! But still, don’t be too certain!”
— “Then let’s just not talk about this topic for now, okay? Otherwise…”
Sensing her daughter was starting to get angry and not wanting to upset her further, Galina Pavlovna cut in:
— “All right, dear! We won’t talk about it for now, and I need to get back to things anyway! Call me when you have time! Say hi to Dima! Love you both!”
— “Okay, Mom… We love you too! Bye!”
Lena was a bit annoyed that her mother hadn’t let her finish, but a little later, once the initial surge of emotion had faded, she realized her mother had done the right thing—otherwise they might have quarreled.
She had the day off and was doing housework. Since the apartment renovation wasn’t fully finished, Lena only needed to tidy up the bedroom and make dinner. By her calculations, she would finish right around the time her husband came home from work—three hours later. And after Dima had rested a little, they would continue the renovation together. They sometimes worked on it even at night—as long as they didn’t have to make too much noise. If it was a noisy task, they pushed it to the next day or to a time when noise was allowed.
But that evening, the renovation had to be postponed, because Dima came home in a foul mood…
— “Did something happen at work?” Lena asked with concern as soon as Dima finished dinner.
— “Why do you assume something must have happened at work?” he snapped at her worry.
— “It’s just that you’re usually like this when there’s some kind of trouble there…”
— “Everything’s fine there, Len! Just don’t get on my case right now, okay?” he asked his wife again, not very politely.
— “All right…”
Lena went to the bedroom while Dima stayed in the kitchen, stewing over something. She simply didn’t want to argue with him. In general, they rarely fought—and only over petty renovation-related things. Before moving into this apartment, they’d lived in perfect harmony in her old place—except for one week when Dima’s sister came to stay. She drained the couple’s patience to the last drop, and Dima had practically had to force her into a cab to the station so she’d go home, because Lena felt she might kill her—and her husband along with her.
About an hour later, Dima came into the bedroom. Lena realized he’d had a drink while sitting alone in the kitchen, and she didn’t like that one bit.
— “Why did you run off? Couldn’t you have stayed and sat with me in the kitchen?” Dima asked gruffly.
— “You told me not to get on your case, so I left! Or did you want me to just sit there silently beside you—like a mute piece of décor?” she shot back indignantly.
— “No, but… you could have just not left, that’s all! What’s so hard to understand?”
— “Listen, Dima, I have no idea what’s wrong with you today, what happened, or why you’re acting like this… You’ve been drinking, too…” She winced. “So either tell me what happened now—or leave me alone, okay?!”
Dima stared at his wife in silence, hardly blinking for a couple of minutes, and then his expression changed—he looked sadder—and at last he began to explain what was going on with him today:
— “My parents called me today…”
— “And? What did they say that made you treat me like this?” Lena asked, still completely at a loss.
— “Well… It’s Angela again… More problems with her…”
— “Okay, fine. She has problems again. What do you have to do with it? What does it have to do with our family? Why are you talking to me like this because of it? Why did you drink over it? What is going on? And anyway—if your parents have problems with your sister, let them deal with them themselves—she’s their darling, after all!” Lena pelted her husband with questions and complaints.
— “Yeah. I told them that at first! But they still pushed something on me…”
— “And what was that?” Elena asked, already sensing something really bad—something she definitely wouldn’t like.
— “So… she was expelled from college for tons of absences and poor grades, and my parents decided to send her here to study…” Dima told his wife.
— “And?” she still didn’t get it. “What’s in that that could affect you—or us—like this?”
— “They just don’t want Angela living in a dorm, and…”
— “No-o-o!” Lena cut him off, letting out a nervous laugh. “She is definitely not going to live with us!” she added.
— “No, no! Not with us! I told them right away Angela wouldn’t live with us! And Mom didn’t insist on that!”
— “Then what?”
— “Well, you have an apartment… Where else should she live, Mom said, if not with us and not in the dorm? Only in your apartment—the one you’re renting out now!” he finally said.
— “And what does my apartment have to do with this, Dima? If your sister has nowhere to live, then your parents should handle it—since she can’t!”
— “It’s not that she can’t! It’s just… you know she likes to party and have fun, and my parents are just worried about her—especially Mom.”
— “And what would stop her from partying and throwing ragers in my apartment?! What kind of nerve is this, anyway?”
— “I guess you and I would stop her.”
— “Oh really?! Maybe your mother should come then, disguise herself as a student, and move into the dorm with Angela to keep an eye on her 24/7?”
— “Len, I knew you were going to start yelling and arguing about this, which is why I acted the way I did when I got home! Mom chewed my brain out with her calls today—begging and demanding! First it was pleading, then it turned into demands!”
— “And what did you tell her?”
— “Well… I said I’d talk to you, because it’s not my apartment, and I don’t have the right to make decisions about letting Angela live there without you. And then she started yelling at me on the phone—saying I’m the most ungrateful person in the world, and…”
— “You? That’s what she said about you? As in shouted?!” Lena was outraged. “Why doesn’t she say that about her precious daughter? Does Angela thank them tearfully for everything all the time? Somehow I really doubt it!”
— “I know she’s wrong—it all just got to me…”
— “And I can see that when you came home, you decided to ‘get to’ the bottle, too!”
Dima gave his wife a guilty look, as if apologizing with his eyes.
— “You can tell your mother right now that my apartment—and this one of ours—will never see your sister’s footsteps! First, she doesn’t know how to behave as a guest. Second, she gets on my nerves like crazy. And third, they spoiled their darling daughter themselves—so let them reap the fruits!”
— “I get it, I get it! Just don’t yell, Len! I’ve heard enough filth today as it is…”
— “I don’t understand why you listened to any of it. You say a firm ‘No!’ and that’s it—hang up! Let them work themselves into a rage over there! And if they keep pestering you—just block their numbers so they can’t call at all!”
— “They’re still my parents…”
— “So what? Do you have even a drop of self-respect? Or can you only show it to me when you’ve been drinking?”
— “I do, of course!”
— “Then tomorrow call and tell your mother exactly how it is! And if she doesn’t like it—she can take a hike! Honestly! I’m not wasting my nerves on them!”
— “Okay… I’ll probably do that tomorrow,” Dima replied almost confidently, but still with a touch of doubt.
The very next day, he didn’t call his mother as planned. He simply didn’t have the chance, because as soon as he got to work, his mother called him herself:
— “Well? What did your wife say? When can we bring our beauty over and settle her into that apartment?” she went straight to the point—no greeting, no preamble.
— “Never, Mom.”
— “What do you mean, ‘never’?!” she screamed at her son. “Lyosha! Did you hear what your son just said? He said we can’t bring our girl to them!” she shouted to her husband.
— “Mom, don’t yell, please! Listen to me! Lena and I won’t let Angela live either with us or in Lena’s apartment, and we won’t be her nannies! So deal with it yourselves, since she turned out that way! Okay? Don’t take it out on me and my wife…”
— “I knew that tramp would scrub your brains clean!!! I knew it!!! If I’d known what a pushover you’d be, how dependent you’d become on some chick, I would’ve gotten rid of you back in infancy!!!”
Her words cut Dima to the core. He’d heard plenty of nastiness from his mother, but right then she herself had severed the last threads binding them as mother and child.
— “Then don’t call me again. Have a nice life,” he said, and hung up.
And though what he’d just heard hurt and disgusted him, he felt a strange relief when, after the call, he blocked his mother’s number on his phone. Then he blocked his father’s and his sister’s numbers too—just to be sure.
He thought about all of it the rest of the day, but when he came home, his heart felt warm and light. He and his wife went on perfecting their little nest and felt certain his parents would no longer disturb them—no matter what was going on over there. From now on, that was their problem. As for Dima and Lena—they had their own family, and they would protect and defend it from people like Dima’s parents.