Good thing you’re home. I came for the keys,” Anna’s mother-in-law said dryly, appearing in the doorway at the worst possible moment.
“What keys?” Anna was surprised. “Did you give Igor the keys to your apartment? Did you go somewhere again? To a sanatorium? Or this time did you decide to go traveling to holy places with your friend?”
Anna had just come home from work. She was exhausted, more worn out than ever today. Seeing her mother-in-law was the last thing she wanted. But you can’t just throw her out – she is her husband’s mother, after all. She stood there, looking at Anna with a reproachful gaze, as if Anna owed her money and wasn’t paying it back.
“Come in, Polina Ilinichna. Honestly, I’ve got nothing to treat you with, I’ve just come in. And Igor is still at work. Will you wait?”
For a moment Anna felt like she was talking to herself. Her mother-in-law was laconic and clearly displeased about something. Without saying a word, she walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. Then, apparently deciding that she should at least inform her daughter-in-law of her intentions, she finally said curtly:
“I’ll wait for Igor. He’ll be here soon, won’t he?”
“I don’t know. If he decides to go earn a bit extra driving the car, then not soon. Wait,” the tired daughter-in-law muttered, shrugging irritably, and went to the kitchen.
Anna was very hungry. But there was nothing ready. She needed to get to the stove and cook dinner. And her mother-in-law probably wouldn’t refuse to have dinner with them either. She’d made herself quite at home in the soft cushions of the couch, settled in there like a bird in a nest. Everything about her said she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.
I wonder what keys she wants to take from us? Anna thought as she sliced the chicken to stew it with vegetables.
She automatically got on with preparing dinner, but she kept thinking and simply couldn’t understand what was going on.
Her husband hadn’t said a word to her about any keys. That meant one of two things – either Igor was hiding something from her, or there really was something wrong with Polina Ilinichna’s head.
Her mother-in-law hadn’t always behaved adequately in the past either. Maybe she’d made something up again. She was sitting there in silence, only darting her big eyes around, as if she’d come into their apartment for the first time.
Igor was taking a long time. Most likely, he had indeed gone off to do some taxi runs and earn extra after his main job. He did that often, and since it was Friday, he must have decided there would be a lot of clients.
Money in the family was catastrophically short. So both spouses grabbed any opportunity to earn even a little on the side.
For several years already, Anna had been combining two jobs: her main one as a nurse in a hospital, and in her off-duty time she worked as a caregiver for neighbors.
There had long been a bedridden, seriously ill woman living in the next building, and Anna did all the medical procedures she needed.
And sometimes it happened that Marina, the sick woman’s daughter, when she and her husband had to go away or be gone for a long time, asked Anna to stay with her bedridden mother. Marina paid well. And when this fell on weekends or holidays, she would add more on top of the agreed amount. This kind of work was familiar to Anna. Yes, it was hard both physically and emotionally. But the opportunity to earn gave the woman strength.
Igor didn’t sit idle either; he tried to earn extra as well, because in recent years they had been paying off the mortgage on their apartment.
They had no children. Anna had been unlucky from the very beginning. When she married Igor, who already had one marriage behind him and a son growing up, she believed and hoped that very soon she herself would become a mother. She dreamed about it and longed for pregnancy.
But it never happened. First a miscarriage, then a second one. And after that – nothing at all. The doctor told her she needed to accept the fact that most likely she would never have children.
“Think about adopting,” friends and colleagues told Anna.
But Igor flatly refused that idea. Why would he need someone else’s child – he had his own. And Anna… she still waited and hoped. And in spite of everything, she believed in a miracle.
And so the spouses had lived together for many years, just the two of them.
They had recently made the final mortgage payments. Now the apartment was fully theirs. They could exhale and think about the future. But for some reason, there was no joy.
Lately Igor had been occupied with the problems of his now adult son from his first marriage. At twenty, the young man had fallen in love and decided to get married. The father tried to talk him out of it, meeting him on his ex-wife’s territory.
And Anna felt like a horse running in circles, unable to break free. Out of inertia, by long-formed habit, she still worried about where and how to earn money. She didn’t think at all about how they would live now – without debts and worries. She just couldn’t get used to the idea that she no longer owed anything to anyone.
Enough cogitating, I need to call my husband and ask what keys his mother was talking about, Anna decided.
“Igor, where are you? At Roman’s? What is it now, more problems? I see. And are you coming home soon? We’ve got a guest here, your mother came by. Says she’s here for the keys. Do you know what she’s talking about? You do? You’ll explain later? And now? Right, I see…”
Anna thoughtfully pressed the hang-up button. Her husband had said he’d be there soon and explain everything. She really didn’t like any of this…
“Well? Are you going to invite me to the table, or am I going to sit there forever?” her annoyed mother-in-law walked into the kitchen.
“Yes, I was just about to call you. But it’s not ready yet.”
“Is Igor coming home soon? I heard you talking to him just now. I can’t sit here until midnight. I’ve got lots to do,” Polina Ilinichna said with obvious displeasure. And from the look of it, she was nervous.
“Maybe you could explain to me yourself what keys we’re talking about?” Anna couldn’t hold back.
“Didn’t Igor tell you? Strange. I thought you’d already discussed everything… and come to a mutual agreement,” her mother-in-law said dryly.
“What exactly are we talking about?” the daughter-in-law looked at her in surprise.
“About your apartment, what else?”
“The apartment?” Anna was taken aback, and she suddenly felt a nasty sensation in her chest. “Ours?”
“Well yes! My son told me that you finally settled up with the bank, the mortgage is paid off and now it’s yours.”
“Yes. That’s right. And?”
“And this! Igor has decided to give this apartment to me,” her mother-in-law said something so outrageous that Anna’s breath stopped for a moment.
“What are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?” Anna asked very quietly for some reason.
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She suddenly felt ill. It was as if her strength had left her; she couldn’t speak or think straight.
“What’s so strange about it? No, I’m perfectly sane. And it seems to me that this is quite a reasonable decision. And today I came to take your spare keys. Since the apartment is going to be mine, I should have my own set.”
“And why on earth would it be yours? Are you sure you feel well? You didn’t fall today, did you? Maybe you hit your head and forgot?” Anna finally pulled herself together and decided to respond properly to this brazen stunt.
“Don’t you shout at me! My son suggested a good option. A perfectly reasonable one, at that. You could at least listen to him,” the mother-in-law went on the offensive too, not intending to give in.
“And what’s reasonable about it? I’ve been slaving away at two jobs for fifteen years just to hand you my apartment for free?”
“If you stop your hysterics and think calmly, you’ll agree that my son is right.
First of all, he’s been earning more than you all these years. Yes, yes, don’t be surprised. The salary of a nurse and that of an engineer are quite different, aren’t they? You know that better than I do.
And also… Forgive me, Anna, but you never managed to give my son a child. That’s also a fact. And that means your heirs will be your relatives. But Igor has a son, my grandson Roman. And I’ll make a will in his favor. If something happens to you, your family will descend on us and grab this apartment from us. And if, God forbid, something happens to my sonny, then Roma again will be left with nothing, everything will go to you. And Igor worked, he paid the mortgage. So where’s the justice in that?”
“What does your grandson have to do with this, I don’t understand? He has a mother, grandparents on that side. Leave him whatever you want, but forget about my apartment! There’s no way I’m giving you my home!” Anna was already shouting.
“What are you saying? Your home! Listen to her! It’s your shared property with my son.”
“Yes,” Anna cut her off. “This apartment belongs to me and my husband. And on that basis I’m telling you that neither you, nor your grandson, nor anyone else will get a single inch of it! Did I make myself clear?”
“When Igor gets here, we’ll talk about it with him present,” the mother-in-law wouldn’t back down.
“No, we will not talk! What a pair of schemers you are! I didn’t work two jobs for years to pay off the mortgage on this apartment just to hand it to your grandson on a silver platter!” Anna was shaking from the strain, but she already felt a surge of strength and even a kind of fighting spirit.
“Stop your hysteria! You’re absolutely wrong. Absolutely! You have no children of your own, so let your husband calmly do what’s needed to secure his son’s future.”
“I will not stop. And I’m asking you to leave my apartment and forget about it forever. Neither you, Polina Ilinichna, nor my husband’s son will get anything from here.”
“What? You’re throwing me out? Seriously?” the mother-in-law trembled with indignation. “Think, girl. You might regret this later!”
“I am indeed throwing you out! The door is over there – don’t let it hit you on the way out,” the daughter-in-law boldly pointed to the exit.
“I’ll wait for my son. I’m not going anywhere,” the mother-in-law grew stubborn.
“No! Wait at home. This isn’t a train station and not a waiting room.”
Anna physically pushed her mother-in-law out and slammed the door behind her.
Barely waiting for her husband to come home, she flew at him the second he stepped through the door.
“Are you out of your mind, promising your mother something like that? Did we pay for these four walls for years so you could gallantly present the apartment to your precious mommy?” Anna demanded loudly.
“Don’t shout, please. What’s the big deal? I figured it wouldn’t be so terrible,” her husband began to justify himself. “Mom’s not a stranger to us, we can trust her. But your lot… Mom convinced me that your sister and her husband will want to take the apartment away from us.”
“What senile nonsense is this? Why would they? I’m not exactly planning to die just yet. Or is that what you’re dreaming about?”
“No, of course not! It’s just that with this whole business of Roma’s wedding, curse it, and Mom going on and on… Saying: ‘We’re one family, we won’t cheat you and Anna, the apartment will stay in the family. But with your relatives, anything could happen. Your brother-in-law works in the police, and your sister’s in the investigative committee.’ Well, I caved… believed my mother. I thought maybe it really would be better to transfer the apartment to her. Just to avoid problems. She wouldn’t kick us out anyway.”
“Utter nonsense! I’ve never heard anything stupider in my life. Either you’re an idiot yourself, or you’re trying to make me look like a complete fool,” his wife said, shaking her head in disbelief.
The apartment remained in their joint ownership.
The mother-in-law harbored resentment and never spoke to her daughter-in-law again. And Anna told her husband that from now on she wouldn’t even let his mother over the threshold.
And a year later something happened that Anna had never expected!
After Roman’s child was born and Igor became a young grandfather, he suddenly left Anna for his first wife, who had continued to live alone all this time. He was drawn back to his son and grandson, to his old family.
After the divorce, the former spouses put their apartment up for sale.
And yet her husband and mother-in-law had planned to take the whole apartment for themselves, leaving the woman with nothing. What a pair of clever ones! Or scoundrels. Pick whichever word you like better.