“Go to your parents and get the money from them. My sister is drowning in debt, and you’re just going to stand there and watch?” Vitya snapped, throwing a bank statement onto the table.
“It is not my parents’ responsibility to pull your sister out of yet another disaster,” I said, pushing the papers aside. “Let her clean up her own mess.”
“Have you lost your mind? Alyonka is family! And what are your parents saving for in their old age, a coffin?”
“Don’t you dare talk about my parents like that! They worked themselves to the bone their whole lives, unlike your precious sister!”
The smell of burnt eggs filled the kitchen. I switched off the stove, feeling my anger bubbling harder than the oil in the frying pan. Third time this month. Third. Alyonka had an almost admirable talent for falling into debt—first for a fur coat, then for the newest iPhone, then for a holiday in Turkey.
“Mom, is breakfast ready?” our fifteen-year-old daughter Nastya asked, peeking into the kitchen.
“In a minute, sweetheart. Dad is just leaving.”
Vitya gave me a dark look, but he kept silent in front of our daughter. A second later, the front door slammed. He left without even saying goodbye.
I picked up my phone and called my mother. The ringing felt endless.
“Tanyusha, good morning! How are you all?” My mother’s voice was warm and calm, as always.
“Hi, Mom. Everything’s… everything’s fine. How are you? How’s Dad?”
“We’re doing all right. Working in the garden a little. Your father has this idea to build a new greenhouse. Says we’ll grow tomatoes and sell them. Our pension is small, so a little extra money won’t hurt.”
My heart clenched. They were both seventy, still working, still saving every little bit. And I was supposed to go to them and ask them to hand over their hard-earned savings so Alyonka could pay off another loan for clothes and nonsense?
“Mom, I’ll come by tonight and bring some groceries.”
“No need, Tanya, we have everything. You’d better save your money with Vitya. Nastya will be going to university soon.”
After work, I stopped by my parents’ place. Dad was in the garage, fixing up the old Zhiguli he had bought back in the eighties. Mom was in the kitchen making dumplings. “For you and Vitya,” she said. “Put them in the freezer.”
“Dad, maybe it’s time to sell the car? You barely drive it anymore.”
“What are you saying, sweetheart? It’s not just a car, it’s a memory. Remember when we used to drive to the sea when you were little? You sang the whole way, and your mother sang with you.”
I remembered. Back then happiness had seemed endless. The salty wind through the window, Mom’s hands braiding my hair, Dad joking behind the wheel…
My phone exploded with messages from Vitya: “Well? Did you talk to them? Debt collectors are calling Alyonka! She urgently needs 300,000!”
Three hundred thousand. My parents had spent three years saving up for a new roof because the old one leaked. They put away five thousand from their pension whenever they could, denying themselves almost everything.
I got home late. Vitya was in the living room surrounded by papers.
“Tomorrow we’re going to your parents. Enough dragging this out,” he said instead of hello.
“We are not going anywhere. And I am not asking them for money.”
“Why do you keep saying the same thing? Alyonka could be thrown out of her apartment!”
“Then let her be thrown out. Maybe that will finally knock some sense into her.”
Vitya jumped to his feet, his face turning dark red. “You’re doing this on purpose! You’ve always hated my sister!”
“I hate the way she uses all of you! Where is her husband? Let him deal with it!”
“They got divorced six months ago, you know that!”
“I know. And I know why. He got tired of financing her endless wants.”
The next morning I woke up to my phone ringing. Alyonka, of course.
“Tanya, have you completely lost it? Vitya says you won’t even ask your parents! I have a little daughter, do you understand?”
“I do. And what about it? I have a daughter too, in case you forgot. She needs an education, not your debts hanging over her.”
“I’ll pay it all back! Tanya, please! There’s no one else I can turn to!”
I could hear her sobbing into the phone. The usual one-woman performance.
“Alyona, sell your fur coat. Sell your branded bags. Sell your iPhone. That will cover half the debt already.”
“Are you kidding me? Those were gifts! And how am I supposed to live without a phone?”
“Buy a cheap one for a thousand. You’ll still be able to make calls.”
She hung up on me.
That evening Vitya came home carrying a huge bouquet of roses. He set them on the table and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“I’m sorry, I lost my temper. Let’s just talk calmly. Maybe your parents could lend a hundred thousand, at least? It wouldn’t be forever. We’d pay it back.”
“Vitya, stop. Your sister already borrowed money from us once, remember? Supposedly for renovations. Where did it go? Right, on a vacation in Dubai. And that year Nastya didn’t go to camp because we couldn’t afford it.”
“That was two years ago!”
“So what changed? Did Alyonka get a job? Did she stop living beyond her means?”
Vitya said nothing. The roses in the vase looked like a silent reproach—expensive, unnecessary, clearly bought out of calculation rather than love.
Three days later Alyonka showed up in person. No warning. Child in her arms. Her four-year-old daughter Liza immediately ran to Nastya’s toys.
“Tanya, I came straight from the debt collectors. They’re threatening me!” Alyonka collapsed onto the sofa, smearing mascara across her cheeks.
“Then go to the police and file a report.”
“What police? I’ll have nowhere to live in a week!”
I looked at Liza. The little girl was happily dressing up one of Nastya’s old dolls. An innocent child who had done nothing wrong.
“You can stay with us for a while,” I said. “But I will not ask my parents for money. And Vitya will not either.”
“You’re just greedy! You’ve always been like that—everything for yourself, yourself, yourself!”
Something inside me snapped. I stood up and walked right up to my sister-in-law.
“Get out. Right now. And take your child with you.”
“You have no right!”
“This is my house. Those are my parents. I decide. If Vitya wants, he can leave with you.”
Alyonka stormed out, slamming the door behind her. Liza started crying because she had not finished playing. Vitya did not speak to me for a week. Then he told me Alyonka had moved in with a friend, gotten a job as a sales clerk, and arranged a debt restructuring with her creditors.
“You see? She’s managing,” I said.
“She could have managed sooner if you’d helped.”
“Vitya, she is managing precisely because I didn’t help.”
A month passed. My parents never found out about our family drama. Dad repaired the roof himself. “Why waste money on workers? My hands still work,” he said. Mom brought over another batch of dumplings and jars of jam.
“Tanya, you seem a little sad,” Mom said, stroking my hair the way she did when I was little. “Is everything all right with Vitya?”
“Everything’s fine, Mom. I’m just tired.”
“Take care of your family, sweetheart. That’s the most important thing.”
I hugged her and breathed in that familiar scent—a mix of vanilla from her constant baking and her favorite old perfume. Family, yes, that is the most important thing. But family is not only about taking. It is also about giving. And about standing on your own feet.
That evening Vitya said, “Alyonka called. She says she has already paid off half the debt. She’s also working evenings as a courier.”
“Good for her.”
“You know… maybe you were right. She really did need to grow up.”
I nodded as I poured the tea. Outside, a cold autumn rain was falling. Nastya was doing her homework, music drifting from her room. An ordinary evening in an ordinary family.
Then my phone buzzed with a message.
It was from Alyonka: “Thank you.”
Just one word. But for the first time, it felt sincere.
I smiled and deleted the message.
Some lessons come painfully. But without them, people never really grow up. Even if they are already over thirty and have a child of their own.
And my parents? They are still saving their pension money, little by little. “For a rainy day,” they say. Only their rainy day is not Alyonka’s debt from fur coats. It is a real disaster, if one ever comes. God willing, it never will.
As for fur coats… well, those can go unbought. Especially on credit.