Natalia, my friends from Bulgaria will arrive soon. Remember I told you they’d stay with us for a few days?” said the mother-in-law, approaching Natalia, who was working on the computer.
The young woman lifted her tired gaze from the monitor, smiled meekly, and nodded. She was exhausted, and she hadn’t even finished the designs for the new clothing collection she was developing from scratch. There was so much work that even at home, all her free time was dedicated to it. Her eyes watered, and sometimes the images blurred. She needed to take a break, go outside, sit on the swing, and enjoy the fresh air. Natalia decided to do just that, but she didn’t yet know that her mood would be ruined in just a few minutes.
“Of course, I remember. You said they’re coming tomorrow, right?”
“Actually, today,” replied Tatiana Pavlovna in a displeased tone, lifting her chin.
“Oh! I’ve been so buried in work, I even forgot what day it is today. Do you need help? Should I prepare something? Clean up?”
“I’ve already done everything. Didn’t wait for help. But that’s okay, I came to ask you something else. Basically, could you make a bed for your grandfather in the bathhouse? Let him live there for a couple of days. There’s an outhouse nearby, you can bring him food, nothing will happen. Let’s say we’ve housed a gardener there. You understand, these friends are important to me, and I wouldn’t want to be embarrassed in front of them.”
Tatiana Pavlovna’s words sounded less like a request and more like a command. She spoke discontentedly, indicating that Natalia had to do exactly as told, or else there would be trouble.
“Tatiana Pavlovna, how can you say such things? How can my grandfather embarrass you?” Natalia flared up.
Natalia’s cheeks flushed with indignation.
Her mother-in-law and her grandfather, Georgiy Fedorovich, didn’t get along. The grandfather tried not to argue with the quarrelsome woman, as he called her, but the tension between them was always palpable.
“What you heard is exactly what I said. Isn’t it clear? I don’t want to be embarrassed! This old man is so messy. He can’t even eat at the table once without coughing and spilling or dropping something.”
“That’s because grandfather has esophagus issues: if he swallows too hard food, he coughs. Also, his hands shake after working at the factory. You know this very well. Despite this, grandfather is a very good person, and I don’t understand your complaints at all. How can he embarrass you in front of your friends? What does he even have to do with you?”
“Natalia, why are you raising your voice at me? Did I do something bad to you? I asked for something harmless, but if it’s so hard for you to do something for your mother-in-law, I’ll remember that. Just so you know. I raised such a son for you, entrusted him to your hands, and you yell at me!”
Of course, there was no yelling, but Tatiana Pavlovna took it her own way.
Lifting her chin even higher, though it seemed impossible, the woman walked out of her daughter-in-law’s room, not forgetting to slam the door. What’s with her habit of turning up her nose and slamming doors?
Natalia was infuriated to the limit. How could Tatiana Pavlovna dare to ask for such things?… Of course, she didn’t even ask – she demanded. It was clear how disdainfully she spoke of her grandfather, and Natalia decided to discuss her behavior with her husband. Especially since Kirill was supposed to arrive for lunch soon.
After checking on her grandfather and making sure he was alright, Natalia turned on his desk lamp and scolded him for crafting his wooden boxes without an additional light source.
“Granddaughter, I’m almost done. Just quickly finish this part of the pattern and then I’ll take a nap. I’m tired today,” Georgiy Fedorovich smiled warmly.
“I was in your place once, said I just needed to finish reading a page, and you scolded me. Remember?”
The grandfather laughed. It lightened the mood a bit.
Kirill came home for lunch, but Natalia couldn’t talk to him alone because Tatiana Pavlovna was hovering around her son, insistently saying that he absolutely must leave work early, go and meet her friends at the airport.
“Mom, Natalia has a point. Work it out with her. I can’t. We have an urgent order today. I can’t leave early. Might even have to stay later.”
“You promised you would do this! I rarely ask you for anything. It’s important to me that my son drives me!” Tatiana Pavlovna stated firmly.
Puffing up, the woman left, and Natalia sighed heavily. Kirill understood from his wife’s behavior that tension was brewing, potentially escalating into conflict.
“What’s wrong, dear? Something troubling you?”
“Your mom started acting so strangely with the arrival of these guests, as if it’s a matter of life and death. Today she asked… no, demanded, that I make a bed for grandfather in the bathhouse because she’s afraid he’ll embarrass her in front of her friends. Kirill, I understand everything, but isn’t her order excessive?”
Kirill exhaled loudly, scratched his head, and pursed his lips, deep in thought. His mother’s behavior puzzled him, as he knew she often crossed the line of acceptability. Lately, audacity seemed to be her real happiness. Could it be that his mother had always been like this? Sometimes Kirill even thought that his father didn’t just leave the family for no reason. His mother constantly brainwashed him, telling him how bad his father was… But maybe he just couldn’t stand her quarrelsome nature?
“What did you say?”
“Of course, I refused. I’m not going to treat grandfather that way. It’s not normal.”
“You’re right. I’ll definitely talk to mom if she pulls something like this again. I promise you.”
Kirill got up from the table, kissed his wife on the cheek, and rushed to his car because he indeed had a lot of work, and no one else could handle it but him.
As the man couldn’t get off work early, Natalia ended up driving her mother-in-law to the airport. After their conversation with Tatiana Pavlovna, the tension didn’t dissipate; it built up like a snowball. The big question was when the avalanche would collapse and bury everything. Natalia felt guilty, although she knew she was right. She didn’t like to argue with people, especially close ones. She dreamed of having good relations with her mother-in-law, but how? The woman often concocted strange, fabricated grievances, pouted her lips, and Natalia felt unjustly guilty because she was a non-confrontational person. That’s how her grandfather raised her. It was only thanks to him that she grew up calm, with a big kind heart. The grandfather spent so much time with his granddaughter, and when her parents died, he took care of Natalia. He never gave up, never said it was hard. He even helped Natalia with exams and understood everything. How worried he was when she defended her thesis!.. He walked around the university until his granddaughter came out and delighted him with the news – she had passed! Grandfather did everything for Natalia. Sometimes he sacrificed a lot, took on a bunch of orders, undervaluing his work, just to buy his granddaughter a laptop for work or a graphic tablet. Tatiana Pavlovna didn’t understand much. She didn’t know anything. The mother-in-law was used to having everything done for her. She demanded attention from her son, saying he owed her for life because she gave him an education and raised him. And sometimes she hinted to her daughter-in-law that she owed the mother-in-law for trusting her such a son. As if Kirill hadn’t made his own choice, and there wasn’t one.
“Go meet your friends, I’ll sit in the car for a while. I have an unplanned discussion in the work chat. I need to participate,” said Natalia, stopping in the airport parking lot.
“What’s this now? I’m supposed to help them carry their suitcases alone? No way! Come with me since you’re here! Kiryusha would never leave me like this.”
Natalia pursed her lips and shook her head. She decided that she could chat on the way and hurried after her mother-in-law.
The woman’s friends seemed like unpleasant people with inflated egos. They reminded her of Tatiana Pavlovna herself. The woman loaded Natalia with bags while she walked with empty hands. And her friends were not far behind. Natalia understood that they were using her, and everything inside her boiled with outrage. Her mother-in-law had crossed all boundaries.
Kirill was significantly delayed at work. His mother entertained her guests at home, showed them around the yard, whispering about something.
Opening the window to let fresh air into the room, Natalia heard her mother-in-law boasting to her friends.
“See, all this is my son’s. See how much he’s achieved. My Kiryusha is such a good boy. He’s buying me tickets to a sanatorium by the sea this summer. I’ll finally get some rest. So much to do. Natalia is always at the computer, and the whole house is on my shoulders. That’s why I have to live here, with them. It’s scary to think what will happen when they have kids. I sense they’ll dump it all on me. Well, nothing! That’s why I’m alive, to help my children!”
Tatiana Pavlovna’s friends just gasped, agreed with the woman, pitied her for how poor and unfortunate she was, how much had piled up on her. They didn’t lag behind her and said that she had a lazy daughter-in-law, and Natalia felt hurt to tears. The mother-in-law rarely took care of the house. Most often, she lay in front of the TV, only telling her daughter-in-law what she should do, what dinner to prepare. Natalia juggled everything with work, sometimes her husband helped. On weekends, they cleaned the house together, and on weekdays, grandfather helped and even vacuumed the whole house, except for Tatiana Pavlovna’s room.
“And who was that old man peeking out of the room?” asked a friend of Tatiana Pavlovna.
“That? Oh, just… We sheltered a homeless man. My kind son has him working as a gardener, even gave him a room in the house.”
The mother-in-law’s words were the last straw. Natalia got angry, called her husband, and informed him that she didn’t want to endure his mother’s guests in their home any longer. And Tatiana Pavlovna had overstayed her welcome. It was time for her to return to her place, especially since the renovation she was supposedly planning wasn’t even happening because living in the house was better than in an apartment with eternal noise from neighbors.
Kirill was already on his way home. He asked his wife to calm down and promised that he would sort everything out. He didn’t like his mother’s behavior at all and decided to teach her a lesson. After greeting his mother’s friends, whom he had last seen in childhood, Kirill rushed to his wife and shared his plan with her.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do? Your mom will get very angry, won’t forgive you if we do this. She’s wrong, of course, but I don’t know if we can stoop to her level,” Natalia worried.
“Whether she gets upset or not – it’s not that important. She didn’t think about your feelings or your grandfather’s. What if he heard all this too? Imagine how unpleasant he must feel now? Mom really overstayed her welcome and forgot whose house she’s living in. It’s time to remind her of that.”
After dinner, Kirill got up from the table and hurried to help Georgiy Fedorovich, whom everyone had been glaring at.
“Kiryush, really? I can walk to the room perfectly well by myself.”
“Georgiy Fedorovich, we owe you, as we have the honor of living in your house, built by your hands,” Kirill said with a smile.
The house indeed belonged to Natalia’s grandfather, something Tatiana Pavlovna had apparently forgotten, and now she was steaming like a locomotive, turning crimson. Kirill led Georgiy Fedorovich to the room, and Natalia stood up and looked at the guests.
“Now let’s go, I’ll make a bed for you in the bathhouse. We don’t have a spare room…”
Tatiana Pavlovna started hissing and frowning. Her friends exchanged glances.
“What do you mean no room? Natalia, you must be confused! I’ve already prepared a room for them!” the woman grumbled.
“That’s the guest room, Tatiana Pavlovna, but now Kirill’s friend is coming, he’ll be helping us with the renovation… you forgot? So he’ll be staying in that room.”
The mother-in-law was choked with outrage and simultaneously burned with shame. She had lied so much to her friends, and now the truth was coming out, and they no longer looked at her with the same admiration.
“Kirill, what kind of tricks are these!” the woman shouted at her son when he returned.
Kirill just hugged his wife and shrugged.
“What’s wrong? You suggested settling Georgiy Fedorovich in the bathhouse, the owner of the house, so you consider it royal chambers worthy of your guests. And indeed, we have little space in the house.”
The guests hurriedly packed their bags and called a taxi, stating they would rather rent a hotel room than endure such a masquerade. Tatiana Pavlovna expressed to her son and daughter-in-law that they had embarrassed her, and now she didn’t even want to know them.
“You started this spectacle first, mom. If you thought I would support it – you were very wrong. Georgiy Fedorovich never drove you out of the house, Natalia did everything to make you feel comfortable… and you turned your back on them. I think you’d better return to the apartment. And the renovation can be done sequentially in each room if you want.”
Tatiana Pavlovna once again lifted her chin and proudly hurried to pack her things. She acted as if she had made the decision to leave. Although there was a bitter taste left, Natalia understood that she had to defend her grandfather, who had always defended her, and herself too, because the mother-in-law had turned her into a doormat to wipe feet on. Luckily, Kirill sided with his wife and was ready to fight to the end, defending his family. He also didn’t want to quarrel with his mother, but when someone behaves so brazenly, you have to bring them down to earth, as happened now.