— Mother, what are you doing?! — Ilya was shocked.
— What am I doing? — Anna Viktorovna did not understand.
— I thought you were going to help us! We were counting on you, and you let us down!
— I?! Let down? — Anna Viktorovna was deeply offended. Tears appeared in her eyes.
They argued with her son. He left, angrily slamming the door, ignoring his mother’s tears. It was as if he didn’t care.
— How is that possible? You live and live and never think that something like this could happen. After all, we are family! — Anna Viktorovna lamented, sharing her sad news with a friend.
Her friend, Ella Andreevna, distressfully took off her thick-framed glasses and shook her head. She thought about her own grown children: what if the same thing happened to her? Everything seemed calm and peaceful on the surface, but dig a little deeper and it turns out it’s all insincere and just a utilitarian relationship to the mother.
— You know what they say, right? As long as you pet the fur the right way, everything is fine, but as soon as you go against it, everything changes… — she said thoughtfully.
— What horrible thing did I do?! — Anna Viktorovna agonized. — As if Ilya didn’t know I was retiring soon!
Anna Viktorovna had been preparing for her retirement for a year already. Thinking, planning, deciding. She had already passed the retirement age many years ago but continued to work. Her health, which she carefully maintained, allowed her to keep working, but she was tired. Both mentally and physically. Her son Ilya was fully grown, had a family: a wife and two teenage children, and lived separately in the same city.
— When I retire, I’ll get a dog, and we’ll go for walks, — Anna Viktorovna dreamily told Ella Andreevna. — Right now, while I’m still working, why bother getting anyone? The poor pet would just sit alone all day, get bored, and start howling, the neighbors would complain. On the eighth floor, right below me, neighbors once lived, they had a Husky, and it would start howling loudly whenever they left for work early in the morning, driving all of us crazy. Good thing I left for work too, but I don’t know about the other neighbors. Either the owners locked it in a room or something, but there was such a racket, a scraping, it scratched and threw itself at the door out of loneliness…
— No point in getting a dog if no one can look after it! — Ella Andreevna retorted, pursing her lips. — In our building on the second floor, one lady’s Spitz yaps all day long. Our building is a five-story without an elevator, so everyone who walks up the stairs can hear it, it’s unbearable. People complained and talked to her, all to no avail.
— Well, I’ll get myself a little dog anyway. And I’ll buy a bicycle. I want to ride a lot, you know, it’s so healthy! And in winter, I’ll ski. I also want to join a stretching studio. Sport is simply necessary at our age!
— You’ve gone too far with the stretching! Really now! — Ella Andreevna laughed.
— Nothing funny about it! My daughter-in-law, Ilya’s wife, goes to a ballet studio, she’s always dreamed of doing ballet since she was a child, and now you can do anything as long as you can pay. And in her group, there are quite a few elderly people. Really old ones, too. They practice classical choreography… You’d better stop laughing and start doing something useful yourself, — Anna Viktorovna was even offended by her friend. — Are pensioners not people too?!
— Oh, sorry! I just pictured our neighbor, Semenovna, at the ballet barre, — Ella Andreevna chuckled, wiping away tears.
— Yeah, your Semenovna would look better at a lathe! — Anna Viktorovna stopped being offended and laughed too…
In short, Anna Viktorovna had been dreaming about retiring for a long time, but she couldn’t decide. Then she made up her mind. She announced her decision to her bosses, and they hired a young girl to take her place, whom Anna Viktorovna gradually began to train, passing on the secrets of the craft.
Anna Viktorovna also talked about her retirement with her son Ilya several times. But he, as usual, let her words go in one ear and out the other. Ilya loved to tell his mother about himself, his wife, his children. But listening was not his favorite activity. Although his mother, of course, taught him manners, it was noticeable that he barely tolerated waiting for the speaker to finish so he could start talking about himself again. Anna Viktorovna often lamented that she probably taught him to be like that when he was still in school. She used to sit him down next to her on the sofa and ask him about his day, what happened during it. Everything in detail, thoroughly. Then they would prepare for his lessons together, retell texts, memorize poems. And so it became a habit that Ilya speaks, and his mother listens.
— I’m retiring in a month, I’ll walk more often… — Anna Viktorovna began when Ilya came to visit her again.
Her son, sitting next to her on the sofa and lazily scrolling through his phone, raised his eyebrows and looked at his mother.
— In a month?! — he asked and even stood up in surprise. — Wait, are you actually retiring?
— Ilya, I’ve told you a hundred times, and you’re acting like you were just born again! — Anna Viktorovna was outraged.
— Mom, listen… You can’t just leave now, — Ilya suddenly said, putting down his phone. — Wait a bit. We wanted to change the car, buy a better one. Ours is not new anymore, we need to sell it before the price drops below the baseboard. I thought you’d help us, take out a loan.
— Hello, we’ve arrived! Why me? You have a good salary, so does Alyona. Take your own loan in good health…
— Mom, what are you, mad? You accuse me of having a bad memory, but you don’t remember anything yourself. Most of our salary is under the table. The official part is next to nothing. I get ten thousand, Alyonka gets seven. Who will give us a loan? The car costs a lot of money. Wait before you leave, it’s not the time.
— How can you say ‘wait’? I’ve already informed my bosses, they’ve hired someone to replace me, and everything is officially done, I’m just finishing up my last weeks. Don’t even ask me to reconsider.
— Oh really?! You’re selfish, mother, that’s what I have to tell you! You’ve let us down! You didn’t warn us! We were actually counting on you, — Ilya said these hurtful words and nervously paced the room, waving his arms. At some point, he bumped a glass vase on the table, caught it at the last second, and forcefully put it back on the table. The vase shattered, cracks spread across it, and it, like in slow motion, split into two large parts and a scatter of small pieces. Anna Viktorovna stared in shock at the shards lying on the table, and her son simply turned around and left for the corridor. He put on his jacket, put on his sneakers, and left, slamming the door.
Anna Viktorovna stood with her mouth agape. Her son had always been hot-tempered and impulsive, but he had never behaved like this with her. It was very hurtful.
“I’m the selfish one?!” — she thought to herself, swallowing tears and trying to carefully gather the shards of the vase into a disposable box to throw away. At some point, she cut her finger and ran to the kitchen to get hydrogen peroxide from the medicine cabinet to stop the bleeding.
After fumbling with opening the bottle and getting out the cotton (not easy with one hand), she stopped the bleeding, bandaged her finger, and went back to the room to gather the shards. Inside, she was boiling with resentment towards her son.
“I’m selfish, sure, yeah… So I gifted him my inherited apartment before his wedding, which I got from my aunt. And earlier, I repaired it with my own money. So they wouldn’t have to bounce from one rented corner to another. Here, live healthily! Could have rented it out and lived in comfort! Was I selfish when I took sick leave almost every month without a word and sat with my little grandchildren when they were ill? And once, by the way, I was sick myself, treated my back, could barely straighten up, but no one cared, the grandchildren were still brought over! Mom, help! Mom, needed! And mom, doped up on painkillers, went and helped. And spent sleepless nights with feverish kids, walking like a shadow, but those are just trivialities! And when they brought me the grandchildren, and I had just had surgery, could barely walk, also selfish? Well, they just got spontaneous last-minute tickets, very profitable, wanted to relax, mom came through again. And Alyona’s parents showed nothing but indifference all the time. They either couldn’t, or were ill, or even went abroad to live there. Not helpful at all. But the selfish one is me!”
Her mobile phone rang. Anna Viktorovna answered the call.
— Maybe you’ll reconsider? — her son began abruptly, without apologies. — Mom, we really need it!
— No. I’ve already explained to you. That’s it. This matter is settled. No, — she said calmly and firmly. This calmness cost her a huge effort, she was on the verge of crying from resentment, but her son had already hung up.
— So we quarreled. We haven’t spoken for two months, — Anna Viktorovna sadly told her friend. Ella Andreevna was going away for a long visit to her eldest son and his family, so she didn’t know about the fallout. — Neither he calls, nor do I. How can this be? I won’t call, but a son! Shouldn’t there be some feelings in the soul for a mother?
— Oh, come on, what else can you expect from them! The children have grown up, the mother became unnecessary, what use are you now?! Watch, you’ll need help yourself soon! — Ella Andreevna said angrily. — Just accept it already.
— I can’t. It hurts. I didn’t deserve this kind of treatment…
As soon as Anna Viktorovna retired, just as she planned, she bought a puppy. She spent a lot of time with him, walking outside. She also bought a bicycle and often rode it. She led an active, interesting life, full of pleasant cares, and had no time to be bored. Yet, she occasionally remembered her grandchildren and son. And she remembered her daughter-in-law, a good woman indeed. And they had never argued…
— This isn’t right, — Alyona said to her husband, for the umpteenth time. — A mother is a mother. Why did you lash out at her like that? She doesn’t want to work anymore, it’s her right! And we don’t really need a new car, we can drive this one for a while, what’s the rush to change it?
— You don’t need it. But I really do, you don’t understand anything, — her husband quietly replied, standing with his back to her and crossing his arms. He stared out the window and thought. He didn’t like this situation himself.
— You’re acting like a child, for God’s sake! Mom owes you everything!
— Alyon, don’t get worked up, it’s nauseating! — Ilya snapped and left the room.
— Oh, you fathers! — Alyona huffed and started making dinner. And she kept thinking about her mother-in-law. She was ashamed that Ilya had quarreled with his mother and wasn’t speaking to her. She had never done anything bad to them, only helped. But her husband didn’t understand and continued to be offended.
— Anna Viktorovna, please forgive us! Ilya is impulsive, you know that! He speaks without thinking, then regrets it. But he doesn’t know how to make amends. But I see that he’s been down, walking as if he’s drowned, — Alyona passionately said. She looked at her mother-in-law and noted that having retired, she looked fresher and younger. The mother-in-law was seventy-two, but now she looked no more than sixty. “Well done, Anna Viktorovna!” — thought Alyona admiringly.
She had come to visit her mother-in-law with the children, without telling Ilya. Her husband was busy looking for a new job and was at another interview.
— I’m so happy to see you, my girl! — said Anna Viktorovna and hugged her daughter-in-law. — And the car?
— Nothing. Don’t worry about it. Ilya is looking for a job with a decent official salary. Once he gets it, he’ll work for three months and then take out a loan himself, — Alyona replied. — And there he is! Easy to mention.
Alyona’s phone rang, and she answered the call.
— Really! Congratulations! No, we’re not at home… No… Where? At your mom’s, that’s where. Yes? Alright, — Alyona put down the phone and smiled mysteriously.
— Mom! Granny! Can we take Richie for a walk? — Alyona’s children, Polina and Slava, peeked into the room and asked.
— Go ahead! — Anna Viktorovna answered for both. — He loves walks, and the weather’s nice. Just take the leash, Richie still doesn’t listen well.
Cheerfully chatting, the children left with the dog for the street and soon Alyona and her mother-in-law saw them heading down the path towards the park.
— They’ve grown so big… — Anna Viktorovna remarked, watching her grandchildren.
— Yes, Slava is fourteen, and Polina just turned thirteen… Please forgive Ilya, he didn’t mean to upset you, — Alyona said again and hugged her mother-in-law, who had tears glistening in her eyes.
When Polina and Slava returned from their walk an hour later and sat down in the kitchen to drink tea, someone suddenly rang the doorbell. Anna Viktorovna went to open it and saw her son, or rather first saw a large bouquet of flowers, and then her son. Ilya entered the hallway, handed the flowers to his mother, and she started crying again.
— Mom… I… bought a vase, similar to the one I broke at your place then, — Ilya said, taking out a large box from the bag he was holding and handing it to his mother.
— Oh, how beautiful! — Anna Viktorovna exclaimed, unpacking the gift. — But I won’t put it on the table. I have a little rascal now who likes to pull at the tablecloth and knock everything onto the floor. I’ll hide this beauty in the glass cabinet.
— They promised to hire me, Alyona imagine! The salary is all official, finally, I’ll be like a normal person, — Ilya said and hugged his wife.
Anna Viktorovna put the vase in the cabinet and looked at her son and daughter-in-law. She smiled and thought about how lucky Ilya was to have met such a wise woman in the form of Alyona.
— She inspired me to look for a new job! — Ilya proudly told his mother, continuing to hug his wife.
— Well done, you guys, — Anna Viktorovna smiled…
— And that’s how they made up. I have a good daughter-in-law! — Anna Viktorovna later told her friend.
— Yes… If not for her, you two would still be sulking at each other until the carrots are harvested, Ilya would never have come to make peace, he’s too proud, — Ella Andreevna smiled.
— That’s just it! But he’s worried, I know…
— All’s well that ends well.
— It’s not really ending, I’d say it’s just beginning, — Anna Viktorovna said mysteriously.
— What’s beginning? — her friend didn’t understand.
— Alyona turns out to be pregnant, third month going. She called me yesterday and told me…
— There you go, Granny’s feast day! — Ella Andreevna used another saying. — Now I understand why your wonderful Alyona was buttering you up. Grandma’s help will soon be needed!
— Might be needed, might not. The older kids are big, they’ll help if needed. But, you know, I thought about it, it’s good to be needed by someone, right?
— Good! If we didn’t have kids and grandkids, we’d be sitting like two sticks in the forest, clueless and useless. We would have howled from boredom long ago, — Ella Andreevna agreed and laughed. — And you know, I went to the ballet studio, bought a subscription, I’ll be practicing. Just don’t laugh!
— Why would I laugh? Good for you! — Anna Viktorovna praised her friend, but still couldn’t help but giggle into her fist.