Can you imagine, there’s just a little left to save,” Igor interlaced his fingers and stretched, watching the sun sinking behind the garden. “By the end of summer, I’ll be looking for my beauty.”
I nodded, admiring his joy. He looked like a child about to receive a long-awaited gift — only this “gift” he was building himself, little by little, year after year.
“Tomorrow I’ll put in another hundred, and then there won’t be much left,” he smiled, running his hand through my hair.
“Are you sure it’s better to keep the cash with your mom?” I turned to him, pulling the cup of tea closer. “Maybe the bank is safer?”
Igor shook his head: “The safe is reliable, no one knows about it. Mom hardly ever comes into my room, and who would even think of it? Our house isn’t very secure, anyone could break in.”
The evening wrapped our little house in a lavender haze. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, and the wind carried the scent of freshly cut grass from the neighbors. We sat on the simple wooden veranda that Igor had built with his own hands last summer.
“It’s so strange your mom suddenly decided to disappear for a couple of days,” I remarked casually. “She’s usually always in touch.”
“She needs a rest too,” Igor shrugged. “Probably went out somewhere with friends.”
The next day started with the usual chores. Igor left for the city — first to work, then to his mom’s apartment to replenish his ‘treasure.’ I was busy in the garden when the phone rang.
“Lena,” Igor’s voice sounded strange, as if he was short of breath. “The money. Two hundred thousand is gone.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What? Was the safe broken into?”
“No. Everything is locked. It’s just… two hundred thousand are missing. Out of five hundred.”
We were both silent, and that pause said more than any words. Questions hammered in my head — who? how? when? But the answer started to form by itself, even though I didn’t want to say it.
“You think…” I started and stopped.
“No,” Igor cut me off quickly. “It can’t be. Mom would never…”
“But who else knew about the safe?”
The silence on the other end grew heavier.
“No one,” he finally said. “Just us. And Mom.”
I closed my eyes, trying to calm down.
“Did you try calling her?”
“She’s not picking up.”
“Did anything change in the apartment?”
Igor paused as if looking around: “No, everything is clean. But somehow… different here. Cold. Like something’s wrong.”
I started thinking frantically. Svetlana Anatolyevna suddenly ‘disconnects,’ doesn’t answer calls, and money disappears from a safe known only to the family.
“Come home,” I said quietly. “Let’s figure this out together.”
After hanging up, I stared blankly at the screen until it hit me. With trembling fingers, I opened VK and found my mother-in-law’s page. What I saw chilled me.
A new post, made an hour ago: Svetlana Anatolyevna with a cocktail on the beach, behind her — azure sea and bright Turkish sun.
My fingers shook as I dialed her number.
My heart was pounding in my throat. Three rings. Four. Five. I was about to hang up when her voice came through, muffled by loud music.
“Hello? Lena? What’s wrong?”
There was no worry or guilt in her tone. Only irritation at being disturbed from her vacation.
“Svetlana Anatolyevna,” my voice was strained, “are you in Turkey? And Igor’s money… did you take it?”
She was silent for a second, two, three. Then the music got quieter.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said coldly.
“Two hundred thousand from the safe,” I tried to keep my voice steady, but the words stumbled out on their own. “Igor found it missing today.”
“Oh, that,” she suddenly laughed. “Yes, I took it. So what? I needed a break!”
The world tilted. I clenched the phone.
“You… took the money without asking? Igor’s money? The money he saved for a year?”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that!” she snapped. “I’m his mother, I have the right!”
Igor came into the room just as I threw the phone onto the couch. I saw on his face that he had heard everything.
“Give me,” he reached for the phone, and I noticed his lips had gone pale.
He turned on speakerphone.
“Mom,” his voice was unusually firm. “Did you really take my money?”
“Igoryok, you understand, I just…”
“Did you or not?” he interrupted.
“Yes!” she shouted. “I took it! So what? You would have spent it on that stupid car anyway, and you’ll be better off! I needed to relax, you’ll get it back tenfold, believe me! I haven’t gone anywhere in five years!”
Igor stared ahead with a blank look.
“I saved that money for a year,” he said quietly. “Denied myself everything. Worked overtime. And you…”
“Don’t dramatize!” she snorted. “A car, big deal! I gave you life, by the way! And I’ll give you a car too!”
Those words broke something inside me. I saw Igor tense up as if hit.
“I’ll pay it all back!” Svetlana Anatolyevna continued. “I’ll come and return it! What’s all this yelling?”
“Don’t bother returning anything,” Igor suddenly said. “Keep it. Have fun.”
And he hung up.
We sat in silence, broken only by the ticking of the wall clock. I gently put my hand on his shoulder.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “My own mother…”
“Igor,” I sat beside him and took his hand. “Listen to me. What she did is unforgivable. She betrayed your trust.”
He nodded, staring at the floor.
“I think,” I continued, choosing my words, “we need to show her that actions have consequences.”
“What do you suggest?”
I took a deep breath.
“You can forget it if you want, but I won’t be able to look her in the eye. We won’t communicate with her anymore. Let her know she didn’t just lose money, but a son.”
He looked up at me. Tears glistened in his eyes.
“She definitely won’t expect that,” he said quietly. “She’s used to me always forgiving. Always.”
I squeezed his hand tighter.
“It’s time to learn to set boundaries,” I said softly. “Even with your own mother.”
Two weeks passed. Igor’s phone buzzed with Svetlana Anatolyevna’s calls — first nonstop, like a hunted heart, then only in the evenings, and after the third day, dead silence.
But on VK, her life was bursting — new photos from the azure coast, enthusiastic captions, as if there was no chasm between us.
Igor changed. He became quieter, often staring at one spot. I didn’t pressure him, gave him space to process. We didn’t talk about the car, but I saw him sometimes checking classifieds, then closing tabs with frustration. On Sunday morning, I got a message: “I’ll be at your place by three. We need to talk.” Svetlana Anatolyevna was returning.
“Do you want to see her?” I asked Igor at breakfast.
He lifted his eyes from the plate: “I want to hear what she has to say.”
I nodded. Inside, a mix of anger and emptiness boiled. I was rehearsing what I would say to her face. About trust. About betrayal. About how a mother doesn’t behave like this. We waited for her on the veranda. I noticed a taxi stop at our gate. Svetlana Anatolyevna stepped out, unusually solemn in a light blue dress.
Tanned, refreshed. In her hands — some papers and a set of keys.
She slowly climbed the steps. Igor and I didn’t move toward her.
“You look wonderful,” I said coldly. “The vacation was obviously a success.”
Instead of answering, she held out her hand and placed keys with a key fob in front of Igor. On the metal plate, a familiar logo was clearly visible.
Igor and I simultaneously glanced at the road. Behind the taxi, a little apart, stood an SUV. The very one Igor dreamed of. Dark blue, with chrome wheels.
“What’s this?” Igor’s voice trembled.
Svetlana Anatolyevna sat down on the chair opposite, smoothing the folds of her dress with trembling fingers.
“A surprise, son,” her lips formed a smile, but her eyes betrayed anxiety, as if she stood on the edge of a cliff. “I bought it for you.”
We froze, like people before a painting whose meaning slips away.
“Five years ago, when you first started talking about a car, I opened a deposit,” she laid the papers on the table. “I saved a little at a time. Wanted to give you a gift for your thirtieth birthday.”
“But then I thought — why wait? And decided to surprise you now.”
I took the documents. Bank statements, purchase agreement. All genuine.
“And the money from the safe?” Igor asked.
She sighed, and for the first time, I saw shame in her eyes.
“I didn’t have enough for this model. I didn’t intend to take that money for good. I just thought — borrow it from you, for you, then return it. And then this last-minute trip came up, it cost very little.”
“I knew you checked it once a month and thought I’d have time to return it before you came.”
“But why not just say so?” I still couldn’t believe it.
“I wanted to surprise you. Then Galya suggested going together on the last-minute trip, and at the same time looking for a car online.”
“She has contacts at the dealership, promised to help in a nice place,” she shook her head. “I got carried away with this adventure. To relax, find the perfect car, come back a hero. But when you called…”
“You said you needed the vacation, you could have just said it was a surprise,” I couldn’t hold back the reproach.
“I panicked,” she looked me straight in the eyes for the first time. “Was afraid I’d ruin everything. I behaved terribly, I know. I thought if I confessed, the surprise would be spoiled.”
Igor stood up and slowly walked to the veranda railing, looking at the car.
“I did all this out of love,” Svetlana Anatolyevna’s voice trembled. “I just wanted to feel I’m still important. I didn’t want to steal — I wanted to give you more than I ever could.”
I looked at her pale face, trembling hands, and understood: she was really scared. Not of losing money — but of losing her son. Igor turned away. His eyes mixed hurt and confusion.
“Why couldn’t you just say?”
“I’ve always been a bad mother,” she lowered her head. “I don’t know how to talk about love. It’s easier to do. But I do it badly, I know.”
Silence fell. Suddenly, I saw not an enemy before me, but just an older woman who wanted to find a way to say to her son that she loves him but did it awkwardly, in her own way.
Igor stepped toward his mother and quietly said, “I love you.”
She stood up, not raising her eyes. He hugged her tightly.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered into her hair. “Just say it next time.”
I watched them, and inside me, anger dissolved, giving way to something new. Understanding, maybe. Or forgiveness.
“Trying it on?” Svetlana Anatolyevna handed Igor the keys, wiping tears.
We went out together. Igor opened the door, ran his hand over the leather upholstery. A boyish joy shone in his eyes.
“Where shall we go?” he asked, turning to us.
“How about the lake?” the mother-in-law suggested uncertainly, looking at me.
I smiled genuinely for the first time in two weeks.
“To the lake,” I agreed. “And we’ll bring something for a picnic.”
In the evening, we sat on the shore. The grill was dying down, the air filled with the scent of barbecue.
The sun was setting over the lake, coloring the water gold. Igor and his mother talked about something by the car.
I watched them and thought that sometimes love is expressed awkwardly, clumsily, not as we expect.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not there. We just have to learn to see it through misunderstanding and disappointment.
And then, maybe, we’ll gain more than we lost.