Anna adjusted the cushion on the sofa and reached for the remote—time for the evening news. Outside, the October rain drizzled, and in the living room, only the lamp by the armchair, where Pavel usually read, was on. Today, her husband was staying late at work.
The home phone’s ring shattered the silence.
“Hello,” Anna said, holding the receiver between her shoulder and ear while continuing to flip through the magazine.
“Good evening! This is Alpha-Finance Bank. We are calling about the overdue payment on Pavel Sergeevich Morozov’s loan…”
Anna froze. The pages of the magazine rustled as they fell to the floor.
“What overdue payment? You must be mistaken!” she replied. “A loan for three hundred thousand, taken out in May of this year. The last payment…” The receiver slipped from her sweating hands. Three hundred thousand. May. The investments Pavel had briefly mentioned, without looking her in the eye.
“I… I’ll call you back,” Anna whispered.
After hanging up, she slowly sank onto the sofa. A cold sense of betrayal filled her chest.
Anna sat in the dark for a long time, listening to the rain tapping against the window. When the keys jingled in the lock, she didn’t get up to greet him as usual.
“I’m home, Anya!” Pavel shook the water off his coat and hung it up in the hallway. “Why are you already in bed?”
“I’m not in bed,” came the muffled reply from the living room.
He walked into the kitchen, turned on the kettle. The familiar routine—making tea, slicing sandwiches, talking about work. Seven years of marriage had built cozy traditions in their two-room apartment on the fifth floor. Bookshelves to the ceiling, a sofa with soft armrests, vacation photos on the dresser.
“Pash, we got a call from the bank,” Anna said when he returned with two mugs.
Pavel stopped.
“Which bank?”
“Alpha-Finance. About the overdue payment. Three hundred thousand rubles.”
He set the mugs down on the table without looking at her. Anna studied his profile—the familiar features suddenly seemed alien.
“It’s… it’s for my mom. She asked me to get her a card. She has health problems, needs money for treatment.”
Anna remembered the last six months. How thirty thousand disappeared in March—”Mom needs an orthopedic mattress.” Another five thousand in April—”Expensive vitamins, prescribed by the doctor.” And in May, Tatiana Petrovna proudly showed off her new gym membership for twelve thousand.
“Pavel, we’ve been saving for two years for the kitchen renovation. There’s only forty thousand left instead of one hundred fifty.” “She’s alone, she needs support…” “And I need an honest husband!” Anna stood up from the sofa. “Why didn’t you tell me about the loan?” Pavel tightly gripped the mug in his hands, as if still experiencing the nervous tremor before his first-ever exam.
“I didn’t want to upset you. I thought I’d pay it off quickly…”
“When? With what money?”
Pavel remained silent. He couldn’t think of an answer.
The next morning, Pavel left for work without breakfast. Anna heard him moving around in the kitchen, clinking cups, but he didn’t sit down at the table. The front door slammed, and a tense silence filled the apartment.
Anna pulled out the bank statement from her husband’s bag, the one he hadn’t yet dared to show her.
Flipping through the pages, she felt everything inside her freeze. May: “Personal Growth Academy”—twenty-five thousand. June: “Floral Design Courses for the Soul”—eighteen thousand. July: “Time Management Seminar”—twelve thousand.
“Time management,” Anna muttered, leaning back in her chair. “For a woman who’s not working at sixty.”
That evening, Pavel brought up the card again.
“Anya, let’s talk calmly…”
“Calmly?” Anna placed the statement on the table. “Tell me about the floral design for the soul for eighteen thousand.”
Pavel sat down across from her without taking off his coat.
“Mom’s going through a midlife crisis. She needs to find herself, develop…”
“At our expense?”
“She’s alone! Dad’s been gone for ten years. She needs support, understanding…” Anna looked at her husband and saw a boy who feared upsetting his mother. Tatiana Petrovna skillfully played the role of the poor widow, to whom everyone owed everything.
“Pash, who will support us? When we are old and sick, who will pay for our self-discovery courses?”
“We’re young, we have time…”
“Time runs out along with money,” Anna said softly, folding the statement. “And your mom knows this very well.”
The next day, Anna waited until Pavel returned from work. He was sitting at the kitchen table, wearily unbuttoning his shirt after a long day. A plate of buckwheat porridge with a cutlet sat in front of him—a simple dinner they could now afford. Anna wiped her hands with a kitchen towel, gathering her courage.
“Pash, let’s call your mom. Together.”
“Why?” His face reflected unease.
“We’ll ask her to make a spending plan for the next few months. And return at least some of the money.” Anna pulled out the phone, placed it on the table between them, and dialed the familiar number. She put it on speakerphone. The dial tone seemed unusually loud in the kitchen’s silence.
“Tatyana Petrovna, good evening. This is Anna.”
“Anya, darling! How are you?” The voice of her mother-in-law dripped with syrupy sweetness, the tone she reserved for her daughter-in-law.
Anna took a deep breath, clasping her hands together on the table.
“We have financial problems. We need you to return some of what you’ve spent and show us a plan for your expenses.”
There was a pause. All Anna could hear was the soft breathing on the other end of the line. Then an outburst:
“How dare you?! Demand reports from me?! I’m your husband’s mother! I helped you both get on your feet, and you… you ungrateful snake!”
Her mother-in-law’s voice grew louder, almost turning into a screech. Pavel shrank in his chair, his shoulders rising to his ears.
“Mom, please calm down,” he muttered, not lifting his gaze from his plate.
“Pavlik, son, do you hear how she’s talking to me? I’m sick, I’m alone, and she’s counting money! Like some kind of merchant!”
Anna stared at her husband. He was literally shrinking under his mother’s accusations, turning from an adult man into a guilty child.
“Anna is wrong, mom. We’ll sort this out ourselves.”
Anna slowly pressed the red button and hung up the call.
“So I’m wrong?” she asked softly, looking at her husband’s hunched back.
Pavel didn’t answer, stubbornly studying the cold porridge on his plate.
Anna stood by the sink, washing the dinner dishes. The hot water burned her hands, but she didn’t notice. The last three days had passed in heavy silence. Pavel had settled into his favorite chair in front of the TV, flipping channels and pretending the argument with his mother didn’t affect them. The blue glow from the screen flickered in the dim living room.
The sharp ring of the phone made Anna jump. She wiped her wet hands on her apron and answered it.
“Anya, it’s mom,” Marina Aleksandrovna’s voice sounded unusually weak. “I don’t want to upset you, but the doctor said I need surgery.”
“Mom, what happened?” Anna leaned against the counter, feeling her legs give way.
“The gallbladder. Stones, pills won’t help anymore. And then recovery…” Marina paused, her heavy breathing coming through the line. “I know things are tough for you too.”
Anna sat down on a stool.
“How much do you need?”
“Seventy thousand for the surgery and medicine. Anya, I’m not asking for it, I understand times are hard…”
Anna closed her eyes, imagining her mother—a thin, graying woman who had always put her daughter first.
“Mom, you’re my own, my beloved. We’ll find the money.”
After hanging up, Anna stood and walked into the living room. Pavel was lazily flipping channels, but his tense back showed he had heard everything.
“What happened?” he asked, not looking away from the screen, where commercials were flashing.
“My mom needs surgery. Seventy thousand.”
Pavel finally turned to face her, and Anna saw irritation in his eyes, not sympathy.
“And where are we supposed to get that?” His voice was sharp. “There’s forty thousand left in the account, and half of it has to go to the loan. And your mom…”
“What about ‘my mom’?” Anna sank into the chair across from him, feeling cold rage rise inside. “My mom raised me alone after the divorce for ten years. She worked as a cashier, cleaned offices so I could study. And never—do you hear me?—never once asked for money for floral design for the soul or happiness seminars.”
Pavel looked away, his fingers nervously gripping the remote.
“But we can’t just abandon my mom…”
“And can we abandon mine?” Anna’s voice turned hard as steel. “While your mom buys ’emotional relief’ with our money, mine is sick and too embarrassed to ask for help.”
Pavel was silent, mindlessly flipping through channels. The faces of TV hosts, commercial spots, and movie fragments flickered on the screen.
Anna stood up, straightening her shoulders. The decision came to her instantly, as though a long-festering abscess had finally burst.
Anna was packing documents into a folder when Pavel entered the bedroom. Passport, marriage certificate, income statements—all neatly stacked on the bed.
“What’s this?” he asked, though he knew exactly what it was.
“I’m filing for divorce tomorrow.”
Pavel sat down at the edge of the bed.
“Anya, let’s not rush. We can talk about this…”
“You’ve already made your choice. You chose your mom.” Anna put the documents into her bag. “And I’ve chosen mine.”
The next morning, Anna went to the bank. The young bank clerk clicked the calculator for a long time.
“Can I take a loan against my share of the apartment?”
“Of course, but we need the consent of the other co-owner…” Anna pulled out her mother’s medical certificate.
“This is an emergency. Are there any options?”
Two hours later, she had a bank card with seventy thousand rubles on it. The amount that could buy life.
She returned home to collect her things when Pavel wasn’t there. Books, photographs, the mug from university days. Her neighbor, Aunt Lida, peeked out from her door as Anna left with her belongings.
“Anya, what happened?”
“I’m getting divorced, Aunt Lida.”
“And it’s the right thing, dear. A man should protect his wife, not bow to his mom.”
In her mom’s two-room apartment on the third floor, everything was the same as it had always been.
“Mom, I moved in with you. For good.”
“Are you sure?” asked Marina Aleksandrovna, hugging her daughter.
“No, mom. I only regret how wrong I was about the person.”
Marina Aleksandrovna’s surgery was done a week after the move. The first week, Anna practically lived in the hospital. They were discharged after ten days. Three weeks later, her mom was allowed to go for walks. At first, just to the bench near the entrance and back. Anna walked beside her, supporting her elbow.
“It’s so nice to breathe,” said Marina Aleksandrovna, tilting her face to the sun. “I thought I’d never see autumn again.”
In the evenings, Pavel called every half hour. He promised to talk to his mother, set limits on her card, fix everything. His voice became increasingly desperate.
“It’s too late,” Anna answered, watching her mom carefully get up from the sofa. “I’m done playing this game.”
Now her time and money went to what truly mattered.