Lena moved a tiny vase with a sprig of gypsophila to the center of the table to better see her mother-in-law’s face.
Anastasia Ivanovna looked especially good today — her hair neatly styled, a string of pearls around her neck, a light shawl draped over her shoulders despite the warm weather.
“Didn’t he tell you?” Anastasia Ivanovna tilted her head slightly, and something resembling sympathy flickered in her eyes. “My boy likes to keep quiet about details that don’t suit him.”
Lena shook her head in denial. The conversation about selling the country house had come out of nowhere. Dima, her husband, mentioned it casually, as if it were already decided. Like, why would his mother need such a big house when she lives alone. “He said you yourselves want to move to the city. Closer to us,” Lena said cautiously.
“Closer,” her mother-in-law smirked, but the corners of her lips didn’t twitch. “He’s always been a master of wording.”
He calls ‘closer’ the desire to settle me in a rented one-room apartment, and put the money from selling the house into yet another ‘project of the century.’
At that moment, the café door swung open, and Dima himself entered the hall. He saw them, smiled broadly, and headed toward the table, carrying the aura of a businessman who had decided to spend half an hour of his precious time with his family.
“So here you are, my beauties!” He kissed his mother on the cheek and patronizingly tousled Lena’s shoulder. “Already gossiping?”
He sat down with a loud scrape of the chair and immediately called the waiter.
“We don’t need anything,” Anastasia Ivanovna said softly.
“Mom, don’t be modest. I’m treating. Lena, you know, I have a deal soon. There’ll be money, no need to economize.”
Lena felt irritation growing inside her. He was talking about money that didn’t exist yet and was ordering around the future of his mother without even asking her opinion. “Dima, we were just talking about the house,” Lena decided to take the initiative. “Your mother doesn’t seem thrilled about moving.”
Dima brushed it off as if swatting away an annoying fly.
“Oh, what does she understand? It’s for her own good. She needs care, attention. Living nearby so you can drop by every day and help.”
He looked Lena straight in the eyes, and his gaze hardened, intolerant of objections. He spoke as if he and Lena had already discussed everything and come to an agreement.
“Dima, I work,” she said quietly but firmly.
“So what? Work’s not a wolf. And mother is sacred. My mother.”
He paused, looking first at confused Lena, then at his mother’s unreadable face. Finally, he uttered the phrase that became the point of no return: “Let’s do it this way, Len. From now on, caring for her is entirely your responsibility. You’ll have to provide her a decent old age while I build our future. Consider it your contribution to the family.”
He said it as simply as if asking for the salt. He wasn’t ordering—no. He was stating a fact. Lena slowly turned her head toward her mother-in-law. Anastasia Ivanovna was looking at her son without a trace of surprise.
A strange expression froze on her face — a mixture of bitterness, disappointment, and some cold, almost sinister determination. And at that moment, Lena realized: the show was only beginning, and the main role would not be played by her husband.
Dima tossed a few bills onto the table without even looking at the bill.
“Well, I’m off. Business won’t wait. Mom, expect a call from the realtor tomorrow, please show the house. Lena, make sure of it.”
He winked and, without waiting for a reply, left the café, leaving behind a trail of expensive perfume and an overwhelming sense of awkwardness.
They sat silently for a while. The clinking of dishes and muted conversations at nearby tables seemed out of place. “Don’t worry, Lenochka,” Anastasia Ivanovna suddenly said, her voice unnaturally calm. “He won’t sell anything.”
Lena looked at her in surprise.
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because you can’t sell what no longer belongs to you,” her mother-in-law pulled a thin folder from her elegant handbag and placed it on the table. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“I realized a long time ago that my son sees me not as a mother but as a resource. I accidentally overheard his conversation with one of his so-called partners a couple of months ago.”
They were talking about how profitably to “cash out the old woman.”
Lena gasped. She felt physically sick from those words.
“He couldn’t have…”
“He could, darling, very much so. That’s why I took action,” Anastasia Ivanovna opened the folder. Inside lay a document with blue stamps. “This is a gift deed.”
“Already registered with the Russian Real Estate Registry. The house is no longer mine. And certainly not his.”
Lena caught her breath. She looked between the document and the calm, almost detached face of her mother-in-law. “But… to whom?”
“To a worthy person,” Anastasia Ivanovna replied evasively, closing the folder. “Dima needs to learn a lesson. He’s used to the world revolving around him. It’s time for him to learn what gravity is.”
In the evening, Dima was in an excellent mood. He paced around the apartment, gesturing wildly and making plans about where to invest the money. He was already mentally buying a new car and flying to the Maldives.
“Len, I’ve arranged it. Tomorrow at eleven the appraiser will come. So you’ll need to go to mom’s in the morning and help her pack some things for the first time. The keys to the rental apartment will arrive the day after tomorrow.”
He said this without looking at her, rummaging through a drawer of documents.
Lena, who until that moment had silently watched him, felt fear replaced by cold fury.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said evenly.
Dima froze and slowly turned around.
“In what sense?”
“In the literal one. I have a job, if you forgot. And I’m not going to participate in this scheme.”
His face lengthened with surprise, quickly replaced by anger.
“What scheme? I’m trying to arrange our family’s future, and you… Have you decided to go against me? With her?”
“I decided not to let you wipe your and your mother’s feet on me! Did you ask her what she wants? Did you ask me if I’m ready to give up my life to become a caregiver?”
“I don’t have to ask!” he shouted. “I’m a man, head of the family, and I decide what’s best for everyone! I won’t let you two old women ruin my plans!”
At that moment, his phone rang. The screen showed “Mom.” Dima sneered maliciously and put it on speaker.
“Well, mom? Complaining already? Trying to play on pity?”
“Dima, dear,” came Anastasia Ivanovna’s calm and even affectionate voice from the speaker. “Why shout? I’m calling to save you some trouble. Don’t send the appraiser tomorrow. It would be a waste of his time—and yours.”
“We’ve been through this!” Dima growled. “Enough with the tantrums!”
“I’m not having tantrums, son,” his mother’s voice took on steely notes. “The house has been re-registered.”
“A month ago. If you don’t believe me, you can check with the relevant authorities. So you’ll have to make your grand plans based on something else. Not my inheritance.”
Dima silently stared at the phone from which short beeps came. His face turned from angry to crimson and then blotchy. “She’s bluffing,” he hissed, mostly convincing himself. “The old woman decided to scare me. She couldn’t have. Who could she have left it to? She has no one!”
He nervously paced the room, grabbed his laptop, and began feverishly typing something.
After a few minutes, he froze, staring at the screen. His shoulders dropped, and his confidence vanished without a trace.
“It can’t be…” he whispered. “She… gifted it.”
He slowly raised his eyes to Lena. In them swirled a mix of rage and confusion.
“It’s you. You persuaded her! Decided to take the property for yourself?”
Lena looked at him without fear. The last drops of sympathy for this man evaporated. “I found out about this two hours ago, Dima. Just like you now.”
“To whom?” he almost howled. “To whom did she leave it?!”
At that moment, Anastasia Ivanovna appeared in the doorway. She entered so quietly that neither Lena nor Dima noticed her. In her hands was the very same folder.
“I brought you a copy, son. So you don’t waste time guessing,” she placed the folder on the coffee table. “And to answer your question—I gave the house to Lena.”
Dima stared at his mother, then at Lena, then back at his mother. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. “To her?” he finally gasped. “To my daughter-in-law? A stranger? What about me? I’m your only son!”
“You stopped being my son the moment you decided I was just an asset to sell,” Anastasia Ivanovna snapped.
“And over the years, Lena has become closer to me than you ever were. She’s the only one who saw me as a person.”
Dmitry collapsed onto the sofa. All his pretended bravado disappeared. Suddenly he seemed small, pathetic, and utterly lost.
“Lenochka,” he turned to his wife, pleading notes appearing in his voice. “Honey, you won’t really do this? We’re family. Sell the house, we’ll buy a smaller apartment, and with the rest of the money…”
“No, Dima,” Lena interrupted firmly. She went to her mother-in-law and took her hand. “There is no ‘we’ anymore. And you don’t have a family either. You destroyed it yourself.”
She looked at him one last time, no longer with hatred, but with slight contempt. “As for your mother… You were right about one thing. Someone does need to take care of her. But it won’t be me.”
“It will be you. Now that’s your direct responsibility. And Anastasia Ivanovna and I will live for now in her… I mean, my house. There’s fresh air, a garden, and most importantly — no you.”
She turned and, supporting her mother-in-law’s arm, headed to the exit. Anastasia Ivanovna looked back at the door.
“Good luck with your ‘deal of the century,’ son. I hope your future will be as bright as you imagine.”
The door closed behind them, leaving Dmitry alone in the empty apartment, face to face with shattered plans and the realization that he had lost absolutely everything.