— “Al, I’m coming from Mom’s. She’s decided to start a renovation,” Igor tossed his keys onto the hall table and walked into the kitchen, where Alla, bent over a large sheet of drafting paper, was carefully drawing with a fine mechanical pencil. The air smelled of freshly brewed coffee and graphite. “She wants everything redone, refreshed, so to speak. Says she’s tired of this ‘granny’ style.”
Alla didn’t raise her head; only her hand paused for a moment above the drawing. She finished the line, calibrating it with uncompromising precision. This project mattered—complex commission, respectable client, big money. She was completely immersed in the world of proportions, textures, and light.
“That’s wonderful,” she said neutrally, without looking up from her work. “The market offers plenty of options. She can find a crew to suit any taste and budget.”
Igor came closer, peering over her shoulder. He smelled of his mother’s perfume—a heavy, cloying scent Alla had learned to recognize instantly. That smell always presaged trouble.
“What do crews have to do with it… You’re the designer. A professional. So Mom thought… In short, she wants you to take it on. Do a stunning renovation for her. You know her tastes; you can please her. Help her choose everything, oversee the process… create beauty with your own hands, so to speak.”
The pencil in her hand stopped. Alla straightened slowly and set it on the table with extreme care, as if it were a surgical instrument after a delicate operation. She turned to her husband. The face that had just been focused and calm became an impenetrable mask.
“What do you mean, ‘take it on’?” she asked in a quiet, almost colorless voice.
“What do you mean what?” Igor missed the shift in her mood, continuing enthusiastically. “You’ll go over there, look everything over, draft a project, pick out materials and furniture. Do it all top-class. For Mom! It’s family help, a son’s duty, so to speak, which we together…”
She stood up sharply, knocking over the chair. The crash made Igor recoil and finally fall silent. Alla stared straight at him; the calm and professional detachment in her eyes had vanished. In their place blazed a cold, furious fire.
“Oh sure, I’ll just run right over and fall at your mother’s feet to do her renovation! What am I to her, a free construction crew? Let her hire people for that! She’s got the money!”
His face lengthened. He clearly hadn’t expected that reaction.
“Al, what’s with you? She’s my mother… What crew? Why pay strangers when there’s a specialist of your level in the family? She just wants it done with soul.”
“With soul?” Alla smirked, but there was nothing amused in it. “Your mother doesn’t want a soulful renovation. She wants to watch me, tail between my legs, run around the building markets, lug tile samples, and bow to her for every ‘brilliant’ idea. She wants to turn me into her personal handmaid, so she can brag to all her friends how she bent her stubborn daughter-in-law. That’s her ‘stunning renovation,’ Igor! That’s the real goal!”
Igor frowned, an offended, stubborn look settling on his face.
“You’re complicating things again. You just don’t like my mother and you’re looking for a reason to pick a fight. We’re talking about ordinary family help. I’m a son; I must help her. And you’re my wife.”
They stood facing each other in the middle of the kitchen. The tension thickened to the breaking point. Alla looked at his confused, angry face and understood: any further refusal would lead to weeks of silence, reproaches, and accusations. She’d seen this battle many times and knew that in open combat she would lose, drowning in his rhetoric about “family values.” So she made a decision. The storm in her eyes subsided as suddenly as it had flared. She took a deep breath, picked up the chair, and calmly set it back in place. Then she looked at Igor, a light, barely noticeable smile touching her lips.
“Fine,” she said evenly, in a businesslike tone. “You’re right. It’s a family duty. I’ll help your mother.”
Igor was taken aback by the sudden change of tone. He’d been bracing for more shouting, not this abrupt agreement.
“Really?” he asked skeptically. “Just like that?”
“Yes.” Her smile widened a fraction, but her eyes remained cold as ice. “I’ll make her the best design. Stunning. Better than she’s ever dreamed of. Tell her I’m starting immediately.”
The next evening, Alla didn’t wait for Igor to come home from work. She laid the table in the living room with a light dinner—his favorite. Nothing in her behavior betrayed yesterday’s storm. She was calm, graceful; her movements were measured, and a polite, almost warm smile played on her face. Igor, stepping into the apartment, exhaled in relief. The conflict seemed over. He gladly accepted the rules of the game, deciding his wife had “cooled off” and “understood everything.” He even felt a swell of pride in himself: he’d stood his ground, showed masculine firmness, and there it was—the peace restored.
They ate almost in silence, but it wasn’t oppressive. Igor talked about his day at work; Alla listened, nodded, asked clarifying questions. She was the perfect wife. Only her eyes, when she looked at him, remained cold, like a camera lens dispassionately recording its subject.
“I’m finished,” she said when they’d cleared the dishes. She pointed to the table, where a thick folder of heavy black cardboard embossed with her design logo lay.
“Already?” Igor was genuinely surprised. “So fast? I thought it would take at least a week.” He took the folder. It was heavy, solid. It smelled of fine paper and printer’s ink. He opened it. On the first page was a photorealistic 3D visualization of his mother’s living room. Igor let out a whistle. This wasn’t Tamara Pavlovna’s apartment. This was a picture from a glossy magazine about luxury interiors. Perfectly orchestrated light, elegant furniture in contemporary classic style, walls covered with complex decorative plaster shimmering with pearly undertones, dark wood parquet laid in a herringbone pattern.
“Wow…” he muttered, turning the page. Next came the kitchen. Instead of the old, water-swollen cabinets—a flawless row of ivory-colored fronts with integrated pulls, a countertop from a single slab of dark stone, the latest built-in appliances. He flipped on: bedroom, hallway, bathroom. Each image was a work of art. Alla hadn’t just “refreshed” the apartment. She had remade it, creating a space full of dignity, style, and expensive sheen.
“Al, this is… this is incredible,” he looked up at her, eyes shining. “Mom will lose her mind from joy! You’re a genius! I knew you could do it!”
“I just did my job,” she replied calmly. “Flip to the end.”
Enthusiastically, Igor turned a few more sheets with drawings and wall elevations and reached the final section. It was titled “Estimate.” His eyes ran over the first lines: “Demolition,” “Wall leveling with beacons,” “Installation of new wiring”… The figures across each line added up to daunting sums. He turned page after page: Italian tile, German plumbing fixtures, Belgian light fittings, a parquet board of solid oak… His smile slowly slipped away. On the last page, at the bottom, the total was printed in bold.
One million one hundred forty thousand rubles.
Igor froze. He read the figure several times, as if hoping there was an extra zero, a typo. He slowly raised his head. The delight in his eyes had turned to utter bewilderment, quickly shading into anger.
“Are you out of your mind? A million?”
“No,” Alla said evenly, looking him straight in the eye. She took a sip of cooled tea. “That’s the market price for materials and labor for a project at this level. I chose only quality items. No China, no cheap laminate. Your mother wanted a stunning renovation. This is it.”
She slid another document toward him—a slim folder of forms. “I didn’t even include my designer’s commission or the cost of the project. That’s thirty percent of the estimate. Consider it my gift to your mother. And this,” she tapped the top folder lightly with her nail, “is the service contract.”
Igor stared, stunned, at the neatly printed pages.
“What contract?”
“Standard,” Alla explained with a lecturer’s patience. “Your mother signs it, makes a seventy-percent down payment, and my crew starts immediately. I will personally provide site supervision as promised—so every fixture hangs in the right spot and each paint shade matches the project precisely. Like a professional.”
She leaned back and folded her arms.
“You wanted a stunning renovation? You’ll have it. For stunning money. Or did she think humiliating me comes free of charge?”
Igor didn’t argue. He grabbed his phone from the table and, without a word, stepped out onto the balcony, closing the glass door tightly behind him. Alla heard his muffled, indignant voice, snatches of phrases in which “Mom” was the most frequent word. She didn’t eavesdrop. She calmly poured herself more tea, sat down, and placed her hands on the black project folder. This was her territory, her fortress. She waited.
Forty minutes later the key turned in the lock. Tamara Pavlovna entered the apartment not like a guest but like an inspector arriving at the scene. Her mouth was pursed in a grimace of righteous indignation; she dumped her expensive coat onto her son’s arms as if he were a footman. She marched straight into the living room where Alla sat at the table and stopped opposite her, boring into her daughter-in-law with a heavy stare.
“Well, hello there, business lady,” she said with poisonous politeness. “My son told me about your… appetite. Decided to make a fortune off me, an old woman?”
Alla calmly pointed to the chair across from her.
“Good evening, Tamara Pavlovna. Have a seat. I think we should discuss the project details in a businesslike setting. Igor, make your mother some tea.”
Flustered, Igor hung up the coat and hurried to the kitchen. Snorting, Tamara Pavlovna reluctantly sat. Her posture radiated supreme contempt.
“What details?” she hissed. “There’s just one detail: my daughter-in-law turned out to be a greedy, unscrupulous person who wants to fleece her husband’s mother.”
Alla opened the folder to the living room visualization. She spoke in an even, calm voice, as if presenting to an important client.
“You wanted a stunning renovation. This project fully meets that description. We’ve used premium finishes. For example, the walls,” she tapped the image with a nail, “are Venetian plaster by Oikos. Very striking and durable. The floor is Coswick engineered board, Canadian oak.”
“I don’t care if it’s Canadian or African!” the mother-in-law exploded. “Why does it cost a million? Are you going to make it out of gold?”
“No, not out of gold. Out of the materials listed in the estimate,” Alla flipped to the last page and pushed the folder toward her. “Here, take a look. Every item has an SKU and name. You can check prices with any official dealer. They’re market rates. Moreover, my firm gets discounts from some suppliers, and they’re reflected here.”
At that moment Igor returned with a cup of tea. He set it in front of his mother and froze behind her like a loyal page.
“Mom, maybe there’s a way to make it cheaper? Al, really, this is huge money…”
“There is,” Alla nodded, without taking her eyes off her mother-in-law. “We can completely revise the concept. Instead of engineered board, lay 32-class laminate. Instead of Venetian plaster, hang vinyl paintable wallpaper. Order the kitchen not with Italian fronts but from domestic particleboard. We can cut the estimate to a third. But then it won’t be a stunning renovation. It’ll be a budget one. I can prepare that project too, if the original technical brief has changed.”
Her businesslike tone infuriated Tamara Pavlovna far more than any shouting would have. The mother-in-law realized she was being cornered. To agree to a cheap renovation would mean admitting she couldn’t afford what was offered—essentially signing a confession of inadequacy.
“You’re mocking me!” she spat, red blotches blooming on her face. “You knew perfectly well we were talking about help! About doing it the family way!”
“‘The family way’ is my discount on site supervision and design development, which comes to more than three hundred thousand rubles,” Alla parried, her voice turning to steel. “But the crew’s labor, procurement of materials, and logistics are commercial processes. They don’t have ‘family’ categories. Or are you suggesting I ask builders to work for free, out of respect for you?”
Igor tried to intervene:
“Alla, stop it, that’s not what Mom means…”
“And what does she mean, Igor?” For the first time that evening, Alla looked at her husband. “That I should drop my paid work for several months to be your mother’s free foreman, buyer, and designer? So she can point out every flaw made by workers hired for pennies and tell me I’m incompetent? I know this scenario. We went through it when I helped her paste wallpaper in the hall. Thanks, never again.”
Tamara Pavlovna rose. The mask of politeness fell away entirely, revealing malice and hatred.
“I knew you weren’t our equal. All swagger and no heart. All you ever think about is money.”
Alla stood as well. They faced each other across the table that had become a front line.
“You’re right. I do think about money. Because my professionalism costs money. And the humiliation you had in store for me—that’s priceless. But I’ve invoiced it. At market rate. If the amount doesn’t suit you, you can always hire another crew. Or hang the wallpaper yourself. Like last time.”
When the front door closed behind Tamara Pavlovna, Igor didn’t move. He remained standing behind the empty chair where his mother had just sat, staring at Alla. Anger, confusion, and a childish hurt mingled in his eyes. He finally realized the situation had slipped out of his control. He had brought his mother in as heavy artillery to crush a rebellion, and instead had watched her total rout. Now he was left alone with the victor.
“Happy now?” His voice was dull, stripped of its usual commanding notes. “You humiliated my mother. In our own home.”
Alla calmly gathered the project pages back into the folder. Her movements were steady and precise, as if tidying her desk after a complex deal.
“I didn’t humiliate anyone. I offered commercial terms for a commercial order. Your mother refused. That’s standard business practice.”
“What business practice, for God’s sake!” he shouted, slapping the chair back. “She’s my mother! And you’re my wife! We’re a family, not a service firm! Don’t you understand that?”
“No, Igor. It seems you don’t understand,” she closed the folder and looked at him. Her gaze was tired but firm. “Family is when people respect each other. Not when one uses the other for their own ends, hiding behind pretty words. Your mother has never seen me as part of the family. She saw a free add-on to her son. A convenient function to activate at will. And you’ve always been fine with that.”
He walked around the table and stood right in front of her, looming, trying to overpower her with his height, his presence.
“This is all sophistry, Alla! I’m talking about us! About what you’ve done to us! You put your stupid principles above our relationship! You sent my mother a bill! Do you get how that looks from the outside?”
“I don’t care how it looks from the outside. I care what it is in reality,” she didn’t back down, didn’t lower her gaze. “And in reality, this is the only way to stop years of wiping their feet on me.”
His face twisted. He could see he couldn’t pierce her armor. So he took a last, desperate step. He decided to go all in.
“Fine. I get it. Then listen. You have a choice. Right now. Either you tear up these papers, call my mother, apologize, and tomorrow you go to do her renovation like a normal wife and daughter-in-law. For free. Like a human being. Or else…”
He fell silent, giving her a moment to feel the weight of the ultimatum.
“Or else consider that we don’t have a family anymore. I won’t live with a woman who declared war on my mother. Choose.”
For a few seconds absolute silence filled the room. Alla looked at her husband as if seeing him for the first time. There was no fear or anger in her eyes. Only cold, crystalline clarity. She nodded slowly.
“You’re right. That kind of choice changes everything.”
Igor tensed, expecting her capitulation. He was sure she would break. She couldn’t not break. But she did the one thing he couldn’t foresee. She picked up a pen from the table. Opened the folder to the last page—the estimate. Then opened the contract. Her hand didn’t tremble. She found the line in the contract: “Design development and site supervision are provided free of charge as a family bonus.” With a decisive, firm stroke, she crossed out the phrase twice. Then she returned to the estimate. Taking her phone’s calculator, she quickly calculated thirty percent of the total. It came to three hundred forty-two thousand. She entered a new line in the estimate: “Designer’s services.” And wrote that figure next to it. Below she wrote the new total: one million four hundred eighty-two thousand rubles. She circled the new total so it would jump out.
Then she raised her calm, businesslike gaze to the stunned Igor.
“Since we’re talking about not having a family anymore, then the family bonuses are canceled. This is the full project cost. Including my work. I think that’s fair.”
She set the pen beside the folder and slid the documents toward him.
“The commercial offer is valid for three business days. I await your decision and the down payment…”