— Katyusha, dear, open up! It’s me, with a little treat!
The voice behind the door was so cloyingly sweet that Katya’s teeth ached for a second. She slowly wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, took a deep breath, and went to open it. On the threshold, beaming a carefully practiced smile, stood Svetlana Igorevna. In her hands she held a large, fancy box with a cake from the most expensive pastry shop in their neighborhood.
“Hello, Svetlana Igorevna. Come in,” Katya said evenly, stepping aside to let her mother-in-law into the hall.
“Why so formal, Katyush? Just ‘Mama Sveta,’ we’ve said it a hundred times!” the guest cooed, slipping off her light coat. She cast a critical, though disguised-as-admiring glance around the entryway. “You really do keep such order here—textbook perfect! Not like at our place with the old man, everything’s never where it should be.”
Katya kept silent, taking the coat and hanging it in the closet. She knew what those compliments were worth. Each one was just another step toward some new request, and the cake in her mother-in-law’s hands wasn’t a token of affection, but more like an advance, a bribe meant to soften her up before the real conversation.
They went into the kitchen. With a theatrical flourish, Svetlana Igorevna set the cardboard box on the table.
“Here, I got your favorite—‘Three Chocolates.’ I remember how you praised it last year at Oleg’s birthday. I remember everything—anything for my kids!”
Katya silently took the box, pulled out a broad serrated knife, and began to slice the cake into perfectly even pieces—methodically, with a kind of detached precision. Meanwhile, her mother-in-law fussed around, peeking into cupboards and taking out cups as if she were the true mistress of the house.
“Go on, go on, I’ll do everything myself, you just sit and relax,” she kept up the performance. “You work, you get tired, and I’m retired—no trouble for me.”
They sat down at the table. Tea was poured, cake laid out on plates. For a while, Svetlana Igorevna chattered about the weather, the new prices at the market, a neighbor who’d gotten a bad haircut. Katya answered in monosyllables, not keeping the conversation going, only mechanically lifting spoonfuls of cake to her mouth. She was waiting. With every crumb eaten, with every fake little laugh, the tension grew.
At last, when Katya’s cup was nearly empty, Svetlana Igorevna set hers aside, sighed theatrically, and folded her hands on the table. Her face took on a serious, simultaneously mournful expression.
“Katyusha, I didn’t come to you for nothing,” she began obliquely, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your father-in-law and I—we’ve got an event coming up. A very big one. You could say, the main event of our lives.”
Katya lifted her eyes to her, but her face remained unreadable.
“Fifty years together, Katya. A golden wedding. Can you imagine? Half a century!” dramatic notes crept into the mother-in-law’s voice. “And we’d really like… well, to do it properly. Not just sit at home. We want to gather all the relatives, friends. Remember our youth. We’ve picked out a little restaurant—very respectable, cozy… We want everything to be ceremonial, beautiful. A memory for the rest of our lives.”
She paused, studying her daughter-in-law’s face, trying to catch any reaction at all. But Katya remained silent, her gaze calm and cool. When no answer came, Svetlana Igorevna continued, her voice growing even more insinuating and plaintive.
“You understand, Katya, what pensions are like now. We could never swing a banquet like this ourselves. And you and Oleg are our only support, our only hope. We wanted to ask for your help… for you to help us organize this celebration. The sum is, of course, not small, but the occasion…”
Katya said nothing for a long time, slowly setting her cup with the unfinished tea aside. She didn’t look at her mother-in-law. Her gaze was fixed somewhere on the wall, as if she were running complicated calculations in her head. Svetlana Igorevna shifted in her chair; her carefully composed pose started to fail her. This silence was worse than a flat refusal or an outburst. In it there was a cold, considered answer, and instinctively she understood she wouldn’t like it.
“Katya, why are you quiet?” she couldn’t stand it, her voice trembling and losing its honeyed notes. “We’re not asking to fly to the moon. It’s family… memories for all of us.”
Without a word, Katya rose from the table. Her movements were smooth and unhurried. She left the kitchen and headed into the living room, to the old dark chest of drawers that had come to them from her grandmother. Her mother-in-law followed her with a puzzled stare, her face lengthening. She had been ready for anything—tears, pleas to talk to her husband, shouting—but not for this strange, silent walk to a piece of furniture.
Katya pulled open the top drawer, which yielded with a soft creak, and took out an old notebook with a worn cardboard cover. With this “ledger,” she returned to the kitchen and set it on the table beside the plate with the bitten piece of cake. The air of fake festivity evaporated completely, replaced by the sense of something unavoidable and unpleasant.
She opened the notebook roughly in the middle, ran a finger down the lines, and stopped. Then, raising absolutely colorless eyes to her mother-in-law, she began to read in a flat, monotone voice, as if dictating a court record.
“April twenty-second, last year. For Mom’s refrigerator. Amount—forty-two thousand rubles. Promised to repay in three months, by the end of July. It’s been a year and four months.”
Katya closed the notebook and placed it neatly on the edge of the table.
Her mother-in-law’s face began to change slowly. The sugary smile vanished as if erased with an eraser. The corners of her mouth drooped, a cold, prickly gleam appeared in her eyes. She straightened in her chair; her posture turned hard and combative.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” her voice took on a metallic ring. “You’re keeping tally now? Writing down favors to family in a notebook?”
“I write down debts, Svetlana Igorevna,” Katya corrected calmly. “A favor is when you help carry bags. Forty-two thousand is a debt. One you promised to repay. And didn’t.”
“How can you even say that! We’re family!” the mother-in-law nearly squealed, dropping the mask completely. “We’re not strangers! Are you really going to throw this in my face over some money? Bring up that wretched refrigerator? It freezes food for your son when he comes to visit, by the way!”
Katya looked straight at her, without averting her gaze. Her composure seemed to infuriate Svetlana Igorevna even more.
“I’m not throwing anything in your face. I’m stating a fact. The fact that our family is carrying your debt. And now you come with a cake and ask for more money. Not a loan, mind you—just like that. For a restaurant.”
She paused briefly, and then her voice hardened, each word crisp and clear. Katya pushed up slightly from her chair, bracing her hands on the table, and leaned a little toward her mother-in-law.
“You still haven’t repaid the last debt for the refrigerator, and now you’re asking for money for a restaurant anniversary?! I won’t give you another kopeck until every last kopeck is returned. I’m done funding your lifestyle.”
The air in the kitchen, still scented with expensive chocolate cake, suddenly turned heavy and sharp. Svetlana Igorevna stared at her daughter-in-law with eyes wide from rage and surprise. She clearly hadn’t expected such a direct, crushing counterattack.
“How… how dare you?” hissed the mother-in-law, red blotches blooming on her face. “To talk to a mother like that! I gave life to your husband, and you’re going to reproach me over pocket change!”
“I’m not reproaching you over pocket change, but a very specific sum. And I’m speaking to you exactly as you’ve earned,” Katya cut in, her calm turning into a cold fury. “You came into my home not as a mother, but as a supplicant—with obligations unfulfilled.”
Realizing the assault had failed, the mother-in-law abruptly changed tactics, snatching her purse from the table. She didn’t say another word, just shot Katya a look full of undisguised hatred. Then, without touching her tea or cake, she shot out of the kitchen like a bullet. Katya heard her in the hall, rattling the locks and feverishly pulling on her coat. She didn’t go to see her out. Instead, she quietly gathered the cups and plates from the table and began to wash them, methodically scrubbing from the porcelain the remnants of the sweet cream—and the bitter aftertaste of a conversation that never came to be.
Not fifteen minutes had passed when her phone rang. Oleg. Wiping her hands, Katya answered, already knowing what she would hear.
“Katya, what did you say to my mom?” her husband’s voice was tense and agitated. “She called me in tears, says you threw her out of the house and humiliated her!”
“No one threw her out; she left on her own,” Katya replied evenly, looking out the window at the gray cityscape. “And I didn’t humiliate her. I simply reminded her of a debt before listening to a request for another cash infusion into their beautiful life.”
“What debt? Are you on about that fridge again? Katya, we agreed they’d pay it back when they could. Why bring it up now? Their celebration is coming up—their golden wedding!”
“Exactly, Oleg. Their celebration—and we’re supposed to pay for it. Again. Because they ‘can’t.’ And apparently we can. We can put off our vacation and hand that money to your parents. We can go without something so your mom can show off a restaurant banquet to her friends. Are you okay with that? I’m not.”
Heavy silence hung on the line. Oleg was clearly searching for words.
“Well… they’re our parents. We should help them.”
“Helping and supporting them financially as a habit are different things,” Katya said crisply. “Help is when something bad happens. Like that refrigerator breaking—and you can’t do without it. We helped. But that help somehow became our obligation to them. They haven’t even tried to repay anything. And as for bankrolling two able-bodied adults who just want to live beyond their means—I’m not doing it. Period.”
“I’m coming over,” Oleg said shortly, and hung up.
Katya set the phone on the windowsill. She knew that call was only the prelude. The real battle was still ahead.
Her husband arrived half an hour later, wound-up and grim. He barreled into the apartment without even taking off his shoes and went straight to the kitchen, where Katya was still sitting at the table. The half-cut cake stood forlornly in the middle, a mute witness to negotiations gone wrong.
“Katya, what happened here?” he started without preamble. “Mom says you shoved some notebook in her face and were tallying something.”
“Not ‘some notebook,’ but the ledger listing their debt. And I didn’t shove it— I read it calmly. To refresh her memory,” Katya lifted tired but steady eyes to him.
“Can’t you understand, they’re my parents! I can’t refuse them! What will people think of me? Their only son, and he wouldn’t give his parents money for their anniversary!”
“And what will people think of your parents, who live on money borrowed from their own son’s family?” Katya shot back. “Why are you only worried about what they’ll think of you? Oleg, get this through your head—it’s not about the money. It’s about attitude. They don’t see us as family; they see us as a wallet, a resource. They come, smile, take what they need, and leave, forgetting every promise. That stops now.”
“So what are you proposing? That we fall out with them forever over this?” Despair crept into Oleg’s voice. He was caught between two fires and hated the idea of choosing.
“I propose we set things straight. Let them repay what they owe first. Then they can come with new requests. That’s fair. And if they want to turn that into a quarrel, that’s their choice, not mine. My decision is final. The financial tap is off.”
“Katya, that’s too much. She’s my mother, do you get that? I can’t just cut her out of my life,” Oleg ran a hand through his hair, his face showing genuine anguish. He was caught in a vise, and both sides were tightening. “Let’s just give them the money and forget it. Keep the peace.”
“What peace, Oleg? The ‘peace’ where we quietly foot the bill for their whims? The ‘peace’ where your mother comes to me with a fake smile to wring out another sum? That’s not peace. That’s capitulation. And I’m not capitulating in my own home,” Katya stood and began to pace the kitchen. Her calm had hardened into a cold, contained energy.
At that very moment, the key turned in the front-door lock. Oleg and Katya froze. The door opened, and Svetlana Igorevna appeared in the kitchen doorway. It was obvious she hadn’t gone far; she’d been waiting on the landing, listening, hoping her son would “talk sense” into his unruly wife. Seeing her hopes dashed, she decided to launch one last, decisive attack. Her face was twisted with malice; not a trace of the earlier courtesy remained.
“I knew it!” she shouted, pointing a finger at Katya. “I heard everything! You’re turning him against his own mother! From day one I’ve seen right through you! Calculating, greedy! Always scheming how to grab everything for yourself!”
Oleg jerked, about to intervene.
“Mom, stop, don’t—”
“You be quiet!” she snapped, her blazing gaze never leaving her daughter-in-law. “I raised a son, and she waltzes in and starts leading him by the nose! You want our money, is that it? You’ve got your eye on our apartment—waiting for us to kick the bucket? You’ll be waiting a long time!”
She stepped forward into the middle of the kitchen. Her voice rang with fury, but Katya didn’t move. She stopped pacing and leaned a hip against the counter, looking at her mother-in-law the way a scientist observes an insect under a microscope—with cool, detached interest. She let her talk, let her pour out the venom that had built up for years.
“You think we don’t see it? All your ‘help,’ all your ‘loans’! You do it just so you can rub our noses in it later! To show your power! To make my son dance to your tune!” The mother-in-law was nearly gasping from her own words.
When the torrent of accusations dried up, a thick, strained pause settled over the kitchen. Svetlana Igorevna was breathing heavily, expecting a reaction— a fight, screams. Oleg glanced from his mother to his wife, his face pale.
Then Katya spoke. Her voice was surprisingly quiet, but there was steel in that quiet.
“I hear you, Svetlana Igorevna. Now you listen to me. Once and for all. You’re mistaken. This isn’t about money. And it certainly isn’t about your apartment. It’s about you.”
She took a step toward her mother-in-law, and the older woman involuntarily backed away.
“The ‘family’ you’re so fond of invoking is mutual support and respect. Not constant extortion dressed up as kinship. Respect is when you repay debts. Support is when you don’t try to set a son against his wife. You’re capable of neither. You’re a taker. All that interests you is your own comfort at someone else’s expense.”
Katya walked to the table, picked up the cake box, and held it out to her mother-in-law.
“So. As of today, financial relations between our families are over. For good. And with them, all the rest. I forgive the refrigerator debt. Consider it the price of never seeing you in my home again.”
Svetlana Igorevna was stunned. She looked at the cake in Katya’s hands, then at her icy face, and couldn’t utter a word. She had never felt such humiliation in her life. She expected a quarrel, but received a sentence.
“You can take your cake. And don’t come here again. Ever,” Katya finished, setting the box on the chair by the kitchen door.
Red with impotent rage, the mother-in-law grabbed the box so hard the cardboard bent, turned on her heel, and flew out of the apartment without another word.
Oleg was left standing in the middle of the kitchen. He looked at his wife—at her calm, utterly unfamiliar face—and felt a creeping horror as he realized that, before his eyes, every bridge had just been burned. Katya had left him no choice, no way to retreat. She had drawn a line, and he now stood on one side of it, his parents forever on the other. And the silence that followed his mother’s departure was louder than any scream. It marked the end of the old life and the beginning of something new, unknown, and frightening…