“Oh, Lyudochka, could you cover it? I think I left my card on the hallway table…”
Lyubov Petrovna flung her hands up so dramatically that the cashier froze for a second, still holding a bag of frozen shrimp.
Behind us, the line hissed with annoyance. Friday night—everyone’s trying to get home, and here we are, starring in yet another scene.
“Of course, Lyubov Petrovna,” I said, automatically reaching for my phone.
“It happens.”
The terminal beeped. A receipt slid out like an endless white ribbon.
4,800 rubles.
My share of that was cottage cheese, milk, and a loaf of bread. Everything else was “little treats” for my husband’s mother: sliced dry-cured sausage I only buy for myself at New Year’s, red fish, and—naturally—a one-kilo bag of that golden coffee.
The one that costs a small fortune.
We walked to the car. I hauled two bags that dug into my hands. Lyubov Petrovna carried her purse—where, as we’d discovered five minutes earlier, there was “absolutely nothing.”
She settled into the front passenger seat and started chirping:
“Don’t be upset, Lyudochka. My memory’s full of holes these days. Once my pension comes in, I’ll pay you back down to the last kopek! You know I’m an honest person.”
I stayed silent. I like numbers—reports, totals, precision. And my internal balance sheet was screaming one thing:
a massive shortage.
A system that never failed
That was the fifth time in two months. The script ran flawlessly.
We’d go to a big supermarket—
“Lyudochka, I only need bread and kefir, it’s hard for me to carry things myself.”
Then the infamous coffee would fly into the cart in the grocery aisle. In the meat section—tenderloin. In the sweets aisle—gift-box chocolates.
I kept quiet. I was the “good daughter-in-law.” My mother used to drill it into me: “A bad peace is better than a good fight.”
At home, everything continued on rails. We’d unpack the bags, my mother-in-law would drink tea with chocolates and complain about the weather and magnetic storms. And the debt? She forgot it the exact moment she stepped over her own threshold.
And to remind her… how do you bring up money with an elderly person? It feels awkward. Shameful. Like you’re counting pennies.
“Pasha, talk to her,” I asked my husband one evening after Lyubov Petrovna left by taxi.
The taxi, by the way, I paid for too.
“It’s turning into a pattern. Five thousand, three thousand, now almost five again. We’ve got a mortgage. We need to repair the car.”
Pasha didn’t even look up from his laptop.
“Lyud, why are you starting? She’s my mother. She forgot her card—so what? It happens. She’s older. She used to bake us pies, watched the kids when they were little. Are you really that stingy when it comes to my mom?”
I wanted to scream: “It’s not the money—I’m disgusted that she thinks I’m stupid.”
But I didn’t. I just took a notebook and wrote:
“Total for October: -12,500 rubles for ‘forgetfulness.’”
That was the price of my patience.
Boiling point
The next Saturday she called early. Her voice was bright, energetic.
“Lyudochka, can you come by? The store has a sale on laundry powder, and there’s nothing at all for tea.”
I looked at my husband—sleeping peacefully on his well-earned day off. Then I looked at my wallet with my salary card inside.
And suddenly I understood: that’s it. Enough.
“Of course, Lyubov Petrovna,” I said into the phone.
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
I got ready carefully. I emptied my bag of anything unnecessary. I left my credit card at home. Cash, coins—everything stayed behind.
I took only one card—the one with exactly 300 rubles left on it for transportation.
In the store, my mother-in-law was on fire.
“Oh look—caviar is on sale! Let’s get two jars, Pasha loves sandwiches in the morning.”
“And this cheese—remember how delicious it was?”
“And coffee, coffee for sure—I’ve just run out!”
She tossed items into the cart like she owned the place. The red coffee pack landed on top of the mountain of groceries like the final signature on a contract.
I walked behind her, pushing the cart, feeling oddly calm—like someone who knows for sure there’s nothing left to fear.
We reached the checkout. Packed. In front of us was a woman with three kids begging for chocolate. Behind us a man with a big pack of mineral water kept glancing at his watch.
The belt rolled forward. The cashier—a tired-eyed woman—started scanning in a dull rhythm.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Caviar. Cheese. Sausage. That coffee. My humble kefir and bun were swallowed by the luxury parade.
“5,240 rubles,” the cashier announced.
“Do you need a bag?”
And then it came—the moment.
Lyubov Petrovna reached into her bottomless purse with her usual confidence. I knew the next steps by heart: ten seconds of digging, a gasp, then frantic patting of coat pockets.
“Oh, Lord!”
Her voice rang out.
“Lyuda! Can you imagine? I left my wallet in my other bag! What an airhead I am!”
The line behind us stiffened. The man with the water clicked his tongue. The cashier lifted a heavy look at me.
“Miss, are you paying? Tap your card—don’t hold up the line.”
My mother-in-law looked at me with that barely-there smile. She was sure. She knew the rules. I’d sigh, pull out my phone, and fix everything in silence.
I slowly unzipped my bag. Took out my phone. Turned it in my hands.
Then I looked Lyubov Petrovna straight in the eyes and said loudly—so everyone around could hear:
“Oh, Lyubov Petrovna… I forgot my wallet at home too. And my phone is dead.”
The silence
A thick, heavy silence dropped. It felt like even the scanner at the next register stopped beeping.
Her smile vanished instantly. Her face stretched.
“How… forgot?” she whispered.
“Lyudochka, you’re joking.”
“No jokes, Mom,” I said, spreading my hands. “We were in such a rush. The powder was on sale, remember? I grabbed my bag and ran. Didn’t have time to move my card from my jacket. Just like you. Must run in the family.”
From behind us came not a click but a full-blown snarl from the mineral-water man:
“Ladies, are you kidding me? I’ve got no time! Pay or move!”
The cashier pressed the security call button.
“Galya, I need a void here—everything.”
My mother-in-law panicked. Her cheeks blotched. This wasn’t shame—it was rage. The rage of someone whose favorite toy was just taken away.
“Lyuda, do something!” she hissed, grabbing my sleeve.
“Call Pasha! Make him transfer money! People are watching! What a disgrace!”
“My phone is dead, Lyubov Petrovna,” I said calmly, watching the manager approach with keys in hand. “We’ll have to leave it all. Such a pity. The caviar was nice. And your favorite coffee…”
The manager reached for the coffee to pull it off the belt.
“Stop!” my mother-in-law’s voice jumped into a shriek.
“No void! Wait—just a second!”
The magic pocket
Her hand dove back into that very purse that, a minute earlier, had supposedly been the Sahara Desert.
A zipper. Another zipper. Then a secret Velcro pocket crackled open.
The entire line held its breath. Even the mineral-water guy fell silent, watching the trick.
Out came a thick wad of bills wrapped with a rubber band—five-thousand notes, thousand notes. There had to be at least fifty thousand in there.
“Found it,” Lyubov Petrovna exhaled, refusing to look at me.
“Thank God… it slipped behind the lining. What a miracle!”
With trembling fingers she counted out 5,240 rubles and handed them to the cashier. The manager silently printed the receipt, giving my mother-in-law a look that would’ve burned a normal person to ash.
But Lyubov Petrovna was made of stone.
“Take the bags, Lyuda,” she snapped dryly, stuffing the change back into the depths of her purse.
“Let’s go.”
The ride back
We drove in silence. I didn’t turn on music. Only tires on asphalt and the whisper of plastic bags in the back seat.
She stared out the window, spine straight like a rod—deeply offended. A deserving mother had been forced to spend her own money on her own groceries. What injustice.
At her building I opened the trunk.
“Want help carrying them to the elevator?” I asked politely.
“I can manage.”
She yanked the heavy bags from me with surprising speed for an “elderly woman.”
“Go tell your husband…” she began—then stopped, looked at me, and I saw the calculation in her eyes. She was deciding how to tell Pasha this story—how to paint me as the villain who abandoned his helpless mother to the wrath of a crowd.
But she must’ve realized the “found money” part didn’t exactly work in her favor.
“Tell him I’m fine,” she finished firmly.
“And thank you for the ride.”
I sat in the car and watched her disappear into the entrance. The red coffee pack stuck out of one bag like a flag on a tower.
The taste of conscience
At home Pasha was stretched out on the couch in front of the TV.
“So, how’d it go?” he asked lazily.
“Mom happy? You got her everything?”
I went to the kitchen and poured myself some water. My hands trembled a little—adrenaline aftershock.
“We bought it,” I said.
“Everything. Caviar and coffee included.”
“Good girl,” Pasha mumbled, rolling over. “I told you—no need to fight over little things. It makes Mom happy, and it doesn’t hurt us.”
I smiled at my reflection in the dark window.
“You’re right, Pasha. It didn’t hurt us. Not a kopek.”
That evening my mother-in-law’s phone stayed silent. No calls about her blood pressure. No requests for next weekend.
And for the first time in two months, I drank my Ivan tea and felt wonderful. Memory really is selective.
But sometimes, it’s incredibly useful to treat it with shock therapy.
And you know what? I have a feeling that fancy coffee will taste a little bitter to her today.
Just a little.
Like the flavor of her own conscience.