That Saturday morning, I decided to bake an apple charlotte. It was autumn, after all, and I was craving something simple and homely, something that would fill the apartment with the smell of warmth. Besides, Ruslan always lit up when the place smelled like fresh pastry.
The phone rang at the exact moment I was cracking an egg into the bowl. The screen showed: Tanya, sister-in-law. I froze for a second before answering.
Because her calls almost never brought anything good.
“Raya!” Tanya shouted the instant I picked up. “Do you even care at all? Mom broke her leg, and you still haven’t even called her! How can you be like this?”
I silently watched the yolk spread across the bottom of the bowl and thought about the fact that in twenty years Serafima Mikhailovna had never—not once—called me by my name. She always referred to me with pronouns, as if my name itself were somehow forbidden.
I had learned about her accident only a moment earlier—from Tanya.
“Uh… I’m sorry to hear that,” I muttered, saying the first thing that came to mind.
“Sorry?” my sister-in-law scoffed. “She needs help, not sympathy! Come on, get ready and go over there. Take care of her like a proper daughter-in-law should!”
What a convenient word: should. Apparently, there were many things I “should” do—endure humiliation, smile through family gatherings, and listen to her constant remarks like:
“Ruslan, when are you finally going to divorce that one and marry a normal woman?”
I told Tanya I would think about it and ended the call. The charlotte, of course, turned out badly—it sank in the middle and came out dry. Just like my mood.
When Ruslan came home from work, I could tell right away that they had already told him everything. All of them.
His mother, his sisters, and probably even Aunt Klava from the third floor, who sincerely believed Serafima Mikhailovna was a poor suffering saint and I was the unfortunate mistake who had ruined her “perfect” son’s life.
Ruslan also decided that I was the one who had to help.
“Raya, come on… it’s my mother…” he began, rubbing his forehead.
I hated that gesture. It always came right before a request that was almost impossible to refuse without feeling like something inside me was cracking.
“What about your mother?” I asked coldly.
“She’s alone, her leg is in a cast… She really does need help…”
I rolled my eyes.
“Your mother has three daughters-in-law, Ruslan. Three. Me, Sveta, and Marina. And all her life she made it clear that they were wonderful and I was the disappointment.”
I looked straight into his eyes.
“She told everyone how amazing they were and how useless I was. So why am I the one who’s supposed to look after her?”
He grimaced.
“Well… Sveta refused. She said she has work. Marina can’t either—she has a small child.”
“And I’m what, completely free? Nothing better to do?”
“Raya… please…”
That please sounded as if it was supposed to erase everything. As if I should instantly forget how, twenty years ago at our wedding, Serafima Mikhailovna had hissed at me:
“You won’t last long in this family. My son will come to his senses soon enough.”
Or how she used to send Ruslan photos of some “perfect” woman with captions like:
“Look how beautiful she is! And still unmarried!”
For twenty years, I put up with it. I smiled. I cooked for family holidays. I did everything a daughter-in-law was supposedly meant to do.
And what did I get in return? Needling remarks, contempt, endless dissatisfaction.
Three years ago, I simply stopped visiting her. I sent my greetings through Ruslan, and any gifts went through him too. She probably didn’t even notice. Or maybe it suited her better that way.
So why should I go back now?
“Ruslan, I am not going to become your mother’s caretaker,” I said firmly. “That’s it. End of discussion.”
He slammed his palm against the table, making the dishes rattle.
“She’s my mother!” he snapped.
“Then you go take care of her,” I answered calmly.
A strained silence filled the room.
“Me?” He looked at me as if I had suggested something absurd. “But I work!”
“And what do you think I do—relax all day?” I shot back. “I have orders to finish, Ruslan. I sew. I earn money too. I have deadlines.”
He looked at me with wounded indignation.
“Fine…” he sighed heavily. “All right. I’ll take leave.”
And he really did. He took time off and went to stay with his mother.
He lasted exactly three days.
He came back in the evening while I was sewing a dress for a client. Exhausted, dark circles under his eyes. The moment he stepped through the door, he shouted:
“Never again! Do you hear me? Never again!”
He stormed around the apartment like a trapped animal, throwing things around, kicking off his slippers.
“She’s impossible!” he yelled. “She screams because I peel the potatoes the wrong way!”
“She says I make the bed badly! That I turn the TV up too loud! That I walk wrong, breathe wrong, think wrong—everything I do is wrong!”
I just nodded silently. Quite a revelation.
He stopped short and pointed at me.
“And then she said—” His voice cracked. “She said it’s your fault! That you ruined me! That I used to be a good son, and now…”
“And now you’re just a person who doesn’t want to tolerate abuse,” I said calmly, biting through the thread. “Welcome to my reality, Ruslan. I’ve been living in it for twenty years.”
He sank down onto the couch, drained.
“She’s already called all the relatives,” he went on hoarsely. “She says you taught me to abandon her…”
I set my work aside, poured him some strong mint tea, and said:
“Listen, Rus, I have a solution. Let’s all chip in together and hire a caregiver. Three daughters-in-law, three sons, and one daughter—we split the cost evenly. What do you think?”
He looked up at me with hope in his eyes.
“Do you think they’ll agree?”
“What choice do they have?”
I wrote to the whole family: since no one was available to care for her, the only sensible option was to hire a caregiver. This was the cost.
Sveta replied first:
“Great idea. I’m in!”
Then Marina:
“We should’ve done that a long time ago!”
Ruslan’s brothers transferred the money without a word. Tanya pitched in too.
Serafima Mikhailovna, of course, caused a storm. She called everyone, cried, shouted that she had been betrayed, that having a stranger in her house was a disgrace, that her children were ungrateful… But the caregiver was hired anyway.
At first, she called every day—complaining about her leg, the caregiver, her fate, everything. Then the calls stopped. Maybe she accepted it. Or maybe she simply ran out of energy.
Ruslan still goes to see her on Sundays sometimes. He comes back gloomy and silent, though it passes after a while.
And now my charlotte always turns out perfect.
Probably because I no longer mix the batter with hands shaking from anger.