her life, had two children with Vadik—a man of uncertain occupation and boundless ambition—and sincerely believed that the world, and especially her older sister, owed her everything.
"Mom," Marina said quietly but firmly, pushing away her cup of cold tea. "Vadik owes the bank nine hundred thousand. He crashed his financed car because he decided to save on the insurance and drove in the wrong direction. Why should I take out a consumer loan to cover his stupidity?"
"Because they could take away their apartment!" Klavdiya Petrovna shrieked. "Do you realize the children will end up on the street? Vadik made a mistake, it happens to everyone! He was trying so hard for the family, he wanted to start a business, drive a premium taxi! But you have a transparent income, good credit, the bank will give you a decent interest rate. But no one will give Vadik one anymore!"
"Of course they don't. He hasn't held a job for more than three months in the last five years."
"Just like in the movie 'Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears,'" Klavdia Petrovna pursed her lips, looking reproachfully at her eldest daughter. "You've become like that Lyudmila! Always looking for profit, always with a calculator in your head! Why not be like Gosha, approach people with heart, in a simple way. Help a loved one! Who's going to pay their mortgage if not you?"
"Mom, Gosha was a top-notch mechanic with golden hands, and Vadik is an expert at lying on the couch with his phone," Marina rubbed her temples wearily. "And I'm not looking for profit. I'm looking for a way to pay my mortgage, pay your utilities, transfer you fifteen thousand for medication, like I do every month, and still have money left over for food. I don't have a million to spare."
“Oh, don’t play the poor thing!” Mother waved her hand irritably, flashing the gold rings on her fingers. “You live alone. No husband, no children. Where do you need so much money? To buy clothes? You’ve been wearing that coat for three years now. You could have saved up for your nephews! Okay, I’ll go. But think about it, Marina. You have until Saturday. Otherwise, the debt collectors will kill Olenka!”
Klavdiya Petrovna rose heavily, threw on her good down jacket and, without even saying goodbye, slammed the front door.
Marina remained sitting in the kitchen. A stack of unpaid bills lay on the table. A pan of last night's soup sat forlornly in the refrigerator. She walked to the window, looking out at the gray, drizzling autumn rain. Her chest felt heavy. Her mother had always been a master at playing on her sense of duty. From childhood, Marina had been the "strong one," the one who could "handle things on her own," while Olya had always been the "little one" and the "needy one."
The next day at work, Marina couldn't concentrate on the quarterly report. The numbers on the monitor were blurry.
Svetlana, a colleague in the office, a perceptive and sharp-tongued woman, noticed her state.
"Marinka, you're as pale as a skunk today. Is your family up to no good again?" Svetlana sipped coffee from a mug labeled "Boss." "What's going on this time? Is your sister short on money for the Maldives, or has her genius husband invested in another Ponzi scheme?"
"Vadik crashed a car he'd bought with a loan. The debt is almost a million. Mom's demanding that I take out a loan in my own name and pay them back."
Svetlana choked on her coffee.
"And you, of course, are sitting there trying to figure out which bank has the lowest interest rate? Marina, are you out of your mind? They're riding on you! When was the last time you were on vacation? Five years ago, at a sanatorium near Ryazan? You're wearing boots that'll soon be begging for porridge, while your nephews are running around in designer jackets—I saw the photos you showed me!"
"Sveta, but they're family..." Marina objected weakly, though her colleague's words hit the nail on the head. "If I don't help, they'll eat me alive with accusations. And I feel sorry for Mom, too. She's worried; her blood pressure's been fluctuating."
"It's a shame for the bee," Svetlana snapped. "And you have classic savior syndrome. Fine, it's your business. But if you take that loan, I personally will stop talking to you out of respect for common sense."
That evening, Klavdia Petrovna dropped by to see Marina again. This time, she was suspiciously affectionate. She brought cabbage pies and made tea.
"Marinochka, my dear," she began in an unctuous voice. "You're a tech savvy person. Could you please check my phone? It's frozen, the screen is dark, and WhatsApp won't open. Olenka's supposed to be sending me some photos of her grandchildren. Fix it while I go to the bathroom."
Klavdiya Petrovna left her brand new smartphone on the table—a gift from Marina for her last birthday—and went to the bathroom.
Marina picked up the device. It had indeed frozen. She pressed the reset button. The phone blinked and turned on. The lock screen lit up, and at that moment, a push notification from the banking app popped up:
"Your 'Reliable Interest' deposit has been successfully extended. Available balance: 1,850,000 rubles."
Marina froze. Her heart sank into her stomach, then started beating so fast that her ears began to ring.
One million eight hundred fifty thousand rubles.
Where did a mother living on a pension and Marina's monthly allowance get that kind of money?
Her fingers trembled. Marina knew the PIN for her phone—she'd set it herself, it was Olya's year of birth. Unlocking the screen, she quickly logged into the banking app, fortunately, it was accessed with a short password, which her mother always asked her to write down on a piece of paper kept under her phone case.
Marina opened the transaction history. The account had been opened three years ago. The down payment was one million six hundred thousand. Three years ago... Marina frantically pieced together the facts. Three years ago, her mother had sold her grandfather's old dacha in the suburbs. Back then, Klavdia Petrovna had sworn and vowed, shedding tears, that the property had gone for next to nothing—just two hundred thousand, which Olenka urgently needed for renovations to the nursery. Marina had believed her then. And she herself had paid for her mother's roof repairs, taking out a microloan.
It turns out that my mother had deposited the money at interest. And all these years she'd been regularly receiving capital gains.
Marina's hands turned to ice. She left the bank and instinctively tapped the WhatsApp icon, where a new message had just appeared. It was a conversation with Olya.
Olya: "Mom, what's going on? Are you putting the squeeze on Marina?"
Klavdiya Petrovna (sent an hour ago): "I'm putting the squeeze on her, Olya. She's breaking down, but she's not going anywhere. She's used to being patient, she'll whine and then take out a loan. The main thing is to appeal to her pity and remind her that we're a family."
Olya: "Excellent! Otherwise, if you withdraw your deposit, we'll lose all the interest for the year! It's a shame to give the bank our hard-earned money. It's better for Marina to pay; she has no children, no weeds, what else is she supposed to spend the money on? Buy herself another gray sweater? She won't lose anything."
Klavdiya Petrovna: "Don't worry, honey. I'll put some Corvalol on her now for the smell and tell her she's got a heart attack. Vadik will have the money this weekend."
Marina stared at the screen, and it felt like the air in the kitchen had suddenly run out. She couldn't breathe. Her vision darkened.
Her entire life flashed before her eyes. The tattered winter boots she'd worn for two seasons to save up for her mother's joint treatment. Forgoing a dentist appointment to buy her nephews camp tickets. Endless self-denial. Sleepless nights. The mortgage she'd struggled to pay.
They didn't simply take advantage of her kindness. They did it deliberately, cynically, with calculated cruelty. To her mother and sister, Marina wasn't even human. She was a free resource. A convenient ATM that they could kick to make bills pour out, while their own hard-earned money sat quietly in their bank account.
Marina didn't scream. She didn't throw the phone at the wall. She suddenly felt absolute, crystal-clear mental clarity. The kind of clarity that only comes after a serious illness, when the fever subsides and the world takes on a clearer outline.
She quickly took screenshots of the conversation and the account statement, forwarded them to herself on Telegram, and immediately deleted all traces of the transmission. She closed all apps.
When Klavdia Petrovna returned to the kitchen, sighing heavily and holding her left side, Marina was calmly drinking tea.
"Here you go, Mom. I rebooted it, everything works," she held out the phone.
"Oh, thank you, dear," the mother took the device. "So, what about the loan? You understand, there's no one else out there...
" "I understand, Mom," Marina replied in a flat, lifeless voice. "Everyone, come on Saturday. You, Olya, and Vadik. Around six o'clock. I'll set the table and we'll resolve this financial issue. Once and for all."
On Saturday, Marina prepared for the meeting methodically and calmly. She baked a meat pie—the very one Vadik loved so much. She brewed some good Indian tea. She got out some beautiful cups.
She felt neither fear nor guilt. Only cold, calculating anger. A folder on her desk held color-printed screenshots, and next to it, a detailed Excel spreadsheet she'd created the night before.
The guests arrived promptly at six. Olya looked tired and tragic, her entire demeanor betraying the hardships of motherhood. Vadik acted cavalier, perching himself at the head of the table and immediately reaching for a piece of pie. Klavdia Petrovna bustled about, trying to create the illusion of a warm family dinner.
"Well, Marinka, good for you for agreeing," Vadik muttered, chewing on his pie with his mouth full. "I'll tell you this: we relatives have to stick together. I'll pay off this debt, and then I'll invest in crypto, and we'll be living it up! Just tell me when you'll transfer the money? Will you make it on Monday? The late fees are starting to pile up."
Marina silently poured tea for everyone. She sat down opposite her sister and clasped her hands.
"There won't be any money, Vadim. I'm not taking out a loan."
A heavy silence fell over the table. Vadik stopped chewing. Olya let out an indignant sigh, and Klavdia Petrovna clutched her chest.
"What do you mean it won't happen?!" Olya shrieked. "But you promised Mom! Do you understand that they can take away our apartment?! Do you want my children to live under a bridge because of your greed?!"
"They don't take away your apartment for a consumer loan if it's your only home, Olya. Learn the ropes," Marina retorted coldly. "But if you need the money so badly, I've found an excellent solution."
She opened the folder, pulled out the first page, and placed it in the center of the table, right in front of her mother. It was a large screenshot of a banking app.
"Mom, you have one million eight hundred and fifty thousand rubles in your 'Reliable Interest' account. You can withdraw it any day. It's more than enough to cover Vadik's debt and even buy him a metro pass for a year in advance."
Klavdia Petrovna paled so quickly it seemed all the color had been washed from her. Her mouth opened and closed silently. Olya craned her neck, looked at the printout, and also froze. Vadik swallowed nervously.
"Y-you... you were going through my phone?!" the mother finally squeezed out, breaking into a hysterical falsetto. "What right did you have?! This is illegal! This is an invasion of privacy!"
"Interference in my privacy?" Marina pulled out a second sheet of paper—a printout of the correspondence. "And what's this, Mom? 'Let Marinka pay, where else would she spend the money? It's a shame to lose my own hard-earned money.' This is your personal life, right? Discussing how best to milk my last ruble, just so you don't lose the meager interest on my deposit?"
"That's Mom's money!" Olya screamed, jumping up from her chair. "She put it aside for my children's education! From Grandpa's dacha! You have no right to count it!"
"From the dacha that my father built while he was alive, and where I toiled every summer while you, Olenka, sunbathed by the river," Marina's voice sounded like steel cutting through butter. "And you know what's funny? I really did consider you family. I thought you were struggling."
Marina took out the third sheet - a table.
"I'm an accountant, Olya. I love numbers. Everything's calculated here for the last five years. Fifteen thousand a month for Mom's 'medicine bills.' Mom's utility bills. Buying Vadik winter tires three years ago. Your washing machine, Olya, which I bought you last year because 'the kids have nothing to wear.' Roof repairs. Total—one million two hundred thousand rubles. I invested in your family the price of a good car. While you," she looked straight at her mother, "had almost a million in the bank."
"You... you monster! You're settling scores with your own mother!" Klavdiya Petrovna rolled her eyes theatrically and began to slide down the back of her chair. "Water... I'm having a heart attack... Like in the movie 'Love and Doves'... A myocardial infarction! That's the scar!"
"The blood pressure monitor is on the shelf in the hallway, Mom. Your blood pressure was 120 over 80 this morning," Marina said without flinching. "And I'll call an ambulance if you don't leave my apartment in three minutes."
"Listen, you accountant," Vadik rose menacingly, looming over the table. "Don't talk to your mother like that. Look at her getting all cocky! She's been holding back the money, and now she's acting up! We can manage without you!"
"Well, make do, Vadik. And if you take another step toward me, I'll call the police. I have a camera in the hallway; it records both video and audio," Marina said, picking up her phone. She didn't have a camera, but Vadik, a coward by nature, immediately backed away.
— Get ready. All three of you.
"You'll regret this, Marina!" Olya hissed, grabbing her bag. "You'll be alone! No one will give you a glass of water in your old age! We don't want to have anything to do with you!"
"What a relief," Marina smiled sincerely. "Leave the keys to the apartment on the nightstand, Mom. And don't come back again."
They left, slamming the doors loudly, shouting curses and showering accusations of ingratitude and callousness.
When the footsteps on the stairs faded, a ringing, unfamiliar silence fell over the apartment. Marina walked to the door, closed it twice, and slid the latch.
She returned to the kitchen. Printouts were scattered on the table, and half-drunk cups of tea stood there. Marina took a piece of pie and took a bite. The pie was amazing—moist, with a crispy crust. For the first time in years, food tasted untainted by worry about other people's problems.
For complete preparation instructions, go to the next page or click the Open button (>). Don't forget to SHARE with your friends on Facebook.
