My Mother-in-Law Called My Mom to Reproach Her About a Gift. She Didn’t Know Her Voice Message Had Been Sent to Me
The cream wouldn’t thicken. Natasha had been whipping it for twenty minutes already, changing the speed, adding powdered sugar a pinch at a time—but it kept running off the whisk like water. The microwave clock showed a quarter to midnight. The sponge cake was cooling on the rack, two neat layers—the second attempt, because she had burned the first batch and thrown it in the trash before Seryozha could see.
Seryozha appeared—in his underwear, barefoot, squinting against the light.
“Natash, are you serious? Tomorrow just buy one from Tortugalia. Mom won’t know the difference.”
“She will. Last year she said store-bought cakes are for people who are too lazy to bake.”
“She says a lot of things.”
He stood there for a moment, scratched his chest, and went back to bed. Natasha took another carton of cream from the refrigerator—33 percent fat, four hundred and twenty rubles a carton—and started over.
Galina Petrovna was turning sixty-eight. Not a milestone birthday, nothing obligatory. The week before, Seryozha had said he would just transfer some money to her so she could pick something herself.
Natasha had nodded, then thought: sixty-eight was the last year before the big anniversary. Next year there would be fuss, lots of relatives, a restaurant. But this year they could have a warm, intimate celebration. For her. Just because.
The idea grew over three days. Natasha messaged Tamara Evgenyevna and Zoya, her mother-in-law’s friends, with whom she went to the clinic for treatments every Tuesday. Both were delighted and promised to come.
Natasha planned the menu: beef tongue with horseradish, herring under a fur coat, chicken with prunes, two salads, sliced meats and cheeses. And a honey cake—one that Galina Petrovna had once complimented.
“I’ll tell you this,” her mother-in-law had said at some family dinner after trying a slice Natasha had made. “Your honey cake is decent. Not like my mother’s, of course, but decent.”
Natasha spent a little over four thousand rubles on groceries—from the money she had been saving for spring boots. Another thousand went on balloons and a “Happy Birthday” garland.
When Seryozha saw the balloons, he raised an eyebrow.
“Mom isn’t five years old.”
“They’re for the atmosphere. A celebration should feel like a celebration.”
Seryozha shrugged. He was used to not arguing about things he didn’t understand.
Saturday morning, Natasha got up at seven to finish the salads, arrange the plates, and polish the glasses. Seryozha inflated balloons while complaining that the helium was making him dizzy, even though there was no helium in them—just ordinary balloons they were blowing up themselves.
Their small two-room apartment in Butovo, with its walk-through kitchen, began to look like a children’s party: pink, white, and silver balloons under the ceiling, a garland above the living-room doorway, and a tablecloth Natasha had bought especially for the occasion.
Galina Petrovna arrived at two. She stepped inside, stopped in the hallway, and looked around at the balloons.
“What’s all this—for me?”
“For you,” Natasha smiled. “Happy birthday, Galina Petrovna.”
Her mother-in-law was silent for a moment.
“Well. It looks festive.”
In her vocabulary, that meant approval. Natasha breathed a sigh of relief.
Tamara Evgenyevna and Zoya arrived together carrying flowers. Tamara, small and loud, immediately clapped her hands.
“Galka, look how much effort your daughter-in-law has put in! If only I had one like her.”
Galina Petrovna nodded with restraint, but Natasha could tell she was pleased.
At the table, her mother-in-law ate with a good appetite and asked for more chicken twice. When Natasha brought out the honey cake—a real three-layer one with the words “To Galina Petrovna, with love” written in cream—Galina Petrovna blinked rapidly and said:
“Well, would you look at that. Beautiful.”
Zoya photographed the cake on her phone. Tamara raised a glass of compote and gave a long, emotional toast about how Galka deserved the very best.
Seryozha sat beside his mother, serving her more salad, and Natasha thought: this is exactly why I did it.
For these two hours around the table. For the way her mother-in-law sat at the center, surrounded by people who had come especially for her.
The guests left around seven. Galina Petrovna stayed a little longer and helped clear the table—silently and efficiently, as was her habit.
At the door, she turned around.
“Thank you, Natasha. Everything was good. I’ll tell you this—I wasn’t expecting it.”
Natasha hugged her. Her mother-in-law hugged her back—quickly and awkwardly, like someone who wasn’t used to affection.
Seryozha fell asleep at ten, right in front of the television with the remote still in his hand. Natasha carefully took it from him, turned off the sound, and went into the kitchen.
A mountain of dishes was waiting. Their dishwasher was tiny, only big enough for four place settings, so half of everything still had to be washed by hand.
She was washing the final salad bowl when her phone lit up on the table.
A messenger notification from Galina Petrovna.
A voice message.
Just after midnight.
Natasha dried her hands on a towel, picked up the phone, and pressed play.
Her mother-in-law’s voice sounded tired and sour, completely unlike the voice that had thanked her four hours earlier.
“Tamara, well, you saw it yourself. They turned it into a circus. Balloons like at a kindergarten party. Salads from Pyaterochka. I’m sitting there feeling embarrassed—Zoya’s looking, you’re looking, and the table looks like something from a funeral, except they hung balloons everywhere. I’ll tell you this: they’d have been better off giving me money instead of humiliating me with that circus. Seryozha clearly had nothing to do with it. Natasha decides everything. And of course she saved money—why spend anything on your mother-in-law, right?”
Thirty-eight seconds.
Natasha stood there with the phone pressed to her ear by a damp hand.
She listened again.
The same voice—calm, habitually instructive.
The message hadn’t been meant for her. Natasha’s number and Tamara’s were next to each other in the recent contacts list.
A mistake.
An ordinary mistake made by an older person using a phone.
Natasha put the salad bowl on the drying rack. Hung the towel on its hook.
Sat down on a stool.
She hadn’t bought the groceries at Pyaterochka.
She had gone to Miratorg and to the market—for the beef tongue, for good sour cream. She had bought farm-raised chicken and paid twice as much for it.
She had baked the cake over two evenings because the first sponge hadn’t turned out.
The white tablecloth had cost nine hundred rubles.
Seryozha’s snoring drifted in from the bedroom.
Natasha looked toward the dark hallway and didn’t get up.
In the morning, Seryozha packed his bag. He was leaving for Tula on a three-day business trip to install equipment at a factory. He worked as an engineer for a company that installed ventilation systems, and spring was always their busiest season.
“Why do you look so gloomy?” he asked, zipping the bag.
“Didn’t sleep well.”
“You should’ve left the dishes until morning.”
“It’s fine.”
He kissed her temple, picked up his bag, and left.
The door slammed shut.
Natasha stood in the hallway thinking: Should I tell him? Call him while he’s still in the taxi? Forward the voice message?
She didn’t.
Instead, she listened to it again.
In daylight, with a clear head, it sounded even worse.
It wasn’t malice. It was indifferent certainty.
Galina Petrovna wasn’t complaining—she was stating facts. Like discussing the weather.
To her, Natasha wasn’t a daughter-in-law who had tried hard. She was service staff who hadn’t performed well enough.
Natasha deleted the voice message.
For two days she lived in a strange silence.
She went to work—she was an accountant at a construction company, and it was reporting season, all paperwork and spreadsheets—and by evening she almost forgot about it.
But at night the voice returned:
“They’d have been better off giving me money.”
On the third day, her mother called.
Lyudmila Fyodorovna began from afar—asking about her health, about Seryozha, about work.
Then she fell silent.
“Natashenka, Galina Petrovna called me.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, she sort of hinted around it, you know. Said her birthday celebration had been modest. That you tried, of course, but…”
Her mother hesitated.
“She said your father and I didn’t give her anything. And that, to put it mildly, it was inappropriate.”
Natasha closed her eyes.
It was true that her parents hadn’t given Galina Petrovna a gift.
Her father was in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, and her mother traveled there every day by bus across all of Podolsk.
Natasha had told her:
“Mom, don’t worry about it. I’ll give her something from all of us.”
And she had—a set of good Librederm cosmetics that her mother-in-law had once praised.
Two thousand three hundred rubles.
“Mom, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I understand, but she spoke as though we were supposed to give something. Maybe we really should have sent at least a card?”
Her mother sounded guilty, her voice thin.
Lyudmila Fyodorovna had spent her whole life worrying about offending people. Thirty years working at the post office had trained her to be polite to everyone.
And now some woman had called her and declared her guilty.
And her mother had accepted the guilt.
“Mom. Listen to me. Dad is in the hospital. You have more important things to think about than gifts. Galina Petrovna knows that.”
“She said the hospital wasn’t an excuse.”
Natasha imagined Galina Petrovna deliberately dialing her mother’s number specifically to tell her off.
Not Natasha.
Not Seryozha.
But a sixty-five-year-old woman who had done absolutely nothing to her.
“Mom, forget about it. This isn’t your problem. I’ll deal with it.”
She didn’t deal with it.
Seryozha returned from Tula on Thursday. He brought a traditional Tula gingerbread in a beautiful box, placed it on the table, and said:
“This is for you, my banquet heroine.”
He smiled.
Then he called his mother and talked and laughed with her for twenty minutes. From the kitchen, Natasha heard him say:
“Mom, Natasha really tried hard for you. Tell her thank you again, okay?”
And his mother’s distant, cheerful voice came through the phone:
“Of course, of course, Seryozhenka. Everything was wonderful.”
Natasha sliced the gingerbread.
The knife went through the dense pastry, cutting the word “Tula” in half.
She could have walked in right then and said:
Listen to what your mother says behind my back.
She could tell him about her own mother. About how Galina Petrovna had called an elderly woman whose husband was recovering from surgery and accused her of being stingy.
Seryozha ended the call and walked into the kitchen.
“Mom’s happy. Says her friends are still talking about the party. I think Tamara wants the same kind of birthday for herself now.”
“Good,” Natasha said.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
“I’m tired. Reports.”
He wrapped his arms around her from behind and buried his nose against her neck.
Warm, familiar, completely unaware.
Natasha stroked his arm and thought: if I tell him, he’ll get upset. He’ll call his mother and demand answers. She’ll deny it or, worse, accuse Natasha of eavesdropping.
Seryozha will end up caught between us.
He doesn’t know how to choose sides.
He’ll suffer, and it won’t make anything better for anyone.
Natasha said nothing.
A week later, Galina Petrovna called her herself.
As if nothing had happened, her voice calm and businesslike.
“Natasha, I need a favor. I have to go to the clinic on Kashirka, but I don’t know how to make an appointment through that internet thing of yours. Will you book it for me?”
“Of course, Galina Petrovna. Read me your insurance policy number.”
Her mother-in-law dictated the numbers while Natasha entered them into the mos.ru website and thought:
So this is how it is.
You called my celebration a circus.
You called my mother and upset her.
And now you’re calling me as though none of it ever happened.
Because for you, nothing did happen.
You simply said what you thought, in your usual voice, to your usual friend.
I just wasn’t supposed to hear it.
“I’ve booked you for Wednesday at ten thirty. With the general practitioner.”
“Thank you, Natasha. You’re indispensable to us.”
Natasha ended the call and stared at the screen for a long time. Months passed.
Natasha didn’t start a confrontation, didn’t become openly cold, didn’t cut her mother-in-law out of her life.
She simply stopped trying.
Not overnight.
Gradually, imperceptibly to everyone except herself.
On International Women’s Day, she didn’t call Galina Petrovna first. She sent her a short message with a ready-made greeting card from the internet.
Her mother-in-law either didn’t notice or pretended not to.
When Galina Petrovna’s birthday approached, Natasha said to Seryozha:
“Why don’t you decide how we celebrate this time? She is your mother, after all.”
He looked surprised but agreed.
He booked a table at a café near his mother’s home—a cheap place with business lunches and plastic flowers on the tables.
“Maybe we should at least have a homemade cake?” he asked.
“Order one from Tortugalia. Your mother herself said store-bought cakes are just as good.”
Seryozha looked at her for a long moment, carefully.
But he didn’t ask.
April nineteenth.
Beryozka Café on Akademika Korolyova Street.
A table by the wall. Four chairs.
Seryozha, Natasha, Galina Petrovna.
Tamara and Zoya weren’t invited; Seryozha simply hadn’t thought of them.
The cake was from Tortugalia—a standard Napoleon in a transparent box.
Seryozha placed an envelope beside it.
Five thousand rubles.
They had agreed on the amount beforehand.
“Happy birthday, Mom,” Seryozha said, hugging her.
“Happy birthday, Galina Petrovna,” Natasha said.
She smiled—politely, evenly.
Her mother-in-law sat down and looked over the table.
A menu in a folder.
Napkins in a glass.
A cake in a box.
An envelope.
“Thank you,” she said.
She took the envelope, looked inside, and put it into her handbag.
They ordered.
Galina Petrovna chose Chicken Kyiv and Caesar salad.
She ate silently.
Seryozha tried to keep the conversation going—about work, the neighbors, the renovations in their apartment building.
His mother answered in monosyllables.
“What about Tamara and Zoya?” she suddenly asked.
“We didn’t invite them,” Seryozha replied. “We decided to keep it just family.”
Galina Petrovna nodded.
She placed her fork on the edge of her plate.
“Last year was somehow… well, warmer. Remember, Natasha, you baked that cake? Honey cake, I think?”
Natasha took a sip of coffee.
“I remember, Galina Petrovna. But you yourself said it would be better to give money.”
Silence fell.
Seryozha looked at Natasha, then at his mother.
Galina Petrovna raised her eyes toward Natasha—quickly, sharply—then immediately lowered them.
“I never said that.”
“Then I must have imagined it,” Natasha said calmly, without pressing the point. “Would you like some more coffee?”
Seryozha opened his mouth and then closed it again.
He didn’t understand what had just happened, but he could feel that something had tightened between the two women—and that he was standing right in the middle of it.
Galina Petrovna finished her Chicken Kyiv.
They cut the cake right there at the table. The waitress brought disposable plates.
A store-bought Napoleon, overly sweet, with white cream that stuck to the roof of the mouth.
Her mother-in-law ate the entire slice.
An hour later, Natasha stood up.
“Galina Petrovna, we should get going. Seryozha will drive you home.”
“I’ll take the metro. No need.”
“Mom, I’ll drive you,” Seryozha said.
“No need.”
She stood up and buttoned her coat.
She looked at Natasha—for a second, no longer.
There was something in her expression that resembled confusion, but Natasha wasn’t sure.
With Galina Petrovna, you could never know for certain.
“Thank you for lunch,” her mother-in-law said.
She turned and walked toward the exit.
Seryozha began bustling around—the jacket, the bill, the tip.
Natasha gathered the disposable plates from the table: hers, Seryozha’s, her mother-in-law’s.
She stacked them one inside another and placed the paper napkins on top.
Then she picked up the empty cake box, crumbs scattered across the bottom, and carried it toward the trash bin by the entrance.
The lid of the bin fell shut with a metallic clang.
