I’m at my mom’s, helping her with the renovations.”
The message arrived at 10:12, just as I was flipping the syrniki in the pan. Gena always writes the same thing, word for word, as if he’s copying from his notes. It’s been the same for the twentieth Saturday in a row.
I sent him a heart emoji and turned off the stove.
At 10:41, the phone rang. The screen said “Stefania Ilyinichna,” and at first, I thought I was seeing things. My mother-in-law only calls me twice a year—on New Year’s and for my birthday. Everything else she discusses with her son.
“Elvira, hello,” she said, getting straight to the point. “Do you know why Gena didn’t come again? He promised on Wednesday. The faucet in the kitchen is leaking, I’ve wrapped it with a rag, and the downstairs neighbor has already knocked twice.”
“What do you mean he didn’t come?” I sat down on the stool. “He messaged me half an hour ago saying he’s at your place.”
There was silence on the line. Then my mother-in-law spoke, her tone as precise as a utility meter reading:
“Sweetie. He’s only been at my place twice since May. May sixteenth and once in June. He measured the kitchen, had some tea, and left. What renovations?”
I promised her I’d call back. I dialed my husband—just long rings. Tried again—same thing. Five minutes later, I got a message: “Busy, hammer drill, talk in the evening.”
A hammer drill. At his mom’s, where there aren’t any renovations going on.
For eleven years, Gena has been making decisions for both of us. Ever since 2015, when my newsroom cut my hours and I was bringing home twenty-six thousand, while he made three times more. “Whoever brings in the money gets to decide,” he said over dinner back then, and that just stuck. Ulyana was sixteen—tutors, then college. I didn’t argue. Once, in 2021, I suggested we keep separate budgets. He didn’t speak to me for three weeks, and then the next month was our daughter’s wedding, so I gave in, not wanting to spoil her big day.
And in May, I transferred him ninety-five thousand. My own, saved up. “It’s for Mom’s kitchen, Elia—tiles, a faucet, cabinets, she’s all alone.” In June, he showed me photos: beige tiles with a brown border, neat seams. I even complimented him. All summer, I was getting emails from the home improvement store: “You’ve been credited with 1,062 bonus points.” We’d registered the card to my number while building the dacha. I read those messages and felt happy that my mother-in-law’s kitchen was coming along.
So where has he really been those twenty Saturdays?
Gena came back at 7:40. His jacket smelled of primer, and there was white dust on his sleeve.
“Your mom called,” I said. “She says you haven’t been to her place since June.”
He clicked his key fob once, then again.
“Don’t start. My mother’s confused. She’s turning eighty soon; she can’t remember what she had for lunch yesterday.”
“She gave me the date. May sixteenth.”
“So what?” he smirked. “Elia, you’re overthinking this. You’ve been talking down to her for twenty years, and now you believe her? Count your commas in your newspaper and stay out of my business.”
“This is our money. Mine too.”
“She’s my mother!” he snapped, tossing his keys onto the table, the fob clinking against a plate of cold syrniki. “It’s none of your business.”
My ears burned as if I’d leaned into a hot oven. I grabbed my earlobe and squeezed it with my fingers, just like I did as a child when my mom scolded me in front of guests. I’ve spent so many years in this pose. Silent, pinching my ear, waiting for it to pass.
And that’s when I realized—he really doesn’t want to let me in.
“Alright,” I said. “Then tomorrow I’ll go to her myself. I’ll check out the faucet.”
“There’s nothing for you to do there.”
“I’m not asking, Gena. I’m just letting you know.”
He stared at me like I’d just spoken Martian. Rubbed the back of his neck, opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he went into the bathroom and cranked the water on full blast.
I sat alone. My hands rested on the table, and I barely recognized them—so calm. My heart was racing, but my hands were steady. I even smiled. For the first time in years, I hadn’t asked for permission.
On Sunday morning, I ordered a taxi through the app and, fifty-two minutes later, was in Stefania Ilinichna’s kitchen. Yellow tiles from the ’80s, peeling cabinets, a bucket under the sink. The faucet was wrapped with a waffle-pattern towel, dripping into a basin. The place smelled of dampness and fried onions.
No sign of repair. Not a single new seam.
I found a plumber through the same app. He arrived in an hour, replaced the cartridge in forty minutes, and charged two thousand eight hundred. My mother-in-law would have paid herself, but I insisted. She looked at me over her magnifying glass, as if studying a receipt she’d never seen before.
“Have some compote,” she finally said. “Cherry.”
The compote was sour and cold, making my jaw ache. We sat across from each other—two women who had managed to circle around one another for twenty-eight years.
“Forgive me, Elvira,” my mother-in-law blurted out suddenly, moving her glass away. “I was upset with you for four months. He told me it was you who wouldn’t let him visit on Saturdays.”
***
When I was leaving, Stefania Ilinichna held onto my hand in the hallway. Her palm was dry and strong.
“If he tells you I’m confused,” she said, “just remind him: I counted up budgets for forty years. I remember every kopeck—not just Saturdays.”
When I got home, Gena met me in the hallway. He already knew I’d visited his mother—she’d called him, and this time he answered.
“Happy now?” he asked. “So, you feel smart, detective?”
“The kitchen hasn’t been touched,” I replied. “No new tile, no new cabinets. Where’s my money?”
He walked into the kitchen, sat down, and spun his keychain around his finger. And then he spoke, calmly, almost kindly, like I was an invalid:
“Ella. I’m not working at Mom’s. I’m helping Tolik assemble kitchen cabinets at his garage. The modules, the doors, the countertop. Mom turns eighty on November fourteenth. I wanted to finish everything in one day, so she’d be amazed. A surprise, you know? But you ruined it. Now she knows.”
I stood by the sink. It sounded legit. Tolik, his friend from the power station, really did have a garage with a stove and a workbench.
“So why did you tell your mom it was me stopping you from visiting?”
“Well, what was I supposed to say?” he shrugged. “That I was planning a surprise? You’re a woman, you should understand.”
He went off to watch football, while I stood fixated on the same teacup for ages. Maybe it really was a surprise. Maybe I’m just being bitter and suspicious, always looking for the worst?
I couldn’t sleep that night. Gena was snoring in the other room, and I was sitting in the kitchen with my phone, for some reason thinking about all those emails about bonuses. One thousand sixty-two. Seven hundred forty. Two thousand one hundred.
The supermarket loyalty account opened right up with a code from my text messages. My card, my number. Eleven orders since May sixteenth.
Laminate flooring, thirty-four square meters. An interior door, white, complete with its frame. Beige wall tiles with a brown border. Grout, adhesive, and a bathroom mixer with a shower head. The total? Two hundred twelve thousand four hundred. Every order carried the same line: “Delivery: 17 Polevaya St., apt. 44.”
I read the address three times. Polevaya is across the river, on the other side of town from my mother-in-law. You don’t store laminate in a garage. You don’t hang an interior door there, either.
Then I opened the banking app. The savings account was in Gena’s name: he used that bank for his salary, the interest was better. But he’d once added me, so I could watch the balance grow. For two years I transferred six thousand every month. The account was called “Kislovodsk.” For two years I dreamed of the spa, of mineral water baths, of walking together along the health trail.
Balance: zero rubles and thirty-seven kopecks. July eighteenth – a withdrawal of one hundred forty-four thousand, transferred to the owner’s card.
I set the phone face-down on the table. My mouth felt dry, my tongue stuck to my palate. The fridge was humming, my husband snored in the room, and all I could think about was July eighteenth. That day, I baked him a birthday pie. And he’d already taken out all the money.
There it is, the classic: “Who brings it in, gets to decide.” He made the decision.
The next morning, I woke up before him. I took screenshots of all eleven orders and the account statement, put them in a special folder, and sent them to my work email. At lunchtime, I went to the bank near the office and opened a new card in my name. Then I emailed HR my request to have my salary sent to my new account starting in October. Valya, the HR lady, raised her eyebrows but didn’t ask questions.
That evening, Gena was eating cutlets and scrolling through the news on his phone.
“Starting in October, my salary’s going to my card,” I said. “We’ll split utilities fifty-fifty. Groceries, too.”
He looked up.
“And what’s this supposed to mean?”
“Nothing new. I just did the math. You withdrew the money from the ‘Kislovodsk’ account in July. I’m guessing it was for a furniture set for Tolik.”
His fork clattered against the plate. His face flushed all the way down his neck. He rubbed his neck with his hand, as if loosening a tight collar.
“I’ll pay it back. It went to a good cause.”
“What cause?”
“None of your business.”
“Then we’re agreed,” I said. “Your business, your money. My money, my business.”
He slammed the bedroom door so hard the glasses rattled in the cabinet. I stayed in the kitchen, arms folded across my chest, elbows pressed to my sides. Sitting there, holding myself like you hold a door in a draft.
Nobody shouted. The dishes were safe. And inside me it was just as quiet and clear as an early Monday morning at the office, before anyone arrives.
My phone beeped. Ulyana: “Mom, we’re expecting you and Dad on Friday at six! Denis marinated the meat.” I smiled and texted back: “We’ll be there.” My daughter is twenty-seven, I remember every one of her birthdays—and at least no one could take that from me.
It’s just that on Saturday, Gena will go over to see ‘Tolik’ again. Only now, I knew the address.
***
On Friday, the house smelled of meat with rosemary and a whole bag of tangerines that my mother-in-law brought over. Denis was roasting a pork neck in the oven, and a cake was cooling on the balcony. We had eight guests gathered, so we pulled the table right up to the wall.
Gena was in great spirits. He toasted “our princess,” hugged his daughter, and winked at the father-in-law. I looked at him and wondered how one person could have two faces, and both seemed so genuine.
It all started with my mother-in-law.
“Elvira, how’s Stefania Ilyinichna’s renovation coming along?” she called out across the table. “Ulyana said Gena spends every weekend there.”
I didn’t even have time to open my mouth.
“We’re conducting our own investigations at home now!” Gena declared to the whole table, leaning back in his chair. “My editor goes through my receipts. She went to the bank and got her own card. Pretty soon, there’ll be an article in the paper: ‘Husband-Electrician Secretly Collects a Kitchen Set.’ Right on the front page, with a photo!”
Everyone burst out laughing. My father-in-law patted him on the back: “Hang in there, Gena.” Denis smirked into his salad. One of Ulyana’s friends asked, “Is that really true?” And everyone laughed again.
“Mom, please, that’s enough,” Ulyana leaned over to me and whispered so loudly that even the neighbors could hear. “Dad is planning a surprise for Grandma, I know. He showed me pictures—beige tiles, really pretty. Don’t embarrass him.”
Don’t embarrass him.
My face was burning, as if I’d opened the oven and stuck my head right in. The fork in my hand felt slippery. Almost three decades of marriage, a daughter I carried and raised, a mother-in-law with her tangerines—and now all of them were looking at me like I was the aunt ruining the party.
A month ago, I would have kept quiet. A year ago too. I even felt my fingers move on their own toward my earlobe.
Instead, I lowered my hand onto the tablecloth and smoothed a wrinkle.
“Gena,” I said calmly, and the room grew quieter. “Since you brought it up, can you clarify something? The laminate flooring—thirty-four square meters—what floor are you putting that on at Tolik’s garage? And the interior door with the frame—is that for the garage too?”
My mother-in-law set down her glass. My father-in-law stopped chewing. Ulyana opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Gena rubbed his neck. He clicked his car remote in his pocket, and I could hear that dry sound across the table.
“We’ll talk later,” he said quietly.
“Later it is,” I agreed and helped myself to some cake.
The cake had raspberries and was a bit tart. I finished every last crumb, though each bite was hard to swallow. No one laughed anymore. Suddenly, my mother-in-law rushed to wash the dishes, and Denis turned up the music.
We took a taxi home. Gena had been drinking, and I don’t drive. We were silent the entire ride; the driver listened to traffic reports on the radio. At our building, Gena paid and was the first to go up the stairs.
In the kitchen, he sat down and put his hands on the table. His palms were wide, covered in tiny cuts from working with wires. He hadn’t worn his wedding ring in twenty years—electricians aren’t allowed, for safety reasons. The ring was in my jewelry box.
“Alright,” he said, letting out a breath. “There’s no Tolik. No kitchen set. There is a client.”
I waited.
— Polevaya Street, number seventeen. A woman lives alone, inherited the apartment from her aunt, and needs a full renovation. I work there on Saturdays. Sixty thousand for the job, I buy materials with my discount and she pays me back in cash. I’ve used my savings for materials, and she’ll pay me everything back in October.
— So why did you lie to your mom?
— Because my mother would just say: you break your back for strangers, but never have time for me. — He lowered his head. — Ella, I wanted to pay for Kislovodsk for you, myself. From this side job. So you wouldn’t have to scrimp and save six thousand at a time, like you’re poor.
He took out his phone, tapped on the screen. My phone beeped: ‘You received 50,000 ₽. Gennady Arkadyevich K.’
— That’s the first part, — he said. — The rest will come in October. Sorry for doing this in front of everyone.
I stared at those fifty thousand, feeling the tension in my neck start to melt. Suddenly everything made sense: Polevaya, the laminate, the drill, why he’d been silent. The side job. His pride. Foolish, maybe, but I understood.
And what did I do? I interrogated him at our daughter’s birthday. In front of the in-laws.
That night, I fell asleep right away, for the first time in a week. In the morning I texted Ulyana: “Sorry for yesterday.” She replied with a hug emoji. On Saturday, Gena went to Polevaya and in the evening he brought home pastries from the market bakery—my favorites, with custard cream.
For a week the house was quiet. I almost believed it was all over.
But on Thursday, Gena brought home a piece of paper.
***
He set the paper down in front of me, right on the breadboard. It was a draft of a spouse’s notarized consent to sell our dacha.
— Tolik’s buying, — Gena said cheerfully. — One million three hundred, cash. Monday at the notary’s, ten o’clock. For Mom’s anniversary, Kislovodsk for you, and the rest in the bank. Sign here and that’s it.
We bought the dacha back in nineteen, for nine hundred thousand. I planted forty strawberry bushes there and painted the veranda myself.
— I’ll think about it, — I said.
— What’s there to think about?
— I’m an editor, Gena. I always reread everything before I sign.
He smirked at the corner of his mouth and walked out. But I sat staring at the paper, calculating. If the client is paying back the savings in October, why rush to sell the dacha? And why Tolik, who hasn’t changed the tires on his Niva in five years, suddenly has 1.3 million in cash?
On Saturday, I’m going to Polevaya. I’ll ask about the repayment myself.
Seventeen turned out to be a new nine-story building right by the fields. At noon, I rang the bell for apartment forty-four. The music stopped behind the door, I heard the lock click open.
On the doorstep stood a woman of about fifty, in a rust-colored kerchief and an apron splattered with whitewash. The place smelled of fresh paint and tile glue. And over her shoulder, in the kitchen, I spotted a wall.
Beige tiles. Brown border. Perfect seams.
‘Mom’s kitchen’ from the June photos.
— Oh, you’re from Gena? — the woman smiled. — He went out to get the faucet, he’ll be back in about forty minutes. Please, come in. I’m Maryana.
— Elvira, — I replied. — His wife.
— Ex-wife? — she was still smiling. — He told me they’ve been divorced for four years. Lives with his mother during the week, looks after her, then comes here on Saturdays.
— We’re not divorced. Twenty-eight years married. And he doesn’t wear a ring because it’s not allowed for electricians.
I showed her my phone: a picture of Gena and me at Ulyana’s wedding five years ago, and the receipt from the store with both my card and her address listed. Maryana slumped onto an upturned paint bucket.
“He said,” she muttered, staring at the floor, “after he sells the dacha—since that’s his share—he’s moving in with me for good. We just need to finish the bathroom first. Then he’s moving in.”
My legs suddenly felt heavy, the way they do after standing in line for ages. The smell of glue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and in that instant, it hit me exactly where my ninety-five thousand had gone: these walls. This stranger’s kitchen that he’d pretended all summer was my mom’s.
“He won’t sell the dacha,” I said. “He can’t do it without my signature.”
“I’ll call him myself,” Maryana replied quietly. “You should go.”
As soon as I got home, I booked an online legal consultation—two thousand rubles for an hour. The lawyer was a stern woman in headphones who confirmed everything. We don’t have any minor children, but since my husband is against the divorce and there’s a dispute over the dacha, it’ll be a court case and a division of assets. The dacha is jointly owned, so he can’t sell it without my notarized consent. Any shared funds spent on someone else’s apartment can be considered during the split, so I should keep the receipts.
After that, I called my mother-in-law and explained everything. She listened in silence and only said, “I see,” once.
Then I took his brown suitcase down from the top shelf. Gena had moved in with this very suitcase back in ‘98. The apartment is mine, inherited from my grandmother, and he’s been registered at his mother’s all his life.
He came in at 7:10, without the faucet. By the look on his face, I realized Maryana had kicked him out.
The suitcase was by the door. On the kitchen table were his document—unsigned—a printout of eleven orders with the address on Polevaya, and the statement for the ‘Kislovodsk’ account.
“Ella,” he started from the threshold. “Let’s talk. She doesn’t mean anything to me, I’m just confused.”
“Put your keys on the table,” I said. “I’m filing for divorce and division on Monday, the lawyer has already reviewed everything. I won’t sign the dacha away. The court will see the receipts from Polevaya. The fifty thousand you transferred me—that’s my own money, from the one hundred and forty-four thousand.”
“Where am I supposed to go at this hour?” he rubbed his neck. “I’ll go to my mom’s.”
I handed him my phone. Stefania Ilyinichna was on the line, on speakerphone.
“Come to me, Gena, but now Elvira comes over on Saturdays,” my mother-in-law said, and for the first time, I heard her voice tremble. “She helps me with the renovations. And you—go where you spent those twenty Saturdays.”
“Mom.”
“That’s it, son. I’ve been counting budgets for forty years. I’ve counted yours too.”
Gena paused for a moment. Then he took the keys to the apartment off his key ring and placed them on the table. The keychain clicked one last time, quietly, like a light switch.
He picked up his suitcase and left. I stood there, arms folded across my chest, listening to the hum of the elevator as it descended.
***
On November fourteenth, Stefania Ilyinichna turned eighty.
Her kitchen was redone in two weeks. I found the tiler, and we split the payment—half from my card, half from my mother-in-law’s savings. She chose the tiles herself: light green, “so there wouldn’t be a single beige one in the house.”
The court accepted my claim; the hearing is set for December. Maryana isn’t answering Gena’s calls anymore. He’s living with Tolik now, in that same garage where he supposedly assembled the furniture, sleeping on a camp bed next to the stove.
Ulyana came to visit me a week after that Saturday. She sat in the kitchen for a long time, spinning a glass in her hands, and finally said, “Mom, I really trusted him.” I didn’t try to explain anything. I just poured her some of grandma’s cherry compote.
My salary goes straight to my own card. I pay the electric bill myself and decide what to buy. I even covered the strawberries at the dacha for the winter on my own. And in May, my mother-in-law and I are headed to Kislovodsk: she said she’s spent half her life planning to go there and it’s finally time to stop just planning.
On Saturday morning, I stood in my new kitchen scrubbing grout off the tiles. My mother-in-law was perched on a stool, directing where to hang the shelf for grains. The scent of cabbage pie and fresh paint on the windowsill filled the air.
My phone beeped. Ulyana: “Mom, where are you? Should I come by?”
I wiped my hands on my apron and replied:
“I’m at Mom’s, helping out with the renovation.”
And I sent it without rereading. There wasn’t a single lie in what I wrote.
