“I Paid the Deposit.” My Husband Paid for His Sister’s Restaurant Banquet with My Bonus. I Quietly Called the Bank
“Marina, I already promised Sveta. Your bonus will cover her banquet. So don’t let me down.”
Marina slowly set down her cup. The kitchen smelled of coffee and burnt toast — Oleg, as usual, had been distracted by his phone and forgotten about the pan. Between them on the table lay her laptop, open to a spreadsheet of calculations. She had been working since six in the morning.
“What banquet?”
“Sveta’s date is on Saturday. Her fortieth. The restaurant In Provence, thirty people. I told her we’d take care of it.”
“We? Or me?”
“What difference does it make?” Oleg yawned and reached for the toast. “She’s family. When is your bonus coming?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“Perfect. I’ve already paid the deposit — twenty thousand. Sveta likes the terrace with the fountain.”
Marina closed the laptop.
“Oleg. My bonus is two hundred and twenty thousand, and I was planning to pay off the remaining mortgage.”
“Oh, come on. The mortgage still has three years left, but Sveta turns forty only once.”
“And when I turned forty, do you remember?”
“Of course. At home, with a little cake. But you don’t like restaurants anyway.”
That phrase — “you don’t like restaurants anyway” — he had been repeating for fifteen years. I had said I didn’t like noisy crowds. Since then, it had turned into, “You’re a homebody, you don’t need anything.” Gradually, people stopped offering me anything. Gradually, I forgot that I was allowed to want things.
“I’ll think about it.”
“What’s there to think about? I promised.”
“You promised. I’ll think about it.”
Oleg snorted and went to the shower. Marina finished her coffee. A message from Zhanna, her boss, flashed on her phone: “Stop by before the planning meeting. Good news.”
The office smelled of fresh paint — the corridor had been repainted the previous week. Marina walked to Zhanna’s office and knocked.
“Come in, and close the door.”
Zhanna was short, wore glasses, and had a habit of tapping her pencil on the desk.
“Marina, I have an offer for you. Starting from the first, your position will be Head of Operations. Salary with all bonuses included — one hundred eighty thousand. Plus quarterly bonuses.”
Marina blinked. One hundred eighty thousand a month. Oleg earned half as much and had sincerely believed for fifteen years that this was the family’s financial ceiling.
“I’m not sure I can handle it.”
“You’ve already been doing it for a year. Just without the title and without the money,” Zhanna smirked. “And I managed to get your annual bonus approved this year. It will be two hundred eighty thousand.”
Marina left the office and leaned against the wall. Above her hung a poster that said, We Are a Team. And for the first time that day, she smiled. Not because of the poster, but because of the pleasant arithmetic.
In the corridor, she called the bank.
“Hello. I am a guarantor on a car loan. But I want to be removed.”
“A guarantor can be removed if the primary borrower agrees or provides another guarantor.”
“And if he doesn’t agree?”
“Then you submit an application, and the bank reviews the primary borrower’s terms. If his income is insufficient, they may demand early repayment.”
“I’m submitting it.”
She gave them her details while leaning against the freshly painted wall, and for the first time in fifteen years, she didn’t even wonder whether Oleg would be offended.
That evening, she came home. Oleg was watching television, a plate of dumplings on his lap.
“Oleg, I’m not paying for Sveta’s banquet.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“What?”
“I’m not paying. And I’m removing myself from your car loan as guarantor. The bank should call you in the next few days.”
He set the plate down. He chewed, staring at the wall.
“Are you joking?”
“No. I got promoted. And I decided that the bonus is my personal money, not shared money.”
“What promotion?”
“Head of department. One hundred eighty thousand salary.”
He fell silent. For a long time.
“Well, that changes everything. Then the banquet is definitely on you. Sveta will be so happy.”
Marina almost laughed. Because of how precisely he had drawn his own portrait.
“I’ll call her myself, and I don’t think she’ll be happy.”
“Then don’t call. I’ll handle it.”
“I’ll do it myself.”
She called Sveta in front of him. She put the call on speaker.
“Hi, Sveta. About Saturday. I’m not paying for the banquet.”
A pause.
“Marina, what are you talking about? Oleg promised.”
“Oleg promised, but no one asked me. I have my own plans for this bonus.”
“What plans could you possibly have? You’re…”
“I’m what, Sveta? Finish your sentence.”
Sveta went silent.
“Well, you’re family. And your budget is shared.”
“The budget is shared. But the bonus is mine alone. And I want the twenty-thousand deposit Oleg paid returned. Tomorrow.”
“Marina, that’s just rude.”
“That’s my new arithmetic. Have a good evening.”
She hung up. Oleg looked at her the way people look at someone who has suddenly started speaking Swahili.
“You’re turning your back on family over money.”
“Not over money. Over the fact that your family was sure my money wasn’t mine.”
On Saturday, the banquet took place after all. Sveta cut the guest list from thirty people to twelve and moved it from Provence to the café Beryozka. Oleg and his mother insisted that Marina still come — “otherwise it’ll be a disgrace in front of the whole neighborhood.” Marina came. She was even curious to see it.
Beryozka was old, with worn chairs. It smelled of dumplings and bleach. Marina sat at the edge of the table and ordered green tea. Oleg sat beside her, nervously adjusting his tie — an old one, from their wedding. The lighting was dim, and the guests smiled stiffly.
Twenty minutes later, Sveta raised her shot glass.
“I want to say that not everyone has friends or family. And not everyone… appreciates what they’ve been given,” she said, looking at Marina.
Marina clinked her green tea against the glasses.
“Sveta, for fifteen years you used and appreciated what had been given to me. Far more than I did. Today, I started appreciating it myself.”
The table went quiet. The neighbor on the left coughed. Someone poured themselves some compote.
Oleg stood up to save the moment.
“To Sveta! Forty isn’t an age — it’s a beginning.”
Everyone clinked glasses. Marina did too, and smiled broadly. No one understood why. Oleg, I think, didn’t understand either.
They drove home in silence. Sparse streetlights burned along the road. It was the first warm evening of May.
“You made yourself look greedy,” Oleg said at a traffic light.
“Maybe. But not like an ATM.”
At home, she opened her laptop and booked a solo trip. Greece, the island of Rhodes, for seven days.
Oleg entered the bedroom and saw the screen.
“What’s that?”
“That’s Greece.”
“Am I going with you?”
“No. This is for that fortieth birthday with the little cake.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and was silent for a long time.
“And what about me?”
“You have a conversation with the bank next week. I’m no longer your guarantor. You need to find another one or repay the loan early.”
“Marina, I won’t manage on my own.”
“I understand. That’s why I’m asking you: do you want a guarantor, or do you want a wife you can tell that her bonus is shared property?”
He did not answer.
Marina closed the laptop and turned off the floor lamp. In the darkness, she could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall — an old one, her grandmother’s. For the first time in a long while, she fell asleep without calculating other people’s expenses in her head.
In the morning, a message came from Sveta: “Marina, we need to talk like adults.”
Marina read it, added a small heart reaction, and put the phone away. Then she took a summer dress out of the closet — one she had bought but never worn. The dress was blue, and it matched the sea.
What do you think — was Marina right? Or is a wife obligated to carry family banquets on her shoulders, even when she isn’t invited as an equal, but simply expected to pay? I’m waiting for your stories in the comments. Subscribe.
—
That’s exactly what I told my niece yesterday — never sign as a guarantor for your husband, even if he’s an angel sent straight from heaven. Marina did the right thing by calling the bank before telling her husband.
And Beryozka instead of Provence — we have one just like that in our neighborhood. I can practically see that tablecloth.