“I Only Keep My Penniless Daughter-in-Law Out of Pity,” My Mother-in-Law Bragged to the Neighbors for 12 Years. But My Name Appeared in the Will
“Go back home to your mother, Vadim. I don’t need her errand boy here anymore.”
The door slammed shut, leaving her former husband standing on the landing with his bulging sports bag. Natalia turned the lock and leaned her back against the cool hallway wall.
For the first time in twelve years, everything in her home was exactly the way she wanted it.
It had all begun two months earlier with an ordinary telephone conversation that Natalia was forced to overhear through the thin wall of their Khrushchev-era apartment.
“I only tolerate her in this house out of pity, Zoya.”
Tatyana Pavlovna was speaking deliberately loudly into the phone—loudly enough to be heard even through the closed bathroom door, where Natalia was scrubbing a stain from her son’s jacket.
“She’s penniless. If it weren’t for my Vadik, she’d be out begging in the streets. I’m carrying my cross, Zoya dear! What else can I do? I endure it.”
Natalia rinsed her hands under the running water, shook the droplets into the sink, and wiped her hands on an oven mitt.
Two women living in the same home was always a challenge—especially when one of them considered herself the rightful mistress of the entire universe, while the other was simply trying to survive within her small territory.
Twelve years of marriage in someone else’s apartment had taught Natalia to maintain a silent defense. She never argued, never reacted to the jabs. She simply carried on quietly, managing the household, working at the supermarket, and raising her son.
“And look how many years I took care of Mikhail!” her mother-in-law continued behind the wall, moving on to a new subject. “Who cooked soup for him? I did! Who treated him like a king? I did that too! I poured my entire soul into that old man. I completely exhausted myself.”
Natalia merely smiled bitterly to herself.
Uncle Mikhail, her mother-in-law’s second cousin, had passed away a month and a half earlier. The old man had lived in a nice two-room apartment near a metro line. For the last four years, Tatyana Pavlovna had staged a performance for all the neighbors called The Holy Martyr.
Once a week, she bought a package of cheap chicken backs and boiled them into a watery broth. She poured the concoction into an old plastic mayonnaise tub and ceremoniously carried it to her sick relative.
That was where her great devotion ended.
She never cleaned his apartment, helped him wash, or simply sat down to talk to him. Tatyana Pavlovna was always too busy.
The front door slammed in the hallway.
Natalia looked out from the kitchen. Vadim was hovering uncertainly near the entrance. He hurriedly pulled off his jacket, threw it past the coat hook, and glanced around furtively. Her husband looked disheveled, his hair sticking out in every direction.
“Is Mom in her room?” he asked quietly, avoiding his wife’s eyes.
“She’s on the phone with Zoya, describing her suffering,” Natalia replied dryly. “She’s telling her again how she exhausted herself caring for Uncle Misha.”
Vadim shifted from one foot to the other.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Natasha…”
He hesitated and glanced toward the closed door of his mother’s room.
“I went to Uncle Misha’s apartment. I wanted to change the locks so we could rent the place out. Mom told me to do it.”
The bedroom door immediately flew open. Tatyana Pavlovna swept into the hallway. She had already hidden her phone in the pocket of her sweatpants. Her eyes gleamed greedily.
“Well? Did you change them?” she demanded, pouncing on her son immediately.
“No, Mom.”
“What do you mean, no?” his mother exclaimed, planting her hands on her hips. “What did I tell you? I told you to get everything done today! The real estate agent is already waiting. I called her. An apartment near the metro is no small thing. We’ll rent it out and put the money into a savings account. And this one…”
She nodded contemptuously toward Natalia.
“We’ll send her to the country house to weed the garden before winter. Since she’s no use around the house, she can at least earn the food she eats. Give me the apartment keys. I’ll go there myself and arrange everything with the locksmith, you idiot.”
Vadim took a step backward toward the front door, as though preparing to flee.
“That won’t work, Mom. The apartment already has a new owner.”
A heavy silence descended over the kitchen, broken only by the dripping faucet. Tatyana Pavlovna froze with her mouth half-open.
“What new owner?” Her voice rose to a shriek. “What nonsense are you talking about? Uncle Misha was alone! I’m his only relative! I gave him the best years of my life!”
“Mom, calm down.”
“I’ll show you calm!” Tatyana Pavlovna slammed her fist against the kitchen table. “Who dared to take my apartment? They’re fraudsters! I’m going to the police!”
Vadim looked guiltily at Natalia and then back at his mother.
“Uncle Misha signed the apartment over to someone while he was still alive, Mom. Six months ago.”
“To whom?”
“To Natasha.”
Natalia silently placed both hands on the edge of the table. She had been waiting for this moment—calmly and without malicious satisfaction.
Ugly dark-red patches spread across her mother-in-law’s face. She shifted her furious gaze from her son, who was fidgeting in the hallway, to her unruffled daughter-in-law.
“What?” Tatyana Pavlovna hissed.
“You heard him,” Natalia replied evenly. “Uncle Misha’s apartment belongs to me. Legally and permanently.”
“How dare you?”
Her mother-in-law lunged forward, but Vadim cowardly squeezed himself between her and the kitchen table.
“You treacherous snake!” Tatyana Pavlovna screamed, trying to push her son out of the way. “You penniless parasite! You manipulated a sick old man! You robbed him! I brought him soup!”
“He poured your watery chicken-back broth down the toilet. I saw him do it myself.”
Natalia did not retreat a single step. Her voice was cold and clear.
“What nonsense are you saying?” her mother-in-law shrieked.
“I’m telling you the truth. While you were telling Zoya on the phone about the terrible cross you had to bear, I was visiting him after my shifts at the supermarket.”
Natalia folded her arms across her chest and stared directly into her mother-in-law’s darting eyes.
“I washed his floors. I fed him with a spoon when he could no longer eat by himself. I changed his diapers and washed his clothes. I bought him proper food with my own money, by the way, because you never spent a single penny on your own uncle. You only carried those old mayonnaise tubs around for show so the neighbors could witness your supposed holiness.”
“Lies!” her mother-in-law spat, although her voice sounded uncertain.
“What part of it is a lie?” Natalia gave a crooked smile. “Do you even know what medication he was taking? Did you ever trim his nails even once? No. You were simply waiting for him to die so you could rent out his apartment. But he saw everything. And he understood everything.”
Vadim tried to intervene in the battle between the two women.
“Natasha, why are you starting all this?” he whined. “Mom really did try as hard as she could. Why should we take something that doesn’t belong to us? We don’t need scandals in the family. Transfer the apartment to Mom and be done with it. Just give it to her peacefully.”
Natalia slowly turned her gaze toward her husband.
Twelve years.
For twelve years, she had looked at this fully grown, healthy man and waited for him to behave like one.
During all those years, he had never defended her against his mother. Whenever Tatyana Pavlovna berated Natalia over improperly ironed shirts or oversalted soup, Vadim either hid in the garage or buried his face in his phone.
And now, while his mother was covering Natalia in filth, he was once again asking his wife to surrender so that life would be more convenient for him.
“All right, then,” Natalia said firmly.
She pushed herself away from the table, walked past her frozen husband, and entered the hallway. She took an old travel bag down from the storage shelf and threw it onto the small bench.
“Vadim, I’ll have my belongings packed by this evening.”
Her husband blinked in confusion.
“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
“Home,” Natalia replied sharply. “I’ll pick our son up from kindergarten, and we’re leaving. Fortunately, we finally have somewhere to go.”
“Natasha, what are you doing?” Vadim protested, stepping toward her. “You’re going to destroy our family over some apartment? What about me?”
“You can stay here with your mother.”
Natalia began methodically pulling her belongings from the shelves and dropping them into the bag.
“She’ll soon need someone to care for her in her old age. Someone who works for free and cooks her little soups on schedule. You’ll manage.”
“How dare you?” Tatyana Pavlovna started shouting from the kitchen again. “In my own house! You ungrateful wretch! Get out!”
“Serfdom was abolished a long time ago, Tatyana Pavlovna,” Natalia called over her shoulder. “You two can entertain yourselves here without me.”
Curses flew after her. Her mother-in-law screamed about ingratitude, threatened divine punishment, and promised Natalia would end up begging in the streets.
Natalia no longer listened. She simply packed her belongings.
Two months passed.
Life improved astonishingly once the constant background noise of dissatisfaction disappeared from it.
Natalia made a few cosmetic repairs to Uncle Mikhail’s apartment. She threw away the old sagging furniture, scrubbed the windows until they shone, and hung pale curtains.
Her son began attending a good school located right in the apartment complex’s courtyard. The boy stopped flinching at every loud noise and finally began sleeping normally.
Vadim paid child support reluctantly. He sent tiny amounts, accompanying every bank transfer with long, pitiful messages. He wrote about how difficult his life was, how unfairly he had been treated at work, and how everything was becoming more expensive.
Natalia did not read the messages. She simply swiped them off the screen.
Her salary was quite enough for her and her son to live peacefully without depending on anyone.
On Wednesday evening, she was baking a chocolate cake made with kefir. The comforting scent of vanilla drifted through the apartment.
The doorbell suddenly rang.
Natalia rinsed her hands, dried them with a kitchen towel, and approached the door. She looked through the peephole.
Vadim was standing restlessly on the landing. At his feet was the same enormous, bulging sports bag.
She turned the lock and opened the door slightly, leaving the metal security chain in place.
“What do you want?” she asked without emotion.
Vadim attempted to squeeze inside, but the chain stretched tight, preventing him from getting past the threshold.
“Natasha, let me in, please.”
Her former husband’s voice was unbearably pitiful and pleading.
“I asked why you came. The cake isn’t being baked for you.”
“Mom has completely lost her mind,” Vadim whined, pressing his forehead against the doorframe. “She nags me from morning until night. I sit the wrong way, buy the wrong things, don’t give her enough money, or fail to clean up after myself. I can’t take it anymore. Living with her is absolutely impossible.”
Natalia rested her shoulder against the doorway.
“Really? And yet it was possible for twelve years?”
“Come on, Natasha! I’m your husband.”
“Former husband, Vadim. Former. Thank God.”
“Stop being angry with me!”
Vadim tried to arrange his disheveled face into a charming smile. It came out crooked and unconvincing.
“I’ve packed my bag. All my things are here. I’ve left her for good. Let’s start over. Living in your spacious apartment will be wonderful. There’s enough room for everyone, and it smells so good in there with all your baking. I know you miss me.”
Natalia silently looked at the bulging bag at his feet. Then she raised her unblinking eyes to Vadim’s face.
She felt no pity at all.
Only a faint sense of disgust, like the feeling one experienced upon seeing a beetle crushed against the pavement.
“Go back home to your mother, Vadim. I don’t need her errand boy here anymore.”
“Natasha! Where am I supposed to go?” he howled, grabbing the edge of the door. “She’ll eat me alive!”
“Those are your family problems.”
Natalia calmly closed the door and turned the lock twice.
For a long time, she could hear his footsteps shuffling around the same spot on the landing, accompanied by heavy sighs. Eventually, they moved dejectedly down the stairs.
Natalia straightened the mat by the door and returned to the kitchen.
The cake was ready, and it was time to call her son to dinner.