“Go to your parents and shake them down for money. My sister is drowning in debt, and you’re just going to watch?” Vitya threw a bank printout onto the table.
“It’s not my parents’ job to pull your dear sister out of yet another hole,” I pushed the papers away. “Let her clean up her own mess.”
“Have you completely lost your nerve? Alyonka is family! And what are your old folks saving up for in their old age—a coffin?”
“Don’t you dare talk about my parents like that! They worked their whole lives, unlike your precious sister!”
The smell of burnt eggs filled the kitchen. I turned off the stove, feeling everything inside me boiling even hotter than the oil in the frying pan. The third time in a month. The third! Alyonka got herself into debt with enviable regularity—first a loan for a fur coat, then the latest iPhone, then a vacation in Turkey.
“Mom, is breakfast ready?” Nastya, our fifteen-year-old daughter, peeked into the kitchen.
“Almost, sweetheart. Dad is just leaving.”
Vitya gave me a heavy look but stayed silent in front of the child. The front door slammed—he left without even saying goodbye.
I took out my phone and called my mother. The ringing felt endless.
“Tanyusha, good morning! How are you all?” Mom’s voice was warm and calm, as always.
“Hi, Mom. Everything… everything is fine. How are you? How’s Dad?”
“Oh, we’re slowly digging in the garden. Your father has decided to build a new greenhouse. He says we’ll grow tomatoes and sell them. The pension is small, so a little extra work won’t hurt.”
My heart tightened. They were both seventy years old, and still they worked, saving every kopek. And I was supposed to come and ask them to give their hard-earned money to Alyonka to pay off another loan for clothes?
“Mom, I’ll stop by this evening and bring some groceries.”
“No need, Tanechka, we have everything. You and Vitya should save your money. Nastya will be applying to university soon.”
After work, I stopped by my parents’ house. Dad was tinkering in the garage, working on his old Zhiguli, the car he had bought back in the eighties. Mom was in the kitchen making dumplings—“for you and Vityusha, you can put them in the freezer.”
“Dad, maybe it’s time to sell the car? You barely drive it anyway.”
“What are you saying, daughter! It’s a memory. Do you remember how we went to the seaside when you were little? You sang the whole way, and your mother sang along with you.”
I remembered. Back then, happiness seemed endless. The salty wind through the window, my mother’s hands braiding my hair, my father’s jokes behind the wheel…
My phone exploded with messages from Vitya: “Well? Did you talk to them? Collectors are calling Alyonka! She urgently needs 300 thousand!”
Three hundred thousand. My parents had been saving for three years for a new roof for the house—the old one leaked. They had put aside five thousand from their pension every month, denying themselves everything.
I came home late. Vitya was sitting in the living room, surrounded by some papers.
“Tomorrow we’re going to your parents. Enough dragging this out!” he announced instead of greeting me.
“We’re not going anywhere. And I’m not asking them for money.”
“Why do you keep repeating that? Alyonka could be evicted from her apartment!”
“Then let them evict her. Maybe she’ll finally start using her brain.”
Vitya jumped up, his face turning crimson.
“You’re doing this on purpose! You’ve always hated my sister!”
“I hate that she sits on everyone’s neck! Where is her husband? Let him clean up the mess!”
“They divorced six months ago, you know that!”
“I know. And I know why—he got tired of paying for her whims!”
The next morning, I woke up to a phone call. Alyonka, of course.
“Tanyukha, have you lost your mind? Vitka said you don’t even want to ask your parents! I have a little daughter, do you understand?”
“I understand. So what? I have a daughter too, by the way. She needs to study, not pay off your debts!”
“I’ll pay everything back! Tany, please! I have no one else to turn to!”
Sobs sounded through the phone. A one-woman performance, as always.
“Alyona, sell your fur coat, your designer bags, your iPhone. That will cover half the debt already.”
“Are you mocking me? Those are gifts! And anyway, how am I supposed to live without a phone?”
“Buy a cheap push-button one for a thousand. You’ll still be able to make calls.”
She hung up.
That evening, Vitya came home with a huge bouquet of roses. He put it on the table and hugged me from behind.
“I’m sorry, I lost my temper. Let’s talk calmly. Maybe your parents could lend at least a hundred thousand? Not forever—we’ll pay it back.”
“Vitya, enough. Your sister already borrowed from us, remember? Supposedly for renovations. Where did the money go? Exactly—to a vacation in Dubai. Nastya didn’t go to camp that year because we had no money.”
“That was two years ago!”
“And what has changed? Did Alyonka get a job? Did she stop living beyond her means?”
Vitya was silent. The roses in the vase looked like a silent reproach—expensive, unnecessary, and clearly not bought from the heart.
Three days later, Alyonka showed up herself. Without warning, with her daughter in her arms. Four-year-old Liza immediately ran to Nastya’s toys.
“Tany, I came straight from the collectors. They’re threatening me!” Alyonka collapsed onto the sofa, smearing mascara across her cheeks.
“Go to the police and file a report.”
“What police? I won’t have anywhere to live in a week!”
I looked at Liza—the girl was absorbed in dressing up Nastya’s old doll. An innocent child.
“Move in with us for now. But I won’t ask my parents for money. And neither will Vitya.”
“You’re just greedy! You’ve always been like this—everything for yourself, yourself!”
Something inside me snapped. I stood up and walked right up to my husband’s sister.
“Get out. Right now. And take the child with you.”
“You have no right!”
“This is my home. And they are my parents. And I decide. Vitya can leave with you if he wants.”
Alyonka stormed out, slamming the door. Liza started crying—she hadn’t had time to finish playing.
Vitya didn’t speak to me for a week. Then he told me that Alyonka had moved in with some friend and got a job as a sales assistant in a shop. She had arranged debt restructuring with the creditors.
“You see, she’s managing,” I said.
“She could have managed earlier if you had helped.”
“Vitya, she’s managing precisely because I DIDN’T help.”
A month passed. My parents never found out about our family drama. Dad fixed the roof himself—“Why spend money on workers? My hands haven’t fallen off yet.” Mom brought a new batch of dumplings and jars of jam.
“Tanyush, you seem sad,” Mom stroked my head the way she had when I was a child. “Is everything all right with Vitya?”
“Everything is fine, Mom. I’m just tired.”
“Take care of your family, daughter. That’s the most important thing.”
I hugged her, breathing in her familiar scent—a mix of vanilla from her endless baking and her favorite perfume, Krasnaya Moskva. Family—yes, it was the most important thing. But family is not only about taking. It is about giving, too. And knowing how to stand on your own two feet.
That evening, Vitya said:
“Alyonka called. She says she’s already paid off half the debt. She’s also working evenings as a courier.”
“Good for her.”
“You know… maybe you were right. It really was time for her to grow up.”
I nodded, pouring tea. Outside, autumn rain drizzled. Nastya was doing her homework, music drifting from her room. An ordinary evening of an ordinary family.
My phone pinged with a message. Alyonka: “Thank you.”
Just one word. But for the first time—it was sincere.
I smiled and deleted the message. Some lessons are hard to learn. But without them, you never grow up. Even if you’re already over thirty and have a child.
And my parents… they are still saving their pension kopeks. For a rainy day, they say. Only their rainy day is not Alyonka’s debts for fur coats. It is a real disaster, if one ever happens. And God grant that it never does.
As for fur coats… you can live without buying them. Especially on credit.