My Husband’s Relatives Demanded That We Pay Their Loan. My Answer Shocked Them
My mother-in-law called on Sunday morning and said that from now on, the loan for my husband’s brother’s car was our shared responsibility. Galina listened, poured herself some tea, and answered in such a way that the other end of the line went silent.
The phone rang at half past eight in the morning, on a Sunday. Galina was standing at the stove, flipping pancakes. The batter hissed in the pan, smelling of vanilla and slightly burned butter.
She wiped her hands on a towel and looked at the screen. Her mother-in-law. On a Sunday, at half past eight. That could mean only one thing: something had happened. Or her mother-in-law had decided that something had happened.
“Galochka, good morning. Did I wake you?”
“No, Zinaida Pavlovna. I’m making pancakes.”
“Oh, pancakes. Well, all right, I’ll be quick. Tell Lyosha to call me back. I called him three times yesterday, and he didn’t pick up.”
Galina glanced sideways at her husband. Alexey was sitting at the table in his underwear and undershirt, scrolling through his phone and pretending not to hear the conversation. His finger moved across the screen with such concentration, as if he were reading at least a scientific article. In reality, it was a football forum.
“I’ll tell him, Zinaida Pavlovna.”
“And one more thing, Galochka. We need to talk. A family matter. When are you free?”
That phrase, “a family matter,” caught on her ribs like a fishbone. Galina knew that tone. Soft, almost affectionate, with long pauses between words. That was how her mother-in-law spoke when she was about to ask for money.
“I’m free today, Zinaida Pavlovna.”
“Well, wonderful. Pasha and I will come by around lunchtime. Around two. Don’t cook borscht, we won’t stay long.”
The line went dead. Galina put the phone on the table and flipped the pancake, which had managed to turn black on one side during the conversation.
“Your mother is coming. With Pasha.”
Alexey raised his eyes. His finger froze on the screen.
“Why?”
“A family matter.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had that habit: whenever he was nervous, he rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers, as if trying to take off glasses he didn’t wear.
“I’ll call her back.”
“She said they’ll come at two.”
“All right.”
He got up, poured himself coffee, and went out onto the balcony. He shut the door tightly. Galina watched his back through the glass: hunched shoulders, an undershirt with a stretched-out collar, the smoke from the cigarette he had supposedly quit last month.
Pasha. Alexey’s younger brother. Twenty-eight years old, six feet one, broad cheekbones, a dimple in his chin. Handsome, if you didn’t know him too well. And if you did know him, the beauty quickly faded, like a chrome handle on a cheap door.
Pasha worked as a driver for a transport company, but every six months he quit. Either the boss was an idiot, or the schedule was inhuman, or the salary was delayed. Between jobs, he “searched for himself.” Those searches usually took place on his mother’s couch, in front of the television, with beer and chips.
Six months earlier, he had taken out a loan for a car. Not a Lada, not anything modest. A crossover worth more than two million. Galina had found out from her mother-in-law and almost choked on her tea.
“Why does he need such a car?”
“Well, why not? Let him drive. He’s a man, he needs a good car.”
The logic was reinforced concrete. Like everything that concerned Pasha. He was the younger one, he was the favorite, and according to the laws of the Kuznetsov family, he deserved everything better. Alexey, four years older, had been used to this since childhood. The way people get used to the noise of trains if they live near a railway.
Galina had not gotten used to it. In seven years of marriage, she had never learned to accept that crooked arithmetic in which one son was worth more than the other. But she kept silent. Because Alexey kept silent. And she loved her husband and understood: there are things that cannot be fixed by a conversation.
She finished the pancakes, cleaned the kitchen, and wiped the table. Fima, their six-year-old daughter, ran out of her room in unicorn pajamas and immediately reached for the plate.
“Mom, what can I have them with?”
“With sour cream. Or jam. Choose.”
“Can I have both?”
Galina smiled. Fima looked like her: the same dark eyebrows almost meeting at the bridge of the nose, the same thin wrists. But her character was her father’s. Soft, yielding. Galina was sometimes afraid that her daughter would grow up the same as Alexey: ready to give away what was hers just to avoid a quarrel.
“Of course you can.”
Fima sat at the table, spread sour cream on a pancake, put a spoonful of cherry jam on top, and took a bite with such an expression as if it were a cake from an expensive pastry shop.
Alexey came back from the balcony. He smelled of tobacco and cold air.
“I called Mom.”
“And?”
“She says Pashka stopped paying the loan. Two months already.”
Galina put the kettle on. Not because she wanted tea, but because her hands needed to do something. The kettle began to hum, filling the kitchen with an even, familiar sound.
“Two months, you say.”
“Yes. He quit again. Says his back hurts and he can’t sit behind the wheel.”
“And where is the car?”
“Standing in Mom’s yard. He doesn’t drive it.”
Galina opened the cupboard and took out a mug. White, with a chipped edge. They had bought it during their first year of marriage, at the market, for forty rubles. The rest of the set had long since broken, but this one held on.
“Lyosh. Why are they coming to us?”
He didn’t answer right away. He sat at the table, pulled the plate of pancakes toward himself, but didn’t eat. He just looked at them.
“Mom wants us to help.”
“Help how?”
“Pay the loan. Until Pashka gets a job.”
The kettle clicked. Galina poured boiling water into the mug and lowered a tea bag into it. The string hung over the edge, and she carefully wrapped it around the handle.
“How much is the payment?”
“Thirty-two thousand a month.”
She took a sip. The tea was too hot and burned the roof of her mouth. But she swallowed it.
“Thirty-two thousand. A month.”
“Yes.”
“For someone else’s car, which no one is driving.”
“Galya.”
“I’m not yelling, Lyosh. I’m just repeating it out loud to make sure I understood correctly.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose again.
“I know it sounds… But Mom is crying. She says the bank is threatening court, debt collectors. Pashka has nothing; he’s registered at her place. She’s afraid they’ll take the apartment.”
“They won’t take the apartment over a car loan, Lyosh. It isn’t a mortgage. They’ll take the car.”
“Well, yes. But Mom doesn’t understand that.”
Galina sat opposite her husband. Between them stood the plate of pancakes, the sour cream bowl, and the small dish of jam. Fima had finished eating and run back to her room, leaving a napkin crumpled into a ball on the table.
“Do you want to pay?”
Alexey was silent. He looked out the window, where laundry was drying on the balcony of the neighboring building. The sheets billowed in the wind like sails.
“I don’t want to. But he’s my brother.”
“It’s his loan.”
“I know.”
“And his car.”
“I know, Galya. I know.”
She got up, gathered the dishes, and put them in the sink. The faucet was stiff; it had to be turned with both hands. Warm, soapy water began to flow. Galina washed the plates and thought.
Thirty-two thousand. That was almost a third of her salary. She worked as an accountant at a construction company and earned one hundred fifteen thousand. Alexey, an engineer at a factory, brought home one hundred thirty. Together, that made two hundred forty-five. Minus rent, because they had no home of their own. Minus kindergarten for Fima. Minus food, clothes, utilities. They had forty thousand left, sometimes fifty. They had been saving for a mortgage down payment. For two years already.
Thirty-two thousand out of those forty.
She turned off the water. Wiped her hands. Hung the towel evenly, smoothing out every fold.
“Lyosh, I will not pay Pasha’s loan.”
He nodded. Not like a person who agreed, but like a person who had heard and did not know what to do with it.
They arrived at two fifteen. Zinaida Pavlovna came in first: short, plump, wearing a beige coat with large buttons. She smelled of Red Moscow perfume and something baked, as if she had stopped at a bakery on the way. Behind her came Pasha. Tall, in a black jacket, hands in his pockets. His face had the expression of a person who had been brought to the principal’s office.
Galina opened the door and let them both into the hallway. Fima peeked out of her room, shouted, “Grandma Zina!” and hung onto her grandmother.
“Fimochka, my sunshine, how you’ve grown!”
The ritual took about five minutes: taking off shoes, hanging up coats, admiring Fima, questions about kindergarten. Galina waited in the kitchen. She had already made tea, sliced lemon, and placed a small bowl of cookies on the table. Not because she wanted to please them. Because that was the proper thing to do.
When everyone sat down, Zinaida Pavlovna wrapped both hands around her mug and sighed. The sigh was long and rehearsed.
“Children, I’ve come to you with an unpleasant conversation.”
Alexey was sitting next to Galina, but slightly shifted away. As if retreating in advance.
“Mom, I told Galya.”
“Well, good that you told her. So you know. Pashenka has found himself in a situation.”
Pashenka sat across from them and crumbled a cookie onto his saucer. The crumbs fell onto the table, and Galina watched them drop, one after another, onto the clean tablecloth she had laid out that morning.
“What situation, Zinaida Pavlovna?”
Her mother-in-law looked at her with slight surprise. As if she had expected Galina to remain silent.
“Well, this loan. For the car. He can’t pay it right now. His back, you know.”
“I know.”
“So. And the bank calls every day now. I pick up, and they say, ‘Pavel Andreevich, you have missed a payment.’ An old woman like me has to listen to that. My blood pressure rises because of it.”
Galina nodded. She listened carefully, without interrupting. Pasha continued crumbling the cookie. Alexey examined his hands.
“And I thought, since we are family, maybe we could help Pashenka. Temporarily. Until he gets back on his feet. Three months, maybe four. You earn well, thank God.”
Silence. Behind the wall, the neighbors’ television was on, mumbling something about the weather. Galina heard every word: “In the Moscow region, colder weather is expected, down to minus two at night.”
“Zinaida Pavlovna, may I ask a question?”
“Of course, Galochka.”
“Pasha, are you looking for work?”
He lifted his head. His eyes were gray and slightly cloudy, like water in a puddle after rain.
“I am. But with my back… Well, you understand.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“Why?”
“To find out what’s wrong with your back.”
“I already know. It hurts.”
“Did you get a medical certificate for sick leave?”
“No, I’m not working right now.”
Galina took a sip of tea. The lemon tasted sour on her tongue. She paused, gathering her words the way one gathers beads on a thread: one by one, carefully.
“Zinaida Pavlovna, I respect you very much. And Pasha too. You are our family, that’s true. But I cannot pay someone else’s loan.”
Her mother-in-law blinked. The mug in her hands trembled slightly.
“How is it someone else’s? It’s Pasha’s. Pashenka is Lyosha’s brother.”
“I understand. But Pasha took the loan. For his car. Without consulting any of us.”
“Well, he is an adult…”
“Exactly. An adult. And the loan is an adult one too. Thirty-two thousand a month.”
Pasha stopped crumbling the cookie and stared at her. Zinaida Pavlovna put her mug on the table without finishing her tea.
“Galochka, we’re not asking forever. Temporarily.”
“Zinaida Pavlovna, Lyosha and I have been saving for a mortgage down payment for two years. Two years. Fima starts school in September. We need a uniform, a backpack, a study corner. We rent this apartment and pay thirty-eight thousand for it every month. We don’t have spare money.”
“But Lyoshenka earns well…”
“We both earn well. And we spend it on our family.”
Alexey shifted on his chair. Galina felt his elbow nearby, warm and tense. He was silent. And she knew why he was silent: because if he opened his mouth, he would either agree with his mother or quarrel with her. Both options were equally unbearable for him.
“Lyosha, what do you say?” Zinaida Pavlovna asked.
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple jerked on his thin neck.
“Mom, Galya is right. We can’t afford it.”
“You can’t afford it? You can’t afford thirty-two thousand?”
“No.”
Her mother-in-law leaned back in her chair. Her face turned red like the beet Galina had taken out of the refrigerator that morning for the borscht she had decided to cook after all.
“Well, you know what. I did not expect this from you. Your own brother is in trouble, and all you care about is counting your little coins.”
“Mom…”
“What ‘Mom’? I raised you, Alexey. Alone. Without a father. I raised two sons. And not once did I ask anyone for anything. And now I ask one time, and what?”
Galina did not argue. She stood up, went to the refrigerator, took out a pitcher of compote, and poured her mother-in-law a glass.
“Drink some, Zinaida Pavlovna. Cherry, fresh.”
Her mother-in-law looked at the glass, then at Galina. In her eyes there was something between hurt and confusion.
“I’m not talking to you about compote.”
“I know. But your blood pressure, as you said. Drink.”
Zinaida Pavlovna took the glass. Her fingers were short, with wide nails covered in clear polish. She took a sip and put the glass back on the table.
“Galina, understand. If the bank takes the car, it will be such a disgrace.”
“Why a disgrace?”
“Well, how… The neighbors will see. They’ll come and take it right from the yard.”
“Zinaida Pavlovna, the bank will take the car, sell it, and Pasha will pay off the remaining debt. That isn’t a disgrace. Those are the consequences of a decision.”
“What decision?”
“To take out a loan you can’t handle.”
Pasha slapped his palm on the table. Not very hard, but the cups clinked.
“What the hell? I didn’t ask you to lecture me. I asked Mom, Mom came to talk as a family, and you’re here…”
“Pasha,” Alexey turned to his brother. His voice was quiet, but Galina noticed how the knuckles of his fingers turned white. “Don’t shout in my home.”
“In your home? You rent it.”
Silence fell over the kitchen like a wet towel over a face. Galina heard the neighbors switch channels behind the wall. Now music was playing there, something Soviet, with brass instruments.
Alexey stood up. He was half a head shorter than his brother, narrower in the shoulders, thinner in the bones. But in that moment, he seemed bigger.
“Repeat that.”
Pasha was the first to look away.
“All right, all right. I got carried away.”
“Sit down.”
Alexey sat down too. Galina placed a hand on his knee. Under her palm, she felt his leg trembling slightly.
“Zinaida Pavlovna, let me say what I think. Once. Calmly. All right?”
Her mother-in-law nodded. She pressed her handbag to herself, as if Galina were about to take it away.
“Pasha is a grown man. He is twenty-eight. He took out the loan himself, without guarantors, on his own passport. It is his responsibility.”
Pasha opened his mouth, but Galina raised her hand.
“Let me finish. You worked as a driver and earned decently. No one forced you to quit. And no one forced you to buy a car for two million on a salary of seventy thousand.”
“It cost two million two hundred,” he muttered.
“Even more so.”
Zinaida Pavlovna pressed her lips into a thin line. The wrinkles around her mouth grew deeper.
“Galina, you are cruel.”
“No. I am honest. There is a difference.”
“And what difference is that?”
“I would be cruel if I kept silent and gave you money, knowing that in three months you would come again. Because you would. If Pasha doesn’t get a job, thirty-two thousand won’t stop being thirty-two thousand.”
Her mother-in-law did not answer. She twisted a napkin in her hands, rolling it into a tube and unrolling it again. The paper darkened from her damp fingers.
Fima peeked into the kitchen. She looked at everyone, her gaze pausing on her grandmother, on the cookie crumbs, on their faces.
“Mom, are you fighting?”
“No, Fim. We’re talking.”
“Why is everyone so serious?”
Galina crouched down and stroked her daughter’s head. Her hair smelled of children’s shampoo, apple-scented.
“Because the topic is serious. Go draw, I’ll come in ten minutes.”
Fima left. Her bare footsteps on the parquet were audible for another five seconds, then the door to her room closed.
Galina straightened up. She looked at Pasha.
“Pash, I’m not your enemy. I want you to hear me. Can you?”
He jerked one shoulder. Something like agreement.
“You have a car. You don’t drive it. Your back hurts. That means you don’t need the car. Sell it. Close the loan.”
“It’s under a loan. You can’t sell it.”
“You can. Through a trade-in program or with the bank’s consent. Call the bank, explain the situation, ask for restructuring. If that doesn’t work, let them take the car and sell it themselves. The remaining debt will be smaller, and you’ll pay it off when you get a job.”
“And if I don’t get a job?”
“You will. You have category B and C licenses; any transport company will hire you.”
“With my back…”
“Pash, go to a doctor. If your back really hurts, they’ll prescribe treatment. If it doesn’t hurt, you know that yourself.”
He blushed. The redness started at his neck and climbed upward, flooding his cheekbones and ears. Galina understood that she had hit the mark.
“Now you’re going to teach me too?”
“I’m not teaching. I’m offering options. For free, by the way.”
Alexey coughed. It was not a cough, but an attempt to hide something resembling a laugh. Galina noticed the corner of his mouth twitch.
Zinaida Pavlovna was silent. She finished her compote, put down the glass, and looked at her younger son as if seeing him for the first time.
“Pashenka, have you really not been to a doctor?”
“Mom, well…”
“I’m asking you. Have you been or not?”
“No.”
“And why?”
“Well, why? I already know.”
“What do you know? That your back hurts? My back hurts too. Galina’s probably does too. We’re not lying on the couch.”
Galina blinked. She had not expected that from her mother-in-law.
Pasha opened his mouth, closed it. Opened it again.
“Mom, what are you doing? You yourself said we’d come to them and ask…”
“I said we’d come and talk. We talked.”
“And what, that’s it? We’re just going to sit here?”
“What do you suggest? That Lyosha and Galya pay for your car? The one you bought without asking anyone?”
“You said it was normal…”
“I said you were an adult. An adult, Pasha. Adults answer for themselves.”
Galina moved to the window. Outside was the courtyard: a playground, benches, three birch trees shedding their leaves. October. Soon the cold would come, soon Fima would need winter boots, and the old ones were already too small.
She thought about how strangely families work. How for years people can live by the same rules, and then one sentence spoken at the kitchen table shifts something from a dead point. Not a scandal, not shouting. Just words spoken aloud.
Behind her, the conversation continued, but it was different now. Quieter, slower.
“Pash, I’ll call Vitka. He works at a car dealership. I’ll ask how best to sell the car,” Alexey said.
“I don’t need your Vitka.”
“You do, Pasha. You do.”
Her mother-in-law stood up and approached Galina. She was half a head shorter, and she had to lift her chin to look into Galina’s eyes.
“Galochka.”
“Yes, Zinaida Pavlovna.”
“You… You were right. About cruelty and honesty. I didn’t like you for it before, you know? For that directness of yours.”
“I know.”
“And now I thought: maybe it’s good that Lyoshka married you. You keep him steady. You both keep each other steady.”
Galina felt her throat tighten. She swallowed, and it hurt, as if she had swallowed something sharp.
“Thank you, Zinaida Pavlovna.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m not praising you. I’m acknowledging it.”
She returned to the table, sat down, and poured herself more tea. Her hands trembled slightly, but her voice was firm.
“Pasha, tomorrow you go to the doctor. The day after tomorrow you call the bank. Lyosha, call your Vitka.”
“Mom…”
“I have said everything.”
Pasha crossed his arms over his chest. His lower lip stuck out slightly, like an offended child’s. Twenty-eight years old, six feet one, and sitting like a five-year-old who hadn’t been bought a toy.
Galina cleared the crumbs from the table. She wiped the spot where Pasha had been sitting with a wet cloth. The crumbs stuck to the fabric, and she rinsed the cloth under the tap.
They left at four. Zinaida Pavlovna kissed Fima, nodded to Galina, and paused in the doorway.
“I’ll bring borscht next time after all. Do you have good beets?”
“Good ones.”
“I’ll bring mine, from the dacha. They’re sweeter.”
Galina nodded. The door closed.
Alexey stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He looked at his wife.
“You did well.”
“I just said what I thought.”
“That’s exactly it. I don’t know how to do that.”
“You do. You told Pashka, ‘Don’t shout in my home.’”
“Well, that was out of anger.”
“And out of truth. One doesn’t interfere with the other.”
He came over and hugged her. His arms were long, warm, smelling of tobacco. Galina pressed her nose into his shoulder. His T-shirt smelled of laundry powder and a little of coffee.
“Do you think Pashka will sell the car?”
“I don’t know. But that’s his choice.”
“And if Mom starts again?”
“Then I’ll say it again.”
He sighed. The sigh was long, like an exhale after holding one’s breath.
“Thank you, Galya.”
“For what?”
“For standing up for us. For our family.”
Fima ran out of her room with a drawing.
“Mom, look, I drew us! Here’s you, here’s Dad, here’s me. And this is our house.”
In the drawing, the house was yellow, with a red roof and a huge window. In the window stood three figures: two big ones and one little one. They were all holding hands.
“A beautiful house, Fim.”
“This is our future house. When you buy it.”
Galina took the drawing. The paper was warm from Fima’s hands.
“We’ll buy it, Fim. Definitely.”
Pasha called a week later. Not Alexey. Her.
“Galya, I… Well, I went to the doctor. They said my muscles are tight. Prescribed massage and exercises. Nothing serious.”
“Good.”
“And I called the bank. They’re ready to restructure it. The payment will be twenty-one thousand, but for two years longer.”
“And work?”
A pause. Galina could hear the street through the phone: cars, someone’s voice, a horn.
“I got a job. Yesterday. In delivery. Not exactly a dream, but…”
“But money.”
“Yes.”
“That’s already good, Pash.”
“Galya.”
“What?”
“Thank you. Well, for that conversation. I was angry, but then… Then it reached me.”
“It happens.”
“It happens.”
She hung up. The clock ticked in the kitchen, and Fima was humming something to herself in her room, unclear but melodic.
Galina took out that same white mug with the chipped edge from the cupboard. She poured tea. Wrapped the tea bag string around the handle.
Outside the window, it was drizzling. Drops ran down the glass, gathering into little paths, as if each one were searching for its own way down.
She took a sip. The tea was just right.
Alexey came home from work at seven. He took off his shoes, hung up his jacket, and looked into the kitchen.
“Smells good. What are you cooking?”
“Borscht. Zinaida Pavlovna brought beets.”
“Mom was here?”
“She stopped by during the day. Brought Fima a hat. A winter one, with a pom-pom.”
He sat at the table and reached for the bread.
“Pasha called.”
“He called me too. Says he got a job.”
“Yes. And he went to the bank.”
“Well, there you see.”
Galina placed a bowl of borscht in front of him. The beets really were good: burgundy, sweet, from the dacha. Steam rose above the bowl, and Alexey inhaled it.
“Galya.”
“What?”
“I was thinking. About the mortgage. They offered me some extra work at the factory. Freelance design work in the evenings. Twenty thousand a month.”
“On top of your main job?”
“Yes.”
“Lyosh, you’re already tired as it is.”
“It’s fine. But in six months, we’ll have the down payment.”
Galina sat opposite him. Between them stood the bowl of borscht, bread on a wooden board, and the salt shaker she had been moving from place to place that morning without knowing why.
Now she knew. She had been looking for its right place.
“In six months, you say.”
“In six months.”
Fima ran into the kitchen wearing the hat with the pom-pom. The pom-pom was pink, huge, fluffy. The hat sat crooked on her head.
“Mom, Dad, look! Grandma said I’ll be like a princess in it!”
“You will, Fim. You definitely will.”
Galina smiled. A small smile, almost unnoticeable. Only Alexey saw it.
And the borscht steamed on the table, burgundy and thick. As if everything was in it: the beets from her mother-in-law’s dacha, and peace, which is held together not by money, but by words spoken at the right time.
The salt shaker stood straight.