“Sergey, where’s the money for the utility bills? They’re going to cut off the electricity in three days!”
Galina stood in the kitchen, clutching several crumpled banknotes in her hands—only eight hundred rubles. In the corner, unpaid bills were piled high on a stool, their red numbers seeming to glow in the dim light.
“I gave it to Mom for her medicine,” Sergey muttered without taking his eyes off the television. “She’s sick. I can’t refuse my own mother!”
“Medicine?” Galina’s voice trembled with outrage. “And what are the children supposed to take to school tomorrow? Are they supposed to chew on air?”
“You always exaggerate! We’ll find something.”
Galina yanked open the refrigerator. A bottle of sour kefir and a dried-out piece of bread sat miserably on the shelves.
“There’s your ‘something’!” She threw the bread onto the table. “When was the last time you bought anything for the children? When?”
Sergey grimaced.
“Stop yelling at me! I’m doing my best for the family.”
“For which family? Your mother’s?”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway—the children were returning from school. Galina quickly wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robe.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” twelve-year-old Katya said plaintively.
“I’ll make something now, sweetheart.” Galina took a packet of pasta from the cupboard. “Maxim, sit down and do your homework.”
Their sixteen-year-old son walked silently past his father without even saying hello. The coldness between them had already lasted six months.
The following day, Galina met her friend Lena at a café near the bank where Lena worked. Lena was on her lunch break, while Galina had a short gap between her main job at a store and her evening work cleaning offices.
“Galya, you look like a beaten dog,” Lena said bluntly as she stirred her coffee. “Did Sergey give your money to his mother again?”
“Lena, I can’t take it anymore. I’ve been supporting the family alone for three years. I get up at five in the morning and come home at ten at night. And he gives everything to that… saintly mother of his.”
“Does he even understand what he’s doing?”
“Of course he does!” Galina gave a bitter laugh. “He says, ‘Family is sacred.’ He just forgets about our family. Yesterday he gave his mother another twenty thousand rubles for ‘essential medication.’”
“Twenty thousand? Galya, that’s half your salary!”
“What can I do? If I start an argument, he refuses to speak to me for two days. Then he starts saying, ‘You’re heartless and selfish. My mother sacrificed her whole life for me.’”
Lena shook her head.
“How long are you going to live like this? The children can see what’s happening.”
“Maxim openly hates his father now. And Katya is always asking why we live worse than everyone else in her class.”
“Maybe it’s time to give him an ultimatum.”
Galina turned toward the window, where the October rain made everything outside look gray.
“I’m forty-five, Lena. Where can I go with two children?”
On Thursday evening, Sergey came home looking guilty. Galina immediately realized that something serious had happened.
“My mother called,” he began indirectly. “She’s having health problems. Serious ones.”
“What kind of problems now?” Galina asked wearily, looking up from ironing Katya’s school uniform.
“She needs an operation. Urgently. Fifty thousand rubles.”
The iron slipped from Galina’s hand and struck the ironing board with a thud.
“Fifty thousand?! Are you out of your mind? We don’t have that kind of money!”
“We do. I’ve already spoken to the bank. They’ll give us a loan.”
“Without my permission?”
“I’m the man of the family, so I make the decisions!”
Galina sank onto a chair. Through the wall, she could hear Maxim explaining something to Katya, probably helping her with mathematics.
“Seryozha,” she said quietly, “we’re already paying off three loans. We can barely afford the mortgage. If you take out another one…”
“If my mother dies, it will be on your conscience!”
“And the children? Aren’t they yours?”
Sergey waved her away.
“The children aren’t dying. I only have one mother.”
The next day, he brought home a document from the bank. The loan had been approved at twenty percent annual interest. Galina silently signed the papers. What was the point of arguing when he would get his way regardless?
A month later, Sergey’s sister Svetlana called.
“Galina, tell Sergey I need help. Thirty thousand for a car. I have children, and I need to drive them to school.”
“Sveta,” Galina tried to object, “we can’t even afford our own loan payments…”
“Listen, I have children!” her sister-in-law interrupted. “A car is absolutely essential for me! Can’t you work? Other wives have three jobs!”
“I already have two…”
“Then find a third one! My brother shouldn’t suffer because of your laziness!”
That evening, Sergey silently took the documents and went to the bank. He returned with another approval letter—another thirty-thousand-ruble loan.
“Don’t say anything to me,” he warned her immediately. “Sveta is right. She needs a car for the children.”
“And what do our children need?” Galina asked.
“Ours can walk. Their legs are healthy.”
In November, Galina decided to visit her mother-in-law to find out how the operation had gone. Tamara Ivanovna welcomed her wearing a new velvet robe, and an enormous leather sofa stood proudly in the living room.
“How are you feeling, Tamara Ivanovna? Was the operation successful?”
Her mother-in-law looked confused for a moment.
“What operation? Oh, that… It was postponed. The doctors said I could manage without it. But I bought new furniture instead. Look how beautiful it is!”
Galina’s vision darkened.
“Did you buy it with our money?”
“What do you mean, your money?” Tamara Ivanovna said indignantly. “Seryozha helped me, as a good son should. And you, Galochka, have become rather greedy. It must be your age.”
On the way home, Galina stopped by Svetlana’s house. A shiny new foreign car stood in the yard, and her sister-in-law greeted her wearing an expensive fur coat.
“Nice coat,” Galina remarked coldly.
“Thank you! I bought it on sale. It was still expensive, of course, but what can you do? It’s winter.”
“Did you buy the car for the children?”
Svetlana laughed.
“What car? I’m not crazy enough to spend money on my children. I’d rather buy something beautiful for myself.”
Galina returned home and silently sat down in the kitchen. When Maxim saw her expression, he asked cautiously:
“Mom, what happened?”
“Nothing, son. Everything is the same as always.”
In December, a letter arrived from the bank. Then a second one. Then a third. The red envelopes piled up on the kitchen table like a sentence being passed.
“Seryozha, we haven’t made the loan payments for three months,” Galina said, showing her husband the notices. “We’re also behind on the mortgage.”
“What do you expect me to do?” he replied irritably. “They didn’t raise my salary.”
“Maybe you could ask your mother or Sveta? They used our money to buy new things!”
Sergey looked at her as though she had lost her mind.
“You want me to ask my mother for money? She’s a pensioner!”
“A pensioner with new furniture, and Sveta has a new fur coat bought on credit!”
“That’s different. Those were gifts.”
In January, a bailiff came to their home—a heavyset man in a dark jacket with a folder under his arm.
“Do you have the documents for the apartment? I’m here to prepare an inventory of the property.”
“What inventory?” Sergey asked, confused.
“Enforcement proceedings. Because of your unpaid loans. The apartment has been seized and will be sold.”
Galina sank onto the sofa. Her legs could no longer support her. Hearing a stranger’s voice, Katya looked out of her room and asked fearfully:
“Mom, who is that man?”
“No one, sweetheart. Go back to your room.”
The bailiff methodically wrote everything down.
“Three-seat sofa, television, refrigerator…”
“Please wait,” Galina begged. “We have children! Where are we supposed to go?”
“That isn’t my concern. You should have paid your debts on time.”
When the bailiff left, Sergey sat down on the marked sofa and covered his face with his hands.
“This is all your fault!” he suddenly shouted. “You don’t earn enough! If you worked more, none of this would have happened!”
“My fault?” Galina could not believe what she was hearing. “You gave your mother fifty thousand for a sofa! You gave Sveta thirty thousand for a fur coat! And I’m the one to blame?”
“They’re family! You should have earned more money!”
Maxim rushed out of his room.
“Stop shouting!” he yelled at his father. “Mom is killing herself working two jobs, and all you do is take her money! I hate you!”
“Don’t you dare speak to your father like that!” Sergey roared.
“What kind of father are you? A real father protects his children instead of throwing them out onto the street!”
In desperation, Galina grabbed her phone and called her mother-in-law.
“Tamara Ivanovna, we’re being evicted from the apartment! Please help us!”
“And what am I supposed to do?” the voice on the phone replied coldly. “I’m a pensioner. I don’t have any money myself.”
“How can you say that? We gave you money for six months!”
“Those were gifts from a loving son! Don’t ask me for anything now. These are your problems.”
The line went dead.
Svetlana also refused to help.
“Listen, Galya, I’ve already spent my money. You’ll have to deal with it yourself.”
Her friend Lena gave them temporary shelter in her one-room apartment. Four people living in a single room was torture for everyone.
“Maxim, take your textbooks off the table!” Lena snapped nervously after work.
“Where am I supposed to put them?” the teenager retorted. “We’re living like people in a communal apartment!”
“Galya, maybe you could find somewhere of your own?” Lena suggested carefully. “I’m exhausted too…”
“We’re looking, Lena. But without money or proof of income, no one will rent to us.”
Sergey spent most of his time at his mother’s home, claiming that he “couldn’t stay in this chaos.” In the evenings, he called and demanded that Galina “finally solve the housing problem.”
“Mom, is Dad going to come back to us?” Katya asked one day.
Galina stroked her daughter’s hair.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
“I don’t want him to come back!” Maxim shouted. “He betrayed us! Let him live with his precious mother!”
A month later, Lena could no longer tolerate the situation.
“Galya, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore. The neighbors are complaining, and the local police officer came by. You need to find another solution.”
The social services office was located in an old Soviet building with peeling walls. Galina sat in line with her two children, clutching a plastic bag filled with documents.
“The Kuznetsov family,” an employee called.
The office smelled of mustiness and hopelessness. A woman of about fifty with tired eyes sat behind the desk.
“So, temporary accommodation for a low-income family…” She flipped through the papers. “Where is your husband?”
“He went to live with his mother.”
“I see. Are you going to apply for child support?”
“Probably…”
“We can provide accommodation for six months. After that, you will have to leave or find somewhere permanent.”
Katya cried quietly, pressing her face into Galina’s shoulder. Maxim sat beside them with a dark expression, his fists clenched.
“Mom,” he whispered, “I will never be like him.”
As Galina signed the papers, she thought about how they had gone from being a happy family to becoming a social services case. Thirty years earlier, she had dreamed of a white wedding dress and faithful love.
Instead, she had received a stamp in her passport and a room in a homeless shelter.