“Thank goodness you received a bonus! And here I was wondering where I could get the money to send my mother on vacation!” her husband announced, stunning her. But his wife put an end to the matter.
The elevator slowly climbed toward the seventh floor, and Marina could feel her heart beating in time with the humming of the old machinery. Inside her handbag was an envelope containing her bonus—120,000 rubles!
She still could not believe her good fortune. The entire day following the announcement had passed in a haze. Her colleagues had congratulated her, her boss had shaken her hand, and she had simply smiled and nodded, still unable to believe what had happened.
One hundred and twenty thousand rubles…
When was the last time she had possessed that much money without it already being set aside for some specific purpose?
Probably never.
From the very beginning of her marriage to Alexey, they had lived from one paycheck to the next, carefully planning every purchase and saving every last kopeck for necessities.
The key turned in the lock, and Marina stepped inside her apartment. The three-room Khrushchev-era flat she had inherited from her grandmother seemed especially cozy today.
Perhaps it was because she finally had the chance to change something in it.
New curtains for the living room, perhaps. And at last, they could replace that worn-out sofa.
“Lyosha!” she called to her husband. “Are you home?”
“In the kitchen!” came his reply.
Marina kicked off her shoes and walked into the kitchen. Alexey was sitting at the table with a mug of tea, looking at something on his phone. The gray hair around his temples revealed that he was forty-two, though his face still looked youthful—just tired.
His job as a design engineer had become extremely stressful in recent years. There were constant layoffs, salary cuts, and endless uncertainty.
“Hello, darling,” Marina said, approaching him and kissing the top of his head. “I have news!”
“Good news, I hope?” Alexey put down his phone and looked at his wife. “You seem to be glowing today.”
“Can you believe it? I received a bonus! One hundred and twenty thousand rubles!”
Alexey almost leapt out of his chair.
“Seriously? What for?”
“For the Severstroy project. Remember the document management system I spent six months working on? Apparently, they were very pleased with the result and asked management to recognize my work.”
Marina took the envelope from her handbag and placed it on the table.
“Here, look!”
Alexey picked up the envelope, counted the banknotes, and whistled.
“It really is one hundred and twenty thousand… Marina, this is a fortune for us!”
“Exactly!” Marina sat down opposite him, her eyes shining. “Can you imagine what we can afford now? First of all, I can finally buy myself a proper pair of boots. Mine are completely falling apart. The heel is cracked, and the soles are practically worn through. Secondly…”
She fell silent as she imagined the endless possibilities.
Recently, in the window of a jewelry store on Tverskaya Street, she had seen an elegant ring with a small but beautiful stone. The sales assistant had told her it was a topaz and that it cost forty thousand rubles.
At the time, that amount had seemed astronomical.
But now…
“Secondly?” Alexey prompted her.
“I was thinking… What if we went to the seaside? A real vacation! Not to your parents’ country house like we have every year for the past five years, but somewhere by the sea. Sochi or Crimea. We could stay in a nice hotel, lie on the beach, swim, and go to little restaurants…”
Marina became lost in her dreams, imagining herself walking along the promenade arm in arm with her husband, dressed in a light summer dress.
When had they last taken a vacation together, just the two of them?
It seemed it had been during the year they got married—and that was eighteen years ago.
“Or we could go to Turkey,” she continued, becoming increasingly excited. “Package holidays are cheaper there now. Alyosha from the neighboring department said that a week for two people, including flights and meals, can cost around eighty thousand. And with the remaining money, I could buy myself something pretty for the trip…”
“Marina,” Alexey said quietly.
There was something in his voice that made her stop dreaming in mid-sentence.
“What?”
“Thank goodness you received a bonus! And here I was wondering where I could get the money to send my mother on vacation!”
His words hit her like an icy shower.
For a moment, Marina was speechless, unable to believe her ears.
“What did you just say?”
“Mom called this morning. The doctor said she absolutely has to go to a health resort. It’s her heart, you understand. The package costs exactly one hundred and twenty thousand, including treatment and everything else. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out where to get that kind of money, and now we’ve been incredibly lucky!”
Marina stared at her husband as though she were seeing him for the first time.
This man, with whom she had spent eighteen years, who knew every one of her dreams and desires, had just erased them all with a single sentence.
“Lyosha,” she said slowly, “do you understand what you’re saying?”
“Of course I do. Mom sacrificed her whole life for us. Now it’s our turn to take care of her.”
“She sacrificed her whole life?” Marina’s voice became dangerously quiet. “Was she sacrificing herself when she forbade you from making your own decisions? When she summoned us every weekend to ‘help’ her with things she was perfectly capable of doing herself? When she ruined our wedding with her hysterics?”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“Don’t exaggerate?!” Marina jumped to her feet. “Lyosha, we haven’t been able to enjoy a peaceful vacation for eighteen years because your mother always finds some reason why we need to go to her country house instead! We can’t renovate our bedroom because she thinks the money would be better spent on new furniture for her living room! We…”
“Enough!” Alexey stood up as well. “She is my mother!”
“And who am I to you?” Marina shouted. “I am your wife! I work just as much as you do, I run this household, I…”
She stopped, staring at her husband’s face.
In his eyes, she saw the same expression she had seen hundreds of times over the years.
Helplessness.
A desire to avoid conflict at any cost.
A willingness to sacrifice absolutely anything as long as his mother was not upset.
“Marina, be reasonable,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “Mom really is ill. We’re still young. We’ll have another chance to go somewhere.”
“When?” she asked quietly. “When will we get that chance, Lyosha? When your mother turns one hundred and finally leaves us alone?”
“You’re being unfair.”
“I’m being unfair?” Marina laughed, but the sound was closer to a sob. “And is it fair that I have sacrificed my own wishes for eighteen years because of her whims?”
“They aren’t whims. This is about her health!”
“Her health?”
Marina grabbed a napkin from the table and threw it aside.
“Last year, her back hurt, and we spent all our vacation money on her treatment in Pyatigorsk. The year before that, it was her joints, and once again, she went to a health resort. And what was it the year before that? Oh, yes! Her nerves! Once again, we sent her to a resort to have her nerves treated!”
“Marina…”
“No!”
She raised one hand to stop him.
“No, Lyosha. Enough. I’m forty years old. Forty! I have spent the best years of my life trying to please your mother, and you don’t even see how she manipulates you!”
“No one is manipulating me!”
“Of course she isn’t. She just happens to call every time we finally have an opportunity to spend money on ourselves. She just happens to become ill whenever we plan a vacation. She just happens to…”
Marina fell silent and looked into her husband’s eyes.
They still contained the same helplessness and the same willingness to submit to his mother’s wishes.
And not the slightest understanding that he was destroying their marriage.
“Lyosha,” she said very quietly, “I’m asking you for the last time. Make a choice. Either we spend this money on our vacation, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or I go on vacation alone. And when I return, I want you gone.”
Silence filled the room.
Alexey stared at his wife with wide eyes, as though he could not believe what he had heard.
“You… You can’t do that,” he muttered.
“I can. And I will.”
“Marina, listen… Perhaps we can find a compromise. Mom could go to a cheaper health resort, and with the remaining money, we could go to the country house… or the seaside… Anapa, perhaps…”
“To the seaside at the country house?” Marina shook her head. “Lyosha, can you hear yourself? Your parents’ country house is outside Moscow. What sea is there?”
“I mean we could go to the sea, but somewhere inexpensive.”
“Inexpensive… while your mother goes to a health resort that costs one hundred and twenty thousand rubles. Wonderful. Simply wonderful.”
Marina walked over to the window and looked down into the courtyard.
Children were playing below, while young mothers sat on the benches. Life was continuing as normal, while she stood here having this endless, pointless conversation.
“You know, Lyosha,” she said without turning around, “I’ve realized something. I’m no longer going to waste my life trying to prove the obvious to you. Your mother has turned you into a puppet, and you don’t even resist.”
“That isn’t true.”
“That is exactly what is true.”
She turned toward him.
“And do you know what the worst thing is? You don’t even understand what you are losing.”
“Marina, don’t say ridiculous things. Where would you go? This is our home. Our family.”
“Our family?” Marina smiled bitterly. “There are three people in our family, Lyosha. You, me, and your mother. And your mother always comes first.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not exaggerating!” she exploded. “Good Lord, when was the last time you made a decision without consulting her? When was the last time you took my side in an argument with her? When was the last time you even thought about what I wanted?”
Alexey remained silent.
And within that silence lay the entire truth about their marriage.
“Exactly,” Marina said softly. “You can’t even remember.”
She picked up the envelope of money from the table.
“I earned this bonus. I worked twelve-hour days for six months. I came up with solutions. I corrected other people’s mistakes. I…”
She took a breath.
“And now I am going to spend this money on what I want.”
“What about Mom?”
“Your mother can ask her son for money. The son who is incapable of refusing her anything.”
Marina headed toward the kitchen door.
“Where are you going?”
“To pack. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to a travel agency.”
“Marina, stop!”
She turned around.
Panic was written across her husband’s face.
“What do you want me to say, Lyosha? That I’ll stay and give my bonus to your mother? That I’ll continue living the way I have lived for the past eighteen years? I’m sorry, but no.”
“But we can discuss it.”
“We have already discussed everything. Your first reaction to my bonus was not happiness for me. You didn’t think about how we could spend the money together. Your first thought was about how you could solve yet another one of Mommy’s problems.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“You didn’t mean to upset me? Then why did you say it? Or do you honestly not understand what your words mean to me?”
Alexey lowered his head.
“I thought you would understand.”
“I did understand. I understood that you haven’t changed in eighteen years. And that you never will.”
Marina went into the bedroom. She pulled a suitcase from the wardrobe and began packing.
Light summer dresses.
The swimsuit she had bought five years ago and had never worn.
Sandals.
Sunscreen.
“Marina,” Alexey said, appearing in the doorway. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am completely serious.”
“How can you abandon me because of some money?”
She straightened and looked at him.
“Lyosha, this isn’t about the money. The problem is that even now, you don’t understand what this is really about.”
“Then explain it to me!”
“I have been explaining it for eighteen years. I’m tired.”
Marina closed the suitcase and placed it near the door.
“Tomorrow I’m flying to Turkey. For ten days. When I return, I want you to move out.”
“This apartment belongs to me too!”
“It belongs to both of us. Legally, I am entitled to half. But I’m not going to throw you into the street. Just find somewhere else to live. Perhaps your mother will take you in.”
“Marina…”
“That’s enough, Lyosha. There is nothing more to discuss.”
She slept on the sofa in the living room.
In truth, she did not sleep at all.
All night, she listened to her husband walking around the apartment, muttering something to himself. Several times, he approached the living-room door, but he never found the courage to enter.
Marina woke early in the morning, got ready, and called a taxi.
Alexey was sitting in the kitchen, his eyes red from lack of sleep.
“Can we please talk?” he asked.
“It’s too late,” she replied.
At the travel agency, a friendly young woman greeted her with a smile.
“Are you looking for something special?”
“Yes,” Marina replied. “I want to forget about everything and simply rest.”
“Turkey. A five-star, all-inclusive hotel. Departure this evening,” the travel agent said, quickly running her fingers over the keyboard. “There are still places available.”
“I’ll take it.”
The plane took off at sunset.
Marina looked through the window at Moscow disappearing beneath her and thought about the ten days ahead that would belong entirely to her.
No one would call with requests, demands, or accusations.
No one would decide how she should spend her money or her time.
She had earned this vacation.
She had earned the right to have a life of her own.
Her phone kept buzzing with messages from Alexey.
“Marina, please come back.”
“We can discuss everything.”
“I love you.”
She switched off the phone and leaned back in her seat.
A truly magical vacation lay ahead of her.