My Husband Decided to Give His Mother the Apartment I Had Worked Two Jobs to Pay For
When I saw my mother-in-law standing on the doorstep, I could barely contain my emotions.
“I came for the keys,” she announced mysteriously.
I really did not feel like dealing with my husband’s mother at that moment. It had been a difficult day, and I was exhausted. But I could not exactly throw her out either.
“What keys?” I asked in surprise. “Did you give Vadim the keys to your apartment again? Where did you go this time—to a health resort? Or on a pilgrimage with your friend?”
Zinaida Nikolaevna remained silent, not bothering to answer me.
“Well, come in since you’re already here. I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you—I’ve only just returned from work myself. My husband isn’t home yet either. Are you going to wait for him?” I asked my displeased mother-in-law.
For a moment, I felt as though I were talking to myself. Zinaida Nikolaevna looked stern and remained silent. Without saying a word, she walked into the living room and settled on the sofa. Then, apparently deciding that she should at least inform her daughter-in-law of her plans, she said dryly:
“I’ll wait for my son. Will he be home soon?”
“I don’t know. He’ll be home soon unless he decides to take on some extra work. You can wait,” I replied, shrugging irritably before going into the kitchen.
I was hungry, but there was no prepared food in the house. That meant I would have to cook. Besides, my mother-in-law would hardly refuse dinner. Judging by how confidently Zinaida Nikolaevna had sunk into the soft sofa cushions and made herself comfortable like a bird in its nest, she was not planning to leave anytime soon.
“What keys could she possibly be planning to take from us?” I wondered as I cut the chicken into small pieces.
Vadim usually told me about everything happening in his mother’s life, but he had not mentioned any keys. That meant my husband was hiding something. Either that, or Zinaida Nikolaevna had completely lost her mind. My mother-in-law had behaved irrationally before. Perhaps she was plotting something again. Even now, she was sitting silently and looking around the room.
My husband did not return at his usual time. That meant he had decided to work as a taxi driver after finishing his regular job. Vadim often did that, and since it was Friday, there would be plenty of customers.
For the past several years, our family had constantly struggled with money. Neither of us ever turned down an opportunity to earn extra income.
I had been working two jobs for five years. I worked as a nurse in a private clinic and also earned extra money as a caregiver for our neighbors, whose mother had been bedridden for a long time. I performed all the necessary medical procedures for her. Sometimes, when the neighbor’s daughter and her husband needed to go away for an extended period, she asked me to stay with her bedridden mother.
They paid me well, especially because caring for the woman often took place on weekends or public holidays. I was accustomed to the work. Of course, looking after a seriously ill person was difficult both physically and emotionally, but the opportunity to earn money always gave me strength.
Vadim sometimes worked as a taxi driver in his own car. He also tried to earn extra money and increase our income. During the past few years, we had been paying the mortgage on the apartment where the two of us lived.
We did not have children. I had been unlucky from the very beginning. When I married Vadim, hopelessly in love with him, he had already been married once and had a son from that marriage. I believed and hoped that I would also become a mother very soon. I dreamed about it and waited eagerly.
But it never happened. Several years later, a doctor told me that I needed to accept the fact that I would most likely never have children.
“Consider adopting,” he told me bluntly during my final appointment.
Vadim flatly refused to take such a step. Why would he want to? He already had a biological child, so it was easier for him. I did not insist. I simply continued living and hoping for a miracle.
Recently, my husband and I had made the final mortgage payment. The apartment now belonged to us. We could finally breathe freely and rest after years of endlessly running in circles.
For some reason, however, I did not feel happy.
Lately, Vadim had been dealing with the problems of his now-adult son from his first marriage. The young man had suddenly fallen in love and decided to get married at the age of twenty. His father had been trying to talk him out of such a reckless decision, meeting with him at his first wife’s apartment.
Meanwhile, I still felt like a horse carrying an unbearable burden. Out of habit and sheer momentum, I continued worrying about where and how I could earn more money. I did not think about how I could live from now on—calmly, happily, and enjoying what we had worked so hard to achieve.
I could live without constant problems and worries, yet I still could not get used to the fact that I no longer owed anyone anything.
“I’ll call my husband now and ask what keys his mother is talking about,” I decided.
“Vadim, where are you right now? Are you with Denis? What happened this time? More problems? I see. Will you be home soon? We have a guest—your mother is here. She says she came for some keys. Do you know what she means? You do? All right, then.”
I thoughtfully lowered my phone onto the table. My husband refused to explain anything over the phone. He merely said that he would be home soon and would explain everything then.
“Are you going to invite me to the table, or am I supposed to sit in there all evening?” my displeased mother-in-law demanded as she entered the kitchen.
“Yes, everything is almost ready. Sit down.”
“I heard you talking to my son. Will he be here soon? I can’t sit around your apartment all night. I have plenty of things to do myself,” Zinaida Nikolaevna said, clearly nervous.
“Could you please explain what keys you are talking about?” I finally asked when we were seated at the table.
“Didn’t your husband tell you? How strange! I thought the two of you had discussed everything a long time ago and reached a mutual agreement,” my mother-in-law replied dryly as she helped herself to chicken stewed with vegetables.
“No, he didn’t tell me. So what exactly are you talking about?”
“What else could I be talking about? Your apartment. Honestly, you are so strange!” my husband’s mother exclaimed, shaking her head in surprise.
“Our apartment?” I asked, confused as an unpleasant feeling immediately appeared in my chest.
“Exactly! Vadim told me that you had finally paid off the bank and that the apartment now belonged to you.”
“Yes… So what?” I still did not understand what she was getting at.
“So Vadim has decided to give it to me,” my mother-in-law announced.
Her words were so absurd that I nearly stopped breathing.
“Give it to you? Are you delirious, Zinaida Nikolaevna?”
I could not believe what I was hearing. For a moment, I felt faint. It was as though all my strength had left me, and I could neither speak nor think clearly.
“What’s wrong with that?” my mother-in-law continued calmly. “I think it’s a sensible decision. I came to collect your spare keys. Since the apartment is going to belong to me, I should have my own set.”
“Why on earth would our apartment belong to you? Did you fall down today, Zinaida Nikolaevna? Perhaps you hit your head and didn’t notice?” I had finally regained my composure and decided to respond properly to my husband’s mother’s outrageous behavior.
“Don’t be rude to me. My son has proposed a good solution. It’s perfectly reasonable, and as his wife, you should listen to him,” my mother-in-law said, raising her voice.
“What solution? What kind of nonsense is this? I worked myself to the bone at two jobs so that we could give you my apartment? I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life!”
“Inga, if you stop throwing a tantrum and allow yourself to think rationally, you’ll understand that my son is right.”
“Right?” I shouted. “How?”
“About everything. First of all, Vadim earned more than you did all those years. Yes, yes, don’t make that face. You know it better than I do. And secondly… Forgive me, Inga, but since we have started this conversation, I am going to speak honestly.
“You were never able to give my son any children. That means you have no heirs apart from your own relatives. Vadim, however, has a son—my grandson Denis. I will write a will leaving everything to him.
“If something happens to you, your relatives will come running and seize this apartment. And if, God forbid, something happens to my son, Denis will once again be left with nothing because everything will pass to you. Vadim worked so hard to pay the mortgage.”
“Yes, he worked, and so did I. We both wanted to pay off the loan. But what does your grandson have to do with any of this? Denis has a mother and two sets of grandparents. Leave him whatever you want, but forget about my apartment! This is not going to happen!” I was shouting now because my mother-in-law had genuinely infuriated me.
“It isn’t only your apartment. It belongs to Vadim as well, and my son has the right to decide—”
“Yes,” I interrupted her. “This apartment belongs to my husband and me. Neither you, nor your grandson, nor anyone else will receive a single square foot of it. Do you understand?”
“My son will be home soon, and then we’ll discuss it,” my mother-in-law insisted.
“No, we will not discuss it! Forget about it! What a pair of schemers you are! I did not work two jobs for so many years so that your grandson could be handed this property on a silver platter!”
“Stop this hysterical behavior immediately! You’re wrong, Inga. If you don’t have children of your own, you should at least allow your husband to secure his son’s future.”
“No, I will not stop! And I am not interested in other people’s children at all! Now I am asking you to leave MY apartment immediately and forget about it forever! Neither you, Zinaida Nikolaevna, nor your grandson will get anything here. Don’t even dream about it!”
“Are you throwing me out?” My mother-in-law was trembling with outrage. “Come to your senses. You’ll regret this later! You’ll be begging me for forgiveness.”
“Get out!” I said, pointing toward the door.
“I’m not leaving. I’m going to wait for my son,” my mother-in-law replied stubbornly.
“Wait somewhere else. This is not a waiting room.”
I practically forced my scheming mother-in-law out of the apartment and began waiting for my husband to return home.
“Vadim, have you lost your mind, promising your mother something like that?” I demanded loudly the moment my husband walked through the door. “Why did we spend so many years paying for these walls? So that you could make a grand gesture and give the apartment to your mother? Or to your son?”
“Well, what’s so terrible about it? I thought it would be better that way and that there was nothing wrong with it,” my husband began making excuses. “Mom isn’t a stranger to us. She was the one who convinced me that your sister and brother-in-law might try to take the apartment away from us.”
“Why would they do that? As far as I know, I am still healthy and have no plans to die anytime soon. What kind of conversation is this? Or are you dreaming about it?”
“Of course not! What are you talking about? It’s just that Denis is causing trouble with this wedding of his, damn him. And my mother keeps nagging me over and over.
“She says that we are all one family, that she would never deceive you or me, and that the apartment would remain in the family. She also says that your relatives are capable of anything. Your brother-in-law works for the police, and your sister works for the Investigative Committee.
“I became nervous and believed her. I thought that perhaps we really should transfer the apartment into my mother’s name so no one would ever be able to take it away from us. She would never throw us out, after all.”
“That’s nonsense! Vadim, either you’re a complete fool or you’re trying to make me look like one,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “But you and your mother are not going to succeed!”
“Fine, then we won’t do it. Have it your way,” my husband replied, breathing heavily with irritation.
From that day forward, my mother-in-law held a grudge against me, and we stopped speaking.
A year later, something happened that I never could have expected.
After Denis and his young wife had a baby and Vadim became a delighted grandfather, he suddenly decided to return to his first wife, who had remained single all those years. He told me that he no longer loved me and that there was nothing connecting the two of us anymore.
After the divorce, we put our apartment up for sale. I was left with the money from my half of the property.
I am strong. I will add to that amount and buy another apartment for myself. I will earn the money—I am used to working hard.
And to think that my husband and mother-in-law had wanted to take the entire apartment away from me and leave me with nothing.
They had been preparing for the divorce in advance.
What schemers!
Or scoundrels—that would be more accurate.