“Drive your own parents yourself!” her husband snapped. But the next morning, he discovered that his wife had taken the keys to her car—and his mother was left waiting outside her apartment building.
At seven twenty in the morning, Andrei checked the shelf in the hallway twice, searched the pockets of his jacket, and only then realized that the car keys really were gone. Natalia, meanwhile, was calmly getting ready for work and fastening her bag.
“Natasha, where are the keys?”
“I have them,” she replied. “I’m taking the car today.”
Andrei looked at the clock. In forty minutes, he had promised to be at his mother’s place, and just the previous evening he had assured her there would be no problem with the trip to the country house.
The problem had come as a surprise only to him.
The Car Gradually Became “Theirs” Without Any Discussion
Natalia had bought the car before they were married. She had saved money for several years, her father had contributed a little, and by the time she met Andrei, she was already comfortably driving on her own.
After they got married, her husband still had his own car, though it was fairly old. A year and a half ago, Andrei sold it and planned to buy another one, but first they needed money for renovations, and later they decided to postpone the purchase until the following year.
“Why spend the money now? We already have one car. That’s enough for us,” he had said at the time.
Natalia didn’t object. Andrei was listed on the insurance, drove carefully, and she herself often got to work by public transportation. At first, her husband would ask whether the car was available. Later, he reduced it to a brief, “I’ll take the car tomorrow.” A few months after that, even that disappeared.
The keys stayed on the shelf near the entrance, and Andrei simply took them whenever he was going somewhere.
He especially needed the car often because of his mother, Lidia Petrovna. In spring, the country-house season began: seedlings, bags, and tools had to be transported there, and later various things had to be brought back. Natalia didn’t object to that and had even helped her mother-in-law several times herself.
So until the conversation on Friday, she hadn’t even considered those trips a problem.
Her Parents Asked Once—and Were Refused
On Friday after dinner, Natalia’s father called. He and his wife were leaving the next morning by train to visit relatives. Usually, they made their own way to the station, but this time they had two suitcases and a heavy travel bag.
“If Andrei is free, maybe he could give us a ride?” her father asked. “If not, we’ll order a car. It’s no big deal.”
Natalia had a morning shift. She had to be at the store by seven-thirty, so she turned to her husband.
“Andryusha, could you take my parents tomorrow morning? They need to be at the station by quarter to seven. You can take the car and come back home afterward.”
Andrei was sitting at the kitchen table, looking at something on his phone. When he heard the request, he frowned with displeasure.
“Natasha, I was finally hoping to sleep in tomorrow.”
“It’s not a long drive. When was the last time they ever asked us for anything?”
“Can’t they order a car?”
Natalia reminded him that her father had actually suggested exactly that, but she personally thought it was strange to make her parents pay for a ride when their own car would be free that morning.
Andrei put down his phone and said irritably:
“Drive your own parents yourself!”
“I would if I wasn’t working.”
“Then order them a car. Why should I have to get up at six in the morning? They’re your parents, Natasha.”
She didn’t argue. She called her father and told him to go ahead and order a car.
“Just don’t start fighting because of us,” he asked.
“No one is fighting.”
And that truly could have been the end of the matter.
If Andrei hadn’t called his own mother about half an hour later.
Suddenly, Saturday Morning Was Available for His Mother
Natalia was already preparing her things for work when she heard him speaking from the other room.
“Mom, I’ll come by around eight. Don’t carry the seedlings downstairs beforehand—we’ll bring them down together.”
At first, she thought she had misheard him and walked toward the doorway.
“You’re going to your mother’s tomorrow?”
Andrei covered the phone with his hand.
“I’m taking her to the country house.”
“In the car?”
“Well, yes.”
Only then did Natalia realize that her husband had never planned to sleep until noon and had no special plans for the morning. He simply hadn’t wanted to get up for her parents, while for his own mother he was ready to drive almost fifty kilometers outside the city.
“You already promised her my car?”
Andrei frowned.
“What do you mean, ‘your’ car? I drive it all the time.”
“You drive it all the time because I let you.”
“Natasha, don’t turn this into some huge issue. Mom needs to take the seedlings. She can’t manage those boxes by herself.”
An hour earlier, it had also been inconvenient for her father to travel with two suitcases. For him, Andrei had immediately remembered that taxis existed.
Natalia didn’t argue any further. Before going to bed, she put the keys in her bag and set her alarm for the usual time.
In the Morning, the Rule Had to Apply to Both Families
Now Andrei stood in the hallway, fully dressed, clearly unable to understand why Natalia wasn’t handing over the keys.
“Mom is waiting for me. I told her yesterday that I’d come.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you take the keys?”
Natalia put on her jacket and calmly adjusted the strap of her bag.
“Because I’m driving my car to work.”
“You can always take the bus.”
“I can. But today I don’t want to.”
He stared at her for several seconds, and then he understood.
“You did this on purpose?”
“After yesterday’s conversation—yes. You said everyone should take care of their own parents. I remembered that.”
Andrei irritably ran a hand through his hair.
“But I am taking care of my own mother.”
“With my car, which you promised her without even asking me first.”
Andrei’s phone rang. Lidia Petrovna was already waiting for him and wanted to know whether he had left yet.
Her husband looked at the screen and then back at Natalia.
“So what am I supposed to tell her now?”
“The truth. That the owner needs the car today.”
“She prepared two boxes of seedlings.”
“Then postpone the trip or come up with another option.”
Natalia didn’t slam the door or continue the argument. She simply left for work in her own car.
Later, Andrei checked the cost of a ride to the country house in the app. Given the distance, it came to more than two thousand rubles one way. When Lidia Petrovna heard the amount, she immediately said she wasn’t going anywhere that day and that the seedlings could be taken a few days later.
She also asked her son why he had promised to come at all when the car belonged to Natalia and he hadn’t arranged anything with her beforehand.
Andrei liked that question even less.
That evening, Natalia came home. Her husband was already there, making dinner.
“Did your parents get there all right?” he asked after a while.
“Yes. Dad messaged me that they arrived without any problems.”
Andrei was silent for a moment.
“Mom postponed the country-house trip until next weekend.”
“Okay.”
They didn’t return to the previous day’s argument again that evening.
A few days later, Andrei needed the car again. He approached Natalia while she was putting groceries into the refrigerator and asked:
“Do you need the car tomorrow after six? If not, I wanted to go see Mom.”
Natalia checked her plans.
“You can take it after six.”
From then on, the keys still stayed at home, but Andrei first asked whether the car was available—and only after that did he promise anyone a ride.