“Please, Marina, fifty thousand what? Have you even looked at their statements?” Nancy’s voice sliced through the quiet evening kitchen like a blade through soft butter. Marina stopped dead in the hallway before she had managed to pull off her second shoe. “That daughter-in-law of yours quietly bought herself a villa in Key Largo while you two are counting pennies and eating pasta. I’m telling you, she doesn’t think of us as real people.”
Marina stood there with the grocery bag pressed against her chest. Crispbread, low-fat cottage cheese, fresh herbs—the usual things for a family dinner. There was also a box of expensive chocolates for Nancy, the kind Marina bought every time “just for tea,” because she knew her mother-in-law had grown fond of them. Now the gift, chosen sincerely to make the woman happy, suddenly looked like some ridiculous little offering.
Silence settled over the kitchen. Then came the faint clink of a spoon against porcelain. Derek was stirring sugar into his tea, nervous as always. He did that every time his mother began singing her favorite tune.
“Mom, come on, stop,” Derek said at last. He sounded worn out, but there was no real resistance in his voice. It was the tone of someone not asking a person to quit, only begging them to lower the volume. “What villa? She’s been working herself half to death for ten years. If she earned anything, she earned it with her own hands.”
“With her own hands!” Nancy gave a sharp little snort. “And whose back are you breaking on those job sites? You’re an engineer, my son! And what is she? A shopkeeper! She walked right into everything ready-made. Sits in her salon filing nails while you live off whatever scraps she leaves you.”
Marina closed her eyes for a moment. So that was what it was. Ten years of building a small chain of beauty salons from nothing, starting with a rented, windowless basement, amounted to “filing nails.” Meanwhile her husband, who had spent twelve years in the same position at an architecture firm with a steady salary of about $770 a month, was “breaking his back.”
She slammed the front door shut hard enough to announce herself.
“I’m home,” she called loudly, crossing toward the living room without looking into the kitchen. “Is anyone planning to eat dinner?”
Nancy appeared from the kitchen at once, floating out with theatrical grace. She was full-figured, imposing, her hair piled high in a style that made her resemble a retired opera diva. Throwing up her hands, she exclaimed, “Oh, Marina, we were just talking about you! Praising you, actually. I was telling Derek how lucky he is to have such a wife. Beautiful, clever, and she earns so well.”
Marina looked straight into her pale, slightly bulging eyes. Something dark and sticky shifted at the bottom of them. Not love. Not even hatred. Envy.
“Thank you, Nancy,” Marina replied dryly as she stepped into the kitchen. “I’m tired, so let’s skip the performance. I heard what you were saying.”
Derek stood frozen by the window, cup in hand. His face belonged to a man who desperately wished he could be anywhere else. Antarctica, maybe. Or the bottom of a mine shaft.
“What exactly did you hear?” Nancy asked, instantly changing tactics, her chin lifting in challenge.
“The part about the villa in Key Largo.” Marina began taking groceries out of the bag and placing them on the table. Her movements were controlled, almost calm, though her fingers trembled slightly from tension. “And the pasta. And the claim that I don’t consider you people.”
“Well, is it not true?” Nancy planted her hands on her hips.
That was the point where everything shifted. One second earlier, the whole thing might still have been turned into a foolish joke, into an “Oh, that isn’t what I meant.” Marina waited for it. She glanced at Derek. He said nothing. He stared down into his cup as if a treasure map had been drawn on the surface of the tea.
“What part isn’t true?” Marina asked quietly.
“All of it! Do you think you’re special? Do you think that because you have a little more money, you’re some kind of queen now? And what about the fact that Derek’s father and I spent our entire lives working at the factory so we could buy him this apartment? Have you forgotten that? Where would the two of you be living now if it weren’t for us?”
Marina turned to face her. Slowly. Very slowly. Like a compressed spring straightening only because someone was forcing it to remain under control.
“I haven’t forgotten, Nancy. You and Victor bought this apartment. I was deeply grateful to you for that. That’s why, when we did the full renovation five years ago, I put every dollar I had saved into it—about $16,500. I turned that worn-out old-lady remodel into a modern home. You said ‘thank you’ then, and by the next day you had forgotten. And I paid off the renovation loan in two years. By myself. Without a cent from you.”
For a second, Nancy looked genuinely stunned. She was not used to being contradicted. Everyone in her family had long lived by one simple rule: if Mom said it, everyone agreed. Derek remained silent.
“Oh, so that’s how you’re talking now!” Nancy snapped.