The doorbell rang so sharply that I flinched, almost dropping the empty cardboard box in my hands. I wasn’t expecting guests. Especially not here, in this house, the existence of which almost no one knew about yet.
On the porch stood Tamara Ivanovna, my mother-in-law. In her usual gray coat, which seemed to have absorbed every shade of the St. Petersburg sky, she looked at me, then shifted her gaze to the façade of the house.
— “Hello, Anya,” there was not a hint of surprise in her voice, only a cold, studying curiosity.
— “Hello, Tamara Ivanovna. And how are you…”
— “Igor said you wanted to surprise him. So I decided to help,” she stepped over the threshold without waiting to be invited.
Her gaze swept across the spacious hall, the panoramic windows, the staircase of light oak leading upstairs.
I silently closed the door. My surprise, which I had been preparing for my husband for several months, had just ceased to be mine.
— “Cute,” she remarked, taking off her coat. “Simple, but tasteful. You probably went deep into debt for it? Igor can’t save a thing.”
She said it as if stating a fact from his medical record. As if her son was incapable of serious financial decisions without her approval.
I said nothing, only hung her coat in the empty wardrobe. The sharp, heavy scent of her perfume immediately filled the space, as if marking her territory.
— “Show me what you’ve got here?” she asked, moving into the living room.
I followed, feeling like a tour guide in my own home. A house I had bought myself.
Every detail, from the shade of the parquet to the curve of the door handles, had been chosen by me. With money Tamara Ivanovna didn’t know about. And never had to know.
Forty million rubles. That number still didn’t make sense in my head. A year of sleepless nights, dozens of failed tests, and one brilliant line of code that changed everything.
The project I had led in secret from everyone had been sold. And I, “poor little orphan Anya,” as my mother-in-law liked to call me at family dinners, had suddenly become richer than her entire family.
— “The kitchen is big, that’s good,” she said through gritted teeth, running her finger along the perfectly smooth artificial stone countertop. “At least there’ll be room to move. In your old hovel, there wasn’t even space for a pot.”
Each of her words was a small jab, ones I should have gotten used to over five years of marriage. But here, within the walls of my house, they felt different. Sharper.
We went upstairs. Bedroom, office, room for the future child.
She peeked into every door, and with each step her face grew darker. The smile she had worn upon entering had long since vanished, replaced by barely concealed annoyance.
She couldn’t understand. Her worldview, in which her son married a penniless girl, was cracking at the seams. This house didn’t fit. It was too big, too expensive, too… real.
We returned to the living room. Tamara Ivanovna stopped by the large window overlooking the garden, where the grass was already green.
She stared at the trees, the neat paths, the small pond in the corner of the lot. Then she slowly turned around.
Her eyes drilled into me. Her gaze was heavy, as if she were trying to burn a hole through me to see what was inside. All her feigned politeness had fallen away.
— “You’re poor — where did you get a house like this?”
Her question hung in the air, thick and poisonous, like her perfume. I took a breath, trying to steady the trembling in my hands. Calm. Only calm.
— “Why do you say that, Tamara Ivanovna?” My voice sounded steady, perhaps even too steady.
She smirked. A short, cruel laugh.
— “How am I supposed to say it? I know Igor’s income. I know your three measly kopecks from your little online drawings. You’d be saving for the down payment on a palace like this until my retirement. So don’t make me out to be an idiot.”
She stepped closer.
— “Is this criminal money? Did Igor get involved in something? Tell me!…”
I looked at her and, for the first time in all these years, I didn’t feel fear. Only icy, crystal-clear rage.
She wasn’t just insulting me. She was humiliating her son by denying him the right to succeed. And she was trampling over my work, my sleepless nights, my dream.
— “This house was bought with honestly earned money,” I said firmly. “And it has nothing to do with crime.”
— “Then what does it have to do with? A rich lover?” she spat.
I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails dug into my palms. There it was. The bottom she had reached with ease.
— “Did it ever occur to you that I might have earned this money myself?”
Tamara Ivanovna laughed. Loudly, raucously, throwing her head back.
— “You? Anechka? Girl, don’t make me laugh. From what? Selling your little cards online? The most you can do is marry well. Which, by the way, you did. But even my son couldn’t have managed this on his own.”
She abruptly cut off her laughter and became serious again.
— “Alright. Since you’ve gotten involved, we need to figure out how to manage. The house must be sold. Immediately. Before someone comes for Igor. Pay off your debts, and with the remainder, buy something simpler. And closer to us. I’ll feel better if you stay under supervision.”
She spoke as if everything had already been decided. As if this house were her problem, which she was now magnanimously resolving.
— “No one is selling anything,” I said. There was barely any air left in my lungs. “This house is mine.”
— “What do you mean ‘yours’?” she drew her face out.
— “Exactly what I said. It was bought in my name. With my money. And I will decide what to do with it.”
Tamara Ivanovna froze like a statue. It seemed she had stopped breathing. Her mind desperately tried to process information that refused to fit her familiar pattern.
— “Your… money?” she whispered. “What do you mean your money?”
At that exact moment, the front door opened, and Igor appeared in the doorway, holding a bouquet of flowers and a slightly goofy smile.
— “Surprise!” he shouted, then immediately stopped when he saw us.
His gaze flicked from my pale face to his mother’s crimson one. The smile slid off.
— “What’s going on here? Mom? Anya?”
Igor looked at us, and the bouquet in his hand seemed awkward and pitiful against the frozen tension in the air.
— “Mom decided that you got involved in crime, and I found myself a rich lover,” I said calmly, looking directly at my husband. “Because we couldn’t possibly buy this house. We’re supposedly poor.”
Tamara Ivanovna shuddered and immediately lunged for her son, grabbing his hand.
— “Igor, darling, she’s not herself! This house… it… she did something! I can feel it!”
Igor shifted his gaze from his mother to me in confusion. He saw her face twisted with malice and mine, surprisingly calm. He knew his mother. And he knew me.
— “Anya, what does all this mean?” he asked quietly, addressing only me.
I took a deep breath. The moment had come.
— “It’s a surprise, yes. Just not the one you expected. This house is ours. Or rather, mine. I bought it.”
— “Bought it?” Igor frowned. “How?”
— “I sold my project. The one I’d been working on at night for the past year. A major IT holding company bought it.”
I named the sum. Igor was silent, his eyes wide. He didn’t look angry or skeptical. He looked stunned. He slowly lowered the bouquet onto the nearest box.
— “Forty…” he whispered. “You mean… that little data analysis program of yours?”
— “Yes. That very program.”
Tamara Ivanovna looked at us as if we were insane.
— “What project? What program? Igor, she’s deceiving you! She’s feeding you lies!”
But Igor wasn’t listening to her anymore. He came up to me and took my hands in his.
— “An… why didn’t you tell me?”
— “I wanted it to be a surprise,” I said with a crooked smile. “I wanted you to arrive, and I would hand you the keys and say: ‘Welcome home.’ Without all these scenes.”
He looked at me, and something new was forming in his eyes. Admiration. Pride. He suddenly laughed. Quietly at first, then louder and louder. He hugged me and spun me around the hall.
— “My God, Anya! You’re incredible! Simply incredible!”
When he set me back on my feet, Tamara Ivanovna had regained her composure. Her face had taken on a haughty expression.
— “Well, let’s say…” she muttered. “Lucky you. But since you now have so much money, family problems need solving. Father needs a car, Lenka needs help with the mortgage…”
I pulled away from Igor. My calm had evaporated, replaced by cold determination.
— “No.”
— “What do you mean, ‘no’?” — her mother-in-law gasped.
— “No cars, no mortgages. This is my money. I earned it with my own hard work. And I will decide how to use it.”
— “How dare you!” — she shrieked. “But it’s also Igor’s money! He’s your husband!”
— “Mom, be quiet,” Igor said firmly, for the first time taking a strong stand. “This is Anya’s money. She earned it. And I’m proud of her.”
He turned to me.
— “It’s your house. Your rules.”
I looked at Tamara Ivanovna. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of her. I saw not a formidable manipulator, but simply a miserable, envious woman.
— “I think it’s time for you to go, Tamara Ivanovna,” I said evenly. “My husband and I need to celebrate moving in.”
She opened her mouth to object, but when our eyes met—and seeing Igor standing beside me—she silently pressed her lips together.
She grabbed her coat, throwing me a look full of undisguised hatred, and stormed out the door, slamming it hard behind her.
Igor locked the door. He turned to me and smiled again.
— “So, hostess, shall we take a tour of your domain?”
I laughed, and for the first time in many years, it was a laugh of absolute, unclouded happiness.
