“…Mom with her problems.”
It turned out Lyudmila Anatolyevna hadn’t been wasting time either. While I was away, she had managed to diagnose herself with a rare joint disease that required expensive treatment from a foreign professor who, by a happy coincidence, was just coming to Dnipro for a symposium.
— “Mom says she needs one million one hundred thousand, no less,” — Igor sighed. — “She doesn’t have that kind of money, of course. She’s asking for help.”
— “But my dad has surgery!” — I exclaimed. — “We can’t spend such sums right now!”
— “I know,” — he raised his voice. — “Do you think it’s easy for me? I’m torn between you two. On one side, your father, on the other, my mother. She raised me alone, I can’t refuse her.”
— “But her illnesses always appear so conveniently, haven’t you noticed?” — I couldn’t hold back. — “As soon as we need money or plan a vacation, she has a flare-up!”
— “Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that!” — his face twisted in anger. — “You know nothing about what she’s been through!”
We had our first real fight in a long time, with shouting and mutual accusations. I went to sleep in the nursery with Mishenka. Lying in the dark, I listened to his steady breathing and felt an icy fear grip me. It wasn’t about the money. It was about the fact that in the most difficult moment of my life, when my father was in mortal danger, my husband was not thinking about how to help me, but about how not to offend his mother. The crack that had long been forming in our relationship began to turn into a chasm. And I realized with horror that I was falling into it, and no one was going to offer me a hand.
The next few days turned into a viscous, drawn-out nightmare woven from half-truths, avoidance, and growing anxiety. Igor became a master of evasion. Every time I tried to return to the conversation about the money for the surgery, he found a thousand reasons to interrupt it. Either he got an urgent call from work, or he suddenly had a headache, or he remembered some urgent household chore, like a broken shelf in the pantry that had been hanging perfectly fine for six months. He behaved like a guilty teenager who fears his parents’ anger but cannot confess his wrongdoing.
His behavior was so uncharacteristic that my initial irritation gave way to a dull, cold anxiety. I felt that something was wrong, that behind his excuses lay something more than just a reluctance to offend his mother.
Lyudmila Anatolyevna, on the contrary, became very active. She called several times a day, but now not me, but Igor. I heard snippets of their conversations when he went out onto the balcony, thinking I couldn’t hear. My mother-in-law’s voice was sometimes plaintive, sometimes demanding. She talked about unbearable pain, about heartless doctors who refuse to treat without prepayment, and about her bitter widow’s fate. After each such conversation, Igor would return to the room even more gloomy and withdrawn. He stopped looking me in the eye, and our dinners were held in oppressive silence, broken only by Mishenka’s cheerful babble, who did not notice the stormy atmosphere.
The subplot concerning my father’s health added even more tension to this drama. Mom called every day, her voice full of fear. Father’s condition was worsening. The doctors insisted on the urgency of the operation.
— “Marinochka, the clinic requires a down payment,” — she said in another conversation. — “We need to deposit at least part of the sum to book a spot in the operating room. We only have one week left.”
A week. Seven days. This number hammered in my temples. I couldn’t wait any longer.
On Friday evening, when Igor returned from work, I met him in the hallway. I decided to act directly and without mincing words.
— “Igor, tomorrow morning we are going to the bank and withdrawing the money,” — I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling. — “There is no more time. On Monday, I must transfer the down payment to the clinic.”
He silently took off his shoes, hung up his jacket; his face was like a gray mask.
— “Okay,” — he answered quietly, not looking at me. — “Tomorrow it is.”
There was something unnatural in his submission. He didn’t argue, didn’t make excuses. He just agreed. And that scared me more than his previous evasions.
I couldn’t sleep all night. I lay next to him and felt the cold emanating from his body. It was not a physical cold, but a cold of alienation that chilled me to the bone. I remembered our first years, his passionate declarations, his promises to always be on my side. Where did it all go? When did he become a stranger, lying next to me in the same bed?
In the morning, he got up before me, which was very unlike him. When I entered the kitchen, he was already drinking coffee, dressed in casual jeans and a T-shirt.
— “I’m ready,” — he said. — “We can go.”
The bank was not crowded. We took a ticket and sat in the waiting chairs. Igor was silent, staring at his phone screen. I tried to talk to him, to ask what he was thinking, but he answered in monosyllables, not looking up from his messages. I could see that he was texting with his mother. The messenger screen flashed with her photo again and again.
— “Our number,” — I said when our digits lit up on the board.
We went to the teller’s window. A nice girl with tired eyes smiled at us.
— “Hello, how can I help you?”
— “Hello,” — I said. — “I need to withdraw a large sum from my account. Five hundred thousand.”
I handed her my passport. The girl took the document and began to enter the data into the computer.
— “One moment,” — she said. — “I’ll check the account balance now.”
She looked at the monitor, and her eyebrows slowly rose. She checked the data again, and then looked up at me with a surprised expression.
— “I’m sorry, but there are insufficient funds in your account.”
— “How can that be?” — I couldn’t believe my ears. — “There should be almost nine hundred and fifty thousand. Please check again. Maybe there’s a mistake?”
The girl looked at the monitor again, then turned it towards me.
— “See for yourself. Volkova Marina Viktorovna. The account balance is three hundred and eighty thousand.”
Three hundred and eighty. I looked at the numbers, and they swam before my eyes. Where did the five hundred and seventy thousand go?
— “But that’s impossible,” — I whispered. — “I didn’t withdraw any money.”
— “According to the statement,” — the girl spoke in a flat, official tone, — “the day before yesterday, on Thursday, a sum of five hundred and seventy thousand was withdrawn from your account. The transaction was carried out at this branch.”
I slowly turned to Igor. He stood beside me, pale as a sheet, and was looking off to the side, at a promotional poster on the wall. He wasn’t looking at me. And in that moment, I understood everything. Everything fell into place: his strange behavior, his evasions, his sudden compliance this morning. He knew. He knew everything.
— “Was it you?” — my voice was quiet, choked. — “Did you withdraw the money?”
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