As soon as my husband’s mother entered our apartment, she grabbed my work bag, as if something hidden there belonged to her, while I still could not believe that all this had started because of one plate.
That evening I returned late from the hospital. My belly was already clearly showing, and my legs hurt as if I had been climbing stairs all day. Luka was sitting on the sofa, holding a game controller, and in front of him stood a bowl with dried porridge. The sink was full.
“Please wash these dishes,” I said and put the bag on the floor.
“I’ll do it later.”
“I worked all day too, Luka.”
He put the controller aside, picked up his phone, and suddenly gave his voice a tenderness that he no longer had for me.
“Mom, she’s yelling at me again.”
Again. That one word struck me as if a stranger were standing in the room. I washed the dishes because the smell made me nauseous and I knew the same thing would be waiting for me in the morning.
His mother came the next morning. She was wearing a beige jacket and holding a small bunch of silver keys.
“My son is not your servant,” she told me right at the door.
“Neither am I his servant.”
“Pregnancy does not give you the right to oppress your husband.”
Luka stood by the refrigerator and looked at the floor. We both paid the apartment rent. We both worked. But she mentioned none of those facts.
“Our argument does not mean you should come,” I said.
“I am protecting him.”
“I am his wife.”
Luka only whispered:
“Don’t quarrel with Mom.”
After that, his mother slipped into our everyday life. She brought his favorite food, reminded me how I should take care of my husband, and once even rearranged the baby clothes in my closet from the beginning. I could smell her laundry detergent everywhere.
At the hospital, my coworker Mari noticed that I no longer laughed. During the break, she offered me her opened yogurt.
“What’s happening?”
“The dishes, his mother, the phone calls… I don’t know anymore whether I live in my own home.”
“You are not exaggerating, Ana.”
At those simple words, my eyes filled with tears.
At the eighteenth-week appointment, I reminded Luka to come. He promised. When I was parking at the clinic, I received a message: his mother’s tap was leaking and he had to go to her first. He did not come to the appointment.
Other couples were sitting in the doctor’s office. One man was asking about baby names, while his wife was laughing. I stared at the door.
In the evening Luka returned with his mother.
“The water problem was serious,” he told me.
“Am I not your family?”
Luka played with the keys in his hand and chose silence.
That night I felt the baby move for the first time. It felt like the touch of a small, light wing. I wanted to call Luka, but I stayed silent.
A week later I noticed money being withdrawn from our joint account. Three hundred and fifty lari.
“What was it for?”
“I’m helping a friend.”
“Which friend?”
“Are you interrogating me?”
This time I did not throw away the statement. I put it in my bag.
That same evening Luka’s phone was left on the table and a conversation with his mother opened on the screen. There were instructions written about the arguments. Then I read one sentence and my breath caught: “If she asks about the money, tell her it was for a friend.”
I photographed the phone, but immediately the sound of a key came from the room door. His mother entered, looked at my bag, and reached straight toward the folder…
Her fingers touched the edge of the folder, but I quickly grabbed it.
“Why are you touching this?”
“Don’t stick your nose into Luka’s affairs,” she told me.
“This is our money.”
Luka was standing behind her. For the first time I saw his face turn pale.
“Ana, calm down.”
“Then explain where the money went.”
His mother held out her hand.
“Give me the phone.”
“No.”
That night Luka packed a bag and left the house. The next day I went to a lawyer. He requested the bank statements and told me to open a separate account.
When I returned home, I found a torn envelope on the table. Several months earlier I had noticed part of it in the trash, but had not paid attention. Now I took payment receipts out of the envelope. Four hundred and eighty lari was transferred every month. The debt exceeded eight thousand.
“What is this?” I asked Luka when he returned.
“A personal debt.”
“Paid with our money?”
His phone rang.
“It’s Mom,” he said.
“Don’t answer. Answer me first.”
Luka put the phone on the table. At that moment the lawyer called me and said that the next morning I absolutely had to bring all the receipts and messages to the meeting.
But before I could hang up, Luka quietly said:
“If you open this, you won’t be able to protect me anymore, Mom…”
And I realized that a secret much bigger than me was hidden in those words…
“If you open this, you won’t be able to protect me anymore, Mom…” Luka’s words hung in the room.
His mother sat in the armchair, and her fingers were clenched so tightly on her knees that her nails had turned white. My mother, the lawyer, and I sat opposite her. Receipts, bank statements, and printed messages lay on the table.
“Now you have to open it,” I said.
“This is a family matter,” she said.
“Then why did both of you hide it from me?”
The lawyer picked up the first receipt.
“The monthly payment is four hundred and eighty lari. The transfers begin six months before the wedding. The recipient is a credit company.”
Luka raised his head.
“I would have dealt with it.”
“When?” I asked. “When our child went to school?”
His mother stood up.
“Luka had an old debt. I was only helping him.”
“With my money?”
“You are his wife too.”
“But you made the decision without me.”
The lawyer placed the messages in front of us. In one Luka wrote: “I’m afraid she’ll find out.” And the answer was from his mother: “Don’t be afraid, I’ll take care of it.”
I read the next message aloud:
“If she asks about the money, tell her it was for a friend.”
Luka lowered his eyes.
“It is taken out of context.”
“Then tell me the context.”
He opened his mouth, but could not make a sound.
His mother put a hand on his shoulder.
“She wants to destroy your marriage.”
“No,” I answered. “I want the truth.”
Then Luka told everything. Years earlier, his mother had signed a loan taken out in his name. He gave the money to his former spouse, who then disappeared. The debt remained with Luka. Before the wedding he told me that the debt was almost paid off, but in reality he was paying it monthly from our account.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I knew you would leave.”
It was the most honest sentence I heard that evening.
“And your mother?”
“Mom said that if you found out, you would take everything away from me.”
His mother became angry.
“I was protecting the family!”
“You were protecting not the family, but the secret,” my mother said.
Silence fell over the room. My palms were cold, but the baby was still moving inside my belly.
The lawyer put the receipts into the folder.
“Tomorrow I will prepare an agreement on dividing the accounts and using the apartment. Also, it must be clarified where else the money was transferred.”
Luka nodded, as if he could still control something.
“Ana, please don’t leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere yet. But you no longer live in the house where the truth is hidden.”
That night I left his things in the hallway. In the morning the lawyer called me and said that an additional document had been received from the credit company. It did not contain only the history of the debt.
His mother’s name was next to the signatures—and one entry indicated a new transfer that had been made the previous day, while I was at my clinic…
როცა ლუკამ საკუთარი ხმა მოისმინა, ყველაფერი შეიცვალა…
მეგონა, სიმართლე დასასრული იქნებოდა. მაგრამ სწორედ ამის შემდეგ დაიწყო ყველაზე რთული არჩევანი.
„ბედნიერი ხარ?“
ამჯერად პასუხის გაცემა აღარ გამჭირვებია.
👇 ისტორიის ფინალი უკვე გახსნილია
