– I told him exactly that, return the money and take your things from the apartment, – said Olga Ivanovna, – if the matchmakers began to count the money and my own son did it secretly from me, then there is nothing to expect from me kindness.
– Olga, – said her friend, – Alyosha could have done nothing and you are punishing him so. One day there will be some matchmakers and the next day others, and did you think that you could quarrel with your son for the rest of your life?
– Yes, I’m worried that with such stingy people, his marriage will end quickly. And I’ll decide what to do with the apartment later. If he leaves his Dasha, then I’ll sign it over to him, but if not, I’ll keep it for my old age.
But Olga Ivanovna is as old as a copper pot, because she recently celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She put her son on his feet, since she and her husband divorced when Alyosha was ten years old. Her second husband died two years ago, and she had her youngest son by him.
Her mother had an apartment of her own for her children a long time ago. She inherited one from her parents, and she inherited the other from her second spouse’s parents, which she immediately signed over to her youngest son. But she never got around to signing the apartment over to her eldest son. When her twenty-five-year-old son said he was going to get married, his mother said:
– It’s time to rewrite grandma’s apartment to you. Let’s dispense with the wedding, now a banquet will not surprise anyone, I’ll give you the money better, and you’re something in a warm country on vacation. It will be a memory for the rest of your life,
My son was only happy, but my future in-laws started to get indignant. Dasha’s parents said at the time:
– Every girl dreams of a wedding and a wedding dress. What do you mean, no wedding? Dasha is just starting out in life, she’s getting married for the first time, so there has to be a wedding.
– If you want a white dress, then rent one and do a photo shoot, and then we’ll all sit together. I’m giving you three hundred thousand, but I don’t have anything else, I have nothing to add to your wedding banquet.
Then the son and his mother agreed, and after a while he said that he and Dasha were going on a honeymoon a few days after the wedding. Then Olga Ivanovna decided that the matchmakers agreed that there would be no wedding. And the newlyweds began dropping off their belongings at her grandmother’s apartment.
– After the wedding, they flew away for two weeks on a honeymoon, and I found out a few days later that my son and Dasha had a wedding after all. There was a banquet for sixty people, they ordered a restaurant and took a limousine ride. Only the bride’s family and my son’s friends were invited to the banquet.
– But you yourself called the wedding a relic of the past,” my son said to his mother, “And Dasha’s parents gave money for the banquet; it was up to them to decide whom to invite and whom not. I was only allowed to invite three friends.
Olga Ivanovna cried all night. She was very hurt that her son invited his friends, but not his mother and brother.
– He said that Dasha’s parents gave money for the banquet, and the fact that I gave them much more than my sister-in-law’s relatives – didn’t they care? – Mother complained to her in-laws. – How could he do this to me and my brother? And after the wedding he went on vacation with my money!
– You said that you would not invest, so we did not invite you, – answered her parents, – and we were not going to throw the only child out of the house like a foundling. She deserved to have a wedding dress and guests. You gave the money for the trip, the kids flew in, and, what do you want from us now?
– Well, if that’s the case! – Olga Ivanovna answered. – You’ll never see my apartment again, and, Alesh, I want the money I gave you for the trip back. I didn’t even think you were capable of such meanness. I wanted to give an apartment to my son, not a sycophant. Now my brother and I are strangers to you.
The young people can’t afford to rent, because Alyosha’s salary is tiny and Dasha is still studying. But the mother is not going to give in: if the son did this to her, it means he does not need his mother.
Olga Ivanovna does not particularly hope that her son and daughter-in-law will return the money, but she does not really care about it, because no money can measure a grudge!
