“Women have an amazing tendency towards self-sacrifice. For them, a beloved man is most often a kind of hanger on which they hang their love.” Andre Gide She looked at her with fear and distrust. Does SHE, THE MOTHER OF THREE CHILDREN, deserve that some “brat” teaches her wisdom?! The words of this girl were not only indignant and caused a strong desire to shut her mouth with the most offensive insults that exist, they made her want to give her such weighty and ringing slaps in the face so that she would be silent once and for all. This was in the mother's heart: pain, anger, disagreement, protest or even rebellion. And her brain, as if it had been waiting for these someone’s words for a long time, it absorbed them greedily, afraid to miss even one word, which the daughter-in-law calmly and confidently uttered to her mother-in-law, completely unaware of what was happening to her. “I ask you, Mom, never give him money again. Stop sponsoring his drinking bouts. It's good that we live in a small town and everyone knows each other. Today I went and picked up some groceries from a classmate in the store for an appointment. Otherwise they didn’t calculate it. A couple of days until payday, and at home it’s like a ball ride. I wanted to discuss this issue with my husband, your son, I hoped that it would “get crazy”, because so many people turn to him, and he says that I should go to you and get food or money, what’s the problem, they say. I started saying that we didn’t get married to “milk” our parents, we should help them ourselves, so he was surprised that I was making this up. And then it turns out that you’ve been giving him money all this week. I wonder how you missed that moment so much, why did he ask for them? You always need to know everything exactly about everyone, right? It was clear that he would spend it on get-togethers with the boys. Of course, maybe in your family it was accepted that the husband and father should not bring money into the house, and you supported everyone yourself. You plowed and are still plowing, knowing neither rest nor peace. You pull alone your man, who was always either sick or drunk, and three children, too, these grown-up bullies, you pull with a trailer. So, let’s agree that we will not raise your second husband in our son. Out of politeness, of course, I remained silent for a long time, held on, pretended that I sincerely believed in your fictitious stories about your happy, friendly, over-working, strong family, about your breadwinner husband. She was silent about the fact that I had known for a long time that he was coded and recoded, that if it weren’t for your titanic efforts, he wouldn’t even look like a human now! And I would have died under the fence ten times already. Therefore, nothing personal! Today we discuss this topic and close it once and for all! Your son and I will either have a real family, and believe me, I will make a man out of him, if you had no time and felt sorry for everything about him, and you will actively help me in this... Or I don’t know what, but I’ll come up with something... Someday he will completely forget the way to you and will still become a normal man and a real husband to me, and not a son who exchanged his mother for a wife, not realizing that I do not intend to be his mother. I’m sorry that I didn’t let you get a word in, but I’ve already gathered my courage and told you everything as it is. You decide now! And from now on, let’s tell the truth about your life. I’m probably tired of lying to myself and others all my life. You might think that everyone around is blind and doesn’t see who is who, what your family really is, that is, now our family is what it is. Having blurted out all this, - having drunk two glasses of water in one gulp - for the first time in all this time, I looked at mother-in-law She sat limply, and not as always - militantly, majestically, proudly, as if she was sitting not on a kitchen stool, but on a throne. In his hands, tightly clenched, for some reason pressed to his chest, a kitchen towel. The facial expression is not contemptuous and smug, as usual, but simple, human. Moreover, it is painful. For a moment, it seemed to the daughter-in-law that they wanted to hit her with this towel, as it should, the mother-in-law had such a strange body position... And then she met her gaze, and was completely confused. Before»