Before the pregnancy, my mother-in-law evicted me from the house, but when I took out my things, Andrei’s face suddenly changed

That evening, when my mother-in-law told me that I had to flee my own house by morning, Andrei was sitting beside me and touching a dried lettuce leaf on his plate with a fork.

“You must not be here tomorrow,” Galina said so calmly, as if she were ordering me to go to the store after dinner. “Leonid and Valeria will move here. The child needs a real home, and there is no place for you in this house anymore.”

Candle wax was slowly spilling onto the table. I watched it and thought that twelve years of marriage were ending exactly like this—silently, beside a small white candle.

Andrei did not look at me.

“Does Andrei know that you are throwing me out?” I asked.

Galina raised the corner of her lips.

“My son dragged you along for far too long. Now, with Valeria, he will at least feel like a man.”

These words put everything in order in one second. The late returns. The phone always face down. The deleted messages. The strange, sweet perfume left on Andrei’s shirt. And Galina’s strange warmth whenever she mentioned Valeria.

At twenty-seven, I went through a serious illness. The doctors told me then that my chance of having a child was almost gone. Since then, Galina had used this fact like a weapon.

“You could not give Andrei a child,” she told me that same evening. “However, we gave you the opportunity to feel like Leonid’s mother at least. You should be grateful.”

Leonid was eleven when I first met him. He was a quiet boy who did not believe that anyone would remain beside him for long. I made him do his lessons, did not forget his birthdays, went to his football games, and attended school meetings.

But Galina always stood between us.

“His family is his father and me,” she would tell me. “Do not make the boy think that you are his mother.”

Later Leonid himself told me that his grandmother had convinced him that I hated him and wanted to throw him out of the house.

There was only one thing they failed to notice in that house: Andrei was not paying for the expensive apartment.

I was paying for it.

For four years, every month, nine thousand eight hundred dollars were transferred from my account. I worked in a pharmaceutical laboratory and took emergency shifts at a private clinic at night. Andrei’s company was collapsing, but he did not want to admit that to his mother.

“Please, do not tell Galina anything,” he used to say to me. “If she finds out that you are supporting me, she will no longer consider me a man.”

I considered my silence love.

At eight in the morning, four movers arrived. First they emptied the living room, then the dining room. They carried out the sofas, carpets, televisions, paintings, and the heavy oak table for which I had needed three months of night shifts.

Galina watched, frozen.

“What are they doing?” she asked me.

“What I asked them to do,” I answered.

“These are the things from my house!”

“No, Galina.”

For the first time, I looked directly into her eyes.

“These are my things.”

When they carried the last box to the door, I noticed a small envelope on the floor. Only one name was written on it: Andrei.

He saw the envelope and his face changed.

I picked it up, walked toward him, and said:

“Open it. While there is still anything left here…”

Andrei reached toward the envelope, but Galina suddenly grabbed my wrist and whispered…

“Give this envelope to my son,” Galina whispered to me. “You have already caused enough damage.”

Her nails dug into my wrist. I felt the pain strangely calmly. So many things had ended that morning that a little scratch could no longer change anything.

Andrei placed his hand on his mother’s wrist.

“Let me go, Mother.”

“You do not know what she is doing!” Galina shouted. “She is taking the house from us, carrying away the things, and now threatening you with some papers!”

“I am not threatening anyone,” I said. “I am simply ending what you decided instead of me.”

The movers stopped in the hallway. One of them was holding my cream-colored folder, in which I had kept payment receipts for years. The corner of the folder was worn because I always carried it in the small pocket of my bag.

Andrei took the envelope from me.

“What is this?”

“Open it.”

He carefully took out the paper. The first page was a bank statement. The second was a receipt confirming the transfer. On the third, the monthly payments for four years could be seen: nine thousand eight hundred dollars, again and again from my account.

Andrei’s fingers began to tremble.

“This… is impossible.”

“You can call the bank,” I said. “The number is written at the bottom.”

Galina snatched the papers.

“Were you deliberately hiding this so that you could laugh at us now?”

“I hid nothing from you. Andrei asked me not to tell you.”

“That is a lie!”

Andrei looked at his mother.

“Did you really ask her?”

The confidence disappeared from Galina’s face.

“I only knew that you were making the payments.”

Andrei raised his head sharply.

“You knew?”

Fear appeared in his voice for the first time.

I put my finger on the last page.

“Read the payment date.”

It said that the lease ended that same evening and the apartment had to be returned to the owner. But that was not all yet.

Andrei turned the paper over. Behind it lay a document certified with a notary’s seal.

“What is this?” he asked.

“The apartment purchase agreement.”

Galina gave a short laugh.

“That cannot be. The apartment is in Andrei’s name.”

“That is what you thought.”

Andrei read the document to the end. My name was written as the owner of the apartment. Three years earlier, when the owner decided to sell, I had used all my savings and taken the mortgage in my own name. Then I told Andrei that I was still paying rent because I did not want him to invest that money in the business or tell his mother that the apartment was his, as if it were.

“You bought all this?” he barely pronounced.

“No, Andrei. I protected all this.”

Galina leaned against the wall. Behind her, the white paint was scraped off where a mirror had hung years earlier.

“Then where will we live?” she asked.

“Wherever you want. Just not in my house.”

Andrei took a step toward me.

“Marika, let us talk. Valeria will not move here. I will explain everything to you.”

“It is too late.”

“I did not betray you in the way you think.”

I stopped at these words.

“Then why do you know what I think?”

He could not find an answer.

His mobile phone rang. Valeria’s name appeared on the screen. The call ended, then rang again. Andrei rejected it, but several seconds later Valeria sent a voice message.

Galina looked at the phone.

“Do not listen to it.”

I looked at Andrei.

“Turn it on.”

“Marika…”

“Turn it on, Andrei.”

He opened the message. First Valeria’s crying could be heard, then clearly spoken words:

“Andrei, the doctor said that because of the baby I need to know today whether the apartment is really ours or not. If that woman is still there, I will not endure all this anymore. You promised me that your mother would finally throw her out…”

The voice message ended.

Silence fell over the room.

Andrei’s eyes were closed.

And I suddenly realized that the apartment documents were only the beginning. At the bottom of the envelope I felt another small hard object. I reached in and took out a memory card hidden under the paper.

One word was written on its surface in my handwriting: “Backup.”

Andrei saw the card and stepped back for the first time…

Andrei stepped back until he leaned against the wall.

“What is that?” Galina asked.

There was no anger left in her voice now. Only fear remained.

The memory card looked like a small piece of black plastic, but it felt heavy in my hand. For four years I had recorded everything: transfers, contracts, letters, and even the conversations in which Andrei told me not to tell his mother the truth.

“Where did you find it?” Andrei asked me.

“Where you never looked. In my own bag.”

One of the movers opened a laptop. The only lamp left in the room cast a faint yellow patch on the wall.

“Turn it off,” Galina said.

“I will listen first,” I answered.

The first recording had been made three years earlier. I still remembered Andrei’s voice then—tired, frightened, almost childlike.

“Mother must not find out that the company can no longer pay,” he said. “If Marika pays for the apartment too, I will gain time.”

My voice sounded in the recording:

“And then?”

“Then everything will be fixed. I swear.”

Galina covered her mouth with her hand.

The second recording was from a year later. This time Galina’s voice could be heard.

“As long as she is childless, everything will remain yours,” she was saying to Andrei. “Valeria is young and will give you a child. Marika will leave in the end anyway.”

Andrei was silent in the recording.

I watched his face. He was hearing the words he had once heard from his mother, and now he was hearing them from the outside for the first time.

“You did not tell her anything?” I asked.

“Mother, be quiet,” he muttered.

The third recording had been made only a week earlier. Valeria’s voice was heard there already.

“If the apartment is in her name, make her sign that she gives it up. When the baby is born, your family needs this house.”

Then Galina answered:

“She will sign. She has nowhere to go.”

Andrei opened his eyes.

“Did you record this illegally?”

“No. The phone was left in the kitchen and recorded the sound by itself. I only transferred it.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

“Because I always protected you. This time I protected myself.”

Galina suddenly screamed:

“You wanted to destroy our family!”

“No, Galina. I no longer wanted to continue your lies.”

Andrei struck the table with his hand. The round stain left on the wooden surface moved.

“I was doing everything because of you!”

“No. You were doing it through me. That is something else.”

At that moment someone knocked on the door. My lawyer, Tamar, entered the room. In her hand she held a bundle of the landlord’s keys.

“Sorry I am late,” she said. “But I chose the time exactly.”

Andrei looked at her.

“Who are you?”

“Ms. Marika’s lawyer. And the person who officially sent notice this morning that you may no longer remain illegally in the apartment.”

Galina collapsed into a chair.

Tamar looked toward me.

“There is one more thing. Leonid called you.”

My heart contracted.

“What did he say?”

“He told me that his grandmother had lied to him all his life. And that he now wants to meet you.”

Andrei hid his face in his hands.

“He will not endure this.”

“He has already endured it,” I said.

Tamar’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, then her color changed.

“Marika, Leonid is on his way. But he is not alone in the car.”

“Who is he with?”

Tamar answered me, and at that moment I realized that the betrayal I had heard in the recordings had not been the greatest danger.

“With the police. He has documents that change everything about Andrei’s company…”

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