The sixtieth birthday of Zinaida Petrovna, my mother-in-law. A round date, just like the massive table that had been squeezed with difficulty into the cramped living room.
The table sagged under the weight of food prepared over three days. The aspic trembled with every step of the neighbors upstairs, bowls of vegetable salad were stacked one on top of another, and the smell of cakes was so thick and filling it felt as if you could cut it with a knife.
I sat right on the edge, near the balcony door, feeling like an intruder in my own family.
Next to me sat my husband, Pavel, methodically eating herring under a fur coat.
Pavel was a man as solid as a cast-iron radiator, but he had one serious flaw — he sincerely believed that all women’s conflicts would dissolve on their own if you simply ignored them.
Across from us sat his sister Lena with her husband Artur.
Lena was wearing a gold dress covered in sequins that stretched dangerously across her hips. She glittered like a Christmas tree in a shopping mall. Around her neck was a massive chain as thick as a finger, and in her ears hung hoop earrings.
Beside her sat Artur — dark-skinned, gloomy, self-assured. The owner of three car repair shops and two car washes. He ate in silence, occasionally throwing proud glances at his five-year-old twin daughters, who were squealing as they ran around the table.
Alicia and Milana — fiery red-haired, freckled, with milky-white skin and upturned noses. Artur called them his “little foxes” and, it seemed, never once asked himself how such a red pigment had appeared in his completely black-haired family.
The conflict had been smoldering for a long time. That evening, warmed by cognac and the attention of the guests, Lena decided to pour gasoline on the fire.
It had started an hour earlier.
As soon as we entered the apartment, Lena stopped us in the hallway. She scanned my son, Danka, whom I had persuaded for a long time to put on a white shirt.
“Oh, Danka, hi,” she sang, pinching his cheek so hard that he whimpered. “You’re so… compact. Pavel, do you even feed him? My girls were already a head taller at his age!”
“He’s normal,” Pavel muttered. “He takes after me. I was small as a kid too.”
“After you?” Lena giggled, throwing a knowing glance toward their mother peeking out of the kitchen. “You had a broad build. And this one? A little chicken: ears sticking out, button nose. Olga, do you give him vitamins or are you saving money?”
“We develop his brain, Lena,” I snapped.
“Oh, here we go again with your teacher talk. ‘Brain’… The main thing is that he’s healthy. And my girls — blood and milk! Pure breed!”
The mother-in-law immediately chimed in from the kitchen.
“Yes, Lena took after her father, may he rest in peace. Big, striking. And Pavel… well, Pavel is fine too, but the grandson… well.”
Later, when the men went out to the balcony to smoke, I went into the kitchen to help slice bread. That was my mistake — the kitchen was Lena’s kingdom.
She demonstratively spooned red caviar from a large jar into a crystal bowl.
“Olga, slice the bread thinner,” she ordered without looking at me. “We’ve got plenty of caviar, Artur brought whole crates.”
“I’m slicing it normally.”
“And Pavel looks so gloomy. Out of money again? You could at least buy the child something decent, not those jeans like an orphan. Artur orders Dior for ours through personal buyers.”
“He’s comfortable,” I replied. “He’s a child, not a display mannequin.”
“Comfortable… That’s an excuse for the poor. You’d better focus more on your tutoring instead of sitting on my brother’s neck.”
“I earn more than Pavel. And we paid off the mortgage last month.”
“Fairy tales!” she snorted. “Mom, did you hear that? Olga’s a millionaire!”
The mother-in-law sighed, stirring the potatoes.
“Don’t provoke her, Lena. Though I do feel sorry for Pavel. He works himself to the bone, and at home there’s neither warmth nor gratitude. She even came to the jubilee empty-handed.”
“We bought the multicooker you asked for.”
“Appliances aren’t a gift from the heart. Lena gave a gold bracelet. That’s love.”
At the table, by the third toast, Lena was clearly drunk.
“I’m looking at your son, Pavel,” she said loudly, “and my heart breaks. He’s not our blood. Not our breed! Look at my girls — fire! And this one… a runt! Are you sure Olga didn’t cheat on you while you were on the road?”
Silence fell.
“Are you stupid?” Pavel asked calmly.
“I’m a sister! I care about the purity of the family! Get a DNA test!”
Artur nodded.
“A man should know whom he’s raising. I’m one hundred percent sure about my children.”
That’s when I stood up.
I spoke calmly, like a biology teacher with fifteen years of experience.
I laid out genetics for them like a lesson. Dark genes, the recessiveness of red hair, a probability below a fraction of a percent.
Lena grew paler with every minute.
I took out my phone.
“Taken at the summer house. The neighbor Boris. Red-haired, freckled. He built your sauna four years ago. Lived there for a month. The girls were born nine months later.”
Artur looked at the screen. Then at his daughters.
It wasn’t resemblance. It was a copy.
The next day he did the tests.
The results were merciless.
The girls were not his.
The divorce was fast and ruthless. The prenuptial agreement left Lena with nothing. There was no child support.
Boris refused any responsibility.
Now Lena lives with her mother in a two-room apartment, sleeping on a fold-out couch. She works in a discount store.
And in our home, it’s peaceful.
No one talks about “breed” anymore. No one measures my son with their eyes.
And when my mother-in-law calls, she speaks quietly and politely.
Because she knows there are still other resemblances stored in my memory.
But that is a completely different story.
