A Celebration at Someone Else’s Expense”

Lidiya Sergeyevna was turning a glossy brochure from the restaurant “The Golden Fish” in her hands. The paper rustled pleasantly, the photos gleamed—each hall more beautiful than the last. Marble floors, champagne-colored draperies, glittering chandeliers, and place settings fit for a royal family. On the banquet menu page, a photo of exquisite salmon in a cream sauce was frozen beside miniature tartlets with red caviar.

“Forty years in the same place,” she murmured to herself. “Seventy isn’t just some little birthday. Treat yourself, Lidochka.”

Without hesitation, she picked up the phone and dialed her son.

“Andryusha, I found the most wonderful thing! An amazing restaurant! Can you imagine, there’s live music and a festive, all-inclusive menu. I want to celebrate my jubilee there.”

Andrey was sitting in his office, worn out from endless meetings. His eyes burned from the monitor; a tension headache gripped his temples. Hearing his mother’s voice, he automatically switched on the mode of polite patience.

“Mom, how much is it going to cost?” he asked cautiously, already sensing a catch.
“Don’t you worry about money!” Lidiya Sergeyevna waved it off cheerfully. “Once in a lifetime is allowed, right? Galina Petrovna said her son threw a banquet for her fifty-fifth—and look, he didn’t go broke!”

Lacking the strength to argue, Andrey nodded to himself.

“Alright, Mom. Do as you think best.”

That evening he shared the news with his wife as they were putting their son to bed.

“Do you understand what this means?” Marina spoke softly, trying not to wake the child. “A banquet for thirty people in the city center, live music… You know she’s expecting us to pay for all of it.”

“She didn’t say that outright,” Andrey shrugged. “And… maybe she’ll pay herself. She has her pension, some savings.”

Marina looked at him silently. She knew Lidiya Sergeyevna’s character far too well. His mother never considered it necessary to spend her own money on things she believed her son ought to cover. It had been that way with gifts for the grandson, a trip to a health resort, the kitchen renovation, even the new refrigerator.

“Savings,” she snorted as she stepped into the bathroom. “Her savings are our nerves.”

⸻

For the next two weeks, Lidiya Sergeyevna lived in a state of joyful anticipation. Her days were filled with calls, meetings with planners, and discussing details. She chose the most spacious hall in the restaurant, insisted on a canapé area by the entrance, ordered an exclusive cake shaped like a flowering tree, and hired a photographer experienced with weddings. Even the little things—like the tablecloth color or the centerpieces—were discussed with delighted seriousness.

“Mom, are you sure there won’t be more than thirty guests?” Andrey asked hopefully, listening yet again to the list of invitees.

“Well, maybe thirty-five,” Lidiya Sergeyevna tossed off casually. “You know how it is. Someone brings a husband, someone a daughter. The main thing is that there’s enough space and food for everyone.”

A chill ran down Andrey’s back. The party’s budget was growing by the day. He kept quiet, unsure how to convey the obvious: they didn’t have the money for this scale.

⸻

The day of the jubilee arrived. Marina woke with a headache. While Andrey ironed his shirt, she checked the banking apps once more. The past month’s expenses filled her with inner panic: loan payments, the child’s activities, the annual insurance—and now a banquet they hadn’t even been allowed to help organize.

“We need to talk to her,” Marina said, tying his tie. “Before the bill comes.”

“She organized everything herself,” Andrey waved it off. “So she’ll pay.”

“Do you really believe that?”

He didn’t answer.

⸻

In the evening the restaurant greeted them with light and scents—the delicate aroma of flowers, the faint steam from hot dishes, the clink of glasses. Dressed up in a turquoise dress with an embroidered collar, positively glowing with happiness, Lidiya Sergeyevna met them.

“Oh, my darling Andryusha! Marishka! I’m so glad!” She kissed them on both cheeks as if she hadn’t seen them in ages. “Look at these roses! That bouquet over there is from Valentina Nikolaevna, the neighbor from the first entrance!”

Marina forced a smile. Her gaze darted over the tables: champagne, caviar, plated hors d’oeuvres, waiters in white gloves. With every minute, the total sum of the banquet formed more clearly in her head. And that sum frightened her.

The celebration moved quickly: toasts, warm words, music, gifts. At one point, the restaurant manager approached their table and, bending over to Andrey, whispered:

“Excuse me. Could you please clarify who the bill should be presented to at the end of the evening?”

Andrey froze. He glanced at his mother—she was hugging another friend, oblivious to the conversation unfolding between him and the manager.

“Uh… one minute,” he stammered. “I’ll find out.”

Marina set her glass down silently. Her face had turned to stone.

“I told you,” she whispered.

“Marina, wait…”

“No, Andrey. I’m not keeping quiet.”

She stood and walked slowly to her mother-in-law. Lidiya Sergeyevna had just finished a slow dance with a neighbor from the dacha.

“Lidiya Sergeyevna,” Marina said quietly. “We were just asked about the bill. Is it in your name, or are we supposed to pay?”

Her mother-in-law raised a brow.

“And you weren’t planning to?”

Marina sighed.

“You organized everything. No one told us we’d be paying.”

“Well, who else, dear?” she smirked. “You’re family. Or did you think I’d pay for this out of my pension?”

“And why not?” Marina suddenly felt the tension release. “You didn’t ask whether we could afford it. You simply decided we were obligated. On what grounds, exactly?”

Guests began to turn their heads. Lidiya Sergeyevna paled. She wasn’t used to being addressed like that, especially in public.

“Marina, you’re overstepping,” she hissed through her teeth.

“No. I’m just saying what Andrey and I have kept quiet about for years,” Marina replied calmly. “You don’t consider it necessary to ask—you just expect. And this isn’t the first time.”

Andrey rose and joined his wife. His eyes were tired but resolute.

“Mom, I don’t want to ruin your evening. But Marina’s right. We’re not prepared to pay for this. If you’d discussed it with us in advance, maybe we would’ve helped. But now—sorry.”

Lidiya Sergeyevna stood there, at a loss for words. Her celebration was collapsing before her eyes.

“Well then, so be it!” she said defiantly. “I’ll pay myself. I’ll take out a loan if I have to. But know this: I never expected such audacity from my own son and his wife!”

⸻

The evening ended differently than anyone expected. The bill was substantial. Lidiya Sergeyevna did, in fact, take out a loan in her name. The very next morning she was already calling her friends, complaining about “the ungrateful youngsters” and “a family that doesn’t care about their mother.”

Andrey and Marina drove home in silence. Their five-year-old son slept in the back seat.

“You said it well,” Andrey finally said.

“I’m just tired of being convenient,” Marina replied. “Sometimes you need to set boundaries, even if it’s uncomfortable.”

“And her?”

“She’ll manage. She’s a strong woman. She just forgot that respect isn’t bought with a lavish banquet—it’s earned with attention, kindness, and honesty.”

The car pulled into the yard. A new day was beginning—without loud music, but with a quiet sense that everything had finally fallen into place.

“Payment for Silence”

A week passed. The festive photos from the banquet had spread through Lidiya Sergeyevna’s WhatsApp groups. In every picture she was the center of attention—sparkling dress, glass in hand, a smile that hinted at triumph.

“Kept your looks wonderfully!” “Lida, you’re a star!” “Elegance itself!” her friends commented, and at first Lidiya Sergeyevna felt on top of the world. But the farther it went, the colder she felt inside.

There was no call from Andrey. Marina kept silent. The grandson wasn’t brought over; they didn’t come for Sunday lunch. Out of pride, Lidiya Sergeyevna didn’t call herself, but every evening she wandered around the apartment in unbearable longing. The loan she’d taken out for the banquet had already begun to bite. The first payment was deducted automatically—and left her with a sense of humiliation.

⸻

Marina, meanwhile, didn’t feel the relief she’d expected, but a heavy aftertaste. The quarrel had freed them from his mother’s expectations, but it didn’t erase the guilt she felt. Not toward Lidiya Sergeyevna—toward herself. Her decision had been right, but harsh. And although Andrey increasingly said “that’s how it needed to be,” she noticed how often he now sat quietly in the evenings, uninterested in conversation.

On Wednesday she couldn’t take it anymore and said:

“You could call her.”

“And you wouldn’t mind?”

“I don’t mind you talking to your mother. I mind her once again climbing into our budget as if it’s a given.”

Andrey nodded, but didn’t call.

⸻

Lidiya Sergeyevna rang up Galya, Tamara, Irina—friends from the days when they all lived in the same yard and shared secrets on a bench. Her tales of the “ungrateful daughter-in-law” grew more dramatic each time.

“Imagine, there I am—looking lovely, the party in full swing—and she comes up and asks who’s going to pay! Right in front of everyone! I was so embarrassed! As if I’d ordered lunch on credit.”

“You don’t say!” her friends exclaimed in sympathy. “If anyone deserves such a party, it’s you. You should’ve said right away you were paying yourself and not expected anything from them. Young people are different now…”

After the third such talk, for the first time, Lidiya Sergeyevna thought: indeed, why had she expected it? Who had promised her? No one. She had simply… been sure.

⸻

She hadn’t seen her grandson in nearly a month. She ached for little Sasha. Her baby, her “bunny”—and not a single call, no visit. Every day she put a chocolate “Alenka” into a special box she privately called “the grandson’s ration.” Yesterday she added a coloring book.

When Marina finally called, her voice was taut.

“Hello, Lidiya Sergeyevna. We’ll be in your area—if you want, you can see Sasha.”

“Of course I want!” she exclaimed so sincerely that Marina hesitated on the other end. “Bring him. I’ll get everything ready. I’ll bake pies, and I downloaded a new game—‘Dinosaur Train,’ he likes that, doesn’t he?”

“Yes…” Marina faltered. “Just—no talk about that evening, alright? He shouldn’t hear it.”

“I understand,” Lidiya Sergeyevna said gently. “Everything will be calm.”

⸻

The visit with her grandson went surprisingly warmly. Sasha hugged his grandmother and told her how he’d drawn a volcano at kindergarten and found a pebble shaped like a heart on a walk. He ate pies, blew soap bubbles from the balcony, laughed sincerely. Watching him, for the first time in a month, Lidiya Sergeyevna felt lighter inside.

When Marina came to pick him up, an awkwardness hung between the women. Both lowered their eyes. Sasha clung to his grandmother and declared:

“I’m coming again! You didn’t finish the cartoon!”

Marina smiled—almost genuinely.

“Of course you are. If Grandma doesn’t mind.”

“By no means,” said Lidiya Sergeyevna. “Come every week if you like.”

They stood by the door, and Marina suddenly said:

“I didn’t want a fight. We were just struggling. Financially. Emotionally.”

“I understand,” sighed Lidiya Sergeyevna. “I just… really wanted it to be a celebration. So I could feel needed. Not old, not inconvenient, not forgotten. Just a woman who still has a reason to smile.”

“We didn’t forget you,” Marina said quietly. “We just didn’t know how to say ‘no’ to you.”

“And now you do?”

“Now we’re learning.”

⸻

When Andrey heard about the visit, he couldn’t find words at first.

“She… wasn’t angry?”

“No,” Marina said. “She missed us. And she’s hurting. But she doesn’t show it.”

“I thought she’d never admit she was wrong.”

“She didn’t admit it. But she didn’t demand anything either. That’s progress.”

⸻

A few more weeks passed. They gradually began to restore contact. On Saturdays, Marina would text, “We’ll come at three.” Lidiya Sergeyevna would make either blini, or syrniki, or charlotte—Sasha’s favorite treat. She no longer spoke about “the ungrateful ones,” didn’t bring up the banquet. Instead, she told how the pharmacy recommended a new balm for her joints, showed photos from her youth, retold jokes friends sent her on Odnoklassniki.

Andrey eventually started dropping by on his own. Once—for tea, then—to fix the faucet, then—just because.

“Mom,” he said one day, sitting in the kitchen, “you really did throw a great party. Maybe next time—talk it over with us?”

“The next time will be my eightieth,” she smirked. “If we live to it—we’ll discuss. Only let’s have it at the café near my house. Better yet—at the dacha, with shashlik. It’s cheaper, and the neighbors won’t eavesdrop.”

“Deal,” he smiled.

⸻

That evening, back home, Marina said to Andrey:

“You know, I didn’t snap because of the money. I was just tired of no one asking us.”

“Me too,” he admitted. “And I was tired of being stuck between you two.”

“I know. But maybe now it’ll be different?”

“Maybe,” he nodded. “We set boundaries. And she accepted them.”

“And didn’t get angry.”

“She got angry. But she chose not to destroy everything. Which means she loves us too—in her own way.”

⸻

Six months later, Lidiya Sergeyevna finished paying off the loan in full. She was proud of that. At New Year’s, she called her son herself:

“Listen, I was thinking… maybe we’ll come to you? I’ll bring Sasha his presents, we’ll play. And I’ll bake a cake—like before.”

“Of course, come, Mom,” Andrey said. “No restaurants.”

“Only if you don’t mind,” she added.

He paused for a second.

“Thank you for asking.”

They both smiled—each in their own way.