“Poor girl! Without my son, you’d have absolutely nothing!” my mother-in-law snapped in front of everyone at the table. I slowly put down my fork. Then I looked at Carmen. “Would you like to see the apartment documents, or should I show you my bank statement first?”
The smile vanished from her face.
My husband, Javier, sitting to my right, stopped chewing. His sister Lucía, who had been looking at her phone since lunch began, suddenly raised her head.
Even Antonio, Carmen’s husband, put down his glass.
It was a little after three that Sunday afternoon, and until a few minutes earlier, we had been having a peaceful lunch at our place.
Well… as peaceful as lunch with Carmen could ever be.
She had started by criticizing our new dining chairs.
“They must have cost a fortune.”
I hadn’t replied.
Then she noticed the new coffee machine in the kitchen.
“Another unnecessary expense.”
I kept eating.
Then she looked at my blouse.
“Is that new too?”
“Yes.”
“How much was it?”
I looked up.
“Why?”
She shrugged.
“I’m just asking.”
“Then I’m just answering: an amount I can afford.”
Lucía suppressed a little laugh.
Carmen shot her a stern look.
Javier tried to change the subject.
“Anyone want more potatoes?”
Nobody answered.
Carmen clearly wasn’t finished.
She slowly looked around our living room.
The sofa.
The television.
The lamps.
The curtains we had replaced two months earlier.
Then she sighed.
“Honestly, Elena, you live very well.”
“Yes.”
“Very, very well.”
“I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“I’m not asking you to apologize.”
She paused.
“But a little gratitude wouldn’t hurt.”
I frowned.
“Gratitude to whom?”
Carmen gave a small laugh.
“Are you joking?”
“No.”
She nodded toward Javier.
“My son.”
Javier immediately put down his fork.
“Mom…”
“What? I’m only telling the truth.”
“What truth?” I asked.
Carmen straightened in her chair.
“All this.”
She gestured around her.
“This apartment. The furniture. Your trips. Your clothes. Your comfortable little life.”
I looked at her without saying anything.
She continued.
“Ever since you married Javier, your standard of living has completely changed.”
This time Javier stepped in.
“Mom, stop.”
“Why? Because she doesn’t like hearing the truth?”
“Because what you’re saying isn’t true.”
But Carmen was no longer listening to him.
She was staring at me.
“Some women should remember where they came from.”
Lucía put her phone down on the table.
“Mom…”
“You stay out of this.”
Then Carmen turned back to me.
“Poor girl! Without my son, you’d have absolutely nothing!”
The silence that followed was almost perfect.
I slowly put down my fork.
Calmly, I wiped my fingers with my napkin.
Then I asked:
“Would you like to see the apartment documents, or should I show you my bank statement first?”
Carmen blinked.
“What?”
“You just said that without Javier, I’d have nothing.”
“So?”
“So let’s check.”
Javier ran a hand over his face.
He already knew exactly where this conversation was heading.
Carmen, however, smiled again.
“Elena, I don’t need to see your papers.”
“They might be educational.”
“I know perfectly well that this apartment belongs to Javier too.”
“No.”
Her smile froze.
“Excuse me?”
“This apartment belongs to me.”
“You’re married.”
“Yes.”
“So it belongs to both of you.”
“No.”
“Elena, don’t treat me like an idiot.”
I stood up.
Carmen watched my every move.
I walked over to the small cabinet beside the bookcase, opened a drawer, and took out a folder.
When I returned to the table, Javier sighed.
“I warned you, Mom.”
“Warned me about what?”
I pulled out a copy of the property deed.
“Look at the date.”
Carmen didn’t take the document.
“I don’t have my glasses.”
Antonio held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
Carmen turned sharply toward him.
“Antonio, that’s not necessary.”
“I’m curious.”
I handed him the document.
He looked it over for a few seconds.
“March 2014.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Then I looked at Carmen.
“I bought this apartment in March 2014.”
She remained silent.
“Javier and I met in June 2017.”
Lucía’s mouth opened slightly.
I continued.
“So I had already owned this apartment for more than three years when I met your son.”
Carmen crossed her arms.
“With a mortgage, I assume.”
“Yes.”
Her expression immediately changed.
“There! So Javier helped you pay it off.”
“No.”
“Of course he did.”
I pulled out another document.
“The mortgage was fully paid off in February 2019.”
“So?”
“We got married in September 2020.”
Antonio looked up at Carmen.
Lucía glanced at her brother.
Javier calmly drank his water.
Carmen searched for something to say.
“But Javier was already living here.”
“Yes.”
“So he contributed.”
“To groceries and household bills.”
“There you go!”
I smiled.
“Do you pay the electricity bill at your house, Carmen?”
She frowned.
“Of course.”
“Does that mean your electricity provider owns part of your house?”
Lucía burst out laughing.
She immediately tried to disguise it as a cough.
Carmen turned red.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same thing.”
I put the documents away.
But Carmen had no intention of giving up.
“Fine. You had an apartment.”
“I still do.”
“But what about everything else?”
“What everything else?”
“This life.”
She gestured toward the living room again. “The trips. The restaurants. The clothes. The car. You’re not seriously going to claim Javier doesn’t pay for anything.”
“I never claimed that.”
“So I’m right.”
“No.”
She stared at me.
I sat back down.
“Javier and I have a joint account for household expenses. We both put a certain amount into it every month.”
“And who earns more?”
Javier put down his glass.
“Mom, that’s none of your business.”
But this time I smiled.
“No, Javier. It’s fine.”
I looked at Carmen.
“For the last two years?”
She nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
“Me.”
She went still. “What do you mean, you?”
“I earn more than Javier.”
Lucía turned toward her brother.
“Seriously?”
Javier shrugged.
“Yes.”
Carmen gave a small, disbelieving laugh.
“A lot more?”
“Mom…”
“I’m just asking.”
I answered.
“About thirty percent more last year.”
Carmen’s expression changed.
She looked at her son.
“Why have you never told me that?”
Javier frowned.
“Why would I report our salaries to you?”
“I’m your mother.”
“And not our accountant.”
Antonio smiled behind his glass.
Carmen noticed.
“You think this is funny?”
“A little.”
She turned back to me.
“Even if you earn well now, Javier must have helped you in the beginning.”
That was when I realized she would never stop on her own.
Every time one of her claims fell apart, she simply invented another one.
So I picked up my phone.
“Fine.”
“What are you doing?”
“You wanted to talk about money.”
I opened my banking app.
Javier looked at me.
“Elena, you don’t have anything to prove.”
“I know.”
I looked up at Carmen.
“But sometimes five minutes of proof can save you five years of comments.”
Lucía smiled.
I opened the history of my savings account.
Then I placed the phone in front of Carmen.
She hesitated.
“I don’t want to see that.”
“Thirty seconds ago, you knew exactly who was financing my life.”
“I never said…”
“You literally just called me a poor girl who would have nothing without your son.”
Antonio discreetly cleared his throat.
Carmen finally picked up the phone.
She looked at the screen.
Her expression changed.
She scrolled through a few lines.
Then a few more.
“This is your account?” “Yes.”
“Your personal account?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since before I was married.”
She handed the phone back much faster than she had taken it.
“I don’t even understand why you’re showing me this.”
“Because you decided to discuss my finances in front of everyone.”
“I only meant that Javier gave you stability.”
This time my husband burst out laughing.
Carmen stared at him in shock.
“What?”
Javier shook his head.
“Mom, when I met Elena, she already had her own apartment, her own car, and a job.”
He paused.
“I was renting a two-bedroom apartment with Marc.”
Lucía burst out laughing.
“That’s right! I’d forgotten about that apartment.”
“Thanks, Lucía,” Javier said.
“With that horrible brown sofa?”
“Thank you very much.”
Even Antonio was laughing now. Carmen, however, didn’t find any of it amusing.
“You can laugh, but family isn’t just about money.”
“Exactly,” I replied.
She looked at me.
“What?”
“Family isn’t just about money. That’s why I don’t understand why you spend so much time calculating what your son supposedly pays for me.”
Carmen opened her mouth.
I continued before she could answer.
“For years, every time I buy something, you ask how much it cost. Every time we travel, you assume Javier paid. Every time a new piece of furniture arrives here, you say your son works to pay for my whims.”
Javier nodded slowly.
“She’s right.”
Carmen turned toward him.
“You’re taking her side?”
“This isn’t about taking sides.”
“I’m your mother.”
“And she’s my wife.”
“Of course. Obviously.”
I crossed my arms.
“Carmen, do you want to know what’s really strange?”
“What now?” “You’ve never once wondered whether I might have helped your son.”
She fell silent.
Javier looked at me.
“Elena…”
“No, it’s not a secret.”
I looked at Carmen.
“Three years ago, when Javier wanted to change jobs, he spent almost four months on a significantly reduced income.”
Carmen frowned.
“Four months?”
“Yes.”
She looked at her son.
“You never told me.”
“Because it wasn’t your business.”
I continued.
“During that period, I paid almost all our expenses.”
“Javier had savings.”
“Yes. And I told him not to drain them just because he was changing careers.”
Carmen remained silent.
“And the following year,” I added, “when he wanted to take a professional training course, who do you think paid for it?”
Javier put his hand on my arm.
“Elena…”
“How much?” Antonio asked.
Carmen shot him an angry look.
I answered anyway.
“A little over four thousand euros.”
Antonio gave a low whistle.
“And the money came from my personal account.” Carmen was now staring at her plate.
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
She looked up.
“What problem?”
“You don’t know.”
I spoke calmly.
“You don’t know how much I earn. You don’t know what I own. You don’t know how we divide our expenses. You don’t know who helped whom, or when.”
I paused.
“But that never stops you from having a very definite opinion about it.”
Nobody spoke.
Even Lucía wasn’t smiling anymore.
Carmen picked up her glass of water.
“I was only trying to defend my son.”
Javier sighed.
“Defend me from what?”
She didn’t answer.
“Elena isn’t taking advantage of me, Mom.”
“I never used those words.”
“You just said she’d have nothing without me.”
“It was just an expression.” “A humiliating one,” Javier replied.
Carmen put her glass down sharply.
“Fine! I get it! You’re all against me.”
Antonio rolled his eyes.
“Carmen, nobody is against you.”
“You too?”
“I’m just saying you could have checked the facts before accusing someone.”
Carmen grabbed her handbag from the chair beside her.
“I think I’m going home.”
Nobody tried to stop her.
She stood up.
But when she reached the entrance, she turned back toward me.
“I admit that maybe I was wrong about the apartment.”
I raised an eyebrow slightly.
“Only about the apartment?”
She pressed her lips together.
Javier waited.
So did Lucía.
Finally, Carmen exhaled.
“And maybe about a few other things too.”
It wasn’t exactly an apology.
But coming from her, it was almost historic.
She put on her coat.
Antonio stood up too.
Before leaving, he leaned slightly toward me.
“For what it’s worth, I would’ve started with the bank statement.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
Carmen called from the hallway:
“Antonio!”
“I’m coming.” The door closed behind them.
For a few seconds, nobody said anything.
Then Lucía looked at Javier.
“So when you two met, you really were living in that little apartment with the brown sofa?”
Javier closed his eyes.
“Why does everyone remember that sofa?”
“Because it was awful.”
I started laughing.
Javier looked at me.
“You too?”
“Especially me.”
He shook his head, then took my hand.
“You didn’t have to show her your bank account.”
“I know.” “Or the documents.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
I looked at the door Carmen had just walked through.
“Because after three years of hearing that I live off her son, I wanted her to finally understand one thing.”
“What?”
I calmly picked up my coffee cup.
“That in our marriage, neither of us supports the other.”
I looked at Javier.
“We built our life together.”
He smiled.
And Lucía raised her glass.
“I’ll drink to that.”