– Mom, hi, how are you?
– I’m fine.
– We were thinking maybe you could sell your apartment and move in with us.
– You don’t need me. Young people should live separately.
– You are so sad alone, and you would help us, and with the sale of your apartment we would pay off the mortgage.
– I don’t know, daughter.
– Okay, mom, I’m off to work.
The woman thought, it was not the first time her daughter started talking about selling the apartment. Maybe she should really agree and help with her granddaughter. The woman used to be a teacher of algebra and geometry, sometimes she tutored her granddaughter, but she did not see any special attraction to mathematics.
In the evening, the daughter came to her mother with the whole family. They sat down to drink tea and started their conversation about selling the apartment again.
– Mom, what do you think? You are sad alone, and suddenly something happens to you, you will get weak and will not be able to take a pill in time or call an ambulance, after all, your age, and here you will be under supervision.
– Grandma, let’s move to us, we will always be together.
It was already a controlling argument.
– All right, then. She said, sighing heavily, her heart was not calm.
Her daughter and her husband moved the woman to their place, sold the apartment very quickly, threw away most of the things. She looked sadly at all this. They took the money from the sale of the apartment, paid off their mortgage.
At first everything was fine, the woman took care of her granddaughter, took her to school and taught her lessons. Then her daughter asked her to cook for her and her husband, because she was tired, and her mother was just sitting at home, then came cleaning, washing, ironing. All the housework was gradually transferred to her.
– Today’s pilaf is not very good… the rice is stuck together and there is not enough salt! When you have a pension, we run out of money, we still feed you, pay for utilities, you do not pay at all.
The son-in-law was picking on her more and more, and her daughter was silent, even stopped calling her mom as before. She knew that it was impossible to agree to sell the apartment, and still could not stand it, she let herself be persuaded. The woman went to her room, locked herself in, she was so offended that she even cried.
Her daughter does not need her, she needs a free housekeeper and money. Where to go now, the apartment was sold. The woman remembered about a small house on the outskirts of the city.
She waited for her pension, packed a small bag and went to the house with her things.
The house was abandoned, but it was obvious that someone was living there. The woman carefully entered the house, the door was open, a new lock was inserted in the door.
– Is someone here? she called with apprehension.
Out came a young man of thirty, a little overgrown, in old worn clothes.
– What are you doing here, grandma?
– What are you doing here? This is my house.
– Yours? It’s been empty for a long time, it looked completely abandoned, I had no place to live, so I decided to stay here for a while. Please don’t call the police, I haven’t done anything wrong.
The woman entered the house, it was unexpectedly clean and smelled of food.
– And I also have no place to live in my old age, so I remembered this house.
– Come in, sit down at the table, I will feed you. There are two rooms and a small kitchen, I can live in one room. And for that I will fix your roof, it is leaking, fix the fence, and I can cook food, I have no money to pay you for housing.
– But stay.
The woman thought that she really could not cope with such an abandoned and old house and a man’s hands would not hurt her.
The daughter called her mother only a few days later, asked where she was and did not even call back, seemed happy that her mother had left.
At first, the woman was wary of her resident. But he did something around the house every day, was polite and sociable. When he came, they talked and had dinner together.
– They started paying me properly, and I can move out.
– It’s not good for you to live here with me.
– No, it’s good, you’re like a mother to me. I just did not want to use your kindness for a long time.
– Let’s live together for the time being, I need help around the house, a man’s hand, the house is old, I can’t cope with it alone, and it’s boring somehow alone.
So they lived together, repaired the house a little, it even began to look quite decent.
– I think she is living badly here, and she has some stranger. And what happened to the house, maybe we should spend the weekend here in the fresh air.
– Go to your family, there is nothing for you to do here, and do not come to me, I have a new family now, you practically kicked me out and did not even care.
– Come on, mom, we did not kick you out at all, you wanted to leave.
– Of course, you will not only want to leave you, you will run away.
That’s how sometimes people who don’t know each other care about each other more than the closest ones!
