“If you’re really as poor and miserable as you say, then you can live on dried bread and water. Don’t ask us for any more money!”

The voice on the phone was weak, trembling with the weight of habitual despair.

Ethan, hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table, clicked aimlessly through pages of mortgage offers, his eyes glazed over. He felt the sudden tension in his body, a tightness he couldn’t shake off. He cast a quick, almost guilty glance at his wife. Sarah stood at the stove, her back turned, the faintest tremor in the muscles of her shoulders. The knife in her hand rapped against the cutting board with an unmistakable force. She knew that voice. That voice had only one purpose: to reach into their already strained budget and pull out a few more bills they couldn’t afford. They had been doing this for years now, scraping by with two salaries, cutting corners wherever they could.

“Hi, Mom. What’s going on?” Ethan tried to make his voice sound light, but it came out flat, heavy with something he couldn’t name.

“Same as always, Ethan,” came the sigh from the other side of the line, and Sarah could already hear the practiced lilt of his mother’s voice, as though this was a well-rehearsed script. “My blood pressure is through the roof again, my head’s spinning, and my eyes keep going dark. The doctor gave me some new pills, but they’re so expensive, it’s like they were made of gold. I can barely get out of bed, and I’m down to my last potato.” She paused, letting the words hang in the air, as if she were allowing them to sink into Ethan’s soul. “I don’t know how I’ll make it to my next pension check…”

The clattering of the knife stopped. Sarah, her body still stiff, didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. She had heard this performance before. The tragedy, the pleading, the soft but persistent guilt trip. And this time, she couldn’t swallow it. Ethan knew that too. He lowered his head, staring at the phone in his hand, guilt already settling like a weight in his chest. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t just his mother needing help. This was a demand wrapped in desperation, a silent accusation that he wasn’t doing enough.

“Don’t say that, Mom. We’ll always help,” Ethan said, the words slipping from his mouth before he could stop them. “I’ll transfer you some money right now. You can get what you need.” He didn’t meet Sarah’s eyes, couldn’t. The silence between them was thick, like a fog that neither one could step through.

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s so awkward. You’re young, you need it more than I do…” came the practiced resistance on the other end, but even Sarah could hear the relief in the shaky breath of his mother.

“It’s not awkward. Just wait a minute, okay?” Ethan said, his voice tight, clipped. Without waiting for a response, he ended the call, the click of the phone louder than it should have been.

He didn’t move right away. He sat there, staring at the black screen of his phone, as if waiting for something — perhaps for the world to make sense again, or for his guilt to dissipate.

Sarah set the knife down on the counter. The metallic click it made against the cutting board seemed to echo in the sudden silence that stretched between them. She didn’t have to ask the question. She didn’t have to speak the words, because they were already hanging in the air, suffocating them both. Her back was straight, her posture rigid with a controlled anger that Ethan could feel pressing against his skin. She didn’t say it, but the question burned in her eyes: Are you going to fall for it again?

Ethan couldn’t answer her gaze. He didn’t even try. He simply picked up his phone again, opened the banking app, and started typing. His fingers moved quickly across the screen, but his heart wasn’t in it. Sarah watched him, her arms folded tight across her chest, her lips pressed into a thin, unforgiving line.

“Again?” she finally spoke, her voice quiet, but the words felt like a slap. “Again, Ethan? Exactly one week after our payday. You could set a clock by it.”

He didn’t look up from his phone. He didn’t have the energy to argue. “She’s my mom, Sarah. She’s alone. Who else is she going to call?”

Sarah’s anger flared, but she kept it controlled. “Calling is one thing. This… this act, with the last potato, is something else. Ethan, we’re saving for a down payment. We’re cutting out vacations, new clothes, even basic pleasures, and every single penny counts. And your mother takes it all. Every single time.”

Ethan could feel the shame prickling his skin, the guilt boiling up inside him. He didn’t have the words to explain how he felt. How he was caught between the loyalty to his mother and the responsibility he felt toward Sarah, toward their future.

“She’s an elderly woman! She’s sick, she has problems,” he said, grasping at any excuse. But even he didn’t believe it anymore.

“Elderly doesn’t mean truthful,” Sarah shot back, her voice cold. “Deep down, you don’t believe her. You just don’t want to admit it, because it’s easier to send the money and silence the guilt. But you’re doing it at the cost of our future.”

He was silent. The weight of her words pressed on him harder than any argument could. He could feel the words twisting inside him, but he didn’t know how to fight back. He picked up his phone and, with trembling hands, made the transfer. Ten thousand dollars. It felt like a betrayal, even as he pressed “Send.”

A notification popped up on his phone: Transfer Completed. He put the phone down on the table without looking at Sarah, who had already walked to the living room. He stood up, his body heavy with the weight of what he had just done.

“I’m going for a walk,” he muttered.

Sarah didn’t stop him. She didn’t even speak. She simply watched him leave, feeling the air in the room grow thick and suffocating. When the door closed behind him, the silence settled in like a physical presence, an impenetrable barrier between them.

The evening passed in the same quiet, oppressive stillness. Ethan came home an hour later, but he didn’t meet her gaze. He went straight to the TV, burying himself in it like a shield. Dinner was eaten in silence. Every movement between them was mechanical, like two strangers in the same space, moving around each other without touching.

Sarah could feel the distance between them growing, cold and unyielding. No words would change anything now. He had made his choice. And now, she had to make hers.

After dinner, she cleared the table, her mind spinning with thoughts she couldn’t quiet. She sat on the couch, her phone in her hand, mindlessly scrolling through a feed that seemed to mock her. It was full of other people’s happiness — children’s parties, new cars, exotic vacations. She barely registered it. She wasn’t looking for anything; she was just trying to drown out the thoughts swirling in her head.

Then she saw it.

Vicky, Ethan’s niece, had posted a photo album. The first photo was of her in a swimsuit, standing in front of an azure sea. The next photo showed a beautiful hotel balcony, then a lavish spread of food from an all-inclusive resort. The photos were staged, perfect. But something caught Sarah’s eye.

In the background, at a table near the pool, a group of older women sat laughing, glasses of cocktails in their hands. One of them, in a bright floral sundress, had thrown her head back and was laughing so freely that Sarah almost felt as if she could hear the sound through the photo. Her finger froze over the screen.

She zoomed in.

There, in the background, was Tamara — her mother-in-law. Tanned. Relaxed. With a glass of orange juice in hand. Not the sick, destitute woman who had been pleading for money just days before.

A chill shot through Sarah. The lie was too bold, too blatant. All the months of claims about expensive pills, the “last potatoes” — all of it had been a cover. A cover to pay for this vacation, these cocktails, this carefree laughter.

Without thinking, Sarah grabbed Ethan’s phone. It was ringing again, his mother’s name flashing on the screen.

She answered it, her voice calm, unnervingly calm. “Tamara?”

The line went silent for a beat. Then, she heard the familiar sound of Tamara’s distress, the sobs, the rapid-fire words. But this time, it was different. Sarah didn’t listen to the excuses. She didn’t respond. She simply waited until the words on the other end of the line paused, and then spoke: “Don’t worry. The money will come. I’ll bring it myself.”

She didn’t rush. She didn’t hurry. Sarah took her time, letting the moment settle before she went to the car, her mind set with cold, surgical clarity.

She didn’t go to the bank. She didn’t go to their usual stores. She drove to the outskirts, to a grim discount market, the kind of place people went to for survival, not for choice.

There, she picked up the basics — a bag of cheap pasta, a bag of barley, stale rusks. Nothing more. She paid with a crumpled bill and change that felt like pennies, but it was enough. She put the food in a plastic bag and drove to Tamara’s apartment.

The door didn’t open right away. There was a shuffle, the sound of slippers on the floor, then the distinct click of a lock. Tamara stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame. Her face was pale, a hand pressed dramatically to her forehead.

“Sarah, darling, come in… I’m so weak, I barely got out of bed,” she croaked.

Sarah didn’t say a word. She stepped inside, her gaze cold. Without a word, she walked straight to the kitchen, where Tamara followed her, her eyes glued to the bag in Sarah’s hands.

Without a single change in her expression, Sarah emptied the bag. The pasta scattered across the table with a soft, plastic clatter. The barley followed with a dull thump, and the rusks, dry and hard, fell with a brittle crack.

Tamara froze, her eyes wide, her mouth open in disbelief. The act was over. No more lies, no more guilt.

“What… is this?” Tamara hissed, her voice faltering.

“If you’re so poor, live on this,” Sarah said, her voice even and calm. “You won’t get any more money from us.”

Tamara took a step forward, her anger bubbling to the surface, but Sarah didn’t flinch. The woman’s posture crumbled, her anger dissolving into panic as she stared at the ruined table. She reached for her phone, fingers trembling as she dialed Ethan’s number.

“Ethan, your wife humiliated me! She accused me of lying, of faking! She dumped food on my table like I’m some animal!”

Sarah didn’t respond. She simply took out her own phone. Her fingers worked quickly, selecting the photos she had saved — Tamara at the pool, laughing with a drink, the sunset shot, and the video of her dancing on the beach. With a tap, she sent them to Ethan.

The notification came through almost instantly.

Tamara didn’t notice at first. She was still ranting, still trying to manipulate the situation. But then the phone went quiet. Ethan’s voice came through, clear and distant.

“Mom, I saw the photos.”

The words were blunt, devoid of any emotion, like a final verdict.

Tamara’s face drained of color. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t form the words. The game was over. The lies had been exposed.

Ethan spoke again, his voice colder than before: “There’s nothing to explain.”

Tamara stood frozen. The phone slipped from her hand, and she lowered her eyes to the table where the cheap food lay. Her eyes shifted from the pasta to the rusks and then back to Sarah, but there was no anger left, no tricks up her sleeve.

The silence was complete.

Sarah turned and walked out without a word, leaving Tamara alone in her clean kitchen, surrounded by the remnants of her own lies. As she closed the door behind her, the sound echoed like the final nail in a coffin.

Tamara was left alone, holding the phone, waiting for a call that would never come.