“Do you know what they call me in Irivka, Eugene?” asked Zoya Mykolayivna, suddenly cutting short her singing. “You’ll never guess. The singing mother-in-law!”
“You aren’t a mother-in-law yet, though!”
“But I have two daughters!”
“Mum, give it a rest! We’re fed up of hearing this!” called out the girls.
“Yes, you should stop banging on about it! You’ll be a granny before you are a mother-in-law,” said Tykhonovych.
“You as well, Dad, shut your mouth! Hold your gob, as they say here in Ukraine! Times are quite different now,” said Olya, continuing some old family debate.
Tykhonovych re-filled the glasses.
“I won’t pour any for you,” he yelled at his daughters, in feigned outrage.
“Look, we don’t need your moonshine anyway,” burst out Olga, who was fond of picking a quarrel with every
