“Alexey, can you hear me or not?” Maria Ivanovna clicked the phone as if it were not a smartphone but a cockroach on the wall.
“Tomorrow. I said — tomorrow. Not the day after, not whenever your fancy ‘deadlines’ are. My potatoes are sprouting. If you don’t come, then forget it — you’re no longer my son.”
Alexey stared out the window without answering. In the yard, the neighbor’s dachshund was jumping, barking at the trash bin. The sun hit the glass, and the kitchen smelled of freshly brewed coffee. Everything was painfully ordinary — and in that ordinariness lived the trap.
“Mom, I’m working. Olga has a presentation, and I have a meeting with a contractor. We can’t just drop everything on a snap.”
“Uh-huh, I see. So your mother-in-law can just die, but they have their slides and circles.” Maria Ivanovna raised her voice.
“You, by the way, were still in diapers when you were at that summer house. Everything was built by your and your father’s hands. Now you don’t care!”
“Dad, by the way, never shouted,” Alexey almost said out loud but stopped himself. Scenes from childhood flashed in his mind: his father silently fixing the shed, his mother conducting his hammer like a conductor with an opera.
“Well, then live as you want!” she finished with bitterness in her voice.
“But don’t complain later that your son has a character like a stranger.”
Olga, sitting on the edge of the table, listened silently. She held a cup, but the coffee had long since cooled. She sighed.
“So?”
“She said: if we don’t come — we’re no longer her family,” Alexey snorted.
“Just like in TV shows. Only not with Mexicans, but with fools.”
“With potatoes, more precisely,” Olga said quietly.
“And fools. Very symbolic.”
“I knew spring was coming,” Alexey rubbed his neck.
“I should have run into the woods in March. Without any connection.”
“Or buy tickets to Dubai, like normal people.” Olga took a sip and grimaced.
“It’s cold. Like our family atmosphere.”
Pause.
“I can go alone,” she suddenly offered.
“She still doesn’t think you know how to dig. But I do. Female solidarity. With a shovel.”
“Don’t even think about it,” he said sharply.
“She’s been holding a grudge against you since last New Year. Still remembers how you said the food was ‘a bit greasy.’”
“I only joked that the cutlets could kill a vegan,” Olga shrugged.
“But yes, apparently, I ruined my karma with that.”
“I think she dreams that I’ll go back to Lenka,” Alexey smirked.
“Remember? The one who called Mom ‘Marisha.’ Mom adored her. Terrible.”
“Of course. Lenka gave her a vacuum cleaner for her birthday,” Olga said dryly.
“And I, the fool, gave a book.”
“But you gave me the feeling that I’m a person,” Alexey said unexpectedly seriously.
“Not just an appendage to a shovel.”
Olga smiled quietly. But only briefly.
At lunchtime, a message arrived. Threatening as a gunshot:
“My blood pressure is high. If you don’t come — I’ll call an ambulance. Let them know the old woman has neither children nor conscience. M.I.” Olga sat staring at the screen.
“Alexey, this is no longer a request. This is blackmail.”
“That’s Maria Ivanovna,” he sighed.
“She’s like a summer house: familiar, but exhausting.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you quarrel with her,” Olga said quietly.
“But I don’t want to be a victim either. I already walk on eggshells around her — one wrong step…”
“Escape to the bushes,” he added.
“To the raspberries.”
“To the nettles, rather.” She stood up.
“You decide. I want to stay.”
“And if her blood pressure is real?”
“Then let the ambulance come. They, unlike us, know how to help, not lecture,” Olga replied quietly.
“And they won’t have complaints about my cutlets.”
Alexey was silent. Everything boiled inside him. He loved his mother. Yes. But why did that always mean sacrifice? Why was her idea of ‘family’ always built on ultimatums and digs?
“Or am I a bad son?”
Late at night, he finally called.
“Mom, we’re not coming. Olga has an important presentation tomorrow. I won’t abandon her. And please, don’t write me such things. It’s hard.”
Silence hung on the other end. Then a short beep.
Olga came out of the shower. Towel wrapped, wet hair, tired.
“Well?”
“She hung up. And for the first time, I didn’t run after her with apologies.”
“It’s time to buy an air conditioner. It’s too hot here,” she said.
“Especially when someone grows up.”
A week passed. Maria Ivanovna didn’t call. No hints. No messages like, “How’s your Olga? Still not divorced?” No complaints about blood pressure, atmosphere pressure, or pickled cucumbers. Complete silence.
“She’s offended,” said Alexey.
“To death.”
“Like her potatoes,” Olga responded.
“Only without hope to sprout.”
It was Friday, seven in the evening. Olga, still in an office blouse, flipped through contracts. Alexey gloomily drank tea. Not coffee — that was a protest, symbolic though it was.
“Think she’ll be silent until her birthday and then do the ‘you forgot, so now you’re forever strangers’ trick?”
“No. I think she’s plotting revenge. Strategically,” Alexey frowned.
“Like, transfer the summer house to the neighbor’s cat. Or to Lenka.”
“The one who calls her ‘Marisha’?”
“Yeah. With a teaching degree and a brilliant ability to pretend she cares about how beets grow.”
“Cats are more honest.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang. Not a bell — a tolling bell. As if someone was ordering not pizza, but judgment.
Maria Ivanovna stood in the doorway. In a gray coat, with a fashionable bag that usually contained either pills or a purely theoretical will. Behind her — a suitcase. Real, on wheels.
“Hello, children,” she said, smiling.
“Decided to live with you for a week. The summer house got moldy. Like our relationship.”
Olga froze. Alexey blinked in confusion.
“What about hotels?” Olga breathed out.
“I mean — we have a studio apartment.”
“I’m not a tourist but a mother. Your own. Closer than anyone. See, there’s a free corner in your kitchen. I’m quiet as a mouse in the morning. Only porridge and ‘Good morning.’”
Alexey instinctively reached for his neck — to check his pulse.
Fifteen minutes later she was sitting on the couch, wearing Olga’s house slippers. Drinking compote. Praising it. That was alarming.
“I brought you something,” she said, pulling an envelope from her bag.
“A will. Just in case. I’m an old woman, who knows…”
“Mom!” Alexey exhaled.
“Don’t talk nonsense!”
“It’s not nonsense. It’s documents. It clearly says: the summer house is yours. But…” She made a theatrical pause.
“Only if you and Olga are married.”
“What?”
“If you divorce — that’s it. To Lenka. Or the neighbor’s cat. He likes it too, by the way. I checked.”
Olga stood up.
“That’s blackmail.”
“That’s upbringing. You’re young and beautiful. And I want peace. No presentations and excuses. Family. Not free artists. Enough already.”
Alexey stood as well.
“You can’t do this. It’s manipulation. A noose around the neck in paper form.”
“I can,” Maria Ivanovna said calmly.
“I’ve lived my life. I’m no worse than a notary. I see who loves sincerely and who just lives next door out of convenience. I want to be sure my summer house won’t be chopped up between just anyone.”
“We’re not ‘just anyone,’” Olga said.
“And we don’t live by wills. We live by love. By trust. By agreement.”
Maria Ivanovna snorted:
“Fine. Then by agreement — can I have cutlets for dinner? Not greasy. Just… normal.”
Olga silently went to the kitchen. Alexey followed her.
“I’ll cook everything myself,” he said.
“You don’t have to. Actually, you owe nothing.”
“I know. I just want everything settled. Without corpses, preferably.”
“And I suddenly realized: I don’t need the summer house if it comes with conditions. If Mom divides love like land — by cadastral number. Then it’s not a summer house, but a trap. Only with strawberries.”
Maria Ivanovna entered the kitchen:
“I hear everything. By the way, my hearing is better than your TV’s.”
“Great,” Alexey replied.
“Then hear this: we love each other. And if that means giving up the summer house — I’ll give it up. Let it go to the cat if it wants. But not ‘by contract.’ Not by blackmail.”
Pause.
Maria Ivanovna stood, leaning against the doorframe. Watched. For a long time. Then suddenly sat at the table. Silently.
“I brought potatoes. On the balcony. Your favorite — ‘Gala.’ Small, but strong. We’ll need to sort them.”
Olga quietly put a pan on the stove.
“We’ll sort them tomorrow. Without ultimatums.”
Maria Ivanovna nodded. Almost imperceptibly.
“By the way, when are you thinking of having a child? All presentations and little demands…”
“Mom,” Alexey and Olga said in unison.
Pause.
“Uh-huh. I’m quiet. For now. But remember: the will is still with me. In the bag. Just in case.”
On the third morning after Maria Ivanovna moved into the studio, a crisis began.
First, she forced Olga into the kitchen:
“Your pan is soulless metal, but my old cast iron one from the summer house understands everything. Pancakes from it are like feelings in poetry.”
Then she tried swapping books and spices, insisting:
“In Pushkin’s time, bay leaves always stood by the fireplace.”
And in the evening, she held a trial over the boiler, declaring:
“This is not hot water, but a warm parody.”
Alexey went to work in a coat that was clearly not fully dry.
“I dreamed I was married to two women,” he gloomily said as he left.
“One by love. The other by cadastral number.”
“Don’t forget to buy bread,” Olga replied.
“We’re about to start biting the walls here.”
At that moment, Maria Ivanovna was washing windows. At seven a.m. In a robe. With Chopin.
That afternoon everything exploded. Olga came home early. The door was opened by her mother-in-law — wearing Olga’s dress. A lilac, fitted dress. With the tag still on.
“I just tried it on,” Maria Ivanovna said.
“Not for going outside. You don’t wear it anyway — probably too ‘warm’ for you.”
Olga went into the room and sat down. She was silent at first. Then quietly but clearly:
“You didn’t come here to live. You came to assert yourself. The hostess. Like at the summer house. You think the will will scare us, the property will tie us, the marriage will strengthen us. But it turned out as always: war.”
“It’s not war, Olechka,” Maria Ivanovna said softly.
“It’s upbringing. You’re like a daughter to me. Almost.”
“No. Not like. And not almost. I’m a stranger to you. And you know what? I don’t want to be family anymore. Not through cutlets, nor square meters.”
Maria Ivanovna froze. Her gaze darkened. But her voice remained quiet:
“So that’s how it is.”
“Exactly. Either you’re a guest. Respected, but a guest. Or I leave. Not to the hallway. But out of this apartment. For good.”
At that moment Alexey entered. With bread. And tired eyes that no traffic jam could explain.
He heard everything.
Olga looked at him.
“Tell me. Are you with her because you want to? Or because of the will?”
Alexey put the bag on the table. Thought. Slowly, as if through concrete.
“Mom, you’d better go home,” he said.
“To the summer house. To any territory where you’re the boss. But here… you’re invading. Too much. And if you keep going, I’ll lose Olga. And with her — myself.”
Maria Ivanovna said nothing. Just left. No scandal. No heart medication.
A week later, a parcel arrived. Inside — the will. Rewritten.
Now the summer house belonged “to Alexey and Olga — by mutual love, without conditions, and during the lifetime of all parties.”