The clock showed 09:47 when Elena’s phone beeped urgently, like before a disaster.
It was Alla Viktorovna calling. Well, not exactly a disaster, but after every call from her, you’d want either to jump in the shower or disappear into the woods — preferably without any connection.
“Alla Viktorovna,” Elena muttered under her breath and pressed the green button.
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“Hi, Lena! I’m at the dacha. The buyers have arrived and want to take a look. Aren’t you coming yourself? Or should I show them?”
“What buyers?!” Elena stood up, pushing the laptop aside. “What sale, excuse me?”
“Well, Sergey said you both agreed. Am I supposed to be against it? The young need money more. We thought since you hardly ever go there anyway…”
“Alla Viktorovna, are you out of your mind? This is MY dacha. It’s registered to me. What sale? What young people? What money?!”
“Oh, Lena, don’t get so worked up. We’re all being reasonable. Do you really want to cling to that old junk?”
“You will leave my dacha now and never set foot there again without my knowledge. And please, don’t interfere in things that don’t concern you!”
She hung up, her hands trembling. Her heart was pounding like a drum. Five minutes later she was already dialing Sergey.
He answered cheerfully, as if he hadn’t just tried to carry out a “quiet” family coup.
“Hi, sunshine!”
“What the hell do you mean, sunshine? What have you schemed with your mother again?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The buyers for MY dacha!”
“Well… We just thought it was reasonable. You hardly ever go there, the dacha’s old, and we need to pay off the mortgage now…”
“We” — that’s you and your mother, right?
“Oh, don’t start, Lena. You yourself said it needed repairs. And they offered such money that it’s enough for Tanya’s apartment.”
“Ah, so my dacha is now the starting capital for your daughter from your first marriage?”
“Well, you’re a grown woman. You understand that children need help…”
“Alright then. I’m an adult, and as an adult I’m telling you: you are my ex from today. And the dacha is mine. Got it?”
“Lena… don’t be so hot-headed. Let’s talk at home, okay?”
“We’ll talk. But only with a notary.”
Elena paced the kitchen like it was a minefield. One cup crashed past the sink. The second hit the wall, right on a mat that read “Home is where love is.” Oh, how symbolic. Love was now somewhere near Tanya Sergeyevna’s mortgage.
She had lived with this man for eight years. At some point, he became… soft, like boiled carrot. Always obeyed his mother. But to do this — without asking, behind my back — that’s no husband, that’s a petty crook.
She exhaled, grabbed her keys, and left. To the dacha. To the “junk.”
When she arrived, Alla Viktorovna stood by the gate in her usual style — hands on hips, a look like a collective farm director who caught a drunken tractor driver in the strawberry field.
“What’s with the drama? They were decent people, with money.”
“You know, Alla Viktorovna, the dacha isn’t about money. It’s about dad who planted sea buckthorn here. About mom who made compote and said the roof was leaking, but it was still tasty. This is my life. And you tried to sell it like an old pot.”
“Oh, how sensitive we are. It’s just a house.”
“No. It’s just that you’re not the owner. Neither I nor this house need you.”
“How do you plan to live with your son after such words?”
“I’m not planning to.”
That evening Sergey came home. His suitcase was by the door. On top was a note:
“Thank you for everything. Especially for the dacha. No compensation will be given. Everything according to the documents. And according to conscience.”
He stood for a moment, then reached for the bedroom door.
Inside — silence.
Elena sat on the bed, tired, phone in hand.
“Are you serious, Lena?”
“What did you think? That I have a button ‘put up and love’? I am not property. And neither is my dacha.”
“I just wanted to help Tanya…”
“Help her. But not at my expense.”
He left silently.
And she remained — in the apartment, completely alone, but with a clear head and… the right to the dacha.
And also — the right to herself.
Three weeks passed. The dacha stood alone — just like Elena.
And Sergey… Sergey didn’t call. Thank God.
No, seriously — every time his voice popped up in her head, she remembered that disgusting moment when he tried to look over her shoulder into her life and write his mother and mortgage into it.
He could have at least said: “Sorry.” Or at least, “You know, we were wrong.”
But he — silence. A coward.
But today was a different day for Elena: she was driving to the dacha. Only now — alone. Not as a wife. Not as anyone’s half, but as the rightful owner, damn it.
The road to the dacha was the usual: bumps, puddles like after a bombing, and ubiquitous grandmothers with rakes who looked at her as if she had invaded their private kingdom.
“Ah, here comes the new lady. Look, her tires are intact.”
Grandmothers didn’t say it — they thought it aloud. Always.
The gate creaked like a sulky wife in the morning.
The yard was overgrown. Grass like her nephew’s after his first army leave — growing in every direction. The lilac almost strangled the cherry tree. Cheap beer bottles lay scattered in the gazebo.
Elena frowned.
“Well, mom, well, dad… I defended your dacha like a barricade, and here… Bear beer and cigarette butts in the geraniums.”
She picked up a bottle with two fingers like it was poison and put it in a bag.
Half an hour later she was clearing trash from the gazebo. Her shoulders ached, her back complained, but her eyes shone. Because it was right. It was hers.
The next day he appeared.
Either a neighbor or an impostor, but — in sweatpants, with a mustache, and a look that said “well, you surprise me, woman.”
“Oh, Lena! Well, well! I see who’s running the show? Missing nature, huh?”
“Who are you, excuse me?”
“Kolia. Your neighbor. I talked a bit with your mother-in-law here. She said you’re supposedly leaving.”
“Leaving? Where would I be leaving if I just arrived?”
“Well, you and Sergey are supposedly divorced?”
“‘Supposedly’ is not a legal term, Kolia. And the documents for the land are mine. That’s all.”
Kolia fell silent but didn’t leave. He suspiciously stared at the shed for a long time, then spoke again.
“I thought maybe I could buy the plot. Since you’re alone and there’s a lot of work here. I can help at first, then we’ll see.”
“Thanks. But help from men who wear socks in sandals with sweatpants is not the kind I need. Relax, Kolia.”
He left looking like a wounded general who was not allowed to the strategic operation of capturing foreign land.
That evening the mother-in-law arrived.
In a Lada Kalina, all starched as if going to see the governor. She stepped out with an expression: “We’ll get everything back now.”
“Lena, why these childish games? You lived here alone — enough already. We’re serious. Sergey took a mortgage. Tanya’s about to have a baby. Understand — we have serious matters here.”
“What matters do you have at MY dacha, Alla Viktorovna? You have a pension card and cucumbers. I have the documents.”
“Documents are just papers. But family is sacred.”
“And sacred, Alla Viktorovna, isn’t for sale. And not to be discussed behind my back.”
“I don’t understand how you can be so… so… selfish!”
“And I don’t understand how you can be so rude. That’s where we part ways.”
Mother-in-law froze as if struck by lightning. Then pressed her lips and left.
The dust hung in the air for a long time. Almost offended.
On the third day Sergey came.
He stood at the gate. Watched her digging in the flowerbed. Didn’t dare to approach.
“May I?”
“You’ll come anyway. It’s probably awkward for your mother, right?”
He walked in but didn’t sit.
“Lena… I feel bad without you.”
She smiled without turning.
“I felt bad with you. Especially with your mother. Come on, admit you didn’t know she brought buyers here.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I did. But I thought you’d agree. We were family… once…”
“Exactly. Were. But now you can take your family, mortgage, and go.”
“I don’t want an apartment. I want you.”
“You already sold me. Only not on the market. At a discount.”
He clenched his fists, looking at her.
“I’m an idiot, right?”
“You’re not an idiot. You’re a mama’s boy. And this season, I have my own cabbage.”
When he left, she took her phone from her bag and wrote in notes:
“Next time — no Sergeys. Even if they promise to build a sauna. Even if they have beards.”
Spring came early. Snow still lay in the shade, but the sun warmed so much that something in Elena’s chest seemed to thaw.
She stood by the shed, in rubber boots, rake in hand, and for the first time in a long while felt peace. Not happiness — too early. But no longer pain.
Sergey hadn’t appeared for almost two months. Mother-in-law disappeared completely — probably making new plans with neighbor Tamara Ivanovna, whose son is a lawyer.
Let them sell her next dacha, Elena thought with a smile.
In April she turned 51.
She didn’t celebrate. Bought a bottle of dry wine and some good fish.
Sat on the veranda, looking at the apple tree, and spoke aloud.
“Thank you for staying, Lenka. For not selling out. For not falling apart. For not giving up.”
Quiet. No reproaches, no fake congratulations. No “But Tanya’s about to have a baby!”
Only silence and birdsong.
And a week later, he still came.
Sergey. No flowers, but with documents.
He stood in the same place as last spring. Didn’t look her in the eye.
“Hi.”
“Well?” Elena put down the rake, wiping her hands on her pants.
“I transferred my share of the apartment to Tanya. That’s it. We’re finally free.”
She smiled, squinting.
“How caring. Finally you became generous. Or did your mother allow it?”
He sighed.
“I didn’t come for that. I just… wanted to say thanks. For standing up then. For yourself. For everything. I thought you were tough. Now I realize: you were the only sane one.”
“And? Won’t you try to persuade me to come back?”
He looked her straight in the eye. Calmly. Without his usual fuss.
“No. Just wanted you to know. And… if someday… you just want to talk — I’m here.”
“You forgot how you ‘were here’ once. When I was still cooking borscht for you and your mother. And paying for the plot. And you — just floated downstream.”
“I’m not making excuses. I just learned to call things by their names.”
She was silent, holding back a lump in her throat.
“Lena… You’ve become better. Stronger. It shows. Your look changed.”
She didn’t answer immediately. Then nodded briefly.
“Yes. Because now I’m with myself. And you — with someone else. All fair.”
He nodded, turned around.
Walked to the gate — slowly, but without regret.
And suddenly she understood: that’s it. It’s over.
He left — for good. No chances. No hope. No desire to return.
And that’s relief. Not a tragedy.
An hour later she brewed strong tea, took a notebook, and sat on the veranda.
Opened a blank page and wrote:
“What I understood this year:
— If someone wants to sell what’s yours — they’ll sell you too.
— No one has the right to decide for you, even if you slept in the same bed.
— Mother-in-law doesn’t have to love you, and you don’t have to endure it.
— Age is not a sentence.
— And if you’re 51 — that means all the most important things are just beginning.”
The next day she started designing a new porch.
And yes.
She ordered a sign for the gate:
“Property of Elena. No entry without permission. Even if you’re an ex.”