— All right, Dasha. I bought you this blouse for last year’s birthday for twelve thousand, — Semyon ostentatiously put the item on the scale. — Eight hundred grams. We multiply by the current price of gold. Fine, let’s say three thousand.
— Are you serious right now? — Dasha looked at her husband in bewilderment. — We’ve lived together for three years, we have a daughter, and you’re weighing my gifts and calculating their value?
A heavy pause hung in the living room. Sofya, their two-year-old daughter, was busy with toys in the corner, paying no attention to her parents’ conversation.
— I just want fairness, — Semyon shrugged. — You spend too much.
Dasha took a deep breath. Once, just three years ago, she, a travel-agency specialist, had fallen in love with a charming sales manager. He courted her beautifully, brought flowers, took her on romantic dates. Who could have thought that after the wedding and the birth of their daughter Semyon would turn into a domestic tyrant who counted every kopeck?
— You know, your mother warned me, — Dasha said unexpectedly.
— My mother? — Semyon raised his eyebrows in surprise. — About what?
— That you’re a copy of your father. That’s exactly what she said the first time we met: “Girl, think hard. He’s just like his father — first he charms you, then he turns into a miser.”
— Don’t drag my mother into this! — Semyon’s face flushed dark red. — She adores us!
Dasha could have said that Galina Sergeyevna had never once volunteered to babysit her granddaughter, never showed interest in their life, and at every meeting made it clear that the daughter-in-law wasn’t good enough for her son. But this wasn’t the moment.
— All right, I’m going to put Sofya to bed, — Dasha picked up her daughter. — And you think about what’s actually worth discussing when adults decide to live together.
Over time the situation only got worse. Semyon turned into a real domestic dictator.
— You bought bread for eighty-five rubles? Are you out of your mind? In the shop next door it’s sixty-eight! — he shouted, waving the receipt.
— The bread next door is from yesterday, — Dasha answered wearily.
— Yesterday’s is twenty rubles cheaper! That’s four hundred rubles a month, almost five thousand a year!
She didn’t know what to do. After Sofya was born, Dasha hadn’t worked for a year and a half, devoting herself entirely to her daughter. But the constant penny-pinching and her husband’s reproaches about spending became unbearable.
— I’m going back to work, — she announced one evening.
— Have you lost your mind? And who’s going to stay with the child? — Semyon protested.
— My mother agreed to help. You’re the one who’s always saying we can’t afford to spend so much.
— I meant your extra expenses, not… — he faltered. — And how much will you be making?
When Dasha named the figure, Semyon’s tone changed abruptly:
— Well, if you really want to… Of course, professional fulfillment is important for a woman.
Dasha returned to the travel agency where she’d worked before maternity leave. With the second paycheck, the financial tension in the family eased a bit, but Semyon’s character kept changing. Now he was often late at work, there were sudden business trips and business dinners.
Dasha felt something was wrong, but kept convincing herself it was just fatigue from work and family concerns. Until one day…
— Dasha, you won’t believe who I just saw at “Little Italy,” — came the excited voice of Marina, her colleague, over the phone. — Your Semyon with some blonde. And they were, to put it mildly, very close.
Dasha’s world collapsed in an instant. She asked her mother to come urgently to watch Sofya and called a cab to the restaurant Marina named.
Through the big front window she saw her husband. He sat there gently holding the hand of a petite blonde with a model haircut. They were laughing, and Semyon looked as happy as Dasha hadn’t seen him in a very long time. When the blonde leaned across the table and their lips met, Dasha took out her phone and snapped a few photos. Then she turned and went home.
That evening, when Semyon returned, she silently showed him the photos on her phone screen.
— You were following me? — he burst out. — That’s an invasion of my privacy!
— Privacy? — Dasha asked calmly. — You’re married, you have a child. What “privacy” are you talking about?
— You don’t understand…
— No, you don’t understand. Pack your things and get out.
Semyon’s expression changed suddenly:
— I’m not going anywhere! This is my apartment too!
— This apartment was left to me by my grandmother before our marriage, — Dasha reminded him. — It’s entirely mine.
— Not true! We’re married, everything acquired is joint property! I’ll take you to court!
Dasha couldn’t hold back a laugh:
— What “acquired” are you talking about? The money you hid from me? Or the things you refused to buy because “what we have will do”?
She took out a suitcase and began packing his things. Semyon watched, arms crossed over his chest:
— You’ll regret this.
— No, Semyon. The only thing I regret is the three years wasted on a man who doesn’t know how to value what he has.
In the morning, while Semyon was in the shower, Dasha put his suitcase outside the door and called a locksmith to change the locks. By the time Semyon, wrapped in a towel, dashed out of the bathroom, the doorbell was already ringing.
— What’s going on? — Semyon asked, stunned.
— I called a specialist to change the locks, — Dasha replied calmly. — Your things are outside. Leave the keys on the stand.
— You can’t do this! I have rights!
— You had the right to be a decent husband and father. You didn’t use it.
An hour later Semyon left, slamming the door and promising that she would be sorry. Dasha felt a strange relief — as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
But the very next day the real hell began. Her phone wouldn’t stop ringing — it was Galina Sergeyevna, Dasha’s mother-in-law.
— How could you do this to my son? — she shouted into the receiver. — To throw out the child’s father!
— Galina Sergeyevna, your son is seeing another woman, — Dasha explained patiently. — I have photos.
— So what? All men sometimes… get distracted. It means nothing! For the child’s sake you need to keep the family together!
Dasha was surprised by the sudden concern from her mother-in-law. In the two years since Sofya’s birth, Galina Sergeyevna had seen her granddaughter maybe five times, always finding a pretext not to help. “My blood pressure,” “My back hurts,” “Urgent matters.” And now she was suddenly all for “saving the family”?
After a week of endless calls, Dasha stopped answering her and filed for divorce. The lawyer warned her that Semyon intended to claim a share of the apartment and the dacha.
— Don’t worry, — the attorney reassured her. — He has no chance at your apartment, since you received it before the marriage. But the process may drag on.
Summer was approaching, and Dasha, exhausted by constant stress, decided to take a vacation and take her daughter to the dacha, which had also come to her from her grandmother.
— We need a reset, — she told her friend. — Otherwise I’ll go mad from all this.
The dacha was a hundred kilometers from the city, in a picturesque spot by a lake. They had rarely gone there before — Semyon was always against such “pointless waste of time and gas,” as he put it.
Pulling up to the dacha in a taxi, Dasha immediately noticed something was off. Laundry was drying on the veranda, someone had recently been working in the garden, and through the window she could see movement inside the house.
“Thieves?” flashed through Dasha’s mind. She hugged Sofya tighter and carefully opened the gate. At that moment the dacha door flew open, and on the threshold appeared Galina Sergeyevna, Dasha’s mother-in-law, and behind her an unfamiliar man of about sixty.
— Galina Sergeyevna? — Dasha couldn’t believe her eyes. — What are you doing here?
— Oh, it’s you, — the mother-in-law said, without much enthusiasm. — Didn’t expect to see you here.
— This is my dacha, — Dasha reminded her. — I’m the one who should be surprised to see you here.
— I’m living here, — Galina tossed off carelessly. — You kicked my son out, and he moved back home. And brought that… one with him. You can’t fit three people in a one-bedroom. So Boris and I moved out here. You hardly ever come anyway.
Dasha couldn’t believe what she was hearing:
— This is my property, and you have no right to be here without my permission.
— We’ll take you to court and split the dacha, — the mother-in-law shot back immediately. — Semyon fixed the roof here, built a gazebo, repaired the fence. He invested, see? By law he’s entitled to a share!
— What investments? — Dasha exclaimed. — He painted the fence once? I’ll reimburse him for the can of paint! This is my dacha, I hold the title. And if you don’t start packing right now, I’m calling the police.
Galina Sergeyevna rushed to call her son. Dasha could hear their conversation:
— Syoma, your ex showed up, she’s throwing us out. What do you mean, “sort it out yourselves”? What do you mean, “you and Yulia have plans”? What about us, me and Boris?
From the conversation Dasha realized that Semyon didn’t care at all about his mother’s problems. Apparently he was too busy with his new flame.
— I’m giving you an hour to pack, — Dasha said firmly, demonstratively taking out her phone. — Then I’m calling the police.
Her mother-in-law gave the former daughter-in-law a look of dislike, but apparently understood Dasha wasn’t joking.
— Come on, Borya, let’s pack, — she grumbled. — See what daughters-in-law are like these days — throwing their own grandchild’s grandmother out on the street.
— Not on the street, — Dasha corrected calmly. — You have your own apartment. And by the way, you never liked me, right? Well, now you have a new daughter-in-law, Yulia. I hope she’s exactly what suits you.
The mother-in-law merely pressed her lips together and went inside to gather her things.
An hour later, Galina Sergeyevna and her companion left in a taxi that Dasha called for them. Left alone at last with her daughter, she looked around. The dacha needed cleaning and attention, but for the first time in a long while Dasha felt she could breathe freely.
In the evening, after putting Sofya to bed, Dasha went out onto the veranda. The stars shone brightly in the dark sky, the air was saturated with the scents of summer grasses. She thought about how strangely everything had turned out.
Three years ago Semyon had seemed like the ideal man — attentive, caring, with a good sense of humor. When they married and began living in her apartment, things were good at first. But after their daughter was born, he changed sharply — became stingy, irritable, nitpicky.
“You spend too much,” “Why does a child need so many toys?” “Why can’t we save?” — these phrases became routine.
And when Dasha went back to work and the family had extra money, Semyon suddenly found a new hobby — a young colleague named Yulia, with whom he now, apparently, was living in his mother’s apartment.
Dasha’s phone chimed — a message from her friend: “You won’t believe it! Today I saw your ex with his mommy and some blonde at the supermarket near my house. They made a huge scene! Right in the fruit section! Semyon was beet-red, and those two women were yelling at each other like market traders.”
Dasha smiled. Well, life puts everything in its place. She had made the right choice by breaking off that unhealthy relationship.
“By the way, do you know a good gardener?” she texted her friend. “I want to get the dacha in order. Looks like Sofya and I will spend the whole summer here.”
Six months passed. Autumn turned to winter, and the divorce proceedings still dragged on. Semyon filed a claim to divide the property, demanding half the apartment and the dacha, but the court rejected his claims since both properties had come to Dasha before the marriage.
Dasha and her daughter still lived in her apartment. She continued working at the travel agency and even got a promotion. On weekends she and Sofya went to the park, to the movies, and visited Grandma. Life was gradually getting back on track.
One evening, coming home from work, Dasha ran into Galina Sergeyevna at the entrance to her building.
— May I talk to you? — the mother-in-law asked, unexpectedly polite.
They went up to the apartment. Sofya was at her grandmother’s, so they could talk calmly.
— I wanted to apologize, — began Galina Sergeyevna, greatly surprising Dasha. — For how I behaved at the dacha, and… for everything else, too.
— What happened? — Dasha asked cautiously. Such a change in her mother-in-law’s behavior seemed suspicious.
— That Yulia… — Galina shook her head. — She kicked me out of my own apartment. Can you imagine? She told Semyon she wasn’t comfortable living under the same roof with me, and he… agreed. My own son suggested that I stay with my sister in the suburbs while they “figure out their housing situation.”
Dasha didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, she felt sorry for the older woman; on the other, she remembered how she had treated her all those years.
— And now what? — she asked.
— Semyon wants to sell my apartment and buy something bigger. And he’s offering me a studio on the outskirts, — Galina said with a bitter smile. — Says an old woman living alone doesn’t need more. I always tried for him, gave him the best of everything…
Dasha remained silent. She had no intention of condemning or comforting her. Semyon had shown his true face — to his mother and to her.
— I came to ask… could I sometimes see Sofya? — Galina said at last. — I am her grandmother, after all.
Dasha thought it over. All this time her mother-in-law had hardly shown interest in her granddaughter. But perhaps now, left on her own, she had reevaluated her attitude toward family?
— All right, — Dasha nodded. — You can come on weekends. Sofya will be glad.
Another year passed. Dasha and Sofya spent weekends at the dacha, which they had completely refreshed. A new gazebo, a freshly painted fence, a tended garden — all this was the result of their joint efforts with Dasha’s mother and, surprisingly, with Galina Sergeyevna, who really did change her attitude toward her former daughter-in-law and granddaughter.
Semyon tried several times to rekindle things with Dasha after Yulia left him for a wealthier man. But Dasha was adamant:
— You and I have different ideas about family and respect, Semyon. I’m not going back to that.
Gradually he gave up and limited himself to occasional visits with his daughter.
One summer evening at the dacha, when Sofya was already asleep and Dasha was sitting on the veranda with a book, her friend called:
— Hear the news? Your ex is getting married! To some business lady, owner of a chain of coffee shops.
Dasha smiled:
— I hope she knows what she’s getting into.
— By the way, did you know your former mother-in-law is moving too? She sold her apartment and bought a little house in a village not far from your dacha. Says her granddaughter is more important than city life.
Dasha hung up and looked at the starry sky. Life really does put everything in its place. Sometimes you just need to find the courage to take a step into the unknown to find real happiness.
Over the year she had learned a lot about herself and about what truly matters. Now she had a job she loved, the support of those close to her, and, most importantly, confidence in her own strength.
“As for Semyon… well, let him bring his new wife to his mother-in-law’s apartment or wherever he wants. That’s no longer my story,” Dasha thought, and, closing her book, went to bed.
After all, tomorrow is a new day — and it promised to be wonderful.