Rita turned off the engine and looked at the country house through the windshield. Nothing seemed to have changed—the same blue roof, the same birches around the perimeter of the plot, the same gate her father had once painted green. The only odd thing was that the veranda light was on. Maybe the neighbors? Except…the neighbors knew Rita hadn’t come here for almost a year.
She reached for her bag on the back seat and suddenly froze. Someone was walking around the property. A silhouette flashed between the apple trees, then reappeared—closer to the house now. A woman in a tank top and shorts, a child in her arms.
“What the hell…” Rita muttered, climbing out of the car.
She walked up to the gate and stopped dead. Voices, laughter, the clink of dishes drifted from the house. Children’s laundry was hanging to dry on the veranda. Under the canopy stood bicycles—two adult ones and a child’s. And the gate… the gate wasn’t locked. Rita pushed it; it swung open with its familiar creak.
Her legs carried her to the porch on their own. One thought kept pounding in her head: someone is living in the house. In her house. The door was open too, and in the hallway Rita nearly tripped over a pair of children’s sandals. Strangers’ jackets hung on the hooks; in the corner stood two big suitcases and a basket of toys.
Her heart was thudding in her throat. She listened— from the kitchen came a woman’s voice saying something about a hike in the woods tomorrow, then a child’s laughter and the rustle of dishes. The smell of fried potatoes and dill reached her.
“Mama, can we go to the river tomorrow?” a boy’s clear voice rang out.
“We’ll see, Artyomka. If it doesn’t rain…”
Rita took a step toward the kitchen. Another. She stopped on the threshold.
A man of about thirty-five in a plaid shirt sat at the table, beside him a woman about the same age—light brown hair pulled into a ponytail. A girl of about three perched on the woman’s lap, and across from them a slightly older boy was talking excitedly, waving his fork.
The woman noticed Rita first. Her face went slack, her eyes widened. A mug of tea slipped from her hands and hit the floor with a crash.
“What are you doing here?” the woman stammered, flustered. “We didn’t think you’d show up…”
Rita recognized the voice. Inna. Her ex-husband’s sister. The sister-in-law who had always been sweet and welcoming as long as Rita was married to Viktor—and who had started avoiding her right after the divorce.
“Inna?” Rita’s voice came out strange, hoarse. “What are you doing here?”
The man—apparently Inna’s husband—slowly rose from the table. His face was red, embarrassed. The children fell quiet and stared at the unfamiliar aunt.
“Rita…” the man began. “We thought… I mean, Vitka said you don’t come here anymore. That the dacha was just sitting empty.”
“Vitka said?” Heat flushed Rita’s cheeks. “And what else did Vitka say?”
Inna picked the mug up off the floor, still holding her daughter. The little girl snuffled and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.
“Well… we didn’t think…” Inna started quickly, nervously. “We’re on vacation, and renting a place is expensive. Vitka said the keys were still around from back when we all came here together. Remember? We came for your birthday three years ago…”
“The keys were around,” Rita repeated slowly. “And you decided you could just take them and move into my house?”
“We would have asked,” Inna’s husband put in hastily. “But your phone…well, we didn’t know how to reach you.”
Rita blinked. Did they seriously think the issue was that they hadn’t asked permission? That if they had, she’d gladly let a whole family live in her house?
“How long have you been here?” Rita asked.
“A week,” Inna answered quietly. “We were planning to stay another ten days…”
“Ten days,” Rita echoed.
A heavy silence fell in the kitchen. The boy cautiously set his fork down and glanced at his parents. The girl on Inna’s lap began to whimper—she must have sensed the tension.
“Listen, Rita,” Inna’s husband said. “We didn’t mean any harm. The house was empty anyway. We clean, we water the flowers, we even mowed the grass. It’s not worse than it was.”
“Not worse?” Rita’s voice leapt to a higher pitch. “You moved into my house without asking, you’re living here like you own the place—and you tell me it’s ‘not worse’?”
“We didn’t break in!” Inna protested. “Vitka had the keys! We thought…”
“Thought what?” Rita cut her off. “That I died? That the house belongs to no one?”
Inna hugged her daughter tighter. Her face had gone completely pale.
“You don’t understand,” Inna began in a trembling voice. “We only have two weeks off a year. We don’t have money to rent. The kids were so excited about going to the dacha…”
“And what does that have to do with me?” Rita stepped into the kitchen, and the whole family instinctively bunched up by the opposite wall. “This is my house! Mine! I inherited it from my father!”
“We know,” Inna’s husband mumbled. “We just thought…”
“Thought what? That you can take what isn’t yours without asking?”
The boy suddenly burst into loud tears. Rita flinched and looked at him—a thin kid of about eight with hair sticking up every which way. Tears streamed down his cheeks; his lips trembled.
“Mom, are we going home?” the boy sobbed. “What about the river? And the bike rides?”
Rita’s heart squeezed tight. The children weren’t to blame. They just wanted to spend time in nature. But… this was her house. Her one place to be quiet and alone.
“Rita,” Inna said softly. “Please… Let us stay at least a few more days. We’ve already planned everything, bought food for the whole week. The kids were so happy…”
“And where am I supposed to live?” Rita asked. “On the street?”
“The house is big,” Inna’s husband suggested timidly. “There are lots of rooms. We could squeeze in…”
Rita gave him a look that made him fall silent at once.
“Squeeze in? In my own house?”
She swept her gaze around the kitchen. Other people’s plates on the table; other people’s dishes in the sink. A bouquet of wildflowers on the windowsill—in a vase Rita remembered from childhood. A pot of potatoes on the stove, sending up a mouth-watering smell.
They’d made themselves at home, thoroughly. As if this were their lawful residence, not someone else’s property.
“Where’s Vitka?” Rita asked suddenly.
Inna and her husband exchanged glances.
“Vitka?” Inna repeated. “Why do you need him?”
“Because he had the keys. And apparently he gave you permission too.”
“Vitka’s in the city,” Inna answered reluctantly. “He’s got his own stuff going on.”
“Uh-huh. His own stuff.” Rita let out a laugh with no trace of humor. “And handing out other people’s houses doesn’t count as his ‘stuff,’ I guess?”
The girl on Inna’s lap started whining again. The boy kept sniffling, face buried in his sleeve.
“Rita, please,” Inna begged. “We’re family. We used to be close. Can’t you show a little kindness?”
“Family?” Rita frowned. “We were family only as long as I was married to your brother. After the divorce, what family are we?”
“But—”
“No ‘but,’” Rita cut her off. “And what difference would it make anyway? Even if we were family, that doesn’t give you the right to use someone else’s property!”
Inna set her daughter down and straightened up. Something stubborn and resolute appeared in her eyes.
“You know what, Rita,” Inna said in a tone Rita had never heard from her. “You can throw us out, sure. But think about it: the house sat empty for a year. We aired it out, cleaned up, put the garden in order. Maybe stop being so… stingy?”
Rita froze, blinking, unsure how to respond.
“Stingy?” she repeated once she found her voice. “I’m stingy because I won’t let strangers live in my own house?”
“We’re not strangers!” Inna flared. “We’ve known each other for years! And what does it cost you? You don’t live here anyway!”
“And how do you know I don’t live here?” Rita’s voice grew quieter and more dangerous. “Maybe I was just about to move here for the whole summer.”
“Were you?” Inna snorted. “A year ago you were ‘about to’? And two years ago?”
Rita clenched her fists. Inna’s nerve was astounding. First she moved into someone else’s house, and now she was explaining to the owner why the owner had no right to be upset.
“Listen to me carefully,” Rita said slowly. “Tomorrow morning you pack your things and leave. That’s it. No discussion.”
“Rita, have you gone mad?” Inna stepped forward, eyes flashing with anger. “How can you!”
“I’ve gone mad?” Rita laughed, but it came out hysterical. “You’ve taken over my house and live here like owners, and I’m the crazy one?”
The boy burst into loud sobs again, and this time the little girl joined him. The wail of children filled the kitchen, echoing off the walls and ceiling.
“See what you’ve done!” Inna shouted, trying to be heard over the crying. “Happy now?”
Rita looked at the crying children and felt a tight, painful knot twist inside her. On the one hand, yes, the children were to be pitied. On the other—why should she pay for their parents’ insolence?
“This is your doing,” Rita said. “Not mine.”
“We just wanted to rest!” Inna scooped up her sobbing daughter. “Is that so terrible?”
“Rest somewhere else—just not in my house!”
“Where?” Inna’s husband yelled. “Where are we supposed to go? We don’t have money to rent! Wages are low, loans, the mortgage! We saved all year for this vacation!”
“Still not my problem,” Rita snapped.
But something in the man’s voice made her look at him more closely. A tired face, dark circles under his eyes. A washed-out shirt with patches on the sleeves. And Inna… Inna didn’t look great either. Clearly not new clothes, hair cut at home, uneven.
“Rita,” Inna said quietly, rocking her daughter. “Please try to understand. The kids waited all year for this trip to the dacha. We promised them…”
“You promised them someone else’s house?” Rita cut in. “What next—someone else’s car?”
“Don’t compare those!”
“Why not? Same principle—taking what isn’t yours without asking.”
Inna suddenly sank onto a chair and covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders shook.
“I just…” she sobbed. “I’m so tired of everything. Of work, of the lack of money, of not being able to give the kids anything. When Vitka suggested coming here, it felt like a way out. At least two weeks of normal life…”
Rita stood there looking at her weeping former sister-in-law, the crying children, the bewildered man, and didn’t know what to do. Pity fought with outrage, and for the moment outrage was winning.
But the sight was pitiful: a family that couldn’t afford a proper vacation and so resorted to taking over someone else’s house. On the other hand—does that excuse it? Does being poor give you the right to someone else’s property?
“Inna,” Rita called.
The woman lifted red, tear-swollen eyes.
“What?”
“Where do you work? And how much do you make?”
Inna wiped her nose on her sleeve.
“I’m a preschool teacher. Sergei’s a mechanic at the plant. I get fifty-two thousand, Sergei sixty-eight.”
“That’s over a hundred thousand for the family,” Rita calculated. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?” Inna let out a bitter laugh. “The mortgage is forty-five thousand a month. Utilities eight. Kindergarten twelve. Food, clothes, medicine… By month’s end we’ve got pennies left.”
“And because of that you think you can take over other people’s homes?”
“We didn’t take it over!” Sergei flared. “Vitka gave us the keys! He said you wouldn’t mind!”
“Vitka said?” Rita raised an eyebrow. “Since when does Vitka get to dispose of my property?”
“Well… he’s your ex-husband…”
“Exactly. Ex. He has no rights to this house.”
Sergei opened his mouth, but Rita spoke first:
“Anyway, we’re done here. I’m tired; I want to rest in my house. You’re leaving today. Period.”
“Rita…”
“That’s it. Conversation over.”
Rita turned and walked out of the kitchen. In the hallway she stopped, listening to the muffled voices. Inna whispered something to her husband; he answered; the children sniffled.
A long night lay ahead in her own house, which strangers had occupied. And tomorrow morning…
Rita went into the bedroom—her bedroom—and saw children’s things on the bed. Little dresses, shorts, socks. A bottle of water and children’s books on the nightstand. Everything suggested Inna’s children had been sleeping here.
“Excuse me,” a timid voice sounded behind her.
Rita turned. Sergei was standing in the doorway with a guilty look.
“Should we… should we start packing?” he asked.
“Start packing,” Rita said curtly. “Right now.”
“And where… where are we supposed to spend the night? There aren’t any hotels nearby.”
“I don’t know. That’s your problem.”
Sergei lingered a moment, then slipped away. From the kitchen came muffled voices, the rustle of belongings. Rita sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window. It was already dark outside; lights had come on in the neighbors’ houses.
Maybe she really was being harsh? The children weren’t to blame. And Inna and her husband… maybe they truly thought it wasn’t a big deal. But no. No, no, and again no. This was her house, and no one had the right to use it without her permission.
Half an hour later the family was ready to go. The children pulled jackets on over their pajamas; Inna swept the last of the kids’ things into a bag. Sergei silently carried the suitcases to the car.
“Rita,” Inna called when everything was ready. “Really, could you let us stay the night? We’ll leave first thing in the morning, I swear.”
“No,” Rita said. “Leave right now.”
“The kids are exhausted! Artyomka rode his bike half the day, and Lizka’s still little! Where are we supposed to go at this hour?”
“You should have thought of that earlier.”
Inna pressed her lips together and headed for the exit. On the threshold she turned back:
“Fine—be that way! That’s why you live alone.”
The door slammed. Rita went to the window and watched the family load into their beat-up car. Artyomka cried, refusing to get in. Lizka fussed in her father’s arms. Inna was saying something angrily to her husband, waving her hands.
At last the car started and rolled slowly down the drive. The red taillights flickered between the trees and disappeared. Rita slid the bolt on the gate and went back into the house.
Silence. Finally—silence.
And yet she still felt uneasy. Rita walked through the rooms, picking up the children’s forgotten things—a hair clip, a rubber ball, a coloring book. On the bathroom shelf stood someone else’s toothbrushes and a tube of kids’ toothpaste. In the fridge she found food—milk, yogurt, fruit.
It would all have to be thrown out. Or given to the neighbors.
Rita went to bed late, tossing and turning, listening to every rustle. What if Inna’s family decided to come back? What if they had another set of keys?
In the morning the first thing Rita did was call a locksmith. He arrived an hour later—a sturdy man in his fifties with a toolbox.
“Changing the locks?” he asked.
“Both. The gate and the front door.”
“Got it. Someone still has the old keys?”
“They do. That’s why we’re changing them.”
The locksmith nodded in understanding and got to work. Two hours later everything was done. New locks, new keys—Rita was the only one with them. Now even if her ex had the old keys lying around somewhere, they wouldn’t help.
“Put in good locks,” the locksmith said as he took the payment. “Reliable. You won’t break them or pick them.”
“Thank you.”
After he left, Rita went through the whole house. Other people’s cups were on the kitchen table, plates with leftover porridge in the sink. In the children’s room, socks forgotten under the bed. In the bathroom, a towel with cartoon characters hung on a hook.
All of it—traces of someone else in the house. Rita methodically gathered everything into trash bags. The food from the fridge went into a separate bag; she’d take it to the neighbor. She rewashed the dishes, even though they looked clean. She mopped the floors with disinfectant.
By lunchtime the house looked like itself again. No trace of the uninvited guests.
Rita went out to the garden to inspect the vegetable patch. The grass really was mowed, the bushes tied up. Inna and her husband hadn’t lied—they had looked after the yard. But did that give them the right to move in without permission?
In the shed Rita found a wooden sign left from her father. It had once borne the name of some apple variety. Rita scraped off the old letters and neatly wrote new ones: “Private Property. Do Not Enter Without Invitation.”
She fixed the sign to the gate where it could be clearly seen. Let everyone know—the owner lives here, and there will be no trespassing.
Toward evening the phone rang. An unfamiliar number.
“Hello?”
“Rita, it’s Inna.”
“What do you want?”
“We… we spent the whole night in the car. The kids caught cold. Artyomka’s coughing, and Lizka has a fever.”
Rita was silent. She felt sorry for the children, but…
“What do you want me to say?”
“Could you let us in for a couple of days? Until the kids get better?”
“No.”
“Rita, how can you? The children are sick!”
“Go home. Treat them at home.”
“You’re heartless!” Inna’s voice shook with tears. “How can you be so cruel?”
“I’m protecting my property. Next time try asking permission before moving into someone else’s house.”
“We thought…”
“You should have thought earlier.”
Rita hung up and blocked Inna’s number. There were no more calls.
On Sunday morning Viktor showed up. He had aged in the three years since the divorce—wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, gray at his temples. He was dressed carelessly—wrinkled jeans, a washed-out T-shirt.
“Rita, open up,” Viktor knocked at the gate. “We need to talk.”
Rita stepped out into the yard but didn’t open the gate.
“Say it from there.”
“Inna called. She said you kicked them out.”
“And?”
“What do you mean ‘and’? The kids are sick because of you!”
“Because of me?” Rita laughed. “Was I the one who gave them permission to move into my house?”
“I thought you wouldn’t mind…”
“You thought? And you couldn’t ask?”
Viktor shuffled by the gate.
“Well, sorry. I honestly thought you’d be fine with it. The house was empty anyway.”
“Empty doesn’t mean ownerless.”
“I get it! But Inna and the kids… They only get one vacation a year. They don’t have money to rent.”
“For the umpteenth time—it’s not my problem.”
“Rita, be human! Let them in.”
“No.”
“What’s happened to you? You weren’t like this before!”
“Before, people didn’t take over my house.”
Viktor lingered a bit longer, then waved his hand and left. He didn’t come back.
A week went by. Rita came to the dacha every weekend, sometimes stayed for a few days. The house gradually came back to life—she painted the fence, refreshed the porch, planted new flowers in the beds.
At first the neighbors were surprised—Rita had rarely shown up before, and now she was there often. But they got used to it. They greeted her over the fence and sometimes popped in for gardening advice.
“What about that family who was living at your place?” neighbor Valentina Ivanovna asked once.
“What family?”
“The one with the kids. They rode bikes, went into the woods.”
“Oh, them. They moved out.”
“A pity. They were nice people. Well-mannered kids.”
Rita kept quiet. Let the neighbor think what she liked.
A month later there was a new lock on the shed gate. Rita noticed someone had tried to get in—the lock was scratched, the ground near the door churned up. Apparently Inna and her husband had hoped to find spare keys to the house there.
They didn’t. There were no spare keys.
Another week passed and Rita installed security cameras on the property. Two of them—one at the gate, another at the front door. Now any attempt to get in would be recorded.
By the end of the summer the dacha had been transformed. Rita had internet installed, bought new furniture for the living room, set up a work corner. Now she could come not only on weekends but also work remotely.
The house had become a home again, not an empty structure anyone could take over. And most importantly, Rita no longer feared arriving to find strangers inside. New locks, cameras— all of it gave her a sense of safety and control over her own life.
Inna never called again. Viktor didn’t show up either. Apparently they finally understood that the days of using someone else’s property for free were over.