What is this supposed to be?” Alla froze at the gate, unable to believe her eyes.
Right in front of her, where just a week ago there had been a smooth lawn, now neat rows of little green sprouts were lined up. Her mother-in-law, Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna, stood in the middle of this garden glory, proudly adjusting her straw hat.
“This, Allochka, is a real homestead!” Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna said with undisguised triumph. “Carrots, beets, onions… All our own, all organic!”
Vitya, standing next to his wife, shifted uneasily from foot to foot. He clearly hadn’t expected this “surprise” upon their return from vacation.
“Mom, but we agreed…” he began, but Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna didn’t let him finish.
“Viktor, don’t start! The land must work. This is not just a plot, it’s our breadwinner! Prices in the shops now are such that without your own garden everyone will soon start dropping from hunger.”
Alla slowly walked forward, feeling indignation boiling inside her. This was her and Vitya’s house, their plot, inherited from his grandfather. They had spent so many evenings discussing how they would set up a recreation area here, put up a swing for their future children, build a lovely gazebo…
“Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna,” Alla tried to speak calmly, though it cost her a huge effort, “Vitya and I didn’t plan to have a vegetable garden here. We had other plans for this land.”
“What other plans?” her mother-in-law flung up the hand holding the hoe. “A little lawn? Deck chairs? That’s all city nonsense! Now Tamara and Nikolai Petrovich, they have a real plot! All in beds, everything bearing fruit!”
Alla took a deep breath. Tamara and Nikolai Petrovich, relatives of her late father-in-law, had always been for Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna the gold standard of the “proper” way to live.
“I don’t know what you’ll do with them, but in an hour I don’t want to see any beds on my plot,” Alla told her mother-in-law in a firm voice that did not invite objections.
For a few seconds, a deathly silence fell. Vitya turned pale, glancing from his mother to his wife and back again. Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna drew herself up to her considerable height, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
“On your plot?” she repeated, putting special emphasis on the word your. “Viktor, did you hear what your wife just said? On your plot that came to you from your grandfather, your wife is ordering things around like she’s the mistress!”
“Mom, Alla means…” Vitya began, but both women cut him off at once:
“I can say for myself what I mean!”
“No need to explain to me what she means!”
That same evening, the atmosphere in the tiny kitchen of the country house was charged to the breaking point. Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna had left, slamming the door loudly and promising to return with reinforcements. The beds outside remained untouched.
Alla was chopping vegetables for a salad, the knife moving in her hands with such speed and precision that it looked as though she were imagining something very different in place of the cucumbers.
“Vitya, do you understand what just happened?” she asked without lifting her eyes from the cutting board.
Vitya sat at the table, nervously drumming his fingers on the surface.
“All right, maybe we could leave a small garden?” he ventured. “It’s important to Mom…”
Alla set down the knife and turned to her husband.
“Vitya, this is not about the garden. This is about the fact that your mother came over without asking and dug up our entire plot while we were away. You don’t see a problem with that?”
“I do understand, but…”
“No ‘but,’ Vitya. If we give in now, tomorrow she’ll rearrange the furniture in the house because she finds it more convenient. And the day after tomorrow she’ll decide it’s time for us to have kids and start tossing out my birth control.”
Vitya winced.
“You’re exaggerating. Mom is just old-fashioned, to her a vegetable garden is…”
“Normal life, I know,” Alla cut him off. “But this is our house and our land. We don’t have to live by her rules.”
There was a knock at the door. On the threshold stood their neighbor Marina—a young woman of about thirty, with whom Alla sometimes exchanged a few words over the fence.
“Hi!” Marina smiled. “Sorry for barging in, but you had such a show here today… The whole street is talking about it.”
Alla rolled her eyes.
“Come in. Looks like we’re the main gossip topic now.”
Marina came into the house and sat at the table, where Alla set out cups.
“You know, I went through the same thing three years ago,” Marina said. “My mother-in-law, Nadezhda Sergeyevna, also tried to impose her own order in our house.”
“And how did it end?” Vitya asked with interest.
“My husband took my side. He told his mother he respects her, but decisions in our family are made by us. At first she was offended, didn’t talk to us for a month. And then she got used to it.”
Alla shot Vitya a meaningful look, but he pretended not to notice.
“It doesn’t work out that simply for everyone,” he grumbled. “My mom raised me alone, did so much for me…”
“And now she uses that as a permanent argument,” Alla added quietly.
The next morning a car drove into the yard. Out of it stepped Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna, her brother-in-law Nikolai Petrovich, and his wife Tamara.
“Viktor!” shouted Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna from the door. “Come out, we need to talk!”
Alla and Vitya came out onto the porch together. Alla crossed her arms over her chest, her whole posture radiating determination.
“We came to help with the garden,” announced Nikolai Petrovich cheerfully—a tall, stooped man with a piercing gaze. “We need to hill the potatoes and weed the carrots.”
“There is not going to be any garden here,” Alla said firmly. “Vitya and I decided to make a recreation area here.”
Nikolai Petrovich raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked at Vitya.
“Nephew, is that true? A plot like this—just for a lawn?”
Vitya hesitated, casting a quick glance at his wife, then at his mother.
“We’re still talking about it…”
“There is nothing to talk about!” Tamara interjected—a plump woman with a usually kind face, which now showed deep disapproval. “The land is supposed to feed you!”
“This house and this land belong to me and Vitya,” Alla said calmly but firmly. “And we will decide ourselves what will be here.”
“Viktor!” Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna raised her voice. “Do you hear what your wife is saying? Maybe it’s time you told her who’s the master of this house?”
All eyes turned to Vitya. He stood there, nervously shifting from one foot to the other, clearly unprepared for such pressure.
“I… I think we could find a compromise,” he finally said. “Maybe part of the plot for a garden and part…”
“No compromises!” snapped Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna. “Either you’re the man of this house, or you’re a doormat!”
Alla felt everything boiling inside her. She turned and went into the house, slamming the door loudly. A few minutes later she heard the front door slam again—Vitya had left. Looking out the window, she saw his mother seating her son in her car while Nikolai Petrovich spoke animatedly to him, waving his arms.
That evening, Vitya didn’t come home. He called and said he would spend the night at his mother’s so “everyone could cool down.” Alla was left alone in the big house, feeling utterly betrayed.
A week passed. Vitya still hadn’t come back home, though he called every day and said that everything would be fine soon, they just needed to wait until his mother calmed down. Alla felt increasingly lonely and angry.
One evening there was a knock at the door. On the threshold stood Svetlana, Vitya’s cousin.
“May I come in?” she asked with a hesitant smile.
Alla let the girl in, wondering what had brought her. They had never been particularly close.
“I know what’s going on,” Svetlana began without preamble, sitting at the kitchen table. “And I want you to know: not everyone in the family is on Aunt Zhenya’s side.”
“Thank you,” Alla replied dryly. “But that doesn’t help much. Vitya has been living at his mother’s for a week and doesn’t seem in a hurry to come back.”
“He’ll come back,” Svetlana said confidently. “He’s always been like that… a peacemaker. He can’t stand conflict, especially between close people.”
“So he chose his mother’s side?”
“He didn’t choose. He’s just trying to reconcile everyone,” Svetlana paused, then added more quietly, “There’s something you need to know. Uncle Kolya, he… he has his own plans for this house.”
Alla tensed.
“What plans?”
“He’s wanted this house for himself for a long time. He thinks he has the right to it as your grandfather-in-law’s brother. When Grandpa left the house to Vitya, Uncle Kolya was furious. And now… now he’s turning Aunt Zhenya against you. He’s hoping you won’t stand it and will sell the house, and he’ll buy it on the cheap.”
Alla froze, taking it in.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I overheard him talking about it with Aunt Tamara. She’s actually against the idea, but she’s afraid to argue with him.”
This news changed the picture completely. So it wasn’t just about the vegetable garden and not just about her mother-in-law’s urge to control their lives. There was a selfish motive behind it all.
“What are you going to do?” Svetlana asked.
Alla thought for a moment.
“First of all—talk to Vitya. He needs to know the truth.”
But talking to Vitya turned out to be not so easy. It was as if Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna had sensed the danger and now never left her son alone. Vitya declined Alla’s calls, and his text replies were short: “Everything’s fine, we just need time.”
A few days later Alla heard from Marina that Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna was going around the settlement spreading rumors that her daughter-in-law was driving her out of a house she had spent her whole life building with her husband.
“That’s not true!” Alla protested. “The house belonged to Vitya’s grandfather, not his parents!”
“I know,” Marina nodded. “But the other neighbors might not. Especially the newer ones.”
The neighbors really did split into two camps: the elderly mostly sided with Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna, while the young families sympathized with Alla.
On Sunday, Alla took a desperate step—she went to Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna’s house to talk to Vitya. But at the gate she was met by the mistress of the house herself.
“You’ve no business here,” she said curtly. “Viktor doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“I don’t believe that. Let him tell me that himself,” Alla answered firmly.
“He’s not home.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
They stood facing each other like two fighters before a match. At last, Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna hissed:
“Fine, wait. Just not on my property.”
Alla stood by the gate for two hours, but Vitya never appeared. Maybe he really wasn’t home, or maybe he simply didn’t dare come out.
When she returned home, Alla found an envelope on the porch. Inside was a note from Svetlana: “Aunt Zhenya is having a birthday lunch for Vitya. Big family meal at one p.m. Everyone’s invited except you. I think you should come. S.”
Vitya’s birthday! How could she have forgotten? In the chaos of recent events the date had completely slipped her mind. And now Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna was throwing a family lunch, very pointedly not inviting the birthday boy’s wife.
Alla clenched the note in her hand. She would go. And they could just try to keep her out.
On the day of Vitya’s birthday, Alla put on her best dress, did her hair and makeup. She looked wonderful and she knew it. Let everyone see that she wasn’t broken, that she was a worthy wife to her husband.
As she approached Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna’s house, she saw several cars by the gate. The guests had already arrived. Her heart was pounding in her throat, but Alla resolutely pushed open the gate.
In the yard tables were set and surrounded by Vitya’s relatives: aunts, uncles, cousins. Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna was bustling at the table, portioning out salads. Vitya sat in the center, looking awkwardly festive in a new shirt, but with a dull, lifeless gaze.
When Alla entered the yard, silence fell at first, then everyone started talking at once. Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna froze with the salad bowl in her hands when she saw her daughter-in-law.
“You…” was all she managed to say.
“Happy birthday, Vitya,” Alla said, ignoring her mother-in-law and walking up to her husband.
Vitya got up to meet her, his face a mix of surprise, joy, and embarrassment.
“Alla… I didn’t think you’d come.”
“Of course I came. I’m your wife, in case you’ve forgotten,” she replied with a slight smile, though there was a challenge in her eyes.
“Who invited you?” snapped Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna, having recovered herself.
“No one,” Alla answered honestly. “I came on my own to congratulate my husband on his birthday. Or is that forbidden?”
“This is a family celebration,” said Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna through clenched teeth.
“And I am family. Viktor is my husband.”
“Not for long,” came a loud remark from the end of the table—it was Nikolai Petrovich.
Everyone turned to him.
“What do you mean by that?” Alla asked, feeling a chill spread inside her.
“I mean a family like this won’t last long,” he smirked. “No respect for elders, no understanding of traditions. Viktor will come to his senses and return to his family.”
“He is in his family,” Alla shot back. “In the family he created with me. And I won’t let anyone, not even his mother, destroy our marriage over some vegetable beds!”
“It’s not about the beds!” cried Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna. “It’s about respect! You drove me off the plot that we and my husband…”
“That’s not true,” a voice suddenly broke in—it was Tamara, Nikolai Petrovich’s wife. Everyone stared at her in surprise. Usually quiet and inconspicuous, she now looked resolute. “That plot and that house never belonged to you and Igor. They were always the property of Pyotr Ivanovich, Vitya’s grandfather. And he left them to his grandson, not to you and not to Nikolai.”
Nikolai Petrovich flushed a deep red.
“Tamara, be quiet!”
“I won’t be quiet!” she said, suddenly firm. “I’ve had enough of this! You’ve spent years turning Zhenya against her daughter-in-law, hoping the young ones wouldn’t stand it and would sell the house. And you’d buy it for a song. You think I don’t know about your talks with the realtor?”
A ringing silence hung in the air. All eyes were on Nikolai Petrovich, who sat with his head down, unable to look anyone in the eye.
“Kolya?” whispered Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna. “Is this true?”
He didn’t answer, and that was more eloquent than any words.
“So that’s what it was about…” murmured Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna, slowly sinking onto a chair. “And I thought you really cared about family traditions…”
Vitya finally snapped out of his stupor. He walked slowly over to Alla and took her hand.
“Forgive me,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I was a coward. I was afraid to hurt Mom, afraid to stand between you. And in the end I betrayed you.”
He turned to the others.
“I love my mother and respect her. But Alla is my wife, and the family I have with her is our territory. The house my grandfather left me belongs to me and Alla. And we’ll decide for ourselves what will be there: a garden, a lawn, or even a swimming pool.”
After that disastrous birthday, a lot of things changed. Vitya came back home and this time firmly took his wife’s side. Together they dug up the beds and sowed the plot with lawn grass. In the far corner, though, they left a small, neat vegetable patch—as a compromise and a symbolic gesture of goodwill.
Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna returned the keys to the house and now came only when invited. Relations between her and Alla remained tense, but at least polite.
Nikolai Petrovich and his wife Tamara no longer showed up at the house. After the public exposure, Nikolai lost all authority in the family, and Tamara seemed finally to have found her voice and no longer let her husband boss her around.
When the neighbors learned the truth about Nikolai Petrovich’s intentions, they stopped believing the rumors and began treating the young couple with understanding. Alla’s friendship with Marina grew especially strong—Marina had supported her through the hardest times.
One day, when Alla and Vitya were sitting in the new gazebo, enjoying a summer evening, Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna suddenly showed up.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” she asked, for the first time sounding unsure of herself.
“No, Mom, come in,” Vitya replied, getting up to meet her.
She sat down on the edge of the bench and was silent for a while, looking over the transformed plot.
“It turned out very nice,” she finally said. “I never thought I’d say this, but the lawn looks… cozy.”
Alla looked at her mother-in-law in surprise. It was the first compliment she had ever heard from her.
“Thank you,” Alla replied. “We worked hard on it.”
“I brought you some tomatoes,” Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna handed Vitya a bag. “Ours, from the dacha. Not store-bought.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Vitya took the bag, a relieved smile appearing on his face.
“I’ll be going,” she got up. “Don’t want to disturb you. I just wanted to…”
“You can stay for dinner if you’d like,” Alla offered, surprising even herself.
Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna froze, clearly not expecting such an invitation.
“Another time, thank you,” she headed toward the gate, but suddenly stopped and, without turning around, said, “Vitya, don’t forget, I’m expecting you for Sunday lunch. — And after a pause, added: — Alla too.”
When his mother left, Alla and Vitya looked at each other.
“Are you going to go?” Vitya asked.
“I don’t know,” Alla answered honestly. “We’ll see.”
On Sunday, Alla did decide to go—not for her mother-in-law’s sake, but for her husband’s. The lunch was tense. Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna and Alla carefully avoided speaking directly to each other, talking through Vitya.
“Pass your wife the salad,” said Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna.
“Ask your mom to pass the bread, please,” Alla replied.
Vitya sighed but obediently played the role of go-between. At least they were at the same table and not fighting—that was progress.
On the way home, Alla thought that perhaps this was the most she could hope for in their relationship with her mother-in-law. Not friendship, but not war either. A cold peace. And maybe that wasn’t so bad.
A year later, Alla and Vitya’s plot boasted a perfect lawn, a children’s play area (they had finally decided to have a baby), and a tidy gazebo. In the far corner there was still a small vegetable garden where Vitya sometimes planted things and proudly showed the results to his mother.
Yevgeniya Mikhaylovna still didn’t feel warm affection for her daughter-in-law, but she had learned to keep her opinions to herself. Alla, in turn, realized that sometimes keeping a healthy distance is better than endlessly trying to earn someone’s love.
At family gatherings they politely nodded to each other, exchanged formal phrases and tried not to be left alone together. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was their way of preserving peace in the family.
Standing on the porch of her house, looking at the transformed plot, Alla thought about how sometimes you have to choose between peace and truth. And that establishing healthy boundaries is more important than a superficial reconciliation.
Vitya came up and put his arm around her shoulders.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“About us. About how much has changed this past year.”
“For the better?”
“Definitely for the better,” Alla smiled. “We defended our right to our own life. And even if your mother never loves me, the important thing is that you learned to be on our side.”
“On our side,” Vitya echoed, pulling his wife closer and looking out at their small but very cozy world that they had created together