Lena, why aren’t you picking up? We’re already on the Novorizhskoye Highway! One hour left—put the kettle on!” Irina’s voice—my sister-in-law’s—was so shrill I had to turn the volume down so the speaker wouldn’t rattle.
I glanced at my phone screen. December 30th, 2:15 p.m. Outside the window, wet Moscow snow was drifting lazily down, turning into gray slush on the asphalt.
My apartment smelled of freshly ground coffee and, faintly, pine. In the corner stood a small Christmas tree I’d decorated yesterday while an old movie played—modestly, with taste.
“Ira,” I took a sip, enjoying the quiet of my kitchen. “And where exactly are you going?”
“Oh come on, girl!” she laughed into the phone, and somewhere in the background I heard children squealing and a man’s booming chuckle. “To the dacha, of course! To ours! We decided—why mope around in the city? We’re bringing salads, Vadik bought fireworks. You just… get the bathhouse ready little by little. We’ve got kids—so the house should be warm.”
“To ours.”
That short pronoun had grated on my ears for three years now, ever since my husband—Irina’s brother—was gone.
The dacha was a solid log house that demanded constant upkeep. It came to me from my parents. Not from my husband. But for Irina it was “our family hearth,” where she held a lifetime all-inclusive pass to отдых.
“Ira,” I said calmly, feeling the tension inside me loosen. “I’m not at the dacha.”
A pause hung on the line. All I could hear was the hiss of tires and the radio in their car.
“What do you mean you’re not?” my sister-in-law’s voice lost its festive ring and took on the steely notes I knew so well. “Where are you? We agreed New Year’s is a family holiday.”
“We didn’t agree, Ira. You informed me after the fact. I’m at home. In Moscow.”
“So…” She was clearly recalculating, rearranging plans on the fly. “Fine. It’s bad the house is cold, of course. But you always keep the keys under the porch in a jar—we know that. Vadik will light the stove, we’re not helpless. You get yourself together, take a taxi or the commuter train. We’ll wait for you. It’s not right to sit alone.”
She wasn’t asking. She was giving orders.
The way she’d ordered my time last summer when she dumped three nephews on me for two weeks (“Len, you’ve got nothing to do in the fresh air anyway, and my report is burning”).
The way she’d ordered my money when I silently paid the electricity bills after their winter raids because “oh, we forgot to write down the meter readings, we’ll settle up later.”
They never settled up.
The point of no return
“Ira, don’t go there,” I said, watching a snowflake melt on the glass. “Turn back.”
“What are you doing, Len? Are you out of your mind? Our trunks are full of food! The kids got excited! Vadik’s tired—he can’t drive back. Don’t be ridiculous. That’s it, the signal’s bad—we’ll be there soon. Keys are under the porch, I remember!”
She hung up.
I set the phone down and looked at my hands. Steady. And yet a year ago, after a call like that, I would’ve been rushing around the apartment already—packing, calling a taxi, trying to get the house warmed up for the “dear guests.”
So I wouldn’t offend anyone. So I would be good.
You know that feeling, right? When everything inside you protests, but your lips still stretch into a smile: “Of course, come over, I just baked a pie.”
We—women of my generation—were raised to be convenient. We were taught that “a bad peace is better than a good quarrel.”
But sometimes life throws you a moment where you have to choose: either they climb onto your neck for good, or you remember you actually have a spine.
I stood up, went to the secretary desk, and pulled out a folder. On top lay a contract dated December 23rd.
A week ago, I sold the dacha.
Sold it fast—to a man who wanted solitude.
I didn’t tell Irina a word. I knew if I mentioned the sale, the whole clan would swoop in immediately. There would be screaming about “ancestral memory,” about “how can you deprive the children of fresh air,” about “it was Volodya’s too.”
They would’ve ruined the deal. They would’ve forced me to feel guilty.
But I simply needed the money. My proofreader’s salary and a modest pension weren’t enough to maintain two hundred square meters that constantly needed something—roof repairs, a boiler replacement. I was tired of guarding someone else’s vacation at my expense.
I looked at the clock. I had an hour to decide: turn off my phone—or accept the fight.
The new owner
That hour I spent in a strange numbness. I pictured their drive. Here they passed the turnoff. Here Vadik cracked his usual jokes. Here the kids buzzed with anticipation of freedom.
They were driving to a house that had been someone else’s fortress for a week now.
The new owner, Oleg Petrovich, a retired serviceman, struck me as tough but fair. During the viewing he asked about the fence.
“I don’t like guests,” he said curtly as he signed the papers. “I’ve got a serious dog. I need quiet.”
I warned him honestly:
“Relatives might show up out of habit.”
He just smirked.
“That’s my problem now, Elena Sergeyevna. Private property is private property.”
And now two cars stuffed with salads and self-righteousness were pulling up to his gate.
My phone came alive exactly an hour and fifteen minutes later. Irina.
I exhaled, squared my shoulders, and answered.
“Lena!” What came through the speaker wasn’t just shouting—it was a shriek, mixed with the barking of a large dog and a man’s bass voice in the background. “Lena, what is going on?!”
“What happened, Ira?” My voice sounded even.
“There are no keys! The locks are different! We knocked and then… then some man came out! In uniform! With a huge dog! He says it’s his house! Lena, he’s weird! Call the police—we’re afraid to get out of the cars!”
“He’s not weird, Ira,” I said, staring at my reflection in the dark window.
“Then who is he?! Who?! Why won’t he let us into OUR house?!”
“Because it isn’t our house anymore. I sold it.”
The silence on the line was so dense I could almost hear the gears in Irina’s head grinding as her thoughts tried to process it. In the background the dog kept raging.
“What?..” she breathed out. “How did you sell it? To whom? And what about us?..”
“As for you, Ira—you’re standing in front of someone else’s gate. And I’d advise you to leave before Oleg Petrovich lets the dog out of the kennel. He’s a strict man. He doesn’t like jokes.”
“You… you…” Irina wheezed. “You couldn’t! We’re with children! We’ve got a trunk full of food! Where are we supposed to go?! It’s December thirtieth! Lenka, you’re shameless! Do you even understand what you’ve done?! We’re family!”
“Family,” I repeated. “The kind that couldn’t even be bothered to ask whether they could come.”
“How can you ask?!” she snapped. “It was always shared! Volodya’s! You’ve robbed us of the holiday! Get online right now, tell that… man that we’re your people! Let us in at least for the night!”
In that moment I understood: if I weakened now—if I asked the new owner (as if I had any right), or let them into my Moscow apartment—everything would snap back. I would become convenient Lenka again.
And then the thing I both expected and feared happened.
A dull thud sounded through the phone—someone started pounding on the metal gate. Immediately after that—a growl that made even the call feel cold. And the new owner’s voice:
“I’m counting to three. Then I open the wicket. One…”
“The free option just closed”
“Two…” came from the speaker. Oleg Petrovich’s voice was matter-of-fact, like a ticket inspector on a commuter train.
“Vadik! In the car! Now!” Irina screamed.
I heard heavy SUV doors slam, then muffled children’s crying, and Vadik swearing from inside the cabin.
The dog barked—deep and booming, the way animals bark when they know exactly where their territory begins and ends.
“Lenka, you’ll pay for this!” Irina’s voice trembled now—not with arrogance anymore, but with fear and fury. “You threw us out in the cold! We’ll freeze!”
“You have climate control in your cars, Ira,” I said, stepping away from the window and sinking into my favorite chair. My legs suddenly felt heavy, as after a long run. “And it’s an hour to Moscow. Don’t invent drama where there isn’t any.”
“We’re not going to Moscow! Our mood is ruined! We wanted a holiday! What are we supposed to do with three crates of food?!”
It was incredible.
Even now—locked in a car in front of a stranger’s gate—she wasn’t thinking about how she’d trampled every boundary imaginable. She was thinking about where to put the salads.
“Listen carefully,” I cut her off. “At kilometer 45, before the interchange, there’s a hotel called ‘Uyut.’ I’ll send you the pin. They have a sauna and a barbecue area. There should be rooms.”
“A hotel?!” she choked. “You’re suggesting we celebrate New Year’s in a roadside hotel—on our own dime?!”
“I’m suggesting options. The free option—‘Dacha’—is closed. Permanently.”
“I’ll never forgive you, Lenka. You’re a traitor. You sold Volodya’s memory for pennies!”
“I sold walls that were draining my strength, Ira. Volodya’s memory is in my heart—not in old boards. And yes, the money from the house is my safety cushion. Which you and Vadik, by the way, never paid back when you borrowed from us for your car five years ago.”
Silence hung on the line. In our family it was customary to “tactfully keep quiet” about that debt, pretending it had long been forgotten.
“Go to hell,” she threw out. “Don’t call us again. We don’t want to know you.”
“Happy upcoming,” I said, and pressed the red button.
Then I went into the contact settings for “Irina — Sister-in-law” and tapped “Block.” Vadik’s number followed into the blacklist.
Changing the locks
The apartment went quiet. Only the wall clock ticked, and bubbles hissed in a glass of mineral water.
I sat there and waited for guilt to crash over me. That’s what our mothers and grandmothers taught us: “Die yourself, but help your comrade,” “Family is sacred.” I listened to myself. Where was that burning shame for “offending the poor little orphans”?
It wasn’t there.
Instead there was a strange, forgotten lightness.
I opened the folder again. A bank statement. A sum with six zeros. Not just digits—freedom.
Freedom to go to a health resort in Kislovodsk not on a “social voucher” in wet November, but in May, when gardens bloom. To take care of my health in a good clinic, without lines and little appointment slips.
I could buy a tiny studio by the sea—in Svetlogorsk or Zelenogradsk. I’d been browsing listings for a long time. Pines, dunes, and a cold, strict sea that calms your nerves better than any medicine.
And most importantly—the address of that studio would be known to no one.
My phone chimed. I flinched, but it was just a bank message: “Interest credited on deposit…”
I went to the window. Snow still fell over Moscow, covering the streets with a clean white sheet.
Somewhere out there on the highway, their car was turning toward a hotel. They would have to pay for their отдых. For the first time in many years.
Was I cruel? Maybe.
Was it fair? Yes.
Sometimes, to get your life back, you just have to change the locks. Not only on the dacha door, but in your own soul.
I poured myself hot tea with lemon, turned on the tree lights, and smiled sincerely at my reflection in the dark glass.
The New Year would be quiet.
And it would be mine.
And what would you have done in Elena’s place? Should she have warned the relatives in advance, knowing it would cause a scandal—or is a “cold shower” the only thing that works on entitled people