Svetlana froze by the sink, a glass of water hanging motionless in her hand. The phrase seemed to hover in the kitchen air so suddenly that at first it felt like Sergey was joking. But her husband stood in the middle of the room with a completely serious face, waiting for her reaction.
She was an engineer at a manufacturing plant. For seven years now, every morning Svetlana had arrived at the workshop, where the metallic smell of machines mixed with oil and dust. Her schedule was brutal—6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., plus overtime that had become routine. Management liked to remind everyone that the production plan hadn’t been canceled and deadlines were closing in. Over the past year, a level of exhaustion had piled up so heavily that even weekends no longer helped her recover. Emotional fatigue layered over physical fatigue, and Svetlana understood: she needed a real break.
That was why she started planning her vacation back in winter. Every month she set aside ten thousand rubles—sometimes twelve if she got a bonus. By May the amount had grown to one hundred and twenty thousand: enough for tickets to Sochi, a decent hotel with breakfast, and a few excursions. The voucher was already tucked into a folder with her documents, the transfer was booked, and the suitcase stood under the bed, waiting for the final preparations.
Sergey knew about his wife’s plans. A couple of times he asked again about the vacation dates, nodded when Svetlana showed him photos of the hotel room. He kept it short: “Do what you think is best.” He didn’t offer any ideas of his own, took no part in choosing the package, and even when his wife asked his advice—what type of room they should pick—he brushed her off. Figure it out yourself, he said. You know better.
And now, a week before departure, her husband suddenly “remembered” the dacha. Standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, he announced it as if it were self-evident:
“Mom is counting on it—her back’s acting up. The garden is completely neglected. The fence is leaning after winter—there’s at least two weeks of work there. Time to hill the potatoes, plant the cucumbers.”
At first Svetlana thought it was some kind of bad joke. She had a printed voucher, all the documents were ready, the money was spent. But Sergey stood there with an absolutely serious expression and suggested they “postpone the trip until some other time, when we deal with the dacha.”
“What are you even talking about?” Svetlana put the glass on the table. “I’ve already bought everything and booked it. The vacation is approved, the paperwork is done.”
“So what?” Sergey shrugged. “You’ll cancel it. Or reschedule. Mom can’t manage the plot alone, and I’ve got an emergency at work. I can’t take time off right now.”
“So I can?”
“You’ll already be on vacation. What’s the difference—lying on the beach or ‘resting’ at the dacha? Fresh air, nature. Even better than sweating in a crowd of tourists.”
Svetlana slowly sank onto a chair. The air in the kitchen seemed to thicken; her husband’s words sounded unreal. Seven months of planning, meticulous budgeting, choosing dates—and all of it was supposed to dissolve because of her mother-in-law’s crooked fence.
“Sergey,” she began carefully, “I understand your mom has problems. But why now? Why during my vacation?”
“When else?” her husband started raising his voice. “Fix the fence in winter? Or when the snow falls? Now is exactly the time for dacha work. Mom is an older woman, her back hurts—and you only think about yourself.”
Then Sergey went on the offensive. He said Svetlana had “gone hard with age,” that she “couldn’t just walk past when an elderly person is struggling.” He listed everything that needed to be done on the property: dig the beds, repair the greenhouse, spray the apple trees for pests. The list grew by the minute, as if until that moment his mother had been living in total ruin.
The most interesting part was that Sergey himself wasn’t planning a vacation at all. He just kept repeating: the dacha, duty, “family values are more important than развлечения”—more important than entertainment.
“You know,” his voice turned colder, “there are things more important than your whims. Mom spent her whole life doing things for us, and now she needs help. And you are simply obligated to help. This isn’t up for discussion.”
That word—“obligated”—became the turning point. Svetlana sat staring at one spot on the table where her travel documents lay. Sergey kept talking; his voice grew louder, accusations of selfishness and cold-heartedness spilled out like grain from a torn sack. And his wife stayed silent. She just sat there listening as every plan collapsed, as a year of anticipation turned into forced labor at a dacha.
Then she stood up. Slowly, without any sudden movements. She went into the bedroom and pulled the suitcase out from under the bed. Sergey fell silent, watching as his wife began packing.
“What are you doing?” he asked, confused.
Svetlana didn’t answer. She took her toiletry bag and neatly arranged her creams and shampoo. She grabbed the swimsuit she had bought specifically for this trip. She added summer dresses, sandals, sunglasses. She did everything calmly, methodically—like she was getting ready for work.
“Svet, what are you doing?” Sergey came into the bedroom. “I explained the situation.”
She kept packing. She put in her phone charger, added a book she’d wanted to read for a long time, checked that all her documents were in her purse.
“So you’re really going to leave?” her husband’s voice now had a note of uncertainty. “After everything I told you?”
Svetlana closed the suitcase and turned to Sergey. Her face was calm, but her eyes burned with a strange fire.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” she said evenly. “And you can go to your mother and help her with the fence. Since someone else’s harvest matters more to you than my rest.”
“How is it someone else’s?” Sergey flushed. “She’s my mother!”
“Exactly. Your mother, your dacha, your fence. And the vacation is mine. And I’ll spend it the way I planned.”
Svetlana went back into the kitchen and started cooking dinner as if nothing had happened—peeled potatoes, pulled chicken from the freezer. Sergey wandered around the apartment, muttering under his breath, now and then peering into the kitchen with a baffled look.
“You seriously think I’m going to let you go?” he finally asked.
“Let me?” Svetlana didn’t even turn away from the stove. “Sergey, I’m an adult woman. I don’t need anyone’s permission to take a vacation I paid for with my own money.”
“But Mom is waiting for help!”
“Then let her wait for you. You’re the son, the heir to the dacha plot. And I’m just the wife who, apparently, is obligated to work in someone else’s garden instead of taking a well-earned rest.”
That evening they barely spoke. Svetlana double-checked all her documents, charged her phone, made a list of what she still needed to grab in the morning. She ordered a taxi for 6:30 a.m.—the plane departed at ten.
Sergey sat in the living room in front of the TV, but it was obvious he wasn’t watching. He flipped channels, glanced toward the bedroom where his wife was preparing for the trip. A few times he started to say something, then stopped.
In the morning Svetlana got up at five. Shower, coffee, last-minute packing. Sergey lay in bed pretending to sleep, but his tense posture made it clear he wasn’t dozing.
At 6:30 the intercom rang.
“The taxi is here,” Svetlana said, taking the suitcase.
Her husband jumped out of bed and threw on his robe.
“Wait,” he rushed after her. “We haven’t finished talking. You can’t just leave like that, abandoning all the problems.”
“What problems?” Svetlana was lacing up her sneakers. “Your mother has an adult son. You have weekends. You’ll manage somehow without me.”
“But what about—”
The door slammed. Svetlana walked down the stairs with her suitcase while Sergey stood in the doorway in his house robe, not knowing what to do next. The car started, and the engine noise dissolved into the morning quiet.
On her first day in Sochi, Svetlana turned the sound off on her phone. It was 8:15 a.m. when the screen lit up with an incoming call from her husband—Sergey usually was only waking up at that time. She stepped out onto the hotel balcony, ordered coffee to the room, and took a selfie with the sea in the background. It came out beautifully—sun-kissed face against endless blue, a genuine smile, rested eyes. She posted it on social media with the caption: “First morning of vacation.”
The air smelled of salt and seaweed; seagulls cried somewhere below; waves rolled steadily onto the beach. This was exactly what she had been missing—quiet, an unhurried rhythm, the ability to think only about herself. No one needed breakfast. No one needed explanations about where their socks were. No one was lecturing her about urgent dacha problems.
The day passed peacefully. Svetlana walked along the promenade, bought souvenirs she’d long wanted to bring her coworkers. In the evening she ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the sea—ordered sea bream and white wine, savoring every sip. At home, dinners like that were rare; she usually cooked something simple and fast.
Sergey’s messages started on the third day. First a short one: “So how is it there?” Then a long, offended one: “You should see how Mom is trying, and we’re here breaking our backs, and you don’t care about anything. We barely fixed the fence, the greenhouse is falling apart. And you’re out having fun.”
Svetlana read the messages over breakfast on the hotel terrace. The waiter brought an omelet with salmon and freshly squeezed orange juice. She looked at her husband’s text, shrugged inwardly, and didn’t reply. Instead, she signed up for a mountain excursion. Then another trip—to Abrau-Dyurso. She’d long dreamed of trying real Russian sparkling wine at the winery.
The mountain excursion was breathtaking. The bus wound along the serpentines, revealing new views of the sea and cliffs. The guide told stories about the region, pointed out ancient dolmens and waterfalls. Svetlana took photos, listened, asked questions. A retired couple from St. Petersburg sat next to her—Valentina Ivanovna and Boris Nikolaevich. They had been traveling together for thirty years and spent every vacation somewhere new.
“And where is your husband?” Valentina Ivanovna asked when they stood at an observation deck.
“Working,” Svetlana answered briefly. “He couldn’t get time off.”
“What a pity. Such beauty—and no one to share it with.”
But Svetlana didn’t feel lonely. On the contrary: for the first time in a long time, she felt completely free. No one hurried her along, no one insisted “we should go there instead,” no one complained about the heat or being tired.
Her husband called the next day, when the tour group was on the road to Abrau-Dyurso. The phone vibrated right in the middle of a tasting. Svetlana glanced at the screen—“Sergey”—and declined the call. Next to her, the sommelier was explaining how sparkling wine is made and showing the old cellars. Far more interesting than family reproaches.
That evening a new message came: “Fine. I hope you get a good rest. Mom is asking when you’re coming back.” The tone had changed—more conciliatory. Apparently Sergey realized pressure wasn’t working.
Svetlana spent the rest of her vacation exactly the way she’d planned. Sunbathing, reading, getting massages, trying local food. Buying what she liked without looking over her shoulder at the family budget—after all, the money was hers, earned and saved.
She returned home calmly. She knew there would be no screaming, no hysterics. Sergey wasn’t the type to make scenes. They simply needed to set some boundaries—explain the new rules of the game.
Her husband was waiting by the entrance with a gloomy expression. When the taxi pulled up, he helped take the suitcase out of the trunk and stayed silent while Svetlana paid the driver.
“How was the trip?” he asked at last.
“Fine.” Svetlana walked past him toward the elevator. “Don’t say anything right now. We’ll talk later, after I unpack.”
The apartment smelled of food and cleanliness. Clearly Sergey had prepared for her return—tidied up, gone shopping. On the table lay the mail that had arrived while she was gone, neatly stacked.
The serious talk happened the next day. Calmly, at the kitchen table, after both had drunk coffee and fully woken up. Svetlana opened a notebook where she had written down all the numbers in advance. She calculated how many hours she had spent at her mother-in-law’s dacha over the past year: nineteen weekends, two vacations—summer and winter—plus six workdays she’d had to take unpaid leave to help with planting and harvesting.
“That comes to three hundred twenty-eight hours,” Svetlana said, showing Sergey her calculations. “More than eight full workweeks. Free labor. On someone else’s land.”
Sergey stayed silent, staring at the numbers in the notebook.
“So you’re saying you won’t help anymore?” he asked cautiously.
“I’m saying my limit has been reached.” Svetlana closed the notebook. “Your mother is not my mother. The garden is not my garden. And I get one vacation a year. And it will never again end with mosquito-bite ointment and tubs of strawberries that have to be turned into jam.”
“But how will Mom manage alone?”
“Your mother has an adult son. She has neighbors. She can hire workers or sell the plot if it’s become too much. There are plenty of options—and I am no longer on that list.”
Her husband tried to argue, talked about family duties, said “that’s not how it’s done.” But Svetlana wouldn’t budge. She explained she would help in true emergencies—if her mother-in-law got sick or something serious happened. But routine dacha work was no longer her problem.
“And if I go to Mom alone?” Sergey asked.
“That’s your right. It’s your mother and your choice.”
“And you?”
“And I’ll spend my vacations where I want. Sea, mountains, excursions. The things I work all year for.”
From then on, they took vacations separately. Sergey went to his mother’s dacha; Svetlana went wherever she’d long dreamed of going. They didn’t need a divorce, though their relationship changed drastically. They lived like neighbors who had long stopped hearing each other, but out of habit still shared one apartment.
A year later Svetlana went to Karelia; two years later—to Crimea. After that came the Golden Ring, Lake Baikal, Kamchatka. She posted photos from her trips on social media and got enthusiastic comments from coworkers and friends. Some even started planning trips together with her.
Sergey continued spending every vacation at the dacha. He fixed the fence, обновил the greenhouse, even built new beds. His mother was pleased—her son came regularly, helped, didn’t complain. And Svetlana became, to her, simply the woman who “works and lives her own life.” There were no more claims—everyone understood that pressure didn’t work.
Sometimes Svetlana thought it could have been different—if Sergey had understood boundaries from the start, respected her plans, and didn’t treat his wife like free labor for his family. But time showed: people rarely change. The habit of commanding and controlling someone else’s time ran too deep in her husband.
But now Svetlana had certainty: no one has the right to control her rest. Vacation is sacred. And anyone who tries to take it away or ruin it will get a hard pushback. Life is too short to spend the only free weeks of the year on someone else’s gardens and imposed obligations.