“Lena, give me the keys to your dacha. Mom’s going to spend a couple of days there, air the place out, figure out where the seedlings should go.
We already decided. Fresh air will do her good,” Sergey declared in a tone that made it clear no one else’s opinion mattered, stretching his hand across the kitchen table.
My keyring to the log house I had inherited from my grandfather clinked dully against the countertop. My husband scooped it into his pocket without so much as a thank-you.
“We decided?” I tilted my head slightly, studying his face. “You two make decisions awfully fast, sir. So she’s just going to ‘air it out,’ is she?”
“Well, yes, like family does. Mom will tidy the place up. The dacha is just sitting there anyway, so at least it’ll be put to use,” Sergey said smoothly, with the smug calm of a man who had already mentally signed over someone else’s property to himself.
Arguing with people who had already granted themselves permission to take what was mine was a waste of time. I simply started keeping count, in my head, of their growing audacity.
A week later, I needed to pick up some of my grandfather’s papers from the dacha. I drove there without warning, opened the gate with my own key, and stopped dead.
In my light, minimalist living room, the sofa was already covered with someone else’s burgundy throws trimmed with hideous glittery thread. In the kitchen, mismatched cast-iron pans sizzled away, and on the terrace a freshly welded iron barbecue monster was smoking like a small crematorium.
My personal belongings had been shoved carelessly into a dusty corner.
My mother-in-law floated out of the bathhouse, flushed red from the steam, followed by some heavyset woman I had never seen before.
“Oh, Lena! We’re just enjoying the fresh air here with Aunt Raya,” Valentina Viktorovna said without the slightest embarrassment, pulling her robe tighter around herself as if she owned the place.
“After all, family should keep in touch. I had a look around, and the terrace really needs to be enclosed. There’s a draft. And we should redo the wallpaper too, something cheerier. The way you have it now feels like a hospital.”
“Who exactly is feeling this draft?” I asked politely.
“And since when did my dacha become a resort for distant relatives?”
“We’re family!” my mother-in-law snapped, striking her favorite pose with her hands on her hips. “I’m doing this for all of us! The dacha belongs to everyone now, and it ought to be made presentable, since your hands clearly weren’t made for that sort of thing.”
“How wonderful,” I nodded. “A true vision of domestic bliss.”
I took the folder with the documents and quietly left. It was too early to be outraged. The prey still needed to swallow the bait whole.
The next day my husband took his turn. At dinner, he casually pushed his plate aside and said:
“Lena, take out thirty thousand in cash for me. I ordered siding and paint. Mom found a cheap local crew. This is for our dacha, so you’re supposed to contribute to the repairs.”
I dabbed my lips with a napkin.
“Who ordered the siding?”
“Well, I did. Mom asked me to arrange it.”
“Excellent. Since you ordered it, you can pay for it. My wallet is not financing your little contracting games. Take out a loan, darling.”
Sergey puffed up and launched into a sermon about “the family pot” and how I “didn’t appreciate his mother,” but he got no money.
The whole puzzle came together perfectly that Sunday at a family lunch hosted by my sister-in-law. Valentina Viktorovna sat at the head of the table, surveying everyone like the owner of a vast estate, loudly talking about “her country property.” Then my brother-in-law, warm with drink and feeling generous, slapped the table and said:
“Valya, you’re a real businesswoman! I saw your ad on a post near the station and showed it to the guys at work. Five thousand a day, barbecue, bathhouse!”
“They say you’re booked solid for the next month. My friends want to rent it for a weekend too. Will you give family a discount?”
Silence dropped over the table. My mother-in-law kicked him furiously under it. Sergey coughed and stared hard at his aspic.
“Renting it out?” I smiled sweetly at my suddenly pale mother-in-law. “Five thousand? How interesting.”
“He’s joking!” Valentina Viktorovna shrieked. “The idiot had too much to drink!”
I didn’t make a scene. I simply stood up, thanked everyone for lunch, and left.
On Friday morning, while Sergey was getting ready for work, I called a locksmith from a local service. Forty minutes later, with a generous cash payment, brand-new heavy-duty anti-break-in locks were installed on both the gate and the front door.
At three in the afternoon, I was sitting on a folding chair by the fence, wrapped in a jacket, drinking coffee from a thermos with a faint smile on my face.
Two cars pulled up to the gate. From the first emerged my mother-in-law in all her grandeur, carrying bags. From the second spilled out a noisy group of strangers with crates of beer and bags of charcoal.
Valentina Viktorovna marched confidently up to the gate, jammed the old key into the lock with a dramatic flourish… and froze. The key wouldn’t go in. She yanked the handle, huffed angrily, and only then turned her head and noticed me.
“Lena? What are you doing here?” Her eyes darted nervously.
“Greeting the renters,” I said brightly, waving my paper cup toward the stunned group. “Hello there, dear guests. Welcome.”
The people by the cars exchanged confused glances.
“What renters?” my mother-in-law’s voice cracked. Her confidence was evaporating by the second.
“The very ones you’ve been charging five thousand a day, Valentina Viktorovna. Or are these more of your third cousins enjoying a special offer at the ‘family nest’?”
“You… you misunderstood everything!” she tried to push back. “We just came to relax! I wanted to settle into the house!”
“Your little reign of terror is over, dear mother,” I said, standing up and stepping right up to the fence.
“Renting out my property and then demanding money from me to pay for siding — that really is the peak of your evolution.”
“Now listen carefully. The only way my property gets rented out is through an official contract. Otherwise I am going straight to the district officer. I’ll file a report for attempted unlawful entry and attempted break-in, and while I’m at it, I’ll report you to the tax authorities for illegal income. I have a whole street full of witnesses.”
The people holding bags began backing slowly toward their cars. No one wanted to spend five thousand on a weekend that might come with police involvement.
“Let’s go. Work out your property drama yourselves,” one of the men muttered, tossing the charcoal back into the trunk.
“How dare you! Seryozha said we could do anything we wanted here!” my mother-in-law screamed, turning crimson with rage and humiliation as her customers drove off.
“Seryozha is currently trying to figure out how to pay for the paneling he ordered himself. The dacha is mine. There is no ‘us’ in the paperwork, and there never will be.”
She hurled the old keyring at my feet with pure hatred.
“You humiliated yourselves. All the best,” I said calmly, picking up the keys, walking onto the property, and turning the new lock from the inside with a loud, satisfying click.
That evening, a full performance awaited me at home. Sergey first tried righteous anger, but like any true opportunist, he instantly changed tactics the moment he realized he was in trouble.
“Lena, I swear, I had no idea she was taking money! I thought they were just her friends! She set me up!” he said, staring at me with devoted eyes, desperate to preserve his comfort.
“Save your fairy tales for your mother,” I cut him off coldly.
“By tomorrow before noon, you will go to the dacha and remove every bit of your mother’s junk, that crematorium she calls a grill, and those glittery curtains — or I’ll have a waste container delivered and send it all to the dump. Your family is banned from that property forever.”
Sergey swallowed the terms without protest. He had lost his free vacation base, but at least he still had a warm apartment. The next day, he silently hauled everything away. My mother-in-law no longer greets me, and at family gatherings they call me a greedy snake.
I don’t argue.
What matters is that the air at my dacha is crystal clear again.”