My mother-in-law walked onto my property without calling, without permission, and without an invitation. She wore a look that suggested I should have already rolled out a red carpet from the gate straight to my bedroom.
Behind her, sweating profusely and dragging massive suitcases, was my brother-in-law, Pavlik. Following him, stepping over the May dandelions with visible disgust, was my sister-in-law, Oksanochka. Bringing up the rear of this occupying force were the two nephews, who immediately charged into my flower bed and crushed my favorite peonies with a loud crunch.
They had arrived with suitcases, a plan for the entire summer, and the absolute certainty that, as usual, I would just stay silent.
But this time, they didn’t just miss a small detail. They misunderstood who owned the house.
The summer house was mine. It wasn’t a «family gathering spot,» not «Mom’s dream,» and definitely not the «Kolia family homestead,» as Raisa Vasilievna liked to call it whenever there was an audience. It was mine. Purchased with my pre-marital savings and titled solely in my name. But to my husband’s relatives, such nuances always seemed irrelevant.
I stood in the summer kitchen, rhythmically dicing crisp radishes with the precision of a machine gun. A jar of real, homemade bread kvass was fermenting in a large clay pitcher—dark, sharp, with raisins settled at the bottom. On the stove, new potatoes were slowly simmering in a cast-iron pot, drizzled generously with butter. Beside them lay a glistening piece of homemade *salo* and a couple of cloves of garlic.
Meanwhile, the camp was setting up with alarming speed.
«Lenochka, why are you staring at us like we’re ghosts?» Raisa Vasilievna said, settling into my favorite wicker chair as if it belonged to her. Without waiting for an answer, she shouted to the neighbor over the fence: «Petrovna! Yes, we’ve arrived! We’ll be here all summer now. We rented out our city apartment!»
Oksanochka, not even bothering to say hello, barged into the summer kitchen and threw open my refrigerator. «Where’s the meat? We’re starving from the road. And this okroshka of yours won’t be enough for everyone. Go on, chop up another pot. Just don’t add any onions—Pavlik can’t have them.»
At that exact moment, Pavlik, puffing like a locomotive, was dragging the bulkiest suitcase up the wooden stairs to the second floor.
«Here’s how it’s going to be,» the mother-in-law commanded, fanning herself with a sun hat. «The doctor ordered rest for Oksanochka. She has a bad back, you know. So, she, Pavlik, and the kids are taking your bedroom with the balcony. It has an orthopedic mattress. I’ll sleep in the guest room. And you and Kolia can move to the bathhouse. It’s got a decent sofa. What’s the difference to you? You’re still young. It’ll be romantic!»
I picked up a wooden pestle and began methodically mashing green onions with coarse salt, savoring the crunch.
«And order some groceries tomorrow,» Pavlik added from the stairs. «We already took three months’ rent for the apartment upfront, but I invested it in Bitcoin. So, we’re broke right now. We’ll be living here on full board until things get sorted out.»
Ten minutes. It took them exactly ten minutes to trample my flowers, ransack my fridge, allocate my money, kick me out of my own bed, and send me to live in the bathhouse.
My husband walked out of the garage, wiping his hands on a rag. Kolia looked at the scattered belongings, the broken peonies, and Pavlik on the stairs—then froze in the doorway of the summer kitchen.
I set down the pestle. I poured the ice-cold, sharp kvass over the vegetables. A beautiful, tingling aroma of mustard and dill hit my nose. I took a spoonful and tasted it.
Perfect.
«Call a taxi back, Raisa Vasilievna,» I said quietly, but with such weight that Pavlik froze on the stairs. «Right now.»
Everyone went silent. The only sound was the kvass hissing in the pitcher as the neighbor’s cats stretched their necks over the fence.
«What do you mean—’back’?» my mother-in-law gasped, choking on her indignation. «We rented out our apartment! We have nowhere to go! We’re family! Kolia, do you hear what your wife is saying? This is tyranny!…»
«Lena, you’re a woman!» Oksanochka shrieked, throwing up her hands with such indignant passion that it looked like I had personally stolen her dinner. «You have to have a heart! Are you really going to kick your own blood, your own nieces and nephews, out onto the street?»
I looked at my sister-in-law calmly. So calmly that, for a second, she stopped performing her motherly grief.
«You’re the one who put your children on the street when you rented your apartment to strangers and decided to move into my house without my consent. My summer house is not a free resort or a shelter for freeloaders.»
«Son…» Raisa Vasilievna twisted her face into a look of suffering, trying to squeeze out a tear. «Are you going to let her talk to your mother like that?»
Kolia walked over to the table, leisurely cut a slice of black bread, topped it with a thick slab of *salo*, and finished it off with a piece of garlic. He took a bite, the crunch so loud that Pavlik, still on the stairs, felt uneasy and swallowed nervously.
«I hear you, Mom,» my husband answered, completely calm as he chewed. «But right now, you aren’t at your home. You aren’t even at mine. You’re in my wife’s house. So, the last word here isn’t mine or yours. Here, Lena decides.»
And Lena said: call a taxi. «Pavlik, don’t bother unpacking. Take the suitcase back down.»
Their summer resort with full board suddenly collapsed, much like Pavlik did at the mention of «paying.» Pavlik dropped the suitcase on the steps and, nervously tapping at his phone screen, turned as pale as if his virtual millions had finally gone to live with someone else.
«Oxana… there’s a guesthouse in the village… eight thousand a night. And there’s five of us… Plus, our tenants paid for three months. We can’t just kick them out…»
Oksanochka immediately stopped worrying about her back, grabbed an armful of bags, and hissed at her husband.
Raisa Vasilievna said nothing. For the first time all day, she wasn’t calculating my square footage, but her own rapidly melting finances. They had nowhere to go in the city, and staying in a hotel would mean burning through all the rent money in a couple of weeks.
Fifteen minutes later, the tires of a taxi crunched on the gravel. They climbed inside in silence, hurried and busy counting their losses. At the gate, Raisa Vasilievna turned back one last time.
«Lena, you’ll regret this. A family doesn’t forget things like this.»
I put down the ladle and replied calmly: «That’s good. Maybe next time, before you rent out your apartment, you’ll remember that someone else’s summer house isn’t a backup landing strip.»
The *okroshka* turned out especially delicious that day. Probably because the excess people had been cleared out of the house before it was served.
