Mom for June, Monica for July, John for August—my husband has the whole summer planned out at our dacha.

“What’s there to think about? The dacha is still standing, let people relax. Summer’s short.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I already told Mom.” She was delighted. She’ll be moving in on the first of June, until the end of the month. The fresh air and the garden beds are good for her.”

Marina wiped her hands on a towel. She hung the towel evenly, corner to corner.

“Should I ask you?”

“What should I ask?” Oleg was genuinely surprised. “You never objected.”

“I didn’t object. That was the point. For twelve years, I didn’t object.”

The dacha wasn’t just a dacha. It belonged to her parents—Marinina’s. Her father had deeded the plot of land, sixty kilometers from the city, to her eight years ago, signing it over during his lifetime so that no one would divide it up. She and her parents had finished building the house while she was still a student. Oleg came later, when the veranda, the well, and the greenhouse were already in place.

In twelve years of marriage, he’d hammered two nails into that dacha and brought a barbecue grill once. But every summer, his family would gather there to feed, sunbathe, and manage.

“Okay,” said Marina. “And who’s going to feed them?”

“Well, you’re home. It’s not hard for you.”

Svetka looked up from her phone.

“Marin, really. We’re going as a family. We’re not going to a hotel.”

“As a family,” Marina repeated.

She put the knife back in the drawer. She closed it quietly.

She had fifty-six vacation days. Accumulated over three years—she worked as an accountant for two companies, rarely taking time off, and transferring them. Fifty-six days that the family had long considered a shared resource: if she wasn’t working in the summer, then she was taking care of the dacha.

Last summer, she’d counted them. From the first of June until the end of August, eleven people lived on the property. My mother-in-law lived there all the time. Svetka’s children picked currants. Vitya, her brother-in-law, came over with friends to barbecue and left behind a mountain of dishes.

Marina cooked, by her estimate, about forty dinners for company that summer and never went to the seaside. She hadn’t been to the seaside in six years.

“I can’t do that this year,” she said.

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Oleg frowned. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I can’t cook for everyone for three months. I’m on vacation too.”

“But you’ll be at the dacha anyway. What vacation?”

“My own.”

Svetka chuckled.

“Oh, it’s started.”

“What’s started, Sveta?”

“Nothing. You just used to be okay with everything, but now you’re not.”

“And now what?”

Svetka couldn’t be reached. She shrugged and looked back at her phone.

Marina wiped the counter, turned off the water, and left the kitchen.

Behind her, Oleg whispered to his sister, thinking his wife couldn’t hear:

“Don’t pay any attention. She’ll get over it. What else can she do?”

Marina heard. She remembered that, too.

That evening, his mother-in-law called.

Oleg put the phone on speakerphone without thinking—he always did, believing there were no secrets in the family.

“Olezhek, tell me not to plant the dill by the fence. Last year, we planted it by the fence—it’s all in the shade. Marina doesn’t understand, explain it to her.”

“Mom, I’ll tell you.”

“And let her tie up the tomatoes right away this time. Otherwise, she walks around like a queen, everything growing on its own.”

Marina stood in the doorway. Her mother-in-law didn’t see her, but she spoke as if she were obliged to listen.

“And don’t let her waste all the strawberries this year making jam,” Zinaida Petrovna continued. “The children will come; let them eat fresh ones. Otherwise, she’ll make jars and they’ll just sit there.”

Marina planted the strawberries herself. She weeded them herself. I watered it myself. Eight beds, on weekends, on my knees.

“Zinaida Petrovna,” Marina said into the phone. “Hello.”

Pause.

“Oh, you’re here. Well, that’s what I was saying—dill.”

“I’m not working at the dacha this year. If you want dill, plant it yourself.”

“What do you mean, ‘myself?’ I’m getting older. I have a back problem.”

“My back problem, too.”

“Oleg!” His mother-in-law’s voice rose. “Can you hear how she treats me?”

Oleg waved his hand at his wife, as if to say, “Mom, get out of my way.” Marina moved away. But she didn’t leave.

“Mom, she’s just tired. Summer will get better,” he muttered.

“Are you a man or what? Your wife is rude to your mother, and you say nothing. That never happened in my house.”

In her house. It was Marina’s house.

Marina heard this and remembered.

“I’ll be here first,” her mother-in-law said crisply. “I want everything ready. Bed linen, groceries. I’m old, it’s hard for me to run around to the shops.”

“It’s still two weeks until the first, Mom,” Oleg said.

“That’s good. I have time to get ready.”

She hung up first. Her mother-in-law always hung up first.

The argument wasn’t resolved. It was simply postponed, like a bill that still has to be paid.

Oleg walked around feeling offended all week. He spoke little, sighed a lot. In the evenings, he’d let slip phrases like, ‘Family must stick together’ and ‘Normal people don’t kick out their relatives.’

“Nobody’s kicking anyone out,” Marina said one day.

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m saying that the dacha is working differently this year.” “What do you mean, different?”

“You’ll find out.”

He snorted and went to the TV.

Marina didn’t argue. She was gathering facts.

First, she logged into her bank account. She opened her transfer history for three years. She found what she was looking for: every May, she transferred money—for coal, for soil delivery, for well pump repairs, for new wiring in the house. All payments were made from her card. She always wrote the details carefully, like an accountant: “dacha pump repair,” “6 cubic meters of land,” “dacha electrician.”

Oleg hadn’t transferred a single ruble to the dacha in three years. But last fall, he bought himself a spinning rod for fifty-two thousand. The receipt was in the same history—a payment at a fishing store. And the implants Marina had been saving for for two years were still waiting: about two hundred thousand, which was always in short supply because “either the dacha, or relatives, or summer.”

She added up the transfers in a column, as she was accustomed to at work. It came to fifty-five thousand for the year, one hundred and sixty-five for three—just for materials and craftsmen, not including her own manual labor. She remembered the number.

She took screenshots. Put them in a separate folder on her phone. She simply called it “dacha.”

Lena picked up on the third ring.

“Oh, you lost soul. Why are you calling? What happened?”

“It happened. Tell me, is your July trip still available? The one for two, to Gelendzhik.”

The line went quiet.

“Okay. Repeat.”

“A trip. For July. You told me in the spring, but you didn’t buy the second one.”

“Marina. You’ve been telling me ‘next year’ for six years. Are you serious now, or are you going to back out again two days before?”

“Seriously. Take it for both of you. Ten days. I’ll transfer my half tomorrow.”

“What about Oleg? What about the dacha? What about your mother-in-law, who sits there like a vicar every summer?”

“The dacha will be closed this year.”

Lena paused.

“Closed,” she repeated. “Can you even hear yourself? You’ve been cooking for this crowd for twelve years. I came to see you once in July, remember? Your mother-in-law asked me who I was and why I was eating her strawberries. Hers, Marin. The strawberries you planted.”

“I remember.”

“And you kept quiet.”

“I kept quiet. But now I’m not keeping quiet.”

“Well, thank God.” Lena exhaled. “I’ll take it. For two, ten days, departure on July 4th. I’ll text you the number now, transfer it.”

“Transfer it.”

“And one more thing.” Lena’s voice grew more serious. “Are you prepared for this conversation at home? They’ll eat you alive.”

“Let them try.”

A minute later, a message arrived with the bank details and the signature: “Gelendzhik, July, ours with you. Don’t even think of hiding.”

Marina transferred forty-one thousand that same evening. She wrote the order in her own hand: “vacation July.”

The backup plan was ready before the second act began.

On Saturday, Oleg announced that his mother-in-law was arriving on Monday. “She’ll also look at the garden beds.”

“I’m at work on Monday,” Marina said.

“Well, leave her the keys. She’ll open them herself.”

“She doesn’t have keys.”

“What do you mean, no? I gave her the keys.”

“When?”

Oleg hesitated.

“Well. In the spring. Spare ones.”

Marina put down the ladle.

“Spare ones from the dacha? The ones hanging in my hallway?”

“Yeah, I thought they’d get lost, so I gave them to Mom for safekeeping.”

There it is. My mother-in-law had been keeping the keys to someone else’s house for two months now—in safekeeping. Without the owner’s permission.

“Okay,” said Marina.

She went into the hallway. The keychain wasn’t on the hook. Only her working one, with the ladybug keychain.

“Where’s the other keychain, Oleg?”

“It’s Mom’s. I told you.”

“Did you ask Mom when you gave it to her?”

He didn’t answer.

“So you took the keys to my house and gave them to your mother. Without telling me.”

“Oh, come on, you’re acting like you’re crazy. She’s Mom, not a stranger.”

“It’s my house, not ours.”

“There you go again with this ‘my house.’ We’ve been together for twelve years, and everything’s ‘mine’ to you.”

“The deed is in my name. It’s yours. If you want, we can read it together.”

Oleg waved his hand and left.

On Monday, my mother-in-law arrived. She opened the door with her key, settled down on the veranda, and by evening, she was already on the phone telling Svetka what to bring in July, “since the kitchen’s still working.”

Marina returned from work at seven o’clock. On the kitchen table lay a note from her mother-in-law, written in large handwriting: “Buy a chicken tomorrow, make some broth, and people will come see whose kids go first.”

“Whose kids go first.” They were already dividing up her summer. Making a schedule of visits to her dacha, her house, her stove.

Marina took the note. She didn’t tear it up. She put it in a folder—with screenshots. The same applied to papers.

Then she went to the dresser in her mother-in-law’s bedroom—she had left her purse open. A familiar keychain with a green keychain protruded from the side pocket.

Marina took the keys and put them in her room.

On Tuesday, she took an hour off work early and stopped by a locksmith in her neighborhood—a workshop in the basement of a neighboring building, with a sign that read “Locks. Keys.”

A middle-aged man in a blue jacket stood behind the counter.

“Hello. I need a new lock for my country house door. And installation. Can you come over this weekend?”

“What kind of door? Wooden, metal?”

“It’s sturdy wooden. It has a lever lock now.”

“Should we replace the cylinder or the whole frame?”

“The whole thing. And I need three sets of keys.”

The repairman wrote down the address in a tattered notebook.

“Does the old lock work? Why are we replacing it?”

“The keys have been distributed,” Marina said. “I want only mine to work.”

The repairman chuckled without looking up.

“That sounds familiar. Half my neighborhood is like that. First my son-in-law, then my in-law, then my ex-husband. We’ll install it, Mrs. I’ll be there by ten o’clock on Saturday.”

“Thank you.”

“You owe me half the deposit.” He named the amount. “The rest is factual.”

She transferred it to him on the spot, using his phone number, via the SBP. She kept the receipt. It’s a habit.

The scandal happened on Wednesday.

My mother-in-law missed her keys in the morning, rummaged through her bag, and called Oleg at work. Oleg called Marina.

“Did you take Mom’s keys?”

“My keys. To my house.”

“That’s too much!” he raised his voice. “Mom’s an old woman, what are you doing!”

“Come over this evening. We’ll talk in front of her. And invite Svetka, since she knows the schedule.”

“What schedule?”

“In the evening.”

Everyone gathered in the evening. My mother-in-law was in the kitchen, looking like an offended queen. Svetka was nearby, ready to support her brother. She even brought her eldest son and left him in the room with his tablet. Oleg was in the middle, unsure whose side he was on, but certain his wife was to blame.

“Well?” Oleg said. “Explain why you took the keys.”

Marina didn’t sit. She stood by the window, calmly, holding her phone.

“I’ll explain to the point. The dacha is mine. It was a gift from my father, registered in my name before we were married. It’s not joint property. It’s my personal property. In any case.”

“Yes, we know,” his mother-in-law waved him off. “Why are you insisting? It’s family.”

“Family. Fine. Then the question. Who paid for the coal, land, pump, and wiring for three years?”

Silence.

“I’ll answer. Me.” Marina turned the phone screen toward them. “Here are the transfers. Last May—the pump, eighteen thousand. Land—twelve. Electrician—twenty-five. The year before last—same thing. Total for three years: one hundred sixty-five thousand. From my card. Oleg hasn’t transferred a single ruble during this time.

“I help in other ways,” Oleg muttered.

“How?”

“Me? Well, I’m a man. I’m the breadwinner.”

“The breadwinner,” Marina repeated. “This fall, a spinning rod cost fifty-two thousand. Here’s the receipt. And for my implants, they say, ‘Be patient, the dacha is more expensive.'”

Red spots appeared on Oleg’s cheekbones.

“Are you spying on my card?”

“This is our shared bank, Oleg. You gave me access three years ago so I could pay the utilities. Forgot?”

Svetka fidgeted.

“Marin, what does a spinning rod have to do with it?”

“Besides, Svetlana, you were planning to come stay with me with two kids for a month in July. Free of charge. And you even told my mother-in-law what to buy me.”

“I didn’t tell you!” Svetlana flushed. “Mom told me to make a schedule!”

“Me?!” — the mother-in-law turned to her daughter. — You were the one calling, whining about how hard it was for you in the city with the kids! You’ve secured the top spot for July!

— Mom, you said it yourself—Oleg will decide everything, he’s the boss!

— The boss, Marina said quietly.

They hadn’t even noticed how they were squabbling. The mother-in-law was blaming Svetka, Svetka was blaming their mother, Oleg was trying to shout them down.

— Enough! he barked. “What are you doing, acting like a marketplace?”

— You gave the keys to Mom! Svetka shouted. “You said everything was under control, Marina wouldn’t make a peep!”

Oleg stopped short.

Marina looked at him.

— “I won’t make a peep, then.”

Svetka’s son, about ten years old, peeked out of the room.

— Mom, why are you all shouting? Aunt Marina told me it’s her dacha.

“Go into your room!” Svetka barked.

The boy shrugged and left. But he left his sentence hanging in the air.

A thick silence fell.

“Now by the rules,” Marina said evenly. “Since everyone loves schedules so much.”

She placed her phone facedown on the table.

“It’s my dacha. Whoever comes, comes when I invite them. Not according to Oleg’s schedule. I cook when I want and for whoever I invite. No ‘month with the kids.’ If you want, you can visit for the weekend, bring your own groceries and work the garden yourself.”

“What kind of rules are these?” the mother-in-law gasped.

“Mine. In my house.”

She said it out loud for the first time, and something clicked in the room.

“And I already changed the locks. The locksmith will install a new one on Saturday. Three sets of keys.” One for me, one for Oleg, if he starts acting like a husband and not a travel agent for his family. The third one is a spare, mine.

“And for me?” asked the mother-in-law.

“And for you, by invitation.”

“You have no right!” the mother-in-law rose. “I’m a mother! I’ve been coming to this house for twelve years!”

“Go ahead. As a guest. I’m the owner. If you want to check, go see a lawyer. It’s a deed of gift, personal property. They’ll tell you the same thing.”

Oleg was silent. For the first time that evening, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“And one more thing,” added Marina. “I’ll be gone in July. I’m going to Gelendzhik with Lena. For ten days. My ten days out of fifty-six.”

“And us?!” Svetka blurted out.

“And you, like adults. The dacha will be closed.” She picked up her mother-in-law’s note from the table—the one about the broth and chicken. She held it up high for everyone to see.

“I’ll keep this. As a souvenir. Like when they drew up my schedule here.”

And she put it back in the folder.

Her mother-in-law left that same evening, proudly refusing dinner. Svetka followed her, saying goodbye that “she didn’t expect this” and that “family doesn’t end there, you’ll regret it.” She led her son away by the hand.

Oleg stayed behind. He sat alone in the kitchen for a long time.

“Are you really leaving?” he asked finally.

“Really?”

“And what about me?”

“Just think about it,” Marina said. “For twelve years, you brought your relatives to me to feed them. You never once asked if I was struggling. Now think for yourself.”

“My mother was offended.”

“It happens.”

“Is that all you’ll say?”

“That’s all.”

He didn’t answer. But he stopped arguing, too.

On Thursday, my mother-in-law made a second attempt—she called herself, this time without Oleg as the intermediary.

“Marina. I’ve thought about it. I’m ready to come in June, as we agreed. Okay, I’ll take care of the garden beds myself and help you. You can’t manage alone.”

“Zinaida Petrovna, I won’t be at the dacha every day in June. I’m working.”

“Then I’ll keep an eye on it!”

“You don’t need to keep an eye on someone else’s house. It’s locked.”

“Am I a stranger?!” “The house is mine. Visits are by invitation. I’ll call you if I ask.”

“I’m coming to see my son, not you!”

“My son lives in the city, in an apartment. You know the address.”

The mother-in-law choked and hung up. First, as always.

On Saturday, a repairman arrived. He installed a new lock and handed over three sets. Marina checked each key in the cylinder in front of him. She handed one set to Oleg across the table—no fob, no ceremony.

“Here you go. You’ll be visiting as a guest, not as the manager.”

He took them silently. He twirled the keys in his hand, as if he didn’t recognize them.

The repairman collected the tools, signed his notepad, and took the other half of the payment.

“A good lock, mistress,” he said as they parted. “This key only goes to the person you give it to. No ‘spare ones at Mom’.”

“Exactly,” said Marina.

In July, Marina went to the seaside.

For ten days, she didn’t cook a single broth for company. She slept until nine, eating what someone else cooked. Lena laughed that she barely recognized her friend—for the first time in six years, she wasn’t waking up at seven in the morning to peel potatoes for a crowd.

On the fifth day, Oleg called.

“Listen. Mom’s upset. She says you kicked her out of the family.”

“I didn’t let her leave my house to boss us around. Those are two different things.”

“She wants to come over in August.”

“Let her call me. I’ll decide.”

“You’ve become really tough.”

“I’ve become normal,” said Marina. “I used to be tough—only to myself.”

Oleg paused on the phone. The television could be heard in the background.

“Here’s this.” I watered the beds. And tied up the tomatoes. All by myself.

Marina grinned into the phone. It was the first time he’d done anything at the dacha without being reminded.

“Good boy,” she said. “It happens.”

“Vitya called. He wanted to have a barbecue with his friends in August. I told him this isn’t my house and to call you.”

“And what did he do?”

“He got offended. He said you were breaking up the family.”

“And what did you say?”

Oleg paused.

“He said the family was being torn apart by the one who treated you like a free cook for twelve years.”

Marina didn’t answer right away. It was the first proper thing he’d said all summer.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Come in August. For the weekend. With groceries.”

“Agreed.”

In August, Vitya finally showed up at the dacha. With two of his friends’ cars, coal, and a water heater—unannounced, just out of habit.

The gate was locked. The lock was new. The old key, the one he usually kept in the glove compartment, didn’t work.

He called Marina.

“Marin, what’s going on? I went to the gate, and it was locked. The key won’t fit.”

“The lock was changed.”

“Should I tell you?”

“Did you tell me you were coming?”

“That’s how I always came!”

“I used to. Now it’s by invitation.” I didn’t invite you this time.

“My guys are in the cars! I bought coal! Are you kidding me?”

“Vitya,” Marina said calmly. “It’s my house. If you want a barbecue, there are places in the forest park, there are campsites. Go there.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“It happens.”

He yelled for another minute, then hung up. He turned the cars around. He told his friends that “his sister-in-law has gotten too cocky.” They shrugged and went off to grill some other place.

Marina put her phone back in her pocket. She closed the bank app, where she was just checking to see if her paycheck had arrived. She returned to the garden.

Three months passed. October arrived.

Her mother-in-law never showed up in August. She called and tried to say, “As a mother, I have the right,” but Marina replied that the boss of the house has the right to decide, and she is the boss. Zinaida Petrovna hung up. A week later, she called back, asking to come over for the weekend. Marina let her in. Her mother-in-law brought her cottage cheese and, for the first time in twelve years, didn’t say a word about dill. She sat quietly, ate strawberry jam, and praised it.

Svetka, too, changed her tone. In the fall, she wrote cautiously in a messenger: “Marin, can we come for a couple of days during the May holidays? I’ll bring groceries, honestly, and I’ll cook for you myself.” Marina replied curtly: “Yes, yes. For a couple of days. With groceries.” And that was it. Svetka sent a thumbs-up and three hearts. Marina ignored the hearts.

Vitya didn’t call after the incident with the gate. He sent word through Oleg that he was offended. Marina replied that he could be offended as much as he wanted, but the key to this wouldn’t appear.

Oleg didn’t understand right away. Back in July, he was still sulking, thinking his wife was callous. But by fall, something clicked. He started asking before inviting anyone. He brought a new pump to the dacha himself—he paid with his card, and Marina saw a transfer in the shared bank account with the details “Pump Dacha.” It was a small line, but she stared at it for a long time.

Marina had finally saved up for the implants—the money that had previously been spent on someone else’s summer was now hers. She made a doctor’s appointment for November. Oleg, upon learning about it, offered to pay half. She thought about it and agreed—not because of the money, but because he offered.

At the end of October, Marina arrived to close up the dacha for the winter. Alone. She decided it was time and locked the house herself with a new lock. The same folder lay on the kitchen table—she never deleted the screenshots, leaving them behind, like a receipt for a paid debt.

A neighbor called out through the fence:

“Marin, why are you alone this year? You used to have a whole regiment here, it was noisy.”

“We used to,” Marina said. “But now we’re invited.”

She checked the latch on the greenhouse, turned off the light on the veranda, and locked the gate. The key—one, on a simple steel ring, without a ladybug or green keychain—was in her jacket pocket. Her key to her house. Marina got into her car and drove into town.