Pack up your bags, fold up this gypsy camp, take your plastic tubs of mayonnaise slop, and get off my terrace. The clock is ticking. You have exactly ten minutes to gather your things, or I’ll release the Caucasian shepherd dog on your enormous bodies.”
Lera stood on the steps of her brand-new, recently finished country house and felt molten magma pulsing inside her.
“Are you out of your mind, daughter-in-law?” Zinaida Petrovna froze, a piece of greasy pork still halfway to her mouth. “It’s my anniversary today, actually. Sixty-five years. Guests are coming. Where is your respect for your elders?”
“Respect ended the moment your shameless freeloading began,” Lera said sharply. “I couldn’t care less about your anniversary. This is my territory. My larch decking, which you are now drowning in cheap ketchup, and my celebration, which you decided to brazenly hijack. Get out.”
Valeria was turning forty. By this milestone, she had arrived with an iron grip, the position of branch director at a major commercial real estate agency, and a complete absence of illusions.
This house — a stylish black A-frame with panoramic windows in a pine forest — had taken her three years to build.
She had supervised the contractors herself, chosen every porcelain tile herself, and paid the bills herself from her substantial bonuses.
Her husband, Maxim, had not contributed a single kopeck to the construction during those three years. He worked as an ordinary sales manager, constantly complaining about the crisis, his tyrannical boss, and the “temporarily unstable market.”
Lera had long since stopped expecting financial heroics from him, especially since, before construction began, she had firmly insisted on a prenuptial agreement.
She had planned to celebrate her fortieth birthday and long-awaited housewarming beautifully and elegantly. No tubs of Olivier salad and drunken dancing to an accordion. She had ordered catering with waiters: farm cheeses, marbled beef, fresh oysters, craft lemonades. Only close friends and colleagues had been invited.
But a week before the date, the systematic pressure began.
“Ler, try to understand,” Maxim droned, pacing evenly around the living room of their city apartment. “Mom has a milestone birthday. Sixty-five. Relatives are coming from the regions. The old folks want to be out in nature, breathe some fresh air.”
“Your parents have their own dacha with a crooked outhouse and garden beds. Let them breathe there.”
“You’re cruel and categorical,” Maxim said, pursing his lips unhappily. “Your pretentious house is just sitting empty anyway. There’s a whole hectare of land! Let the old people enjoy themselves. They’ll sit quietly in the corner of the property under the pines. Grill some sausages, drink to Mother’s health. Mom swears you won’t even cross paths. You’ll have your group, they’ll have theirs.”
“Maxim, I know your mother perfectly well. She’ll occupy the entire perimeter. She physically needs to be the center of attention.”
“I guarantee it, Lera. No interference. One modest toast to her health, and they’ll leave before sunset. Be wiser. They’re family. Don’t blow up a conflict over nothing.”
At the time, Lera had waved her hand tiredly. She simply did not want to waste nerves on scandals after a difficult workweek.
“Fine. Let them sit in the gazebo near the gate. They are not to enter the house. They are not to come near my barbecue area.”
She agreed to that compromise, and it became a fatal mistake.
On Saturday, Lera arrived at the property two hours before the scheduled guests, together with her fourteen-year-old son, Egor, and the catering team. What she saw made her slam on the brakes so hard that Egor was thrown against his seat belt.
A giant tent stood on her perfectly even imported roll-out lawn. Screaming children were running around it.
Hard-hitting pop music blasted from powerful speakers. And in the summer kitchen, by the expensive grill, Maxim’s sister, Oksana, was in charge.
“Mom, what kind of zombie invasion is this?” Egor asked in shock, looking out the car window.
“This, son, is your father’s relatives deciding to save money on renting a recreation center,” Lera said through clenched teeth as she got out of the car.
Timur, the service manager who had arrived a little earlier in the van, immediately ran up to her.
“Valeria Viktorovna, we have a problem. They won’t let us into the kitchen. And I don’t know where to unload the oysters; there are trays of aspic and salads everywhere.”
Lera walked quickly toward the summer kitchen. Oksana noticed her and grinned broadly, wiping her greasy hands on the hem of her flowered dress.
“Oh, Lerka’s here! Come on, bring your delicacies over here. The vodka is chilling. Zinaida Petrovna is already beside herself; the guests are hungry!”
“What are you doing?” Lera’s voice was quiet, but so threatening that Oksana involuntarily stepped back.
“What do you mean? I’m making pilaf!”
Lera stared at the ancient, soot-blackened cast-iron cauldron standing on her extremely expensive induction cooktop, which was meant exclusively for special cookware, mercilessly scratching the glass ceramic surface.
And on the light acrylic countertop lay chunks of raw meat mixed with dirty knives.
“Take that piece of scrap metal off my stove. Now.”
“What are you getting so worked up about?” Oksana snapped. “It’s a normal cauldron! We need to feed people. Maxim said everything was included here!”
Lera turned around and walked toward the house. She opened the front door and froze. Her heart dropped somewhere into her stomach.
Dirty boot prints covered the light ash floor. The expensive modular sofa in the living room was covered in crumbs, and a fresh red wine stain darkened one of the armchairs.
But the main surprise awaited her in the bedroom on the second floor. On her Italian bed with an orthopedic mattress, having kicked off her shoes right onto the snow-white carpet, some obese woman was snoring.
Lera flew back outside like a bullet. She found Maxim behind the house — calmly smoking, leaning against the trunk of a pine tree.
“What the hell is going on here, Maxim?” Lera came right up to him. “What is this mob? Why are they in my house?”
Her husband looked at her with an absolutely cold stare. Not a single muscle twitched on his face.
“Valeria, stop throwing tantrums. Let’s reason logically. Renting a decent recreation center for thirty people would have cost me at least two hundred thousand rubles. You have a completed property sitting unused. It is economically irrational to pay strangers when we have our own territory. A family should optimize expenses.”
“Optimize?” Lera laughed sarcastically, feeling adrenaline pounding in her temples. “You dragged your entire collective farm here at my expense!”
“I gave Mom the spare keys back on Tuesday,” Maxim continued calmly. “They needed to prepare and bring in the food. Relatives came from far away, so I let them spend the night in the bedrooms. Nothing terrible happened.”
“Tuesday?! So they’ve been living here for four days?!”
“Don’t turn this into a tragedy. The bed linens can be washed. You’ll call a cleaning lady. I’m even willing to pay half the cleaning bill.”
At that moment, Zinaida Petrovna floated over to them. She was wearing a ridiculous sequined evening dress that clashed with the dacha mud on her shoes.
“Lerochka, why are you shouting at your husband on my holiday?” her mother-in-law drawled in a syrupy voice. “We’re one family. What difference does it make who sleeps where? The house is big; there’s enough room for everyone. By the way, tell your cooks to quickly bring those oysters and cheese to the tables. Uncle Kolya already wants a snack.”
The world around Lera froze. The emotions boiling inside her like a scorching current suddenly evaporated, giving way to a ringing, icy calm.
She looked at her husband, who, with the air of a brilliant strategist, was talking about logic and saving money at someone else’s expense.
She looked at her mother-in-law, who sincerely believed she had every right to manage someone else’s property.
This was not family. These were parasites who had spent years hiding behind loud words about kinship in order to settle comfortably on her neck.
And right now, they had crossed the final line.
“Timur,” Lera turned to the manager who had come over. “Pack up the equipment. Load the food back into the van. There will be no banquet. I’ll transfer double payment to your card for the canceled event.”
“Understood, Valeria Viktorovna,” the manager said, assessing the situation and instantly ordering his team to load everything up.
“What are you doing?” Maxim finally showed emotion, frowning. “We have a yard full of guests! What are we supposed to feed them? Oksana has only one pilaf, and even that is raw!”
“You’ll feed them promises,” Lera answered in an icy tone. “Egor, go to the car.”
She took her smartphone out of her handbag and opened the smart home system app.
“You wouldn’t dare ruin my mother’s anniversary,” Maxim hissed, taking a step toward her.
“Watch carefully.”
Lera pressed one button on the screen. In the same second, the music on the property cut out. The pump drawing water from the well gave a dull click and fell silent. The main circuit breaker shut off the entire house.
“What happened to the electricity?!” Oksana’s hysterical scream came from the summer kitchen. “The stove turned off!”
Lera pressed a second button. Heavy metal shutters began humming downward, tightly closing the panoramic windows and blocking the entrance doors.
“You’re completely insane,” Maxim hissed, staring at the descending metal shields.
“I am perfectly sane,” Lera looked him straight in the eyes. “The house has no electricity, the water is shut off, and the doors are locked. You have no light, no food, and no toilet. In forty minutes, a patrol from the private security company I have a contract with will arrive here. If they find strangers on private property, they will remove them by force. I’ll file for divorce on Monday. Keys on the table.”
“You have no right! This is marital property!” Zinaida Petrovna shrieked as she ran up to them.
“The prenuptial agreement says otherwise,” Lera held out her hand. “Keys. Quickly. Or I’m calling the local police officer right now and reporting unlawful entry.”
Maxim clenched his jaw so tightly that the muscles twitched. Silently, he pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and threw them at her feet.
Lera did not pick them up. She turned around, her steps sharp against the stone path, got into her SUV, and hit the gas, leaving behind a confused crowd of relatives in the middle of the powerless forest.
Two hours later, she was sitting on the open veranda of an elite city restaurant. Juicy marbled beef steaks steamed on the table, craft lemonade sparkled in tall glasses, and a mountain of fresh oysters lay on a huge platter — Timur and his team had quickly moved the order into the city and arranged everything with the restaurant kitchen.
Egor sat beside her, devouring meat, while across from her sat her loyal friends, listening attentively to Lera’s story and periodically bursting into loud laughter at the absurdity of the situation.
Lera took a sip of cold lemonade and leaned back in the soft chair. Inside, she felt incredibly calm. No regret. No pain. Only a crystal-clear understanding that life truly begins at forty — especially when you manage to throw out in time those who mistake your decency for weakness and a free buffet.
