The freshly installed corrugated metal gate slammed shut right in front of my face, as if it wanted to cut off even the air from me. I was only a hair’s breadth away from it catching my hand.
On the other side stood Zinaida Markovna. My mother-in-law. Around her, the usual heavy mixture: Corvalol and anger. That kind of smell that already signals there will be no peaceful conversation.
— And don’t you ever set foot here again! — she hissed through clenched teeth. — The plot is mine. The house is mine. Do you understand?
Behind her, Igor was shifting uneasily. My husband… officially still my husband. Head down, as if the freshly laid paving stones had suddenly become an extremely important research topic. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t speak. He didn’t stand by my side.
Of course.
And yet it all started so innocently six months earlier.
I sold my grandmother’s small room in a communal apartment. The money — 2,300,000 rubles — went straight into my account. Back then I thought it was a new beginning.
And Igor immediately sensed a “possibility” in it.
For days, weeks, he softened me up.
— Toma, inflation will eat that money… Better to renovate my mother’s dacha. There will be grandchildren, where would we go? To a concrete apartment? There are pine trees there, a lake… My mother promised it would eventually be put in our names.
“For the family.”
It’s strange how that word is always used when it’s someone else’s money.
At fifty-five, you don’t think you’d fall for stories like that anymore. But it still happened. With one condition: every decision would be mine.
And I decided.
Flooring, roof, insulation, tanks — I chose everything. I paid for everything. From my own card, under my own name, with my own responsibility. I even convinced Zinaida Markovna to sign a budget sheet — I told her it was just a “guarantee document.”
To this day, I’m grateful to myself for that paper.
Then came the day of the “celebration.”
Meat, cake, vegetables — everything like a family idyll. I stepped onto the new veranda. The air smelled of fresh varnish and new wood.
And there sat Stasik.
Igor’s thirty-five-year-old younger brother. Never seen working, but very skilled at living. He was sprawled in my wicker hanging chair, beer in hand, as if it were his inheritance.
And Zinaida Markovna was glowing.
— Tomochka… you are such a smart woman — she began sweetly. — I think Stasik deserves something too. Family, a home… so I had the dacha registered in his name.
For a moment I just squeezed the handles of the shopping bags. The plastic cut into my palms.
— What did you do? — I asked quietly.
And then the mask fell.
— Who asked you to build a palace?! — she snapped. — You have nothing here! Parasite!
Stasik grinned. Igor stayed silent. As always, when there is a choice to be made.
I didn’t shout. I didn’t cry.
I just turned around and left.
At home I took out large black garbage bags. One by one I threw Igor’s life into them: clothes, fishing rods, razor, junk. All of it went into the stairwell.
In the evening he was already banging on the door.
— Toma! Open up!
— Go to your mother — I called back. — Or to Stasik on the veranda.
Then silence.
On Monday I was already sitting with a lawyer.
The following months didn’t feel like a story, but like slow grinding. My mother-in-law hired a lawyer who spoke of “good-faith donation,” as if my own money had been a kind gesture.
But I had everything: bank statements, contracts, receipts… and that very budget sheet with Zinaida Markovna’s signature.
Unjust enrichment.
The judge’s voice was calm. The decision, however, was heavy:
— The claim is granted.
The money must be repaid. With interest. With costs.
They thought it wasn’t over yet.
Then came the bailiffs.
Stasik’s card was frozen. Money started being deducted from my mother-in-law’s pension. Igor called from unknown numbers, increasingly desperate:
— Toma, stop them! My mother is ill! How will Stasik live?!
— My blood pressure is high too, Igor — I said calmly. — I just don’t call other people because of it.
The dacha was eventually sold.
Quickly. Quietly. Before it could be seized.
The money returned to me in full.
I bought a studio apartment with it. A calm investment. For renting out. For the future.
And the others?
Stasik moved back in with his mother into a one-room apartment, where the TV became their only company. Igor lives in a suburban rental, paying off loans taken because of his own mistakes.
No dacha.
No illusion.
In this life, everything has a price.
Especially when someone tries to build a home with another person’s money.
