I Took All 3 Windows Out of the Country House After My Mother-in-Law Sold It to Her Daughter Larisa at a Bargain Price
“Marinochka, don’t be offended, but Larisa needs it more.”
Those words, written in my mother-in-law’s neat handwriting on the back of an electricity bill, showed white through the gap between the gate leaf and the post.
I stood there, staring at them. In my hands were bags of varietal hydrangeas, heavy and smelling of damp peat.
And above the note hung a new lock. Shiny, arrogant, with laser engraving. My old “crab” lock, the one I had oiled myself every spring, was lying in the dust. Cut through with an angle grinder.
Something short-circuited in my head. You know, like an old television: a pop, and the screen goes black.
More details
windows
family
family
“Galina Petrovna,” I whispered into the emptiness, “you shouldn’t have done this. I warned you: if it came to betrayal, I would take everything out of here down to the last nail.”
“Marina, is that you?” Nyura popped up from behind the neighbor’s picket fence.
In her hands was her eternal mug of tea, and in her eyes was excitement.
“Yes, Nyura. They changed the lock. My keys don’t fit.”
Nyura took a sip and smacked her lips.
“Well, they were here yesterday, acting like owners. Petrovna was here, and Larisa with her husband. Larisa kept touching your garden set in the gazebo, gasping with delight: ‘Oh, how we’ll sit here in the summer!’ And Petrovna kept singing along: ‘Everything is ready. Move in and live. Marina polished every centimeter here.’ Good buyers. Family.”
I looked at my hands. A callus on my index finger from pruning shears. Nails that had not seen a manicure for a month because of spring planting.
Ten years.
For ten years, I poured every bonus I earned into this place. While my husband saved money on alimony, I built my own world here. Manure at fifteen thousand per truckload, a German pump, a greenhouse for forty-five thousand.
Larisa needs it more.
I got into the car and called my mother-in-law.
The ringing went on for a long time. Finally, her voice sang through the phone — sweet, syrupy.
“Hello, Marinochka? Are you at the country house? Oh, I forgot to warn you…”
“Galina Petrovna, what is this note? Why has the lock been changed?”
There was a sigh on the other end. Heavy, martyr-like.
“Well, you understand, dear. Larisa has a loan. And the country house is registered in my name. I’m a mother. I had to help. Larisa bought it from me. Purely symbolically. Everything has already been processed. You’re kind, Marinochka. Larisa needs it more. Don’t be so petty. We’re one family.”
“One family?” I straightened up. “Galina Petrovna, I broke my back for this ‘family’ for ten years.”
“The country house is mine according to the documents!” my mother-in-law’s voice instantly turned hard. “I have the right. As for your things… Larisa said they’ll take them to the garage. If she remembers.”
The line beeped. She hung up.
I sat there, listening to the engine cool down. Trrr-click. Trrr-click.
Fine. Since Larisa needs it more, let her use it. Let her use what belongs to her. And the only things that belong to her here are bare land and an old rotten shed from 2014.
The Japanese Screwdriver
The cargo taxi arrived an hour later. Two guys in stained pants silently watched me climb over the fence.
“Boss lady, are we stripping the house?” asked the older one, Seryoga.
I took a blue case out of my bag. My faithful Japanese electric screwdriver. I bought it myself when I realized that waiting for a man to screw in a shelf was like waiting for snow in July.
“We are taking my property, Seryozha. I have receipts. Invoices for the structures. We work fast.”
I started with the little house.
Whirr-whirr. The first screw came out of the door hinge.
Whirr-whirr. The second.
The door, which I had installed last year, gave way softly. It was expensive, with a thermal break. Heavy.
“Listen, boss lady,” Seryoga hesitated, looking at the empty doorway. “What if they call the authorities?”
“Let them call. I have a receipt for every nail. They have only bare walls.”
We removed the windows. The plastic resisted, the foam crunched like dry bone. I cut it myself with a knife, scraping my fingers.
Then we moved on to the greenhouse. Forty-five thousand. Premium polycarbonate.
The bolts were stuck. The hex key slipped, and my palm burned from the strain.
“Forget it, boss lady,” the second guy muttered. “Leave it. We’ll kill ourselves over this.”
More details
Kitchen and dining room
Door
family
I silently took the WD spray and sprayed the rusty thread.
“I’m taking everything down to the last nail. Turn it.”
I saw Seryoga look at me. With respect or fear, I don’t know. But he took hold of the wrench.
Reset to Factory Settings
The sound of tearing polycarbonate was pitiful, like a scream. The sheets came off and were rolled up.
“Take the pump out of the well too,” I ordered. “And the fittings. Everything down to the last adapter.”
Nyura was no longer drinking tea behind the fence. She was gripping the pickets.
“Marina! You’ll give her a heart attack! This is vandalism!”
“This is an inventory, Nyura. Did Larisa buy the land? Then let her manage it.”
I took a shovel.
The soil was heavy and dense. I dug.
First, the currant bushes. A special variety I had nursed for three years. Into black bags they went, their roots wrapped in wet burlap.
Then the hydrangeas. The ones that were already planted in the ground.
I felt my lower back aching. Sweat flooded my eyes.
“Boss lady, should we dismantle the gazebo?”
I looked at the gazebo. My brother and I had built it. I had varnished every board myself in three layers. I remember the smell of that varnish — sharp, pine-like. I remember how my back nearly gave out.
“Take it apart. Down to the foundation.”
By four o’clock, the plot looked like a movie set after filming. Empty.
Where the greenhouse had stood, there were black strips of dug-up earth. Instead of the little house, there was a box with empty eye sockets.
Even the pump was gone. A cut piece of cable stuck out of the well pitifully.
One Strong Detail
I stood in the middle of that wreckage. In my hands was an old kitchen knife I had used to cut the roots of the hostas.
I went into the shed. The only place I had not touched — it had been there before me.
On the shelf stood a kettle. Enameled, with a chipped spout. The very same one Galina Petrovna loved to drink tea from, saying, “Oh, Marinochka, it feels so soulful here.”
I took that kettle and carried it to the middle of the plot.
I placed it right on the ground. In the very center of what used to be the flower bed.
And next to it, I stuck a thistle bush into the soil. Huge and vicious.
There is your entire garden, dear relatives.
“That’s it, boss lady, the truck is full,” Seryoga shouted. “Where should we take it?”
“To the city. To storage.”
Boomerang with Delivery
I was on the highway when my phone went into hysterics.
Larisa was calling. Then Galina Petrovna.
I turned on speakerphone.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” my sister-in-law’s shriek hit my ears. “We arrived… we brought furniture… There’s nothing here! You stole the windows!”
“I didn’t steal anything, Larisa. I took what was mine. I have the receipts. Witnesses will confirm I didn’t break anything. I carefully dismantled it.”
“Mom fainted! The police are already on their way!”
“Let them come. But first explain to them on what grounds you planned to use my windows. Is the country house yours? Then use it. Plant potatoes in clay. You’re young and strong. You need it more.”
I ended the call.
Ten minutes later, my ex-husband called.
“Marina, that’s too much… Mom is crying, her blood pressure is almost two hundred. Why did you do that? You could have left it. We’re family…”
“Vadik, family is when people value you. When they use you, it’s exploitation. Want to help your mother? Buy her a new greenhouse. You always had ‘extra money,’ just never enough for alimony.”
Block. Silence.
A Garden on the Balcony
A month passed.
My balcony in the city turned into a jungle. The hydrangeas feel wonderful in tubs. I took the peonies to my sister — they are loved there.
They say Larisa tried to plant something on the “bare land.” But without the pump, without shelter, without the ten-year layer of fertilizer that I took away together with the turf under the bushes, nothing grew for her.
The soil there turned out to be heavy gray clay.
Galina Petrovna called everyone she knew, telling them about my “black ingratitude.” But for some reason, half of them stopped greeting her.
Apparently, everyone has had their own “Larisa” in life.
I sit on the balcony and drink coffee.
In the corner stands the blue case. My electric screwdriver.
I look at the flowers and feel that I am home.
A garden is something you carry in your hands. And no one can take your labor away from you unless you allow it.
I took everything down to the last nail. And that nail no longer sticks in my heart.
What would you have done in Marina’s place? Would you have accepted it for the sake of peace in your former family, or would you have taken what was yours down to the last splinter?
It is important to say such things out loud and feel support when it seems like the whole world is against you.
