My Husband’s Relatives Decided They Needed a Vacation at My Expense — Good Idea. But the Celebration Ended Quickly
“You’ll put your kids on folding beds. They’re young, their bones are flexible. But Ruslan needs a proper bed, he has back problems,” Inga announced at the gates of the holiday resort instead of saying hello.
“And don’t make that face, Lara. Mom said the cabin is big.”
I slowly lowered my hands onto the steering wheel and looked through the windshield.
My husband, our children, and I had arrived at a holiday resort by a forest lake.
A quiet place. A wooden cabin for four, paid for by me two months earlier. A long-awaited break, fought for between exhausting work schedules.
And now, standing at the carved gates of the resort and blocking the entrance, was a miniature traveling circus.
Inga, my Pasha’s sister, leaned triumphantly on an enormous suitcase.
Beside her, her husband Ruslan shifted from foot to foot, armed with a bag of charcoal and a pack of cheap “Red Price” sausages.
A little farther away, like a general reviewing a parade, stood my mother-in-law, Raisa Nikolaevna.
The finishing touch to this composition was Inga’s two children, who were already hitting each other with a poisonous-yellow two-liter bottle of lemonade that looked capable of dissolving rust.
As Nero Wolfe used to say, if it seems to you that someone is trying to cheat you, it means you have already been cheated.
We got out of the car. While Pasha and I were taking bags out of the trunk, Inga had already managed to walk up to my children and inform them:
“You’re not little anymore. Folding beds will be fine for you, and Uncle Ruslan won’t hurt his back.”
“What a pleasant surprise,” I said evenly. “Although I don’t remember expecting anyone.”
“Oh, Larochka, we’re family!” Raisa Nikolaevna immediately joined in, stepping forward and skillfully switching on her “holy innocence” mode. “When I found out you were going out into nature, I called Ingusha right away. What are we supposed to do, sit in the stuffy city while you breathe fresh air here? It’s more fun together!”
“The cabin is for four people, Raisa Nikolaevna,” I replied calmly, feeling a cold, calculating spring tightening inside me. No hysterics. Only observation.
“I’ve already decided everything,” Inga declared categorically, as if my paid reservation were not a booking but a rough draft of her plans.
Adjusting her beach hat, which was the size of a satellite dish, she added:
“Mom will sleep in the bedroom. She needs peace and quiet. Rus and I will take the sofa in the living room. And you, Pasha, and the kids can squeeze in somehow.”
Their behavior reminded me of a swarm of locusts: it does not ask permission, it simply flies in and starts devouring your crops.
A pretty young woman with a tablet came out of the glass doors of the reception building.
“Hello! Are you Larisa?” she smiled at me. “The booking is in your name. And this, I assume, is your surprise?”
The girl looked over at Inga.
“Yes, yes, that’s us!” my sister-in-law nodded happily. “Lara, I took care of a few things so you’d have less trouble. I booked the sauna for two evenings, because we’re not strangers, are we? And I adjusted the menu. Your shashlik is good, of course, but I added grilled trout and an expensive cold-cut platter.”
“Inga called this morning and placed a request for the sauna and the menu,” the administrator politely explained, looking at me. “But the reservation is under your name, so we cannot process anything without your confirmation.”
Generosity at someone else’s expense is the fastest way to earn a reputation as a philanthropist.
“Wonderful initiative, Inga,” I smiled so sweetly that Pasha tensed beside me. He knew that smile. Usually, after it, someone lost their illusions.
“If you confirm it, then including the extra charge for three additional guests, the folding beds, the sauna, and the special kitchen order, the remaining amount due is twenty-eight thousand four hundred rubles,” the administrator said businesslike.
Inga gracefully rolled her shoulder and looked at me meaningfully.
Raisa Nikolaevna folded her arms across her chest, waiting for me to obediently take out my wallet.
The paradox of family ties: the tighter the hugs at the meeting, the deeper they reach into your pocket.
“Miss,” I turned to the administrator, and my voice became cold and firm. “I confirm only my reservation. It has been fully paid for. There are four of us.”
I paused, looking into my sister-in-law’s confused eyes.
“As for these wonderful people, they are a separate group. Please arrange their accommodation, trout, sauna, and expensive cold cuts on a separate bill. In Inga’s name.”
Everyone fell silent. So completely that you could hear a woodpecker tapping somewhere in the forest.
“Lara, what are you doing?” Inga’s voice broke pitifully. Her hat slipped to one side. “We only have money for gas and ice cream! We came as guests!”
“Then you don’t have a vacation, Inga. You have a walk to the gate,” I said sharply. “Guests come with an invitation. And with a cake. You arrived at someone else’s holiday with a pack of paper sausages and an appetite worth thirty thousand.”
“Larisa! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” Raisa Nikolaevna squealed, turning crimson. “We’re family! Relatives! Pasha, why are you silent?! Your mother and sister are being thrown out onto the street!”
Pasha stepped forward. He did not shout, but there was steel in his tone.
“Family, Mom, means people who respect other people’s boundaries. Lara worked hard for half a year to organize this holiday for us and the children. You came without an invitation, tried to push my children onto folding beds, and wanted to hang the bill for your delicacies on my wife. That isn’t family. That’s an attempt to board our ship like pirates.”
“But I… we wanted to make a surprise! Pasha, you begged us to come!” Inga tried to wriggle out of it. Excuses poured out of her like stuffing from a torn pillow.
“Ruslan,” Pasha turned his heavy gaze toward his brother-in-law. “This ‘begged us to come’ thing is a separate kind of tourism. It’s called ‘inviting yourself.’”
Ruslan’s face stretched. He looked at his lonely bag of charcoal, then at his wife.
“I might not even have come,” Ruslan muttered. “You said Pasha had invited us himself and that everything was already paid for.”
The illusion collapsed completely. Their nerve failed right in front of everyone.
Ruslan silently turned around and walked back to his car, without even trying to help his wife with her enormous suitcase.
Inga’s children stopped fighting with the bottle and, for the first time, froze in silence, staring at their mother.
And Raisa Nikolaevna, who had been so loudly preaching about “family,” suddenly turned sharply toward the car, pretending to be very interested in the pine trees. She clearly had no intention of paying for this banquet out of her pension.
“If you change your mind, there is a free cabin available,” the administrator calmly said to Inga’s back. “One hundred percent prepayment.”
We walked along the neat path toward our cabin.
Behind us, car doors slammed and the engine roared angrily. I took a deep breath of clean forest air.
Near the porch, Pasha wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close.
“You know,” he chuckled, “this is turning out to be an excellent vacation.”
“Of course,” I smiled, watching our children run toward the lake with joyful shrieks. “Come on, husband. Our rightful peace is waiting for us.”
And beyond the fence, swallowing the dust of someone else’s celebration, the whole traveling circus drove away, having learned one simple rule forever: in this family, other people’s comfort would no longer be paid for with my children’s beds and my bank card.