My Mother-in-Law Brought the Whole Family to My Country House and Let Them Take My Winter Preserves. But the Giveaway Ended the Moment I Arrived
“Hello, Olya. Did you sell the country house, or did you simply evacuate?” The voice of my neighbor, Nadezhda Mikhailovna, sounded military-sharp through the phone.
“What makes you think that? Pasha and I are in the city,” I said, pinning the phone between my shoulder and ear while continuing to examine garden hoses in the hardware store.
“Then congratulations on opening a wholesale distribution center,” my neighbor snorted. “Your mother-in-law has organized such a nonstop shipment of jars from your cellar that there will soon be a traffic jam at the gate. Irina is carrying empty boxes from the trunk, while Zinaida Pavlovna is commanding everyone like a forewoman: ‘Be careful with the porcini mushrooms! Those are for Gena’s anniversary!’”
I carefully placed the hose back on the shelf. My husband, Pasha, who was standing nearby examining power drills, raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“Pash,” I sighed. “It seems the key you gave your mother strictly for watering the cucumbers has accidentally opened a portal to Narnia. More precisely, to my cellar. Let’s go.”
The drive to our country house usually took thirty minutes, but we made it in twenty. The gate stood wide open in a welcoming manner. The veranda looked like a lavish merchant’s feast. Plates of sliced food had been arranged on my favorite lace tablecloth, and an open jar of my strawberry jam stood proudly in the center.
Zinaida Pavlovna was seated at the head of the table with such monumental grandeur that she looked as though she had just signed a decree annexing my land to her ancestral homeland.
Pasha’s older brother, Stas, was carrying a heavy box of pickled tomatoes out of the house. His wife, Larisa, was busily rearranging jars, while Pasha’s younger sister, Irina, was stuffing my special homemade lecho into her bag.
“Oh, the owners are back!” Stas exclaimed with fake delight, freezing on the porch with the box in his hands.
“And good health to you too,” I said, leaning against the doorframe and folding my arms across my chest. “I see, Zinaida Pavlovna, that watering the cucumbers in the greenhouse required heavy artillery and a substantial carbohydrate intake.”
Irina, who worked as a beauty salon administrator, straightened indignantly and adjusted her fashionable blouse.
“Olya, why are you making a scene?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Vegetables grow in the ground by themselves. It isn’t a beauty salon where intellectual labor is required. You throw some seeds into the soil and wait. I’m taking this lecho for Lyudochka. She works in an office and needs vitamins. You can always make more!”
“Irochka,” I said with such a gentle smile that Pasha took a precautionary step backward, “if vegetables grew entirely by themselves, agronomy would not be a science. Tomato plants need pruning, tying, protection against late blight, and a proper watering schedule. Believe me, it is slightly more complicated than booking a client’s manicure appointment through a messaging app.”
“You simply hate my daughter because you spent your entire life sitting behind a cash register!” my sister-in-law shrieked.
“I’m not concerned with anyone else’s impressive career achievements, Ira. But right now, you are clutching a jar of my lecho like a balding customer fighting over a free shampoo sample. Put it back.”
Irina gasped indignantly and threw the jar back into the box.
Then Larisa entered the battle. As a cashier in a hardware store, she loved using numbers and “facts” to support her arguments.
“Oh, Olya, why are you being so greedy?” Larisa pursed her lips, shielding a three-liter jar of cucumbers with her body. “You have piles of preserves! Besides, you use too much vinegar. It is bad for the stomach. We are taking these for Lyudochka. She has gastritis, and homemade food is healthier for her, without all those chemicals. Yet you begrudge your own relatives a few jars!”
“Larisa,” I said, tiredly rubbing the bridge of my nose, “if you were interested in anything besides discounts on screws, you would know that acetic acid is a necessary preservative in marinades. It prevents the growth of bacteria that can cause botulism, a potentially fatal illness. Gastritis is treated with an appropriate diet, not stolen pickles.”
“You selfish woman!” Red blotches appeared across Larisa’s face. “You would strangle your own relatives over a jar of cucumbers!”
“I would not strangle anyone over a jar,” I replied calmly. “But you are going to return it to the cellar so quickly that it will look as though someone at your checkout counter approved a refund without a receipt or identification.”
Larisa breathed heavily through her nose, but she finally released the jar.
Realizing that the situation was becoming dangerous, Stas attempted to play peacemaker.
“Girls, stop arguing over food! Pasha, say something to your wife. We are all one family! Why ruin our relationship over this?”
Pasha, who had been silently observing everything until then, suddenly stepped forward. His face was completely expressionless.
“Stas, the person ruining the relationship is the one who comes into someone else’s home carrying empty boxes and raids their cellar without permission. Take everything back. Now.”
Realizing that her authority was collapsing, Zinaida Pavlovna angrily slammed her fist on the table, nearly knocking over the little dish containing my jam.
“I am your husband’s mother!” she proclaimed in the voice of a prophet. “I have the right to provide treats for my brother’s anniversary! Besides, mushrooms are a forest resource. They belong to the state, not to you personally! According to the law, nature belongs to everyone!”
“According to the law, Zinaida Pavlovna,” I said, pulling out my phone and opening the calculator, “a forest resource becomes private property from the moment it is legally collected. That is Article 221 of the Civil Code. Entering someone else’s storage space without permission, however, falls under criminal law.”
“You shopkeeper!” My mother-in-law theatrically clutched her chest. “You reduce everything to money! You have no spirituality whatsoever. Your head is filled with nothing but petty materialism!”
“My spirituality, Zinaida Pavlovna, ends where your kleptomania begins,” I replied calmly, tapping several buttons on the screen. “And right now, you are protesting so loudly that one might think you had been caught carrying an unpaid salami sausage out of a store inside your coat sleeve.”
A heavy silence followed, disturbed only by the buzzing of a wasp above the half-eaten jam.
“Now let’s move on to the mathematics,” I said, opening the notebook in which, like any good inventory manager, I kept records of our supplies. “Seven jars of porcini mushrooms. Ten jars of lecho. Fifteen jars of cucumbers. Mashed berries. The cost of the ingredients, jars, lids, spices, and electricity, plus the value of my labor calculated at the hourly rate charged by a cleaning company. The total is…”
I named the amount.
Stas whistled.
“Either pay or unload everything,” Pasha said sharply, walking over to the table and taking the country-house keys from his mother. “And none of you are to come here again unless I am present.”
At that moment, Zinaida Pavlovna’s phone came to life on the table. The screen displayed the name “Brother Gena.”
With trembling hands, my mother-in-law switched the call to speakerphone and whimpered dramatically.
“Gena… There will be no mushrooms for your anniversary. Olya refused to give them to us and threw us out…”
A heavy sigh came from the other end of the line.
Gennady Pavlovich was an old-school man who had long since lost any illusions about his sister.
“Zina, did you take your whole circus to their country house without permission again?” he roared so loudly that the phone speaker crackled. “I told you clearly: I do not want stolen food on my table! Apologize to Olga immediately and put everything back where you found it, you disgrace!”
The call ended.
Zinaida Pavlovna sat there as red as a boiled lobster, staring at the blank screen.
It took fifteen minutes to unload everything. Stas and Larisa silently carried the boxes back into the cellar. Irina, her lips tightly pressed together, was the first to leave without even saying goodbye.
When the final jar had been returned to its rightful place on the shelf, I walked over to the table.
“For the jam you ate and the sausage you took from my refrigerator and sliced, you owe me twelve hundred rubles, Zinaida Pavlovna,” I said politely, holding out my hand. “You can transfer it using my phone number.”
Without saying a word, my mother-in-law took out her wallet, threw two crumpled banknotes onto the table, lifted her chin proudly, and marched toward Stas’s car.
Pasha and I were left alone.
He put an arm around my shoulders as we watched his brother’s car drive away.
“You know,” my husband said with a smile, “they never did water the cucumbers in the greenhouse.”
“That’s all right,” I replied, brushing the crumbs from the tablecloth and slipping the money into my pocket. “I’ll water them. At least there will definitely be fewer weeds on our property now.”