“— Found out? — the voice on the phone was sickeningly familiar. Soft, insinuating, the very one that once promised me forever.
I stayed silent, staring at the frost patterns on the windowpane. A call from my ex-husband, Dmitry, after almost two years of near-forgetting — nothing good could come of it. It was always a prelude to some request.
‘— Anya, don’t be silent. I have a matter to discuss.’
‘— I’m listening,’ my voice sounded dry, like the snap of a broken branch.
He hesitated, choosing his words. That habit of his — testing the waters before striking.
‘— I know it probably sounds crazy… But things are really rough for me and Lena right now. We had to move out of our apartment and can’t find a new one.’
I kept quiet, letting him speak it all out. Every word he dropped was like a stone cast into the stagnant water of my calm.
‘— Could you let us stay at the dacha? Just for a couple of months, until things settle down. We’ll be quiet, you won’t even notice us.’
“Us. My new wife and I have nowhere to live — let us stay at the dacha.”
The request sounded as casual as asking to pass the salt at dinner.
As if there had been no betrayal, no lies, no leaving me behind to piece myself together from shards.
A memory flashed. Twenty years ago, we were building that same dacha together. Dima, young, suntanned, hammer in hand, laughing.
‘— This is our fortress, Anya! — he shouted back then. — Whatever happens, we’ll always have this place. Our stronghold.’
How poisonous those words sounded now. Our stronghold. He brought another woman into that stronghold. And now he wanted to bring her again — but as the mistress of the house.
‘— Dima, are you out of your mind?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘— Anya, please. We just have nowhere else to go. You know Lena… she’s expecting. We can’t exactly sleep on the street.’
He hit me where it hurt most. Children. Something he and I never had. But with them — of course, easy and quick.
I closed my eyes. Two beasts fought inside me. One wanted to scream everything I thought of him into the receiver, hang up, and erase his number forever.
But the second… the second was craftier. It whispered that this was an opportunity. Not to forgive. No. To restore justice.
‘— You promised each other to always help, no matter what,’ his voice was nearly pleading. He pressed on my sense of duty, on the ‘good girl’ I had been for him for so many years.
A memory. Our wedding. We stood so young, and he, looking into my eyes, said: ‘I swear, I’ll never betray you.’
And then, fifteen years later, packing his things: ‘Sorry, it just happened. The feelings are gone.’
He betrayed. The feelings gone. And now he asked for help.
Cold, ringing clarity filled my mind. A plan was born instantly. Cruel. Perfect.
‘— Fine,’ I said evenly, almost surprised at the calm tone of my own voice. ‘You can stay.’
On the other end came a sigh of relief. He started thanking me quickly, babbling about how he knew I wouldn’t abandon him in trouble. I was no longer listening.
‘— The key’s where it’s always been. Under the stone by the porch.’
‘— Thank you, Anya! Thank you! You saved me!’
I hung up. The trap had closed. Now I just had to wait until the beast finally lost caution.
Two days passed. Two days of living on edge, jumping at every phone notification.
I knew he would call. He had to make sure he still had me on a short leash.
The call came on Saturday morning.
‘— Hi! We’re here, everything’s great,’ Dima reported cheerfully. His tone was no longer pleading, but proprietorial.
‘— Of course, there’s a ton of work here. Cobwebs in the corners, the garden’s overgrown. But no worries, Lena and I will fix it all up.’
I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. “We’ll fix it up.” In my house.
‘— I didn’t ask you to fix anything,’ I snapped. ‘I allowed you to stay.’
‘— Anya, come on, don’t start. We just want to make it nicer. Lena says the air here is so good, great for the baby. She’s already picked a spot for a flower bed. Right under the bedroom window.’
The bedroom. Our bedroom. Where the wallpaper still bore a faint scratch from our cat’s claws, the one that died a year before the divorce.
‘— Don’t touch my roses,’ was all I managed to say.
‘— Who needs your thorns,’ he snorted. ‘Lena wants peonies. Oh, another thing. The attic’s full of your old junk. Boxes, old dresses. We’ve got nowhere to put our stuff. Can I move it all to the shed?’
A flash from the past. Our first apartment. Dima decided to “improve” the bathroom and, without asking, tore off the tiles my mom and I had picked out over weeks.
‘— They’re outdated, Anya, I’ll make it modern,’ he had said. And in the end, “modern” meant crooked cheap plastic and a hole in the budget I had to patch for half a year. His initiatives always cost me too dearly.
‘— Don’t touch my things, Dima.’
‘— Why are you clinging to that trash? It’s junk! — he began to lose patience. Irritation crept into his voice. — We need living space! Can’t you understand? Lena’s nervous, it’s bad for her!’
I heard whispering, and then the sickly-sweet voice of his new darling:
‘— Dimochka, don’t fight with her. Ask nicely. Anechka, we didn’t mean any harm. We just need some space for the baby’s things. The crib, the stroller…’
They were staging a play. Good cop, bad cop. He pushed, she soothed. And I was supposed to melt at the mention of a crib and hand them everything, including what remained of my dignity.
‘— I said don’t touch my things. And don’t you dare plant anything in my garden. Live in the house and be grateful for that.’
‘— Grateful?’ he flared. ‘I gave you fifteen years of my life! And you’re lecturing me about old dresses! You know what, I’ll just change the lock on the shed — the key’s gone anyway. You can pick up your boxes later. When we leave.’
He hung up.
I looked out at the gray cityscape. He wasn’t just living in my house. He was methodically taking it over.
Refashioning it to his liking. Erasing me, my memories, my past. Changing the lock — that was no longer just audacity. It was a declaration of war. Fine, he’d get his war.
I waited a week. Forced myself not to think about what they were doing there. I worked, met friends, lived my ordinary life — but underneath it all a cold, precise plan was ripening.
The next Saturday I drove to the dacha. Without warning. Left the car around the bend and approached on foot, like a thief.
The first thing I saw — my rose bushes, torn out by the roots. The very ones my mother had planted. They lay by the fence like corpses.
And in their place, freshly dug soil with pale sprouts poking out. Peonies.
Something inside me broke. This wasn’t just meddling. It was desecration.
I circled the house. On the veranda — new wicker furniture. In the window — their silly floral curtains. They were settling in. Putting down roots.
The shed door was ajar. The same shed where he had changed the lock. Apparently, now unnecessary. I peeked inside.
And froze.
My boxes had been opened. My things dumped on the dirty floor. My mother’s letters, once tied with a ribbon, now that ribbon lay in a puddle from a leaky roof. My school diaries with torn pages.
And on top of that pile of uprooted past — my wedding dress. Once white, now smeared with brown soil and, it seemed, engine oil. Beside it — an empty beer bottle.
They weren’t just making space. They were deliberately destroying everything I held dear. They trampled my life underfoot, laughing in my face.
Enough.
That ‘good girl Anya’ who avoided conflict and tried to please everyone died in that cold shed, staring at her ruined dress. In her place was born something else.
Calm. Icy. Absolutely merciless.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t storm the house. I turned quietly, walked back to my car, and drove away.
My hands on the wheel didn’t tremble. My mind was clear, empty.
First stop: a hardware store. I bought the sturdiest padlock I could find. And a new chain. Thick, welded.
At seven the next morning I stood at the gate.
I wrapped the chain myself and snapped the huge padlock shut.
Then I parked nearby where I could see the house. And waited.
The sun rose higher. Around ten, Dima appeared on the porch, stretching, and ambled lazily to the gate. He tugged once, twice. Stared at the welded chain.
In an instant, his relaxed posture tensed. He began shaking the gate, harder with each pull.
Lena rushed out, her shrill voice carrying even through the closed car windows.
My phone rang.
‘— What the hell are you doing?!’ Dima roared. ‘You locked us in!’
‘— I just secured my property,’ I replied coldly. ‘You showed me yourself that locks mean nothing to you when you broke into my shed.’
‘— What shed?! Are you insane?! Lena’s pregnant, she’s unwell! What if we need an ambulance?! Open it right now!’
‘— An ambulance? Of course. I’m about to call the police. File a report for unlawful entry, property damage, and trespassing. I’m sure they’ll have the tools to cut the gate.’
Stunned silence. Only Lena’s wails in the background.
‘— What… what unlawful entry? You let us in!’
‘— I let you stay temporarily. And you decided you were the owners. You ripped out my roses, trashed my shed, ruined what wasn’t yours. You crossed the line, Dima.’
‘— Who cares about your junk! — he snapped again. — You’d put people in jail over trash?!’
‘— It’s not trash. It’s my memories. Which you first betrayed, and then chose to trample.’
I hung up and called the police. Calmly, clearly, I gave the address, reported strangers on my property who had broken into my house, damaged things, and refused to leave.
The police arrived surprisingly quickly. I greeted them, holding all the documents for the house and land.
They listened while Dima and Lena yelled through the fence. I handed over the papers silently.
‘— They say you let them in.’
‘— I allowed my ex-husband to stay temporarily, out of decency. He began acting like the owner, breaking locks, destroying my belongings. I asked them to leave, they refused. I locked the gate to prevent them from taking anything while I called you. Please, see what they did to the garden.’
One officer stepped to the fence. Dima gestured wildly, pointing at Lena who was clutching her belly theatrically.
‘— Pack your things and out,’ the senior officer told Dima sternly. ‘You’ve got half an hour.’
The humiliation on his face was the sweetest reward. They shuffled out with their bags like beaten dogs.
Lena shot me looks full of hate. Dima just stared at the ground. He didn’t say another word.
When they disappeared around the bend, I entered my property. Surveyed the wounds they had inflicted: the torn roses, the foreign curtains, my past trampled in the shed.
There was no gloating. No intoxicating triumph. Only the quiet, steady awareness that the fortress had held.
It was scarred, but it was mine again. And no one, ever again, would dare dictate rules in my world.”
