Olga opened the gate and first noticed the empty garden beds. Then she saw the trailer parked beside her brother’s car.
It was already loaded with sacks of potatoes, crates of carrots and beets, and two mesh bags of onions. Pavel was carrying jars of pickled cucumbers out of the shed, while his wife wrapped each one in old newspaper.
Olga had arrived with her own empty crates.
In the Spring, Their Mother Had Promised to Divide Everything Equally
The summer cottage belonged to their parents. It had a little over two acres of land, a small house, a greenhouse, and a vegetable garden that their mother promised to make smaller every April, yet somehow ended up planting in full again.
Olga was thirty-nine. She worked as an accountant and lived forty kilometers from the cottage. Pavel lived in the neighboring district, about ten kilometers closer.
Back in May, their mother had said plainly:
“Later, we’ll divide the potatoes and vegetables between the two of you. Your father and I don’t need much. Just help us during the summer. We can’t manage the whole garden on our own anymore.”
Olga agreed. Pavel nodded too, although that day he spent more time tending the barbecue than working in the garden.
The seedlings struggled to take root, and there was almost no rain for several weeks. The gardening community supplied irrigation water in the evenings according to a schedule. After work, Olga would drive out to fill the water barrels, open the greenhouse, and tie up the cucumber plants.
She usually came twice a week. During the hottest periods, she came three times. Occasionally she stayed overnight, but most of the time she drove back to the city after ten in the evening.
By the end of the summer, she had made thirty-two trips.
Pavel showed up four times. He brought his children to pick strawberries, mowed the grass near the gate once, and came another time for their father’s birthday.
Whenever their mother asked him to help with the potatoes, he replied:
“I’m renovating my place. Let Olga water everything. She goes there anyway.”
Olga heard that more than once. She did not argue. She assumed that, at the very least, she would receive enough vegetables in the fall to last through the winter.
Her Brother Arrived Before She Did
“Why didn’t you call first?” Pavel asked when he noticed his sister.
He placed the jars in the trailer and tightened a strap over the top.
“I came for the potatoes and carrots. Mom said we were dividing everything today.”
Their mother was sitting beside the shed, trimming the leaves from the beets. Four full sacks and six crates stood nearby.
“Pasha is taking everything at once,” she said. “He has a good cellar. You can ask him for some later, and he’ll give it to you.”
Olga did not answer immediately.
“Mom, you said in the spring that we would divide the harvest.”
“And you will divide it later. Why stand here measuring out every single sack now?”
Pavel smirked.
“You don’t need much when you live alone. You hardly eat potatoes anyway. We have children.”
He spoke calmly, as though the vegetables had grown by themselves while the rest of the family was busy with more important matters.
Olga looked at her father. He was sitting on the porch steps, sorting garlic.
“She came here all summer,” he said quietly.
Their mother frowned at once.
“Don’t start. Pasha is my son too. He needs it more.”
Olga took five tomatoes from the windowsill and a small bag of peppers. Then she put her empty crates back into the trunk.
“All right,” she said. “The property belongs to you. That means you can decide what happens to the harvest.”
Pavel was already closing the trailer.
“That’s the right attitude. Call me if you need anything.”
A Week Later, Their Mother Sent Her a Bill
The message arrived in the evening.
Her mother sent a photograph of a statement from the gardening association. The seasonal charge for irrigation water, including the meter usage and maintenance of the shared pump, came to 7,360 rubles.
Then she wrote:
“Transfer 3,680. Half is yours. You used the water more than anyone.”
At first, Olga thought she had misunderstood. Then she called.
“Mom, why am I supposed to pay half?”
“Because you were at the cottage all summer. You were constantly watering. Your father and I are pensioners. It’s difficult for us to pay that much.”
“I was watering your garden.”
“Not only ours. We grew the vegetables for all of you.”
Five tomatoes were lying on Olga’s kitchen table. Two of them had already begun to rot near the stems.
“My share of the harvest was taken by Pasha.”
Her mother raised her voice.
“He isn’t a stranger. Ask him, and he’ll share. You shouldn’t start calculating who owes whom because of a few sacks of vegetables. We’re family.”
“But you already calculated my half of the bill.”
Her mother fell silent.
Then she said she was not forcing anyone to do anything. She was only asking Olga to help the family.
“If we’re doing things as a family, then let’s do them fairly,” Olga replied. “I’ll pay half of the water bill when I receive half of what that water was used to grow.”
Her mother hung up.
Olga Went Through Her Summer Receipts
Over the weekend, Olga reviewed her bank transactions and her messages with her mother.
A garden hose and two connectors. String for the greenhouse. Radish and herb seeds. Pest-control treatment. Gardening gloves. Plastic covering for the cold frame. A new watering can because the old one had cracked.
Altogether, she had spent 11,420 rubles.
She did not even bother calculating the fuel.
She posted photographs of the receipts in the family group chat and wrote:
“Legally, the cottage and everything grown there belong to you. I’m not disputing that. But in that case, the expenses for the property are also yours. If we are dividing the costs among the people who received the harvest, I will pay my share after the vegetables are divided. Since you gave the harvest to Pasha, ask him to pay half.”
Pavel replied a few minutes later:
“Are you seriously making calculations over a few potatoes?”
Olga attached the photograph of the loaded trailer.
“You gave everything to me yourselves,” he wrote. “I didn’t take anything without permission.”
“That’s true,” Olga answered. “Which is why I’m not questioning your permission. I’m talking about Mom’s bill.”
She wrote nothing else.
Later, her father called her himself.
“Don’t transfer any money,” he said. “You already did more than enough work this summer. I explained it to your mother.”
In the background, Olga could hear her mother loudly banging something around in the kitchen.
That evening, her mother wrote to Pavel:
“Your father and I will pay half. You transfer the other half. The harvest is with you.”
Pavel argued for another twenty minutes. He reminded them that he had brought the children to the cottage, mowed the grass by the gate, and intended to share the potatoes during the winter.
Eventually, he transferred 3,680 rubles to his mother.
He never brought Olga any vegetables.
The Following Spring, the Garden Became Smaller
In April, their mother called and asked how many seedlings she should buy.
“None for me,” Olga replied. “I’m not helping with the vegetable garden this year.”
“Then who is going to water everything?”
“Pasha. He has the cellar and the trailer.”
Her mother sighed heavily but did not argue.
Olga came in May to help her father replace a rotten board on the porch. Old plastic sheeting now covered half of the area where the potato beds had once been. Her mother had planted two short rows of onions, ten potato plants, and four tomato plants in the greenhouse.
Pavel never came that spring.
In September, their mother harvested two buckets of potatoes, a basket of onions, and a small crate of tomatoes. They kept one bucket for themselves, and Olga’s father placed the second one in her trunk.
The trailer did not enter the yard that year.
