Now I am sixty-two, and I have long been retired, I left for a well-deserved retirement, when I was fifty-five. My husband left this life four years ago. Since his death, I have found solace in my children, grandchildren, and my summer house. I want to say right away that I live half a year in the capital and half a year in the dacha. The dacha was built by my spouse, it was his outlet.
We bought a plot seventy kilometers from the capital, in a remote village. I have my own car, so I feel quite comfortable at the cottage. If I need something, I can always go and buy what I need.
I adore our dacha: I have flowers growing here, there is a garden, also some vegetables. Lately I like to grow various exotic vegetables. I have a small garden, so I do not get tired in the evenings. I have drip irrigation at my dacha, if I have to dig up the garden, my neighbor does it for me with his power tiller, and weeding beds and mowing the lawn does not require much effort.
My husband and I have raised two children. My oldest son and his family live a long way from me, and they bring me their grandchildren for the summer. My grandson and granddaughter like to spend time with me at the cottage. The last two years they have even helped me very well: we collect strawberries with them, or water the flowers, or plant beds. Now the children even have their own garden beds, for which they take care of themselves.
My granddaughter is growing strawberries, and my grandson prefers vegetables. I enjoy giving my daughter-in-law canned cucumbers that her son grew. Granddaughter is also a good girl and we make jam for the winter from her strawberries. My son and daughter-in-law were always happy, because I teach their children to work, and I look after them all summer.
It took a long time for my youngest son to choose a wife. He lived with me for the first time after graduation, and then he went to a rented apartment. A little less than three years ago he finally got married. His wife had an eleven-year-old son from his first marriage. I was not against my son marrying a woman with a child, because it was his life, and I did not interfere in it, and I did not see anything wrong with my daughter-in-law having a child.
My son started living in his wife’s apartment. Eight months ago, my son and my daughter-in-law had a baby together. I always invited my son and daughter-in-law to my dacha for a vacation, but they refused every time because my daughter-in-law can’t stand country life.
Every year they only came to congratulate me on my birthday, not to go to the dacha. I noticed that my son’s stepson, David, really wanted to stay with me in the countryside, but my daughter-in-law was against it. After my youngest son got married, he also stopped going to the dacha, though before he could spend the whole vacation there.
I did not insist on my son coming to the dacha, as I understood that spouses should spend their leisure time together. If I need something, I can always find a local man to help me for a reasonable fee.
– Mammy, can we bring David to your dacha for a rest,” my son once asked. – I’m at work around the clock, and his wife is busy with the baby, and he left all day for himself.
– Of course,” I replied, “I’ll be waiting for you. There’s enough room in the house for everyone. Your brother brought his own three days ago.
My son brought David back on Saturday. He tried to give me the money, but I refused. On the morning of the fifth day, my granddaughter told me that she had gone to weed the strawberries and my eldest grandson had gone to do his garden beds. David was the only one hanging around.
– You do the greens, and I’ll do the beds,” I suggested to my son’s stepson.
The boy did not like it, but he still went to do my job. The next evening the kids and I went to weed the potatoes. David didn’t do anything, but just hung around us.
– Would you help us? – I said.
– Okay,” he agreed.
David wasn’t doing so well, and I could see that he was doing his best. Then he started whining that his hands hurt and that mosquitoes had got to him.
– I’m going to rest,” he said.
– Of course, we’ll finish in a minute and come back, and you take the bread out of the freezer and heat it up in the microwave.
He threw the hoe where he was polishing and rushed off. My grandchildren and I finished and also went to rest. In just an hour and a half my son and his wife arrived. My daughter-in-law started screaming from the doorstep that I was mocking her son and using him as a slave. Later it turned out that David had called his mother and complained that I was making him work here, so he told his mother:
– I didn’t come to them to slave in the vegetable garden, but to take a vacation.
After that, I knew that I would never be a good grandmother to David and a good mother-in-law to my daughter-in-law.
