Victoria returned home around eight in the evening, when the apartment was already dark. Sergei usually came home later — after his workout at the gym, sometimes stopping by the store on the way.
Vika had an hour, maybe an hour and a half, that belonged only to her, and she treasured those minutes. She put the kettle on, changed clothes, and took out her laptop. She wanted to look through the materials for the English course she had finally allowed herself to pay for. The first lesson was scheduled for Friday, and the mere thought of it brought a faint, involuntary smile to her face.
For three years, she and Sergei had lived in this two-room apartment on Ozyornaya Street. They rented it for forty thousand rubles a month. Both of them worked, both earned roughly the same amount — Victoria a little more, Sergei a little less, but the difference was insignificant. They kept a shared budget: rent, groceries, utilities, savings. Everything was fair, everything split equally. From the outside, it probably looked like the model modern family — two working adults, no children, no unnecessary spending. For a while, Victoria herself thought so too.
Then Polina Andreevna appeared.
No, her mother-in-law had always existed, right from the beginning. But during the first year, she had somehow kept her distance — calling Sergei a couple of times a week, sometimes coming over on weekends and bringing something homemade. Victoria treated her normally. Just an ordinary mother missing her son. Nothing terrible.
The problem revealed itself gradually, like dampness in the walls — barely noticeable at first, then more and more obvious.
Polina Andreevna lived alone in a one-room apartment on the other side of the city and suffered from what she herself called a love of nice things. In practice, it looked different. Victoria had seen her apartment twice, and both times she could not shake the feeling that she had walked into a storage warehouse. Boxes stood along the walls — unopened, some even still bearing factory labels. A foot massager Polina Andreevna had bought from a television advertisement and never once turned on. Three sets of bed linen from some online store — on sale, almost free, how could she not take them? A food processor, because the old one still worked, but this one had been forty percent off. A mountain of clothes bought at the end of the season — for next year, for later, for no real reason.
Polina Andreevna bought things constantly. It was not shopping; it was something else — some inner need Victoria could not explain but could see clearly. And that might have been fine if her mother-in-law had spent only her own money.
But Polina Andreevna’s pension was modest — around twenty thousand rubles. It was enough to live on, but not enough for shopping. So Polina Andreevna took out loans. Consumer loans, from different banks, sometimes from microfinance organizations when the banks had already started refusing her. She took them out easily, almost without thinking — signed the papers, got the money, went to the store. And then the first day of the month would come, and it would turn out there was nothing to pay with.
That was when she called Sergei.
Victoria heard those conversations. Sergei always went into another room, but the apartment walls were thin, and Polina Andreevna’s voice was loud:
“Sonny, you understand, I only need a little. I’ll pay it back next month.”
Sergei never refused. Victoria saw how he returned after those conversations — a little tense, a little guilty — and opened his banking app.
The first few times, she said nothing. People helped their parents; that was normal. But the sums were not small — five thousand, eight thousand, once twelve thousand all at once. And it was not a one-time thing. It happened every month, sometimes twice a month.
Victoria noticed that their savings had stopped growing. They used to put ten thousand a month into a joint account — for a vacation, in case something broke, simply for the future. But the account stubbornly showed the same amount, sometimes even slightly less. The new laptop Victoria had wanted to buy back in the spring remained on her wish list. The trip to the sea they had planned for August never happened — Sergei said it was not the best time.
She tried to talk.
“Seryozha, let’s figure out the money. Every month we’re going into the red, and I don’t understand where it’s going.”
“Vika, don’t start. Mom is in a difficult situation. I can’t abandon her.”
“I’m not saying you should abandon her. I’m saying we ourselves are starting to end up in a difficult situation.”
“It’s temporary. She’ll sort it out.”
Victoria looked at him and did not know what else to say. Sergei said it sincerely — she could see that. He really believed it was temporary. That his mother would pull herself together, stop wasting money, close the loans, and everything would be fine. Victoria wanted to believe that too. So she stayed silent for several more months.
Then April came, and in April Victoria completed a major project. She worked in the sales department of a manufacturing company, handling corporate clients, and for the last four months she had been working on a contract with a large regional distributor. Negotiations had been difficult and had fallen through twice, but in the end the agreement was signed, and the deal turned out to be significant. Management was pleased. At a general meeting, the director personally thanked Victoria, and a week later a bonus landed on her card — eighty-five thousand rubles.
Victoria sat in a conference room during her lunch break, staring at the amount on her phone and thinking.
Before, she would have told Sergei immediately. It would have been natural — to share good news, to decide together what to spend it on or save it for. But now she sat there thinking about something else. About how, the previous month, Polina Andreevna had called asking for help covering two payments at once — around fifteen thousand in total. About how Sergei had transferred the money without discussing it with Victoria, simply presenting it as a fact. About how her English courses had been sitting in her bookmarks for six months, and every time she had put them off — not now, later, when things were easier.
Eighty-five thousand.
Victoria transferred the money to a separate account she had opened the previous year just in case — Sergei did not know about it. It was an account tied only to her card, not connected to their shared finances. She did it quickly, almost without thinking, and only afterward felt something unpleasant tighten somewhere inside her. She had never hidden anything financial from her husband before.
Over the next few days, she signed up for the courses — twelve thousand for three months. She chose the coat she had been eyeing since autumn — thirty-eight thousand in a good store, not on sale, exactly the one she liked. The rest remained in the account. Victoria did not feel joy — or rather, she felt it in fragments, between waves of guilt. She understood that what she had done was not honest. And at the same time, she understood that she was tired.
Alexei worked in the neighboring department and sometimes crossed paths with Sergei — they both went to the same gym on Pervomayskaya, though at different times. Victoria knew this but had never attached any importance to it. Alexei was the kind of person who said the first thing that came into his head and considered it a sign of openness.
On Wednesday evening, Alexei ran into Sergei in the gym locker room.
“Oh, Seryoga, hi. You’re lucky with your wife — smart and beautiful. Earning a bonus like that takes talent.”
Sergei nodded, smiled, and went home.
Victoria did not hear him open the door. She was sitting in the kitchen with her laptop, watching the first lesson of the course and taking notes in a notebook. Sergei appeared in the kitchen doorway. She looked up and immediately understood that something was wrong. He was standing in his jacket, still wearing his shoes, looking at her too directly.
“You got a bonus,” he said.
Victoria closed the laptop. Slowly.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
Sergei took off his jacket — with a sharp movement, almost throwing it onto the hook — and walked into the kitchen. He stood by the window, turning his back to her.
“And you didn’t tell me anything.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Victoria folded her hands on the table. She had thought about this conversation — not that she had prepared for it specifically, but she had known it would happen. Sooner or later.
“Because I knew where the money would go.”
Sergei spun around sharply.
“So you decided you’re smarter than everyone else? That you can decide what to do with shared money all by yourself?”
“It was my bonus. Not shared money — my bonus, for my work.”
“We live together! We have a shared budget!”
“We have a shared budget for rent and groceries. Not for your mother’s loans.”
Sergei fell silent for a second. Then his voice broke — not immediately into shouting, but into some twitchy, angry outrage.
“So you held back the bonus? And my mother can just chew through her loans?!”
Victoria stood up. Calmly, without sudden movements, she pushed back the chair and rose.
“Seryozha, your mother is chewing through loans she takes out herself. Every month. For things she doesn’t need. For three years, I’ve watched the boxes multiply in her apartment while our account stopped growing. For three years, I’ve heard that it’s temporary. Nothing about this is temporary.”
“What, do you want me to abandon my mother?”
“I want you to see what’s happening. Your mother isn’t in a difficult situation — she is in a situation she creates herself, and you cover for her. And I pay for it with my vacation, my laptop, my courses that I put off for half a year.”
“So that’s what the bonus went toward. Courses and clothes, while my mother can barely make ends meet.”
“Yes. Courses and a coat. Because I worked on that project for four months, and I deserved to spend the money on myself.”
“You’re selfish.”
Victoria looked at him. For a long time, silently. Sergei stood by the window — tense, with the look of a person who had been betrayed in the most monstrous way. She knew that look. She had seen it every time she tried to talk about money.
“Maybe,” she finally said. “But a selfish woman who finally has a coat.”
“Give the money toward the loan. Whatever is left of the bonus — give it. Mom is in a very bad place right now.”
“No.”
Sergei leaned forward.
“What do you mean, no?”
“No, Seryozha. I won’t give it. Not now, not later.”
He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then he exhaled — sharply, almost with a whistle — and said quietly but clearly:
“Then pack your things.”
Victoria stood motionless for several seconds. Then she nodded.
“All right.”
She did not cry. Surprisingly, she did not cry. Her hands did not tremble as she packed her things into a suitcase — neatly, without fuss. Documents, chargers, clothes for a week, cosmetics. Sergei did not leave the kitchen. Victoria heard him walking around in there, opening the refrigerator, closing it. She took the suitcase, her laptop bag, and her car keys.
In the hallway, she stopped and called out:
“I’ll pick up the rest on the weekend.”
There was no answer.
Sofia lived ten minutes away by car — in her own one-room apartment, which she had bought three years earlier. Victoria called her from the car.
“I’m coming to you. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” Sofia said without unnecessary questions. “I’m home.”
When Victoria came in, Sofia was already putting the kettle on. She looked at her friend, at the suitcase, said nothing — just took a second blanket out of the closet.
“It was long overdue,” she said about ten minutes later, when Victoria was already sitting on the sofa with a mug in her hands.
“You always say that.”
“Because I always thought it.”
Victoria looked at the small lamp glowing by Sofia’s bed — tiny, warm, orange. Outside the window, rain fell quietly and monotonously.
“I hid money from him,” Victoria said. “That wasn’t honest.”
“What wasn’t honest was spending three years dragging someone else’s loans,” Sofia replied. “You were simply the first one to tell yourself: enough.”
Victoria did not argue. Maybe that was true. That night, she barely slept — lying in the dark and replaying everything in her head. The first year, when things had been good. Polina Andreevna’s first call asking for help. Conversations with Sergei that always ended the same way — she would fall silent, he would promise that everything would work out. August without the sea. The laptop she never bought. And for some reason, she kept returning to one moment — Sergei standing by the window and saying the word selfish. Confidently, without doubt. Like a person who had known the answer in advance.
In the morning, she drove to work with her suitcase in the trunk.
The following days were strange. Victoria worked, came back to Sofia’s place, cooked, talked — everything as usual, except the apartment was someone else’s and at night it was unusually quiet. Sergei did not text. He did not call. Once, he sent a short message: when are you picking up your things? Victoria replied: Saturday, from ten to twelve. He wrote: ok.
On Saturday, she arrived with Sofia. Sergei opened the door — unshaven, in a T-shirt, looking off to the side. Victoria collected the rest of her things silently, in twenty minutes. When she was leaving, she only said:
“I’ll file for divorce through the government services portal. We don’t have any shared property, so it’s simple.”
Sergei shrugged. Nodded.
“As you wish.”
Victoria filed the application the following week. The procedure really did turn out to be simple — they had not acquired joint property, the apartment was rented, each of them had their own car. After the required waiting period, the divorce was finalized. Sergei did not try to stop anything, did not call to talk, did not ask to meet. Later, Victoria thought about it — and did not know what exactly that said about him. Or about them.
For the first few months, she rented a room in an apartment with strangers — cheap, without extra comforts, but in a good district, not far from work. Forty-five square meters for three tenants — a shared kitchen, bathroom by schedule. Victoria did not complain. It was cramped, sometimes awkward, sometimes simply lonely. In the evenings, she sat at the table in her room, opened her English notebook, and those lessons became something like a ritual — an hour in silence, only her and new words.
Sometimes a wave would hit her. Not for Sergei specifically — more for what it was supposed to have been. For the feeling of home, for shared dinners, for summer plans they had once made. At those times, Victoria sat by the window and looked out at the street, and did not try to convince herself that everything was fine. Not everything was fine. It was simply that part of what had been bad was now behind her.
Then she found a one-room apartment. Small, bright, on the fourth floor, with a view of the courtyard. Thirty-eight thousand a month — a little more expensive than the room, but now everything was hers. Victoria moved her things in one day, arranged everything the way she wanted, bought a rug and a desk lamp from IKEA. That evening, she sat in the kitchen with coffee, looked at the empty windowsill, and thought that she should put something living there. Some kind of plant.
Financially, things became noticeably easier. It was strange to realize — she and Sergei had earned roughly the same, kept a shared budget, and every month there had not been enough money. Now, alone, Victoria paid rent, bought food, paid for her courses, her phone, sometimes allowed herself a movie or dinner at a café — and at the end of the month, something remained in her account. Not much, but something. She started saving again — not for anything specific, just as a reserve. Simply because she could.
One day, two months after the divorce, Natasha called — a mutual acquaintance who stayed in touch with both Victoria and Sergei.
“Vika, do you even know how he’s doing?”
“I don’t know. We don’t talk.”
“Well, anyway…” Natasha paused. “Polina Andreevna is in debt again. There are several loans now, some overdue payments. Sergei is living in a room with strangers, giving almost everything to her. I just thought maybe you knew…”
“I didn’t know,” Victoria said. “But I’m not surprised.”
After that call, she sat for a long time with the phone in her hands. There was no gloating — none at all. Only a quiet, slightly sad understanding of something she had already known: nothing would have changed. If she had stayed, given up the bonus, continued keeping silent — nothing would have changed. Polina Andreevna would have kept buying things, Sergei would have kept paying, and they would have kept living in the red, postponing everything until later.
Sometimes Victoria thought: maybe she should have spoken louder, more insistently. Maybe she should not have hidden the bonus, but demanded a conversation directly. Maybe something could have been done differently. She did not know. Honestly, she did not know. People are more complicated than they seem, and Sergei was not a bad person; he was simply built in such a way that his mother always came first. That was his choice, his right. Victoria simply did not fit into that arrangement.
In July, she went to the sea — alone, for ten days. She rented a small hotel room in Gelendzhik, went to the beach in the mornings when there were not many people yet, and read books she had long been putting off. One evening, she sat on the embankment with a glass of white wine, looked at the water, and caught herself thinking about nothing in particular. Just sitting. Just looking.
It felt strangely good.
She finished her English courses in August — passed the final test at B1 level and signed up for the next one. The teacher said she had a good foundation and that if she continued at the same pace, she could speak confidently in a year. Victoria wrote that in her notebook and underlined it.
In autumn, while sorting through an old bag, she found the notebook where she had once kept records of the family budget. Amounts, transfers, shared expenses — everything written in neat handwriting. She flipped through it, closed it, and put it away in the back of a drawer.
Life had become simpler. That was the main thing she could say about the past year. Not happier in some loud, dramatic sense, not brighter — simply simpler. Without the constant feeling that the ground was slipping out from under her feet. Without conversations that led into dead ends. Without someone else’s debts that somehow became hers.
Sometimes she thought things could have been different. Perhaps they could have. But in those three years, they were not. And Victoria had long since stopped asking herself whether she had done the right thing by leaving. Right or wrong — that no longer mattered so much. What mattered was that she had done it herself, without anyone else’s permission, at the moment when she understood there was no other way left.
Life moved forward.
Quietly, but forward.