“Sveta, forgive this fool. The devil got into me. I made a mistake.”
“Andrei, are you saying I’m supposed to spend the entire May holiday alone, staring at the wall?” Svetlana spoke quietly, trying to keep her voice even, without the shrill notes that had irritated her husband so much lately. She stood by the window, but she was not looking outside. Her gaze was fixed on her husband’s broad back.
“Sveta, please don’t start,” Andrei said, not even turning around as he continued moving papers into his leather briefcase. “Nastya’s allergy has flared up. She needs fresh air, nature, and her father nearby. Vika rented a house outside the city. I’ll just be there. As her dad.”
“As her dad?” Svetlana repeated, taking a step toward him. “Then why can’t I come? I won’t get in the way. I’ll walk in the woods while you spend time together. We are still… husband and wife.”
Andrei snapped the briefcase shut. The sound was dry and unpleasant. He turned around, and that familiar expression of condescending exhaustion appeared on his face, the one that always made something tighten inside Svetlana. He looked at her like an unreasonable child demanding candy before dinner.
“Vika is against it. She thinks your presence would traumatize the child’s psyche. Allergies are psychosomatic, Sveta. Any stress, and Nastya will break out again. Do you want to take responsibility for my daughter’s health?”
“No, of course not, but…” Svetlana faltered. The manipulation was crude, but effective. “Andryusha, it’s ten days. I thought we were going to visit my family at the dacha. Grandpa was asking…”
“Grandpa will survive,” Andrei cut her off. “And you’re not going to your mother’s.”
“Why?” she asked, genuinely surprised.
“Because I said so. I don’t need you sitting there winding yourself up while your mother wails over you. Stay home, work on your herbariums. Take a break from everything. I’ll come back when the holidays are over. Consider it my gift to you — complete freedom from household chores.”
He came closer, awkwardly pecked her on the cheek, as if stamping “approved” on a defective document, and headed into the hallway. Svetlana remained standing in the middle of the living room. A faint scent of his aftershave lingered in the air, mixed with the smell of the expensive leather of his shoes. Andrei worked as a negotiator at a large logistics company, handling shipments of rare wood species for luxury yachts. Appearance was a tool for him, just as important as his silver tongue.
The front door slammed. Svetlana sank onto the sofa. One thought spun in her head: “He is just a caring father. He loves his daughter. I have to be wise. I have to understand.” She persuaded herself that nothing terrible was happening, that her suspicions were the product of a sick imagination and selfishness. After all, Vika was the past, and she, Svetlana, was the present. Andrei had chosen her. He had married her. So she simply had to endure it. Simply wait.
Three days passed in a sticky fog. Svetlana tried to work. Her studio — one of the rooms in their spacious apartment — was cluttered with molds, plaster, and dried plants. She created botanical bas-reliefs: large, detailed impressions of living flowers and grasses frozen in white stone. The work required painstaking attention, almost meditative calm, but now her hands would not obey her. The clay seemed too hard, the plaster hardened too quickly or, on the contrary, ran like a murky slurry.
Her friend Lena, who dropped by for coffee, listened to Svetlana’s story with wide eyes.
“Sveta, are you serious right now? He forbade you from going to your mother’s?”
“He said I would wind myself up there…”
“And sitting at home, you’re supposedly finding inner peace?” Lena twirled a finger meaningfully at her temple. “Wake up, my friend. The man is running off to his ex-wife for the entire holiday, and he’s putting you under house arrest. Nastya has an allergy? To what? Your existence?”
“Why are you saying it like that… Vika is still the mother of his child.”
“Vika is a predator who kicked him out two years ago with one suitcase because she found someone more promising. And now that the ‘promising’ one has disappeared, and Andrei has moved up in his career, bought a car, and generally cleaned up nicely thanks to you, she suddenly remembered that her child has a father. Sveta, he’s been going to her for a month now under the excuse of ‘delivering medicine.’ Did you see the receipts? That wasn’t a pharmacy. It was a jewelry store.”
Svetlana had seen a bank notification on her husband’s tablet, which he had forgotten to lock a couple of weeks earlier. The amount had been substantial. At the time, Andrei had said it was a payment for insurance paperwork on a new shipment.
“I don’t want to be a jealous hysteric,” Svetlana said quietly.
“Then you’ll have to become a realist,” Lena replied harshly. “If you swallow this now, next time he’ll bring her here to live, and he’ll move you onto the mat in the hallway.”
After her friend left, Svetlana walked around the apartment for a long time. The doubts she had carefully shoved into the furthest corner of her mind now crawled out and filled the entire space. She remembered how Andrei hid his phone face down. How irritated he became at any question about how he had spent time with his daughter. How his clothes smelled not of baby powder, but of heavy, tart perfume clearly not meant for children’s parties.
A heavy, dark wave of anger rose in her chest. Not a bright flash that made her want to scream, but a thick resentment at being treated like a fool. A convenient, obedient fool. She picked up her phone. She did not call Andrei. She knew where his company’s office was, and she knew that today he was supposed to have a short meeting before leaving for the countryside, which was allegedly planned for tomorrow morning. But judging by everything, he had left yesterday, telling her something about “urgent document preparation.”
She got dressed. Not as usual, in comfortable jeans and a sweater suitable for kneading clay, but in a strict dress that emphasized her figure. She called a taxi.
At the office, the secretary, a young girl with frightened eyes, told her that Andrei Viktorovich had left at lunchtime.
“Home?” Svetlana clarified.
“No… he said he had a meeting. An important one. Personal.”
Svetlana knew Vika’s address. Andrei had never hidden it, flaunting his honesty: “I have nothing to hide. I’m going to see my child.” The building was in a prestigious residential complex on the other side of the city. Svetlana caught herself thinking that she was not going there for a scandal. She was going for the truth, however ugly it might be.
The door did not open right away. During the hour it took Svetlana to reach the new building, her resolve did not fade; it turned into an icy blade. She pressed the bell again, long and insistently.
The lock clicked. The door swung open. Victoria stood on the threshold. Not in a tracksuit. Not in the apron of a caring mother tending to a sick child. She was wearing a short burgundy silk robe, carelessly thrown over her naked body. Her hair was disheveled, her lips shining with wet gloss.
“Oh,” Victoria said, and there was not a drop of embarrassment in her voice, only mild surprise mixed with triumph. “Sveta? We weren’t expecting guests. Nastenka is sleeping.”
“I’m not here for Nastya,” Svetlana’s voice sounded dull, as if from inside a barrel.
At that moment, Andrei emerged from the depths of the corridor, from the bathroom. A towel was wrapped around his hips. His hair was wet, and there was a scratch on his chest. He was drying his face with another towel and humming something cheerfully.
When he saw his wife, he froze. The towel dropped from his face.
“Sveta?” he blinked, as if unable to believe his eyes. “What are you doing here? I told you not to…”
Victoria leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, deliberately adjusting her robe so it opened a little wider, revealing a slender leg.
“Andrei, deal with your… wife. We haven’t finished discussing our daughter’s treatment.”
The cynicism of that phrase was so outrageous that Svetlana lost the ability to speak for a moment. She looked at the man she had considered her support. The person who had convinced her of his decency. And she saw before her a strange, pathetic male caught red-handed, still trying to save face.
Coming to his senses, Andrei stepped forward, trying to look threatening.
“Were you following me? Have you completely lost your mind? I told you in plain Russian to stay home!”
Svetlana did not scream. She did not make a scene. She did not grab her rival by the hair. She simply looked at both of them with a long, studying gaze, as if memorizing every detail of this miserable performance. Something clicked inside her and died. Forever.
“The keys,” she said.
“What?” Andrei did not understand.
“The keys to the apartment. Now.”
“Are you delirious? Go home. We’ll talk later,” he tried to take her by the elbow.
Svetlana sharply pulled her arm away.
“I said give me back the keys. Or I’ll call the district police officer and file a report that strangers have access to the apartment. You are not registered there.”
Andrei snorted angrily, rushed to the small cabinet in Victoria’s hallway where his man bag lay, pulled out the keyring, and threw it onto the floor at Svetlana’s feet.
“Choke on them. Hysteric.”
Svetlana silently bent down, picked up the keys, turned around, and called the elevator. Behind her, she heard Victoria’s irritated hissing and Andrei’s voice making excuses.
At home, she acted like a robot. Clearly, quickly, without unnecessary movement. She took large checked bags down from the mezzanine, the kind usually used when moving. She opened Andrei’s wardrobe. Suits, shirts, jeans — everything flew into those bags without sorting. Expensive shoes, his collection of ties, his favorite coffee machine, which he had bought especially for himself and never let anyone else use.
The apartment belonged to her grandfather, a well-known architect in the city. Now her grandfather, old and frail, lived with Svetlana’s mother outside the city, where he received proper care. Andrei had always felt like the owner here, had remodeled the place to his own taste, throwing out the old furniture, and now considered this place his fortress.
The doorbell rang two hours later. Andrei did not open it with his key — he no longer had one. He pounded with his fist.
Svetlana opened the door. He stood on the threshold, already dressed, but still disheveled. His face showed a mixture of aggression and confusion.
“What was that performance you put on there? You humiliated me in front of Vika!” he shouted, stepping over the threshold. “Do you even understand what you’ve done?”
He broke off when he saw the mountain of bags in the hallway.
“What is this?”
“These are your things, Andrei. Every last one. Take them.”
“You’re throwing me out?” he laughed, nervously and viciously. “Over a little fling? Sveta, don’t be stupid. Yes, it happened. I slipped up. Male nature, you understand? Vika knows how to… well, you saw for yourself. But I live with you! I value you for comfort, for calm. That was just a release.”
“A release?” Svetlana repeated quietly. “You forbade me from seeing my mother, locked me in the city for the holidays, lied about your daughter’s illness, slept with your ex-wife, and you call that a release?”
Andrei walked into the room, kicking one of the bags.
“Oh, don’t start with the drama. The apartment may belong to your grandfather, but I paid for the renovation. I invested in this place! You owe me half the cost if you want me to leave. And anyway, who needs you? A maker of herbariums? If it weren’t for me, you would have starved to death with your little leaves. You’re boring, Sveta. Bland. Vika is fire, and you’re a swamp. I endured it because it was convenient for me. And now you’ve decided to show some character?”
He was not apologizing. He was accusing. He was sure of his own righteousness and impunity. His arrogance had no limits.
“Leave,” Svetlana said. “Just leave.”
“I’ll leave,” Andrei grabbed two bags. “You’ll call me yourself when you realize you can’t survive alone in this world. But I’ll think about whether to take you back or not.”
He dragged all the bags out onto the landing. Svetlana listened to the elevator humming as it carried him down. Then she bolted the door. There were no tears. There was only emptiness and a strange ringing sense of liberation somewhere very deep inside.
The morning of May first was sunny. Svetlana woke not to an alarm clock, but to a bright ray of light hitting her face. She had slept well. The apartment was quiet, but the silence did not frighten her. It was clean.
Svetlana decided there would be a holiday. She would not allow anyone to steal spring from her. She took out flour, eggs, and cream. She kneaded dough for her favorite cake — medovik, honey cake, which Andrei had always called “peasant baking,” preferring store-bought cheesecakes. The whole apartment filled with the thick, warm aroma of honey and pastry. She took out a vase and put branches of blooming apple tree into it, branches she had brought two days earlier but had hidden on the balcony so as not to irritate her husband with “trash.”
She turned on music. Old jazz, the kind her grandfather loved so much.
Around two o’clock in the afternoon, the doorbell rang. Insistently, demandingly.
Svetlana went to the peephole. Andrei. Standing alone, without his things.
She opened the door slightly, leaving the chain on.
“What do you want?”
Andrei did not just look rumpled — he looked pathetic.
“Sveta, open up. We need to talk.”
“We discussed everything yesterday.”
“We didn’t discuss anything!” he raised his voice. “Vika… she’s a bitch. She only wanted money. When she found out I’d arrived with my things, that you had thrown me out, she made a scene. Said she didn’t need a man with problems. Can you imagine?”
“I can. I can imagine it very well.”
“Sveta, forgive this fool. The devil got into me. I made a mistake. It happens to everyone, doesn’t it? I love you. I came back. Let’s forget everything, huh? I’ll buy a cake. I see you’re baking something… smells good. I’m hungry as a dog. Let me come home. This is my home too.”
He tried to push the door with his shoulder, certain that her resistance had been broken. He was used to Svetlana always giving in. Used to mistaking her kindness for weakness.
He had not returned because he understood his mistake. He had returned because he had been kicked out there. He had come back to finish eating, finish sleeping, finish using what he considered his property.
“No, Andrei. This is not your home. And it never was.”
She saw his face change. From pleading to vicious.
“You bitch! Open up, I said! I’ll break this door down! I’ll give you a holiday you won’t forget!”
He shoved the door with all his strength, trying to tear off the chain. Svetlana recoiled, but anger gave her strength. Enormous, unexpected strength. She unhooked the chain. Andrei, sensing the obstacle had disappeared, had already thrown his whole body forward, ready to burst inside.
At that moment, Svetlana planted her feet on the floor and, putting the full weight of her body and all her accumulated hatred into the movement, slammed the heavy oak door shut with all her might.
The impact was terrible. The massive wood met Andrei’s face, which he had already shoved halfway into the opening, with a dull, bony crunch.
A scream rang out, full of pain and horror. Svetlana immediately turned both locks.
Behind the door, someone howled and cursed; the footsteps of fleeing neighbors could be heard.
She went to the kitchen. Took the cake layers out of the oven. Spread cream between them. Decorate the top with fresh berries. Poured herself tea. She did not care at all what was happening on the stairwell.
Andrei arrived at his mother’s house only toward evening. His nose was broken and shifted to one side, one eye was completely swollen shut, and his eyebrow was split by a deep purple gash. He looked frightening.
Andrei’s mother, a strict and fair woman, met her son at the doorway. She had already called Svetlana an hour earlier and knew everything. About Vika, about the lies, and about the ban on visiting her relatives.
“Mom, I need ice… and painkillers… that lunatic almost killed me…” Andrei mumbled through his split lips.
His mother did not step aside to let him in.
“You killed yourself, Andryusha,” she said coldly. “You ruined Victoria’s life by abandoning her with a child. Now you’ve ruined Sveta’s life. God marks a scoundrel. Look at yourself.”
“Mom, what are you doing? I have negotiations with the Japanese tomorrow! It’s the contract of the year! I need to get myself in order!”
“There will be no negotiations for you tomorrow,” his mother replied. “With a face like that, security won’t even let you through the door. And when your bosses find out you got into a fight over women’s quarrels… I think your career ended today.”
“But I have nowhere to go!”
“Go to a monastery, son. Pray for your sins. So you don’t ruin anyone else’s life again.”
She closed the door in his face. Carefully, without slamming it.
Andrei remained standing in the dark stairwell. The pain in his face pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He could not believe it. This simply could not be happening. He — successful, handsome, smart — was standing there with a smashed face, rejected by everyone he had considered his resources. Tomorrow he would face dismissal or a humiliating demotion. The wife he had considered an amoeba had broken his nose. His mistress had thrown him out like a puppy. His mother had turned away from him.
The world he had so skillfully built on lies and using others collapsed from a single blow of a door.
Svetlana sat in the kitchen, drinking tea with cake and watching sunbeams play across the white plaster of her new work. On the white stone, a fern flower was blooming — a symbol of new life and miracles that happen when you believe in them and refuse to let anyone hurt you.