The pharmacy was stuffy, even though the air outside was damp and carried the chill of the March wind. Ahead of Elena, a woman in a knitted hat was arguing with the pharmacist about a discount card. Behind her, someone impatiently demanded, “Can you hurry up?” Meanwhile, Elena’s temples were pounding heavily, as though her head had been stuffed with cotton wool and iron at the same time.
It was the second time that week she had come to buy migraine tablets, even though she used to laugh at people who complained about such things.
Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket.
The name on the screen was Oleg.
Elena stared at it as though it had risen not from her contact list but from the depths of murky water. In the month since he had left, he had not called her once. He had sent messages to their daughter, Dasha. Once, he had curtly asked where some documents for the car were kept. He had also transferred money for their daughter with the note, “For a jacket.”
There had been no “We need to talk,” nor even an imitation of the ordinary human shame people sometimes managed to display.
She answered almost sharply.
“Yes?”
Oleg cleared his throat, as though he were somehow embarrassed to begin the conversation. In the background, she could hear traffic or perhaps the open door of an apartment building.
“Lena, hi. Listen… you know how to give injections, don’t you?”
Elena squeezed the box of medicine in her hand so tightly that the cardboard crumpled.
“Let’s say I do.”
“Could you take Marta’s cat for a week? He’s just had surgery, so he needs injections twice a day, and someone has to keep an eye on him. We’re flying away, and she has no one else who can look after the cat.”
The woman at the counter suddenly shouted, “This card has always worked before!”
The pharmacist repeated wearily, “Without a phone number, there’s nothing I can do.”
Elena stood between those two unfamiliar voices, holding the phone to her ear. At first, she was not even offended because the request was so absurd.
Her first thought really was that it had to be a prank.
“Are you serious right now?” she asked.
Oleg began speaking faster, as though he needed to pressure her into agreeing before she had time to understand what was happening.
“What’s the big deal? You’ve always been good with animals. He has a surgical wound and needs antibiotics. It’s nothing complicated. Marta is terribly worried about him. She feels so sorry for him, but we already have the tickets. You understand…”
The moment he said, “We already have the tickets,” Elena hung up.
For several seconds, she stood staring at a display of thermometers, as though a line of tiny print might suddenly appear there saying, “Of course, this was only a joke.”
But it was not a joke.
There was his new, bright, uncomplicated life with a younger woman, a cat recovering from surgery, and a flight to some holiday destination.
And then there was Elena, whom he apparently regarded as a convenient, round-the-clock emergency service whenever something in his new life became inconvenient.
“Ma’am, are you buying that?” the pharmacist asked her.
Elena silently placed the box on the counter, tapped her bank card against the terminal, and walked outside.
The air was cold, but it was not the wind that made her shake. Something jagged, rapid, and humiliating was rising inside her chest.
He had not called to apologize. He had not asked how Dasha was coping with their separation. He had not even contacted her out of basic politeness to discuss child support or anything related to school.
He had called because he wanted her to take care of something that was inconvenient for his new young wife.
The phone was damp in her palm. Elena quickly opened Tanya’s contact and pressed the call button.
“Are you home?” she asked when her friend answered.
“Yeah.”
“I’m coming over right now, Tanya. It’s urgent. I need to talk to you immediately because I honestly don’t know whether I should laugh or scream.”
Tanya lived about fifteen minutes away on foot, but it took Elena longer to get there. Shop windows, puddles, traffic lights, and a woman pushing a stroller kept slowing her down.
All the while, one disgusting detail kept circling through her mind: the cat had just had surgery.
Oleg had not merely asked her to feed it or visit once a day. There were injections, a surgical wound, and constant supervision.
He had called her because he knew exactly what she was like. He knew she had the necessary skills. He knew she would not abandon an animal. He knew she would not be able to turn away calmly from a living creature that was in pain and needed help.
That made the whole thing even more repulsive.
He was no longer exploiting her love.
He was exploiting her instinct to care for others.
The kettle in Tanya’s kitchen was making so much noise that the glass doors of the cabinet were trembling softly. Two mugs were already waiting on the table, as though Tanya had somehow known in advance that this would not be a five-minute conversation.
Elena did not even take off her coat properly. She sat down on a stool and blurted everything out in a single breath.
“He called me. It’s been a month since he left, and now he’s asking me to take Marta’s cat for a week because it needs injections after surgery and they’re flying away on holiday.”
Tanya froze with the tea tin in her hand.
“Whose cat?”
“Hers.”
“Wait. He wants you to look after his mistress’s cat?”
Tanya stared at her.
“What are you now, a veterinarian for ex-wives?”
Elena gave a brief laugh, but it came out broken.
“At first, I thought he was mocking me, Tanya. But then I started thinking that the cat hasn’t done anything wrong. If it needs postoperative care, someone has to make sure the wound stays dry. Maybe it needs a recovery suit. Maybe antibiotics…”
Tanya slowly placed the tea tin on the table.
“Can you hear yourself right now?”
Elena fell silent. At that exact moment, the kettle clicked off, making the silence even more noticeable.
“He cheated on you and left you for her. Have you forgotten? He lives with her and is about to take her on holiday. Now he wants you to care for her cat while they sunbathe, and you’re already worrying about what kind of surgical suit it might need?”
Elena lowered her gaze to the table because that was exactly how it looked from the outside.
Perhaps it looked even worse.
It was as though they could not only abandon her but then assign her the role of substitute housekeeper whenever they encountered some domestic inconvenience.
“I feel sorry for the cat,” she said stubbornly.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I feel sorry for it too,” Tanya replied sharply. “But let’s be honest. Had it been your neighbor’s cat from the fifth floor, you would have helped because the animal needed you. But this is different. Oleg expects you to help because it is convenient for him and because you have always rescued him. Don’t you dare agree!”
Tanya poured the tea and pushed one of the mugs toward her.
“He’s testing whether he still has access to you. That’s all.”
Elena picked up the mug but did not drink. Her fingers were trembling.
“I don’t want the cat to suffer because of me.”
“But it’s acceptable for you to suffer because of him?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“It’s never about you, Lena. Everyone else is alive, sick, and in need of help. Everyone except you.”
Elena clenched her teeth.
Sometimes she wanted to be angry with Tanya simply because of the blunt way she spoke, but that bluntness prevented Elena from hiding behind compassion when that compassion was already beginning to look like humiliation.
“He knows I can do it,” Elena said quietly. “And he knows that when an animal has had surgery, I can’t simply tell him to get lost.”
“Exactly. He knows precisely which button to press.”
Elena walked home more slowly afterward. On the way, she even entered a pet shop and stopped beside a shelf filled with food for animals recovering from surgery.
She saw cans labeled “recovery,” syringes without needles, and protective collars. Looking at them made her feel even worse.
Somewhere, Marta’s cat was genuinely sitting with a surgical wound. Instead of simply hating her former husband, Elena found herself wondering what kind of anesthesia the cat had received and whether it was vomiting.
Near her building, Elena cursed herself aloud and pulled out her phone.
Unless she gave Oleg a clear answer immediately, the entire situation would continue spinning inside her head until it transformed into silent agreement.
Oleg answered at once, as though he had been waiting.
“Well?” he asked. “What have you decided?”
Elena leaned against the cold wall.
“Explain to me one more time, clearly, what exactly you want from me.”
He sighed with relief, as though he had heard not a warning but the first step toward an agreement.
“Lena, what is there to explain? You’ve always loved animals. You would handle it better than anyone. It’s only injections in the morning and evening, medicine mixed into his food, and cleaning the wound so it doesn’t become infected. One week at most. As soon as we return, we’ll take him back.”
Each of his words seemed to uncover an old, familiar arrangement.
You know how to do it.
You’re better at it than anyone.
It won’t be difficult for you.
Just take care of it for me.
Previously, it had been his mother, Dasha, the country house, a sore throat, bandages, the neighbor’s cat, or a pot of soup for six people.
Now it was his new woman’s cat while they flew away on holiday.
“Can you hear yourself?” Elena asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You cheated on me, left me for another woman, and now you’re going on holiday with her. Yet one month later, you call me and ask me to look after her cat while the two of you enjoy yourselves?”
Oleg exhaled irritably.
“What does any of that have to do with this? I’m not asking you to do something for us. I’m simply asking you to help a living creature.”
That word—“simply”—finally stopped Elena from shaking.
Instead, it made her feel cold and calm.
“No, Oleg. Find a boarding service, a veterinarian, a neighbor, or a paid pet sitter. Find anyone you like, but not me.”
“Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“Damn it, don’t behave like…”
“Like what?”
He hesitated. Apparently, he had not expected her not only to refuse but also to force him to finish his sentences.
“Fine,” he said more harshly. “I thought you were a decent person.”
“And I thought you would be too ashamed to call me with a request like this one month after leaving.”
She ended the call.
That evening, he began sending short, probing messages, as though he were searching for the right tone.
“The cat isn’t to blame.”
Elena read it while standing at the stove. She was boiling pasta for Dasha, adding tomatoes to a salad, and removing laundry from the washing machine.
The phone lit up and then went silent.
Ten minutes later, another message appeared.
“Marta is crying. She feels so sorry for him.”
As though Marta’s tears were supposed to awaken something inside Elena.
As though Elena had not shed enough tears of her own after the betrayal and separation.
Then came another message.
“You’re not like this.”
Elena sat on the edge of a chair and stared at those four words.
Not like what?
Not cruel?
Not vindictive?
Not capable of saying no?
He had already decided that any refusal from her was evidence of cruelty and pettiness, while asking her to take a stranger’s cat for a week was apparently an act of great humanity.
Dasha came out of her room wearing socks.
“Mom, do we have any cheese? I want to make a sandwich.”
“Yes. It’s on the top shelf.”
Her daughter opened the refrigerator, took out the cheese, and returned to her room without noticing how badly her mother’s hands were shaking.
Another message came five minutes later.
“Dasha would be happy to look after him, by the way. She loves animals.”
Elena stood up so abruptly that the chair scraped across the tiles.
It was not enough that he was manipulating her. Now he wanted to drag their daughter into this filthy adult arrangement.
Dad asked for help.
The poor cat is sick.
Mom is being stubborn.
Perhaps you can prove that you are kinder than she is.
Elena saw his tactic so clearly that it made her feel nauseated.
She answered immediately.
“Do not involve Dasha in this. And do not bother me about it again. This conversation is over.”
He called almost instantly, but she did not answer.
Then he sent a voice message, followed by another.
“You’re taking this too far, Lena. I only said she would enjoy it because she loves animals. Why are you immediately trying to make me look like some kind of monster?”
The second message was more forceful.
“I really have no other option. You’re not heartless!”
Elena muted her phone and placed it face down.
Then she suddenly realized that she was standing in the middle of the kitchen, still holding a spoon that she should have put down a long time ago.
Her movements became rapid and jerky. She put away the pasta, wiped the table, and prepared Dasha’s lunch container for the next day. She did everything too quickly, as though moving fast enough might allow her to escape her own humiliation.
She could not sleep that night.
At half past two in the morning, Elena caught herself searching online for “complications after a cat is spayed.”
Then she replaced “spaying” with “intestinal surgery,” followed by “cat won’t eat after anesthesia,” and then “how to give a cat a subcutaneous injection.”
She sat in the darkness, her face illuminated by the phone screen, and suddenly understood that she was already inside someone else’s problem again.
She switched off the phone and threw it onto the bed.
“That’s enough,” she said aloud to herself.
The following morning, Tanya sent her a message.
“If you want to save the cat, first ask yourself whom you are really trying to save again.”
Elena did not answer because the answer was unpleasant.
After work, Oleg was waiting for her near the entrance. He stood slightly away from the steps so that he would not block anyone’s path. He wore the familiar expression of a tired, respectable man who was supposedly only asking for a little human kindness.
His jacket was unfastened, his hands were in his pockets, and his face looked tired.
Had she not known what he was about to say in that tone of voice, she might even have felt sorry for him.
Elena saw him through the glass door and slowed down for a moment.
She wanted to walk past him, pretend she had not noticed him, get on the bus, and refuse to listen.
Then she realized that unless she confronted him now, the conversation would remain unfinished.
For some reason, she needed to say everything to his face so that she could finally stop replaying it in her mind.
He approached her immediately.
“Why are you behaving like this, Lena? There really is no one else!”
He immediately returned to the idea that the situation was hopeless, as though she had simply failed to understand the circumstances.
“Of course,” Elena said. “There are no veterinary clinics, boarding services, friends of hers, paid professionals, or neighbors. There is only me.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“What else am I supposed to do? You’re the one who came here.”
Oleg looked around.
Two elderly women were standing near the pharmacy. Someone was smoking outside the neighboring bank. The smell of baked dough drifted from a nearby bakery.
It was a perfectly ordinary street, and yet the most abnormal conversation Elena had experienced in the past month was taking place there.
“I’m only asking for help,” he said more quietly.
“No,” Elena replied. “You’re trying to find out whether I’m still available to run your errands, Oleg, even after everything you’ve done.”
He flinched, as though she had struck him in exactly the right place.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking nonsense? You left me for her. You live with her. Yet whenever something becomes inconvenient, you somehow bring it to me.”
“This isn’t for us!” he said angrily. “Why do you keep mixing everything together? There is an animal that needs help.”
“Then help it.”
“I don’t know how to give injections.”
“Learn.”
For a moment, he looked confused.
Apparently, he had not expected her to dismiss him so simply, without a long moral speech.
“You’ve become very cruel,” he said.
Elena smirked.
“One month after you abandoned me? How strange.”
He tried to approach the subject from another direction.
“But Dasha…”
“Leave Dasha out of it,” Elena interrupted so sharply that a nearby woman turned to look at them. “You have already done enough.”
Oleg pressed his lips together.
“I never thought you would become this kind of person…”
At that moment, nothing inside Elena wavered.
There was no compassion and no old instinct to explain that she was actually a good person.
There was only anger—pure and exhausted.
“And I never thought you would become this shameless.”
He looked away.
Then he stared past her at the cars, the pharmacy sign, and anything else that allowed him to avoid looking directly into her face.
For perhaps the first time, he was hearing something other than her tears and hurt.
He was facing the kind of memory that prevented someone from continuing to use another person for their convenience.
“Fine,” he said. “I understand.”
His voice was empty now, like that of a man who had found a door locked where he had expected to retain permanent access.
“No, you don’t,” Elena said. “But that is no longer my problem.”
She walked around him and headed toward the bus stop.
He did not call after her.
Her hands were trembling so badly on the bus that she could barely hold her phone.
She sat beside the window, pressed her forehead against the glass, and watched gray buildings, shops, and pedestrians carrying bags drift past.
Inside, she felt strangely empty. She was hurt by his audacity, by the request itself, and by everything surrounding it.
The apartment was quiet when she returned home. Dasha had not yet come back from her English lesson.
Elena removed her shoes, placed her bag on the cabinet, and noticed a missed call from her daughter.
Her heart immediately dropped.
Had Oleg already managed to tell Dasha something?
She called her back.
“Mom, why didn’t you answer?” Dasha asked cheerfully. Voices and footsteps could be heard in the background.
“I was on the bus. What happened?”
“Nothing. Can I invite Masha over this weekend? We want to make pizza at home. I found a recipe for the dough.”
Elena leaned her shoulder against the hallway wall and closed her eyes.
“Of course you can.”
“We’ll need cheese. And proper ketchup, not the spicy kind. Maybe mushrooms too. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Mom, why are you so quiet?”
“I’m just tired.”
“Okay. I’ll be home soon.”
The call ended.
Elena remained standing for another second, holding the phone to her ear and listening to the silence of the blank screen.
Then she sat down on the stool in the hallway and suddenly began to cry.
She was not crying over Oleg, their marriage, or even the cat, although she still felt sorry for it.
She cried because of the anger that had been buried deep inside her for an entire month.
Now it had finally risen to the surface and stopped clawing at her from within.
The tears came quickly and without grace. She wiped them away with her palm, then with her sleeve, and finally stopped trying. She simply sat there and breathed.
The elevator doors slammed somewhere outside. A neighbor’s dog began barking. A notification from the school group appeared on her phone.
Ordinary life had not stopped.
Perhaps, for the first time in a month, there was nothing painful about that.
A few minutes later, Elena stood up, washed her face with cold water in the bathroom, and went into the kitchen.
She opened the refrigerator and checked how much cheese they had and whether there was enough flour for the pizza dough.
Then she took out a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote at the top:
Buy everything else for the pizza.
