Alice had just taken off her coat and was about to text Viktor that she was waiting for him by the coat check when Roman came out of the banquet hall.
He was explaining something to the photographer, pointing toward the staircase, then turned his head—and froze mid-sentence.
They hadn’t seen each other in almost two years. Roman had changed very little: the same quick glance, the same expression of a man whose carefully arranged plans had suddenly been disrupted. Only now he was wearing a dark navy wedding suit with a white rose in his buttonhole.
He walked toward her so quickly that the photographer was left standing by the doors.
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“What the hell are you doing here?!” Roman demanded. “You still can’t forget me? My wife is going to be a hundred times better than you!”
Several guests turned to look.
Even during their divorce, Roman had liked to insist that Alice was taking the breakup much harder than he was. Judging by his opening remark, three years later he still hadn’t changed his mind.
Alice smiled calmly. Roman still had no idea who she had come with.
“Congratulations,” she said. “But I didn’t come here for you.”
“Of course. You just happened to show up at my wedding.”
“Rom, what happened?”
Sofia came out of the hall. Alice knew her only from a photograph. Sofia looked first at her husband, then at Alice, and clearly recognized her.
“This is Alice,” Roman said. “My ex-wife. She decided to show up today.”
“I wasn’t planning to cause any trouble. I was invited.”
“By who?”
“Me.”
Viktor approached from the direction of the entrance. He had only been delayed in the parking lot for a few minutes, but those few minutes had been enough.
“What do you mean, you?” Roman asked.
“You invited me with a guest. I came with Alice.”
Roman stared at his father.
“With Alice? My ex-wife?”
“I remember who she is.”
Sofia glanced toward the guests gathered near the doors.
“Could we at least move somewhere else?”
They stepped into the corridor between the coat check and the staircase.
“Dad, why did you have to bring her here?”
“To your wedding. At your invitation.”
“I wrote that you could bring someone, not my ex-wife!”
“Roman,” Alice interrupted, “I can leave. This is your day.”
“Then leave.”
“Rom, stop it,” Sofia said. “And stop comparing me to her. I don’t want to be ‘a hundred times better’ just because you’re angry with your ex-wife.”
Roman turned toward her, but Sofia was already asking Viktor:
“How long have you two been together?”
“Almost a year.”
Roman gave a short laugh.
“Almost a year. And you decided to tell me today?”
Alice looked at Viktor.
Before coming, she had asked whether Roman knew who would be accompanying him. Viktor had answered evasively: the invitation was for two, his son knew he wasn’t coming alone. Alice had assumed that at least her name had been mentioned.
Roman looked from his father to Alice as though he were waiting for some further explanation. Clearly, he had never heard her name.
“You didn’t tell him?” she asked.
Viktor held her gaze.
“I didn’t mention your name.”
Alice immediately lost any desire to sort things out there.
“Then I’m leaving.”
“I’m coming with you,” Viktor said.
“Dad, if you leave with her now, don’t bother coming back.”
“I won’t be coming back today anyway.”
They collected their coats and left.
In the car, Viktor made no move to start the engine.
“Why didn’t you tell him directly?” Alice asked.
“Because I knew how he would react.”
“So you knew how he would react, and you brought me here anyway.”
“I didn’t want to cause a scandal beforehand.”
“You didn’t prevent the scandal. You just postponed it until the wedding.”
Viktor frowned.
“I thought Roman would at least control himself once we were there.”
“And did you ask me whether I wanted to be the one you tested that theory on?”
He said nothing.
Alice unfastened her seat belt.
“If you had honestly told me Roman didn’t know, I wouldn’t have come.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Viktor admitted. “I was afraid you’d refuse.”
She opened the car door.
“Now that, at least, is the truth.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“I’ll get there myself. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Viktor didn’t try to stop her.
Alice had not met Viktor while she was married to Roman, nor immediately after the divorce. Viktor had called her fourteen months later. One of his cafés needed an interior renovation, and Alice worked with commercial spaces. She had hesitated over whether to accept a job from her former father-in-law, but work was work.
The project lasted several months. Roman never appeared there, and there were almost no personal conversations between Alice and Viktor. Viktor suggested meeting outside of work much later, when nearly two years had passed since the divorce.
At first Alice refused, but a week later she agreed to have coffee with him. Then they met again.
By that point, Viktor rarely spoke to Roman. After the divorce, he had refused to discuss with his son who was to blame for everything, and the closeness they had once shared never recovered. Roman knew his father was seeing a woman, but he had never asked her name.
On Sunday, Viktor arrived at Alice’s apartment around noon.
“Roman called last night and again this morning,” he said. “He’s demanding that I break up with you.”
“And you?”
“I refused.”
“And that’s it?”
“He also decided that something must have been going on between us before your divorce. I gave him the dates. He didn’t believe me.”
Alice grimaced.
“That was predictable.”
Viktor sat down in an armchair but didn’t make himself comfortable as he normally would.
“What I did yesterday was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell him your name because I didn’t want him to forbid it in advance. If he had said, ‘Don’t bring her,’ then I would have had to either miss my son’s wedding or leave you at home. I decided to come and deal with it once we were there.”
“And you dragged me into it without warning me.”
“Yes.”
“If this ever happens again, I simply won’t go anywhere with you,” Alice said. “I don’t need Roman’s celebrations. But if you invite me somewhere he’ll be present, you tell him my name first. Directly.”
“Agreed.”
“And if he refuses to see you after that, then that’s a conversation between the two of you.”
Viktor nodded.
“He said that as long as I’m with you, he has nothing to talk to me about.”
“Don’t turn this into a choice between me and your son.”
“I’m not going to.”
“And don’t ever tell me later that you lost your son because of me.”
“I won’t. That’s between Roman and me.”
They didn’t return to the subject again that day.
On Tuesday, Roman texted Alice:
“We need to talk. Without Dad.”
She replied that she was willing to speak only over the phone.
“Tell me honestly. When did you start seeing each other?” Roman asked.
Alice named the month.
“A year and nine months after the divorce.”
“Dad said the same thing.”
“Because that’s what happened.”
“You knew he was my father. That didn’t stop you?”
“At first, it did.”
“And then?”
“Then time passed. You and I had been divorced for a long time, and I was happy with Viktor.”
“Out of all the men in the city, did it really have to be my father?”
“I wasn’t looking for your father. We met through work.”
Roman exhaled loudly.
“It still feels wrong to me.”
“Fine.”
“What do you mean, ‘fine’?”
“Think it’s wrong if you want. I’m not calling you to ask permission.”
He was silent for a moment.
“Then don’t show up where I am.”
“At your events? No problem. If you invite your father alone, I won’t follow him. But if you want to decide where Viktor goes and who he sees, take that up with him, not me.”
“You still inserted yourself into my family.”
“Roman, we’ve been divorced for almost three years. I’m not required to live as though I’m still your wife.”
“That’s very convenient reasoning.”
“Maybe. You wanted to know the dates. I told you. Everything else is just us repeating ourselves.”
Just before ending the call, Roman unexpectedly asked:
“Has Sofia messaged you?”
“No.”
“She’s angry with me because of what I said in the corridor. Just so you don’t start thinking she’s suddenly on your side.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”
Roman hung up.
He didn’t speak to his father for more than a week.
Viktor didn’t ask Alice to call his son, reconcile them, or explain her side to his relatives. He simply wrote to Roman that he was ready to meet whenever Roman wanted, but he would no longer discuss the demand that he “break up with Alice.”
Four days before his birthday, Viktor came home from the café and said:
“Roman won’t be there on Saturday.”
“You invited him?”
“Yes. I told him immediately that you’d be there too. He refused. He suggested we meet alone on Sunday instead.”
“And you agreed?”
“Of course. I need my son, not his presence at my table at any cost.”
“Then that’s fine.”
Roman didn’t come on Saturday.
On Sunday, Viktor went to see him alone.
He returned toward evening.
“For now, Roman and I will meet without you,” he said. “He isn’t ready for anything else.”
“Fine.”
“Does that upset you?”
“It does. But it’s better than you taking me somewhere again without telling him who you’re bringing.”
“If anything changes again, I’ll warn Roman first.”
“And if he gives you another ultimatum?”
“Then I’ll decide for myself.”
“Exactly. You decide.”
