She found out the truth by accident. Friends had invited her to a wedding anniversary dinner at a restaurant. Getting out of the car, Zhanna’s stocking snagged on a gift bag, instantly running a frustrating ladder. Fortunately, she always carried spare stockings for just such an occasion. The restroom was occupied, so Zhanna decided to quickly change the stocking in a niche shielded by a heavy curtain.
“I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, kitten,” she suddenly heard a familiar voice. “I’m always thinking of you too. My-mine…” whispered her husband Maxim.
She bit her lip to keep from crying, and he continued: “I love you. Kissing you tenderly. Bye!” As soon as he said this, Zhanna sprang out from behind the curtain like a devil from a snuffbox.
“And who is it that you’re kissing tenderly?!” Zhanna asked in a voice hoarse with anger. Instead of making excuses, Maxim immediately went on the offensive:
“I didn’t expect you to be capable of something like this!” he said, pocketing his phone.
“What?! Me capable?! Of what ‘something’?” Zhanna was initially stunned by her husband’s brazenness.
“Spying and eavesdropping!” her husband replied reproachfully.
“I was just changing my stocking here… and you’re here… who is she?! How long have you been lying to me? Although, what difference does it make… Divorce!”
“That’s not what you think at all!” the husband shouted after her.
Reaching the restroom in another wing of the building, forgetting about the stocking, Zhanna rinsed her burning face. Suddenly nausea came over her, and she vomited. Almost senseless, she returned to the honest company, apologized to her friends, and asked them to call a taxi. Her husband hovered nearby, pretending to be concerned about her condition, wanting to go with her, but as she got into the car, she quietly asked to be left alone. And Maxim retreated. He needed time to build his defense, and she — to pack his suitcase.
She didn’t let him into the house. Every day he came to her work, waited outside, tried to give her flowers, but she drove him away and refused the bouquets.
“I won’t be here tomorrow or the day after. You can come by and pick up whatever you didn’t manage to take,” she said when he waited for her again after work.
“And where are you going?”
“Sorry, but that’s none of your business anymore!”
When he found out she had an abortion, he couldn’t say a word for a long time. Only later, after collecting himself, he asked:
“Zhanna, how could you?”
“I am a free woman now, and I can’t afford to sit at home. I have to provide for myself.”
“And me? Did we ever need money?”
“Not money, no. I needed a husband who doesn’t look elsewhere!”
That was the last straw. Maxim couldn’t stand it and slammed the door. Zhanna swore to herself that he would deeply regret his betrayal (he already did, but not enough), and soon all, or at least almost all women would envy her. She would become a successful and unattainable businesswoman who could have breakfast in Paris and buy branded clothes in Milan. She would have a completely different life.
It was a very difficult path, broken into many steps, but she moved forward confidently. On the way to her goal, she almost completely changed her social circle. Now it only included business partners and people who served her in one way or another: tutors, numerous coaches, a yoga instructor, a massage therapist, and a cosmetologist. She achieved her goal. Now she had her own business, looked perfect, had no shortage of male attention, and her ex-husband undoubtedly regretted it!
Now it seemed to her that all her girlfriends envied her success, and the girlfriends thought — not without reason — that Zhanna had gotten too proud. After another conversation with her psychologist, she decided she didn’t need “toxic contacts” with jealous women and without regret deleted all her girlfriends from her phone and life, including those who had supported her in the early days of her new life when it was hard. But Zhanna didn’t consider one thing: who would now tell that disgusting cheater about her dizzying successes!
Several times Zhanna walked her Chihuahua around the places where she used to live, hoping to meet Maxim or at least some mutual acquaintances. They would definitely tell him what she had become. At forty-something — she looked better than she did back in the restaurant! Five steps behind her followed a bodyguard. You never knew what to expect in that working-class neighborhood where only poor people lived!
But she didn’t run into anyone she knew. After one of these outings, arriving home, she opened a bottle of wine and started drinking alone. When the bottle was almost empty, Zhanna began calling Maxim’s home. She had heard he was remarried and seemed to have children. But what difference did it make? It was around midnight, and no one answered the phone for a long time. Finally, a sleepy female voice said:
“Hello.”
“May I speak to Maxim Igorevich? It’s urgent information for him,” Zhanna said with a steely voice, winking at her reflection in the mirror and sticking out her tongue.
The line went silent. A deep sigh was heard. Finally, the woman said:
“Maxim Igorevich has died.”
The crystal glass shattered on the Italian tile floor. The glossy facade she had carefully built over these ten years slid off, revealing a miserable, empty space. Silently, she put down the phone on the lever and slid down to the floor, forgetting about the shards… The Chihuahua, scared, hid under a chair, seeing its owner in such a state for the first time and let out a plaintive squeak. “What was it all for, Zhanna?” she asked herself, staring at one point…
She opened her eyes and saw herself in a hospital room. “Maxim is dead, and I’m alive,” the thought slipped through her mind. Looking sideways, she saw a woman on the neighboring bed with a heating pad on her lower abdomen. Her eyes were half-closed; she was moaning.
“I’m an orphan, an orphan! I won’t fit through the gate!” sang a fat, red-haired girl as she entered the room with a bucket and mop.
“Excuse me, please!” Zhanna addressed her, “why am I here?”
“Hi!” replied the nurse familiarly, but not rudely, scrubbing the floor with exaggerated zeal. “They party, then ask why. So: no food for breakfast, soon going for surgery. There are two others ahead of you. That’s Shcherbakova; she’s done!” She adjusted the displaced cold heating pad on the woman lying on the neighboring bed. Shcherbakova turned her tear-streaked face to the wall.
Zhanna jumped as if struck by electricity.
“Where are my clothes?”
“Calm down, please, everything will be returned to you. You’ll go home by evening if there are no complications,” the nurse snorted.
“I want to go home now!” Zhanna insisted. She left the hospital and breathed deeply. Life was bustling all around. It was a sunny, clear day.
Suddenly, her soul felt so good and warm, as if an angel had visited.
Or maybe it really did…?
May God send a kind angel in time to every woman who is about to kill her child in the name of revenge, career, or something else.
