Anna stood by the window of her Moscow apartment, watching the evening bustle of the street. In her hands, she clutched her phone, its screen showing several missed calls from her sister Marina. Leonid, her husband, was sitting on the sofa, lazily scrolling through social media.
“What do you mean, DIVORCE? Just because I forgot your sister’s birthday?” he asked in surprise, not even looking up from the screen.
Anna slowly turned toward him. Her eyes held a whole range of emotions — from exhaustion to barely restrained anger.
“Leonid, this isn’t just a forgotten birthday. This is the LAST STRAW.”
“Oh, come on, I forgot. I had an important deal, a new contract for the supply of equipment. You understand, business requires…”
“STOP!” Anna sharply raised her hand. “Don’t you dare start that song about business again. You forgot my father’s birthday last year. You forgot the anniversary of my mother’s death. You forgot Aunt Vera’s jubilee — the woman who helped raise us after Mom died!”
Leonid finally tore his eyes away from the phone and looked at his wife with irritation.
“You’re being dramatic. I’m just a busy man. I have a company, employees, suppliers…”
“And you have a FAMILY! Or you had one…” Anna walked over to the table and picked up a folder of documents. “Here. The divorce petition. I’ve already filed it.”
Leonid jumped up from the sofa, his face twisted with shock.
“Are you out of your mind? You’re going to destroy our family over some birthdays?”
“Some? SOME?!” Anna’s voice trembled with rage. “Do you know what happened today? Marina called me in tears. She came all the way from Petersburg specifically to celebrate with us. She booked a restaurant for three. And you… you didn’t even bother to warn us you weren’t coming!”
Leonid waved his hand irritably.
“Oh, come on! I’ll call her, apologize, buy her an expensive gift. Everything will be fixed.”
“NO, it won’t be fixed!” Anna slammed her palm on the table. “You don’t understand the main thing. It isn’t about gifts or apologies. It’s about the fact that, to you, my family and I are NOTHING!”
“Don’t talk nonsense! I support all of you, by the way. This apartment, your car, vacations abroad…”
“Money, money, money!” Anna grabbed a vase from the table and hurled it against the wall with all her strength. The vase shattered into pieces. “To hell with you and your money! Do you think respect can be bought? Love can be bought?”
Leonid recoiled. In seven years of marriage, he had never seen his wife like this. Usually quiet and compliant, Anna had turned into a furious storm.
“Calm down, the neighbors will hear…”
“I DON’T CARE about the neighbors!” Anna grabbed his favorite mug from the table and raised her hand. “Do you know what you did last week? My cousin Igor came from Siberia. For the first time in five years! And what did you do? ‘Sorry, darling, urgent meeting.’ And you disappeared for the whole evening!”
The mug flew after the vase. Leonid barely managed to dodge it.
“You’ve lost your mind! Stop this immediately!”
“And do you remember my friend Olga’s wedding?” Anna was no longer controlling herself. “I asked you for a month! A MONTH! And at the last moment: ‘Oh, I forgot, I have a meeting with investors.’ And I went alone, like an idiot!”
“That was an important contract…”
“May that contract burn in blue flames!” Anna grabbed his tablet from the table. “And do you know the most disgusting part? There was no meeting! I saw you that evening at the Metropol with your buddy Vadim. The two of you were drinking whiskey and playing billiards!”
The tablet flew into the wall. The screen cracked.
“You were spying on me?!”
“I wasn’t spying, I saw you by chance! Olga and her husband stopped there after the registry office, and I went with them. And what did I see? My ‘busy’ husband calmly enjoying himself!”
Leonid tried to pull himself together and go on the offensive.
“Fine, I was wrong. But that’s no reason to throw a tantrum and wreck the apartment!”
“A TANTRUM?!” Anna burst out laughing, but there was no joy in her laughter. “For seven years, I stayed silent! For seven years, I endured your rudeness, your neglect, your lies! And now that I’ve finally exploded, you call it a tantrum?”
She walked over to the bookshelf and began throwing his collection of expensive business books onto the floor.
“Stop it! Those are gift editions!”
“And what is this?” Anna pulled an envelope out from behind the books. “An invitation to your company’s corporate event. Last Friday. It says ‘plus one.’ Why am I only finding out about this now?”
Leonid hesitated.
“It… it was a boring event. You would have been bored there…”
“You’re lying!” Anna threw the envelope in his face. “Your secretary Alina let it slip yesterday. She said it was a lot of fun, and that you came with some blonde!”
“She was… a client. An important client from Yekaterinburg.”
“Oh? And what is this ‘client’s’ name?”
“Uh… Svetlana… Svetlana Petrovna.”
Anna took out her phone and began dialing.
“Excellent. I’ll call your partner Mikhail right now and ask him about Svetlana Petrovna from Yekaterinburg.”
Leonid rushed toward her, trying to snatch the phone away.
“Don’t! Fine, there was no client. She was… just an acquaintance. Nothing serious!”
“GET OUT!” Anna shoved him with such force that he fell onto the sofa. “Get out of my apartment immediately!”
“Yours? This is our apartment!”
“NO!” Anna pulled documents from the folder. “Here is the purchase agreement. The apartment is registered in my name. It was bought with the money my grandmother left me. Back then, you said you didn’t care whose name it was registered under.”
“But I renovated it…”
“With my money! Here are the receipts, here are the statements from my account. I kept everything, imagine that.”
Leonid turned pale.
“Were you deliberately preparing for a divorce?”
“No. I’m simply used to documenting everything. Thanks to my job as a chief accountant. And do you know what else I documented?”
Anna opened her laptop and turned it toward her husband.
“Here is your correspondence with that… Kristina. Three months of flirting, vulgar messages, and photos. Did you think I didn’t know the password to your email? Your date of birth isn’t the most reliable password, darling.”
Leonid jumped up.
“You hacked my email?!”
“I didn’t hack it, I logged in. You yourself gave me the password a year ago when you asked me to print some documents. Forgot?”
“This is an invasion of privacy!”
“PRIVACY?!” Anna threw the laptop at him. Leonid barely managed to catch it. “You have a private life from your WIFE?! To hell with you and your private life!”
She went into the bedroom and began throwing his things out of the wardrobe.
“What are you doing?!”
“Making room for my own PRIVATE life! Take your clothes and GET OUT!”
“Anna, let’s talk calmly…”
“Too late!” She came out of the bedroom with an armful of his suits and threw them onto the floor. “Do you know what infuriates me the most? Not even your affairs. It’s the fact that you think I’m a FOOL! You think I don’t see, don’t understand, don’t feel?”
“I never thought that…”
“You’re lying! You’re always lying!” Anna grabbed his favorite cologne and poured it over the suits. “Here’s something for you to remember! So you’ll remember what betrayal smells like!”
Leonid rushed to save the suits.
“Do you understand how much these cost?!”
“And do you understand how much seven years of my life cost?!” Anna pulled a stack of photographs from her bag. “Here, look! Our wedding. Do you see who’s sitting at the table? My family! My father, my sister, my aunt, my cousins. And where were your relatives? EXACTLY, they didn’t come! They were ‘busy’!”
She began tearing the photographs.
“And this is our anniversary. Our first one. I cooked all day, set the table. And you? ‘Sorry, I’ll be late.’ And you came home drunk at three in the morning!”
“I was celebrating a contract…”
“May you choke on your contracts!” The photographs flew toward him like confetti. “And this is my father’s birthday. Remember? No? Well, I do! You promised to come, then sent a text: ‘Can’t make it, work.’ WORK! Work is always more important to you than people!”
Leonid tried to gather the scattered clothes, muttering:
“You’re exaggerating everything. A normal family, normal relationship…”
“NORMAL?!” Anna was now screaming at the top of her lungs. “Is it normal when a husband forgets that his wife’s relatives exist? When he lies, cheats, humiliates?”
“I never humiliated you!”
“No? And how did you introduce me to your partners at that reception? ‘My wife, a housewife.’ A HOUSEWIFE! I am, by the way, the chief accountant of a large company! I have two university degrees! But to you, I’m nobody!”
Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Leonid exhaled in relief.
“Finally! It’s probably the neighbors. They’ll call the police because of your screaming.”
But when he opened the door, Marina, Anna’s sister, was standing on the threshold. Behind her stood Kristina — the very same blonde from the corporate event.
“What… what are you doing here?” Leonid stepped back.
Marina walked into the apartment, followed by Kristina, who looked extremely determined.
“Leonid Sergeyevich,” Kristina said coldly, “I came to return this to you.”
She handed him a small box with an expensive watch.
“But… I gave it to you…”
“You gave it to me hoping the relationship would continue. But you LIED to me! You said you had been divorced for a year!”
Anna stepped closer.
“Kristina is the daughter of my mother’s friend. We’ve known each other since childhood. She told me everything yesterday. How you courted her, what fairy tales you told her.”
Leonid turned red.
“This… this is a misunderstanding…”
“A misunderstanding?” Kristina took out her phone. “Here are your messages. ‘My love, I miss you, I can’t wait to see you.’ And all while your wife is alive and well! You know what? Go to hell!”
She turned around and left, slamming the door.
Marina approached Leonid.
“And I came to take Anna. She’ll live with me until you move out.”
“This is my apartment too!”
“No,” Anna handed him the documents. “Here is the court order. Preliminary. You are required to move out within three days. And one more thing — the claim for division of property. Remember that account in a Swiss bank that you opened under a front person’s name? Well, I documented everything.”
Leonid turned white as a sheet.
“How did you…”
“Your accountant Semyon is married to my cousin. The very same cousin whose wedding you ignored last year. He told me EVERYTHING. About the gray schemes, the unpaid taxes, the accounting fraud.”
“You… you wouldn’t dare! That would put the company at risk!”
“The company will remain intact. But you’ll have to leave the founders and sell your share. Otherwise, the tax authorities will receive a very interesting letter.”
“This is BLACKMAIL!”
“No, this is JUSTICE!” Anna picked up her bag. “For years, you humiliated me and my loved ones. You considered us unworthy of your attention. Well, now reap what you’ve sown!”
She headed toward the door, then turned back.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot. Your mommy called. I told her about the divorce and about Kristina. And about Sveta from accounting, whom you were seeing for six months. And about Nadya from the neighboring office. Mommy said she’s cutting you out of the inheritance. The house outside Moscow will now go to your brother.”
“You… you destroyed everything!” Leonid fell to his knees. “Anna, forgive me! I’ll fix everything!”
“Too late. May you rot with your apologies!” Anna left, leaving him alone among the scattered clothes and shards of broken glass.
Three months later, the divorce was finalized. Leonid lost half his business, the apartment, the car, and his reputation. Kristina told their mutual acquaintances about his lies, and many partners turned away from him.
Anna, meanwhile, opened her own consulting firm. Her entire family attended the presentation — her father, her sister Marina, Aunt Vera, and her cousins. The very people Leonid had considered unworthy of attention became her main support and foundation.
And on the wall of her new office hung a framed photograph — Anna surrounded by her relatives. The caption read: “Family is not those who use you, but those who support you.”
Leonid remained alone. His attempts to start new relationships failed — the story with Anna became known in their circle. Women did not want to get involved with a man who had lied for years and neglected the people closest to him.
The last time Anna saw him was a year later — unshaven, in a wrinkled suit, sitting alone in a café. He tried to speak to her, but she walked past him. Her family was waiting for her — her nephew had a graduation ceremony, and she, unlike some people, never missed important family events.
