Sergei set an old sports bag with a faded logo beside the front door and straightened up. He stood in the middle of the hallway as though he were waiting for applause. Or at least for someone to scream.
Rimma was sitting in the kitchen, peeling an apple for Timofey. A long, unbroken spiral of peel hung from the knife. She raised her eyes, looked at her husband, and went back to the apple.
“I’m leaving,” Sergei said.
He had clearly prepared his voice in advance—low and forceful. He had probably been rehearsing it for days.
“I heard you,” Rimma replied. “Are you taking your winter coat or the gray one?”
Sergei blinked. Then blinked again. He had obviously been expecting a different reaction.
“Did you even understand what I said?”
“I understood, Seryozha. You’re leaving. Which coat are you taking?”
He shifted from one foot to the other. The bag beside the door was only half full, and even from a distance it was obvious that he had packed it in a hurry. Rimma noticed but said nothing.
“The gray one,” he muttered.
“It’s in the wardrobe, on the top shelf. Your knitted hat is there too—the one I bought in February. Take it. It’s below freezing outside.”
Sergei lingered for a moment before walking over to the wardrobe. Rimma finished peeling the apple, cut it into slices, and placed them on a small plate. Alisa’s voice drifted in from the children’s room. She was patiently explaining the rules of some board game to her brother for the third time.
“You’re not asking who I’m leaving you for,” Sergei said from the hallway.
There was a trace of resentment in his voice.
“No,” Rimma agreed. “I’m not asking. Did you find your mittens? They should be in the left pocket.”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to the store.”
Rimma set down the knife and looked at him calmly, without a hint of defiance. Then she smiled faintly, and something about that smile made Sergei uneasy.
“Seryozha, when was the last time you tied your own scarf?”
He did not answer. He silently pulled out the coat and began stuffing it into his bag.
Rimma dried her hands on a towel and walked over to the wardrobe. Sergei was already standing in front of it with the bottom drawer open, going through his belongings like a man visiting his own home for the first time.
“Where’s my sweater?” he asked irritably. “The burgundy one.”
“The one you got for your birthday?”
“Yes. It isn’t here.”
Rimma knew exactly where the sweater was. It was neatly folded on the third shelf, behind a stack of bed linen. She had put it there herself in September.
“Maybe you left it at your mother’s,” Rimma suggested.
Her voice was so caring that Sergei flinched.
“You visited her last week. Shall I call her?”
“No!”
“Seryozha, it’s a good sweater. Pure wool. It would be a shame if it got lost.”
She was already dialing the number. Sergei lunged toward her, but Rimma stepped back and raised the phone to her ear.
“Nina Pavlovna? Good evening. It’s Rimma.”
The voice on the other end was warm and slightly hoarse. Sergei’s mother was always happy to hear from her—the only person who looked after her son even more closely than Rimma did.
“Rimmochka, hello! Did Seryozha wear his scarf today?”
“Nina Pavlovna, I’m calling about something else. Seryozha is packing his things and can’t find his sweater. He didn’t happen to leave it at your place, did he?”
There was a pause. Brief, but meaningful.
“Packing his things?” Nina Pavlovna’s voice changed. “Where is he going?”
“He’s leaving, Nina Pavlovna,” Rimma said evenly, without breaking down. “He’s leaving for good. For another woman.”
Sergei was standing only a few feet away, and his expression changed with every passing second. First confusion. Then anger. Then helplessness.
“Rimma!” he hissed. “Why?!”
“I’m looking for your sweater, Seryozha. You asked me to.”
Her mother-in-law’s voice came through the phone. It was no longer warm but anxious, carrying that particular note of maternal horror that appeared when a son had done something unforgivable.
“What do you mean, another woman?! What do you mean, he’s leaving?! Put him on the phone! Give him the phone right now!”
“Nina Pavlovna, you don’t have the sweater?”
“What sweater?! Rimma, has he lost his mind?!”
“It looks that way. Well, that means the sweater isn’t at your place. Thank you, Nina Pavlovna. I’ll ask Artyom too. Maybe Seryozha left it at his house.”
“Rimma, wait! I’ll call him myself right now! Is he really doing this? I made that sweater for him—and now he’s taking it to some… some woman?!”
Rimma politely said goodbye, ended the call, and looked at her husband. Sergei was standing there with his mouth open.
“You did that on purpose,” he said.
“I was looking for your sweater,” Rimma replied. “You do want to make a proper exit, don’t you?”
Artyom answered after the third ring. Rimma put the call on speaker—not for Sergei’s sake, but for her own, so she would not have to repeat the conversation later.
“Rimka! Hi! Why are you calling so late?”
“Hello, Artyom. Listen, Seryozha is leaving us. He’s packing his things, but we can’t find his burgundy sweater. He didn’t leave it at your place, did he?”
Artyom fell silent. But it was not the silence of surprise. It was something else—something sly and approving.
“Finally,” he breathed. “Good for you, Seryoga. It’s about time.”
Rimma closed her eyes for a second. Then she opened them again.
“Artyom, I’m asking about the sweater.”
“I haven’t seen any sweater. Seryoga, are you there? You’re a man! I’ve been telling you for years—it’s time to stop sitting around and start living!”
Sergei, who could hear every word, suddenly squared his shoulders. There it was: support. From someone, at least.
“Thank you, Artyom,” Rimma said. “So the sweater isn’t there. Call us if you find it.”
She ended the call and placed the phone on the table. Sergei’s phone rang almost immediately. It was his mother. He rejected the call. It rang again, and he silenced it.
“Do you understand what you’ve done?” he asked.
There was no trace left of his rehearsed calm or masculine resolve. There was only pure, childish fear.
“I called two people and asked them about your sweater,” Rimma replied. “What’s so terrible about that?”
“You told everyone!”
“Seryozha, I called two people. Your mother and your friend. That isn’t ‘everyone.’ That’s two people.”
Sergei’s phone lit up again. A message from Artyom. Then another. Then one from a number Rimma did not recognize.
The thing about Artyom was that he was a generous man. Generous with words. Information flew out of his mouth like a bird escaping from a cage—joyfully, irreversibly, and in every direction.
Within half an hour, all their mutual acquaintances knew that Sergei was abandoning his wife and two children. Within an hour, his cousin knew. An hour and a half later, a former classmate Sergei had not spoken to in six years knew too.
Rimma washed the dishes calmly and methodically, without hurrying. Sergei sat at the table and watched the notifications multiply across his screen.
Not one of them was supportive.
“You planned this,” he said quietly.
“Planned what? The fact that your friend is a loudspeaker? Seryozha, you’ve known him for twenty years.”
The phone rang again. Nina Pavlovna. This time, Sergei answered.
“Mom, I can’t talk right now…”
“Seryozha.”
Her voice was icy.
“Lyuda just called me. Artyom told her. She says you’re abandoning your wife. And your children. Is that true?”
“Mom, it’s more complicated than it looks…”
“I knitted that sweater for you with my aching fingers because Rimma told me you were cold while waiting at the bus stop. And now you’re taking it to some strange woman? Seryozha, I have no words.”
“Mom!”
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. I call Rimma every morning to ask whether you put on your scarf and buttoned your coat, because you aren’t capable of doing it yourself. And she has never complained about you. Not once, Seryozha. Not a single time in nine years. And this is how you repay her?”
Sergei ended the call. He sat there for a moment and then looked at Rimma.
“You knew,” he said. “You knew this would happen.”
“I knew you had a mother and a friend,” Rimma replied. “I didn’t know anything more than that.”
By ten o’clock that evening, Sergei’s phone had fallen silent. Not because people had stopped calling, but because he had switched it off.
Rimma put the children to bed. Alisa asked why her father’s bag was standing in the hallway, and Rimma replied, “Daddy decided to organize his things.”
Timofey did not ask anything. He was building a bridge out of construction blocks and was completely absorbed in the engineering challenge.
When Rimma came out of the children’s room, Sergei was sitting in the kitchen. The bag was still beside the door, but he had taken his coat out and hung it over the back of a chair.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began cautiously. “Maybe I could stay here tonight. I’ll leave in the morning. Quietly. Without making a scene.”
Rimma stopped in the doorway.
She looked at her husband for a long time, studying him carefully, and Sergei saw the thing he feared most.
Not anger. Not tears.
Coldness.
A calm, measured coldness like the January air.
“Oh, no, no, no,” she said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“No, Seryozha. You’re not staying the night.”
He looked bewildered.
“Rimma, it’s already ten o’clock. Where am I supposed to go?”
“To the other woman. That’s where you were going, wasn’t it? She’s waiting for you. Or isn’t she?”
Sergei attempted a smile, but it came out pitiful.
“Let’s not get carried away…”
“I’m not getting carried away. I’m perfectly calm. You announced that you were leaving. You packed your bag. I helped you find your coat, hat, and mittens. I tried to find your sweater. You’re leaving, so leave.”
“But…”
“But what?” Rimma’s voice did not rise by so much as half a note. “Did you think I would cry, beg you to stay, and grab hold of your sleeve? Did you think you would say, ‘I’m leaving,’ I would say, ‘Please don’t go,’ and then you would feel wanted and decide to stay? Is that it, Seryozha?”
He remained silent.
And his silence was more revealing than any answer could have been.
“You can’t even leave properly,” Rimma continued. “For nine years, I’ve looked after you as though you were my third child. Tie your scarf. Put on your hat. Take your medicine. Make your appointment. Dry your shoes. Nine years. And not once—not once—did you say thank you.”
“I did!”
“No, Seryozha. You didn’t. You said, ‘Where are my keys?’ and ‘Why hasn’t my shirt been ironed?’ But ‘thank you’? No. Not once.”
Sergei stood up, paced around the kitchen, stopped beside the refrigerator, and turned toward her.
“You treated me as though I were incapable,” he said darkly. “You and my mother. Both of you. As though I weren’t a man but a houseplant that had to be watered on a schedule.”
“Seryozha.” Rimma tilted her head slightly. “Yesterday, you couldn’t heat soup in the microwave. You pressed the grill button and then acted surprised when the plate started smoking. Shall I continue?”
His face turned crimson.
“That has nothing to do with this…”
“It has everything to do with it. You want to be a grown man who makes his own decisions? Wonderful. Here is your first grown-up decision: walk out the door. By yourself. Without me telling you where to go or what to wear.”
Sergei stood there staring at her.
He was waiting for Rimma to change her mind. He was waiting for something—pity, doubt, fear—to flicker in her eyes.
There was nothing.
“I could sleep on the sofa…”
“No.”
“Rimma.”
“No, Sergei. You made a decision. Live with it.”
He began to lose his patience. He sat down, crossed his legs, and attempted to look independent and confident.
“And what if I simply refuse to leave?”
“Then I’ll call Artyom and ask him to come and get you. He supported you, after all. ‘It’s about time. Good for you.’ Let him give his hero a place to sleep for the night.”
Sergei jerked as though he had been burned.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Seryozha, I’ve already made two calls this evening. The third will be very easy.”
He left at exactly 11:12 p.m.
Rimma knew the precise time because she looked at the clock when the lock clicked shut. The bag was heavy now. He had stuffed it with everything he could reach—his coat, hat, and mittens.
He still had not found the sweater.
Rimma waited for a minute. Then she walked over to the wardrobe, moved aside the stack of bed linen, and pulled out the burgundy sweater.
It was neatly folded and still carried the scent of fabric softener.
She placed it back in the wardrobe, somewhere clearly visible, and closed the door.
The phone rang twenty minutes later. It was her mother-in-law.
“Rimmochka, has he gone?”
“He’s gone, Nina Pavlovna.”
“My God… Rimma, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t raise him to be like this. Or perhaps I did. Maybe it’s my fault. I protected him too much.”
“Nina Pavlovna, none of this is your fault.”
“It is. He’s forty years old, and I’m still knitting scarves for him. Look how he turned out—without shame or conscience.”
Rimma was silent for a moment.
“Nina Pavlovna, you have always been like family to me. That won’t change.”
“Rimmochka…” Her voice trembled. “Are you alone with the children?”
“I’m with the children, but I’m not alone. I managed everything before. I simply didn’t realize it. Now I do.”
They said goodbye. Rimma put down the phone, sat at the table, and poured herself a cup of tea.
Hot, strong tea with mint—exactly the way she liked it but never made it because Sergei could not stand mint.
The phone rang again. It was an unfamiliar number.
She answered.
“Rimma? It’s Artyom.”
“I’m listening.”
“Listen… He came to my place. He’s sitting on the mat in the hallway. He doesn’t have his sweater—just his coat. He says he has nowhere to go. The woman he was planning to stay with isn’t answering her phone.”
Rimma took a sip of tea.
“And?”
“And… he’s asking you to come and get him.”
There was a pause.
“Artyom,” Rimma said, her voice as level as the horizon, “three hours ago, you said, ‘Finally,’ and, ‘It’s about time.’ So help him. You supported him, and now you can take responsibility for your words. Give him a blanket and tell him you’ll talk in the morning.”
Artyom began coughing.
“Rimma, that isn’t what I meant…”
“No one ever means it that way, Artyom. Good night.”
She ended the call, finished her tea, washed the cup, wiped down the table, and switched off the light.
There was no sound coming from the children’s room. The children were sleeping deeply in the way children did, their arms and legs sprawled in every direction.
Rimma looked in on them, adjusted Timofey’s blanket, and removed a book from Alisa’s bed.
Then she returned to the kitchen and opened her notebook—the same notebook in which she wrote her weekly list of tasks: the children’s schedules, groceries, bills, appointments, and repairs.
She turned to a clean page and wrote at the top:
“My responsibilities. Mine alone.”
For the first time in nine years, the list was short.
And that was a good thing.
Her phone lit up with a message from Sergei.
“Rimma, I acted rashly. Let’s talk. I’ll come home in the morning.”
She read it. Thought for a moment. Then replied with a single sentence:
“The sweater is in the wardrobe, on the third shelf behind the bed linen. You can collect it tomorrow while the children are at school. Leave your keys on the entryway table.”
The phone did not ring again that evening.
Rimma lay down in the middle of the bed, stretched out her arms, and closed her eyes.
The bed was enormous.
Free.
Quiet.
