“I married you, not to take care of your father’s household duties,” the wife said as she packed her things.
“Alin, did you put the soup on? Dad was asking when lunch would be ready,” Viktor called from the hallway without even stepping into the kitchen.
Alina stood by the stove, staring out the window. Beyond the glass, the old apple tree swayed—the very one she had noticed the first time Viktor brought her to meet the family at the house. Back then she had thought: Beautiful. Cozy. Now she looked at it and saw nothing.
“I did,” she answered evenly.
Viktor walked into the living room and turned on the TV. Gennady Semyonovich was already sitting there with a newspaper. The two of them began talking about something in low, homely voices. Alina could hear fragments of words through the wall and thought about how she had been living in this house for four months now, yet still felt like a guest who had overstayed her welcome.
Alina met Viktor at thirty-one—not in some romantic setting, but in a line at a notary’s office, where they had both come on boring document-related errands. He turned out to be patient and able to sit in silence without making it awkward, and that won her over more than any words could have. They sat next to each other for nearly an hour while the line crawled forward, at first in silence, then chatting about nothing important, just talking. Outside, he asked if he could have her phone number. She gave it to him.
Six months later, neither of them could imagine spending their evenings apart.
Viktor worked for a construction company as a site supervisor, traveling between job sites and coming home tired but usually in a good mood. Alina worked in interior design at a small design bureau. Both of their jobs had unpredictable workloads—sometimes chaos, sometimes quiet—but they knew how to adjust. She did not expect perfection from him. He did not expect heroics from her. They were happy together, and that seemed like enough.
Viktor’s mother had died two years before they met. He lived with his father, Gennady Semyonovich, in a house on the edge of the city. It was a large house, with a veranda, a storage room, and a vegetable garden nobody really tended anymore, yet no one could quite bring themselves to let it go wild. Two stories, warm, with slightly creaking floorboards on the stairs. Alina first went there before the wedding, in the summer, when the apple tree was in bloom and the garden was full of light.
“It’s a nice house,” she said.
“Mom loved it,” Viktor replied. There was something in his voice she chose not to touch. She simply took his hand.
Gennady Semyonovich received her calmly. Not warmly, but not coldly either—more like a man of the house: he looked her over, nodded, and offered her tea. Alina understood that he was not the kind of person to fall in love with a daughter-in-law at first sight. That did not frighten her.
Before the wedding, they had a conversation—not a long one, but an important one.
“Vitya, how is this going to work? Are we going to live with him?”
“Well, for now, yes. He’s there alone, and I can’t just leave him. But he’s independent—he takes care of himself, he won’t interfere in our life. It’s his house, he just doesn’t want it to be empty. You understand?”
“I do. I just want to know the rules in advance.”
“The rules are simple: we live our own life, respect him, don’t fight. He’s a quiet man.”
At the time, Alina thought it sounded reasonable. She was not looking for conflict. She just wanted to understand what she was signing up for.
The wedding was small—about twenty people, a restaurant on the outskirts of town, no unnecessary pomp. Gennady Semyonovich kept to himself. He drank moderately, spoke little, and did not try to charm the younger guests. Alina even thought: maybe it really will be fine. Maybe she had worried for nothing.
The first weeks after moving in were calm. Alina arranged her corner of the bedroom—hanging up clothes, setting out little things, getting used to the new space. Gennady Semyonovich appeared at breakfast, gave a brief greeting, then disappeared into his room to watch TV or went out into the garden. He really did seem independent.
She cooked for two—herself and Viktor—while her father-in-law heated something up for himself or made do with bread and whatever else he found. That seemed normal.
The first time she cooked for all three of them happened by accident. There was soup—a big pot, far too much for just two people. Gennady Semyonovich came into the kitchen just as she was ladling it into bowls, and without thinking, she poured one for him too.
“Thank you, daughter,” he said as he sat down at the table.
Alina smiled. It was no trouble.
But the next day he came in again—at the same time, without being invited, simply sat down in his usual place and waited. Without asking, without warning. As if it had already been agreed upon.
Alina set a bowl in front of him and said nothing. Simply because she did not know what one even says in a situation like that. A week later, she realized she was cooking for three every day. Then cleaning was added to it. Not just their room—the hallway, the kitchen, the veranda. She took it on herself because living in neglect felt unbearable. Viktor seemed to notice—sometimes he would praise her, hug her. Alina was happy for the praise and barely thought about the fact that he was hugging her for cleaning someone else’s house.
Around the third week, it dawned on her: she was living here as the mistress of the house. Not as a wife who occasionally helped around the home. As the mistress of the house—with all the responsibilities that word implied, and none of the rights that should have come with them.
She brought it up one evening when she and Viktor were alone.
“Vitya, I feel like I’ve gradually started running the household for all three of us. That’s not what we agreed to.”
“Alin, but you started doing it yourself. Nobody asked you to clean the whole house.”
“I wasn’t about to live in dirt either.”
“Then don’t clean so much. Just do your own things, that’s all.”
Alina looked at him. He was saying it seriously, without irritation—simply as if it were a logical solution. She realized he did not see the problem. Or did not want to see it.
The comments began in the middle of the second month.
The first one was about salt: Gennady Semyonovich said the soup needed more. He did not ask, did not hint—he simply said it, briefly and confidently, the way people state something obvious.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alina replied.
The second one was about laundry. He looked into the hallway, where she was hanging clothes to dry, and explained that shirts should be washed at forty degrees. “Mother always did it that way.” Alina explained that she had been washing Viktor’s clothes, not his. It turned out one of his shirts had gotten mixed in with the rest. She herself had not noticed how it happened.
“All right, next time I’ll wash it separately.”
“Next time just say so—don’t throw everything into one machine,” he said. Not rudely. Just like an instruction.
The third one was about dinner. Gennady Semyonovich came into the kitchen around seven in the evening and asked when it would be ready. Alina had only just come home from work—the day had been long. She had not even started dinner yet.
“In about forty minutes,” she said.
“There used to be dinner on the table by seven. Mother never made anyone wait.”
Alina said nothing. She started chopping vegetables. She diced everything finely, neatly, mechanically—simply because she needed something to do with her hands.
That evening she told Viktor about it.
“Vitya, your father is comparing me to your mother. He comments on the cooking, on the laundry. This has to stop.”
“Alin, he’s just used to it. Mom really did keep everything in order. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“I understand that he doesn’t mean anything by it. That doesn’t make it easier for me.”
“Just be patient a little longer. He’ll get used to you, and everything will settle down on its own.”
“Vitya, this is not something to put up with. This is something to stop.”
“Alin, what do you want me to say to him? He’s an old man, that’s just how he talks.”
“I want you to tell him: she is not your housekeeper. One sentence.”
Viktor fell silent. He picked up the remote and changed the channel.
“It’ll pass on its own,” he repeated.
Alina went to the bedroom. She did not slam the door—she simply left.
Nothing passed on its own.
The remarks did not stop—they became routine. Gennady Semyonovich never shouted, never insulted her. He spoke calmly, like a man explaining rules that were obvious and beyond discussion. The borscht was too greasy. The hallway floors needed to be washed more often. In this house, people had never dried laundry on the radiators.
Alina answered briefly. Sometimes she redid things. More often she did not, but she did not object out loud either. She simply fell silent.
She noticed that she had stopped thinking of her evenings as her own. She came home from work and immediately calculated whether she had time to put something on the stove before seven. Weekends turned into housework. When people asked, “How are you?” she answered automatically, “Fine,” even though nothing had felt fine for a long time.
She stopped inviting her friends over. One day Katya called—she wanted to come by on the weekend, sit and talk. Alina came up with a reason to refuse: lots to do, maybe another time. She hung up and realized she had done it automatically, without even thinking. And then she realized something else: she had invented the excuse because she was ashamed. Not of her friend, not of the house—of the way she was living there. Ashamed not of herself, but of the situation she had ended up in. And that shame frightened her more than any of her father-in-law’s remarks.
That shame frightened her more than any of her father-in-law’s remarks.
She talked to Viktor two more times. The first time calmly, the second time barely managing to hold on to that calm.
“Vitya, in this house I don’t feel like a wife. I feel like a person who owes everyone something.”
“You’re exaggerating everything, Alin. You’re just helping out around the house.”
“Helping and serving are two different words.”
“Oh, come on, nobody is making you serve anyone. You took on the cleaning yourself, you cook yourself. No one forced you.”
Alina looked at him. He was saying it completely seriously.
“Vitya, do you understand what’s happening? I come home from work exhausted—and go make dinner by seven because otherwise your father will say something unpleasant. I plan laundry around his schedule. I don’t invite my friends over because I don’t know how to explain what’s going on here.”
“You just don’t know how to set boundaries,” he said.
“That’s supposed to be my job?”
“Well, whose else?”
Alina was silent for a long time. Then she said:
“You, Vitya. It should be you. He’s your father.”
Viktor fell silent again. Looked away.
“He’s the elder. He has to be respected.”
That was the phrase—the same one she had heard before, but this time it sounded especially final. As if a door had closed.
One Friday, when Viktor was late coming back from the job site, Alina sat in the bedroom with her phone and finally called Katya. They had not spoken for almost three weeks—Alina kept putting it off because she did not know how to explain why she never invited her over.
“You vanished,” Katya said. “I was starting to think you were upset with me.”
“No, everything’s fine. I’ve just been… busy.”
“Well, tell me—how are things there in general? How’s the new house?”
Alina fell silent. She stared at the wall opposite her.
“The house is big. My father-in-law is elderly.” She did not know how to say more.
“And what’s he like?”
“Complicated.”
“Complicated how? Does he make scenes?”
“Alin, did you put the soup on? Father was asking when lunch will be ready,” Viktor shouted from the hallway without coming into the kitchen.
Alina stood by the stove, looking out the window. Beyond the glass, an old apple tree swayed — the very one she had noticed the first time Viktor brought her to see the house. Back then, she had thought: Beautiful. Cozy. Now she looked at it and saw nothing.
“I did,” she replied evenly.
Viktor went into the living room and turned on the television. Gennady Semyonovich was already sitting there with a newspaper. They started talking about something — quietly, familiarly, like people at home. Through the wall, Alina caught only fragments of their conversation and thought about how she had already lived in this house for four months, yet still felt like a guest who had overstayed her welcome.
Alina met Viktor at the age of thirty-one — not in some romantic place, but while standing in line at a notary’s office, where they had both come on their own dull paperwork errands. He turned out to be patient and able to keep silent without making it awkward — that won her over more than any words could have. They sat next to each other for almost an hour while the line slowly moved, first in silence, then chatting — about nothing important, just casually. Outside, he asked if he could have her phone number. She gave it to him.
Six months later, they could no longer imagine spending their evenings apart.
Viktor worked for a construction company as a site supervisor, traveling between job sites and coming home tired but in good spirits. Alina worked in interior design at a small design firm. Both of their jobs had unpredictable workloads — sometimes overwhelming, sometimes quiet — but they knew how to adapt. She did not expect perfection from him. He did not demand heroics from her. They were happy together, and that seemed like enough.
Viktor’s mother had died two years before he met Alina. He lived with his father—Gennady Semyonovich—in a house on the edge of the city. The house was large, with a veranda, a storage room, and a vegetable garden that no one cultivated anymore, yet no one had the heart to let go completely. It was a warm two-story house, with floorboards on the stairs that creaked just a little. Alina first came there before the wedding, in the summer, when the apple tree was in bloom and the garden was full of light.
“It’s a nice house,” she said.
“Mother loved it,” Viktor replied. There was something in his voice she chose not to touch. She simply took his hand.
Gennady Semyonovich received her calmly. Without much warmth, but without coldness either—more like a хозяин sizing things up: he looked her over, nodded, and offered her tea. Alina understood that he was not the kind of man who fell in love with daughters-in-law at first sight. That did not frighten her.
Before the wedding, they had a conversation—not a long one, but an important one.
“Vitya, how is this going to work? Are we going to live there with him?”
“Well, for now, yes. He’s there alone, and I can’t just abandon him. But he’s self-sufficient—he takes care of himself, he won’t interfere in our life. It’s his house; he just doesn’t want it to be empty. Do you understand?”
“I understand. I just want to know the rules in advance.”
“The rules are simple: we live our own life, we respect him, we don’t quarrel. He’s a quiet man.”
At the time, Alina thought it sounded reasonable. She was not looking for conflict. She simply wanted to understand what she was agreeing to.
The wedding was small—about twenty people, a restaurant on the outskirts, no unnecessary pomp. Gennady Semyonovich kept to himself. He drank moderately, spoke little, did not try to ingratiate himself with the younger crowd. Alina even thought: maybe everything really will be fine. Maybe I worried for nothing.
The first weeks after the move passed quietly. Alina settled into her corner of the bedroom—hanging up her clothes, arranging little things, getting used to the new space. Gennady Semyonovich would appear at breakfast, greet her briefly, then go off to his room to watch television or out into the garden. He really did seem self-sufficient.
She cooked for two—herself and Viktor—and her father-in-law would heat something up for himself or grab a bite with bread. That seemed normal.
The first time she cooked for three happened by accident. There was soup—a big pot, far too much for just two people. Gennady Semyonovich came into the kitchen just as she was ladling it into bowls, and without thinking, she poured him one too.
“Thank you, daughter,” he said, sitting down at the table.
Alina smiled. It cost her nothing.
But the next day he came in again—at the same time, without an invitation, simply sat down in his place and waited. Without asking, without warning. As if it had already been agreed upon.
Alina set a bowl in front of him and said nothing. Simply because she did not know what one was supposed to say in a situation like that.
A week later, she realized she was cooking for three every day. Then the cleaning was added to it. Not just their room—the hallway, the kitchen, the veranda. She took it on herself because living in neglect felt uncomfortable. Viktor seemed to notice—sometimes he would praise her, hug her. Alina was glad for the praise and almost never stopped to think about the fact that he was hugging her because she had cleaned someone else’s house.
Around the third week, it hit her: she was living there as the mistress of the house. Not as a wife who sometimes helped around the home. But as the one running it—with all the duties that word implied, and none of the rights that should have come with them.
She brought it up one evening when she and Viktor were alone.
“Vitya, I feel like I’ve gradually become the one keeping house for all three of us. That’s not what we agreed to.”
“Alin, but you started it yourself. Nobody asked you to clean the whole house.”
“I wasn’t going to live in dirt either.”
“Well then don’t clean so much. Just do your part, that’s all.”
Alina looked at him. He was saying it seriously, without irritation—simply as though it were the logical solution. She realized he did not see the problem. Or did not want to see it.
The remarks began in the middle of the second month.
The first one was about salt: Gennady Semyonovich said the soup was under-seasoned. He did not ask or hint—he simply said it, briefly and confidently, the way one speaks of something obvious.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alina replied.
The second was about the laundry. He looked into the hallway, where she was hanging clothes to dry, and explained that shirts needed to be washed at forty degrees. “Mother always did it that way.” Alina explained that she had been washing Viktor’s things, not his. It turned out one of his shirts had ended up in the general load. She herself had not noticed.
“All right, next time I’ll wash it separately.”
“Next time just say so—don’t throw everything into one machine,” he said. Not rudely. Simply like an instruction.
The third was about dinner. Gennady Semyonovich came into the kitchen at around seven in the evening and asked when it would be ready. Alina had only just returned from work—it had been a long day. She had not even started dinner yet.
“In about forty minutes,” she said.
“In the past, the table was already set by seven. Mother never kept things waiting.”
Alina did not answer. She began chopping vegetables. She cut everything finely, neatly, mechanically—simply because she needed something for her hands to do.
That evening she told Viktor.
“Vitya, your father compares me to your mother. He makes comments about the cooking, the laundry. This needs to stop.”
“Alin, he’s just used to it. Mother really did keep everything in order. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“I understand that he doesn’t mean anything by it. That doesn’t make it easier for me.”
“Just be patient a little longer. He’ll get used to you, and it’ll all settle down on its own.”
“Vitya, this is not something that should simply be endured. It’s something that needs to be stopped.”
“Alin, what do you want me to say to him? He’s an elderly man, that’s just how he talks.”
“I want you to say: she is not your housekeeper. One sentence.”
Viktor fell silent. He picked up the remote and changed the channel.
“It’ll pass on its own,” he repeated.
Alina went into the bedroom. She did not slam the door—she simply left.
Nothing passed on its own.
The remarks did not stop—they became routine. Gennady Semyonovich did not shout, did not insult her. He spoke calmly, like a man explaining rules that were obvious and did not require discussion. The borscht is too greasy. The hallway floors need washing more often. In this house, clothes were never dried on radiators.
Alina replied briefly. Sometimes she redid things. More often she did not, but she did not object aloud either. She simply fell silent.
She noticed that she had stopped thinking of her evenings as her own. She came home from work and immediately calculated whether she would have time to get something on the stove before seven. Weekends turned into housework. When asked, “How are things?” she answered automatically, “Fine,” even though nothing had been fine for a long time.
She stopped inviting her friends over. Once Katya called—she wanted to drop by on the weekend, sit and talk. Alina invented an excuse to say no: lots to do, maybe some other time. She hung up and realized she had done it automatically, without thinking. And then she realized something else: she had invented the excuse because she was ashamed. Not of her friend, not of the house—but of how she was living there. The shame was not for herself, but for the situation she had ended up in. And it was that shame that frightened her more than any remarks from her father-in-law.
That shame frightened her more than any remarks from her father-in-law.
She spoke to Viktor two more times. The first time calmly, the second time barely managing to hold on to that calm.
“Vitya, in this house I don’t feel like a wife. I feel like someone who owes everyone something.”
“You’re exaggerating everything, Alin. You’re just helping around the house.”
Helping and serving are two different things.
“Oh, come on, nobody is making you serve anyone. You started cleaning yourself, you cook yourself. No one forced you.”
Alina looked at him. He was saying it absolutely seriously.
“Vitya, do you understand what is happening? I come home from work exhausted—and I go cook dinner by seven because otherwise your father will say something unpleasant. I plan the laundry around his schedule. I don’t invite my friends over because I don’t know how to explain what’s going on here.”
“You just don’t know how to set boundaries,” he said.
“That’s supposed to be my job?”
“Well, whose else would it be?”
Alina was silent for a long time. Then she said:
“Yours, Vitya. It should be yours. He’s your father.”
Viktor fell silent again. He looked away.
“He’s older. He should be respected.”
That was the phrase—the one he had said before, but this time it sounded especially final. As if a door had closed.
One Friday, when Viktor was late coming back from the site, Alina sat in the bedroom with her phone and finally called Katya. They had not spoken for nearly three weeks—Alina had kept putting it off, not knowing how to explain why she never invited her over.
“You disappeared,” Katya said. “I was starting to think you were offended.”
“No, everything’s fine. I’ve just been… busy.”
“So tell me, how are things there in general? How’s the new house?”
Alina was silent for a moment. She stared at the wall opposite her.
“The house is big. My father-in-law is elderly.” She did not know how to say more.
“And what’s he like?”
“Difficult.”
“Difficult how? Does he make scenes?”
Alina looked up at the ceiling. Through the wall she could hear the television—Gennady Semyonovich was watching some news program.
“Katya, do you remember how, before the wedding, I said I was afraid of moving into his father’s house? That it might turn out to be nothing like what we’d been promised?”
“I remember. You also said, ‘We’ll see, maybe everything will be fine.’”
“Well. I’m seeing.”
Katya was quiet for a moment.
“What, does he harass you?”
“No. It’s just… he sees me as someone who is obliged to run the household. To cook for him, clean, report according to his schedule. And Vitya won’t tell him that’s not how it is.”
“Have you told Vitya?”
“Several times. He says, ‘Be patient’ and ‘He’s elderly.’”
“Alin.” Katya’s voice grew more serious. “This is not about an elderly man. It’s about how your husband sets his priorities.”
Alina did not answer. Because she knew Katya was right. And that was the hardest thing of all to accept.
“Come over,” Katya said. “Whenever you want, any time. You have a key.”
“I know,” Alina replied. “Thank you.”
She put the phone down and looked out the window for a long time. The apple tree stood bare—autumn had already done its work. Naked branches against a gray sky. Whether there was something beautiful in that or not, she no longer knew. Viktor came home late, tired. He asked if his father had eaten—she nodded. He lay down and fell asleep quickly. Alina lay beside him and thought about how they lived in the same bed, yet seemed to be on different floors of the same house. He was on the floor where everything was familiar and made sense. She was on the floor where nothing was turning out the way it was supposed to.
She was not angry. She was simply tired of explaining.
The breaking point came on an ordinary Thursday.
Alina got home from work at seven-thirty—it had been a difficult deadline day, the client had changed the concept at the last minute, and she had stayed late. She came into the house, changed her shoes, and headed for the kitchen. Gennady Semyonovich was sitting in the living room with a newspaper.
“Dinner is late,” he said without looking up.
“I just got home, Gennady Semyonovich.”
“Viktor has been home for an hour already.”
“Viktor can cook for himself.”
The old man lowered the newspaper. He looked at her with the kind of surprise people have when reality does not match their picture of the world.
“So that’s how it is.” He spoke evenly, without shouting. “In this family, the woman gets up earlier and finishes later. That is how it always was while Nina lived here. You came into this house—so that is how you live too. This is not up for discussion.”
Alina stood in the kitchen doorway and heard it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Viktor come out of the bedroom and stop in the hallway. He heard everything.
She looked at her husband. Directly. Not demanding anything. Just looking.
Viktor shrugged.
“Well, Father is older. You have to understand.”
At that moment, nothing inside Alina flared up or cracked—it simply went quietly empty. As if she had been holding something in her hands for a long time and finally opened her fingers. Not from exhaustion. From clarity.
She walked past both of them into the bedroom. Closed the door. Pulled a suitcase out from under the bed.
Viktor came in about ten minutes later. Alina was packing neatly—without haste, without theatrics. Simply packing. Underwear to one side. Work clothes separately.
“What’s going on?” he asked. His voice was bewildered, like that of a man caught off guard where he had expected nothing of the sort.
“I’m leaving.”
“Where? Right now? Because of this conversation?”
Alina kept packing. She took a dress off the hanger.
“I married you,” she said at last. “Not the house. Not the role no one explained to me in advance.”
“Alin, he’s just an elderly man. He needs help.”
“Then you help him. You’re his son.” She put her makeup bag into the suitcase. “I’m not refusing to help—humanly, when someone asks. I’m refusing to live as though my time and my energy are a resource for the whole house.”
“But it’s temporary. Things will change.”
“Vitya, I told you about this several times. Every time you said, ‘Be patient’ and ‘That’s just how it’s done.’” She straightened up and looked at him—without anger, and that was worse than any shouting. “A family is when two people decide together how they are going to live. Not when one person sets the rules and the other stays silent.”
“I wasn’t silent.”
“You didn’t object. It’s the same thing.”
He stood by the door and watched as she closed the suitcase. Fastened the zippers. Took her coat.
“Where are you going now?”
“To Katya’s. After that, I’ll figure it out.”
“Alin.” Something genuine appeared in his voice—not persuasion, but something else, quieter. “Wait.”
“What am I supposed to wait for, Vitya?”
He did not answer. Not because he did not want to—because he did not know. He was used to everything resolving itself if one just waited. Used to no one ever really leaving. And there she was, standing in front of him with a suitcase in her hand—calm, without hysterics, without tears—and completely serious.
Alina picked up the suitcase and left. In the hallway, she put on her coat, slipped on her shoes. Not a sound came from the living room.
That night Viktor did not go to bed for a long time. He sat in the kitchen—in the very place where his father sat every evening waiting for dinner. Gennady Semyonovich had already gone to his room—he had asked only, “Did she leave?” heard “Yes,” nodded, and disappeared behind the door. Without sympathy, without questions. As if that was exactly how things were supposed to be.
Viktor sat in silence. Not cozy silence, but emptiness itself—the kind of silence in which you hear your own thoughts and are not glad of it.
He tried to remember when he had last asked Alina how she was really doing. Not “How was your day?”—but for real. He could not. He tried to remember when he had last told her she was right. He could not do that either.
But he remembered perfectly well the way she used to look at him—every time his father said something. That look—not accusatory, simply expectant. She had not demanded heroism from him. She had only waited for him to say, “Dad, don’t.” One sentence. Two words.
He had not said them once.
Around one in the morning, Gennady Semyonovich came into the kitchen for some water. He saw his son and stopped.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I’m thinking.”
“About her?”
“About myself.”
His father poured some water and set the glass on the table.
“You’ll find another one,” he said. “You’re still young.”
Viktor looked at him. Before, those words would have sounded like comfort. Now they sounded like a sentence—not on Alina, but on him. You’ll find another one. As though the issue had been her. As though another woman would come and simply accept it.
“Dad,” he said, “do you realize she didn’t leave because of her character?”
His father shrugged.
“She left because I didn’t say one thing at the right moment,” Viktor said aloud, for the first time. “Because I didn’t protect her. Not once in four months.”
Gennady Semyonovich did not answer. He picked up the glass and went back to his room.
Viktor sat in silence for a long time after that. Outside the window the wind was blowing, the apple tree scraped its branches against the glass. The house smelled of the dinner he had cooked himself—badly, hastily, from whatever he found in the refrigerator. He ate without appetite, simply because he needed something for his hands to do.
He was not a bad man. He had simply grown used to the idea that everything would somehow sort itself out. That if you did not break something, it would not break. That silence was not a choice, just a pause.
It turned out that silence can be an answer too. Just not at all the one you expect or hope for.
The phone lay on the table. The screen remained dark. Viktor picked it up several times—and each time, he set it back down again. He did not know what to write. Or rather, he did know—but the words he should have said three months earlier were now coming too late. Whether they were irretrievably too late, he still did not know.
And that uncertainty was perhaps the heaviest thing of all.
In the morning, Viktor got up early. The kitchen was empty. Not in the sense that no one was there—his father was already sitting with his mug, looking out the window. It was just that in the mornings there used to be something else in that kitchen too—he did not know what to call it. The smell of coffee from another mug. Someone’s back at the stove. A brief conversation about nothing while the water boiled. He poured himself some water and sat down across from his father.
“Do you want breakfast?” Gennady Semyonovich asked.
“I’ll make it myself.”
His father nodded. He was not surprised.
Viktor spread butter on some bread and ate standing by the window. He thought about how today he had to drive to a construction site on the other side of the city—three hours there and back, a full day on his feet. The usual routine. Everything as normal. Except nothing was normal.
At work, he told the foreman, Lyosha—not on purpose, it just slipped out while they were having coffee during a break.
“My wife left yesterday.”
Lyosha raised his eyebrows and set down his mug.
“For good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“We didn’t. That’s the thing.”
Lyosha was silent for a moment, then said:
“That’s worse.”
“Why?”
“When people fight, it means there’s still something there. When someone leaves calmly—that’s already a decision.”
Viktor did not answer. They finished their coffee and went back to the site. Work took up the whole day—noisy, physical, nonstop. He was sincerely grateful for that. When you keep moving and solving things with your hands, there is much less room in your head for everything else.
But in the evening, when he came back to the house again and once more heard the television from the living room, once more walked into the empty kitchen—it all came back. Sharp as a blow.
He dialed her number. Long rings.
“Hello,” she answered. Her voice was even. Neither cold nor warm.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine. At Katya’s.”
“Alin.” He did not know what to say next. The words he had needed the night before now felt delayed.
“Vitya, I’m listening,” she said. Without irony. She was simply listening.
“I’m thinking. About what you said. About what I should have said to you earlier.”
“It’s good that you’re thinking.”
“Is that enough?”
She was silent for a moment.
“I don’t know yet. Good night, Vitya.”
She hung up.
Viktor remained standing in the middle of the kitchen with the phone in his hand. Outside, it was dark. The apple tree stood motionless—there was no wind tonight.
He did not know what would happen next. But for the first time in a long while, he knew one thing for certain: he could not stay silent anymore. No matter how it ended.
