“How could you fire my ex?” her husband flew into a rage. “If you don’t fix this, I’m leaving.”
Evgenia trudged home, barely feeling her legs. This had never happened to her before. Not in her student years, when she could spend whole days rushing between classes, side jobs, and late-night note-taking, and not later, in those times when she had to grab at any opportunity to earn money—she had never known this kind of exhaustion. Back then, her muscles got tired, her back ached, she wanted to sleep. But now it felt as if someone had simply flipped a switch inside her and turned off the light. Home was very close, only a couple of blocks away, but every step came with difficulty, as if the road had suddenly stretched three times longer. And the fatigue was not only in her legs. There was a dull ringing in her head, an unpleasant tightness in her chest, and her thoughts were tangled, catching on one another like old threads in a snarled ball of yarn that only gets worse the more you pull at it.
Evgenia stopped by the window of a closed shop; the glass reflected her hunched figure. She absently adjusted her scarf, which had slipped, and peered at her face: tired, faded, with some strange, extinguished look in her eyes. Well, don’t you look a mess, Zhenya, she thought with weary irony, the way people think about themselves when they are already far past the point of self-reproach.
And she had never had problems like this before. She had lived quietly enough, without storms or tragedies. And now it was simply one disaster after another. Or rather, it was not even one disaster, but a whole chain of them, and it had all begun on the very day when Lyusya, the former wife of her current husband Maxim, unexpectedly returned to their city.
Evgenia met Maxim just when he had only recently finalized his divorce. It was a frosty evening, the kind when the air rings with cold and every breath instantly turns to white vapor. Evgenia was hurrying home, dreaming of cooking dinner as quickly as possible and getting a little rest. Maxim was walking toward her, hardly looking around, lost in his own thoughts, and somehow they collided. The grocery bag slipped from Evgenia’s hands, and apples and oranges rolled across the packed snow, scattering in different directions. She did not even have time to understand what had happened before Maxim dropped into a crouch and began hurriedly gathering the fruit, mumbling apologies.
“I’m sorry… I… didn’t notice…” he said quietly, fussing like a guilty schoolboy.
Evgenia crouched down too, felt warmth rush to her cheeks, and smiled awkwardly.
“It’s all right, these things happen.”
He kept apologizing, tripping over his words, explaining that his day had just been… off. It was obvious—he was not merely embarrassed, he was weighed down by something. And Evgenia herself did not understand why she suddenly asked:
“Did something happen to you?”
Later she would return to that moment in her thoughts many times. Why? Why had she not kept silent, not walked away, not left it all at the level of polite apologies? But at the time the question slipped out on its own.
Maxim straightened up, and they began walking side by side, as though that had always been the plan. On the way he began telling her about the divorce, about how his wife had won half the apartment in court, how the place would now have to be sold, and how she still had not moved out. He said he could not live under the same roof with her and had no idea where he was supposed to go now. Evgenia listened and nodded, and when they had nearly reached her building, she said the first thing that came to mind—simply so as not to stay silent:
“You could rent a room or a small apartment for a while. Or stay with friends.”
He fell silent. He walked her to her entrance, apologized once again for bothering her, sincerely thanked her, and left. He did not even ask her name.
Evgenia went upstairs, switched on the kettle right away, and with that seemed to erase the random stranger from her memory. The evening spun into its usual little chores, its familiar bustle, and that meeting dissolved into it like snow melting in the palm of a hand. And then, just a couple of days later, Evgenia ran into him in the stairwell.
She was fumbling with the lock—the key, as luck would have it, refused to go into the keyhole—when the elevator doors slid open softly behind her. Evgenia turned around automatically and at first did not even understand who was standing there. Only when the man lifted his eyes and smiled did something click in her mind.
Maxim looked completely different from how he had that frosty evening. Then he had been slouched and unshaven; now he was neatly trimmed, clean-shaven, and his eyes were completely different too: alive, attentive, without the exhaustion that had been so striking before.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”
There was no awkwardness or surprise in his voice, as though this meeting were perfectly natural. Evgenia returned the greeting and was already about to turn back to her door when he continued, smiling a little:
“By the way, I wanted to thank you. For the advice.”
He told her that after their conversation he had deliberately looked for housing in this very building. He had rented an apartment temporarily while the вопрос of selling his old place and buying a new one was being resolved.
“If it hadn’t been for you,” he added, slightly embarrassed and looking away, “I probably would have kept running in circles for a long time. But after that… it was like I got a push.”
They stood there a little longer, exchanged a few routine phrases—about the weather, the building, the elevator that was always breaking down and getting stuck at the worst possible moment. The conversation was easy, unburdened, leading nowhere in particular. Then Maxim, as if making up his mind, suggested:
“Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? As neighbors. If you’re free, of course.”
Evgenia politely declined.
“Thank you, but not today, I think. I’m tired after work.”
He nodded.
“I understand. Another time, then.”
They said goodbye and went to their apartments. As she closed her door behind her, Zhenya was sure that was where their chance acquaintance would finally end. Well, they had greeted each other, talked, and that was all. Ordinary neighbors, nothing more. But life, as usual, had other ideas.
Not much time passed—maybe an hour, maybe two. Evgenia changed into her house clothes, put a pot of dinner on the stove, and caught herself thinking that what she needed now was a bath—to wash off the whole day, the exhaustion, the heavy thoughts. She turned on the faucet… and at first did not even understand what was wrong. The water came rushing out too hard, with some strange, wrong sound. Zhenya frowned, turned the tap again—useless. The water was not just running, it was pouring.
“What now…” she muttered, feeling a quiet panic beginning to rise somewhere inside.
A couple of minutes later the faucet came loose completely. The water was not draining fast enough, and Zhenya darted around the bathroom, not understanding what to grab or what to do first. She did not know how to shut off the riser, and finding a plumber urgently at such an hour seemed utterly unrealistic. And suddenly, as if by itself, one name surfaced in her mind. Maxim. Evgenia rushed into the hallway in her house slippers, without even throwing on a coat, pressed the bell to his apartment, and the door opened almost immediately.
“Maxim, I’m sorry… my… faucet…” The words were getting tangled, her voice trembled, and Zhenya was barely holding back tears.
He understood everything at once. Without asking unnecessary questions, he grabbed some tools and was in her bathroom just a couple of minutes later. He acted calmly, confidently, without fuss. He shut off the water, tightened something, replaced a washer, checked everything again. Then he wiped his hands on a towel.
“That’s it,” he finally said. “It should hold for now. But tomorrow you should still call a repairman.”
Evgenia let out a breath. Only then did she realize how tense she had been.
“Thank you so much… I don’t even know what I would have done,” she said sincerely.
“Oh, come on,” he brushed it off. “It’s nothing.”
But Zhenya already understood that she could not just let him go like that.
“At least let me treat you to some tea,” she suggested, a little embarrassed. “As a thank-you.”
He smiled.
“Well, I won’t say no to tea.”
And so it happened that they did drink tea together that evening after all, only at Evgenia’s place. They sat in her little kitchen, talking about all sorts of small things, but so easily, as if they had known each other for a long time.
From then on they began to communicate. At first it was all very simple and almost imperceptible: they greeted each other in the stairwell, exchanged a couple of words by the elevator, sometimes lingered a minute longer than usual. Then somehow it became a habit to drop in on each other for tea—without invitations and without any special reason. A little later came evening walks. Not dressed-up occasions, not “dates” in the usual sense, but quiet walks around the courtyard, conversations about nothing and everything at the same time.
A few months later Maxim finally sorted out his housing matters. He sold the old apartment, added everything he could scrape together, and bought a new one—small, modest, without frills. Of course, you cannot trade one good apartment for two good ones, no matter how you look at it. But at least now he had a roof over his head of his own, without the past, without disputes and other people’s claims.
He and Evgenia kept seeing each other. They walked in the evenings, sat in small cafés, sometimes visited Maxim’s friends. Zhenya gradually got used to the feeling that there was someone beside her she could lean on. And after a few more months, the decision to get married came naturally. One evening they were sitting in the kitchen, and Maxim said:
“Why don’t we make it official?”
Evgenia thought for a couple of seconds and nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
There was no wedding as such. They simply registered the marriage and celebrated the occasion with only their closest people—without pomp, without showiness. By that time Lyusya, having received her share from the sale of Maxim’s apartment, had left the city with some man. Maxim did not grieve over her. Sometimes, though, he would recall her with annoyance, in passing:
“You know,” he would say to Zhenya, “there’s only one thing I regret. That I married her at all. She lured me in with her pretty face, but her soul turned out to be anything but beautiful.”
Evgenia did not ask questions. The past was the past. It seemed to her that everything important lay ahead of them.
They had been living together for a year when one evening Maxim’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and Evgenia immediately noticed how his shoulders tensed. Maxim answered briefly, even curtly, then got up and went into the other room. The conversation was short, but when he returned, Zhenya understood: something had happened…
Continuation just below in the first comment.
Evgenia dragged herself home, barely feeling her legs. This had never happened to her before. Not in her student years, when she could rush for days on end between lectures, side jobs, and late-night note-taking, nor later, in those times when she had to seize every chance to earn money, had she ever known such exhaustion. Back then, her muscles would ache, her back would hurt, and she would want to sleep. But now it felt as if someone had simply flipped a switch inside her and turned off the light. Home was very close, just a couple of blocks away, yet every step came with difficulty, as though the road had suddenly stretched to three times its length. And the exhaustion was not only in her legs. There was a dull ringing in her head, an unpleasant tightness in her chest, and her thoughts were tangled, catching on one another like old threads in a snarled ball of yarn that only gets worse the more you try to pull at it.
Evgenia stopped in front of the window of a closed shop. The glass reflected her hunched figure. Mechanically, she adjusted her slipping scarf and studied her face: tired, faded, with some strange, extinguished look in her eyes. Well, don’t you look awful, Zhenya, she thought with weary irony, the way people think about themselves when they are simply too tired for self-reproach.
And she had never had problems like this before. She had lived calmly enough, without storms or tragedies. But now it was as if disaster had struck. Or rather, it was not just one disaster but a whole chain of them, and it had all begun the day Lyusya, the ex-wife of her current husband Maxim, unexpectedly returned to their town.
She met Maxim at the very time when he had only just finalized his divorce. It was a frosty evening, the kind when the air seems to ring with cold and every breath instantly turns into white vapor. Evgenia was hurrying home, dreaming of making dinner as quickly as possible and getting a little rest. Maxim was walking toward her, hardly looking around, lost in his own thoughts, and somehow they collided. The grocery bag slipped from Evgenia’s hands, and apples and oranges rolled over the packed snow, scattering in every direction. She did not even have time to understand what had happened before Maxim abruptly crouched down and began hurriedly gathering the fruit, muttering apologies.
“I’m sorry… I… didn’t notice…” he said quietly, fussing like a guilty schoolboy.
Evgenia crouched down too, felt warmth rush to her cheeks, and smiled awkwardly.
“It’s all right, these things happen.”
He kept apologizing, stumbling over his words, explaining that his day had just been… off somehow. It was obvious from the way he looked that this was more than simple embarrassment. He was having a hard time. And Evgenia herself never quite understood why she suddenly asked:
“Did something happen to you?”
Later she would return to that moment again and again in her thoughts. Why? Why had she not kept silent, walked away, left it all at the level of polite apologies? But at the time the question slipped out on its own.
Maxim straightened up, and they started walking side by side, as though that had been the plan all along. On the way he began telling her about the divorce, about how his wife had sued for half the apartment, how the place would now have to be sold, and how she was still refusing to move out. He said he could not live under the same roof with her and had no idea where to go now. Evgenia listened, nodded, and when they were almost at her building, she said the first thing that came to mind, simply to avoid silence:
“You could rent a room or a small apartment for a while. Or stay with friends.”
He fell silent. He walked her to her entrance, apologized once more for bothering her, thanked her sincerely, and left. He did not even ask her name.
Evgenia went upstairs to her apartment, put the kettle on immediately, and with that simple motion seemed to erase the случайный stranger from her memory. The evening filled up with its usual little tasks and everyday fuss, and the meeting dissolved into all that like snow melting in the palm of a hand. But just a couple of days later, Evgenia ran into him again in the hallway.
She was fiddling with the lock—the key, as luck would have it, refused to go into the keyhole—when the elevator doors slid open quietly behind her. Evgenia turned around automatically and at first did not even understand who was standing there. Only when the man lifted his eyes and smiled did something click in her mind.
Maxim looked completely different from how he had looked that frosty evening. Back then he had been slouched and unshaven; now he was neatly trimmed, clean-shaven, and his eyes were different too: alive, attentive, without the exhaustion that had been so obvious before.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”
There was no awkwardness or surprise in his voice, as if this meeting were entirely natural. Evgenia returned the greeting and was already about to turn back to her door when he continued with a slight smile:
“By the way, I wanted to thank you. For the advice.”
He explained that after their conversation he had deliberately looked for housing in this very building. He had rented an apartment there temporarily while the matter of selling his old place and buying a new one was being resolved.
“If it weren’t for you,” he added, slightly embarrassed and glancing away, “I probably would have kept running in circles for a long time. But after that… it was like I got a push.”
They stood there a little longer, exchanged a few routine remarks—about the weather, the building, the elevator that was always breaking down and getting stuck at the worst possible moment. The conversation was light and carried no obligations. Then Maxim, as though finally deciding something, suggested:
“Maybe you’d like to come in for a cup of tea? As neighbors. If you’re free, of course.”
Evgenia politely refused.
“Thank you, but not today, I think. I’m tired after work.”
He nodded.
“I understand. Another time then.”
They said goodbye and went off to their apartments. Closing the door behind her, Zhenya was sure that this chance acquaintance had now come to its definite end. They had greeted each other, talked a bit, and that was all. Ordinary neighbors, nothing more. But life, as usual, had its own opinion on the matter.
Not much time passed—maybe an hour, maybe two. Evgenia changed into her home clothes, put a pot with dinner on the stove, and caught herself thinking that right now she wanted nothing more than a bath—to wash off the whole day, the fatigue, the heavy thoughts. She turned on the faucet… and at first did not even understand what was wrong. The water gushed out too sharply, with some kind of wrong sound. Zhenya frowned and twisted the tap—uselessly. The water was not just running; it was pouring.
“What now…” she muttered, feeling a quiet panic begin to rise somewhere inside her.
A few minutes later the faucet gave way completely. The water was not draining fast enough, and Zhenya ran around the bathroom not knowing what to grab first. She did not know how to shut off the main valve, and finding a plumber at that hour seemed completely impossible. And then, as if by itself, one name surfaced in her mind. Maxim.
Evgenia dashed into the hallway in her house slippers without even putting on a coat, rang his doorbell, and the door opened almost immediately.
“Maxim, I’m sorry… my faucet…” The words got tangled, her voice trembled, and she could barely hold back tears.
He understood at once. Without asking unnecessary questions, he grabbed some tools and within a couple of minutes was already in her bathroom. He acted calmly and confidently, without fuss. He shut off the water, tightened something, replaced a gasket, checked everything again, then wiped his hands on a towel.
“There,” he finally said. “It’ll hold for now. But tomorrow you’d better call a proper repairman.”
Evgenia exhaled. Only then did she realize just how tense she had been.
“Thank you so much… I don’t even know what I would have done,” she said sincerely.
“Oh, come on,” he waved it off. “It’s nothing.”
But Zhenya already understood that she could not just let him go like that.
“At least let me make you some tea,” she offered, a little embarrassed. “As a thank-you.”
He smiled.
“Well, I won’t say no to tea.”
And so it turned out that that evening they did drink tea together after all, only this time at Evgenia’s place. They sat in her small kitchen, talked about all sorts of little things, and it felt easy, as if they had known each other for a long time.
From then on they started seeing each other. At first it was all very simple and almost unnoticeable: they greeted each other in the hallway, exchanged a couple of words by the elevator, sometimes lingered a minute longer than usual. Then, somehow, it became a habit to drop in on one another for tea—without invitation and without any special reason. A little later came evening walks. Not fancy outings, not “dates” in the usual sense, but quiet strolls around the courtyard, conversations about nothing and everything at once.
A few months later Maxim finally sorted out his housing matters. He sold the old apartment, added everything else he could scrape together, and bought a new one—small, modest, without any luxuries. Of course, no matter how you look at it, you cannot turn one good apartment into two good ones. But at least now he had a roof of his own over his head, without the past, without disputes, and without anyone else’s claims.
He and Evgenia kept seeing each other. They walked in the evenings, sat in small cafés, and sometimes visited Maxim’s friends. Gradually, Zhenya got used to the feeling that there was someone by her side she could lean on. And a few months later still, the decision to get married came by itself. One evening they were sitting in the kitchen when Maxim said:
“How about we get married?”
Evgenia thought for a couple of seconds and nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
There was no wedding, as such. They simply registered the marriage and celebrated the occasion with their closest people—without pomp, without showiness. By then Lyusya, having received her share from the sale of Maxim’s apartment, had left town with some man. Maxim did not mourn her. Sometimes, though, he recalled her with irritation, in passing:
“You know,” he would say to Zhenya, “there’s only one thing I regret. That I married her at all. She lured me in with her pretty looks, but her soul turned out to be ugly.”
Evgenia did not ask questions. The past was the past. It seemed to her that everything important still lay ahead of them.
They had been living together for a year when one evening Maxim’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and Evgenia immediately noticed how his shoulders tensed. He answered briefly, almost curtly, then got up and went into the other room. The conversation was short, but when he came back, Zhenya understood: something had happened.
“It’s Lyusya,” he said, sitting down and looking at the floor. “She’s demanding a meeting. Says it’s something important.”
“And what did you say?” Evgenia asked quietly.
“I agreed. We’ll meet on neutral ground.”
He left, and all evening Evgenia could not settle down. There was supposedly nothing to worry about—an ex-wife, so what? And yet her heart felt uneasy.
Maxim came back late, sat down on the edge of the sofa, and stayed silent for a long time.
“She’s demanding money,” he finally said. “She says she never sued for division of all the property. But if I don’t help her, she’ll go after the car and the garage.”
Maxim perfectly understood that all that property had belonged to him before the marriage, and legally Lyusya would get nothing. He knew that and even said it aloud. But he did not want to get dragged into court cases, quarrels, endless phone calls, and threats. He had no need for that kind of nerve-racking mess now. Life had only just begun to settle down. He gave Lyusya a certain amount of money—not too much, but not just symbolic either. He thought that would be the end of it. But not even a week passed before the phone rang again.
Maxim told Zhenya that Lyusya was practically begging for help. The man she had gone away with had abandoned her without money and disappeared. She had been left with nothing—no home, no job, no means of support. The words poured out in a stream—mixed with tears, complaints, and reproaches.
“She says she has nowhere to live,” Maxim said, looking at Zhenya guiltily. “I thought… maybe I could let her stay for a while in my apartment. The tenants moved out recently anyway, and I haven’t found new ones yet. Let her stay for a bit. Temporarily,” he emphasized that word especially. “Until she gets settled and finds a job.”
Zhenya shrugged, trying to look indifferent.
“It’s your apartment,” she said evenly. “Do with it what you want.”
Her voice sounded calm, almost indifferent. But inside something still stabbed sharply and unpleasantly. Maybe jealousy, maybe anxiety, maybe resentment toward herself for having to be so “understanding.” She herself could not quite sort out what exactly had hurt her. Everything seemed logical, human even: helping a person in trouble. And yet, slowly but surely, a heavy foreboding began to rise inside her.
Once Lyusya moved into her ex-husband’s apartment, she showed no intention of calming down. The calls to Maxim came one after another, as if on schedule. Sometimes it would suddenly turn out that she did not even have money for bread:
“Maxim, you understand how hard things are for me right now… just transfer me a little.”
Then in the middle of the night there would be a message about a toothache—so bad it was impossible to endure, and the free clinic had appointments booked six months ahead. She needed money urgently. Maxim grumbled, got irritated, sighed heavily, but each time he transferred the money. And each time he told Zhenya—and himself too—that it was the last time. That now he would help, and after that she would manage on her own…
At first Evgenia stayed silent, did not interfere, did not offer advice. Then she started noticing little things that formed an unpleasant picture: they were paying the utility bills for Lyusya’s apartment; Maxim was more and more often sitting with a gloomy face, staring at his phone as though waiting for the next message; almost all their conversations now revolved around Lyusya, her problems, and her complaints. One day her patience finally snapped.
“Maxim,” she said one evening, trying to speak as calmly as possible, “she has been living in your apartment for three months. You’re paying the utilities, and on top of that you keep transferring her money. This is too much, don’t you think?”
He tried to say something, but Zhenya raised her hand, not letting him interrupt.
“You have a family,” she continued firmly. “You have us. She chose her own road. She’s not your responsibility anymore.”
Maxim sighed heavily and rubbed his face with his hands.
“I know,” he said guiltily. “I really do know. I’ll sort it out, Zhenya. It’s just…” He fell silent, choosing his words. “I can’t just throw a person out like that.”
But a little more time passed, and the situation did not change. Then one day Maxim unexpectedly said:
“Zhenya… could you maybe help her find a job?”
Evgenia raised her brows, not quite believing she had heard correctly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… I remembered you said your store needed a salesperson in one of the departments.”
Zhenya fell silent. To help would mean letting Lyusya even deeper into their lives, literally weaving her into her own workplace. Not to help would mean this story dragging on endlessly—with the constant calls, requests, money transfers, and the same conversations over and over again. She thought about it for a long time, weighing every option, and in the end came to a simple conclusion: better for all this to end sooner than drag on for years, poisoning their lives.
“Tell her to come for an interview,” she said with a heavy sigh.
Lyusya came to the interview dressed modestly and neatly. Nothing bright, nothing provocative: a dark jacket, a simple handbag, her hair carefully done. She sat straight, spoke quietly, and gave the impression of being the unhappiest woman in the world, someone who was just chronically unlucky in life. Several times she repeated that she would not let anyone down, that she would work hard, that it pained her to tears to have to ask her ex-husband for help, but she simply had no other choice. She needed money or she would have nothing to live on.
Lyusya was hired on a probationary period. At first Evgenia did everything possible to avoid crossing paths with her, stayed out of her department whenever she could, and passed along instructions through colleagues. She wanted everything to go as quietly and unnoticed as possible. But peace did not come. First Zhenya began noticing strange looks directed at her, then fragments of conversations that abruptly died out when she appeared. Dirty, unpleasant rumors began spreading through the staff. People said Evgenia had stolen Maxim from his family. That Lyusya and he had lived in perfect harmony, and then Zhenya had intruded—destroyed everything, trampled it, taken him away. They said Maxim had practically left Lyusya on the street: without a penny, without housing. That she had wandered and suffered for so long… and now, feeling guilty, Evgenia had taken pity on the poor woman and given her a job.
It hurt Zhenya to hear it. Not because she feared for her reputation—she had long since learned to treat gossip calmly. It hurt because of the injustice. Because of how easily strangers could twist someone else’s life without even knowing the truth.
She tried speaking to Lyusya directly. One day she closed the office door and said quietly but firmly:
“If you don’t stop weaving intrigues, you’ll have to look for a new job.”
Lyusya widened her eyes, threw up her hands, and looked genuinely astonished.
“What are you talking about? I haven’t told anyone anything at all. Honestly. The girls probably made it up themselves.”
She sounded convincing, even offended, as though she herself were hurt by the conversation. Evgenia knew that before this there had been neither scandals nor gossip in the team. But it was impossible to prove anything. She waved it off. Fine, let them talk. She would get through it somehow.
And today had been inventory day. From early morning Evgenia had felt on edge. Inventory was always unpleasant, but usually it came down to little things: mistakes in numbers here, goods written off there, a couple of missing items somewhere else. Small shortages were dealt with quietly and calmly. But when they got to Lyusya’s department, it became clear that this was an entirely different matter. The shortage was so large that the numbers simply would not fit in her head. It was not a couple of boxes, not an invoice mistake—too much merchandise had vanished. A lot.
Evgenia sat over the papers, checking the figures again and again, and could not believe her eyes. Her heart dropped unpleasantly. Now they would have to conduct a full internal investigation. They would need to check camera footage, pull invoices, compare shifts, and determine who had been working and when. It would be a long, murky, very unpleasant procedure.
Lyusya, of course, was immediately suspended from work pending clarification of all the circumstances. Not fired, no. Suspended. But even that was enough to make the situation explosive.
Evgenia felt drained to the last drop. Her head was empty. She had only one dream: to make it home, take a hot bath, lie down on the sofa, turn on some light movie, and switch off from all of this, if only for a little while. But instead of quiet and peace, Maxim met her right at the door. He stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at her harshly, almost hostilely. She had never seen that look on his face before.
“Why did you fire my ex?” he shouted for the first time. “You know how badly she needs this job right now. We were hoping she’d move out of my apartment, and now what?”
Evgenia was confused for only a second, then began explaining—calmly, as much as she had strength for. That no one had fired Lyusya, that she had been temporarily suspended pending clarification of the circumstances. That they would recount everything, pull the documents, review the camera footage. That this was required by the rules, and she could not act otherwise.
“You understand,” she said tiredly, “I can’t just close my eyes to it. This is my job, and my responsibility.”
Maxim interrupted her, raised his voice, and again began talking about how hard things were for Lyusya, how she had been left with nothing. At some point the conversation turned into a full-blown argument. Both of them were on edge—tired and angry. Sharp, hurtful words flew back and forth, spoken in the heat of the moment. But after a while the tension did subside. They fell silent. Then silently they sat in the kitchen, put on the kettle, poured tea. For a long time they sat without looking at each other. Maxim was the first to break the silence.
“I’m sorry…” he said dully.
Zhenya nodded. The conflict seemed to have been put out, but the bitterness remained.
And a few days later everything became completely clear. Lyusya really had been failing to ring up part of the merchandise at the cash register and had been pocketing the money. She had done it carefully, with calculation: choosing hours when there were few customers in the hall, trying to stay out of the cameras’ view, as if she knew exactly where the blind spots were. But she had not managed to hide completely.
Piece by piece, from fragments of video footage, invoices, and reports, they reconstructed the whole scheme. The shortage added up to a clear, frightening figure. The kind you could no longer sweep under the rug or quietly write off. The kind that had to be answered for. Now Lyusya would not simply have to compensate for the damages—criminal charges were very realistically hanging over her head. Evgenia sat over the documents, looking at the dry figures, and felt nothing but emptiness. No anger, no triumph at having been right. Nothing. Only exhaustion and the heavy feeling that she had been dragged into someone else’s filth.
But that evening Maxim exploded. He paced around the apartment like a trapped animal, moving from room to room, talking quickly and incoherently.
“You have to influence the situation,” he demanded, waving his arms. “Make sure it doesn’t go to the police. They can’t just go there right away! Let them give her a chance to pay back the debt gradually. Humanely!”
Evgenia looked at him and did not recognize him. Before her stood not the calm, sensible man she had married. Not the one who had always talked about boundaries, responsibility, and common sense.
“Maxim,” she said quietly, “it’s not up to me. This is a serious violation. This isn’t about being ‘humane’ anymore. This is the law.”
“But you can’t treat people so inhumanely!” he shouted. “You have to understand her situation! She’s desperate! If you don’t resolve this… I’ll leave.”
And then Evgenia finally snapped.
“No need to wait,” she said sharply, surprising even herself. “Because after all this, I’m not planning to go on living with you anyway.”
Maxim froze.
“Your Lyusya is going to be paying off debts for a long time now,” Zhenya continued, already calmly, with a slight chill in her voice. “And she is hardly ever going to move out of your apartment. She’ll keep pulling money out of you for treatment, for food, for clothes. This is never going to end.”
She stepped closer.
“And you,” she said quietly, with a note of steel certainty, “have no backbone. You don’t know how to say no. You will always keep saving her, even if you drown yourself. And I’m not going to live in this ridiculous triangle.”
A crushing silence filled the room.
“So, darling,” Evgenia said, looking him straight in the eyes, “I’m the one setting the terms here. Either you throw her out of your apartment right now and let her fend for herself… or you leave and go to her yourself.”
Maxim said nothing more. Silently he went into the room and began packing his things. He did it demonstratively—abruptly, noisily. He yanked drawers open, slammed cabinet doors, tore shirts off hangers.
“You’re heartless, Zhenya,” he threw over his shoulder. “How can you throw a person out onto the street when they’re in such trouble? How could you even say that…”
She stood in the hallway with her arms crossed, trying to steady her breathing.
“Never mind,” he went on, stuffing things into his bag, “this will come back to you. Evil like this always boomerangs quickly.”
Evgenia wanted to answer, but suddenly realized that she had no strength left. Not to argue, not to prove anything, not to justify herself. Only one thought slowly and clearly took shape in her mind: if this was going to come back on anyone, it would be him, when Lyusya left him without this apartment too—just as easily as she had once left him without half of the old one.
Maxim left with his head held high. As if he were not running from responsibility, but performing some noble deed—and apparently that was exactly how he saw himself. Evgenia walked slowly to the window. Well, that was that… So much for being married. Inside she felt empty and, at the same time, calm. And suddenly she understood one thing with complete clarity: if she ever decided to marry again, it would definitely not be a divorced man. For her, that had become a matter of principle. A good lesson learned. Though it was unlikely to happen anytime soon. First she needed to recover, come back to herself, live a little for herself—without other people’s problems, without the baggage of the past, and without ex-wives. And after that… well, time would tell.
