“Pasha, did you look at the tickets for the morning flight? There are only three promotional seats left. If we don’t buy them now, we’ll either have to fly with a layover or overpay by fifteen thousand,” Olya said, standing in the kitchen doorway and wiping her wet hands on a dish towel. “I sent you the link at lunchtime.”
Pasha was sitting at the table, bent low over a plate of cooling stew. He ate slowly, methodically chewing every bite, and did not even turn his head toward his wife. His broad back in a house T-shirt looked like a stone wall with the words “don’t come near or you’ll regret it” written across it. The television was on in the room, mumbling some police drama and creating the illusion of busyness.
“Pasha, who am I talking to?” Olya’s voice grew sharper. She threw the towel over the back of a chair and walked up to the table. “We agreed. Today is Friday, your salary came in, and I have my bonus on my card. We need to take the cash out of the box, add what came in today, and go to the travel agency tomorrow morning. Do you hear me?”
Her husband slammed his fork onto the plate. The sound of metal against porcelain cut through the air, making Olya flinch. At last he raised his eyes to her. His gaze was heavy and cloudy, as if he had just woken up or, on the contrary, had not slept for three days. In that look there was a mixture of aggression and some hunted, cowardly anger.
“I hear you. I’m not deaf,” he muttered, looking away toward the window, where dusk was thickening. “Let me eat in peace after my shift. You come in and start rattling on: tickets, tickets, money, money… My head is buzzing because of you.”
“Your head is buzzing, and my vacation starts in a week,” Olya snapped. “I worked like a dog for six months without days off so we could have a proper rest instead of sitting in a stuffy city. You were the one whining all winter that you wanted to go to the sea. What is going on with you? You haven’t been yourself all evening.”
Pasha said nothing. He picked up his fork again and began poking at the meat, turning it into mush. Olya looked at the top of his head, at the familiar bald spot, and a bad, sticky feeling of anxiety began to grow inside her. This was not just a bad mood. This was the behavior of a guilty schoolboy who knows the diary with a failing grade is already lying on his father’s desk but is trying to delay the moment of punishment.
She turned sharply and left the kitchen. Her steps down the hallway were quick and determined, but everything inside her tightened into a hard knot. She was not just going to check. She was going to confirm her worst fears. Her intuition, sharpened by years of living with a man who did not know how to lie but loved to dodge the truth, screamed danger.
The bedroom was dark, with light falling only from the half-open door. Olya walked up to the wardrobe and forcefully slid aside the heavy mirrored door. On the top shelf, among old sweaters and shoeboxes, stood the cherished tin from expensive cookies, which they had once jokingly named “The Safe of Hope.” Inside it were their two hundred and thirty thousand. Money set aside from side jobs, bonuses, and those days when Olya refused to take a taxi in the rain and took the metro instead to save an extra hundred rubles.
Olya stood on tiptoe and reached toward the shelf. Her fingers found the cold side of the tin. And at that very second, a cold sweat broke out over her.
The tin was light.
Not just light, but weightless. Empty.
She grabbed it with both hands, lowered it down, and tore off the lid. Inside, at the bottom, a lonely ten-ruble coin rolled around, and a paper clip lay beside it. Nothing else. No thick bundle of five-thousand-ruble notes held together with an elastic band, no dollars they had bought little by little every month. Emptiness. A black hole into which her dreams of white sand, cocktails, and peace had collapsed.
Her legs turned to cotton. Olya sat down on the edge of the bed, gripping the empty tin so tightly that the metal gave a pitiful crunch. She could not wrap her mind around it. Maybe he had moved it? Maybe he had decided to surprise her and had already bought the vacation package himself? But why had he kept silent then? Why had he been acting like a beaten dog?
She slowly stood up. Fear left her, giving way to rage — cold, calculating, vicious. Olya returned to the kitchen. Pasha was still sitting over his plate, but now he was not eating. He was simply staring blankly at one spot on the tablecloth, gripping the fork in his fist like a weapon.
“Where is the money, Pasha?” she asked. Her voice did not tremble. It was dry and rough, like sandpaper.
Olya threw the empty tin onto the table. It hit the tabletop with a crash, bounced, and rolled toward her husband’s elbow. Pasha jerked as if he had been shocked, but he did not raise his eyes.
“I’m asking you,” Olya said, coming close, leaning her hands on the table and looming over him. “Where are the two hundred and thirty thousand? Where is our vacation? Did you move it somewhere? Answer me!”
Pasha finally raised his head. His face was red, covered with beads of sweat, and his lips twisted into a pathetic, defensive smirk.
“Why are you yelling so the whole building can hear? The neighbors will hear,” he hissed, trying to seize the initiative. “You came in and started searching everything. You don’t trust me? Decided to count it? You’re so mercenary, Olya. All you think about is money.”
“Don’t you dare turn this around on me!” she roared, and the kitchen seemed to grow smaller. “I worked like a damned horse! I brought reports home on weekends! Where is the money? Did you gamble it away? Did you lose it? Tell me the truth before I figure it out myself!”
“I spent it!” Pasha suddenly shouted, slamming his fist on the table so hard that the plate of stew jumped and overturned, spilling greasy sauce all over the tablecloth. “I spent it! Do you hear me? It’s gone! And it’s not coming back!”
Olya recoiled, staring at the spreading stain of sauce. Something inside her snapped. This was worse than she had thought. He had not simply taken the money. He had destroyed it. And judging by his shifting eyes and aggression, the reason was something unforgivable.
“On what?” she asked quietly, feeling her pulse pounding like a hammer in her temples. “What can you blow a year’s savings on in one day? Did you buy a car? Did you invest in some pyramid scheme? Pasha, if you keep silent, I’m packing my things and leaving right now.”
Her husband breathed heavily, his nostrils flaring. He understood there was nowhere left to retreat. His “heroism,” which he had apparently been secretly proud of deep down, now had to collide with reality.
“I had no choice,” he muttered, looking away. “It was a matter of life and death. You wouldn’t understand. All you care about is warming your backside on the beach, while people’s lives are falling apart.”
“What people?” Olya felt a chill run down her back. “What have you gotten yourself into? Is someone threatening you?”
“Not me,” Pasha said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Seryoga. My brother. He called last night… You see, the situation was… Either money right away, or they would’ve buried him in the woods. Or put him on the hook for such huge interest that we’d have had to sell the apartment. I saved us, Olya. I saved the family.”
Olya looked at him, and the world around her began slowly but surely to crumble. Seryoga. The eternal problem, the eternal “poor unfortunate soul” whom Pasha had dragged on his back his whole life. A drunk, a loser, and a liar. And now that parasite had devoured not only her husband’s nerves, but also her vacation.
“What did he do this time?” she asked, feeling true, uncontrollable anger begin to boil inside her. “Who did he kill with our money?”
“He didn’t kill anyone!” Pasha flared up, once again feeling righteous. “The guy just had bad luck. They cut him off, you understand? And the car was expensive. A black G-Wagen. Those guys were serious, they don’t joke around. He clipped them — the bumper, the headlight… They got out and started pressing him. He called me crying… Olya, he’s my own blood! I couldn’t just hang up!”
Olya silently looked at her husband, who was trying to justify stealing the family budget with fairy tales about “serious guys” and “blood.” She saw before her not a protector, but an accomplice. A man who had betrayed her for the whim of his reckless brother.
“So you gave them everything?” she clarified in an icy tone. “Every last kopeck?”
“Yes! And I still owed them more, but they forgave it because I brought cash immediately!” Pasha threw back defiantly. “You should be proud that your husband isn’t a rag, but a real man who didn’t abandon his brother in trouble!”
A heavy, thick atmosphere of hopelessness hung in the kitchen. Olya realized that this conversation was only beginning, and it would cost her far more than just two hundred and thirty thousand rubles.
Olya slowly sat down on the chair opposite her husband. The greasy sauce stain on the tablecloth spread like an ugly blot, soaking into the fabric, which probably could never be washed clean again. Just like this evening, which could never be erased from memory. She looked at Pasha and saw not the man she had lived with for five years, but a stranger with shifty eyes and a mouth twisted with anger.
“Proud?” she repeated quietly, but steel rang in her voice. “What exactly am I supposed to be proud of? That you stole our rest from us? Or that your brother got behind the wheel drunk again? Because he was drunk, wasn’t he?”
Pasha jerked his shoulder, looking away at the dark window. His face turned red in patches. He grabbed a piece of bread and began nervously crumbling it onto the table, creating chaos around himself out of crumbs and leftover food.
“Well, he had a little to drink. Who doesn’t? The man is stressed, he’s getting divorced, he has problems at work…” he mumbled, as if that were a valid excuse. “He just miscalculated. And that guy in the G-Wagen came flying around the corner like a lunatic! Seryoga didn’t even have time to brake.”
“He didn’t have time to brake because a drunk person’s reaction time is zero!” Olya slammed her palm on the table, making her husband flinch. “Do you understand he could have killed someone? And instead of letting him answer for his actions, you run to wipe his nose with my money!”
“Our money!” Pasha roared, jumping up from his chair. He loomed over his wife, trying to suppress her with his height and the volume of his voice. “It was our joint money! And I, as the head of the family, made the decision. The matter had to be settled in five minutes. Either money on the hood, or Seryoga in the trunk. Do you have any idea what kind of people they were? Bald, with scars, guns under their jackets! They would’ve buried him right there in the forest belt!”
“Don’t lie to me about guns, Pasha. We’re not in the nineties,” Olya said, looking at him with disgust. “You were simply scared. Scared that your precious little brother would get beaten up, so you decided to pay them off. Tell me honestly: did he at least say thank you? Or did he just pat you on the shoulder and go get another drink?”
Pasha breathed heavily, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white. He felt the ground slipping out from under his feet. His heroic deed, which in his head looked like a scene from an action movie about brotherly loyalty, was falling apart under his wife’s icy gaze. He needed to defend himself, and he chose the only tactic he knew — attack.
“You understand nothing about male friendship and blood ties!” he screamed, spraying spit.
“Oh, of course I don’t!”
“My brother wrecked someone else’s car, and they could’ve put him on the hook for mounting debt! Yes, I gave away the money we were saving for vacation! What did you want — for them to bash my head in over my brother’s debts?! You’ll go to my mother’s dacha and weed the garden beds — there’s your sea! Family is supposed to help each other! And if a beach matters more to you than my brother’s life, then you’re worthless as a wife!”
“I wanted your brother to clean up the messes he creates at least once in his life!” Olya stood too, and now they faced each other, separated only by the dirty table. “He is thirty, Pasha! Thirty! He has no family, no normal job, only debts and you, his eternal rescuer. Why didn’t he take out a loan? Why didn’t he sell his wreck of a car? Why exactly do we have to pay for his drunken joyrides?”
“What loan?! No bank will give him a single kopeck, his credit history is ruined!” Pasha waved her off as if she were an annoying fly. “And his car… who needs it? It’s a bucket of bolts. We’re the same blood! We grew up in the same sandbox! Mother begged me to help! You should have heard how she cried on the phone! ‘Pashenka, save Seryozha, they’ll kill him!’ What was I supposed to do? Say, ‘Sorry, Mom, Olya and I are flying to Turkey, let them kill Seryozha’? Is that it?”
Olya looked at her husband and understood that the abyss between them had become impassable. He sincerely believed he was right. In his distorted picture of the world, she was a selfish bitch who felt sorry for pieces of paper when a relative needed saving. And the fact that this relative was a parasite sucking the life out of them year after year was something Pasha preferred not to notice.
“Do you know what’s most terrifying?” Olya said quietly, and that whisper made Pasha uneasy. “You didn’t even ask me. You just took the money and stole it. You presented me with a fact after it was done. To you, I’m just a wallet you can shake whenever your brother needs rescuing again. You didn’t save him, Pasha. You simply bought him the right to keep acting like a madman. He knows you’ll always cover for him.”
“Don’t you dare talk about my family like that!” Pasha shrieked, hysterical notes breaking through his voice. “Family is supposed to help each other! And if a beach matters more to you than my brother’s life, then you’re worthless as a wife! You only think about yourself! ‘I’m tired, I worked, I want to go to the sea…’ Other people are in trouble! Selfish woman!”
He kicked a chair, and it flew into the refrigerator with a crash. Pasha paced around the cramped kitchen like a trapped animal, waving his arms.
“You’ll see, Seryoga will get back on his feet, he’ll pay everything back!” he shouted, trying to convince not so much his wife as himself. “He’ll find a normal job now, he’s got some options lined up… In six months, well, in a year, we’ll get it all back!”
“In a year?” Olya smiled bitterly. “In a year he’ll get himself into something again. And we’ll be sitting here with no money again. I dreamed of this vacation, Pasha. I lived on that dream when I took extra shifts. And you flushed my dream down the toilet for a drunken idiot.”
“Shut up!” Pasha roared, rushing up close to her. His eyes were bloodshot. “Stop counting pennies! I’m a man, I made the decision! And don’t you dare reproach me! Say thank you that I feed you and that you live in my apartment! If you don’t like it, there’s the door!”
Olya silently looked at him. Inside her, where resentment had still been raging five minutes earlier, coldness now spread. She suddenly understood that she was no longer angry. Anger is an emotion for someone close. And before her stood a stranger, a pathetic man trying to justify his weakness with aggression.
“Fine,” she said in an even voice. “You decided. You’re the man. You saved your brother. Well done.”
Pasha, who had not expected such a sudden change in tone, froze. He breathed heavily, expecting a catch, but Olya looked at him calmly, almost indifferently.
“That’s better,” he muttered, calming down a little, though he still felt the need to dominate. “Finally understood. You made a whole drama over pieces of paper. We’ll survive without your all-inclusive. We have more important matters.”
Olya did not answer. She turned and left the kitchen, leaving her husband alone among the scattered crumbs and grease stains. She needed to think. And the plan beginning to form in her head was cold and sharp, like a surgeon’s scalpel.
Pasha followed his wife into the bedroom. He was bursting with adrenaline and a false sense of superiority. He thought he had won the argument, proved who was the master of the house, and now he needed to secure the result. He was not going to apologize. On the contrary, a plan had already ripened in his head for how to use Olya’s suddenly freed-up time for the benefit of “the family,” meaning himself and his relatives.
Olya stood by the window, looking out at the dark courtyard where rare moths circled in the light of the streetlamps. She felt his heavy gaze on her back, but did not turn around. It was physically unpleasant for her to be in the same room with him.
“Why are you silent? Offended?” Pasha flopped onto the bed, the springs squeaking pitifully under his weight. “Well, never mind, sulking won’t get you anywhere. You’d better listen to what I came up with. Since Turkey is out, there’s no point in you moping around in the city. Your vacation has been approved, there are no tickets, so pack up. Tomorrow we’re going to my mother’s dacha.”
Olya slowly turned around. Her face was pale but calm, which only provoked her husband further.
“To the dacha?” she repeated, as if she could not believe her ears. “You’re suggesting that instead of the sea, I go to that swamp where the mosquitoes are the size of sparrows and the toilet is outside?”
“Don’t twist your face, princess,” Pasha snorted, putting his hands behind his head. “Mother has been asking for help for a long time. Her potato patch is overgrown, the strawberry runners need trimming, and the greenhouse needs fixing. I already called her and made her happy by saying we’re coming for two weeks. She made a list of chores. So you’ll go to my mother’s dacha and weed the garden beds — there’s your sea. Fresh air and physical labor are good for your health. You’ve been sitting in the office too long, your backside has gotten fat.”
His words fell into the silence of the room like heavy stones. Olya looked at him and saw how he was reveling in his power. He had not only deprived her of rest — he had decided to turn her vacation into a forced-labor camp. To punish her for daring to be outraged over the lost money.
“I’m not going,” she said quietly but firmly. “I will not weed your mother’s garden beds. I hate that dacha. I wanted to lie on a sun lounger and listen to the sound of waves, not listen to your mother lecture me about holding a hoe wrong.”
Pasha sat up sharply and put his feet on the floor. His face flushed again.
“How are you talking about my mother?” he hissed. “She tries so hard for us! She jars vegetables, pickles cucumbers! Is it so hard for you to help an elderly person? Will you break?”
“Pasha, that’s not rest. That’s hard labor,” Olya took a step back toward the wardrobe. “I didn’t work all year just to stand bent over in garden beds under the scorching sun. I am not a slave to you or to your family.”
“And what are you?” Pasha jumped up and crossed the distance between them in two steps. He loomed over her, breathing fumes and malice. “You’re a wife! And a wife must be where her husband says! I said we’re going to my mother’s, so we’re going! And don’t you dare show me your attitude. Counting money… Say thank you that I even support you!”
“Support me?” Olya smiled bitterly, looking him straight in the eyes. Fear had left her completely. Only cold revulsion remained. “I earn almost as much as you do. We pay for the apartment fifty-fifty. Groceries are fifty-fifty. In what way do you support me? Because you sometimes pay for the internet?”
That struck his sorest spot. Pasha, who always boasted of his status as the provider, hated being reminded of the real state of things. His ego, inflated to incredible size, could not bear such truth.
“Shut up!” he screamed, and with all his strength he punched the wall, an inch from her head.
The dull sound of the blow and falling plaster filled the room. Olya did not even blink, though everything inside her tightened. She saw how the knuckles of his fist turned white, how a dent remained in the wallpaper. This was a demonstration of force. A warning. The next blow might not land on the wall.
“Don’t you dare count the money in my pocket!” Pasha roared, spraying spit into her face. “I’m a man! I decide where we spend money, where we go, and what we do! If you don’t like it, get out! But as long as you live under my roof, you’ll do what I said! Tomorrow at seven in the morning, get up, pack your stuff, and we’re going to the dacha! And I don’t want to hear another word about your vacation packages!”
He breathed heavily, staring at her with bulging eyes, waiting for tears, hysterics, or an obedient nod. But Olya was silent. She looked at the dent in the wall, then turned her gaze back to her husband. Something in her eyes changed. The warm spark that had always burned there for him, even in the hardest times, disappeared. Now there was ice.
“All right, Pasha,” she said in a completely calm, even voice. “I heard you. You’ve decided everything.”
Pasha, confused by such a sudden shift, cooled down a little. It seemed to him that he had broken her, that she had accepted it.
“Well, that’s settled then,” he muttered, rubbing his bruised hand. “You should’ve done that long ago. Instead of making this… democracy. Go to the kitchen, pack something to eat for the road, and go to bed. I’ll watch TV for now.”
He turned around and shuffled out of the bedroom in his slippers, feeling like a winner. A king in his small, shabby kingdom. He did not see Olya silently walk over to the dresser with the linens as soon as he crossed the threshold.
She pulled out the bottom drawer, slipped her hand under a stack of old towels they almost never used, and felt a thick envelope. Inside was her personal bonus — one hundred and twenty thousand rubles, which she had received a week ago for closing a major project. She had not yet had time to put it in the common tin. She had wanted to surprise her husband — buy excursions or update his wardrobe before the trip. Now the envelope burned her fingers.
Olya took out her international passport, which was lying there too. She opened it and checked the validity of her visa. Everything was in order. She acted like a robot: clearly, quickly, without unnecessary movements. No tears. No doubts.
She took out her phone and opened the travel agency app. A last-minute tour to the Dominican Republic. Departure tomorrow morning. Five stars, all-inclusive, adults only. The price was steep, but it did not matter. She pressed the “Book” button. Her finger did not tremble once.
The money was charged from her card instantly. A notification arrived: “Your tour has been confirmed.”
Olya threw the phone onto the bed and began taking out a suitcase. Not the huge family one, but her own small carry-on. She tossed things into it without looking: swimsuits, a couple of dresses, flip-flops. She did not need much. She needed only one thing — to be as far away as possible from this apartment, from that dent in the wall, and from the man who considered her his property.
From the living room came the laughter of the studio audience from some show and Pasha’s voice, apparently talking to his brother on the phone:
“Yeah, everything’s fine, Sery. I sorted it out. Olya grumbled and calmed down. Tomorrow we’re going to Mother’s to hill the potatoes. Yeah, come on, brother, don’t get down! We’re strong!”
Olya zipped up the suitcase. The sound was sharp, like a gunshot, but Pasha did not hear it over the noise of the television. She walked up to the mirror and looked at her reflection. A tired but free woman looked back at her. A woman who had just bought herself a life.
The taxi silently glided up to the entrance at exactly four-thirty in the morning. The city was still asleep, wrapped in predawn blue, and the air was especially fresh, without exhaust fumes or daytime bustle. Olya stood in the hallway, holding the handle of her suitcase. She was dressed in light jeans and a white T-shirt, with a denim jacket over her shoulders — the very outfit she had planned to wear on the plane half a year ago.
She did not wake Pasha. She only glanced into the bedroom for a second. Her husband was sleeping, sprawled across the entire bed with his mouth slightly open. He snored — loudly, with a whistling sound — and to Olya there was something animal and smug in that sound. Even in sleep, he took up all the space, pushing her to the edge of life. On the nightstand beside his head lay his phone, and on the floor were the socks he had never bothered to carry to the laundry basket.
Olya returned to the kitchen. On the table, next to that ill-fated empty cookie tin, she placed her wedding ring. The gold band glimmered dully in the light of the streetlamp. Beside it she placed the apartment keys. No notes. No explanations. Everything had been said yesterday, when his fist crashed into the wall an inch from her temple.
“Miss, I’m here,” the taxi driver’s hoarse voice came through the phone speaker.
Olya left the apartment, carefully closing the heavy metal door behind her. The click of the lock sounded like the shot of a starting pistol.
The airport was crowded despite the early hour. The noise, the smell of expensive coffee, the laughter of people anticipating vacation — all of it worked on Olya like living water. She checked in, dropped off her luggage, passed passport control, and ordered herself a glass of champagne at the bar by the gate.
Her phone came to life at exactly seven o’clock. The screen showed: “Beloved.” Olya smirked and renamed the contact simply “Pavel.” She took a sip of cold brut and pressed the answer button.
“Olya! Where are you?!” her husband’s voice was hoarse with sleep and immediately aggressive. “I woke up and you’re gone. Did you run to the store or something? I told you to pack food for the road last night! Mother called and asked what time we’re leaving. We still have to load the seedlings!”
Olya looked at the runway, where huge airliners accelerated and lifted off the ground, carrying someone’s dreams into the sky.
“I didn’t go to the store, Pasha,” she answered calmly.
“Then where are you? Locked yourself in the bathroom?” He clearly still had not understood what was happening. His brain was working according to its usual script, where Olya was a convenient function that could not malfunction. “Stop playing hide-and-seek, time isn’t rubber. Take the bags and let’s go.”
“I’m at the airport, Pasha.”
Silence hung on the other end of the line. Olya could hear him breathing heavily, trying to process the information.
“What do you mean… at the airport?” her husband’s voice trembled, confusion mixed with growing panic. “What the hell have you come up with? What airport? We’re going to the dacha! Did you buy tickets?! With what money?!”
“With my own, Pasha. With the money I earned and that you didn’t manage to steal,” Olya said evenly, without gloating, simply stating a fact. “My flight leaves in forty minutes. Dominican Republic. All-inclusive.”
“You… are you completely insane?” he screamed so loudly that Olya had to move the phone away from her ear. “What Dominican Republic?! What about the seedlings? What about Mother? We agreed! Come back immediately! I’m telling you! If you don’t come right now, I… I won’t be responsible for myself!”
“You already weren’t responsible for yourself when you punched the wall,” she interrupted him in an icy tone. “Look at the kitchen table. The ring and keys are there.”
A crash sounded — apparently Pasha had run to the kitchen. A few seconds later, heavy, ragged breathing came through the receiver.
“What is this?” he hissed, and now there was real fear in his voice. The fear of a man who has had the rug pulled out from under his feet. “Are you leaving me? Over money? Over some damned pieces of paper you’re destroying the family?! Mercenary bitch! Who will need you at thirty, a divorced woman?”
“I need myself, Pasha. For the first time in five years, I need myself,” Olya saw the word “Boarding” light up on the display board. “And now you can handle everything yourself. Your brother’s loans, the bandits, your mother’s dacha, the seedlings. That’s your family, your blood, your problems. I resign from the position of your rescuer.”
“Olya, wait!” he suddenly changed his tone to pleading and pathetic. “Fine, I lost my temper. I’m sorry. Come back and we’ll discuss everything. Seryoga will pay the money back, really! Then we’ll go wherever you want! Don’t do anything stupid, Olenka! We’re family!”
“We are not family, Pasha. We are strangers. You became a stranger to me when you decided your ambitions mattered more than my dignity.”
“I’ll find you! Do you hear me?” he broke into shouting again, realizing that begging did not work. “You’ll come crawling back! You’ll regret it! I’ll make your life…”
Olya did not listen to the rest. She pressed the red button, cutting off the stream of threats and filth. Then she went into the settings and blocked his number. His brother’s and mother’s numbers were blocked next.
She stood up, adjusted her handbag on her shoulder, and headed toward the boarding gate. Inside, she felt surprisingly empty and light. No pain, no longing. Only the feeling of an enormous space ahead, which now belonged only to her.
She entered the jet bridge leading to the plane and breathed in the smell of aviation fuel and coffee. A flight attendant with a dazzling smile nodded to her.
“Good morning! Your seat is 12A, by the window.”
“Good morning,” Olya smiled back. “The best morning of my life.”
She sat down, fastened her seat belt, and took out her phone. Her finger paused over the airplane mode icon. On the screen hung a bank notification — the deposit for the rental apartment she had chosen the night before, while Pasha slept, had been returned. Life was settling into place faster than she had expected.
The plane began its takeoff roll. Olya looked out the window as the gray strip of concrete blurred into one smeared line. The ground released the landing gear, and the airliner sharply rose upward, piercing the low morning clouds.
Down below, in a small, stuffy apartment with a stain on the wall, remained a man who still had not understood what he had done. There remained the garden beds, the debts, the drunken brother, and the eternal “must.” And here, above the clouds, a dazzling sun shone, flooding the cabin with golden light.
Olya closed her eyes and relaxed her shoulders for the first time in many months. She was flying toward the ocean, and this was only the beginning…
