The silence in the apartment was special, dense, like cotton. Marina loved this time of the evening, when deep blue twilight thickened over the Volga outside the window, and the only light in the flat was the cozy glow of the desk lamp. Nizhny Novgorod was falling asleep, and she, the head librarian of the regional scientific library, could finally do what she loved almost as much as books—put things in order. Not the kind involving a rag and mop, but order in numbers, papers, accounts. Once a year she sat down to reconcile the family budget and prepare the documents for a tax deduction. Her husband, Andrey, didn’t understand any of this and never got involved, completely trusting her. “You’re the brains here, Marish,” he would say, and she gladly accepted this role.
This year something didn’t add up. A small but persistent sum was disappearing from the account every month. Exactly forty-two thousand three hundred rubles. The payment was disguised as an automatic debit in favor of some sole proprietor, with no description. Marina frowned. Andrey dealt in construction materials; he had a small company, but all business operations went through his corporate account—she knew that. This account was their joint savings account.
Her heart gave an unpleasant jolt. She opened the transaction history for the previous year. The same thing. And the year before that. For three years in a row, month after month, this amount had been going nowhere. A cold shiver ran down her spine. Marina, used to systematic searching, began to untangle the knot. She entered the recipient’s tax ID into a search engine. Sole proprietor “Svetlana Igorevna Petrova.” The surname seemed vaguely familiar. She pulled out an old folder with documents from the top shelf in the closet, the one where birth certificates, marriage certificates, and divorce papers were kept… There it was. The certificate of dissolution of Andrey’s marriage to his first wife. Petrova Svetlana Igorevna.
The world tilted. Forty-two thousand three hundred rubles. An amount painfully similar to a standard monthly mortgage payment for a two-room apartment in their city. He was paying the mortgage for his ex-wife. Secretly. For three years.
Her ears started ringing. Marina leaned back in her chair, staring blankly at the laptop screen. Images from the last few years floated up. His constant complaints about how “money just slips through our fingers.” Their canceled trip to Karelia last summer because “we need to save, times are unstable.” His gift to her for her fiftieth birthday—a set of expensive pots. “It’s practical, Marín. You love cooking.” And she had swallowed the hurt then, because it was true, the pots were good, German. But what she’d really dreamed of was a small gold pendant in the shape of a book. She had dropped hints, pointed it out in the shop window. He brushed it off: “That’s nonsense.”
She remembered a conversation from two weeks ago. They had been sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea.
“Andryush, maybe we could finally redo the bedroom? The wallpaper is already peeling in places.”
“Marin, what renovations are you talking about right now?” he sighed wearily. “You see I’m spinning like a squirrel in a wheel, and there’s no extra money. We’re barely scraping by. Let’s put it off until next year.”
Barely scraping by. Forty-two thousand a month was going toward making life comfortable for a woman he had divorced twenty-five years ago. A woman their daughter, Olga, had seen twice in her life.
The pain wasn’t sharp; it was dull, gnawing. As if a rusty knife was being slowly turned inside her. It wasn’t about the money as such. It was about the total, all-encompassing lie. He sat across from her, drank her tea, ate her borscht, and looked her in the eye while telling her about their financial difficulties, while part of their family budget—her budget—was going to create comfort for another woman. The one he always spoke of with disdain: “That Sveta… she always has problems.” Turned out he not only knew about her problems. He was the solution to them.
Marina closed the laptop. Her hands were shaking. She went over to the window. A late tram rattled past below, striking sparks from the wires. The city went on living its own life, unaware of the little tragedy unfolding in a single apartment on the seventh floor. How many years had she been deceiving herself? How many times had she closed her eyes to his coldness, to his detachment, writing it all off as fatigue and “male midlife crisis”? She had created a cozy little world for herself, where she was “the head,” the reliable rear, the keeper of the hearth. And the hearth, it turned out, warmed more than just her.
She didn’t cry. The tears were stuck somewhere in her throat, a lump of bitterness. Instead of tears came a strange, icy clarity. Their entire life together, all thirty years, flashed before her eyes, but now lit by a new, merciless light. His constant late nights at work. His unwillingness to discuss anything except everyday trifles. His sudden “generosity” toward distant relatives, which she would learn about after the fact. None of that had been mere quirks of character—it had been a system, a system of lies and concealment.
She went back to the table. Opened the laptop again. Logged into their online banking. “Change password.” She entered a new, complex one made from the name of a rare peony variety she grew at their dacha and the year she started university. The year she still hadn’t known Andrey. Then she went to the government services portal. Changed the password. Her account with the tax office. Changed the password. All streaming platforms, all subscriptions—everything that had been “theirs” became hers. Personal. This wasn’t revenge. It was a declaration of independence. The first step in taking back her own territory. She was no longer a “joint account.” She was Marina. Just Marina. When she finished, she felt not gloating, but emptiness and a crushing exhaustion. Ahead lay a sleepless night. And a new life she had never asked for.
The morning greeted her with gray light and a headache. As usual, Andrey was clattering around in the kitchen, making his instant coffee. Marina came out of the bedroom already dressed for work. She silently poured herself a glass of water.
“Why the long face? Didn’t sleep well?” he asked cheerfully, without looking up from his phone.
“I slept fine,” she replied evenly.
He looked up at her, and something in her face must have put him on guard.
“Did something happen?”
“Yes,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Something did. Yesterday I found out you’ve been paying Svetlana Igorevna’s mortgage from our joint money for three years.”
Andrey froze with his cup halfway to his lips. Surprise flickered across his face, then fear, and then—thinly veiled irritation.
“You were snooping in my business?”
That was his first instinctive response. Not “I’m sorry,” not “Let me explain.” An accusation.
“I wasn’t snooping in your business, Andrey. I was managing our joint finances, like I always do. And I found a hole the size of a million and a half rubles.”
“Well come on, Marin, don’t start…” He put his cup down and began pacing the kitchen. “It’s not what you think. She had a situation… she was laid off at work, and her son Kolya got into university on a paid basis. What was I supposed to do, leave her on the street? She’s still the mother of my first child!”
Marina looked at him and, for the first time in many years, didn’t feel a shred of pity.
“The mother of your first child is an adult, competent woman. She has an adult son. Why should her problems be solved at my expense? Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“And what would you have said?” He threw up his hands. “You’d have started wailing, nagging me! I wanted to avoid a scandal.”
“You wanted to avoid a scandal, so you lied to me for three years?” Her voice didn’t waver. “You sat across from me and told me we didn’t have money for repairs, while another woman was renovating her place with my money. You refused to go on vacation with me because we ‘couldn’t afford it,’ and at the same time you were sponsoring someone else’s life. That’s what you call ‘avoiding a scandal’?”
He looked away.
“That’s not your money. I’m the one who earns it.”
The blow was direct and brutal. The very one he had been saving for a special occasion. She was a librarian with a government salary. He was the businessman.
“I see,” Marina said quietly. “So the money I bring into the family, my twenty years of work at the library, the household I keep so you can ‘earn’ in peace—that all doesn’t count? The only thing that counts is your money, which you’re free to dispose of however you please?”
“That’s not what I meant…” he muttered, realizing he’d gone too far.
“That’s exactly what you meant. Now try to log into the banking app. And pay for something.”
She picked up her bag and walked toward the door. His confused voice caught up with her in the hallway:
“What do you mean, ‘try’? Marin! What did you do?”
She didn’t turn around. Just closed the door behind her. Out on the landing she leaned against the cold wall and exhaled deeply. This was only the beginning.
Work wouldn’t stick in her head. The letters on the pages blurred, catalog cards slipped through her fingers. Marina went through the motions, but her mind was far away. During her lunch break she didn’t go to the cafeteria; instead she stepped outside and dialed the number of her only close friend, Irina.
Irina, a brisk and energetic widow who ran a small flower shop in the city center, picked up immediately.
“Marinchik, hi! What’s with that voice? Did a truck run over you?”
Marina gave a bitter little laugh through the tears pressing at her eyes.
“Almost, Ir. Can I stop by after work?”
“That’s not up for discussion. I’ll be waiting. ‘Bird’s Milk’ cake and valerian guaranteed.”
After work Marina stopped in at Irina’s shop. It smelled of roses, eucalyptus, and the bitter freshness of chrysanthemums. Irina was just finishing a bridal bouquet. Her fingers moved deftly, catching the stems and winding satin ribbon around them.
“Well, spill it,” she said without looking up. “What’s your lawful husband done this time?”
And Marina spilled it. Calmly, almost dispassionately, she told her about the previous evening, the figures, her husband’s empty eyes, and his excuses that morning. Irina listened in silence, only occasionally pressing her lips together. When Marina finished, her friend stuck the last pearl-headed pin into the bouquet and looked at her resolutely.
“He’s a bastard,” she pronounced. “Excuse my French, but there’s no other word. Noble, my ass, Robin Hood. Robs the poor, gives to the rich. The poor one is you, in case you’re wondering.”
“I don’t know what to do, Ir,” Marina admitted. At last her voice cracked.
“What to do, what to do… Divorce him, that’s what. Marin, wake up! He didn’t just lie to you. He devalued you. He showed that your feelings, your wants, your life mean nothing to him. There’s his ‘duty’ to some broad from his past, and then there’s you—a convenient function who cooks, cleans, and does his taxes. Are you okay with that?”
Irina spoke harshly, but Marina knew that behind that harshness was genuine concern.
“I’m scared, Ir. Thirty years together. Where would I go at fifty-two?”
“Where?!” Irina threw up her hands. “Wherever you want! You’ve got a job, you’ve got a daughter, you’ve got your own head on your shoulders, thank God. You’ve got a dacha that you turned into a little paradise with your own hands! You think life ends at fifty-two? Marina, it’s just beginning! Mine began at forty-nine, when I buried Seryozha. I thought that was it, the end. But it turned out—not at all. Turned out I could manage on my own. And so can you. The question is, do you want to keep living with a man who wipes his feet on you?”
They sat among the flowers, and the bitter scent of chrysanthemums mingled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee that Irina had made.
“And the passwords—that was well done,” her friend snorted. “Strong move. You cut off his financial artery. Now he’ll start running around. Just wait.”
Irina was right. That evening Marina’s phone wouldn’t stop buzzing with calls and messages from Andrey. “Marina, this is childish!”, “We need to talk!”, “You’re destroying the family!”, “I can’t pay my suppliers!”
She didn’t answer. She sat in the kitchen, sipping thyme tea, looking at her phone as if it belonged to someone else. He was accusing her of destroying the family. He, who had spent years building a second, secret life on the foundation of her trust. The absurdity of it was almost comical.
The next day Marina called her daughter. Twenty-eight-year-old Olga had been living on her own for several years with her boyfriend. She worked as a graphic designer, a modern, level-headed young woman.
“Hi, Mom! Did something happen? You sound weird.”
Marina took a deep breath and told her everything, trying to stick to the facts and not break down. There was a long pause on the line.
“Mom…” Olga finally said, shock in her voice. “So… Dad all this time… Oh my God, that’s horrible. How are you? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know, Ol. I feel like I’m in a fog,” Marina admitted honestly. “I changed all the passwords. He can’t move the money now.”
“You did the right thing!” her daughter exclaimed. “Absolutely right! Mom, just don’t fall apart, okay? This is his fault, from start to finish. I’m coming over.”
Olga showed up an hour later, bringing her mother’s favorite pastries from a bakery and a firm resolve. They sat in the kitchen, and for the first time in days Marina let herself cry. Olga held her, stroked her hair, and talked and talked…
“Mom, to be honest, I’ve felt for a long time that something was off. He talks to you like you’re doing him a favor. Always dissatisfied, nothing’s ever good enough. Remember New Year’s when we were at your place? I made my signature salad, and he tried it and said, ‘Well, it’s edible.’ And then spent the whole evening glued to his phone. I told Dima then that Dad doesn’t seem to live with us, he just… exists alongside.”
“I thought it was his age, stress…” Marina sobbed.
“Mom, it’s not his age. It’s his attitude. He doesn’t value you. And this mortgage stunt… that’s just the last straw. It’s betrayal. You must not forgive this.”
That evening Andrey called Olga. She stepped into the hallway with her phone, but Marina could hear everything.
“Dad, are you out of your mind?” her daughter’s voice was sharp and icy. “You’re calling me so I can ‘influence Mom’? How about you start by apologizing for robbing her and lying to her face for three years?… No, I’m not interested in Svetlana Igorevna’s problems! You have a wife, my mother, whom you humiliated!… What do you mean ‘stay out of it’? This is my family you destroyed! Don’t call me about this again. Call Mom and ask her forgiveness. Though I’m not sure it’ll help.”
When Olga came back to the kitchen, her eyes were shining with tears.
“He doesn’t get it at all, Mom. He sees himself as the victim. Says you provoked him with your ‘spying’.”
Marina nodded silently. She already knew that. But her daughter’s support was like a breath of fresh air. She wasn’t alone.
A week passed. Andrey moved out to a rented apartment, taking only the bare essentials. The goodbye was crumpled and ugly. He tried to play on her pity again, then switched to threats about “leaving her with nothing in the divorce.” Marina said nothing. There was nothing left to say. When the door closed behind him, she didn’t feel grief, but an enormous, ringing relief. As if a crushing load had been lifted from her shoulders, a load she’d carried for years without even realizing it.
The next day she booked a consultation with a lawyer recommended by Irina. Sixty-something-year-old Yelizaveta Markovna, a strict woman in a flawless suit with sharp, intelligent eyes, listened to her story and looked over the documents Marina had wisely brought along.
“Marina Alekseevna,” she said, taking off her glasses. “The situation is as clear as day. The property acquired during the marriage is split fifty-fifty. His company, the apartment, the dacha. The fact that he spent joint funds on third parties without your consent—that’s a separate issue, and we can try to recover half of that amount. But that’s not the main thing.”
“What is?” Marina asked.
“The main thing is your resolve. I’ve seen many women in your situation. Many lose their nerve at the last moment, fall for crocodile tears and promises to ‘change everything.’ And go back into the same hell. You must understand: he will not change. People his age don’t change. Your husband is an infantile, selfish man used to comfort. You were part of that comfort. Now you’ve stopped being part of it. He’ll try to get you back not because he loves you, but because it’s convenient for him. Are you ready to resist that?”
Marina looked at her hands resting on the polished tabletop. They weren’t shaking anymore.
“I’m ready,” she said firmly. “I’ve spent thirty years creating comfort for him. It’s time to create comfort for myself.”
They discussed the details and mapped out a plan of action. Walking out of the lawyer’s office onto the busy street, Marina suddenly felt a surge of strength. The fear was receding, giving way to a purposeful energy. She was no longer a victim of circumstances. She was the author of her new life.
Autumn gave way to winter. The divorce proceedings dragged on, slow and tedious. Andrey tried to wriggle out of things, hide his company’s income, but Yelizaveta Markovna was a seasoned fighter and cut off all his attempts at the root.
Marina lived alone. At first the quiet was strange. Empty. But gradually she began filling that emptiness with herself. She signed up for Italian language classes, something she’d dreamed of since her student years. In the evenings she no longer watched the shows Andrey liked; instead she listened to lectures on art history or read books she’d never seemed to have time for before. On weekends, Olga would come over, and they would cook something delicious together, chat, go to the theater.
One day a woman about her age came to the library asking for books on landscape design. They started talking. It turned out the woman, whose name was Lyudmila Sergeevna, had recently divorced after thirty-five years of marriage and bought herself a small house in the suburbs, which she now wanted to turn into a blooming garden.
“My husband said I’d be lost without him,” she said with a wry smile. “And here I am, not lost at all. Turns out I can do all sorts of things on my own! And there’s nobody buzzing in my ear that the tomatoes aren’t planted by feng shui.”
Marina listened, and her heart felt warmer. She wasn’t the only one. There were many women like her. Women who, in their mature years, found the courage to say “enough” and start with a clean slate.
In the spring, when the snow melted, Marina went to the dacha for the first time in a long while. Before, they had always gone together, she and Andrey. He handled the “man’s work”—hammering, fixing the roof. She took care of the soil and plants. Now she would have to do everything herself.
The first day was hard. She had to tidy up the house, heat the stove, sort out the tools. She was dead on her feet from exhaustion, and for a moment despair swept over her. “Why did I even start this? I’ll never manage…”
The next morning she woke to birdsong. Sunlight flooded the small room. She stepped out onto the porch with a cup of coffee. The air was crisp, smelling of damp earth and spring. And she realized: this was all hers. This little house. These six hundred square meters of land. These apple trees she had once planted as thin saplings. This peace. She didn’t have to report to anyone. She could plant roses where she wanted, not where they “wouldn’t get in the way of the lawn mower.” She could have lunch at five, not wait until her husband deigned to return from fishing.
She pulled on her work gloves. Picked up the pruning shears. Walked over to her favorite peony bush, the “Sarah Bernhardt” variety she had once brought back from Moscow. The old, dry stems had to be cut away to give room to new, strong shoots. She worked slowly, with pleasure, feeling how the earth responded to her care.
At some point her phone rang. Olga.
“Hi, Mom! How are you out there on your little farm? Need help?”
“Hi, sweetheart. No, thanks. I’m managing,” Marina replied, surprised herself at how confident she sounded. “You know, I’m pruning the peonies here and a thought came to me… For new flowers to grow, you have to ruthlessly get rid of everything old and dead.”
She looked at her hands in the soil, at the bright spring sun, at the sky that seemed bottomless. There was a lot of work ahead. The beds needed turning, seedlings had to be planted, the trees whitewashed. She might have to hire someone to fix the leaky gutter on the roof. There would be difficulties and moments of weakness. But for the first time in many years, Marina Alekseevna felt not like one half of something, not like an appendage to someone, but like a whole, self-sufficient person. She was home. On her own land. In her own life. And this life, so real and full of hope, was only just beginning.
