Lena, I’ve come back,” her ex-husband announced solemnly, as if he were declaring victory in a war. “I realized I made a huge mistake. You are the best woman in my life.”
Standing on the doorstep was Viktor—her ex-husband twice over, the man she had divorced four years ago. In his hands was a bouquet of white roses, and on his face the same smile that had once conquered her twenty-two-year-old heart.
“Vitya, what a surprise,” Elena smirked, stepping aside. “Come in, since you’re here. But take off your shoes—I don’t want you tracking dirt through my house again.”
Elena silently moved away, letting him into the hallway. Viktor had been expecting hugs, tears of joy, maybe even reproaches he would magnanimously forgive. Instead, Elena went back to the kitchen and continued eating her breakfast without even offering him a seat.
“How are you, Vitya?” she asked in an even tone, cutting into her omelet. “Did your latest fling kick you out, or did you decide on your own to look for a temporary refuge?”
Viktor was taken aback. In four years, he had forgotten that Elena could be this calm in critical moments. He remembered her young, enthusiastic, ready to forgive anything for the sake of the family. Now in front of him sat a thirty-six-year-old woman with a confident gaze and nerves of steel.
“Lena, I want to restore our family,” Viktor put the bouquet down on the table next to her plate. “These years I’ve been living as if in a dream. Only now I realized that my place is here, with you and the children.”
“Interesting,” Elena took a sip of coffee. “And what exactly has changed? Has your inborn ability to vanish at the worst possible moment suddenly gone somewhere?”
“I’m serious!” Viktor protested. “I want to be with you. I want to take care of the children, of you. Can’t you see—I came with flowers, with an open heart.”
“With an open heart and empty pockets, as usual?” Elena asked acidly, then softened. “Anyway, sit down. Will you have some coffee? Or are you on some special ‘finding yourself’ diet now?”
Ten years ago, a young Elena was studying at the economics department of the teacher-training institute when she met Viktor at a student party. He was three years older, worked as a security guard in a shopping mall and seemed incredibly grown-up and independent to her.
“Marry me,” he proposed after two months of dating. “Why waste time? I see you’re the one and only.”
“Vitya, but we know so little about each other,” Elena hesitated.
“What is there to know?” he smiled, kissing her hands. “Love isn’t arithmetic, sunshine. You don’t need to calculate anything here.”
Elena agreed, blinded by romance. Viktor rented a one-room apartment, where she moved after the wedding. She had to combine her studies with side jobs—she translated English texts at night to help pay the rent. Viktor earned peanuts and constantly complained about unfair bosses.
“You see, Lenochka,” he explained, lying on the couch after yet another firing, “I’m a creative person. I need a job that gives me room for self-expression. Those grey office plankton just don’t understand my nature.”
“Of course, dear,” Elena agreed while calculating the family budget. “And while you’re finding yourself, I’ll work for two. It’s okay.”
After defending her thesis, Elena planned to get a job at a bank—her honors degree and knowledge of languages gave her good prospects. But then she found out she was pregnant. Konstantin was born when Elena turned twenty-three. A year and a half later, Irina came along.
“Children are happiness,” Viktor said, rocking his daughter in his arms. “We’ll earn the money. The main thing is love in the family.”
“You’re right, darling,” Elena replied, mentally estimating how to pay the utility bills. “Children are the most important thing. The rest will come.”
It was mainly Elena who earned money. Even with two little ones, she somehow managed to work online—she translated, taught English over Skype, wrote articles. In the meantime, Viktor changed jobs five times in four years and always had excuses for his low salary.
“You see, Lena,” he philosophized, “I can’t work where my soul doesn’t belong. It kills everything alive in me. It’s better to earn less and keep inner harmony.”
“Of course,” a tired Elena agreed. “Inner harmony is sacred. The external circumstances will somehow work themselves out.”
When Konstantin turned four and started kindergarten, Viktor suddenly declared:
“Lena, I’m emotionally burned out. I need freedom to find myself. I’m filing for divorce.”
“What do you mean, ‘find yourself’?” Elena was stunned. “We have two kids, a mortgage… Vitya, what are you talking about?”
“That’s exactly why I need time to think,” he replied coldly. “I’m suffocating in this family routine. I demand a division of property. Half the apartment is mine.”
“But I bought this apartment!” Elena protested. “I took out the loan, I’m the one paying the mortgage!”
“We’re a family,” Viktor shrugged. “Everything acquired in marriage is split fifty-fifty. That’s the law, dear.”
Elena realized she could end up on the street with the children. The two-room apartment in the new building was all they had. She had to borrow money from friends and take out another loan to buy out Viktor’s share. Her mother, a retired schoolteacher, couldn’t help financially.
“Baby,” her mother cried over the phone, “if I had the money, I’d give you everything. But my pension is tiny, and that scoundrel… How can he do this to his own children?”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Elena tried to comfort her.
The court ordered child support. Viktor paid faithfully for two years and then disappeared. He didn’t call the kids on their birthdays, didn’t wish them a Happy New Year. He just vanished.
A month after the divorce, Mikhail came to see Elena—an old classmate and Viktor’s friend.
“Lena, I’ve always been in love with you,” he confessed, standing in the hallway with a bouquet of daisies. “I know this isn’t the best time, but… Marry me. I’m not afraid of the kids, I’ll love them like my own.”
“Misha, you’re a golden person,” Elena was touched. “But I can’t take advantage of your kindness. You deserve a woman who will love you with her whole heart, not thank you for saving her.”
Mikhail was a programmer, earned good money, and was kind and decent. But Elena looked at his gentle facial features, listened to his uncertain voice, and felt nothing but gratitude.
“Misha, you’re a wonderful person, but I’m not ready…” she said softly. “Let’s stay friends, okay? That means a lot to me.”
“I’ll wait,” he answered with hope in his eyes. “However long it takes, I’ll wait. You’re worth any wait.”
“Don’t waste your best years on me,” Elena smiled sadly. “Find a woman who will immediately realize what a treasure she has beside her.”
For two years, Elena lived alone with the children and worked tirelessly. She finished professional development courses and began giving online lectures in economics for part-time students. That allowed her to pay off her debts and cover most of the mortgage. Mikhail offered financial help several times, but Elena refused—she didn’t want to be indebted to anyone.
“Lena, what kind of pride is this?” he tried to persuade her. “We’re friends.”
“It’s precisely because we’re friends that I don’t want to ruin our relationship with money,” she replied. “And your friendship means more to me than any help.”
And then the repentant Viktor appeared.
“Lena, I’ve lived like a hermit these two years,” he’d said back then, kneeling in the middle of her living room. “I’ve rethought everything. I realized that family is what matters most in life. Children are the meaning of existence. And love… Real love only happens once in a lifetime.”
“And where were you all this time?” Elena asked, keeping her gaze fixed on him.
“I was working, renting a room, thinking about you. I needed to regain my strength, to understand my mistakes. Now I’m ready to be a real husband and father.”
The children—six-year-old Konstantin and four-year-old Irina—ran joyfully to their dad. They remembered him as kind, playing hide-and-seek with them, reading bedtime stories. The fact that their mother had cried after he left, that they had pinched pennies for everything, was something Elena had never told them.
“Daddy, you won’t leave again, will you?” Irina asked, clinging to him.
“Never, princess. Daddy realized his place is here, next to the dearest people in the world.”
Elena gave in. Two years of loneliness, exhaustion from constant struggle for survival, the children’s pleas—all of this broke through her resistance. Viktor formally proposed, and they went to the registry office and remarried.
“Why do you need a stamp in your passport?” Mikhail wondered when Elena told him the news. “Isn’t it enough just to live together?”
“Viktor insists. He says he wants to show how serious his intentions are. And, honestly, I also want to believe in stability.”
“I understand you, Lena. But a man who has already run away once…”
“Misha, please. People change. Give us a chance.”
Elena’s mother received the family reunion with restrained joy:
“Daughter, I’m glad for you. But remember—a man who has once tasted freedom doesn’t forget it. Be careful.”
“Mom, not all men are the same. Viktor is truly remorseful.”
“Time will tell, daughter. Time puts everything in its place.”
And then, just when Elena felt that life had finally settled, Viktor blew up her world again:
“Lena, I’m filing for divorce. I realize that family life just isn’t for me. I suffocate in marriage.”
“What are you even saying?” Elena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Viktor, you begged to come back. Swore you’d changed.”
“I thought I’d changed. But no. Family is a cage. I’m an artist, I need space for creativity.”
“What kind of artist are you, for heaven’s sake? You work as a manager in a construction company!”
“You don’t understand. My soul needs to soar. And with you, I turn into an ordinary average nobody.”
The second divorce was much harder on Elena than the first. Back then, she’d been young and naive. Now she had believed in the possibility of happiness and gotten a knife in the back. When Viktor came to collect his things, Elena threw his suitcase straight out onto the landing.
“Get out and never come back!” she shouted, not recognizing her own voice.
“Lena, don’t make a scene! The neighbors will hear!” Viktor hissed, picking up his scattered belongings.
“Let the whole building know what a bastard you are! You left your kids twice! Twice!”
“I didn’t abandon them! I’ll pay child support, I’ll see the kids…”
“Like you came to see them in the two years after the first divorce? You didn’t call once!”
Viktor tried to sue for compensation for the repairs and family vacation, but lost. The children were once again left without a father, and this time Elena didn’t hide her attitude toward what was happening.
“Mom, is Dad not going to live with us anymore?” nine-year-old Konstantin asked.
“No, son. Dad decided that his freedom is more important than you and me.”
“Is he bad?” seven-year-old Irina wanted to know.
“Not bad, baby. He just… doesn’t know how to keep his word.”
Six months later Mikhail came again with a proposal.
“Lena, stop suffering because of that guy. Marry me. I’ve loved you for more than ten years.”
“Misha, not now,” Elena was angry at the whole world. “I don’t trust any man anymore. You’re all the same.”
“Lena, that’s not fair. I’ve never let you down.”
“So far you haven’t. What about tomorrow? Will you also want this ‘freedom for creativity’?”
This time Mikhail decided to be completely honest:
“Lena, you need to know the truth. When Viktor left you the first time, he lived with a lover named Valentina. She kicked him out after two years, and only then did he come back to you. And now he’s gone to a new one—Margarita.”
“How do you know?” Elena went cold.
“We’re friends. He told me. He even bragged. Lena, to him your apartment and family are just a temporary shelter between mistresses. He will definitely come back again.”
“You’re lying!” Elena didn’t want to believe it. “You’re smearing him on purpose to get me for yourself!”
“Lena, think about it. Would a normal man abandon his family twice with the same words about ‘freedom’? Isn’t it suspicious that he shows up precisely when you start getting back on your feet?”
“Enough! Get out! I don’t want to hear you!”
“When he comes back the third time—and he definitely will—you’ll remember my words.”
Elena pushed Mikhail out the door. But his words stuck in her mind like a splinter. Her friend Galina, to whom she told about this conversation, unexpectedly sided with Mikhail:
“Lena, what if he’s right? You yourself said that Viktor always came back at a very opportune time—right when you’d just paid off debts and started to live calmly. Don’t be a fool, don’t step on the same rake a third time.”
“Galya, you know Mikhail. He’s always been in love with me. Of course he’ll badmouth Viktor.”
“But the facts are the facts. Twice he left, twice he came back. Isn’t that a bit much for ‘true love’?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about men anymore.”
Viktor’s third appearance did not catch Elena off guard. In four years of being alone, she had rethought a lot and learned a lot about herself. Mikhail’s words that her ex would definitely return turned out to be prophetic.
“What’s changed?” Viktor repeated, clearly counting on a different reaction. “Lena, I realized that without you life has no meaning. You’re the only woman I’ve ever truly loved.”
“Interesting version,” Elena finished her coffee and set the cup in the sink. “And I thought you’d gone to Margarita. Or did she kick you out, like Valentina once did?”
Viktor froze. He hadn’t expected Elena to know the details of his personal life after the divorces.
“How did you…” he began, but Elena cut him off:
“It doesn’t matter how. What matters is that now I know the truth about your ‘searches for self.’ Vitya, the kids are already twelve and ten. Konstantin and Irina manage just fine without a father who shows up once every few years with a bouquet.”
“I’m ready to do anything!” Viktor pulled out his phone and began typing something. “Whatever you want, any conditions. Look!”
A minute later Elena’s phone buzzed with a notification about a transfer of five hundred thousand rubles.
“This is proof of my serious intentions,” Viktor declared solemnly. “I want to restore our family, provide for the kids, make you happy.”
“How generous of you,” Elena looked at the amount and laughed. “Do you really think you can buy me? That I sit here just waiting for you to deign to come back with your wallet at the ready?”
“But you’re alone!” Viktor exclaimed. “That means you still love me. That means you’re afraid to trust another man!”
“Oh, so that’s how you see it,” Elena leaned back in her chair. “I have to disappoint you. Mikhail proposed to me. Several times. A good, decent man.”
“And what did you tell him?” Viktor’s voice turned sharp.
“Is that any of your business?” Elena smiled caustically. “You’re not my husband anymore, dear. Spare me the fatherly concern about my personal life.”
Viktor’s face twisted with anger.
“Mikhail?! That pathetic worm has always been in love with you! So you’ve been having an affair with him all this time? While I was suffering and searching for a way back to you, you were amusing yourself with my friend!”
“Shut up,” Elena said calmly. “You have a strange view of morality for a man with three marriages behind him. Valentina and Margarita—what were they, spiritual enlightenment retreats?”
“You don’t understand!” Viktor shouted. “I was looking for you in them! I tried to forget you but couldn’t!”
“How romantic,” Elena’s voice was cool and ironic. “Particularly touching that you were looking for me in other women’s beds. Just like Saint Anthony in the desert.”
Viktor realized he was trapped. Elena knew about his mistresses, knew the truth behind the divorces. He had to act decisively.
“All right, you’re right,” he grabbed his phone again. “I was a scoundrel. But now I’m ready to fix everything. Look!”
Another transfer—four hundred thousand rubles.
“That’s everything I have. Even borrowed money. I’m giving you every last penny because I believe we can start over.”
Elena checked the balance and nodded:
“Thank you. This money will go toward the kids’ education. I was just missing the amount for tutors.”
“So you agree?!” Viktor brightened.
“I agree to take the money,” Elena smiled. “And now leave. And don’t ever come back.”
“What?!” Viktor couldn’t believe his ears. “Lena, you’re mocking me?! I just gave you almost a million! I put everything on the line!”
“Nobody asked you to, darling,” Elena replied indifferently. “That was your initiative. Get out of my house.”
“You… you’re a cheat!” Viktor screamed. “A greedy witch! You played me like a fool!”
“Vitenka,” Elena said gently, “did you really think love could be bought? At your age, such naivety is almost cute.”
At that moment Irina walked into the apartment.
“Mom, who’s this?” she asked, studying Viktor.
“This is your father, sweetheart,” Elena answered.
“Oh, the jerk,” Irina said matter-of-factly. “He showed up again acting like a dad?”
“Ira!” Elena scolded. “You don’t call your father that.”
“Why feel sorry for him?” the girl burst into angry tears. “He left us twice! Twice! You worked nights because of him just to buy food! And now he shows up like nothing happened!”
“Ira, honey, calm down,” Elena said softly.
“No, Mom! Let him hear the truth!” the girl sobbed. “You think we forgot your tears?”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Konstantin appeared—a twelve-year-old boy who looked a lot like his mother.
“What’s with the yelling?” he asked, but when he saw Viktor, his face went hard. “I see. Daddy’s back again.”
“Kostya, don’t be rude,” his mother asked.
“What’s rude about it?” the boy replied coldly. “He is our dad. A periodic dad. Once every few years.”
“Kids, that’s enough,” Elena said firmly.
“No, Mom!” Konstantin shouted. “Let him know what we think of him! You think we forgot how you left? How you promised you’d never abandon us and then you disappeared!”
“We’re doing perfectly fine without him!” Irina added through tears. “Why did he even show up?”
“Just shut up, both of you!” Viktor exploded. “I’m your father! I have the right to see my children!”
“Right?” Konstantin laughed bitterly. “Where was this ‘right’ when Mom was in the hospital? Where was your right when she had no money for medicine? You’re a bastard!”
“Mom was sick?” Viktor faltered.
“That didn’t concern you back then,” the boy cut him off sharply. “You were busy finding yourself in other women’s arms.”
“Kostya!” Elena tried to stop him.
“What, ‘Kostya’?” the boy was shaking with rage. “Let him know that we hate him! Hear that? We HATE you! You freak! SCUM!”
There was no stopping them now. Irina was sobbing in anger, Konstantin’s fists were clenched.
“That’s your parental love,” Elena said to Viktor. “See how happy the kids are to see you? What a warm welcome for a loving father?”
“They’re turned against me!” Viktor shouted. “You’ve poisoned them!”
“I didn’t have to poison them,” Elena replied coldly. “They remember everything just fine on their own. Now get out of my house. For good.”
“Lena, wait!” Viktor begged. “I’ve changed! Give me a chance!”
“A chance?” Elena smirked. “Darling, you’ve already used up all your chances. Just like your money, by the way. Thanks for the generosity.”
Humiliated and drained, Viktor walked out of the apartment in silence. The children hated him, his ex-wife treated him like an annoying freeloader looking for a bed for the night, and he didn’t have a single ruble left to his name.
As soon as the door closed behind Viktor, Irina instantly stopped crying and smiled slyly:
“Mom, how did I do? I’m a good actress, right?”
At first Elena was taken aback, then burst out laughing. Konstantin, seeing his mother and sister laugh, relaxed as well and started chuckling.
“Ira, you were amazing,” Elena said, hugging her daughter. “But don’t ever do that again. Although… it was very convincing.”
“I wasn’t acting,” Konstantin said seriously. “I really do hate him.”
“Kostenka,” his mother said gently, “hatred is too heavy a burden for your heart. It’s better just to forget.”
“Mom, can we buy a cake today?” Irina asked sweetly. “We’ve got money now, after all!”
“And pizza!” Konstantin chimed in. “And cola! And ice cream!”
“And new books!” Irina added. “I want the whole Harry Potter series!”
“And a game for the console!” her brother didn’t lag behind.
Elena looked at her clever children and laughed. They had grown up smart and strong in spite of everything. Or maybe precisely because of everything.
“All right,” she agreed. “Today we’ll have a celebration. But the rest of the money goes into savings for your education.”
“Mom, he won’t come back again, will he?” Konstantin asked seriously.
“I don’t think so,” Elena replied. “This lesson turned out quite expensive.”
“Nine hundred thousand for a lesson—that’s awesome,” Irina said in awe. “The most expensive lesson of his life!”
“And the most useful,” Elena added. “For us.”
Meanwhile, Viktor was wandering down the street, cursing everyone and everything. He had no apartment—he was renting a room from strangers. No car either—he took public transport. Nine hundred thousand rubles—his entire savings and borrowed money—were now in Elena’s hands. In return, he had received only humiliation and the hatred of his own children.
“Damn that Elena,” he thought as he climbed into a crowded bus. “She played me like the last idiot. Damn Valentina and Margarita for kicking me out. And that bastard Mikhail, who’s probably already warming my old spot in her bed.”
His phone rang. It was the bank loan manager.
“Viktor Anatolyevich? Good afternoon. We’re calling to remind you about the monthly loan payment. The amount due is forty-two thousand rubles.”
“To hell with all of you!” Viktor barked and hung up.
Immediately a text came in from another bank. Then another. The loans demanded their due. And there was no money at all.
“What am I going to do?” Viktor panicked. “Maybe I should go to my mother’s? She can’t refuse her own son.”
Then he remembered that six months earlier he had borrowed fifty thousand from his mother “for urgent needs” and still hadn’t paid her back. The old woman was unlikely to be happy to see him.
Mikhail heard about Viktor’s visit from Elena’s neighbor—the women in the building loved to gossip about the ex-husband of the beauty from the fifth floor. He couldn’t stand it and called.
“Lena, is it true? He came again?” there was hurt in his voice.
“It’s true,” Elena answered calmly. “But you can stop worrying. I kicked him out. For good.”
Mikhail fell silent. Elena waited, but he couldn’t find the words.
“Misha, did you want to say something?” she asked gently.
“I… I thought you’d go back to him again,” he admitted. “Like last time. And then you’d suffer again when he left.”
“I won’t go back. I’m no longer that naive girl who believed in fairytales about great love.”
“So there’s a chance… for us?” Mikhail asked hesitantly.
Elena stayed silent for a long time. He had been waiting for her for ten years. Ten years by her side when things were hard. He never demanded, never reproached, never pushed.
“Misha, you’re a wonderful man. But I don’t want you to waste your life waiting. Find a woman who will love you right away, without looking back at the past.”
“But I love you,” he whispered.
“And I don’t know how to love anymore,” Elena answered honestly. “Viktor killed my ability to trust men. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
After that conversation, Mikhail disappeared. He didn’t call, didn’t come by, didn’t even congratulate Konstantin on his birthday. Elena realized she had lost a friend, but there was nothing she could change.
Two years passed. Elena got promoted and now headed a department in a consulting firm. Konstantin was studying and seriously into programming. Irina had taken up photography and dreamed of entering an art university.
One day at a shopping mall, Elena ran into Mikhail by chance. He was with a young woman and a small child.
“Lena!” he said happily. “What a coincidence! This is Anna, my wife. And this is our son Artyom.”
Anna turned out to be a sweet and open young woman, and the little boy was his father’s spitting image.
“Very nice to meet you,” Elena smiled. “Misha has told me so much about you.”
“Thank you for not letting him waste his life,” Anna responded, without a hint of jealousy.
After they left, Elena stood for a long time in the middle of the shopping center, realizing she had made the right choice. Mikhail had found his happiness, and she hadn’t ruined someone else’s life with false hopes.
That evening at home, watching her children doing their homework, Elena knew: her life had turned out exactly the way it was supposed to. Without someone else’s pain, without compromises, without sacrifices. Simply and honestly
