Svetа’s new perfume hit me in the nose the moment I walked in—sharp, cloying, the smell of a winner.
“Katya, my God, I’m so happy!” Sveta, my best friend, squeezed me in a hug.
Her movements were quick, predatory. The fussiness I used to mistake for hospitality now looked different.
“Come in—just a second… I’ll go to the kitchen, make us… something stronger?”
She giggled and slipped into the hallway, leaving me alone in the room.
That was when I heard it.
A quiet, strangled moan.
It was coming from the massive wardrobe—the old “Stalin-era” armoire Sveta adored.
I froze. Plumbing? Street noise?
No. The sound was too… alive. Irritated.
I walked up to the wardrobe. The brass handle was warm.
My heart didn’t pound—it simply stopped.
I yanked the door open.
Blinking up at me was my husband.
Andrey.
He was crouched between Sveta’s dresses, cramped, wearing only one sock. His shirt was stuck to his back. He wasn’t “at an urgent meeting.”
He was here.
The air inside the wardrobe was thick—sweat, dust, and that same sickly-sweet Sveta perfume.
“Katya,” he breathed.
And there was no fear in his voice, no guilt—only annoyance. As if I’d caught him sneaking candy before lunch, not hiding in my best friend’s closet.
I just stared at him. Twelve years of marriage. Our son Yegor, who was at his grandmother’s right now.
Sveta burst in with a tray. Saw me. Saw the open wardrobe. Saw Andrey awkwardly trying to climb out.
The tray with the cups flew to the floor.
“Oh,” she said stupidly. But her eyes were laughing.
Andrey climbed out. Finally found his second sock and started pulling it on. That ordinary little gesture looked monstrous.
“Katya, we needed to tell you,” he began, tugging his shirt straight. “The pragmatist.” My “pragmatist” husband.
“Tell me… what?” My voice didn’t sound like mine—creaky, чужой. “That you have meetings in a wardrobe?”
Sveta suddenly laughed—this time loudly.
“Katya, what are you, a child? Well, yes.”
She stepped closer and fixed Andrey’s collar. Like… like a wife. Not just like a wife—like the owner of him.
“How long?” I asked, staring at her hand on his shoulder.
“How long is ‘how long’?” Andrey frowned, as if I’d asked something inappropriate.
“How long have you—”
“Longer than you, sweetheart,” Sveta cut in. Her fussiness evaporated. A lazy, full, satisfied look took its place.
“I knew him before you ever showed up.”
“Showed up.” Me.
“We were together. In college. Then you appeared—so proper, so convenient. You were perfect for the role of… incubator.”
Andrey said nothing. He just looked at the floor while putting on his shoes.
“All twelve years?” I looked only at my husband. “All twelve, Andrey?”
“It’s complicated, Katya,” he finally lifted his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“And he never really left,” Sveta added, clearly savoring it. “He was always mine. All twelve years of your ‘happy’ marriage were a lie.”
She walked up to him and kissed him—on the cheek. Possessive.
“We just didn’t want to traumatize you.”
“Especially your wallet,” she added in a whisper—loud enough for me to hear.
That “we” made my jaw lock.
“Leave,” I told Andrey.
“Katya, let’s talk at home—”
“Leave.”
“Katya, where am I supposed to—”
Sveta interrupted:
“Andryusha, either you tell her about the dacha right now, or I will.”
Andrey went pale.
“Don’t butt in.”
“What dacha?” I didn’t recognize my own voice.
“Oh, that one,” Sveta smiled. “The one you ‘bought together.’ With ‘your’ shared money. Only the money wasn’t exactly yours. And you didn’t exactly buy it ‘together.’”
I stared at my husband. He stayed silent.
I picked up my purse.
“Was it… comfortable for him in there?” I nodded toward the wardrobe. “He was moaning.”
“He’s always comfortable with me,” Sveta snapped. “And he was moaning from impatience. Waiting for you to leave. And then you showed up.”
I turned to the door.
“He was cramped,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
I walked out. And only on the staircase did I realize I wasn’t even crying.
The damp November air sliced across my face.
I walked without seeing the road. The streetlights blurred into muddy yellow smears.
Sveta’s perfume felt like it had soaked under my skin. I rubbed my wrists, but the nauseating sweetness stayed.
The dacha.
My thoughts stuck to that word like glue.
The dacha we’d been saving for three years. The one I, idiot that I was, poured money into—the money left from selling my grandmother’s apartment.
“Katya, it’ll be more pragmatic,” he’d said. “We’ll put everything into one place—our big shared home.”
“Katya, it’s an investment. Your pre-marriage money is just lying there dead—this way it’ll work.”
I believed him. I was “convenient.”
“The money wasn’t exactly yours.”
I reached our apartment. “Ours.”
My hand with the key shook, but I got it into the lock.
The entryway. His boots, my shoes. A photo of Yegor on the wall.
I went into the living room. Sat on the sofa.
Everything around me felt чужое—like fake stage scenery.
The desk drawer. All the documents were there.
I opened it.
A folder: “DACHA.”
I pulled out the purchase agreement.
Read it slowly, syllable by syllable.
“Buyers: Petrov Andrey Sergeyevich and… Smirnova Svetlana Igorevna.”
Smirnova. Sveta’s last name.
They bought it together. As co-owners.
And me… where was I?
I remembered.
“Katya, don’t come with me, it’s all mud and paperwork. I’ll handle it. You trust me, right?”
I did.
I started frantically digging through the drawer. Bank statements. There it was.
A transfer— a large sum—from my account to his account. A week before the dacha purchase.
An amount equal to half the house price.
I closed my eyes.
The front door slammed.
Andrey walked into the entryway.
He saw me on the sofa. Saw the folder and statements in my hands.
There was no remorse on his face. Only fatigue and irritation.
“Well, there you go—you already know everything,” he tossed his keys onto the shelf. “Made it easier.”
“Easier?”
“Katya, no hysterics. Let’s sit down like adults.”
He sat across from me in the armchair. He didn’t look guilty. He looked like a manager at a meeting that had dragged on too long.
“I wasn’t going to lie to you forever.”
“Only for twelve years,” I breathed out.
“It wasn’t like that!” he snapped. “Sveta and I—we have history. Real history. And you… you were правильная. You fit the role of wife.”
“The role…”
“You don’t scream. You always understand everything. You’re convenient.”
He repeated her word. “Convenient.”
“And Sveta isn’t. She’s… alive.”
“And you decided it would be convenient for both of you to live off my money?” I nodded at the contract. “My grandmother’s money. Mine.”
Andrey winced.
“That’s exactly what I didn’t want to talk about. Katya, this is business.”
“What?”
“The money wasn’t ‘yours.’ It was ‘ours.’ Family money. I took it from the family and invested it in real estate.”
“In YOUR real estate!”
“It was an investment. Sveta put in her share, I put in mine. The fact that your share ended up in my part—that’s just… a formality.”
He looked at me like I didn’t understand the simplest thing.
“So, in your mind,” I said slowly, “you took my personal, pre-marriage money and bought a house with your mistress—who also happens to be my best friend.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds грубо,” he frowned. “It was just expense optimization.”
Optimization. Expenses.
“And the wardrobe—was that optimization too?”
“That was stupid,” he waved it off. “She didn’t expect you to come. She panicked. I couldn’t just greet you like that.”
He talked about my showing up like it was an annoying interruption.
“What now, Andrey?”
“What do you mean what?” he truly didn’t understand. “Nothing. You’ll stay here. I’ll… I’ll stay with Sveta for now.”
“For now.”
“And Yegor?”
“What about Yegor? Yegor will stay with you. It’s logical. He needs a mother.”
He stood up.
“I need to pack a few things.”
He went into the bedroom.
I heard him opening our wardrobe. Not the one he’d been moaning in.
He tossed clothes into a bag.
I stared at the contract: Petrov and Smirnova.
“Expense optimization.”
Two hours might have passed. I sat without moving.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A message from Andrey:
“Yegor called, he’s looking for you. Call him back. And don’t forget to water the ficus tomorrow. I left my work boots in the storage closet, don’t throw them out.”
I stared at the screen.
Not “How are you?” Not “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t forget to water the ficus.”
He left to another woman, but his routine, his son, his boots, his ficus—all stayed with me. For servicing.
Because I’m “reasonable.” Because it’s “logical.”
Something inside me didn’t just go cold. It burned out.
I stood up.
I looked at the contract. “Petrov and Smirnova.”
“Expense optimization.”
I grabbed my car keys.
I’d never been to that dacha. Andrey always “protected” me from construction and dirt.
“I’ll handle it, Katyusha, it’s not a woman’s job.”
But I knew the address. It was in the contract.
Forty minutes down the night highway. Rain started to spit.
A settlement. Dark houses.
There it was. A tall fence. The house I’d only seen in photos on Andrey’s phone.
I got out of the car.
The gate was locked.
But I knew Sveta. I’d been her best friend for fifteen years. I knew she kept a spare key under the mailbox.
I slid my hand in. Cold metal.
I walked in.
Inside it didn’t smell like wood and newness.
It smelled like Sveta’s perfume. That same one. Sweet, invasive. Mixed with paint.
I turned on the light in the entryway.
This wasn’t a little “dacha cabin.”
This was a full, lived-in house. Their house.
On the kitchen counter stood an expensive coffee machine. In the living room—a huge sofa.
On a shelf—a vase. My mother’s vase. The one Andrey had “accidentally” broken when we moved three years ago.
I went upstairs.
Bedroom.
A double bed with silk bedding.
And in the corner…
In the corner stood it.
Grandma’s vanity—carved dark wood, oval mirror.
I gasped.
Two years ago Andrey told me movers had dropped it.
“Katya, it shattered. I didn’t want to upset you, I threw it out right away.”
I cried for a week. It was the only thing I had left from my grandmother.
And here it was. Whole.
He didn’t just take my money.
He systematically stole my memory. He stole what was sacred to me.
And carried it here, into their nest.
I stepped up to the vanity. Ran my hand over the carving.
Mine.
I looked at my reflection in the dusty mirror.
A woman stared back at me—someone I didn’t know.
And that woman knew exactly what to do.
I went back downstairs.
In a kitchen drawer I found what I needed.
A can of expanding foam. Andrey always bought them “for household stuff.”
I returned to the bedroom.
Stood over the bed.
And slowly, methodically, I began flooding their silk bedding with foam.
Then I went to the living room.
Their huge sofa.
Foam landed in thick, ugly yellow ropes.
The coffee machine. My mother’s vase.
The cloying perfume suddenly mixed with the harsh chemical stink of the foam.
I breathed deeply.
I wasn’t smashing. I wasn’t breaking.
I was “optimizing.”
I knew the foam would set rock-solid. That it could only be cut out—along with the silk, along with the upholstery.
It wasn’t vandalism.
It was justice.
I reached the entryway.
I still had half a can left.
The door.
I looked at the keyhole.
And filled it. From the inside.
Let pragmatic Andrey try to “optimize” his way into his new home.
I left through the back door. It wasn’t locked— the key was still in the lock from the inside.
I didn’t take anything except my phone.
Halfway home, I pulled over.
I called.
“Oleg? Hi. It’s me.”
My cousin.
“Katya? Why so late?”
“Oleg, you still have that little truck?”
“Yeah… why?”
“I need to move one mirror. It’s very heavy.”
Oleg arrived an hour later. Didn’t ask questions.
Just looked at me—pale, in the night darkness by the highway—and nodded.
“Address?”
We went back to that house.
The two of us, grunting, carried the vanity out through the back door. It was heavier than it looked.
“Valuable?” Oleg asked, strapping it down in the truck bed.
“Priceless,” I said.
We brought it to my apartment. Mine.
We set it in the living room. Oleg left, only squeezing my shoulder in goodbye.
I locked the door with every lock.
Then I called a 24/7 service.
Forty minutes later, a locksmith was changing the cylinder. Andrey wouldn’t enter here with his key again.
I sat opposite the vanity.
In its dim mirror, the room reflected back. My room.
It smelled of old wood and varnish. Not perfume.
In the morning I picked up Yegor from Grandma’s without explaining anything.
And then it began.
Around noon my phone exploded—Andrey.
I didn’t answer. He called ten times.
Then a message came. All caps.
“WHAT DID YOU DO? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”
“FOAM. THE DOOR. DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH THIS COSTS?”
I stared at the letters. He didn’t ask where I was. Didn’t ask about Yegor. He was counting damages.
“Pragmatist.”
I typed back:
“It’s just optimization of my emotional expenses. Sounds грубо, but it’s business.”
He called immediately. I put it on speaker.
“You… you…” he choked. “You ruined expensive things! The sofa! The door! Katya, you’re being unreasonable!”
“At least I’m not convenient anymore,” I said.
“And the vanity?! You stole the vanity!”
“I took back what was mine, Andrey. What you stole from me.”
“It was… shared!”
“No. It was mine. Just like the money you used to buy that sofa.”
He went silent, searching for words.
“We’ll talk when you stop being hysterical.”
“We won’t talk anymore, Andrey. Throw your keys away. They won’t work.”
I hung up.
A minute later Sveta called.
Her voice was high, shrill.
“You’ll regret this! You gray little mouse—who do you think you are?!”
“I can, Sveta.”
“I— we—”
“What ‘we’? You two can scrape the foam off together.”
She hissed.
“You were jealous of me! All your life!”
“No, Sveta. You wanted what was mine. You wanted it so badly you didn’t notice—you didn’t win a prize. You got what was hiding in the wardrobe.”
I hung up again. And blocked both numbers.
I went to the window and flung it open.
Cold, clean November air flooded the room, sweeping out the last notes of that sickly perfume.
“Mom?”
Yegor stood in the doorway.
“What a beautiful mirror. Where’s it from?”
I hugged him.
“It’s ours, son. The real one. Grandma’s.”
I looked at our reflection—just the two of us.
There was a lot ahead: explanations with my son, dividing the apartment.
But I knew one thing. I would never again be the “reasonable” woman they wanted.
I’d be real.
Two days later Andrey waited for me by the entrance. He couldn’t get inside.
He looked awful—yellowish, hollowed out.
“Katya,” he grabbed my sleeve. “What do you want?”
“Me? Nothing, Andrey. I want you to go away.”
“You don’t understand!” he hissed. “You ruined us… you ruined everything!”
“You ruined it yourself when you climbed into that wardrobe,” I said, trying to pull free.
“He— she—” he stumbled. “Sveta—she’s furious. Do you realize what you dragged me into? I have to fix all of this now!”
I stopped.
“Sorry—what?”
“That house… the foam… You think it’s a joke? It’s money!”
“And?”
“And I don’t have it!” he blurted. “It’s all invested! Katya, be—”
“Reasonable?” I finished for him.
He nodded, missing the irony.
“Katya, listen.” He switched to a business tone. “You understand this apartment is shared. Just like the dacha.”
“The dacha was bought with my pre-marriage money, Andrey. That’s fraud.”
He jerked back.
“You—”
“I won’t go to court,” I said. “I don’t need courts. I need you to disappear.”
“What are you offering?” He immediately tensed.
“I’m offering a ‘pragmatic’ exchange.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “You sign a notary document renouncing your share of this apartment—in Yegor’s favor. And I… I ‘forget’ about my money that went into your dacha.”
“But this apartment is worth more!”
“My freedom and my vanity are priceless. You get your ‘alive’ Sveta and your house full of foam. I get peace.”
He calculated. I could see numbers running behind his eyes.
“You’re ‘optimizing expenses,’ Andrey. Think about it.”
I yanked my hand away and went into the building.
The next day he called and agreed.
We met at the notary. He signed without looking at me. Sveta waited in the car—her angry, narrowed gaze visible through the glass.
When it was over, I came home.
I won.
I sat in the living room opposite the vanity. It shone—I’d cleaned it.
I traced the carved edge with my fingers.
My finger caught on a tiny, almost invisible knot in the wood. It gave slightly.
I pressed.
Something clicked softly.
On the side, in the ornamentation, a tiny hidden door opened—one I’d never noticed in my life.
Inside, on velvet lining, lay an old leather notebook.
I pulled it out. It wasn’t my grandmother’s diary.
I opened it.
The handwriting was sharp, angular.
I recognized it.
It was Sveta’s.
She must have hidden it at my place when she used to visit Grandma’s in her youth—back when we were inseparable, and she knew about the hiding place I didn’t even suspect.
I flipped through and found an entry dated thirteen years ago. A year before I met Andrey.
“…Katya is the perfect option. Soft, believes in ‘reasonableness,’ and she’ll probably inherit soon (the old woman could go any day…). Andrey is an idiot. He’ll bite if I push him right. Let him ‘work on’ her. She’ll be a convenient cover. And he and I… we’ll just be ‘friends.’”
I kept turning pages.
“…Today that fool Andrey said he’s ‘falling in love’ with Katya. Had to make a scene. Reminded him who’s in charge. He thinks he’s the ‘pragmatist.’ Funny.”
“…Wedding. What a circus. Katya is glowing. Andrey looks at me. He’s mine. Just temporarily on lease. And soon the money will be ours…”
I sat without moving.
The vanity I’d saved as a symbol of my memory…
Had been a stash for her betrayal.
Now I understood why they needed it. Andrey didn’t steal it out of sentiment. He stole it because Sveta ordered him to. She wanted her dirt back. She wanted the diary she’d foolishly left behind in her youth.
But she didn’t make it in time.
I looked at the last entry in the notebook.
“He thinks it’s his plan. Idiot.”
I closed the diary. My hands didn’t shake.
I took my phone, unblocked Sveta’s number, and called her.
She picked up instantly, as if she’d been waiting.
“What do you want now, Katya? Decided to finish me off?”
“I found your diary,” I said evenly.
On the other end, heavy, sticky silence.
“What?” she whispered.
“I know everything. About the ‘incubator,’ the ‘cover,’ the ‘lease.’”
“You’re lying…” But terror was already in her voice.
“‘Katya is the perfect option… she’ll inherit soon…’” I began reading aloud.
“Shut up!” she screamed. “What do you want?! Money?”
“Me?” I smirked. “Nothing. Not anymore. You were the one who needed my vanity. You were so afraid I’d find this.”
“Give it back. Give it back, Katya!”
“Why? So you can keep thinking you’re the smartest? The puppet master?”
“You can’t prove anything! It’s just words!”
“I don’t need to prove anything,” I said, standing and walking to the kitchen. “I just wanted you to know. You spent thirteen years building a plan. You got your idiot husband—your own words. You got a house filled with expanding foam. You got debt.”
I turned on the gas burner.
“You got everything you deserve.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, hearing the hiss of gas.
“I’m ‘optimizing expenses,’ Sveta. Emotional ones.”
I held the leather cover to the flame.
“Don’t you dare!” she shrieked into the phone. “Katya!”
The fire grabbed greedily at the yellowed pages.
“You know, Sveta,” I said, watching her words curl in the heat, “you calculated everything. Except one thing.”
“What?!”
“That ‘reasonable’ and ‘convenient’ are not the same.”
I dropped the burning notebook into the sink.
“Goodbye, friend.”
I hung up and blocked her number—this time for good.
The room smelled of smoke. I opened the window.
I looked at the vanity. Now it was just a mirror. A beautiful old mirror.
The ghosts were gone.
Yegor walked in.
“Mom, what smells?”
“The past, son,” I said, hugging him. “It’s burned out
