“Darling, by the way, your wife’s back. Did you tell her I live here now? Though I suppose it’s fine — she can crash in the kid’s room until the divorce…”
The sharp, self-assured voice drifted in from the kitchen at the exact moment Lera, frozen in the entryway, was trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Three months in Singapore on a work assignment, endless flights, sleepless nights buried in contracts — and now she was finally home. Or rather, standing in the apartment she had still considered hers that very morning.
The white slippers embroidered with To My One and Only, the ones her husband had given her last March 8, were now on someone else’s feet.
At the kitchen counter stood a polished brunette wearing Lera’s silk robe, calmly sipping coffee from her favorite mug.
“Who… are you?” Lera managed to ask, feeling her travel bag slip from her hand.
“Nika. Your husband’s future wife,” the stranger replied evenly. “And you must be Valeria Sergeyevna. I’ve heard all about you. Andrei said you wouldn’t be back for another couple of weeks.”
At that moment Andrei stepped out of the kitchen — rumpled, pale, a mug still in his hand.
“Lera, I was going to call you, explain everything…”
She raised her hand sharply, stopping him mid-sentence.
“How long?” she asked in an icy voice.
“What do you mean?” he said, confused.
“How much time do you need to pack your things and get out of my apartment?”
Two hours later, the locks had been changed, and security had strict instructions not to let Andrei through under any circumstances.
Lera moved through the rooms with methodical precision, erasing every trace of the other woman’s presence: long dark hairs on the pillow, bright jars in the bathroom, unfamiliar groceries in the refrigerator — all of it went straight into the trash.
Only Katya’s room remained untouched, a quiet island of the past. Photos of their daughter, an old teddy bear, books still spread across the desk.
Lera sat down on the bed and dialed her number.
“Hi, sweetheart. Yes, I’m home already… No, everything’s fine. I just missed you so much. How’s school?”
Katya happily chatted about her life in London. Lera listened in silence, unable to bring herself to shatter that bright, untouched world with news of betrayal.
“By the way, have you seen Dad? I haven’t been able to reach him for three days,” Katya asked.
“He has a new number. I’ll send it to you later,” Lera lied, mentally adding: and block his access to the accounts.
The first week disappeared into work. Lera came home late at night, collapsed into bed, and fell asleep instantly — anything to avoid thinking.
Andrei called. She never answered. He sent flowers. She sent them back.
One day he caught up with her outside her office.
“Lera, give me five minutes! Just five!” he pleaded, hurrying after her.
She stopped abruptly.
“Explain what? That while I was out there earning our future, you brought some girl into our home? What exactly is there to explain?”
“I’m an idiot, I know that! But it didn’t mean anything! It was a mistake!”
“The problem, Andrei, is that you really are an idiot — and you don’t even realize how pathetic that sounds. And tell your Nika this: the slippers and robe she liked so much are already in the trash.”
During the third week, Katya called.
“Mom, what’s going on? Dad calls me every day saying you won’t speak to him. He’s crying…”
Lera let out a heavy breath.
“We separated, sweetheart. There’s someone else.”
Silence filled the line.
“And you just threw him out? Without even trying to talk?”
“What was there to talk about?” Lera said with a bitter laugh. “It’s all painfully ordinary — a midlife crisis, a younger woman…”
“Mom,” Katya cut in, “you were together for twenty years. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“You’re still too young to—”
“To understand?” Katya snapped. “I’m not a child anymore. And I saw that the two of you had been living like roommates for a long time. I kept hoping that after I left, you’d finally find your way back to each other.”
Lera wanted to protest, but she couldn’t. Her daughter had hit the truth dead on.
A few days later, Katya flew home unexpectedly.
“I have a week before my next set of lectures. We need to talk in person,” she said, hugging her mother.
They were sitting in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Lera opened it — and stopped cold.
Andrei stood there holding a bouquet of her favorite lilies.
“Katya told me she was here…” he began.
“I invited him,” Katya said calmly. “The three of us need to talk.”
“In my apartment?” Lera said sharply.
“Mom, either we deal with this together, or I fly back today.”
The conversation was brutal. Andrei admitted everything: the affair with an intern, the loneliness, the mistake that had spiraled far beyond what he ever intended.
“She gave me an ultimatum… I wanted to end it before you came back…”
“How exactly?” Lera said with a dry laugh. “By introducing her to Katya as your new wife?”
Katya listened quietly, then asked, “Mom, why did you come home early?”
Lera froze.
“I… missed you…”
“Tell the truth.”
“I felt that something was wrong,” she admitted softly. “I was afraid of losing both of you.”
By evening, they parted ways. Andrei left and rented a place nearby — alone, with neither wife nor mistress.
“You know what hurts the most?” Lera said to her daughter. “I don’t hate him… I hate those slippers.”
“They’re a symbol,” Katya said with a nod. “Of your place being taken.”
“When did you grow up so much?” Lera asked with a sad smile.
“When my parents stopped being a team.”
A month passed. Lera agreed to meet Andrei in the park.
“I’m not asking you to take me back right away,” he said. “Just give me a chance to prove I’ve changed.”
“And if I can’t forget?”
“Then I’ll spend the rest of my life walking barefoot,” he said, trying to joke.
Lera smiled despite herself.
Six months later, Katya came home for the holidays and, the moment she opened the door, heard laughter.
In the kitchen, Lera and Andrei were cooking dinner together, teasing each other the way they used to.
On his feet were a brand-new pair of slippers with the words Version 2.0 stitched across them.
“With heating,” Lera said with a smirk when she noticed her daughter staring. “Just in case he ever feels like looking for warmth somewhere else again.”
Katya burst out laughing. And in that moment, she knew for sure: their family had finally learned how to fight for its happiness.
