“Sergey, don’t even try pretending you were stuck in traffic again. Your collar smells like another woman’s perfume,” Galina said, slowly closing the front door behind her husband.
Sergey froze in the hallway, a shopping bag in his hand. It was transparent, with a loaf of bread, a pack of buckwheat, and a few apples inside — things he had clearly bought at the nearest store just to make his story look believable. His face instantly took on that familiar expression he always wore when he was about to start lying: his eyes widened slightly, his shoulders stiffened, and his chin lifted stubbornly.
“Galya, here we go again… I was on the bus. Someone could have been standing next to me.”
“You left this morning in the car.”
He blinked. Quickly. Twice. Then he coughed, as if the words had gotten stuck somewhere between his throat and his conscience.
“I left the car at the service center.”
“Which service center?”
“What difference does it make? Are you going to check every trip I take now?”
Galina looked away from him and glanced at the bag. The apples had rolled to one side, and the bread was crushed. Her husband was holding that purchase like proof of his decency, but the proof looked pathetic.
“No, Sergey. I’m not going to check you. I already have.”
His head jerked.
“What did you check?”
“You.”
In the kitchen, the old refrigerator began to hum, and that ordinary household sound suddenly made the silence between them even more unpleasant. Sergey stepped inside and put the bag on the small cabinet near the entrance, even though he usually complained whenever Galina left her purse there. Right now, order was the last thing on his mind.
“Your imagination again?” he said, trying to smirk, but the smile came out crooked. “You invent things in your head and then walk around with that face.”
Galina did not answer immediately. She calmly unclasped the bracelet on her wrist, placed it on the shelf beside the mirror, and only then turned back to him.
“With what face?”
“That one. Like I’m a criminal.”
“Criminal is too strong a word. For now, you’re just a husband who lies badly.”
Sergey threw his jacket onto the ottoman, went into the room, came back, then walked away again. He always started pacing when he couldn’t quickly come up with a convenient version of events. It used to annoy Galina. Later, it amused her. Now it only confirmed one thing: everything she had suspected was true.
She had not noticed the changes right away. First, Sergey started guarding his phone. Not just carrying it with him, but practically dragging it from room to room. Before, he could leave it on the kitchen counter, in the bathroom, or near the sofa. Now he even took it with him when he went out to throw away the trash.
Then came new habits. Suddenly, he began ironing his own shirts, although he had previously treated the iron like complicated machinery. He bought himself a cologne Galina had not chosen. He started coming home late and giving the same answers every evening: “The meeting ran long,” “I was helping the guys,” “I stopped by somewhere on business.”
At first, Galina did not make a scene. She was forty-six, and after twenty years of marriage, she already knew that shouting often helped the guilty person hide behind someone else’s emotions. If you start yelling, he immediately becomes offended, exhausted, misunderstood. But if you stay silent and watch carefully, a person begins to fall apart on his own.
Sergey fell apart in small ways, but constantly.
One day, he called Galina “Lida.” He simply turned to her in the kitchen and said:
“Lida, where did you put the salt?”
Then he froze.
Galina was holding a knife and slicing a cucumber. Her hand stopped above the cutting board. Slowly, she raised her eyes.
“Who am I?”
“What?”
“What did you just call me?”
“I didn’t call you anything. You misheard.”
“I misheard you calling me Lida?”
Sergey got angry immediately. Too quickly, too deliberately.
“Galya, enough! I’ve been on my feet all day. My tongue slipped. What is this now, an interrogation?”
She only nodded then and continued slicing the cucumber. But she remembered the name.
Lida.
A week later, Galina found out that in the purchasing department, where Sergey often went for work, there really was a woman named Lydia. Not a young girl, not some random online acquaintance, but an adult divorced woman with short hair, a confident gaze, and a habit of speaking as if everyone around her had already agreed to her terms.
Galina saw her for the first time near a shopping center. Not on purpose. She had simply gone to buy herself a coat and noticed Sergey near the entrance. He was standing next to that woman, holding her shopping bag and laughing. Laughing so broadly that Galina even stopped by the glass door.
He had not laughed like that at home for a long time.
Lydia was telling him something, waving her hand. Sergey leaned closer to her. Then she adjusted his collar — calmly, possessively, as if she had the right to do it. Galina watched them from behind an advertising stand and suddenly caught herself thinking something strange: she did not want to run over, slap him, or cause a public scandal. She wanted to understand how far it had gone and how foolishly Sergey was going to behave.
Because Sergey had always had a special relationship with foolishness.
He knew how to look like a reliable man. Broad shoulders, a calm voice, the habit of saying, “I’ll handle it.” In the first years of marriage, Galina had truly believed he would handle things. Then it turned out he only liked handling things in words. Whenever a real problem appeared, Sergey immediately started looking for someone who would lend him a shoulder, a wallet, time, an apartment, or nerves.
His first serious debt had appeared even before their marriage. Back then, he said he had been helping his ex-wife and daughter. Galina believed him because she respected men who did not abandon their children. Sergey had a daughter from his first marriage, Kira. The girl lived with her mother in another city. Sergey paid child support by court order, sometimes visited her, sometimes forgot to call, then justified it by saying he was busy.
Galina did not interfere. Kira was not her own child, but a child was a child. Child support was a responsibility, not an achievement. More than once, Galina had told Sergey:
“This is not something to complain about. You’re her father.”
He agreed, nodded, and then a month later sighed over the payment papers as if the entire court system had personally wronged him.
He took out the car loan after they were already married. The car was registered in his name, and he was the one who mostly drove it, but he insisted it was “for the family.” Galina did not argue then. It was convenient for her too, sometimes, to go out of town or bring home heavy groceries. But over time, Sergey began taking more loans: for car repairs, for some tools, to help a friend who promised to pay him back quickly and disappeared from his life as easily as he had entered it.
Galina never took those loans in her own name. Not once. After what had happened to her cousin, whose ex-husband had left her with someone else’s financial promises, Galina had become cautious to the point of being boring. She read every serious document, signed nothing “based on trust,” and never gave anyone access to her accounts. Sergey got angry.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I trust documents. And my memory.”
“Normal families don’t live like this.”
“Normal families don’t ask someone to sign unclear papers in the kitchen at ten at night.”
Then he slammed cabinet doors, acted offended, and went to smoke on the stairwell. Later, he came back and said Galina made everything complicated. She did not argue. Sometimes making things complicated is useful, especially when you live next to someone who loves simple schemes at someone else’s expense.
The apartment they lived in belonged to Galina. Her aunt had left it to her, and Galina had completed the inheritance papers long before Sergey began calling that home “our nest.” She entered into her inheritance after the required six months, collected all the documents, and registered the property. Sergey moved in after the wedding. She did not register him there because he was officially registered at his mother’s place in the region, and he himself had said he did not want to change anything.
For the first few years, everything was calm. Sergey was attentive, brought groceries, picked Galina up from work, and could fix a faucet without being reminded. She worked as a dispatcher at a logistics company. The schedule was stressful, but she liked keeping routes, deadlines, and people in her head. At home, she wanted silence, cleanliness, and the confidence that no one would try to arrange life behind her back.
But over time, Sergey increasingly began treating the apartment as a reserve resource.
“Galya, what if we mortgaged it for a while?” he once asked lightly, as if he were suggesting they buy a new frying pan.
She looked up from her laptop.
“Do what?”
“Well, not the whole thing, of course. Just as collateral. I checked — we could close the old loans on good terms.”
Galina carefully shut her laptop.
“My apartment as collateral for your loans?”
“Not mine. Ours. I live in this family too.”
“The car loan is yours. The bank debt for the tools is yours. The loan you took for your friend is also yours. Where is the ‘ours’ here?”
Sergey’s face flushed in blotches.
“How convenient for you. Did you use the car? You did. So the responsibility is shared too.”
“I ride the bus too. Should I buy out the city’s entire transport fleet now?”
He went to sleep in another room and spoke to her in short phrases for two days. Galina did not run after him with apologies. On the third day, he softened on his own, brought her coffee, and said he had overreacted. She accepted the coffee, but remembered the conversation.
And now Lydia had appeared.
At first, Galina thought Sergey had simply gotten carried away. Men like him often enjoy being looked at as a prize, not as a debtor with a habit of forgetting promises. Lydia, apparently, looked at him exactly that way. There was confidence in her eyes, the confidence of a woman who had decided: this man suits me, and everything unnecessary around him can be gently pushed aside.
Galina did not consider herself unnecessary.
She had lived with Sergey for twenty years. Not because she was afraid of loneliness. Not because she could not manage without him. It was just that when you live next to someone for a long time, you get used to his footsteps, his morning cough, his favorite mug, his irritating habits. Habit sometimes disguises itself as love so skillfully that you do not immediately understand where one ended and the other began.
After the encounter at the shopping center, Galina began watching more carefully. Sergey started going out “on business” more often after dinner. Once, he came home with a new scarf.
“Where did this come from?”
“I bought it myself.”
“You?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Galina took the scarf between two fingers and looked at the tag.
“For twenty years, you’ve bought yourself socks only after three reminders. And now you picked out a wet-asphalt-colored scarf all by yourself?”
“It’s a normal color.”
“It is. Just not yours.”
Sergey snatched the scarf away and threw it onto an armchair.
“You’re starting again.”
“I haven’t even started yet.”
And that was true.
She began a few days later, when she went to the bank to clarify something about her deposit and accidentally heard a familiar name in a conversation between an employee and another woman. Lydia was standing in the branch. That same Lydia. She was speaking loudly, not embarrassed by the line:
“I need to understand — if a man has active obligations, does that affect getting a new loan after divorce? No, I’m not taking it in my name. He’s just in the process of resolving family matters.”
Galina stood at the ticket machine and looked at the screen, although she had long since selected the correct service. Lydia did not see her. The bank employee answered cautiously, in general phrases, without naming details. But Galina heard enough.
After divorce.
So Sergey had already promised something.
That evening, she met her husband calmly. She did not ask him directly at first. She cooked dinner, placed the cutlery beside the plates, and took out napkins. Sergey ate quickly, barely raising his eyes.
“Have you been discussing divorce with someone?” she asked when he reached for the bread.
Sergey’s hand froze above the plate.
“What?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Where did you get that from?”
“That’s not an answer.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Galya, we’re adults. Things between us haven’t been the same for a long time.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“You and me.”
“And I thought there were already three of us in this conversation.”
Sergey clenched his jaw. His face showed clearly: she had hit the mark.
“Are you following me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. You leave traces like a child eating jam with his hands.”
“I’m tired,” he snapped. “Tired of your control, your checks, this constant superiority of yours.”
Galina tilted her head slightly and looked at him carefully.
“My superiority — is that when I didn’t let you mortgage my apartment?”
“There! Again, your apartment! Everything is yours! Even the air here feels like it belongs to you!”
“The air is shared. The apartment is mine.”
“I’ve lived here for twenty years!”
“Lived. You didn’t buy it. You didn’t inherit it. You weren’t given it as a gift. You lived here.”
Sergey jumped up from the table so sharply that the chair hit the edge of the cabinet. Galina did not move. She watched his face become heavy, angry, almost unfamiliar.
“You always knew how to humiliate me,” he threw at her.
“No, Sergey. I always knew how to count. You just don’t like the difference.”
He went into the room and turned the television on loudly. Galina cleared the table, washed the plates, and packed the food into containers. Then she sat down at her laptop and began gathering documents.
Not for revenge. For order.
She collected everything: the inheritance certificate, the apartment extract, ownership documents, old messages from Sergey in which he confirmed that he had taken the loans himself, papers related to his debts that had arrived at the address because he listed it as his place of residence. Separately, she found a copy of the court decision on child support for Kira, which Sergey had once left in a drawer with appliance manuals.
Galina had no intention of paying for someone else’s romance.
Two days later, Sergey announced that he needed to “live separately and think.” He said it in the morning, standing in front of the mirror and carefully fixing his hair.
“Where will you live?” Galina asked.
“With my mother, probably.”
“You haven’t visited your mother in three months.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she called me and asked why her son hadn’t come by.”
Sergey grimaced.
“Don’t drag my mother into this.”
“I’m not dragging her in. I’m just clarifying exactly where you’re going with your suitcase.”
He turned sharply.
“Are you kicking me out?”
“Not yet. You said yourself that you wanted to live separately.”
“And if I change my mind?”
“Then we’ll have a concrete conversation.”
“About divorce?”
“About the keys.”
Sergey laughed shortly and unpleasantly.
“So you’ve already decided everything?”
“I’ve decided only one thing: there will not be a man in my apartment who comes back from his mistress and demands respect for being tired.”
He raised his hand as if he wanted to say something, but instead he grabbed his jacket and left. He still had the keys. Galina looked at the closed door and, for the first time in many days, allowed herself to exhale not carefully, but deeply.
He did not come back that evening.
Nor the next day.
On the third day, he sent a message: “We need to talk without hysteria.”
Galina replied: “Come. Bring back the keys.”
He did not come.
But Lydia came. Not immediately.
First, she called. The number was unfamiliar. Galina answered because, because of work, she was used to taking calls from different numbers.
“Galina?” The voice was female, confident, slightly sweet.
“Speaking.”
“This is Lydia. I think you understand who I am.”
Galina looked at the clock. It was just after eight in the evening. Outside, a wet road hissed as car headlights cut through puddles.
“I understand.”
There was a pause on the other end. Apparently, Lydia had expected something else: shouting, questions, insults. Galina stayed silent.
“We need to talk like civilized people.”
“About what?”
“About Sergey.”
“Is he an object?”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“Then phrase them more precisely.”
Lydia exhaled into the phone.
“Sergey wants to start a new life. But you’re holding him with guilt and household issues.”
Galina raised her eyebrows, although Lydia could not see it.
“Household issues?”
“The apartment, his things, old obligations… He can’t leave peacefully because you’re pressuring him.”
“Interesting. Did he tell you the apartment is mine?”
“He said you built everything together.”
“He says many things when it suits him.”
Lydia’s voice became drier.
“I’m not going to argue with you. I just want you to let him go with dignity.”
Galina ran her finger along the edge of the table.
“Lydia, if a person wants to leave, he packs his things, returns the keys, and leaves. Sergey is currently pretending to be the hero of a romance novel held back by circumstances. In his case, the circumstances are loans, child support, and the habit of living behind someone else’s door.”
“You are a very bitter woman.”
“No. I’m an informed one.”
Lydia snapped:
“I’ll come over. It’ll be easier that way.”
“I wouldn’t advise it.”
“I’m not asking for advice.”
The call ended.
Galina placed the phone face down. Then she got up, went to the hallway, and checked the lock. Sergey’s key could still open the door. She did not change the locks late in the evening, but in the morning she had already arranged for a locksmith. No declarations, no drama. She simply called a repairman, showed him the apartment documents, had the lock changed, and put the old cylinder in a bag.
Sergey found out quickly.
“What did you do?!” he shouted into the phone so loudly that Galina moved it away from her ear.
“I changed the lock.”
“You had no right!”
“I did. The apartment is mine, and you are not registered here. I didn’t throw away your things. Come and collect them.”
“I live there!”
“You lived there.”
“Galya, don’t push me.”
She smiled with one corner of her mouth.
“Sergey, are you threatening a woman whose apartment still contains your socks, old magazines, and half of your unpaid promises?”
He fell silent. Then he spoke more quietly.
“You’re ruining everything yourself.”
“No. I’m cleaning up the consequences.”
But Sergey did not come for his things. He sent messages — some angry, some pitiful. He wrote that she was destroying twenty years of life. Then that Lydia understood him. Then that Galina would regret it when she was left alone. Then that he needed access to the car documents lying in her drawer.
The car documents really were in the apartment because Sergey scattered papers everywhere, and Galina organized them. She replied: “Come tomorrow at seven. You’ll pick up the documents, your things, and return my set of keys that you still have from the old lock.”
He did not come.
Instead, the next evening, the doorbell rang. Not briefly, not accidentally, but firmly and at length. That is how people ring when they have come not to ask, but to make demands.
Galina looked through the peephole.
Lydia.
She was wearing a light-colored coat, her hair carefully styled, a small handbag in her hands. She stood straight, chin raised. Beside her, slightly farther away by the stairwell wall, Sergey shifted awkwardly. No, he was not even shifting — he was standing unnaturally still, as if someone had placed him there and forgotten to explain his role.
Galina did not open the door right away. First, she adjusted the sleeve of her house cardigan, removed the new set of keys from the shelf so Sergey would not see where they were, and only then turned the lock.
“Good evening,” Lydia said, as if she had come to a business meeting.
“The evening was good,” Galina replied. “Until your ring.”
Lydia was not embarrassed. Her eyes slid over the hallway and stopped on the boxes by the wall. Inside were Sergey’s things: sweaters, fishing gear, various chargers, and a folder with car documents. Everything was packed neatly, without malice. For some reason, even that seemed insulting to Sergey — as if he had not been dramatically thrown out, but simply packed away like old seasonal equipment.
“May I come in?” Lydia asked.
“No.”
Sergey finally spoke:
“Galya, come on, don’t start. We need to talk normally.”
“You can talk alone. She stays on the stairwell.”
Lydia narrowed her eyes slightly.
“I’m not going to stand in the entrance.”
“Then you may leave.”
“Sergey,” Lydia turned to him, “do you see? She’s commanding again.”
Galina laughed softly. Not joyfully, but in a way that made Sergey immediately look away.
“In my apartment, yes. Imagine that.”
Lydia took a step closer to the threshold, but Galina did not move back. A narrow line of doorway remained between them. Lydia glanced down, as if assessing whether she could force her way in, then looked up.
“Fine. We’ll talk here. I didn’t come to cause a scandal.”
“Strange way to show it.”
“I came to speak humanly. Sergey is leaving for me. We love each other. And I believe it’s better to end everything honestly, without humiliation.”
Sergey inhaled noisily, as if the word “love” had sounded louder than he expected. Galina noticed and slowly turned her gaze to him.
“Sergey, do you agree with that wording?”
He opened his mouth, but Lydia answered for him:
“Of course he agrees. It’s just hard for him. You lived together for so many years.”
“How convenient,” Galina said. “The love is yours, the hardship is his, and you came to do the talking.”
Lydia flushed but quickly returned calm to her face.
“That’s because he is a gentle person. And you take advantage of that.”
“Lydia, are you sure we’re talking about Sergey? A gentle person — is that someone who doesn’t call his daughter for months but tells a new woman how much he suffers from old obligations?”
Sergey sharply raised his head.
“Don’t touch Kira.”
“I’m not touching her. I’m reminding you that she exists.”
Lydia frowned.
“Sergey takes care of his daughter.”
Galina looked at her with such calm curiosity that Lydia faltered slightly.
“Is that what he told you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he also tell you that child support was ordered by the court because his voluntary care ended quickly?”
“Galya!” Sergey barked.
“What? Is it unpleasant when a new life begins with a biography that has no missing pages?”
Lydia tightened her grip on her handbag. Her knuckles turned white.
“You’re deliberately trying to blacken his name.”
“No. I’m restoring the full package. You came for the man — look at the complete set.”
“I don’t need your sarcastic remarks.”
“And I don’t need your visit. Yet here we both are, enduring.”
Sergey stepped closer.
“Galya, enough. I’m guilty, yes. But don’t turn this into a marketplace quarrel.”
Galina turned her whole body toward him. There were no tears on her face, no confusion. Only exhaustion gathered into a steady line of sight.
“Sergey, you turned it into a marketplace quarrel when you brought your mistress to my door.”
“I didn’t bring her. She wanted to talk herself.”
“Of course. In this story, you were just passing by by accident.”
Lydia sharply interrupted:
“What did you want? For him to sit beside you all his life out of pity?”
Galina slowly nodded.
“Now we’re getting closer to the point. You didn’t come to talk. You came to win.”
“I came to put an end to this.”
“In someone else’s apartment?”
“In your past life.”
Galina looked at Sergey. He was standing by the wall, pale, clutching the car folder he had already managed to grab from the top box. He wanted the women to sort everything out for him. One would let him go, the other would take him, and he would leave the stairwell as the suffering man who never meant to hurt anyone.
And then Galina finally broke. Not with shouting at first, but with laughter. Short, sharp, almost like a slap in the air. Lydia stepped back half a pace in surprise.
“My God, Sergey,” Galina said, “you can’t even leave by yourself. They came to pick you up like a forgotten umbrella.”
“Don’t you dare talk like that,” Lydia hissed.
“I dare. Because for twenty years, I listened to him say he would handle things. Now I see: someone is handling him again.”
Sergey flushed all the way to his temples.
“You’re humiliating me in front of a stranger.”
“The stranger came to my door late in the evening. Now she’ll have to listen.”
Lydia lifted her chin sharply.
“Fine. Then listen too. Sergey will be different with me. Because with me, he won’t have to justify every step. I won’t count his mistakes or throw his debts in his face.”
Galina slapped her palm against the doorframe. Not hard, but the sound was dry and clear.
“There! Finally! That’s where you should have started. You won’t count debts. Wonderful news for Sergey.”
Sergey flinched.
“Galya…”
“No, Sergey, wait. The woman made a statement. Let her finish.”
Lydia had already realized she had said too much, but she did not want to retreat.
“I meant moral debts.”
“And I meant real ones.”
Galina turned around, took a thin folder from the shelf, and opened it right in front of Lydia. The papers were arranged in plastic sleeves: the car loan agreement, notices of overdue payments, a copy of the court decision on child support, handwritten acknowledgments Sergey had given acquaintances because he had borrowed money from them “for a couple of weeks.”
Lydia looked at the first page, then the second. Her face gradually lost its confidence.
“What is this?”
“His new life. With attachments.”
Sergey stepped forward, trying to snatch the folder, but Galina stepped back into the apartment and raised her hand.
“Don’t touch it. These are copies.”
“You’re sick,” he breathed. “You prepared all this in advance?”
“Yes. When a husband starts smelling like another woman’s perfume and telling his mistress about divorce, a wife sometimes collects documents instead of packing a suitcase.”
Lydia was now looking at Sergey differently. Not like a gentle sufferer, but like a person who had forgotten to mention several important pages of his life.
“Sergey,” she said slowly, “you told me everything was almost paid off.”
He coughed.
“Well… almost. It’s not that bad.”
“And the child support?”
“That goes without saying. I have a daughter.”
“You told me she was already grown.”
“She is underage,” Galina calmly clarified. “And she will need a father for a long time — not just in words.”
Lydia abruptly turned to Galina.
“I’m not talking to you.”
“But I’m talking to you. Because you came for my husband to my door and started lecturing me about honesty.”
Sergey tried to take Lydia by the elbow.
“Lida, let’s go. Not here.”
She pulled her arm away.
“Wait. I want to understand.”
Galina smiled bitterly.
“So did I, for twenty years. Then I understood: Sergey loves starting a new life while someone else pays for the old one, cleans up after it, and explains it for him.”
“You’re deliberately making everything look dirty!” Sergey snapped. “I never refused to pay!”
“You didn’t refuse. You just forgot, asked for extensions, borrowed from one person to pay another, and every time said, ‘Last time, Galya.’”
“Because you never supported me!”
“Support does not mean becoming a guarantor for your irresponsibility.”
Lydia was no longer standing as straight as before. Her shoulders had lowered, and her gaze had become sharp and suspicious. Galina could see how quickly the future romance was being recalculated in that woman’s head: dinners, trips, beautiful words — and next to them payments, an ex-wife, a child, debts, boxes of belongings, a man without an apartment, and a habit of shifting conversations onto women.
“And where was he planning to live?” Galina suddenly asked.
Lydia blinked.
“What?”
“Sergey. After I let him go with dignity into his new life. Where was he going to live?”
Sergey looked toward the stairs.
“With Lida for now.”
Galina turned her gaze to Lydia.
“For now?”
Lydia slowly turned toward him.
“You said you had an option.”
“I do. I did. I thought… We’d figure it out later.”
Galina could not help laughing again, this time louder. Across the landing, a neighbor’s peephole quietly clicked. Sergey noticed and hissed:
“Quiet!”
“What’s wrong?” Galina straightened her shoulders. “When you lied to me, the neighbors didn’t bother you. But when they hear the truth, now it’s embarrassing?”
“You’re turning this into a circus!”
“No. I’m selling tickets to your honesty. There aren’t many viewers yet, but the reviews will be vivid.”
Lydia turned pale in a different way than Sergey. Not from fear, but from anger. Her lips became a thin line, and her eyes shone.
“You think that if he has difficulties, I’ll immediately step back? Don’t hope for that. Sergey is dear to me.”
“Take him.”
Sergey looked sharply at Galina. A small, foolish, almost childish hope flashed in his eyes. As if he had still expected her to fight, cry, hold him back, prove that she needed him. But she said “take him” so simply, as if they were talking about a box of unnecessary wires.
Lydia heard it too clearly as well.
“Excellent,” she said, though her voice was no longer so confident. “So you won’t create obstacles?”
“Not one.”
“And the divorce?”
“Sergey can file the papers. If there is no property dispute and both agree, it can be done through the registry office. But there is no joint property here that he can take from my apartment. His personal belongings are in boxes. The car is registered to him, and so is the loan. If he suddenly starts fantasizing about my apartment, we’ll see each other in court — but he won’t like it there.”
Sergey clenched his teeth.
“You calculated everything.”
“Yes. It’s called adult life.”
“And if I don’t agree to the divorce?”
“Then I’ll file through court. People have divorced others who suddenly decided to bargain before.”
Lydia looked at Sergey again.
“You told me everything would be quiet.”
“I thought she would react normally.”
Galina leaned slightly closer to him.
“To what? To the fact that you brought a woman to me and told her I was standing in the way of your happiness? Sergey, I react normally to facts. As for insolence — that depends on the circumstances.”
He raised his hand and pointed at the boxes.
“Those aren’t all my things.”
“You’ll pack the rest in front of me. Quickly. No wandering through closets and drawers.”
“This was my home too!”
“It was your place of residence. Not your home in the documents.”
Lydia quietly asked:
“Are you really not registered here?”
Sergey turned to her.
“Lida, what difference does it make?”
“A big one.”
Galina spread her hands.
“Did the romance end at the word ‘registration’? That was fast.”
“Stay out of it!” Lydia snapped.
“You are on my landing, at my door, with my still-husband and his boxes. I’m not staying out of anything. I’m the owner of this situation.”
Suddenly Sergey lost control. His face darkened, and his voice became rough:
“What owner? Without me, you’d be sitting alone in this apartment, counting your jars and papers! I gave you a life!”
Galina fell silent. Not because she was confused. The phrase was simply so miserable that even Lydia looked at Sergey with unpleasant surprise.
Galina took a step toward him. Not quickly. Calmly. But for some reason Sergey stepped back.
“You gave me a life?” she repeated quietly. “Which one exactly? The one where I covered your overdue payments so people wouldn’t call you every two hours? The one where I explained to your mother why you hadn’t visited again? The one where I reminded you about your daughter’s birthday? The one where I didn’t let you put my apartment under your debts? Or the one where you’re standing with your mistress at my door and still expecting me to behave more decently than you?”
He opened his mouth but found no answer.
Galina sharply turned to the boxes and took out a small keyring.
“Here are your old keys. They’re useless now. Return my set.”
Sergey put his hand into one pocket, then the other. He pulled out the keyring and squeezed it in his fist.
“And if I don’t?”
Galina took out her phone.
“Then I call the police and say that a former resident is refusing to return the keys to my apartment and is threatening me in the presence of a witness. The lock has already been changed, but a report about the conflict won’t hurt.”
Lydia looked at him sharply.
“Give her the keys.”
“Lida…”
“Give them to her.”
And that was the first command from the new woman that Sergey obeyed immediately. He did not place the keys in Galina’s hand. He threw them onto the shelf by the door. The metal clinked against the wood.
“Don’t throw things in my home,” Galina said. “Pick them up and put them down properly.”
Sergey turned red with humiliation, but picked up the keys and placed them neatly. Lydia looked away, pretending not to notice.
Then Galina opened the door wider.
“Take the boxes.”
“I can’t carry everything at once,” Sergey muttered.
“Call a taxi. Or Lydia can help. She’s for honesty and a new life, after all.”
Lydia twitched her shoulder.
“I’m not a mover.”
“So the wife was supposed to be a mover, lawyer, dispatcher, bank, and living space all in one?”
Sergey grabbed the first box. His sweaters and an old jacket lay on top. He pressed the box to himself so awkwardly that one sleeve fell out. Lydia automatically reached to fix it, then stopped. Apparently, she had already started to understand that caring for Sergey had a way of quickly turning into a duty.
“Galya,” Sergey suddenly said more quietly. “Maybe we can talk later? Without her.”
Lydia lifted her head sharply.
Galina looked at her husband carefully. There he was. The real Sergey. A minute ago, he had been throwing around harsh words, and now he was already looking for a backup bridge. Not because he was sorry. Simply because the new woman had seen too much, and the old one still seemed familiar and safe.
“No,” Galina said. “We’ve already talked.”
“You can’t just cross everything out like this.”
“I’m not crossing it out. I’m summing it up.”
He looked at her for a long time. Hurt, anger, fear, and something like calculation flickered in his eyes. Galina knew that look. Right now, he was wondering whether he could play on the past — remind her of a trip to the river, their shared renovation, her illness, his care. But Lydia was standing nearby, and pulling out old tenderness in front of his mistress was inconvenient.
Lydia broke the silence first:
“Sergey, we’re taking the things and leaving.”
Galina smiled.
“The right decision.”
Lydia stepped toward the boxes, but did not lift one. She only said:
“You’ll send a car later.”
“No,” Galina replied. “I’m not storing anything later. Today you take the main things. The rest tomorrow before noon. After that, the belongings will be delivered to your mother, Sergey. I know the address.”
“You have no right to dispose of my things!”
“I have the right not to turn my hallway into a warehouse for your unresolved issues.”
Sergey put the box back down and suddenly almost shouted:
“And you’re pleased, aren’t you? Standing there like a queen! You think you won?”
Galina came closer to him. Her face was calm, but her eyes had become hard.
“No. Victory is having an honest person beside you. This is just cleaning up after a bad choice.”
Those words hit Sergey harder than shouting. He picked up the box again, this time more firmly. Lydia silently lifted a bag with shoes, but she did it with two fingers, as if afraid to get dirty. Galina noticed and smiled faintly.
“Get used to it, Lydia. He also has fishing gear. And a habit of leaving wet towels everywhere. I didn’t pack those in a separate bag, but I can prepare you mentally.”
“Enough!” Lydia turned sharply. “You’re unbearable.”
“Possibly. But I come without overdue payments and other people’s illusions.”
They carried the first part of the belongings to the elevator. Galina did not close the door. She stood in the doorway and watched Sergey return for the second box. This time, he no longer tried to argue. He only breathed heavily, grabbed things, and avoided her gaze.
When only two small bags remained in the hallway, Lydia suddenly asked:
“Sergey, is the car really yours?”
He almost dropped the folder.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that. Is it pledged as collateral?”
Galina could not help herself:
“It’s pledged to the bank and his optimism.”
Sergey turned to her with a face that looked ready to punch the wall, but he restrained himself. Lydia noticed the movement and stepped a little farther from him.
“Galya, shut up already,” he said in a low voice.
Galina picked up her phone.
“Repeat that louder. So the recording is clear.”
He saw the lit screen and changed instantly.
“You’re recording this too?”
“Since the moment you started discussing my apartment and your rights to it. A very useful habit.”
Lydia closed her eyes for a second. Then she opened them and said to Sergey:
“We’re leaving.”
This time, there was no victory in her voice.
When the last bag was outside the threshold, Galina blocked the entrance.
“You’ll pick up the rest tomorrow. Alone. Without a support group.”
“Lida is coming with me.”
“Then I’ll send the things to your mother.”
Lydia said sharply:
“I’m not coming here again.”
Galina looked at her almost sympathetically.
“You learn quickly.”
Sergey stood with a bag in his hand and looked at Galina as if only now he had understood: she would not chase after him. She would not write to him at night. She would not demand explanations. She would not ask him to choose her. She had already chosen herself.
“Galya…” he began.
“That’s enough for today, Sergey.”
She closed the door. She did not slam it or strike it. She simply closed it. The lock turned smoothly, confidently, in a new way.
Behind the door, voices could still be heard for a while. Lydia spoke sharply, Sergey justified himself. Then the elevator opened, shut, and the stairwell became quiet.
Galina went to the kitchen, poured herself water, and took several sips. Her hands were trembling, but not from weakness. Rather, from the fact that her body had finally stopped holding the line of defense. She looked at the table where the folder with copies lay, the phone with the recording, and the empty space where the old set of keys had been.
Then she took out a trash bag and collected everything small that Sergey had left behind: old receipts, a broken keychain, bank brochures he had hidden between magazines. The bag turned out heavy. Galina tied it tightly and placed it by the door.
In the morning, she took the remaining things to Sergey’s mother. The woman met her in the yard of an old house, frightened, wearing a warm cardigan, her face tired.
“Galochka, what have you done?” her mother-in-law asked, looking at the bags
“I’ve put things in order. Your son can explain the rest himself.”
“He said you kicked him out.”
“That’s right. From my apartment.”
Her mother-in-law was silent for a while, then sighed heavily.
“This Lida… is it serious with them?”
Galina looked at the elderly woman without anger. She was not to blame for raising a son who was convenient for herself and inconvenient for everyone else. Or perhaps she was, but sorting that out was no longer Galina’s responsibility.
“Everything is serious with them now. Especially the payments.”
Her mother-in-law looked away.
“Has he taken on more debts again?”
“Ask him. Just don’t believe words without papers.”
Galina drove home calmly. She did not feel tragedy. It was strange, empty, unpleasant in places. But there was no anxiety pushing inside her anymore. She no longer had to guess by the smell of his collar where he had been. She no longer had to listen to someone else’s versions, arrange someone else’s debts into neat folders, or keep a straight face while someone beside her played at a new life at her expense.
A week later, Sergey called.
Galina did not answer.
He wrote: “We need to discuss the divorce.”
She replied: “Write about practical matters. I will not meet in person.”
He sent a long message about how Lydia had not been ready for “such a rush of circumstances,” how they would live separately for now, how he had understood a lot. Galina read halfway and deleted it. Then she wrote briefly: “I’ll file the documents. There are no issues regarding the apartment. For your debts, contact the banks. Regarding your daughter, contact your conscience and the court decision.”
Sergey still tried calling, but less and less often. Lydia disappeared from their story as suddenly as she had appeared. Galina found out from her mother-in-law, who once called and, unable to hold back, said:
“It didn’t work out with that woman. She thought he was free, but he… well, you understand.”
“I understand,” Galina replied.
“Maybe you could talk to him?”
Galina looked at the new set of keys lying on the shelf.
“No.”
“He is suffering.”
“Then for the first time, he is dealing with his feelings himself.”
She ended the call without rudeness. She simply ended the conversation.
