— Mo…
The spoon slipped from Svetlana’s hand. The ring of it striking the edge of the cup echoed through the quiet, not-yet-awakened kitchen.
“Mom,” Nika repeated, “why did my stepdad say on the phone last night that you aren’t needed anymore?”
With a sharp movement, the kissel in the mugs spilled onto the saucers. Nika, in her old pajamas, sat on the chair and looked on with a child’s trust; worry was written in her eyes.
“What are you saying, sweetie?” Svetlana asked, trying to keep her voice calm.
“Mom, why was the new dad talking to someone on the phone last night and saying that you aren’t needed by us anymore?”
Svetlana nearly collapsed; the ground seemed to give way beneath her feet.
Automatically, she set the spoon aside and straightened her apron.
“You must have misunderstood something, sunshine…” she said uncertainly.
Morning went on as usual: porridge boiled on the stove, the kettle hissed, and from the slightly open window came a breath of fresh spring air smelling of melting snow and city asphalt. Her husband, Mikhail, had left early, as always. The door clicked softly at half past six, just as Svetlana was starting to wake up.
But now it was as if a veil had fallen from her eyes. As though she had found herself in the half-dark of a stranger’s apartment—everything looked familiar, yet there was a sense of alienness.
“Not needed anymore,” her daughter’s words echoed in her head.
Her heart grew heavy, and her mind—empty.
“Mom, are you mad?” Nika asked cautiously, stirring the porridge with her spoon. “I just asked…”
Svetlana swallowed with difficulty.
“Everything’s fine, darling…”
But in truth, nothing was fine at all.
Something was coming.
The usual weekday chaos filled every corner of the apartment: getting her daughter ready for school, getting herself ready for work, thoughts of dinner. But suddenly all clarity dimmed, as if a muddy current had washed over a crystal-clear bottom, leaving only blurry outlines.
Svetlana found herself drifting back to the previous evening. Everything had gone according to habit: light conversation, an old movie, her daughter falling asleep right on the couch, and her husband withdrawing to his study “to work.” He was especially fond of that study: bookshelves crammed with volumes, a solid desk, and an antique lamp inherited from his grandmother. Svetlana had always believed that every man needs a place for solitude and thought. But now that door, which her husband always locked from the inside, felt to her like… a sign of distance.
She felt detached, as if hearing music from far away. Andrey had left early in the morning, as usual. Suddenly Svetlana’s gaze fell on a shelf where, amid the papers, she saw something bright, carelessly covered by books. It turned out to be her passport. Up until that moment she couldn’t even remember asking her husband to look at any documents—why would he need them?
Once, she had felt a similar fear: after the tragic death of her first husband, any official document stirred anxiety, as if deception lurked around every corner. But Andrey had seemed so reliable and calm. Or… did he only seem that way?
“Sveta, what’s with you?” her friend Olga broke into her trance—the one who unfailingly showed up at the hardest moments.
Svetlana called her on her lunch break.
“I’m completely lost, Ol… You should have heard what Nika came out with today… And he took my passport, and he’s calling someone in the evenings!”
After a brief pause, Olga spoke like a surgeon before a complicated operation:
“Let me try to find out. Misha has a notary friend. Let him check—who your guy met with, maybe he was asking about your apartment…”
The apartment. A small two-room flat that had come to her after her first husband’s death—bright and cozy, it felt like the last thread tying her to the past and, as it turned out, a source of fresh worries.
“I’ll find out everything,” Olga reassured her. “Don’t work yourself up ahead of time.”
But the day dragged on painfully—everything grated: the creak of doors, the tap of heels, coworkers’ chatter.
In the evening her friend called—no greetings, straight to the point:
“Your Andrey was at the notary’s three days ago. He asked about property documents. He wanted to arrange something, but not in his name… In yours! Do you understand?”
An alarm bell rang in Svetlana’s head.
Why? What were these maneuvers for? Where was her husband really?
That evening Andrey came home tired and silent. He radiated cold and a faint smell of tobacco.
“How was your day?” Svetlana asked, trying not to show her agitation.
“As usual… running around. Lots of work, debts are strangling me,” he muttered in reply.
And again he disappeared into his study.
Standing in the hallway, breathing the cool air from the open window, Svetlana looked into the dark pane. Inside her, a sense of uncertainty grew… and a strange jealousy that felt like fear: not of another woman, but of the secrets that, it seemed, had no place in their home.
In that silence, Svetlana more and more often woke at night to see what her husband was doing. Once she saw him sitting by the window with his phone, whispering, “We don’t need her anymore”…
Doubts turned to poison. She stopped sleeping; anxiety hounded her until morning.
At some point Svetlana no longer understood where ordinary life ended and intrigue began. She started keeping watch… noticing every little thing. Locked drawers, documents, shadowy figures in Andrey’s phone, hidden chats and missed calls.
When everything seemed out of control, Svetlana realized: she couldn’t stay silent any longer. Otherwise she might go mad…
The evening was thick with tension. Andrey returned late and looked around as if expecting some kind of reaction. Nika hid in her room with a book, wrapped in a blanket; Svetlana carefully wiped the kitchen table just to give her hands something to do.
Outside, the sun slowly sank into darkness.
And in that darkness her resolve grew—heavy as lead.
“We need to talk,” she finally said, quiet but firm.
Andrey hesitated, shrugged.
“About what?”
She saw the shadows of fatigue under his eyes, his slumped shoulders, his averted gaze. He seemed less a man than a bundle of weariness.
“I know everything,” she blurted out.
And added, her voice hoarse: “About the notary. About my passport, the calls… About you saying last night that ‘I’m not needed by you anymore.’”
He exhaled in relief, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
“Did you come up with that yourself, or did someone whisper it to you?”
“I put the pieces together. You should have talked to me sooner,” her voice trembled, and her heart beat like a bird in a cage.
“I… I’m tired of waiting for someone to explain what’s happening in MY life!”
Andrey ran a hand over his forehead. It was clear he was tormented by something. At that moment the hallway door creaked softly, and Nika appeared, tousled, listening anxiously to every word.
“Mom, I accidentally…” she murmured, guilty. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, really…”
Andrey looked heavily at his daughter, then at Svetlana.
“Alright,” he said slowly, “if you both heard… I can’t keep silent anymore.”
Silence and tension hung in the air like an electric charge. Svetlana felt her stomach tighten at the oncoming unknown: ahead, it seemed, was something that could turn her whole life upside down.
Andrey sat down at the table and turned a spoon over in his fingers for a long time without raising his eyes.
“I’ve got… big problems. Very big ones. At work I got involved in something I shouldn’t have, got mixed up with… well, not the best people. And now… they’re threatening me, Sveta.”
He caught her gaze.
“I… wanted to protect you, Nika, this apartment. I thought, if the documents have only your name, if there’s no will from you in my favor or anything like that—no one would guess how to pressure us. I… asked an ex-partner for help. And he, on the contrary, kept pushing: like, ‘you’ve got a new family now, you don’t need her anymore.’ Those weren’t my words, Sveta, not about you! I… I swear!”
Svetlana listened half-heartedly—inside her, shame, hurt, and relief all rose at once… But still:
“Why, Andrey—why couldn’t you just tell me everything? Why do I have to learn about things through hints and documents?..”
He fell silent, sighing heavily.
“I was afraid. Debts, threats… I thought I was saving you. And I only made it worse.”
The room was quiet; only the soft crackle of the kettle and the rustle of pages in the book on Nika’s lap could be heard.
Old fears suddenly surfaced—distrust, a widow’s anxieties, the exhaustion of living a double life.
Only the three of them remained: Svetlana, Andrey… and their silent daughter, whom all these “secrets” had made both mature and vulnerable.
“Mom,” Nika suddenly whispered, “you’re not going to leave, are you?”
Svetlana hugged her shoulders tightly.
“No, I’m not going anywhere…”
But the question wasn’t about leaving.
It was about trust, fear, and how to live with all of this going forward.
Sveta met the dawn without sleep. Questions swarmed in her head, addressed more to herself than to her husband. Everything had been turned upside down. Her resentment at Andrey gave way to sympathy, which again grew into resentment. Soon she realized that, despite everything, their bond was stronger than any formal arrangement. Yet the reason for these reflections was a bitter truth.
Andrey slept fitfully, tossed and turned, muttered in his sleep, sometimes flinched and cried out. Listening to his ragged breathing, Sveta tried to understand the state of a person in a vise: burdened by debt, eaten by remorse, and afraid of losing those he loved.
With sunrise, as the first rays pierced the shroud of morning mist, she gathered all her courage.
“Andrey… We need to speak honestly. No more secrets. From anyone.”
He looked her straight in the eye and nodded with difficulty.
“It’s my fault. You’re right, Sveta.”
“If there’s a problem, tell me immediately. I need to hear it from you, not from rumors or hints.”
He nodded again.
“Forgive me.”
At that moment their daughter walked into the kitchen and looked up at them. In her eyes was a fragile bravery, too grown-up for her years.
“Mom, are we going to be okay?” she asked softly.
Sveta went to her and crouched down.
“We’ll be okay, sunshine. Only together.”
They lingered over breakfast, the three of them. For the first time, Andrey himself offered:
“I want everything to be open and honest. I don’t want to hide anything. Let’s go to the notary together and formalize everything officially,” his voice sounded almost unsure. “If you want, you’ll have access to all the accounts. I want you to know I have nothing left to hide.”
Silently, Sveta thanked fate for those words. Now it was time to set new rules.
“And I… will try to be more attentive—to myself, to you, to Nika. I was so afraid of being left alone that I didn’t notice what was happening around me. I’m done—I don’t want to carry everything on my own anymore,” she said gently but firmly.
“We’ve missed too much…” Andrey whispered.
“Then we’ll be more attentive now. To everything we have—and to what we could lose,” Sveta replied with a faint smile.
As the day wore on, the last traces of the night’s anxiety dissolved. Nika laughed brightly again, and Andrey looked at his wife and daughter with new eyes. Sveta was learning to see not only danger, but also support: in herself, in her family, in the ability to talk about everything openly, even the scariest things.
All the horror of the past few days faded into the background. Front and center stood the new rule of their home: within the family—no secrets. Only the truth, even if it’s frightening. Only openness, even if it’s terrifying the first time in your life.
Oddly enough, the anxiety slowly retreated, but Sveta knew that now she had not only responsibility for her loved ones, but also the right to the truth.
And that was something entirely new—frightening and joyful at once—to be honest with each other. And to move forward together, strengthening the walls of their home not just with documents, but with sincere words.
Let it be painful, let it be hard, let it not work out right away—but their family admitted defeat to their fears. And began to rebuild trust. Not from shards this time, but from care, love, and truly open eyes.
