Hello, darling! I’ve got a big surprise for you! Make your signature dish for dinner tonight!
“What happened?” Svetlana grew uneasy.
“Everything’s wonderful! I’ll tell you this evening!”
The call ended, and the woman looked doubtfully out the window. It was a raw, damp October. Her husband’s call didn’t lift her spirits—over twenty-five years of marriage he had never once made surprises, let alone big ones.
The doorbell rang just as she was taking her signature meat with the secret sauce out of the oven.
“Hey there, little homemaker! Smells amazing!” Nikita exclaimed, thumping a bottle down on the table. “Lay the table! The breadwinner is home!”
“Why are you so fired up? Oh, the ‘breadwinner,’ huh?” The woman squinted at her husband.
“I’ll wash my hands and tell you all about it with a toast.”
After pouring the wine into glasses, Nikita began grandly, “I raise this glass to the best husband and father in the world! And also to us and… to two weeks of a wonderful vacation in the best three-star hotel on the ocean.”
For a second Svetlana even felt glad, but her husband went on:
“By the way, do you know if Mishka can scuba dive?”
“Who?” the woman was at a loss.
“Come on, woman! Mishka—our beloved daughter Polina’s husband.”
“What do Misha and Polina have to do with this?”
“What’s with you, Svetlana? Been cooped up at home too long? We’re all going together, one big family.”
She set down her glass without even taking a sip. She looked wearily at her husband.
“Who paid for the trip?”
“I did, of course!” Nikita thumped his fist proudly against his chest.
“So you fed me promises about a trip to a paradise island, saved up for it for twenty-five years, and now you want us to fly with our daughter and her husband?! I see them every day as it is! They don’t cook at home because they can always eat here! You even buy their groceries and pay their rent. Because they ‘don’t understand grown-up paperwork.’”
“But Polinochka…” Nikita began.
“What about Polinochka?! I gave birth at eighteen! I kept telling myself I’d live for myself later! And what now? I’m forty-five. I haven’t seen anything, haven’t been anywhere. I work from home. I never step away from the stove or the sink.”
Tears welled in her eyes. The hurt was choking her.
Svetlana loved her daughter but felt absolutely indifferent toward her son-in-law. She believed adults should live independently. When she got pregnant at eighteen and married, no one helped her. Her husband, who worked at a research institute, wasn’t much help either. After mastering accounting, she still consulted and handled several companies to this day. At times the family’s livelihood rested solely on her shoulders.
“Svetlana!” her husband’s voice turned stern. “What’s with the waterworks? We already spend plenty of time together, and the kids haven’t found their footing yet—they’re figuring themselves out. They need help.”
“Have you tried thinking about me?”
“Of course! You’re going too! What’s the problem?”
“Apparently the problem is me…” the woman whispered, and getting up from the table, went to the bedroom.
The next day Polina came over.
“Hi, Mom! And I didn’t come empty-handed,” she waved a box of frozen pizza.
“Hi. Microwave’s over there.” Svetlana nodded toward the kitchen and sat down in the armchair at her computer.
“What’s up, Mom? Misha’s coming soon—I thought you’d throw together some soup to go with the pizza and maybe something for tea.”
“The kitchen’s over there,” the woman said again, pointing the way without taking her eyes off her work.
“Why are you so mad? Dad said you didn’t appreciate his present.”
“To understand me, you’d have to be me,” Svetlana answered quietly.
“What are you muttering under your breath? Your daughter’s come to visit and you’re sitting there pretending I’m not here! I thought we’d sort through the wardrobe and then dash out for clothes for the trip. I called Misha too, so he could carry the bags!”
Svetlana couldn’t take it and stood up from the chair.
“Listen, sweetie, if you haven’t noticed, I’m working. And I’ve been working for you for twenty-seven years! So that your father can sit on his butt with no prospects and no decent salary. So that my daughter can use me as a cook and a credit card at the store.”
She drew a breath to go on, but just then the doorbell rang. Misha had arrived. A thirty-year-old guy with a thick beard, mustache, and his constant scooter.
“Hello, Aunt Sveta! I brought you a present! From the whole ‘team,’ so to speak. Nikita Sergeyevich pitched in too!” he said, pulling… a blender out of his backpack. “Sorry there’s no box. Wouldn’t fit in the bag. But I’ve got all the attachments here.”
“Isn’t it great, Mom? You love to cook—perfect gift for a housewife!”
Svetlana only gave a bitter smirk and went to her room.
“What’s up with her?” she heard Mikhail whisper, perplexed.
“Who knows. Maybe Dad messed something up. Let’s get out of here.”
“What, we’re not even gonna eat?!”
“Take the pizza. Eat at home.”
“I hate frozen pizza. Fresh pies are better.”
“Then bake them yourself!” Polina snapped.
When the door closed behind the guests, Svetlana covered her face with her hands and whispered:
“I must be a bad mother and wife…”
A troubled sleep overtook her tense mind.
She dreamed of little Polina with a stomachache. Then of boys in the yard bullying her, and Svetlana defending her daughter. Then of Nikita’s pay being cut, and Svetlana comforting her husband and taking on extra work. Then she was running somewhere, with Misha chasing after her on his scooter.
And then… everything became very calm and quiet. She was standing on the top of a hill. A river wound below, and in the distance a chain of mountains could be seen, their peaks lit by the setting sun.
When she woke up, Svetlana knew what to do.
“Hi, honey! I’m home! How are you? Feeling okay? Polina said you didn’t want to go to the store and that you didn’t like the present.”
“I don’t need anything from the store.”
“What about a swimsuit and a sunhat, for example? And I need to buy shorts and a T-shirt.”
“Then go and buy them. I’m not going anywhere with you! Not to the store, not to the beach! I’ve got my own ocean. You handle the shopping and preparations yourselves. Do not bother me! I have a lot of work.”
Nikita froze.
“What about the money? I already paid for everything.”
“Consider it payment for my nerves.”
Nikita began to snort loudly—that meant he was deeply offended. And he stopped talking to his wife. That suited Svetlana just fine.
Two days later she finished some important work and, packing warm clothes and her laptop, called her husband.
“Hello. Come to your senses? I’m not mad anymore.”
“I couldn’t care less about your hurt feelings, Nikita,” Svetlana said calmly. “I’m calling to say I’m leaving on a business trip; I don’t know for how long. Don’t forget to check the mail and pay the rent. That’s all.”
Ending the call, the woman felt it become easier to breathe. Smiling at herself in the mirror, she walked out of the apartment.
The long flight didn’t dampen the impression of encountering beauty. Checking into the hotel, getting familiar with the schedule and services—all of it flew by like a blur.
And there it was! The moment itself! Smoking volcanoes on one side! A raging ocean on the other! Svetlana drew a breath and watched in awe as the setting sun painted the majestic splendor of Kamchatka in crimson red.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, on a warm beach, Nikita Sergeyevich and Mikhail had been suffering from diarrhea for four days. Polina did what she could to look after them, scolding her father for being stingy. The hotel they were staying at bore little resemblance to the image of a chic resort her imagination had conjured. She told her father exactly what she thought, and he in turn accused his daughter of selfishness. Mikhail simply suffered. Besides his stomach troubles, something in his beard itched terribly…
“Do I really have to shave?!” he whined, scratching and running to the bathroom. “Do something!”
“What?!”
“Give me some medicine!”
“I don’t know what kind…”
“Call Mom! She’ll know!”
“Mom turned off her phone.”
More than once all of them lamented Svetlana’s absence and her switched-off phone. Their vacation had gone down the drain—almost literally.
Svetlana came back a month later. They were waiting for her at home. There were sushi rolls and a burnt pie on the table.
“I’m moving to Kamchatka,” Svetlana announced. “If anyone wants to come with me, we’ll discuss it. Everything else is not up for discussion.”
“No way… We’ll just come visit, Mom…” Her daughter was a bit hurt, but she let her mother go.
Nikita tried to talk, to threaten, to sulk. But Svetlana no longer lived in the past. Two months later, she and her husband divorced.
At the edge of the earth, life acquired a real taste—the taste of salty wind in your face… And maybe she would yet meet her true happiness…
