Arseny took the last quiche from the plate without even looking up from his phone. He chewed slowly, savoring it—the way people chew only something they truly like. Irina watched him lick his fingers, gathering flaky crumbs from the pads of his fingertips. Her mother, Lidiya Pavlovna, had brought those quiches that morning, still warm, smelling of butter and rosemary. Six of them. He’d already eaten four during the day; now he was finishing the fifth. Irina had managed only one bite of hers.
“Starting tomorrow, you’ll pay your share,” he said, eyes still on the screen. “Or find a way to cover your own leisure expenses.”
Irina froze with her fork in her hand. Two-year-old Lev was playing nearby with building blocks, tapping pieces against the parquet floor.
“What did you just say?”
“Separate budget. It’s normal practice. I pay for the apartment—you pay for your own expenses. Phone, clothes, cosmetics. Everything’s fair.”
He set the phone down on the table, screen facing down, and finally looked at her. Calm face—almost patronizing.
“Arseny, I’m on maternity leave. Lev is two. I’m at home with the child.”
“You’re home all day—and what do you do? You could’ve done some remote work. You have an architecture degree. Or did you think I’d support you forever?”
Irina slowly lowered her fork. The quiche she’d started eating stuck in her throat like a lump. Arseny stood up, shoved his chair back—sharp, with a metallic screech. He took his empty plate, didn’t even rinse it, just dropped it into the sink and walked into the other room. He closed the door quietly, but Irina still heard the click of the lock.
For the first few days she moved as if through fog. She checked her phone—there was almost nothing left in the account, enough for a week if she pinched pennies. Arseny now stayed silent at breakfast, left early, came home late. Sometimes he spoke on the phone in a low voice in the hallway. Once Irina heard a woman’s laugh through the speaker—light and bright. She didn’t ask. She just remembered it.
A week later, she registered on a freelance platform. Interior design, visualization—things she could do with her eyes closed. Her mother brought her the first job.
“My friend is renovating. Will you help with the layout?”
They paid little, but it was her money. Irina stared at the numbers on the screen and felt something inside her harden, turn cold, gather into a fist.
A month later there were more orders. She worked nights while Lev slept. Arseny still didn’t notice—he came home, ate dinner in his room, sometimes disappeared for weekends to God-knows-where. He said, “Meeting with colleagues,” and wouldn’t look her in the eyes.
And then she saw his tablet.
It was lying on the table, the screen still on. Arseny had gone to take a shower, and Irina walked past. She glanced at it—just for a second. Then she stopped.
A chat thread. With someone named Stella.
“You do understand this is temporary, right? I can’t leave right now, but I’ve already looked at a studio. For us.”
Irina reached for the tablet. The passcode—four digits. She tried at random: their wedding date. Wrong. Lev’s birthday. Still wrong. One last attempt—the day they moved into this apartment. The screen unlocked.
She scrolled through the messages, her fingers moving fast, mechanically. The shower was still running. Hotel receipts. Gifts. Restaurant reservations. And then this:
“She’s a non-performing asset, Arseny. You need to write her off. Just do it legally, the smart way.”
Irina took screenshots. Lots of them. Everything—the messages, photos, receipts—everything he supposedly had no money for when she asked him to buy vitamins for Lev. She put the tablet back and went into the kitchen. Sat at the table. Her hands didn’t shake. Inside, it was empty and cold—like an unfinished building.
Arseny came back from a business trip on Friday evening. He tossed his bag in the entryway and walked into the kitchen. Irina had already set the table—scrambled eggs, toast, coffee. Perfect, like before.
“Why so hospitable?” he asked with a smirk as he sat down. “Or did you run out of money completely?”
“There’s enough money. Sit.”
He picked up his fork. Irina took a thin folder from a drawer and placed it in front of him.
“What’s this?”
“An estimate for the project ‘Division of Property.’ An architectural approach—you like it when everything’s calculated.”
Arseny opened the folder. Flipped the first page. His face went pale at first, then flushed red.
“Where did you get this?”
“Doesn’t matter where. What matters is what happens next. You have two options. First: you move out today, leave the apartment to me and Lev, and pay child support appropriate for an IT project manager. Second: I send a copy of this estimate to your HR director—along with the hotel receipts during work hours and evidence of corporate card use for personal needs. What do you think that’s called at your bank?”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“No. I just did the math. You taught me to count, remember? Separate budget—your idea.”
Arseny shot up so fast the chair toppled. He grabbed the folder, crushed it in his hands.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would. And one more thing. Say hi to Stella. Ask if she knows how to make salmon quiche. Or were you planning to feed her my mom’s baking too?”
He stood there staring at her like he’d never seen her before. Then slowly unclenched his fingers and tossed the folder onto the table.
“I’ll get my things tomorrow.”
“Today. Or I hit ‘send’ right now.”
He left half an hour later. Slammed the door so hard Lev woke up and started crying. Irina picked her son up, pressed him to her chest, and stood by the window watching Arseny load bags into his car. Inside there was no anger, no victory—only exhaustion and a strange relief, like after handing in a difficult project.
The divorce went quickly. Arseny didn’t fight—he was afraid of publicity. The child support arrived on time; he valued his position too much to risk it. Irina kept the apartment and focused on work.
Orders came one after another. A year later she opened a studio—small, three people, but hers. Clients found her on their own, by recommendation. Lev started kindergarten, then school. Life was rebuilt—without inspections, without control, without the question “What did you spend that on?”
She met Damir at a job site three years later. A construction engineer—tall, with a quiet voice and a welding scar on his arm. He was checking load-bearing structures in the building she was designing.
“You made a mistake here,” he said, pointing at the drawing. “That wall is load-bearing. You can’t tear it down.”
Irina looked, recalculated, and nodded.
“You’re right.”
They had coffee after work. Then again. Damir didn’t ask about her past, didn’t push advice. He was just there. He brought Lev an engineering construction set—with bolts and gears. Her son fell for him in a single evening.
They worked together—he built, she designed. Without keeping score of who put in how much. Just fifty-fifty. In everything.
Irina ran into Arseny by chance five years later, near a shopping center. He was walking alone, hunched, in a worn jacket. He saw her and stopped short.
“Irina.”
“Arseny.”
An awkward, heavy silence hung between them. He spoke first.
“How are you?”
“Good. The studio is expanding—I hired two more people. Lev’s in third grade, he’s gotten into robotics. And you?”
“Work. I rent an apartment now.”
“And Stella?”
His face twitched as if he’d been hit.
“She left a year ago. Said I nitpicked her spending too much. Funny, right?”
Irina looked at him—at the man who once demanded receipts for baby food while spending money on his mistress—and felt nothing. No anger, no pity. Just emptiness.
“Funny. Good luck.”
She walked to the car, where Damir was waiting with grocery bags. They were going out of town, to the house he was building and she was designing. Their house—without separate budgets and spreadsheets.
“Who was that?” Damir asked when she got in.
“No one. Just an ex.”
Her phone vibrated—a message from her mother: “Sweetheart, I baked salmon quiche. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”
Irina smiled and typed back: “No need, Mom. I learned to make it myself. Mine are even better than yours.”
Damir laughed, glancing at the screen over her shoulder.
“Liar. You burned the dough yesterday.”
“So what? I’ll learn. I have time now.”
He took her hand—warm, rough from work—and kissed her knuckles. Outside, snow was falling. Lev was talking from the back seat about his school robot. Damir drove without hurrying.
And Irina looked ahead and thought that a separate budget isn’t really about money at all. It’s about how you divide your life—half and half, or each on their own.
She chose half and half. And she never once regretted it.
