“What the hell is this nonsense?..”
For the third time, a red notification flashed across the laptop screen, glowing cold blue in the dim kitchen: “Insufficient funds to complete this transaction.”
Alina stared numbly at the blinking cursor, feeling the baby shift inside her like a heavy stone lodged beneath her ribs. The eighth month had been brutal enough already — swollen feet, an aching back every time she sat too long — and now this idiotic bank error on top of it all. She rubbed her temples, trying to push back the nausea, then turned toward her husband.
Roman sat across from her, lazily scrolling through his news feed. A half-finished cup of coffee stood in front of him, and he looked completely at ease, as if the world around him were made of soft cotton and guaranteed stability.
“Rom, something’s wrong with the savings account,” Alina said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “I’m trying to pay for the crib and dresser delivery, but the bank keeps declining it. Send two hundred thousand to my card so I can finish the order before the sale ends.”
Roman did not look up right away. He slowly dragged his finger over the screen, paused for a second like a diver bracing before plunging into icy water, and only then set the phone aside. There was no fear or guilt in his face — only the tired resolve of a man preparing to explain complicated matters to someone he considered unreasonable.
“I can’t transfer anything, Alin,” he said calmly. “The account is empty.”
Alina blinked. The meaning of his words reached her slowly, as though through a wall of water.
“What do you mean, empty?” She turned toward him fully, and the chair beneath her creaked unpleasantly. “There were eight hundred and fifty thousand in there. My maternity money, your bonus, everything we saved for six months. Where did it go? Were we hacked?”
“No one hacked us. I transferred it,” Roman said, taking a sip from his cup even though the coffee had gone cold long ago. “Yana got her confirmation of enrollment. Central Saint Martins. You know she’s dreamed about it since ninth grade. The deadlines were tight — I had to pay the first semester and housing, or she would’ve lost her place.”
The kitchen fell completely silent. The refrigerator hummed, tires hissed on the wet road outside, but to Alina those sounds vanished. All that remained was her husband in his faded home T-shirt, speaking about a London art college as casually as if he were talking about buying bread.
“You gave the money to the college?” she asked, her fingers going cold. “All of it? Roma, I’m due in three weeks. We haven’t bought anything except one pack of diapers. We agreed on a crib, a stroller, a maternity hospital contract. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about my daughter’s future,” Roman snapped, his voice sharpening into that familiar patronizing tone. “Alina, try to understand — it’s London. It’s the kind of opportunity that comes once in a lifetime. Yana is gifted. I couldn’t let her rot here in some management program just because we need to buy another pile of plastic.”
“A pile of plastic?” Alina stood up. Her heavy belly made every movement awkward, but rage gave her strength. “That’s what you call things for our son? Where exactly am I supposed to put him — in a shoebox? And how am I supposed to feed him if breastfeeding doesn’t work out? Do you have any idea how expensive a baby is?”
Roman winced as if with a toothache.
“Don’t be dramatic. A newborn doesn’t care what he sleeps in. People give baby stuff away all the time. Go on the classifieds — there are tons of options. Strollers, baby tubs, whatever. People use those things for a couple of months and resell them for next to nothing. Why do we need some brand-new Italian stroller for a hundred thousand when we can get a decent used one for five? That’s vanity, Alina. Yana’s education is an investment.”
He said it with such certainty, with such holy faith in his own righteousness, that Alina wanted to hit him. Not in the face — no. She wanted to crack something heavy against that smug, impenetrable shell of self-satisfaction.
“So this is our life now,” she said slowly, bracing herself against the table with both hands.
“Exactly.”
“You paid for your daughter’s education in London, and now you’re telling me to buy a stroller off a resale site because the budget is exhausted? ‘That’s prestige, this can wait’? I am not going to strip my child of everything just to feed your ambitions over there! For us, you’re broke — but for them, you’re a millionaire? Get out of my house!”
“Why are you twisting this?” Roman sighed, radiating the weariness of a man forced to deal with someone beneath his understanding. “Yana is my daughter. I’m responsible for her. She’s nineteen — this is the start of her life. Our little one only needs your warmth and milk for now. We’ll manage. I’ll get paid next month, and we’ll buy the bare essentials. We just need to set priorities.”
“Priorities?” Alina gave a short laugh, and there was something frightening about it. “You stole money from your unborn son so your ex-wife could brag to her friends that her daughter studies in England. Did you even ask me? That was my money too, Roman. My maternity money.”
“I’ll pay your maternity money back!” he shouted, losing his composure for the first time. “Why are you counting pennies? Are we a family or a corporation? Yes, I made the decision. A man’s decision. I’m not going to deprive my child of everything just because of the nonsense in your head about needing everything ‘proper’ and with labels on it!”
He jumped to his feet and began pacing the tiny kitchen.
“You’re selfish, Alina. All you care about is dressing the baby nicely. Over there, someone’s future is being decided! A visa, flights, a dorm room — do you even know how much that costs at this exchange rate? I emptied everything. I even used my credit card so she’d have enough for the beginning.”
Alina looked at him and saw a stranger. The man she had lived with for three years, waited up for, ironed shirts for, had turned into some grotesque parody of a benefactor. He saw himself as a hero, a savior, a patron.
“You’re broke for us, but a millionaire for them,” she said quietly, every word clear and cutting. “You didn’t just drain the accounts. You drained every last bit of respect I had for you.”
“Oh, spare me the drama,” he waved her off. “You’ll calm down. We’ll have the baby, raise him, and someday we’ll laugh about this. So what if he wears hand-me-downs for a few months? He won’t fall apart. But his sister will have a European diploma. You should be proud your husband has children like that instead of making a market scene over this.”
“A market scene?” Alina straightened to her full height. Her stomach tightened, her skin prickling, but inside she suddenly felt cold and clear, as if she were standing in an operating room. “Fine. If you truly believe leaving your wife penniless right before childbirth for the sake of a grown woman’s whim is something to be proud of, then there is nothing left for us to discuss.”
“And what exactly are you going to do?” Roman folded his arms and looked down at her. “Ban me from sleeping in the bedroom?”
“No.” Alina walked over to the window and yanked it open, letting in a blade of freezing air to drive out the scent of his expensive cologne — apparently one thing he still had money for. “Get out of my house.”
“What?” Roman choked on the word. “You’re serious? Over money?”
“Get. Out. Of. My. House,” she said, each word clipped like steel. There were no tears in her eyes now, only a metallic glint. “Pack your things and go to your London. Or your ex. I don’t care where. But one hour from now, you’re gone.”
Roman did not move. He only gave a crooked smile and reached for his phone again, as if her words were nothing more than an irritating fly he could brush away. His faith in his own indispensability was so monumental that even a direct order to leave failed to crack it.
“Alin, stop the hysteria,” he drawled without looking at her. “You shouldn’t get worked up. Your blood pressure will spike. Go lie down. I’ll wash the dishes myself. We’ll talk in the morning when you’ve cooled off and stopped talking nonsense about kicking me out.”
Without a word, Alina walked past him into the bedroom. A minute later, sounds came from inside that could not be mistaken for anything else: the scrape of the overhead storage being opened and the dull thud of something heavy hitting the floor. Roman tensed, set down his phone, and slowly followed her.
In the middle of the bedroom, right on the soft rug, lay his huge travel suitcase — the one they had taken to Turkey the year before. Alina was methodically opening the wardrobe and taking out his belongings. The shirts section. The jeans shelf. The underwear drawer. She wasn’t throwing things or tearing them or crumpling them. She was simply transferring his property from the wardrobe into the suitcase with the efficiency of a machine.
“What are you doing?” Roman froze in the doorway, a chill crawling down his spine. “Alina, put that shirt down. It’s Henderson. It’ll wrinkle.”
“You can iron it wherever you’re going,” she answered calmly, without stopping. “Or ask Marina. According to you, she’s some kind of saint. I’m sure she’ll understand and appreciate your noble sacrifice. Let her take care of your domestic needs too.”
“You’ve completely lost it because of your hormones!” he roared, lunging at her and trying to yank a stack of T-shirts from her hands. “This is my apartment too! We’ve lived here for three years! You can’t throw me out like some dog onto the street!”
Alina stepped sharply back, instinctively protecting her belly with her arms so he wouldn’t touch it by accident. Her gaze turned heavy and sharp.
“Your apartment?” she repeated in an icy voice. “Roman, let’s not pretend. This apartment came to me from my grandmother. Are you registered here? No. Did you pay for the renovation? No — you were always ‘saving up for a safety cushion,’ and today that cushion flew to London. You are a guest here. A guest who stayed too long. And stopped paying for the privilege.”
“Oh, so that’s how you want to talk?” Roman’s face flushed red. “So to you I was just a tenant with reproductive functions? Everything you said about love and family was a lie? The moment things got hard, the moment I acted like a real man and helped my older daughter, you showed your true face. Calculating. Materialistic—”
“Shut up,” Alina cut in. “I’m not the materialistic one here. You are. You solved your psychological problems with my money. You bought yourself the title of Father of the Year by robbing me and your second child. You’re desperate to be a hero to the people who already crossed you out once, and you spit on the ones who stood by you. These aren’t hard times, Roma. This is betrayal. And I do not live under the same roof as traitors.”
She flung the stack of T-shirts straight into the open suitcase.
“You have ten minutes. If you don’t pack yourself, I’ll call movers and they’ll dump your things outside with the trash. Believe me, there may not be money on my card, but for that I will borrow from the neighbors. With pleasure.”
Roman stared at her and realized she was not bluffing. In that small woman with the enormous belly, a steel force had awakened — one he had never even imagined she possessed. The injustice of it stung so sharply he could have cried. He, after all, was the victim here. He had given everything. He had acted nobly. And now he was being dragged through the mud over a stroller.
“Fine,” he hissed through clenched teeth, righteous anger boiling inside him. “Fine. I’ll go. But you’ll regret this, Alina. You’ll come crawling back when you realize you can’t survive alone with a newborn. But I’ll never forget how you threw me out into the night.”
He began stuffing things together frantically, no longer caring whether anything wrinkled. His expensive laptop, chargers, razor, favorite cologne — everything flew into the bag in a tangled heap. He packed loudly, slamming drawers, hoping she would stop him, cry, apologize. But Alina stood by the window, staring into the darkness outside without even turning her head.
“Leave the keys on the dresser,” she said when he zipped the suitcase shut.
Roman slammed the key ring onto the polished surface hard enough to leave a scratch. He did not care.
“I’m going to Marina’s,” he announced loudly as he shoved his arms into his jacket in the hallway. “To people who actually understand gratitude. Yana appreciated what I did. Marina will too. And you… you’re just a petty provincial woman, Alina. Narrow-minded and greedy. Stay here with your strollers.”
“Goodbye, Roma,” came her voice from the bedroom. No anger. No sorrow. Only exhaustion.
He stepped out onto the landing, dragging the heavy suitcase behind him. The door slammed shut immediately, and the lock turned twice. That dry metallic click sliced through his pride more sharply than any insult.
Outside, Roman drew in a breath of cold autumn air. His phone buzzed in his pocket — notifications of charges from the taxi he had ordered. He had almost nothing left, but he had called a Comfort Plus car anyway. He was not about to show up at his ex-wife’s place like some beaten stray. He was arriving as a victor, as the savior of the family, temporarily misunderstood by his current woman but certain that there — where so much hope and money had already been invested in him — he would be welcomed with open arms.
It’s fine, he told himself as the headlights drew closer. I’ll get there, tell Marina everything. She’s a smart woman, experienced. We’ll laugh together at that fool. Maybe I’ll even stay with them for a couple of days until I rent a place. After all, I paid for Yana’s London. They owe me for life now. I’ve earned some hospitality.
He got into the car, gave the driver an address he had not visited in nearly five years, and leaned back in the seat. Ahead of him loomed a reunion with the past — a past he was certain had been waiting for him all this time. After all, he had purchased the right to love with a check full of zeros. How could it be otherwise?
The taxi stopped in front of a tall brick building inside a gated complex — the same place where Roman had once left his first family, his apartment, and, as he had believed back then, a piece of his heart. He paid the driver, hauled his suitcase from the trunk, and rolled it confidently toward the entrance. He still remembered the intercom code by heart; his fingers typed it automatically. The lock buzzed, and the heavy door opened obediently, as though welcoming the prodigal father home.
Inside the elevator, Roman smoothed his disheveled hair while looking at himself in the mirror. He looked tired, but his eyes still held a spark of anticipation. In a few minutes he would see Yana, would see the joy in Marina’s face. Living with an ex-wife was not ideal, of course, but considering the grand gesture he had made by paying for the college, they simply could not refuse him temporary shelter. After all, he was now the main sponsor of their bright future.
He rang the bell and arranged a triumphant smile on his face. Footsteps sounded behind the door — heavy, confident, unmistakably male. Roman frowned. The lock clicked, the door swung open, and his smile slid from his face like old paint.
A strange man stood there. Around Roman’s age, but much better put together: expensive loungewear, athletic pants, soft house slippers on his feet. He was holding a half-eaten apple and looking at the guest with the suitcase with polite confusion.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, making no move to step aside.
“I need Marina. Or Yana,” Roman muttered, suddenly feeling like a salesman on the wrong floor. “I’m Yana’s father. And you are…?”
“Igor,” the man said shortly, taking another bite of the apple. Then he raised his voice over his shoulder. “Marin! There’s someone here for you. Looks like the ex.”
From deeper inside the apartment, in a bright hallway scented with expensive perfume and fresh coffee, Marina appeared. She looked impeccable: a silk robe, perfect hair, the calm, well-fed expression of a woman content with her life. When she saw Roman standing there with a suitcase, she merely lifted an eyebrow in surprise. There was not a trace of the warmth he had expected.
“Roma?” she said, folding her arms. “What exactly are you doing here at eleven at night? People are getting ready to rest.”
“I wanted to see my daughter,” Roman said, trying to squeeze past Igor, but the man remained planted in the doorway like a wall. “And talk to you. It’s urgent.”
“Then talk here,” Marina said coolly, making no gesture inviting him inside. “Yana is busy packing. Her flight is the day after tomorrow, as you know. She’s stressed, she has things to do. She doesn’t need your visit right now.”
A lump of humiliation rose in Roman’s throat. He stood there on the doormat in front of a door he had once bought himself, in front of the woman to whom he had given half his life, and he was being kept in the hallway like a courier.
“Marin, you don’t understand,” he lowered his voice, glancing at Igor chewing his apple. “I have problems. Alina… we had a huge fight. I left. I need somewhere to stay for a couple of days until I find a place. I thought that since I paid for Yana’s education…”
Marina cut him off with a short, barking laugh. She exchanged a look with Igor, and there was so much condescending contempt in that look that Roman wanted the floor to open up beneath him.
“Wait,” she said, stepping closer but still remaining beyond the threshold. “Are you serious? You show up at my door with a suitcase because your pregnant wife kicked you out, and you expect me to make up the guest room? Roma, have you lost your mind?”
“I gave every last ruble for Yana’s college!” Roman exploded, his voice echoing through the hallway. “I’m broke because of our daughter! I sacrificed my family for her future! Don’t I deserve basic human decency? Just let me stay the night!”
Igor stopped chewing and looked at Roman with calm disgust — the kind of look one gives a drunk who has collapsed in a puddle.
“Listen, friend,” Igor said evenly. “Giving money for your child’s education is not some heroic sacrifice. It’s your duty. By law and by conscience. You didn’t perform some noble deed — you finally did what a father should have been doing all along, after forgetting about it for the last three years. That doesn’t give you the right to barge into someone else’s home and demand a bed. My family lives here. There is no place for you here.”
“Your family?” Roman nearly choked on his outrage. “That’s my daughter! My ex-wife!”
“Ex-wife,” Marina repeated pointedly. “That’s the key word. Roma, I have my own life. Igor has his own life. We’ve been living together for a year. Did you really think we were all just sitting here waiting for you to show up like some knight on a white horse — except without the horse or the money?”
“But I helped… I saved the situation… Yana dreamed of this…” Roman began to stumble over his words, the ground slipping out from beneath him. The heroic image he had carefully built around himself was dissolving right in front of him into something pathetic and wet.
“You paid because you wanted to stroke your own ego,” Marina said sharply, looking him straight in the eye. “You’ve always been like that. What matters to you is looking impressive, being the ‘big man,’ throwing money around to impress people. As for the fact that you abandoned your heavily pregnant wife — that’s your problem. It has nothing to do with me. And don’t drag Yana into it. She needs peace before London, not the sight of her father begging to sleep on the doormat like a failure.”
“Yana!” Roman shouted over Marina’s shoulder, hoping his daughter would hear. “Yana, come out! Tell them!”
“Don’t yell,” Igor stepped forward and nudged Roman back with his chest, making him stumble and nearly trip over his own suitcase. “You’ll wake the neighbors. You heard what we told you: leave. We’re not giving the money back — it’s already with the college. You can’t stay here. This is not a shelter for ex-husbands.”
“You… you’re monsters,” Roman whispered, his hands trembling. “I came here with all my heart… I gave up everything…”
“You didn’t give up what was yours,” Marina said coldly, reaching for the door handle. “You gave away something that belonged to your future child. And you thought we’d kiss your feet for it? Wrong address, Roma. Go to a hotel. Oh right — you don’t have money. Then maybe the train station. It’s warm there.”
“Get lost, hero,” Igor added.
The door slammed in Roman’s face. The lock clicked. He remained standing in the brightly lit hallway, staring at the expensive upholstery on the door. From inside he could hear Marina say something, and then Igor laugh softly.
Roman punched the wall. Pain shot through his knuckles, but it was nothing compared to the humiliation burning through him from the inside. He stood there alone, with a massive suitcase full of things he no longer needed, in the hallway of a place where no one had been waiting for him. Every fantasy he had nurtured about gratitude and reunion shattered against the simple truth of daily life: to those people, he had only ever mattered as a function — an ATM. The ATM had dispensed its cash and broken down. Broken machines get thrown away.
Roman did not leave. He simply could not make his legs move, as though the soles of his shoes had fused with the tile. His head rang with humiliation, but louder still was the howl of his wounded pride. He could not accept that his “investment” had ended in this collapse. This had to be a mistake, a misunderstanding. Marina was upset, Igor was jealous — but Yana… Yana was his blood, his pride. She could not do this to him.
He pressed the doorbell again. Long and hard, his finger nearly cracking the plastic button. Then he pounded his fist against the metal door.
“Yana!” he shouted, not caring how the sound echoed. “Yana, come out and talk to your father! I know you’re in there! Have some conscience — I’m ruined because of you!”
There was movement behind the door, muffled voices, and a minute later the lock clicked again. The door opened only a little — just enough for him to see his daughter’s face. Yana stood there in a stylish sweatshirt he had paid for the month before, holding a phone with an unfinished chat glowing on the screen. There was no joy in her eyes, no sympathy — only cold irritation, the kind one reserves for an obnoxious drunk on public transport.
“Dad, why are you yelling?” she muttered, not even lowering her phone. “Do you know what time it is? The neighbors are going to call the cops. Do you need that?”
“Yana…” Roman took a step toward her, holding out his hands like a beggar. “Sweetheart, do you even understand what’s happening? Alina threw me out. Completely. Because of the money I sent you. I’m out on the street, Yana. With a suitcase. Let me stay one night — just on the kitchen couch. I have nowhere to go.”
Yana sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, making it clear exactly how exhausting she found this entire conversation.
“Dad, what do you mean, stay the night? I’ve got suitcases all over the apartment, tomorrow I’m having a farewell party with my friends, there’s barely room to breathe in here. Mom’s already stressed out. Why did you even tell Alina you gave away all the money? You could have lied. You’re a grown man — you’re supposed to know how to handle your own family mess.”
Roman stared at her. The words stuck in his throat like splinters. He looked at his daughter — the very person for whom he had betrayed his pregnant wife — and saw a complete stranger.
“I couldn’t not tell her… The card was empty, Yana! I gave you everything! Eight hundred thousand! I left your brother without a stroller, without a crib, so you could live in London like a human being!” His voice cracked into something shrill. “And all you can say is ‘handle it yourself’? I sacrificed everything for your dream!”
“Don’t make yourself into some martyr,” Yana said with a grimace. “You paid for my education. Thanks, I guess. But that’s your responsibility. You’re my father. For ten years you paid those pathetic child support payments off your ‘official’ salary while Mom carried everything on her back. And now you finally spent real money once and expect us to build you a monument? Besides, that money barely covers anything. Mom said I’ll only just scrape by there and will have to budget hard. So spare me the speeches about millions.”
“I’m out on the street…” Roman whispered, the world tilting under his feet. “Yana, I’m your father. I’m standing here with a suitcase, I’m freezing, I have nowhere to go. Don’t you feel sorry for me?”
Yana looked at him, then glanced down at her phone as another message popped up.
“Dad, this is your choice,” she said coldly. “You chose that woman. You chose to have a child with her. You failed to plan your money. Why should I pay with my comfort for your mistakes? If your wife threw you out, then you clearly put yourself in that position. A man is supposed to solve problems, not dump them on his daughter right before she leaves the country. Go to a hostel. What’s the issue?”
At that moment Igor appeared behind her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and gently moved her farther into the apartment.
“That’s enough. Audience over,” he said firmly. “Yana, go to your room. And you, hero — grab your junk and disappear. Ring this bell one more time and I’ll throw you down the stairs with your suitcase. And believe me, I’ll enjoy it.”
“Yana!” Roman cried one last time.
But his daughter did not even turn around. She was already typing something on her phone, walking deeper into the bright, comfortable life he had paid for. The door shut for good. That dull metallic thud cut him off from the past into which he had so recklessly poured his present.
He was alone in the echoing hallway. The silence pressed against his ears. Slowly, Roman walked over to his suitcase and gripped the handle. It felt like ice in his hand. He dragged himself toward the elevator, hollow, as if he had been gutted and left as an empty shell.
Outside, he sank down onto a bench near the entrance. The autumn wind cut through him, but he barely felt the cold. With trembling fingers he pulled out his phone. One unread message from the bank glowed on the screen: “Transaction declined. Insufficient funds.” He opened his messenger app and found Alina’s contact.
There was no profile picture anymore. Instead of the happy photo of the two of them smiling by the sea, there was only a gray faceless silhouette. The “last seen” status was gone too. He tried calling. A short ring, then the call dropped. He tried again. Same thing. And then finally, the mechanical message: “The subscriber is temporarily unavailable or has blocked you.”
Roman lowered the phone. He stared at the dark windows of his ex-wife’s building, where only one room was still lit — Yana’s room. He imagined them in there now, talking about his visit, laughing at how ridiculous he had looked, packing more designer clothes into more suitcases like his own. He imagined Alina lying in the dark in what had once been their bedroom, one hand over her belly, hating him with every cell in her body.
He had been sure he was buying love and respect. Instead, all he had bought was a one-way ticket into loneliness.
Roman sat on the bench, staring at the wet pavement. Beside him stood the huge suitcase stuffed with expensive shirts — the only home he had left. In his pocket were two hundred rubles in small change. And in London, at a prestigious college, a semester had already been paid for — for a daughter who would not even let him cross the threshold.
He covered his face with his hands and sat motionless. He did not want to scream. He did not want to cry. Inside him there was only scorched emptiness.
He had gotten exactly what he paid for.
