My husband, Pyotr, had not once suggested that the children and I come visit him in Slovakia during the nearly three years he had been working there. And just to be clear, he had left long before the war began, openly and for work. There was never any secrecy about that. But every single time I brought up the idea of visiting, his answer was always the same:
“It’s too expensive, Oksana. We should spend that money on the kids instead.”
I would only sigh and swallow the irritation building inside me. I missed him terribly, and the children could barely hold back their tears during Skype calls with him. Still, I understood the reality: without his job abroad, life would have been much harder for us. The mortgage, the loans, the endless expenses for the children—none of that had disappeared.
Even last Christmas, the conversation went almost exactly the same way.
“Maybe in the summer, all right? The kids will be on holiday. We’ll rest, maybe even go to the sea, maybe visit another country…”
But summer came and went, and nothing changed. Everything stayed exactly as it had been.
That was when I decided I had waited long enough. I would go myself. I would surprise him, especially since Pyotr’s birthday was coming up.
I prepared for the trip carefully. I searched for the cheapest tickets, planned the route, picked out a gift. I wanted everything to feel bright and unforgettable—I wanted him to see us and be left speechless with surprise and happiness.
“Mom, are you really sure Dad will be happy?” my daughter Anya asked uncertainly.
“Of course, sweetheart. It’s a surprise. Daddy will be thrilled,” I answered with confidence, though something uneasy had already begun to stir inside me.
The journey was long and exhausting, but the thought of seeing him kept me warm. I imagined him opening the door and smiling, imagined him holding us in his arms. But everything seemed to go wrong on purpose: a delay at the border, little problems along the way. It was as if fate itself were trying to postpone that moment.
But the reality I stepped into was nothing like the one I had dreamed of.
When I reached the house where Pyotr was renting a place with his coworkers, I could hear loud music, laughter, and the clinking of glasses from inside. At first I thought, “Maybe they’re celebrating someone’s birthday.”
Then I got closer and heard my husband’s voice. It sounded different—light, cheerful, freer than I had heard it in a very long time. And beside it came the bright laughter of a woman.
My heart tightened at once.
I knocked on the door. Harder. Then harder still. And in that instant, it felt as though my whole world split in two.
He was sitting on the couch with his arm around a young woman. They were laughing, completely unaware of anything else. The door was opened by one of Pyotr’s friends, the same man who had once left with him to work abroad. The celebration stopped immediately.
Shock froze on every face in the room.
“Oksana?! What are you doing here?” Pyotr jumped to his feet.
“I should be asking you that. What is this?”
“It’s not what you think… We were just…” he began, stumbling over his excuses.
The woman, who had been silent until then, looked at me, then at him, and said quietly:
“I didn’t know you had a wife.”
“And he never planned to tell you,” I replied without taking my eyes off my husband.
“Oksana, wait! It’s not like that! Let me explain!”
Later, I sat alone in a hotel room on the edge of the bed, staring up at the ceiling. My phone would not stop vibrating.
“Oksana, this is a mistake! I’ll explain everything!” message after message kept pouring in.
I could not understand how this had happened. We had spent almost fifteen years together. We had built plans, dreamed about the future. How could he do this to us?
I came home broken, emptied out, barely holding myself together. But I lied to the children and told them the surprise had gone well.
Thank God they did not see any of it.
