Lena was folding tiny baby onesies when the key rattled in the lock. Her heart dropped—Andrei was at work, and the spare key was with her mother-in-law “for emergencies.” Only for Galina Petrovna, any day of the week counted as an emergency. “Lenochka! Where are you?” She stepped into the hallway, tugging her sweater down […]
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“Do you even realize this is betrayal?” Ivan’s voice was shaking, though he was trying to keep himself in check. Maria stood by the window, looking out at the yard where two girls were kicking a ball and laughing as if the whole world belonged to them. She was holding her phone and staying silent. […]
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“What do you mean, WE’RE GETTING DIVORCED?” Igor asked in surprise, freezing in the middle of the living room with a bottle of beer in his hand. “I thought we just had a fight!” Vera was standing by the door with a suitcase; her face showed a determination Igor had never seen in all seven […]
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“Hi, Olenka! Listen, I’ve got something to ask you… not just a favor, a huge favor!” Marina’s voice, her sister-in-law, rang in the receiver with that affected enthusiasm Olya had learned to recognize as the prelude to something burdensome. “Hi, Marina. I’m listening,” Olya replied, pushing away a stack of archival folders with yellowed pages. […]
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Marina sat on the edge of the couch and counted her breaths so she wouldn’t snap. In the bedroom—a wheeled suitcase; in the hallway—Alexei’s jacket, smelling of someone else’s perfume. Behind the wall, their son was asleep. The apartment was breathing silence, like a hospital ward before an operation. Alexei was carefully folding his shirts, […]
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Natalya opened her eyes and saw a white ceiling. The bright light hurt her pupils, and the first thing that crossed her mind was where she was and why it hurt so much to breathe. Her chest felt as if it were clamped in a vise; every breath came with difficulty. “You’ve come to,” she […]
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“The apartment gets divided too,” my husband was running a ballpoint pen along the list he’d written on a sheet of graph paper. “That’s the law. Joint property.” I sat across from him in the lawyer’s office and watched the blue line slide along the rows: “Apartment on Sadovaya — split in half. Car — […]
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Lena, I’ve come back,” her ex-husband announced solemnly, as if he were declaring victory in a war. “I realized I made a huge mistake. You are the best woman in my life.” Standing on the doorstep was Viktor—her ex-husband twice over, the man she had divorced four years ago. In his hands was a bouquet […]
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