“Fifteen years, Oksana, and I still remember how you spilled coffee all over me and then acted as though you’d planned it,” Artyom said, tossing a dry branch into the fire.
“I didn’t spill it. I marked you so you wouldn’t escape,” she laughed, wrapping the blanket more tightly around herself. “And as you can see, it worked.”
“You’re a crafty woman.” He moved closer to her. “You know, this was a brilliant idea. No cooking, no crowd, no endless preparations. Just the pine trees, the fire, and you.”
“After your last anniversary, I spent an entire week scrubbing pots and swore I would never do that again.” Oksana stretched her hands toward the flames. “Do you remember when Nastya knocked a whole bowl of salad onto our brand-new carpet?”
“How could I forget?” Artyom snorted. “I also remember the guests finally leaving at three in the morning while the two of us sat surrounded by dirty dishes, silently staring at each other.”
“Exactly. That’s why this year we have peace, tea, and that ridiculous sparkling wine you promised to open.” She nodded toward the bottle standing beside a log.
“I’ll open it. Let the fire catch properly first.” He fell silent for a moment, watching the sparks rise into the darkness. “Oksana, maybe it’s finally time for us to make a decision.”
“What kind of decision?”
“About having a child. I turned forty-five today. Seems like a good age to finally grow up.”
“You’ve been planning to grow up for the last ten years,” she said with a smile, though her expression softened. “Let’s survive until morning, birthday boy. Then we’ll talk seriously. And for the record, I’m not against the idea.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a phone call. His sister’s name lit up the screen, and Artyom answered with a weary sigh.
“Artyom, where are you?” Marina’s voice rang with excitement. “Everyone’s already at the restaurant! The whole family is here, waiting for you and Oksana. They’re bringing out the main course soon, and we ordered an enormous cake for our runaway birthday boy!”
“Marina, slow down.” Artyom looked at his wife in confusion. “What restaurant? I told Mom in advance that Oksana and I were celebrating alone at a holiday lodge. We’re outside the city, in the middle of a pine forest.”
“Oh, come on,” his sister replied, instantly sounding disappointed. “We’re all here. We were waiting for you.”
“Even if I left right this second, it would take at least two hours to reach you,” Artyom explained patiently. “And I never asked anyone to organize a banquet.”
“Fine, whatever,” Marina muttered resentfully.
Someone immediately took the phone from her.
“Happy birthday, son,” his mother said calmly, as though the absence of the guest of honor did not trouble her at all. “I wish you a long and happy life. Give Oksana my regards. Come over if you change your minds.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Artyom’s voice softened. “But we’re staying here. We’re relaxing.”
The phone changed hands again. His uncle’s booming voice filled the speaker, accompanied by clinking plates and drunken laughter in the background.
“Artyom! What is the meaning of this?” Uncle Kolya demanded. “The entire family has gathered, but the birthday boy is missing! That’s not right!”
“Uncle Kolya, did anyone think to ask me what I wanted?” Artyom’s patience was beginning to wear thin. “I didn’t invite anyone. I told everybody I was celebrating with my wife.”
“Oh, never mind.” His uncle suddenly became sentimental. “I remember when you were tiny, racing your bicycle around the courtyard and scraping your knees. I’m drinking to your health tonight, nephew! May you live a long life!”
Artyom ended the call and shook his head.
Oksana had heard everything, but she said nothing. She merely raised one eyebrow.
“A traveling circus,” he muttered. “They gathered for my birthday without me, and now they’re offended that I’m not there.”
“Interesting,” she said dryly. “Most people at least inform the person whose celebration they’re supposedly attending.”
Half an hour later, the phone rang again. This time it was his brother.
“Artyom!” Pavel was clearly drunk, stretching out every word. “Listen, brother, we’ve got a situation. The restaurant is in your honor, right? That means you’re paying. Send seventy thousand rubles. The bill is about to arrive.”
“Excuse me?” Artyom pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. “Pasha, can you hear yourself? I didn’t invite anyone. I warned everybody that I was spending the evening alone with my wife.”
“Oh, stop complaining,” Pavel laughed. “It’s your birthday, so they’re your expenses. Perfectly logical. Aunt Lyuda has already ordered three portions of herring under a fur coat.”
“Perfectly logical, he says.” Artyom opened his banking application and froze for a moment. “You know what? I’m honestly stunned by this. You’ll have to figure it out among yourselves.”
Someone grabbed the phone from Pavel.
“Artyom, you’re a disgrace!” his aunt shrieked. “Imagine being the birthday boy and refusing to pay! Where has such a thing ever been heard of? We’re sitting here celebrating you, and you’re too stingy to send the money!”
“Aunt Lyuda, you ordered the food, so you can pay for it,” he tried to say, but the phone was already being passed from one relative to another.
First Pavel demanded the transfer. Then his uncle threatened to remain offended for the rest of his life. Then his mother sighed dramatically about how ashamed she was in front of everyone.
Artyom stood beside the fire with the phone in his hand. His finger hovered over the transfer button.
He was almost ready to surrender.
“Fine, damn it. I’ll send the money, just so you’ll all leave me—”
Oksana gently took the phone from him.
“Give it to me.”
She turned on the speaker so everyone around the restaurant table could hear her.
“Good evening. This is Oksana. Listen carefully, because I’m not going to repeat myself.”
“Oh, the wife has finally appeared,” Pavel scoffed. “At least you can knock some sense into him.”
“You organized this restaurant gathering, so you can pay for it yourselves,” Oksana said evenly. “What does my husband have to do with it? He isn’t even at the banquet. You arranged the entire event without asking him. Therefore, whoever suggested it can pay, or all of you can divide the bill. But my husband will not be financing a dinner he neither requested nor attended.”
Stunned silence filled the speaker.
Then everyone began shouting at once. Someone protested, someone demanded that she return the phone to Artyom, and Aunt Lyuda let out a series of piercing gasps.
Oksana waited until the voices quieted.
“Enjoy your meal,” she said calmly.
Then she ended the call.
“The nerve of them, sending me a bill for a banquet I’m not even attending,” Artyom said. He switched off the phone completely and placed it on the log beside him.
“Don’t answer again tonight,” Oksana advised. “Otherwise, you might say something you’ll regret tomorrow. Let them calm down.”
“You’re like a military commander.” He put an arm around her shoulders. “One phone call from you and the entire army panics.”
“I’m not a commander. I simply don’t like it when people disguise shamelessness as family love.” She tossed another twig into the fire. “Someone once said that a person who truly wants something looks for opportunities, while someone who doesn’t looks for excuses. Your family desperately wanted an opportunity to eat at your expense.”
The phone vibrated twice more before falling silent.
Artyom deliberately slipped it into his pocket.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I’m celebrating my birthday, not participating in a family tribunal. Open that sparkling wine already.”
Meanwhile, a genuine storm was breaking out at the restaurant.
A heavy silence settled over the table as the waiter approached and placed the bill folder directly in the center.
The amount was substantial.
Everyone stared at it as though it were something dangerous.
“So who’s paying?” Pavel asked, looking around with unfocused eyes. “Artyom has abandoned us. Wonderful brother.”
“I thought I’d simply been invited,” Aunt Lyuda said quickly, shifting her chair away from the folder. “I didn’t bring any money with me.”
“My card is empty. I don’t get paid until the day after tomorrow,” Uncle Kolya muttered, suddenly far more sober. “I assumed everything had already been paid for.”
“Call him again,” Artyom’s mother demanded. “Make him answer.”
They called one after another.
His brother called.
His uncle called.
His aunt called.
But Artyom’s phone remained silent and unreachable.
Every unanswered ring disappeared into emptiness, and with every passing moment the truth became more obvious.
No rescue was coming.
“What kind of person refuses to answer the phone?” Pavel slammed his palm against the table. “He won’t even help his own brother!”
“Why should he?” Marina’s husband asked quietly.
Until then, he had said nothing.
“We arranged this ourselves. Artyom didn’t even know about it.”
“Be quiet!” Aunt Lyuda snapped. “Nobody asked for your clever opinions.”
In the end, swearing under his breath, Pavel pulled out his bank card and paid the entire seventy-thousand-ruble bill himself.
His teeth were clenched with fury.
Then, with trembling fingers, he typed a message to his brother.
“I paid seventy thousand for you. Now you owe me. Return it before things get ugly.”
A reply arrived a minute later.
Once again, it had been written by Oksana.
“Have a pleasant evening. Enjoy the food you ordered and paid for. My husband had nothing to do with this banquet, and you will not receive any money from us.”
Pavel read the message aloud.
Silence descended over the table again.
This time, however, it felt different.
“Wait,” Aunt Lyuda said uncertainly. All the shrillness had vanished from her voice. “Maybe he really had nothing to do with it.”
“We didn’t even ask him,” Uncle Kolya admitted, staring at the tablecloth. “We gathered here, called it his birthday celebration, and forgot to invite him properly.”
“And then we tried to dump the bill on him,” Marina’s husband added. “From the outside, it looks rather shameful.”
Artyom’s mother sat with her lips pressed tightly together.
She said nothing.
The absurdity of the situation had finally reached everyone at the table, and the festive mood collapsed completely.
Aunt Lyuda was the first to open her purse. She counted out her share and placed the money in front of Pavel.
“Here. I’m sorry. We all got carried away.”
The others followed her example.
A nephew and his wife paid their portion. Marina’s husband silently placed several banknotes on the table as well.
Marina herself had not attended, claiming that she was ill.
Perhaps she had been the luckiest of them all.
“Well, that settles it,” Pavel grumbled, gathering the money. “And here everyone was acting as though my brother were the guilty one.”
Nobody replied.
The celebration that had begun with noisy enthusiasm now resembled a funeral meal. Everyone ate in silence, forks tapping against plates, while no one could remember why they had gathered in the first place.
Artyom’s mother was the first to rise.
“I’m going home,” she said tiredly. “Thank you for the evening.”
The words sounded so bitter that Uncle Kolya lowered his eyes to his plate.
At that same moment, Artyom and Oksana were walking along a path beside a dark lake. Pine needles crackled softly beneath their feet.
“You know, I nearly transferred the money,” he admitted, squeezing her hand. “My finger was already over the button. Another second, and seventy thousand rubles would have disappeared for absolutely nothing.”
“I saw that.” She smiled. “That’s why I took the phone away. Sometimes a man needs someone to gently hold his arm back.”
“Thank you.” He stopped and looked at her. “You took the entire blow yourself. I would have lost my temper and said horrible things, but you simply ended the argument.”
“I just refuse to let people climb onto our shoulders,” Oksana said with a shrug. “That isn’t cruelty. It’s self-respect. And respect for you.”
“They are still my family,” Artyom sighed. “I feel a little sorry for them.”
“So do I,” she agreed. “But pity is a terrible reason to finance someone else’s greed. Let them think about how they should organize celebrations in the future.”
“Do you think there will be another celebration?” he asked with a grin.
“Of course there will.” She took his arm. “But next time it will truly be ours. Perhaps with a cradle nearby.”
He stopped for a second.
Then he laughed, freely and easily.
“Now that is a proper forty-fifth birthday present,” Artyom said. “And they ordered a cake for their runaway birthday boy. Can you imagine? A runaway! The only thing I abandoned tonight was a noisy family dinner, and I don’t regret it for a second.”
They returned to the cottage, where the fire was slowly dying.
Oksana finally opened the sparkling wine. The cork shot toward the stars with a loud pop.
“To peace and quiet,” she said, raising her glass.
“To you,” he corrected her. “And to the fact that you always know exactly where the end-call button is.”
Artyom’s phone remained switched off until morning.
When he finally turned it on, there was only one message waiting for him.
It was from his mother.
“Forgive us, son. We were wrong. Happy birthday—properly this time.”
He showed the screen to his wife and smiled.
“Now that congratulations I’ll accept,” he said. “That’s how they should have begun.”
The funniest detail came to light a week later.
The enormous cake ordered for the “runaway birthday boy” had remained untouched on the restaurant table. In their hurry to leave, the relatives had completely forgotten to take it with them.
In the end, the cake went to the restaurant staff—the only people who were genuinely pleased with how that birthday celebration turned out.