The twilight of October gently enveloped the city as I set the table for dinner. The familiar cups with worn edges, the old embroidered tablecloth — everything in this kitchen had remained unchanged for the past three decades. Viktor entered, carefully closing the door behind him. The warm October evening prompted him to roll up his shirt sleeves. I noticed he was holding some papers.
“Larisa, I need you to sign something,” he said, sitting down at the table.
I stirred the borscht, from which thin streams of steam rose. The air was filled with the scent of fresh dill and sour cream.
“What is it?” I asked without turning around.
“It’s nothing,” he waved it off. “Formality for the bank. Remember, we talked about refinancing?”
Yes, I remembered. For the past couple of years, our life had revolved around money: loans, interest, payments. This three-room apartment was inherited from my parents, but life had forced us to take a loan against it — first for the children’s education, then for Viktor’s business, which never took off.
“So, everything’s fine?” I asked, setting a bowl of borscht in front of him.
“Absolutely,” he smiled, pulling a pen from his pocket. “Just sign here and here.”
I glanced briefly at the papers. Small print, numbered points, pages — my eyes immediately began to water from the strain.
“Why bother reading, Lara?” Viktor said softly. “The bank’s offering the best terms. Just trust me, like always.”
He handed me the pen. A streetlight flashed outside, casting a yellow light on our aged faces. For a moment, I thought I saw something strange in his eyes… but I didn’t have time to figure it out.
My hand instinctively reached for the pen.
“Here, right?” I asked, leaning over the papers.
“Yes, yes,” he confirmed, pointing to the blank lines. “And here as well. And at the bottom of every page.”
I signed, thinking about how I needed to water the geranium tomorrow. Viktor watched my hand move. There was something in his gaze… something new. But I was too tired to look closely. Thirty years of marriage had taught me to trust my husband. I believed him like I believed myself.
“That’s it,” he said, gathering the signed pages. “Everything will be fine, Lara.”
“Of course,” I smiled, sitting across from him. “Eat before it gets cold.”
A week passed. I stood by the stove, frying cutlets for the children’s Sunday lunch — they promised to stop by. Viktor had been acting excited all morning, humming a tune as he walked around the apartment.
“Lara,” he called from the hallway. “Come here for a minute.”
I wiped my hands on my apron, lowered the heat on the pan, and went out. Viktor was standing, leaning against the wall, with an envelope in his hand.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Don’t you guess?” He grinned, as if about to announce a lottery win.
“Vitya, I’m frying cutlets,” I started to get irritated. “Just tell me directly.”
“The bank sent the documents,” he said, waving the envelope. “Remember what you signed last week?”
I nodded, though I had almost forgotten the details.
“So, here it is,” his voice was playful, “now the apartment is mine.”
It didn’t immediately register what he meant. I probably even smiled, expecting more of a joke. But Viktor was silent, only looking at me with a strange expression — joy, but somehow wrong.
“What do you mean — yours?” I asked, feeling a rise of anxiety inside.
“Literally, Lara. You signed away your share. The apartment is now registered only in my name.”
I froze, unable to believe my ears. Thirty years together, children, grandchildren, a shared life… This apartment, where every corner held memories of my parents, where our children grew up.
“This can’t be,” I whispered. “You said it was for refinancing.”
“I can say a lot,” he shrugged, maintaining that half-smile. “But the papers don’t lie. You didn’t read what you signed. That’s your problem, Lara.”
The doorbell interrupted our conversation. The children. I stood still, trying to process what had just happened.
“Don’t make a scene in front of the kids,” Viktor said quietly but firmly, walking to the door. “It won’t change anything.”
He opened the door. The joyful exclamations of our son and daughter rang out. I looked at my husband, who was hugging the children, and didn’t recognize him. Who is this man? And how do I move forward now, when everything that seemed unshakable has suddenly crumbled?
The cutlets on the stove, forgotten by me, began to burn. The smell of smoke filled the apartment. How symbolic, I thought. My whole life is burning now, covered in bitterness.
The bus stopped at the intersection, and I stepped out, squinting in the sunlight. The law office to which my neighbor Galina Sergeyevna had directed me turned out to be a nondescript five-story building with peeling paint. “Just like something for someone like me,” a bitter thought flashed.
“Third floor, right,” muttered the security guard, not looking up from his crossword.
I climbed the stairs, gripping the railing. My legs felt as though they were filled with lead. How many times had I passed by such offices, thinking they were for the unlucky, the lost people? And now I was one of them.
The reception room smelled of coffee and office supplies. A middle-aged woman, who introduced herself as Irina Mikhaylovna, pointed to a chair. I handed her the folder with the papers Viktor had carelessly tossed on the table after my persistent requests.
“Let’s see,” Irina squinted as she flipped through the pages. Her glasses slid down her nose, and her thin fingers nervously tapped the table. “Did you sign these?”
“Yes,” I whispered, feeling my cheeks burn.
“And here? And here?” She turned a few more pages.
I nodded, my eyes downcast. I was ashamed to tears. Thirty years as an accountant, and I couldn’t see such a simple betrayal.
“Well, Larisa Petrovna,” Irina took off her glasses and rubbed her nose, “the situation… let’s say, is not easy. This is a standard gift agreement for your share. Here,” she pointed to the middle of the page, “you’re waiving all rights to the property. And here,” another poke, “you’re confirming that you’re acting voluntarily, without coercion.”
“But I didn’t know!” My voice trembled. “He said it was for the bank, for refinancing…”
She sighed and pulled out two worn mugs to brew tea. Her modest office, with dusty blinds and an outdated computer, suddenly seemed like the last refuge in a world that had started to collapse.
“You see, the law protects against threats, violence. But from your own gullibility…” She spread her hands. “Your husband acted dishonestly, but legally, he did everything right.”
“Is there nothing that can be fixed?” I asked, absentmindedly stirring sugar into my tea with a chipped spoon.
“If you had evidence… Recorded conversations, witnesses… Something that could confirm his intent, his plan to deceive you.”
I remembered how Viktor often whispered on the phone, cutting conversations short when I appeared… But what proof was there?
“Thank you for your honesty,” I stood up, adjusting my old jacket. I wanted to retain some semblance of dignity, though inside, everything was falling apart.
“Larisa Petrovna,” Irina also stood up, “don’t lose hope. Think it over. Maybe something will come to you. I’ll wait for your call.”
I nodded and stepped out into the stairwell. I wanted to cry, but there were no tears. Only a dull pain in my chest and the question pounding in my temples: how do I go on now, when the house I’ve always thought of as mine is now someone else’s, and the man of thirty years is a stranger?
The Attic Discovery Viktor left for his sister’s birthday. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, slamming the door. Now he spoke to me briefly, as if I had become a stranger in this house. Though now, it wasn’t even my house anymore…
I decided to clean. Not for cleanliness — I just needed something to do with my hands, so I wouldn’t go crazy. I got the ladder and climbed up to the attic — no one had been up there for a long time.
Old suitcases, boxes with children’s toys, photo albums… Dust danced in the sunlight streaming through the window. Deep inside, I found a cardboard box labeled “Equipment.” It contained an old camera, a radio receiver, and… a small black dictaphone.
I vaguely remembered this dictaphone. It seemed Viktor had used it to record work meetings. Then he switched to his phone, and the dictaphone was sent to the attic.
Turning it over in my hands, I pressed the power button — surprisingly, it worked. A small screen lit up, showing there were recordings inside. I pressed play, not really expecting to hear anything important.
“…you understand, Petrovich, it’s simple,” Viktor’s voice came through. “She’ll sign anything, without even looking. She always does — trusts me unconditionally.”
I froze with the rag in my hand. My heart pounded so loudly that it felt like it would jump out of my chest.
“And really, will you give me half?” asked an unfamiliar male voice.
“You’ll get twenty percent, as agreed,” Viktor replied. “For legal support. I’ll sell the apartment later…”
“And the wife?”
“What about the wife?” Viktor chuckled. “She’ll live with the daughter. Or wherever she wants. I don’t care anymore. The main thing is, she won’t figure it out before she signs. I’ll tell her it’s for refinancing — she doesn’t understand anything about that.”
The dictaphone kept recording, but I could no longer hear the words. There was a strange ringing in my ears. This was… this was evidence. What Irina had talked about. Viktor himself had confessed to the deceit, his plan, his collusion with some Petrovich.
I sat down right on the floor amid the scattered things. My hands trembled, but I held tightly to the little black dictaphone — my unexpected chance.
“You signed the papers, and now the apartment is mine,” his words came back to me, spoken with that smug smile. But now… now this story could have a different ending.
I stood up, shook the dust off my knees, and walked purposefully to the phone. I needed to call Irina. We would continue the conversation we’d started in her office. And this time, I would have something to say.
The Day of Justice
The courtroom was smaller than I had imagined. Light-colored walls, wooden benches, a stern emblem on the wall. I sat straight, holding my small handbag with the dictaphone inside. Irina was sitting next to me, flipping through documents, occasionally whispering something.
Viktor sat across from me with a confident expression. His lawyer, a plump man in an expensive suit, was whispering something to him, and they both chuckled. Confident of their victory. Of course — all the paperwork was perfectly in order.
“Please rise. The court is in session!” announced the clerk.
The judge entered — a woman in her fifties with her hair pulled back into a bun. The proceedings began.
I listened to the dry legal terms, watched Viktor’s lawyer present our signed documents to the court, how Irina challenged them on the basis of misleading information… Everything felt so distant, as if it weren’t happening to me.
“The court has heard the parties,” the judge finally said. “The plaintiff claims to have been misled when signing the documents. Does the plaintiff have any evidence of intentional fraud?”
Irina stood up.
“Yes, Your Honor. We have an audio recording proving the defendant’s intent to deceive the plaintiff when signing the documents.”
A murmur ran through the room. Viktor straightened, his face tensed. He whispered something quickly to his lawyer.
“The court will review this evidence,” nodded the judge.
My dictaphone was passed to the clerk. He hooked it up to the speakers. Silence fell in the room. And then I heard it — Viktor’s voice, confident, mocking, telling his friend how cleverly he would deceive me.
“She’ll sign anything, without even looking…”
“I’ll tell her it’s for refinancing…”
“She’ll live with the daughter. Or wherever she wants. I don’t care anymore…”
Every word was like a nail in the coffin of his lies. I didn’t look at Viktor, but I could feel the atmosphere in the room change. The recording ended. The silence deepened.
“Defendant, do you recognize your voice on the recording?” the judge asked, staring at Viktor.
He started mumbling about editing, about phrases taken out of context… His lawyer tried to file a motion for an authenticity test of the recording.
But I could see in the judge’s eyes — she understood everything. The woman, who had lived a long life, looked at me with that special sympathy that only comes between women.
“The court will retire to deliberate,” she announced.
When we gathered again in the courtroom after forty minutes, the judge read the verdict: the transaction was deemed invalid due to misleading information. The apartment would return to my ownership.
I felt tears of relief run down my cheeks. Thirty years together, and this is how it ended — in a courtroom, with a dictaphone and strangers all around. But there were no bitterness in these tears, only a feeling of liberation.
A New Chapter Begins
“Mom, are you sure you can handle this on your own?” Natasha placed the last box on the floor and looked around my new apartment’s kitchen.
“Don’t worry,” I smiled, unpacking the cups. “I haven’t moved to the end of the world. Just a different neighborhood.”
The apartment was smaller than the old one — a one-room, but bright and cozy. After the trial, I decided to sell our old apartment — too many painful memories. Some of the money went to renovate the new place, some to an account for the grandchildren. The rest became my first personal capital, my future.
“Call me when you settle in,” Natasha kissed me on the cheek. “And remember — we always have a place for you.”
“I know, dear,” I hugged my daughter. “But I need to learn how to live independently.”
When the door closed behind Natasha, I looked around. Boxes waiting to be unpacked. Walls that still needed repainting. A new life, starting over at sixty-two.
I put the kettle on the stove — the first thing I did in this house. In the silence, I could hear the ticking of the clock, the noise of cars outside — life continuing despite everything.
From my bag, I took out the little black item — the dictaphone. The one that changed everything. The court had returned it to me after the case was over. I placed it on the table, watching how the sunlight played on its surface.
The kettle whistled. I brewed tea, sat down at the table, and pressed the record button.
“My name is Larisa Petrovna Sokolova,” I began speaking into the dictaphone. “Today is the first day of my new life. And I want to tell my story…”
I spoke for a long time — about trust and betrayal, about the fear of starting over, and the need to be more careful with documents. About how important it is to keep yourself and not lose yourself in someone else. About the children who supported me when the world collapsed.
“Maybe someone is listening to this and thinks it’s too late to start again at sixty-two,” I continued. “But that’s not true. It’s never too late to stand up for yourself. It’s never too late to learn something new. Even if that new thing was taught to you by someone you loved for thirty years, and then lost in one evening.”
It was getting dark outside. I went to turn on the light in my new kitchen. On the windowsill, there was already a geranium — a gift from my neighbor Galina Sergeyevna, the same one who introduced me to Irina. Life continued, weaving new connections, opening new opportunities.
I pressed the “stop” button on the dictaphone. The recording was saved. Maybe it will never be needed by anyone. Or maybe it will help someone who, like I once did, trusted without hesitation.
After finishing my tea, I grabbed a pen and paper. “Renovation plan,” I wrote at the top of the sheet. And I started making a list — carefully, thoughtfully, not missing a single detail.