Maria had always looked forward to Sundays. On that day, the house filled with a special kind of quiet—Andrei left early for his run, and she could be alone for a while. Not in anger, not in resentment—just with herself. To get things done, to think, to remember who she was.
Today she decided to tidy up the wardrobe: spring was on its way, and it was time to put away the winter clothes. Her husband’s blue blazer still hung on the chair—for the third day running.
“Forgot again,” she thought, taking it by the sleeve. There was a barely noticeable stain on the fabric. Maria sniffed it—the scent of her husband’s cologne mixed with something sweet. Wine? Or something else?
Out of habit, she checked the pockets. The usual jumble—coins, receipts, scraps of paper. But in one of the inner pockets her fingers froze. Two theater tickets. The date—one month ago. The Cherry Orchard. Orchestra. Seventh row. Seats 21 and 22.
Maria stared at them as if they might vanish. As if it were an optical illusion. But no—they were real. Far more real than the answers she still lacked.
That evening… He came home late. He smelled of wine. And something else. Something foreign. He said—meeting with clients. Dinner to celebrate. Something important. Then he added,
“Sorry I stayed out so late. They insisted.”
And now these two tickets lay on the table like an accusation. She was sitting in the kitchen when he returned. Her cup of tea had gone cold. The tickets—cold too, but burning her gaze.
“Good morning,” he said as he came in. He kissed her on the top of her head, as he always did. “Did something happen?”
Maria pointed at the tickets. His face didn’t change at once. Only his shoulders tensed—lightly, almost imperceptibly. But she knew him too well.
“Where did these come from?” he asked, his voice steady, but his eyes flicking.
“From your jacket. I was going to drop it off at the cleaners.”
“Oh, those…” He shrugged as he took the water from the fridge. “A colleague gave them to me. Didn’t get around to using them. Totally slipped my mind.”
“But there are two tickets, Andrei.”
“For both of us. I wanted to surprise you. But work got in the way again.”
Maria remained silent. She looked at him for a long time—too long for someone who believed without question. Ten years of marriage had taught her to tell when her husband spoke the truth, and when he invented it.
“You came home at eleven,” she said quietly. “You smelled of wine. And of a woman’s perfume.”
“Come on!” he tried to laugh it off. “We just had dinner at a crowded restaurant. Lots of people. Different scents. It means nothing.”
“Either you were meeting investors, or you were having dinner. Your choice.”
Andrei set the water bottle down with a little more force than necessary.
“Are you still hung up on this? The tickets—I just forgot. That’s all.”
“I called you that night,” Maria said softly. “Your office. Your secretary. You left at four. Meeting with investors at four in the afternoon?”
He froze for a moment. Then ran his hand through his hair—an old gesture he always used to hide his doubts.
“Are you following me?”
“No. I just wanted to know what to buy for dinner.”
A heavy silence fell—dense and pressing, like before a storm.
“Who did you go to the theater with?”
Their first meeting was by chance. In the elevator. Then coffee. Then lunch. Then conversations late into the night. Andrei told himself it was innocent friendship. Vera—just a colleague. Pretty, yes. But merely a colleague.
When she mentioned The Cherry Orchard, he unexpectedly bought the tickets. Just to please her. Just to show that he listened. That he noticed. That he could be generous.
But that evening Maria “happened” not to be home. Andrei said he was delayed, then went to the theater. With Vera. With two glasses of red wine. With long talks. With a kiss on the embankment. With a forbidden feeling that began to stir deep inside.
And now he sat opposite his wife, knowing: lies had run out of words.
“It was a mistake,” he finally said. “I never meant to deceive you.”
“But you did deceive me.”
Andrei slowly reached out, as if to touch her fingers. But Maria withdrew her hand without a blink.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “Nothing serious happened between us. Just a couple of casual meetings. Conversations. Theater.”
“And the kiss?” she asked, almost indifferently, as if talking about someone else.
He lowered his gaze. Silence hung again. Then quietly:
“Yes. Once. But I immediately realized it was—wrong.”
“So you came home at midnight smelling of another woman’s perfume?”
“We just grabbed a bite after the show. Talked. I told her I wouldn’t let it happen again.”
“And she agreed?”
“She said she understood. That she always knew it meant nothing more—a moment of weakness.”
Maria looked at him, feeling she no longer knew the man for whom she’d married ten years ago. Then, after a pause, he spoke:
“Her name is Vera,” he said. “She’s a designer on our project. Nothing happened except those few meetings. Theater, dinner… and one kiss.”
“And before that? Before the theater? Had you been in touch for long?”
Vera was, in many ways, Maria’s opposite. Lively, loud, free. Her red hair always a little tousled, her laughter ringing. She lived on impulse, didn’t plan ahead, wasn’t afraid of tomorrow.
After the play they ended up in a little candlelit restaurant where wine flowed easily. The conversation grew closer, more candid.
“Do you ever feel trapped?” she asked him, squinting at him through the flicker of candlelight. “As though you’re living someone else’s life?”
“Sometimes,” he answered, surprised at his own honesty. “Especially lately.”
“And what do you do about it?”
“I try to ignore it. Tell myself it will pass. It’s easier that way.”
“And if it doesn’t? If one day you just stop and say: enough?”
He had no reply. But something inside him cracked. That which he once called self-control.
Night met them on empty streets under the moonlight. They stopped by the embankment. The water gleamed like old promises. Vera turned to him.
“You know what’s scariest about The Cherry Orchard?” she asked. “Not that they cut it down. But that nobody dared to save it while they still could.”
His hand reached for hers on its own. The kiss was brief. But it carried all the pain he’d never let himself show at home. The pain of exhaustion. The longing for something new. The need to be heard.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he pulled away. “I shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t apologize,” she replied. “Sometimes that’s the only way we learn who we really are.”
“You kissed her,” Maria repeated. “Once. And that’s all?”
“Yes. After that, I ended it. We only see each other at work. Nothing more.”
“But you can’t just stop feeling, can you?” she asked, her voice soft. “It doesn’t work that way.”
Andrei didn’t answer. He only clenched his fists in his lap.
“Do you still see her every day?”
He hesitated. And the silence said enough.
“We work together,” he admitted. “It just happened that way. But it’s over between us.”
“So you see her every day,” Maria echoed, “and you still claim nothing happened?”
Andrei sighed. He wanted to touch her, but he didn’t dare.
“I love you,” he said. “Only you.”
Maria stood up. Her fingers had gone numb. Her heart pounded slowly, but hollowly.
“I need time,” she said. “I need to think.”
“Masha, let’s talk. Please. It was a single mistake. I don’t want to lose you. Us.”
“You already lost me,” she answered. “Not when you kissed her. When you chose to lie to me.”
She wandered the streets for hours. Aimless. Directionless. The cold air around her, her heart unmoving. Memories spun in her mind—
“Are you home?”
“I’ll be late.”
“It’s important for work.”
And now—the tickets he forgot. The scent of a perfume she didn’t own. The wine he never offered her. She recalled every little thing she once considered innocent. Every evening he came home late. Every look that never reached her eyes. Every shirt that smelled of another launderer.
By evening she returned. Andrei sat in the dark living room. His head bowed, his hands clenched.
“I thought I wouldn’t come back,” she said quietly, stopping beside him. “But I realized running away isn’t the answer.”
“Masha…”
“Wait. Let me finish.”
She sat across from him, hands folded in her lap, and spoke—not with anger, not with hurt, but with an anguish too deep to hide.
“When was the last time we talked heart to heart? When did I share my fears and you share your dreams? When did we laugh until we cried, like in the first year of marriage? When did I feel you were beside me, not just in the next room?”
Andrei was silent.
“We became neighbors,” she continued. “Neighbors under the same roof, who stop sharing. I didn’t notice it happen—perhaps because I too stopped looking.”
“I’m to blame,” he finally said. “For everything.”
“No,” she shook her head. “We’re both at fault. You sought what you didn’t get at home. And I…allowed us to become a habit instead of love.”
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know. I’m not ready to forgive, nor to leave. I want to figure out—can we fix this? Can we find us again?”
“I’ll try,” he said. “I’ll do anything to make you believe in me again.”
“And I’ll try to understand myself,” she replied. “But first I must know one thing.”
The next day she called the theater. Asked about those two tickets. For The Cherry Orchard, one month earlier. Row 7, seats 21 and 22.
“Can you tell me who bought them?” she asked, surprised at the firmness in her own voice.
“I’m sorry, we can’t disclose purchaser information,” the woman on the line replied politely. “But if you’d like to leave a message, I’ll pass it on as soon as we hear from him.”
Maria swallowed, tension tightening her chest.
“All right,” she said evenly. “Please tell her… that Andrei’s wife wants to talk. Here’s my number…”
Silence on the other end felt louder than any words.
“The tickets were under the name Andrei Sokolov,” the cashier finally said. “He came in person about a week before the performance. So if you’re his wife… you probably know better than anyone.”
Andrei didn’t come home that night. He called to say he’d stay at a friend’s. That they both needed time. Maria remained alone, sitting in the kitchen, feeling her memories like a fragile thread—searching for where the pain began. She asked herself:
When did he start staying late more often?
When did that new shirt appear—one she hadn’t chosen?
When did the silence between us grow thicker than our conversations?
The phone vibrated. An unknown number. She drew a deep breath and answered.
“Hello… Is this Maria? Andrei’s wife?”
The voice was female. Not confident, but a little shaky—like someone calling who was afraid to hear the answer.
“Yes, this is she. And you…?”
“My name is Vera. I heard you called the theater looking for me. You’d like to meet?”
Maria closed her eyes. Her heart stopped for a moment—then raced faster than before.
“Yes, I’d like that. But not by phone. In person.”
After a brief pause, Vera agreed. They arranged to meet in a small café by the theater—the very place her husband had taken this woman after the play.
When Maria entered the café, she expected to see anyone but the woman sitting at the table by the window. Not the kind of beauty from her nightmare. Just a woman. Younger, yes. Her red hair pulled back in a simple bun, almost no makeup, ordinary clothes. And that was disarming—truth looked too plain for such pain.
“Thank you for coming,” Maria began, settling into the chair.
“I knew this would happen sooner or later,” Vera replied, twisting a napkin’s edge. “After your call to the theater, I realized you’d find out anyway. Better from me than someone else.”
“Do you love him?” Maria asked directly.
“I’m not sure,” Vera answered honestly. “Maybe. But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because he loves you,” she said softly. “I saw it. In every word, every look. He can be angry, tired, lost—but when he talks about you… His eyes shine. He simply forgot how to be beside you.”
Maria was silent. Her hands gripped a mug of cold coffee—not because she wanted to drink, but because she needed something to hold onto.
“He told me his version,” Vera said. “Now I want to tell you mine. Everything. How it began, how it ended. And why The Cherry Orchard?”
Vera gave a small, sad smile—like someone who knows they will cause pain but can’t stay silent.
“We met by chance. In the elevator. The conversation was accidental, but it flowed. He helped me with a project; I thanked him. Coffee, then lunch. He told me he was married. I thought that would keep a distance. But he listened to me in a way no one has in a long time. Not just heard me, but really listened. And that… drew me in.”
“And the theater?”
“I love Chekhov. I mentioned wanting to see The Cherry Orchard. He bought the tickets—not a romantic gesture, just kindness. Or so I thought then.”
“And afterwards?”
“Then came dinner. Wine. Talks. He spoke of feeling confined, of sometimes feeling like he lives a life that isn’t his own. Then… he kissed me. Briefly. Unexpectedly. And immediately pulled back.”
“He told you it was a mistake?”
“Yes. He realized right away what he’d done. It never happened again. We only see each other at work. That’s it. He doesn’t take a step forward because he knows his heart—his real heart—is at home.”
That night Maria returned late. Andrei sat in the living room, illuminated only by the lamp over the sofa. Hearing her footsteps, he looked up—his face pale, tense.
“Where were you?” he asked. “I was worried.”
“I met with Vera,” Maria answered calmly. “I wanted the truth—not from you, but from her.”
Andrei froze, then rose slowly.
“And what did she say?”
“The same as you,” Maria said. “Only without hiding—explaining. You really do love me, Andrei. You just stopped showing it.”
He opened his mouth to speak, to apologize, but Maria stopped him.
“I don’t know if I can forgive,” she said. “I don’t know if we can start over. But I want to try. Not because I’m strong, but because I refuse to become a stranger in my own life.”
She walked into the kitchen. Andrei followed, stopping in the doorway, unsure to come closer.
“Masha, I swear to you—”
“No more oaths,” Maria cut him off with a wave. “I don’t want vows. I need truth. Only truth.”
Andrei sank onto a chair, his hands dropping to his knees, his gaze dim.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” he whispered. “But God, how much I wanted to…”
Maria froze. Her fingers clenched the glass so tightly her knuckles turned white, as if she could hold together the collapsing world with tension alone.
“But I didn’t,” he continued. “Not out of fear of guilt, but because I realized that’s not what I want. It wasn’t her. Not another woman. It was us—us happy, alive, real.”
“And who are we now?” she asked, almost without hope. “I don’t even remember.”
“We became strangers in our own life,” he said. “Once we talked through the night, laughed until dawn, dreamed out loud. Then routine, chores, work came, and we… stopped seeing each other. Became roommates.”
She sat across from him, looking him straight in the eye.
“I talked with Vera for two hours,” Maria said. “And you know what struck me? You talked to her about me—your fears, your dreams, that you feel lost. Why with her, Andrei? Why not with me?”
He thought for a moment, then answered slowly:
“Because I was afraid of losing you. Afraid you weren’t listening to me anymore. That to you I had become just a husband—a function, not a person. With her… I could be myself, even if that self was someone I barely recognized.”
“And I was afraid I’d become a burden to you,” she admitted. “That you looked at me but didn’t see me. That all my words bounced off the wall of your silence.”
And they sat there, two strangers who once were one, trying to recall what it felt like to be truly heard.
“What do we do now, Masha?” he asked. “I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t know how to bring us back.”
She was silent for a long while, then gave a faint smile.
“Maybe we start with talking?” she suggested. “Not about tickets, not about kisses, but about us—how we lost each other, and whether we want to find our way back.”
“Right now?” he said, surprised.
“Why not?” she nodded. “We still have the night. And maybe a chance.”
They talked until dawn—about the pain they hid beneath habit, about dreams long forgotten, about how easy it became to live apart without even realizing they’d drifted away.
“I can’t forgive you now,” Maria said as the first light appeared outside. “Maybe never. But I want to understand—at least a little.”
“I’ll wait,” he replied. “And try to earn that understanding. And forgiveness.”
She looked at him—tired, disheveled, with pain in his eyes. And suddenly felt that somewhere beneath it all, the man she once fell in love with still lived.
“Let’s go to the theater,” she said unexpectedly. “Together. We haven’t done anything together in a long time.”
“To the theater?” he echoed, unable to hide his surprise.
“Yes,” Maria nodded. “They say The Cherry Orchard is good right now.”
He understood her immediately. And for the first time in many months, something akin to hope appeared in his gaze.
“Let’s go,” he said. “But this time I want to sit next to you. Not in different seats, but together. In the same story.”
Maria didn’t reply—just nodded. It was enough that for the first time in many months they chose something together again.
On the table lay two old tickets—a chance discovery that had turned their lives upside down. Issued in a single name, they became the key to another fate: a chance to begin again. Not because everything can be fixed, but because sometimes it’s worth trying—if only for the memory of who you once were.