How did you find me?” Nina asked in shock, seeing her husband on the doorstep.
In the year they had not met, her husband looked even worse. It was clear he had been drinking incessantly, neglecting himself, and saw no need to change his life.
Approaching the village, Nina saw flames engulfing their house.
“Mom, where’s dad?” asked five-year-old Borya, sitting in the back seat.
Nina, wiping away her tears, remained silent. At that moment, she was least concerned about where Viktor was. It was clear he was somewhere drinking.
In an instant, Nina lost everything she had worked so hard to accumulate over the last ten years.
She knew better than anyone the effort it took to earn all this. She had worked hard to build a house outside the city, filled it with good furniture and appliances. Now, all that was left was smoking ruins.
“Oh, Nina, how could this happen?” her neighbor wailed.
She waved her hands, sniffled, and kept trying to hug Nina in support.
Nina brushed her hands away, looking at the remnants of her home, while the sobs that wanted to escape were stuck in her chest and couldn’t alleviate her condition.
Viktor was nowhere to be seen. This meant that Nina’s husband was hiding at his drinking buddies’.
Running to the nearby houses, she found her completely drunk husband at a friend’s as she suspected.
“Don’t wake him!” hissed Viktor’s buddy, who grabbed Nina’s hands and tried to pull her away from the snoring drunk Viktor.
“Scoundrel!” Nina screamed. “Burned down the house and sleeps peacefully!”
“It wasn’t him!” his friend defended. “There was your candle there. You bought it for beauty. That’s what caused the beauty.”
Bitterly, Nina looked at her sleeping husband, thinking it would have been better if Viktor had stayed in that very house… and burned to the ground.
Nina had nowhere to return to. She spent several days at her friend’s house.
They sat silently in the evenings, drinking tea, looking at each other. Nina sometimes quietly cried, remembering how much effort and resources had been invested in the house, which was now ruins.
Viktor found his wife on the third day. Crumpled, overgrown, reeking of sweat and booze.
Nina looked at him and couldn’t understand how she could ever have loved this man, married him, and had his son.
A seasoned drunkard didn’t even realize what he had done.
“Nina,” he mumbled, while his wife looked at his trembling hands, chapped lips, and the pathetic rags Viktor stood before her in, “it wasn’t on purpose. It was the scent candle. I lit it so the house wouldn’t smell like booze.”
“Get out,” Nina hissed through clenched teeth and slammed the door in her husband’s face.
A few days later, somewhat recovered, Nina decided to go to the ruins.
She wandered through the rubble, touched familiar items that had turned into charred pieces of plastic or wood, cried, and pondered how she was going to live on.
Her eyes fell on a black case she didn’t remember. Holding it and turning it over for a minute, Nina decided there had never been such a thing in her house.
She returned to her friend’s house and opened the case. Along with the opening of the black suitcase, Nina’s mouth also opened.
Inside were stacks of money, neatly wrapped in special bank paper. On top were some documents and a letter.
It was a contract for a rent-free lease of a mansion within the city limits. The money in the case was said to be interest-free for those affected by the fire to get their lives back on track.
The mandatory condition was that by the end of the three-year period, Nina was obligated to return the money in full, and the house had to be left in its original condition.
It was hard to believe in the magic that happened before Nina’s eyes, but the document was notarized, so it was worth the risk.
And Nina risked it. Taking her son, Borya, the case, her car, she went to the house located at the address mentioned in the contract.
“Mom, where are we going?” Borya asked all the way, and Nina just shrugged her shoulders.
She didn’t know where or why she was going, but she had no real options for further action.
The house they arrived at was indeed luxurious. Not as pompous as Nina’s own had been, but it was in the city, in a prestigious area, making it a real catch.
The key included in the case fit perfectly. By the end of the first day, Nina and her son had settled in well at the new place. She even managed to cook a delicious pizza.
Perhaps it was the smell of it that brought their neighbor to their house, who politely knocked on the door and asked for permission to enter.
“My name is Anatoly,” the man introduced himself.
Nina gave him an interested look. He was older than her, attractive, with no ring on his finger.
After enjoying the pizza, Anatoly learned from Nina that she had inherited the house and some savings, which she planned to use to grow her business.
“How lucky you are!” Anatoly kept saying, while Nina nodded, thinking to herself that it wasn’t just luck, she had pulled the only lucky ticket out of at least a million possibilities.
Nina didn’t sit idly by. Soon she opened several small women’s clothing stores.
Anatoly began to visit Nina regularly. He gave her business advice. He owned a large construction holding, so the modest women’s clothing stores Nina owned were understandable and simple for him to manage.
At first, Nina found her neighbor’s advice annoying, but suddenly they started to bring benefits. Profits increased, and the case from which Nina periodically took money began to fill up again.
Overall, Nina was fulfilling her duty, thanking the stranger who had given her a chance at salvation, and she worked very hard.
She liked that she didn’t have to borrow from anyone or explain anything to anyone. And she liked Anatoly, who not only gave her a bouquet of flowers for her birthday but also a beautiful necklace.
“It means nothing to me,” he explained, “and you, as a woman, are very pleasant to me.”
Nina was flattered by this, but still, her relationship with Anatoly remained strictly neighborly.
Everything was going well, until Viktor knocked on Nina’s door one day.
“How did you find me?” Nina asked in astonishment, seeing her husband on the doorstep.
In the year they had not met, her husband looked even worse. It was clear he had been drinking incessantly, neglecting himself, and saw no need to change his life.
“You’ve settled in well here,” Viktor said insolently, pushing past Nina and entering the house.
He wandered around the hall, clicked his tongue, and kept saying hurtful words.
“You live here like a queen. Completely forgot about your husband. Who helped you with the house? Who made you such a good son?”
“Get out!” Nina shouted at him. “You burned the house, and your son doesn’t want to see or know you!”
“Not without your efforts!” Viktor replied.
“Get out!” Nina said loudly and clearly.
But Viktor pushed his wife so hard that she fell backwards.
“Stop fidgeting! And don’t even think about calling the police! I’ll squash you like a fly! I’ll look around and leave when I want!” the husband roared and went through the rooms.
The woman struggled to get up and sat in an armchair, indifferently staring at one point in front of her.
After he left, Nina couldn’t recover for a long time. She was shaking with anger and irritation. Viktor’s words echoed in her ears, and she felt offended by everything she had heard. But the most incomprehensible thing was how Viktor could have found them at all?
To Nina’s horror, it turned out that Viktor had managed to find not only her and her son but also the case, which she had almost refilled with the amount of money that was originally there.
It was empty. Viktor probably carried the money away under his coat. There was no one else.
Nina was so panicked that she barely managed to cope with her emotions.
Now, from morning to evening, she lay in her room and cried. When she had no strength left to cry, she just stared at the wall. Even if she sold all her business, it wouldn’t be enough.
She understood this and was terrified. Searching for Viktor was also pointless; he wouldn’t return the money if he still had any left.
Anatoly visited Nina a week after Viktor’s visit. All this time she didn’t want to see anyone, and she couldn’t explain her state at all because the neighbor knew a different story, not the one that actually happened.
Through her sobs, Nina told him everything. The man listened silently, nodded, and asked no questions. Then he reached out his hand to Nina.
“Come on.”
She blinked but took his hand. Where was he leading her? Why?
They walked to Anatoly’s house, passed through the hall, and approached the staircase leading downstairs to the basement.
“You want to lock me up there?” Nina asked, not understanding, after several sleepless nights.
Anatoly remained silent. He opened the door to the basement, and Nina was presented with an astonishing sight: several dozen cases, just like the one she had held in her hands recently, were lined up along the wall.
“What is this, Tolya?” she asked as if she was seeing some kind of dream.
“This is help. Help for people who find themselves in difficult life situations.
You know, I earn enough to support myself, my ex-wife, and child, but I want to spend not only on myself but also to bring benefit to other people.
You were one of those people, and you were the only one so far who was willing to return all the funds to me.
“You are that mysterious patron saving the drowning?” Nina asked, and Anatoly nodded.
“Exactly. But with you, everything went differently. I liked you not only as a person but also as a woman.
I offer a partnership: as an assistant in saving the drowning, and as a wife. I’m waiting for a positive response.”
Nina smiled, feeling relief and a sensation of boundless happiness sprouting inside her.