“Let’s get divorced. That’ll be fairer. I’ll take out the mortgage in my name, and you can be added later when you come back from maternity leave.”
Anya was sitting by the window, gently stroking her rounded belly, when her husband Dmitry said these words. In one hand he was holding a cup of tea, in the other his phone, speaking in such a dry, businesslike tone it sounded as if he were discussing buying a washing machine.
Anya raised her eyes to her husband, trying to find at least a hint that he was joking, but all she saw was cold determination.
“Otherwise you’ll be sitting at home and I’ll be the one paying. That’s not fair,” Dmitry added without looking up from his phone screen.
Anya’s breath caught. She stared at her husband—at his neatly trimmed hair, at the mole above his left eyebrow she used to kiss so tenderly—and she didn’t recognize him. In front of her sat a stranger with a calculator instead of a heart.
Anya and Dmitry had been married for six years. They’d met back at university, in their third year, when both were preparing for exams in the reading room. Dima sat down next to her with a cup of coffee and a joke about formulas being easier to memorize in good company. He was a future programmer, doing freelance on the side; she was a straight-A student who dreamed of opening her own accounting firm. Six months later they were already renting their first tiny room together, with a shared shower out in the hallway. It was cramped, but fun—they cooked on a single hot plate, slept on a fold-out couch, and dreamed about the future.
“First we’ll save up for the down payment,” Dmitry would say, hugging her. “Then we’ll buy a two-room apartment in a new building. The children’s room will face south, so it’ll be sunny.”
“And we definitely need a balcony,” Anya would add. “I’ll grow flowers there.”
After the wedding—simple, with only close relatives—they started saving. That became their common goal, their beacon in the stormy sea of rented apartments and temporary inconveniences.
They lived modestly, setting aside literally every penny. Anya worked as an accountant in a small company and also did remote bookkeeping for several sole proprietors in the evenings. She sat over documents until midnight, her eyes watering from the screen, but she kept going. Dmitry found a job at an IT company. He earned a bit more, but the difference wasn’t big—maybe five to seven thousand rubles.
Every month they solemnly counted their savings. They kept a special notebook—Anya wrote the amounts in neat handwriting in two columns: “Dima” and “Anya.” The numbers were almost the same.
Their parents couldn’t help. Anya’s mother, Nina Sergeyevna, lived alone in an old house near Kolomna on a modest pension. Dmitry’s parents, Ivan Petrovich and Galina Nikolaevna, were barely making ends meet themselves, paying off a loan for a dacha they’d bought after retirement.
“It’s okay, we’ll manage on our own,” Anya would say, kissing her husband on the cheek. “We’re a team.”
Three years ago they moved into a rented two-room apartment—which already felt like progress. They had a separate bedroom and their own kitchen. They hung photos from their wedding and trips on the walls—once they’d gone to Sochi for a week, their only vacation in all those years.
When the test showed two lines, Anya didn’t believe it at first. She bought three more—all positive. Dmitry had spun her around the room, laughing and kissing her belly.
“Now we definitely have to buy an apartment!” he exclaimed. “Our baby needs a home of their own!”
By that time they had almost picked out a suitable option—a two-room apartment in a new building in Lyubertsy. Yes, it was far from the center, but it would be theirs. Their savings were just enough for the down payment.
Then Dmitry suddenly started dragging his feet. First he didn’t like the neighborhood—“too far from the metro.” Then the layout was wrong—“the kitchen’s too small.” Then the building wasn’t finished yet—“what if it’s a scam.” At first Anya agreed and looked for new options, but every time she noticed that he found flaws in any apartment.
Evenings, Dmitry sat with his laptop, comparing mortgage rates and calculating something in Excel spreadsheets. He muttered to himself about risks, crises, instability.
“Dima, we already decided,” Anya said gently, sitting down beside him. “Why are you stalling?”
“We need to think everything through,” he replied without taking his eyes off the screen. “It’s a serious decision. For thirty years.”
Anya tried to take part in the discussion, but he brushed her off:
“Don’t clutter your head. You’re tired enough as it is.”
The morning sickness was really wearing her down. Anya barely made it through the workday, the smells in the metro made her nauseous, but she kept handling her extra clients in the evenings.
“Maybe you should go on maternity leave a bit earlier?” Dmitry suggested one day.
“But we’re saving for the apartment.”
“I’ll manage. They promised me a promotion.”
The promotion never came. But the conversations about the apartment grew stranger. Dmitry started using “I” instead of “we.” “I’ll get the mortgage,” “I’ll choose the bank,” “I’ll handle the paperwork.”
On Wednesday she came home from work early—she’d left for an ultrasound appointment. Dmitry didn’t know; he thought she’d be back as usual at eight. As soon as she entered the apartment, she heard his voice from the room. He was talking on the phone, apparently with Lesha, his college friend.
“Yeah, she’ll be on maternity leave. At least three years at home, not earning anything. And I’ll be the only one working… I don’t want to have to split the apartment fifty-fifty if anything happens. I’ll be the one making all the payments while she’s just sitting there with the kid…”
Anya froze in the doorway. Her heart was pounding so hard it seemed like Dmitry must hear it. But he went on:
“Yeah, I get it. But it’s logical—the apartment should belong to the one who’s paying…”
At those words something snapped inside Anya. She quietly walked into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and stared out the window for a long time at the gray courtyard with its crooked playground. The person she trusted more than anyone in the world, the one she was building a future with, turned out to be capable of such thoughts.
Dmitry came out half an hour later, surprised.
“You’re home early.”
“There was an ultrasound. The baby’s fine.”
“Great.”
And he went off to shower, without asking the baby’s gender or about the scan photos she was holding in her hands.
She didn’t make a scene then. She just pretended everything was the same. And then she started to act. While Dmitry slept, she read legal forums. She learned about maternity capital, about spouses’ rights to jointly acquired property, about how to protect her interests. She sat in the kitchen with a calculator almost until morning, working out different scenarios.
For the first time, a thought came to her: what if she lived without him? It was frightening. But was it possible to live with someone who erased you from your shared future?
The next day Dmitry came into the room looking like a “businessman” ready to close a major deal. In his hands were printouts of calculations, payment schedules, comparisons of bank offers.
“Anya, I’ve worked everything out,” he began, spreading the papers on the table. “Look, if I take out the mortgage in my name, the rate will be 11.5%. If it’s in both our names, it’ll be 13%, because the bank will see your maternity leave as a risk. They might even refuse us or give a smaller amount. So it’s better if it’s just in my name. We live together anyway, what difference does it make whose name the papers are in?”
Anya carefully studied the documents. The numbers swam before her eyes.
“And what exactly are you suggesting?” she asked in an even voice.
“Well, like I said. We’ll do a fake divorce, I’ll take out the mortgage in my name, and then, when you go back to work, we’ll get married again and re-register the apartment in both our names. It’s fair.”
“And what if something happens?” Anya tried to keep her voice calm. “What if you… don’t want to re-register it later?”
He smirked, and that smirk hurt more than any words:
“What’s going to happen? We’re a family. This is just more practical… Don’t you trust me?”
There was a chill in his eyes. The same coldness she’d seen when he talked to troublesome clients or argued with his boss. A businesslike, calculating chill of someone who knows exactly what he wants to get.
“Think it over by the weekend,” he added and walked out, leaving the papers on the table.
Anya understood he had already decided everything. These papers and calculations were just a performance so she would agree herself.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
In the evening, while Dmitry was asleep, Anya took from the closet their shared checkered notebook where, from the very first days of living together, they had recorded their shared expenses and savings. It was a tradition they’d started back in that first rented room. By the light of the desk lamp she leafed through the pages. Next to each month were two columns: “Dima” and “Anya.” And her numbers were in no way smaller. Sometimes he had contributed more, sometimes she had. But overall—it was equal.
She flipped through to the end. Six years of life turned into columns of numbers. In that time she had put nine hundred and eighty thousand rubles into their shared savings. Almost a million. And now he wanted to pretend her contribution didn’t exist, that it was only his achievement, his right to the apartment.
She closed the notebook and sat in the dark for a long time. The baby pushed inside her belly, as if sensing her anxiety. She stroked her stomach.
“Everything’s going to be alright, little one. Mommy will figure something out.”
This was her life, her work, her dreams. And she wasn’t going to let herself be erased from this story.
In the morning Dmitry brought up the “fake divorce” again. He was sitting across from Anya at the kitchen table, methodically spreading butter on his bread, speaking in the same tone as if he were going over a shopping list.
“Anya, a fake divorce just for the mortgage is normal practice. I’ve thought it all through. We’ll sign up at the registry office next week. In a month we’ll get the divorce certificate, and I’ll immediately submit the documents to the bank. By New Year we’ll be moving into our own apartment.”
Anya lifted her eyes from her cup of tea. The baby moved in her belly as if listening to the conversation too. She looked at her husband calmly, without tears, without her voice trembling. For the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel like crying or arguing.
“You know, Dima,” she began, her voice surprisingly steady, “let’s really get divorced. Only for real. I’ll take my share of the savings and buy my own apartment. Even if it’s smaller and farther away. But it will be mine.”
Dmitry froze with the knife in his hand. Bread crumbs scattered onto the table.
“Are you out of your mind? Anya, you don’t know what you’re saying!”
“I do. For the first time in a long time I know exactly what I’m saying.”
“This is… this is crazy! You’re pregnant! What are you thinking about?”
“About my child. About how I don’t want them to grow up in a home where their mother is a nobody. Where she can be erased from the documents like an unnecessary line.”
Dmitry jumped up and started pacing around the kitchen.
“Anya, that’s not what I meant! It’s not that serious! It’s just paperwork, a formality!”
“If it’s just a formality, why are you so insistent?”
He stopped, looking at her in confusion. Something like fear flashed in his eyes.
“Listen, let’s just talk this through calmly. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just thought this would be more practical…”
But Anya wasn’t listening anymore. She stood up and walked to the window. It had started to rain outside, drops drumming on the glass. Inside she felt a strange clarity—not anger, not resentment, but a crystalline certainty that she was doing the right thing.
A week later Anya took some time off from work and moved to her mother’s in Kolomna. Packing went quickly—there wasn’t that much to take. Her favorite books, a photo album, maternity clothes, a folder with documents. Dmitry was at work. She left him a note: “I’ll file for divorce myself. I ask that our savings be divided according to our records. Be happy.”
Nina Sergeyevna met her daughter without unnecessary questions. She simply hugged her at the door, helped carry the bags inside, and sat her down at the table.
“Tea?” she asked. “With raspberry jam, the way you like.”
That evening Dmitry’s mother, Galina Nikolaevna, called. Her voice was strict and lecturing.
“Anyechka, what nonsense is this? Dima told me everything. You’re pregnant! Don’t you dare start a scandal! Think of the child!”
Anya held the phone and looked out the window at the old apple tree in her mother’s yard.
“Galina Nikolaevna, I don’t need a scandal. I need a future.”
“What future? What are you talking about? You have a husband, you’ll have an apartment…”
“I’ll have my own apartment. Small, but mine.”
The next day Anya went to the bank. She opened an account in her name and transferred her share of the savings there—Dmitry didn’t argue, apparently not wanting to make things worse. At the bank, a young female consultant with kind eyes explained in detail the mortgage options for single mothers.
“With the maternity capital benefit, you’ll have a good down payment. You’ll definitely be able to get a studio.”
That evening she and Nina Sergeyevna sat in the kitchen of the old house. It was getting dark outside, and the firewood crackled in the stove. Anya held a mug of tea with raspberry jam in her hands. For the first time in a long while, she could breathe easily.
Three months passed. The February morning was frosty but sunny. Anya stood in an empty studio apartment on the third floor of a new building. The divorce had gone through smoothly. Anya had invested her savings into a small one-room apartment in Kolomna. Not Moscow, but it was hers. Thirty-two square meters—a kitchen-living room and a sleeping area. The windows looked out onto a small river and the pine forest beyond it.
Her belly was already big; less than a week remained until her due date. Anya ran her hand along the white wall, imagining where she’d put the crib, where the changing table would stand.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. A message from Dmitry—he’d been writing once a week, persistently. “Anya, let’s meet. We need to talk. I understand now that I was wrong. Let’s start over.”
She deleted the message without reading it to the end.
The keys to the studio felt pleasantly cold in her palm. Her own keys. To her own apartment. Tiny, far from the center—but here no one could erase her, make her invisible, turn her into a burden.
The baby moved, giving a little kick from inside.
“The most important thing is that we have a home where no one can cross us out,” Anya whispered, stroking her belly. “Where we matter and are needed. Just because we exist.”
Ducks were swimming on the river outside the window. The sun was climbing higher, filling the studio with warm light. Anya smiled. They were going to be okay. She knew it with absolute certainty.