Margarita was rushing about the apartment like a little bird desperately trying to find a way out of a cage that was far too spacious. Her hands kept straightening the perfectly arranged cushions on the back of the sofa; then she would glide into the dining room to check once more the shine of the crystal glasses already glittering under the chandelier. She would return to the hallway, adjust a sprig of eucalyptus in a tall vase, then hurry back to the living room to make sure every book on the shelf stood straight and that nothing disturbed the flawless harmony of the evening décor.
“Ritochka, why are you running around like a wound-up toy?” Viktor looked out of his study, a newspaper in his hands. “Our distinguished guests won’t be here until tomorrow, in the afternoon.”
“I’m nervous,” she admitted, running her hand over the velvety surface of the new throw. “What if something doesn’t go according to our plan? What if we’ve missed something, forgotten something, overlooked something?”
He smiled softly, came over and put his arms around her shoulders, his touch warm and familiar.
“Everything will be just wonderful. You always strive for perfection, you approach everything with such responsibility and attention.”
Margarita wanted to ask: and will you help me tomorrow to lay the table, prepare the appetizers, welcome people? But Viktor had already let her go and headed back to his study. Soon the low sound of the TV drifted from there, broadcasting a sports review.
The next morning she got up with the first rays of the sun. There was so much to do: finish baking the festive pie, chop ingredients for the salads, carefully arrange in vases the beautiful flowers that had been brought the day before.
“Viktor, your jacket is still in the hallway, on the coat rack. Please put it away in the closet,” she asked, flitting past him like a swift light butterfly.
“Of course, in a minute,” he replied, without taking his eyes off the tablet screen.
An hour passed, then another, and the garment was still in the same place. Margarita sighed quietly and decided to take matters into her own hands. She picked up the jacket, and at that very moment a notification silently lit up on the phone her husband had forgotten on the hallway console. Curiosity, so uncharacteristic of her, suddenly stirred inside, making her heart beat faster.
She read the message.
“My dearest, I’m waiting for our meeting tomorrow at exactly seven. Try not to be late. A tight hug.” Her gaze slid to the sender’s name—Svetlana.
Time around her froze, losing all sense and speed.
Her heart pounded so hard that a dull echo thudded in her temples. She reread the words, hoping her eyes were deceiving her. But no, everything was perfectly clear.
“Viktor!” burst from her lips, and her own voice seemed strange to her—shaky, not her own.
“What happened?” He appeared in the doorway, his gaze falling on the phone in her hand. The color instantly drained from his face; his features became pale and lifeless.
“Margo, darling, I can explain everything, just listen to me.”
“No!” She flung the phone aside. “You listen to me! For two decades we’ve walked through life side by side! And you… And you do this.”
The words ran out, dried up like a spring in a season of drought. All that remained was silence—thick and heavy—and the treacherous moisture in her eyes.
Viktor took a step forward, his hands reaching out to embrace her, to find at least some support.
“Margarita, my sunshine, let me tell you how it really happened.”
“Don’t come near me!” She recoiled as if from fire. “And what can you possibly tell me? That it was some stupid joke? That Svetlana is some old colleague from work?”
He lowered his head, his shoulders sagging under an invisible weight.
“I didn’t want you to find out. Ever. And least of all today.”
Especially today.
On the day she was celebrating her fiftieth birthday.
Margarita slowly sank onto the nearest chair. Her legs suddenly stopped obeying her, turning weak and rubbery.
“It all somehow happened by itself, I didn’t even notice how,” he muttered.
“By itself?!” She sprang to her feet, overflowing with bitter astonishment. “Your feelings just woke up by themselves? Your thoughts just by themselves turned in another direction?”
“Please, don’t raise your voice.”
“And what am I supposed to do? Dance for joy? Viktor, I’ve just found out that my husband, the man I’ve spent a lifetime with, isn’t the person he claimed to be!”
The doorbell rang insistently. The first guests had arrived. Margarita looked at him, then at the front door. And in that moment, a crystalline, almost painful clarity settled in her soul.
She would not play a silent role in someone else’s play. She would refuse to pretend that everything in her world was still prosperous and bright. She would not be able to smile and accept congratulations next to someone whose words and actions had proved false.
“Go open the door,” she said with surprising calm. “And explain to all our friends and relatives that, unfortunately, the celebration is cancelled.”
“Margo!” came her sister’s anxious voice from behind the door. “We’ve come with a huge bouquet and presents!”
Margarita looked at her husband with a direct, clear gaze. “Open it. And tell them the truth. The whole truth.”
Half an hour later, everyone who had been invited was gathered in the spacious living room. Margarita’s parents, her sister and brother-in-law, close friends, colleagues from work. The festive table gleamed with elegant dishes, and in the center stood a magnificent cake; fresh flowers perfumed the room.
And all this splendor hung suspended in a deathly, unbearable silence.
“My dear, beloved guests,” Margarita rose from her seat, her voice quiet but audible in every corner of the room. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming here to share this day with us. But there will be no celebration today.”
“Ritochka, what happened?” her mother cried in fright.
“Viktor has been unfaithful to me. For several months now. With another woman.”
A heavy, viscous pause settled in the air. Someone coughed awkwardly, someone gasped softly, someone lowered their eyes, unable to bear her gaze.
Viktor himself sat with his head bowed low, his face burning with a bright flush of shame. He stared at the pattern on the tablecloth as if he hoped to find there answers to questions no one had voiced aloud.
“I found out about it this morning,” Margarita went on. “I was getting ready to celebrate fifty years of my life, and instead I discovered that my reality, my marriage, my hopes—were all a beautiful illusion that has just burst.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t… not now, not in front of everyone…” her sister began cautiously.
“I should!” Margarita’s voice grew stronger; steel notes sounded in it. “Let everyone know what kind of man my husband turned out to be. Let everyone see that you can live side by side with someone for twenty years and still never see their true face!”
The guests gradually, awkwardly began to leave. They spoke words of support, promised to call, offered help and a listening ear. Viktor left with them, mumbling that he would stay at a friend’s place for a while.
Margarita remained alone in the silence of the empty apartment, face-to-face with the laid table and the untouched festive pie.
She dialed her sister’s number.
“Alyonka, can I come to you? I don’t want to, I can’t stay here alone today.”
“Of course, honey! Pack your things, I’m already on my way to you.”
“And the cake? It’s so beautiful, it’s a shame…”
“We’ll take the cake with us. My kids will deal with it quickly, don’t worry.”
The next few days passed as if in a dense fog, through which reality barely managed to break through in thin rays. Margarita lived in her sister’s hospitable home, while Viktor tried to call again and again, but she invariably sent his calls into silent rejection.
“Maybe you should still talk to him?” Alyona asked carefully. “Men sometimes do reckless things, but not all of them are lost for good.”
“Why would I?” Margarita sat in the cozy kitchen, warming her hands on a cup of fragrant tea. “So he can tell me how new feelings blossomed in his heart? How he felt cramped and bored in our home?”
“Maybe he’s realized his mistake, maybe he’s remorseful.”
“I don’t want his remorse. You know, I’ve thought a lot these sleepless nights. I don’t want to and won’t forgive. I refuse to keep playing the role of the wise, all-understanding wife who closes her eyes to pain and hurt.”
A week later Margarita did return to her apartment. The space rang with silent echo—Viktor had taken his personal belongings. On the table he had left a short note: “Forgive me. If you ever feel like talking, I’m always available.”
She slowly, almost ceremonially, crumpled the sheet into a tight ball.
In the kitchen the flowers were already wilted—those same ones that were supposed to decorate her unrealized jubilee. Margarita tossed them into the trash without regret and flung the window wide open. Into the home where lies had reigned for so long, a rush of fresh spring air burst in, carrying with it the promise of renewal.
That evening her mother called.
“How are you, my dear girl?”
“Much better than I could have imagined. You know, Mom, my heart suddenly feels so light and spacious. As if a huge, heavy stone I’d been dragging around for many years has finally fallen from my shoulders.”
“But you loved him so much.”
“I loved the person he pretended to be. The person he showed me. His real face, it seems, was hidden from me all this time.”
A month later Margarita heard from mutual acquaintances: Viktor had moved in with that same Svetlana. Without any particular emotion she filed for divorce. There was practically nothing to divide—the apartment had initially been registered in her name, and their joint savings turned out to be quite modest.
Freedom, which at first frightened her with its breadth, turned out to be surprisingly sweet and desirable. It gave her the chance to breathe deeply.
One evening her phone rang. An unfamiliar number.
“Hello?”
“Margarita Viktorovna? This is Anastasia, your consultant from the travel agency. We met once about a trip to the Carpathians.”
“Yes, of course, I remember. Has something happened?”
“Nothing bad! We just have a very good special offer—a tour to an amazing corner of Karelia. I immediately thought of you. You once mentioned that you dreamed of going there.”
Margarita smiled. Yes, she really had spent many years dreaming of the severe beauty of Karelia, of mirror-like lakes and the whisper of ancient pines. But back then Viktor had always found a reason to refuse: ‘Why go anywhere? We have everything here. And why waste that kind of money?’
“And when is the departure planned?” she asked, now more interested.
“In three days. I understand that’s not much time to get ready, but…”
“That’s wonderful. I’ll go. Please book this trip for me.”
When she came back from her first solo journey, filled with new impressions and an astonishing sense of inner harmony, Margarita made a life-changing decision—to radically change her life. She got a job at that very travel agency—she had always dreamed of work connected with discovering the world and helping other people make their own discoveries. At first she helped clients choose routes, and soon she herself began accompanying groups on trips to the most picturesque places.
Her home also changed beyond recognition. She carefully removed everything that reminded her of her past life: their joint photos, gifts; she even replaced some of the furniture. She filled the space with bright details—colorful cushions, paintings by contemporary artists, live plants in beautiful pots.
“How do you like my new domain?” she asked her niece proudly, the girl now a frequent and welcome guest in her home.
“It’s so cool here! It’s like you didn’t just rearrange the furniture—you were born again, Auntie Rita!”
“That’s exactly how I feel. I’ve discovered a new person inside myself.”
Two years later, during another group tour—this time to sunny Greece—Margarita met Denis. He was a doctor, her age, and he too had gone through a difficult period of parting with his past.
“I admire your independence,” he confessed to her over dinner in a small taverna overlooking the bay. “You don’t wait for someone to come and solve your problems, you are the creator of your own happiness.”
“And I like your sincerity,” she replied. “From the very beginning you were honest with me about everything: about your past, about your children, about what you had to go through.”
Their relationship developed slowly, gently, like a fragile and precious sprout. Denis never demanded immediate decisions or a rapid closeness. He respected her space, her rhythm, her inner freedom.
On her fifty-third birthday, Margarita celebrated in the circle of the people closest to her. They were her new friends—colleagues, fellow travelers she had met in various corners of the planet.
“Let’s raise our glasses to Margarita!” Denis said, his eyes glowing with warm, genuine feeling. “To an amazing woman who has proven by her own example that real life doesn’t begin in one’s youth, but in the very moment when you decide to be honest above all with yourself and to look boldly ahead, without glancing back at the shadows of the past!”
Viktor sent his congratulations through a social network: “Happy birthday. I wish you to find your happiness.”
Margarita read the message and simply deleted it, feeling neither anger nor resentment, only a faint sadness for something that had once seemed important but turned out to be a mirage.
His relationship with Svetlana had fallen apart a few months after the official divorce—the young woman had found herself another partner, more suited to her expectations. Now Viktor lived alone, and, according to mutual friends, often regretted the warmth and coziness he had so thoughtlessly squandered.
But Margarita no longer cared. She had mastered the most important art of all—to be truly happy and fulfilled without looking back at the turns behind her or dragging along the weight of old grievances.
And ahead of her, bright and full of promise, lay so many yet unexplored roads, each one leading toward a new dawn