— What the hell are you doing?! — Andrey stormed into the entryway, nearly ripping the door off its hinges.
Marina didn’t even blink. She stood at the mirror, fixing her earrings — the same pearl ones he’d given her for their tenth anniversary. Three years ago. Six months before he slammed the door and walked out.
— Whose crap is this? — he stabbed a finger at a dark navy cashmere coat hanging on the rack.
The coat was on his hook. In his place.
— Hello, Andrey, — Marina finally turned. — You could’ve called first.
He hadn’t just left — he’d performed his exit. A dramatic speech about “you don’t understand me” and “I need air.” Marina had watched him in silence as he flung clothes into a suitcase. No tears. No begging. Just her leaning against the doorframe, waiting for him to finish acting.
He never came back that night.
Six months — is that a long time or not? Long enough to realize that Alina, that so-called “just a coworker,” doesn’t smell the same. Doesn’t laugh the same. And her borscht is cafeteria sludge — not like Marina’s, with prunes and her secret spoon of adjika.
Andrey returned on a Sunday. He chose the moment on purpose — he knew his wife would be home. He bought her favorite tulips. He rehearsed his speech in the car.
I was an idiot. Forgive me. Let’s start over.
He unlocked the door with his own key. Grandly. With a winner’s smile.
And froze.
A man’s hat — gray, knitted — lay on the shelf, right beside Andrey’s old baseball cap Marina had never thrown out for some reason. And the coat… the coat was expensive. Not some mall brand. It carried a stranger’s cologne — woody, sharp.
— Who’s here? — his voice betrayed him, wobbling.
— A guest, — Marina shrugged. — You told me yourself I needed to get out, have a life. So I did.
— Got out?!
He yanked the coat down and hurled it on the floor, stamping his foot like an offended child.
— Where is he? I’ll—
— You’ll what? — Marina lifted an eyebrow. — Hit him? Challenge him to a duel? Andrey, you’re forty-three. Stop clowning.
She bent down, picked up the coat, brushed it off carefully, and hung it back up.
On his hook.
The kitchen light was on. The air smelled of coffee and cinnamon — Marina always added cinnamon when she baked. Andrey walked down the hallway like a man headed for an execution. His heart pounded up in his throat.
At the table sat a man.
Gray-haired. Thin. Around sixty. Wearing a plaid shirt and house slippers.
Marina’s guest slippers — the pair she kept for visitors.
— Meet him, — Marina said as she passed by and sat opposite the stranger. — This is Viktor Sergeyevich. My father.
Andrey stopped dead in the doorway.
— What father? You don’t have—
— Didn’t, — Marina took a sip from Andrey’s favorite mug, the one that said “Best Husband.” — Not for twenty-eight years. Now I do.
Viktor Sergeyevich looked at Andrey without warmth, measuring him — the way someone studies a cockroach before deciding whether to crush it or let it go.
— So you’re the one, — he said at last. — The great lover-boy.
— I’m not—
— You ditched my daughter for some girl. Six months — no calls, no questions, not even whether she was alive. And now you show up with flowers, — he nodded at the tulips still clenched in Andrey’s fist, — and you think that makes it right?
— Dad, — Marina set her hand over his. — We’ll handle this ourselves.
— Dad?! — Andrey threw the bouquet onto the table. The tulips scattered, and one toppled straight into a cup of coffee. — You told me he left when you were three! Twenty-eight years, nothing — and now he’s here?!
— Exactly, — Viktor Sergeyevich calmly fished the tulip out of the coffee. — I was a lousy father. But you know what makes me different from you?
— What?
— I didn’t come back because a new woman bored me. I came back because I’m dying.
Silence.
Only the refrigerator hummed — the old one from their rental days. Marina had wanted to replace it. Andrey had always put it off.
— Pancreatic cancer, — Viktor Sergeyevich said, as if he were discussing the weather. — Three months, maybe five. I’ve been looking for Marina for two years. I wanted to make it in time… to ask her forgiveness.
Marina turned toward the window. Her shoulders trembled.
— And she forgave you? — Andrey rasped out a laugh. — Twenty-eight years… and just like that?
— No, — Marina turned back. Her eyes were dry, sharp. — I didn’t forgive him. But I gave him a chance. Because sometimes people deserve a chance. Do you understand?
She stared at her husband in a way that made him take an involuntary step back.
— You had your chance too, Andrey. Six months ago. The night I called you at three in the morning because my mother had a stroke. Remember what you said?
He remembered.
Don’t drag me into your problems. We’re not a family anymore.
— I was angry, I—
— She died a week later. In the hospital. I held her hand. Alone.
Viktor Sergeyevich pushed himself up heavily, bracing against the table, and stepped close to Andrey.
— I’m not going to hit you, — he said quietly. — I’m too old and too sick. But I’ll tell you something, son. I wasted my whole life — chasing money, careers, skirts. Then I woke up in a hospital room and realized I had nothing. Nothing at all. Except the daughter I’d abandoned.
He took the coat from the rack and pulled on the hat.
— Marina is kind. Too kind. She let me in. But you… — he swept Andrey with his eyes. — You haven’t earned even that.
The door slammed.
They were alone.
Marina gathered the tulips from the table. Her hands didn’t shake.
— Why didn’t you tell me? About your mother, about—
— Why would I? — she dropped the flowers into the sink. — You made it very clear. We’re not a family anymore.
— I overreacted! I want to fix everything!
Marina finally looked at him — long and carefully — as if he were a stranger.
— You know, Andryusha… six months ago I would’ve given anything to hear you say that. But now…
She slid her wedding ring off her finger and set it on the table, beside the soggy tulip.
— Now I have nothing to say to you. Leave your keys on the cabinet.
Andrey walked out onto the landing. The stairwell smelled of dampness and cats. Viktor Sergeyevich stood by the window, staring into the courtyard.
— Kicked you out? — he asked without turning.
— None of your business.
— True. Not my business.
The old man coughed — harsh, ripping. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth. Bright red stains bloomed on the white cloth.
— Want a last piece of advice?
— No.
— You’ll get it anyway. Don’t come back. Don’t call. Don’t write. Let her finally live in peace.
Andrey passed him without a word. At the building’s exit he paused.
— And you? Why did you come back, if you’re dying anyway?
Viktor Sergeyevich smiled — crooked, pained.
— So she’ll remember that even the most hopeless people can change. Even if it’s only at the end.
The front door thudded shut.
The tulips lay in the sink — unwanted, already starting to wilt.
Marina stood at the window and watched her husband climb into his car.
Ex-husband.
She tried the word on her tongue.
Bitter.
But bearable.
The ring stayed on the kitchen table. She’d pick it up tomorrow. Take it to a pawnshop. Buy her father a warm blanket — he was always cold.
Three months.
Maybe five.
Enough time to learn how to forgive.