At 49, I went to the sea alone for the first time. My husband said a decent wife would never do that…
I’m 49 years old. For the first time, I went to the sea alone. But my husband said a decent wife would never do such a thing…
* * *
I’m forty-nine years old, and today, for the first time in my life, I left home without anyone seeing me off.
I’m standing on the platform. It’s hot already, even though it’s early morning— the concrete is warm, the air over the tracks shimmers. An electric train is humming nearby, passengers are dragging their rolling suitcases, someone calls out to someone else. But I’m in no rush: my train to the seaside will arrive on the next track in twenty minutes.
I’m wearing a blouse with tiny blue flowers. I bought it three years ago at the market, hung it in the closet, and waited for the right occasion. The occasion never seemed to come: there was always the vegetable garden, the grandkids, or Makary’s work party where, he said, ‘You can’t wear that— everyone will be all dressed up.’ Today, I put it on for no special reason. In my hand is a brown leather bag, still my mother’s, with a brass clasp that snaps so loudly a man with a newspaper turned to look at me.
My phone rings inside the bag for the fifth time. I know exactly who it is, without even needing to check.
* * *
It all started in March, on my birthday.
Makary came up to me in the morning while I was still in my robe, frying syrniki, and placed a box on the table.
‘Here you go, birthday girl. Don’t let your food burn on you,’ he said.
There was a frying pan inside the box. A good one, heavy, with a thick bottom. I thanked him. He kissed the top of my head and sat down to wait for the syrniki.
Artem called in the afternoon. His greeting was short, almost offhand, and he quickly got to the point:
‘Mom, are you home on Saturday? Can we drop Danilko off with you for the whole day? Nastya and I want to go shopping.’
‘Sure,’ I said. Because what else could I say?
Yulia called in the evening, at half past eight.
‘Hey, Mom! Listen, for that cherry pie with kefir in the dough, how much baking soda do you use?’ she asked.
I dictated the recipe. She thanked me, said that Mariyka was calling her, and hung up. She only remembered it was my birthday the next morning— she sent a postcard with roses and three little hearts.
That evening I washed the dishes for a long time. Makary was watching the news, the volume always turned way up in our house. I scrubbed the new frying pan, even though it was already clean, and suddenly realized I couldn’t remember the last time anyone in this house asked me what I wanted. Not what I wanted to cook for Sunday. Not when I could pick up my grandson. Just what I wanted.
And I didn’t even know the answer myself. That was the hardest part.
* * *
The answer turned up a week later, in the kitchen drawer where we keep batteries, jar bands, and all sorts of little odds and ends. I was looking for a lighter for the stove and instead found a magnet: a shell with ‘Black Sea’ written on it, faded and with peeling gold trim.
We brought it home twenty-two years ago. Artem was five then, and Yulia was two. We rented a room in a private house with a summer kitchen and a two-burner stove. I remember that stove better than the sea itself. I cooked porridge, washed little T-shirts and sun hats in a basin, chased Yulia along the beach to stop her from eating sand. Makary lay on a mat under an umbrella and said he was finally relaxing.
I never really got to swim properly that time. I’d wade into the water up to my knees, and every time, someone would call: ‘Mom!’, ‘Olena, where’s the towel?’, ‘Mom, she’s eating sand again!’
I stood there in the kitchen holding that magnet, and I felt so sorry for that young woman with her basin that I almost started to cry.
* * *
I’d been setting money aside for seven months. I sew: hemming pants, taking in dresses, replacing zippers on jackets, and in the evenings, I take on a few custom jobs at home. Before, that money just seemed to disappear. It went to Yulia for kids’ shoes, to Artem when he ran out before payday, to Makar for new tires for the car.
Now I put some of it away in a tea tin, which I hid on the top shelf in the pantry, behind jars of pickles. No one in our house looks up there except me. After all, pickles magically appear on the table by themselves.
When there was finally twenty-two thousand hryvnias in the tin, I went to the travel agency by the market. A young girl was sitting there with long, mint-green nails.
“How many people?” she asked.
“Just one.”
She glanced up from her screen. I waited, expecting her to comment. But she only smiled.
“Then I recommend a particular guesthouse. It’s quiet, five minutes from the sea, the breakfasts are good. Many women go there on their own. You’re not the only one.”
Ten days, late July. I left with the folder in hand and walked all the way home, right through the market, even though I could have taken the bus.
* * *
I told them on Sunday, when everyone came over for lunch. I baked a meat roulade, Yulia brought salad, and the kids chased the neighbor’s cat around the yard.
“I’m going to the seaside in July,” I said while pouring the compote. “For ten days. I’ve already bought the voucher.”
Makar laughed—genuinely, as if I’d made a joke.
“Yeah? And who’s going to cook for me? Since when are you eighteen, running off to resorts on your own?”
“I mean it, Makar.”
He stopped laughing and pushed his plate away.
“A decent wife doesn’t do this, Olena. Leaving her husband to go off who knows where, with who knows whom.”
“I’m going with myself,” I said. And even I was surprised by how that sounded.
Artem cleared his throat.
“Mom, come on. You know the kindergarten closes for repairs at the end of July. We were counting on Danilko staying with you.”
“You were counting on it, but nobody asked me.”
“Because we never had to ask before!” He shrugged. “Honestly, Mom, that’s kind of selfish.”
Yulia was quiet the longest. Then she put down her fork.
“Denys and I wanted to leave the kids with you for those days. We hoped to go away together, just the two of us, for the first time in three years. I thought you’d be glad to have the grandkids.”
She said it softly, without blame. And that made it hurt most of all.
That evening, Makar went to bed without saying a word to me. We lived almost a month like that: next to each other, but each on our own. He ate my cutlets in silence. I ironed his shirts in silence. A few times I pulled out the folder with the voucher and thought: I’ll call the agency, say I changed my mind. Maybe I won’t get all the money back, but at least some of it.
And each time, I put the folder back.
* * *
Last night, I made dumplings, froze cutlets for ten days, poured borscht into jars, and wrote out a note detailing where everything was. I stuck it to the fridge with the same seashell magnet.
In the morning, Makar left for the garage before I woke up. He didn’t say goodbye. I called a taxi.
And here I am on the platform. My phone rings for the sixth time.
Artem texted: “Mom, think about it again.” Yulia didn’t write anything, and her silence said more than any words.
Makar’s calling. This time, I answer.
“Where are you?” His voice was rough, like he hadn’t slept all night.
“At the station.”
“Olena… That’s enough. You’ve proved your point, I get it. I’m coming to get you right now. Twenty minutes.”
“My train leaves in fifteen.”
He went quiet. I could hear something clattering in the garage.
“Where’s that… you know… the extension cord?”
I laughed—for the first time this month.
“It’s in the hallway, in the closet, bottom shelf on the left. Makar, I’m going. I’ll be back in ten days. I’m not running away from you. I’m just going to the sea.”
He didn’t answer. But he didn’t hang up, either. We just stood there in silence for a few seconds—him in the garage, me on the platform. And for the first time in a long while, there was no resentment in that silence. There was just confusion. His. And mine too.
“Well… go,” he finally said. “Just call me when you get there.”
* * *
In the train compartment with me was a woman around seventy, Raisa Fedorivna, wearing a straw hat, holding a thermos and a puzzle book. She watched me sit down and place my bag on my lap, then smirked:
“First time traveling alone?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Very much so. You’re holding your bag like someone’s about to snatch it from you. Put it on the shelf, dear. Nobody wants anything from you here anymore.”
It turned out she’s been going to the sea alone for twelve years in a row.
“My Stepan said, when he retired: I’ve had enough vacations, you go. He fishes, I swim. And by the second week, we start to miss each other. It’s a good thing, by the way.”
I put my bag on the shelf.
* * *
On the first morning, I woke up at six without an alarm clock. Out of habit. But this time, there was no one who needed porridge cooked or shirts ironed.
I went to the sea. There was just a man jogging along the water and some seagulls squabbling over their own business. The water was cool in the morning and so clear you could see every pebble at the bottom. I waded in to my knees. Then my waist. I looked back out of habit. No one was calling me.
And I started swimming.
I swam for a long time, until the shore was tiny. I lay on my back, gazed up at the sky, and thought how twenty-two years ago, at this same sea, I’d never once done this.
* * *
On the fourth day, Makar sent a photo. There was a pot, and in it something thick and reddish-brown.
“Borscht. Cooked it myself. When do you add the beets, at the start or the end? Because something’s off.”
I was lounging on a deckchair, laughing so hard that the woman next to me asked if I was all right.
And in the evening, he called on his own. We talked for forty minutes: about borscht, the neighbor who once again parked in front of our gate, about how he finally tidied up the garage. And at the end, Makar said:
“It’s quiet at home without you. I never realized how loud our fridge hums.”
Yulia wrote on the sixth day. Short and sweet: “Mom, forgive me. Enjoy your rest. You’ve earned this ages ago.” Under her message was a photo of Zlata and Mark holding a homemade sign, big letters in marker: “GRANDMA, BRING BACK A SHELL!”
Artem sent a video. Danylko spoke very seriously, syllable by syllable, explaining that while grandma was at the sea, he was staying with his other grandma, and she makes “different pancakes.”
* * *
On my last evening, I bought myself a magnet—a new shell, shiny and painted a deep blue like the sea. It was the first souvenir in my life that I bought not for someone else, but for myself.
At the station, Makar was waiting for me. He stood by the entrance holding a bouquet of marigolds. I recognized them right away—he had picked them by our fence. He took my bag, turning it over in his hands as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.
“You got a tan,” he said. “You look great.”
We were walking to the car when suddenly he asked, without looking at me:
“So, at that boarding house… do they have rooms for two?”
“Yes, they do,” I replied. “But next time, I’ll have to think twice about taking you with me.”
He laughed. The same way he used to at the Sunday table. Only this time, it sounded completely different.