The soup was bubbling on the stove for the last few minutes. I took a taste — it needed more salt. Habitually, I reached for the salt shaker and sprinkled a pinch. Igor likes his food saltier. Thirty-two years together, and he still hasn’t learned to properly salt food when he cooks himself.
The clock showed the start of six o’clock. Strange, my husband usually doesn’t come home before six-thirty. Although he could be late — he always has some client meetings until late in the evening. I turned off the stove and covered the pot with a lid.
Just about to go to the room to finish watching the series, I heard the scraping of a key in the lock. Wow! Early today.
The door slammed. Igor’s muttering made me stop. He was speaking on the phone in a… strange tone. That’s how he usually talks to the boss — somewhat ingratiating, but with a hint of confidence.
“Yes, thank you for finding the time, Nikolai Ivanovich. I just have a question… purely legal,” my husband’s voice was muffled, as if he was covering his mouth with his hand.
I tiptoed to the door. I had hated eavesdropping since university — my mother always scolded me for it. But something inside scratched like a cat, refusing to let me be.
“You see, the apartment is registered to my wife… inherited from her parents a long time ago… Yes, separate property.”
My heart skipped a beat. Our apartment was a gift from my parents for the wedding. Igor and I moved in here a week after the wedding, once the renovations were done.
“And what if…” my husband lowered his voice, I barely caught it, “…in case of the wife’s death? Do I have the right to claim it? We have been married for thirty-two years.”
My legs felt glued to the floor. It was like a punch in the gut. Everything suddenly turned cold. Whose death was he talking about? Mine? I pressed my fingers to my lips and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Clear… a will is definitely needed… No way without it? And what if…” he hesitated, “…if something unexpected happens? What are the options?”
The phone call ended. I heard him kick off his shoes in the hallway. I quickly rushed to the stove and grabbed a towel. My hands trembled, my fingers wouldn’t obey. I started wiping the countertop even though it was already clean.
“Olechka, I’m home!” Igor shouted, taking off his jacket.
“In the kitchen,” I answered, surprised how calm my voice sounded.
He came in, kissed me on the cheek — habitually, in passing. Smiled as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just discussed… what exactly?…
“Why are you home so early today?” I asked, turning to the stove. I was afraid my gaze would give me away.
“The client canceled the meeting, decided to come home. You look pale…”
“My head hurts a little,” I lied without looking him in the eyes.
All my life I believed Igor and I had no secrets from each other. That my parents were wrong to doubt him before the wedding. They said, “Olga, you don’t know him well yet.” But I knew. Or so I thought?
He went to change, and I watched him leave, feeling something twist inside me. Thirty-two years together. Does he really think about my death? And the apartment?
It can’t be. I must have misheard. Didn’t understand the context. Confused it. But fear had already settled somewhere under my ribs, and I knew — it would not be easy to get rid of it.
The frank conversation
For three days I lived as if in a dream. Made breakfasts, went to work, answered my daughter’s calls. Igor noticed nothing. Or pretended not to.
At night I tossed and turned, listening to his breathing. Thirty-two years we slept in the same bed, and now it seemed like a stranger was next to me. When did he become like this?
Dark circles formed under my eyes. My friend Vera at work asked if I was okay. I nodded and smiled. Not going to tell her that my husband was wondering if he would get my apartment after I die.
On Thursday, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Igor was sitting in the living room, flipping through a sports magazine. I sat across from him, mustering courage.
“Listen, I wanted to ask…” I began carefully. “You recently consulted some lawyer, right?”
The magazine trembled in his hands. Just a little, but I noticed.
“Why do you think that?” Igor didn’t raise his eyes.
“I heard your conversation. On the phone.”
He slowly put down the magazine. Looked at me with a strange gaze, as if gauging how much I knew.
“Oh, that,” he drawled. “Just a normal consultation. For work.”
My heart pounded wildly. I clenched my fingers to hide my trembling.
“For work? Strange. It seemed to me you were asking about our apartment.”
A heavy silence fell. A branch of the old poplar tapped against the window — it tapped like that when we moved in newlyweds. Then Igor hugged me by the shoulders and said, “Hear that? This is our tree. It will grow with our family.”
“Olya, were you eavesdropping?” irritation crept into his voice.
“I overheard by accident,” I felt blood rush to my cheeks. “Is it true?”
Igor got up and paced the room. Then suddenly turned sharply to me.
“What’s the big deal?” he shrugged. “I just wanted to figure out how everything works with our property. Is that a crime?”
“Since when do you care? Not once in thirty years did you ask.”
He snorted.
“Exactly! Thirty-two years married, and I don’t even know what will happen to the apartment if… well, if something happens.”
“If I die, you mean?” My voice trembled.
Igor grimaced as if I said something stupid.
“Don’t dramatize. Just checked, just in case. We’re not getting any younger.”
Inside, everything turned cold. I looked at my husband and didn’t recognize him. The man with whom I spent most of my life, who helped raise our daughter, suddenly became a complete stranger.
“And what did the lawyer say?” I asked quietly.
He plopped back into his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest.
“Without a will, I can’t count on much. The apartment is your property.”
“Did that upset you?”
“Well, what do you expect?” He suddenly got aggressive. “We’re family. I have a right to know these things!”
“Knowing — yes. But you weren’t just interested. You were asking about ‘options.’”
“God, Olya! You sound like in a detective story! ‘Options,’ ‘possibilities’ — normal legal terms.”
A pause fell. A car honked outside — our neighbor Nina Stepanovna always parks under our windows. Igor used to complain, now he didn’t even notice.
“If I died, you should know your rights too,” he added more softly.
I smiled sadly.
“But you weren’t consulting about my rights. You were asking about yours.”
He jumped up from the chair.
“Why are you hanging on? I just talked to a lawyer, so what? Wanted to understand, just in case! Don’t you trust me?”
That question hung in the air. Do I trust him? The man who behind my back was figuring out how to get my apartment if I die?
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Right now — I don’t know.”
Igor grabbed his jacket from the hanger.
“I’ll go for a walk,” he said. “When I come back, I hope you’ll stop making a circus out of nothing.”
The door slammed. I remained sitting in the chair, staring at one spot. Fear swirled inside — and something else. Anger? Hurt? No. Realization. Insight.
For the first time in thirty-two years, I felt that my rights, my property — myself — were being questioned. As if I were not a wife but an obstacle to something. To the apartment?
I hugged my shoulders with my arms. Suddenly the apartment felt cold and uncomfortable. Like a stranger’s house. The phone rang — a message from my daughter: “Mom, are you okay? You sounded strange today.”
“All is well, sunshine,” I replied.
The biggest lie of my life.
The last straw
Two weeks passed in strange tension. Igor and I communicated as if nothing happened. Talked about weather, work, news, watched TV… but something subtly changed. As if a glass wall grew between us — everything visible but untouchable.
I lay awake for hours. Igor snored as if nothing was wrong.
My daughter called, asking how we were. I lied that everything was fine. Yulia knew me too well.
“Mom, don’t you want to come to me for the weekend? Alone. We can talk.”
“And Dad?” I asked absentmindedly.
“Did something happen between you?” Concern crept into her voice.
“No, it’s… complicated. I’ll tell you later.”
For two weeks I secretly watched my husband. Noticed he often locked himself in his office, whispered on the phone for a long time. Was he hiding something? Or was it just me?
The day before yesterday, I almost got caught eavesdropping on his conversations. He suddenly opened the office door, and I barely managed to pretend I was dusting a bookshelf.
“Need help?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
We were silent over dinner. Igor glanced at me nervously, tapping a fork on the plate’s edge.
“Olya, maybe enough? You look like a spy.”
“What are you talking about?” I pretended not to understand.
“You’re spying on me. It’s… hurtful.”
His brazenness made me twitch. Hurtful? To him — hurtful?!
“Your distrust is exhausting,” he added.
I almost threw a plate at him. But held back. In thirty years, we never fought enough for dishes to fly.
And today everything changed. Completely.
Igor left for work. Said he would be late — an important client meeting. He often said that lately. I didn’t pay attention before.
I decided to finally clean the storage room. Bags with old things, a broken floor lamp, skis nobody had used for fifteen years… And boxes. Lots of boxes with documents, bills, receipts.
Near the wardrobe, in the far corner, I stumbled upon a leather folder. Strange. Igor usually kept all documents in his office. I opened it, expecting nothing special.
And froze.
Bank statements I didn’t know about. Copies of some contracts. And a sheet — fresh, dated a week ago. A printout of email correspondence.
“Dear Igor Vladimirovich,” the letter said, “regarding the valuation of the property (two-room apartment, address…). Preliminary market value is 7.5 million rubles. In case of urgent sale, possible reduction to…”
My address. My apartment.
“The potential buyer is ready to consider the offer provided there are encumbrances in the form of registered residents…”
Blood throbbed in my temples. Hands trembled so much I dropped the paper. Picked it up. Reread. Then again.
This wasn’t just talk. He was planning. He was already acting!
On the back of the sheet — a hurried note in ballpoint pen: “Check possibility of sale without spouse’s consent. ‘Option N’ — questionable.”
I sank to the floor, back against the wall. I couldn’t breathe. My head spun with one thought: “Option N? What is that? Could it be…”
No. It can’t be. Not Igor…
I grabbed the phone. Dialed Vera — my friend, she works at a law firm.
“Vera, sorry… Strange question… Can a husband sell his wife’s apartment without her consent?”
“Olya, are you okay?” she got worried. “No, of course not. If the apartment is registered to you, nothing can be done without your signature. What happened?”
“Nothing,” my voice cracked. “Helping a friend… with her husband.”
I sat in the storage room clutching the papers, a wave rising inside… of what? Anger? Yes. Hurt? Of course. But there was something else. A painful realization: the man I spent half my life with was scheming how to take my most valuable property.
When the key turned in the lock, it was already nine in the evening. I waited by the kitchen table. The folder with documents lay before me.
“Olechka, you’re not asleep?” Igor called from the doorway. “I brought you some candy. Remember how you loved those truffles with…”
He stopped, seeing my expression. Then shifted his gaze to the folder.
“What’s this?” he asked quietly.
“Your things,” I tried to speak calmly. “Found them in the storage.”
He turned pale. The bag of candies dropped onto the nightstand.
“Olya, it’s not what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“It’s work-related,” he stammered. “I… was considering options for a client.”
“With my address?” I opened the folder, pointed to the printout. “And what’s ‘Option N’? Is it ‘inheritance’? Or something worse?”
He lunged toward the table, tried to snatch the papers. I jumped up, clutching the folder to my chest.
“You went through my things!” His voice cracked into a shout.
“Your things were in my storage,” I didn’t recognize my own voice. “In my apartment.”
Igor slumped, sat down.
“I’ll explain everything…”
“I can see for myself,” a lump caught in my throat. “You wanted to sell my apartment. And figured out how to do it without my consent.”
“Olya, it’s not like that…”
“Then how?!” I almost shouted. “Explain what I misunderstood!”
He spoke hurriedly, stumbling, waving his hands:
“I was just… considering options. For the future. What if we have to move? Or… you know… we’re not getting younger. I need to know my rights in case something happens.”
“In case something happens? That’s in case I die, right?”
He looked away.
“You misunderstood everything.”
“Then explain! What did I misunderstand?!”
He looked past me, at the wall where our wedding photos hung. Young, happy, in love. I blinked, pushing away unwanted tears.
“This is my apartment, Igor. Mine. And I won’t leave it to you.”
He suddenly changed. Straightened up, eyes sparkled.
“‘Yours’? What about ‘ours’? I was by your side for thirty years, shared everything equally! And now — ‘my apartment’?”
“I didn’t mortgage it, didn’t take loans, didn’t ask you to pay for it. Never!” My hands trembled, but I tried to speak evenly. “It’s a gift from my parents. You know how much they saved to buy it for me?!”
“And who do you think I am? A stranger?” He slammed his fist on the table. “I have rights to this apartment too! You used me all these years!”
My heart clenched. I silently stared at this man I apparently didn’t know at all. And I understood — there is no turning back. This is the end.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” I said quietly.
A new beginning
The phone rang all night. At first I muted it, then unplugged the charger — fed up.
In the morning, someone pounded on the door. Yulka.
“Mom!” she rushed into the hallway, still in her coat. “Why aren’t you answering?! I almost lost my mind!”
“Not in the mood,” I muttered, banging the kettle.
Two sleepless days. I took a two-hour nap — even nightmares haunted me. My head felt like iron.
“Where’s Dad?” Yulka looked around. The room felt bigger without Igor’s things.
“At Seryoga’s.”
“Uncle Seryoga’s?” Daughter was surprised. “Why?”
I silently handed her a cup of tea. How to explain? “Your father is a bastard who pretended to love me for thirty years but really wanted to take my apartment”? Sounds like crazy talk.
“Mom, what happened?” Yulka sat down nearby. “Did you argue?”
“You know,” I rubbed my temples, “I always thought those stories only happen in newspapers. About asshole husbands cheating wives. And here we are…”
“Mom, you’re scaring me…”
I took out the folder, gave it to her.
“Read. Open your eyes about Dad.”
While she flipped through the papers, I stared out the window. The poplars in the yard lost their leaves. Bare, miserable. Like my life now.
“Mom, what the hell is this?!” Yulka jumped up. “Dad wanted to sell the apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“But how?! The apartment is in your name!”
“No idea,” I shrugged. “I’m shocked myself.”
I saw her pacing the kitchen with the corner of my eye. Always like this when nervous — pacing like a tiger in a cage.
“Wait, so that means…” She stopped, hands on her cheeks. “Dad was scheming behind your back?”
“Now he says I misunderstood everything,” I chuckled bitterly. “Says it’s work-related.”
“But here’s our address!” Yulka shook the papers. “And his handwriting!”
“Exactly,” I nodded. “Thought he took me for a fool. Turns out, he doesn’t even consider me a person.”
We talked all day. I made more tea, even cut sandwiches — appetite returned. We didn’t cry anymore, even laughed remembering some episodes. Strange. As if the thirty years never happened.
Yulka called Dad several times. Once even got through.
“Dad, is it true? You wanted to sell the apartment?”
I heard him mumble something on the other end. Daughter lost it:
“Don’t treat me like an idiot! That’s Mom’s address! The prices! ‘Option N’!”
She slammed the phone down. Her lips trembled.
“He said — it’s not like that! I’m sick of Mom’s suspicions!”
“Uh-huh,” I just smirked. “That’s how it is with us. Women are always to blame.”
By evening we made a decision.
“Mom, we have to go to a notary,” Yulka said. “Urgently.”
“Why?” I was surprised. “The apartment is mine, it’s not going anywhere.”
“Look at the documents!” Daughter pointed to the folder. “There are some ‘options’ written here. Who knows what he’s planning?”
The next day we went to Ninka — my university friend, she’s a notary. I explained the situation. Ninka clicked her tongue.
“That’s awful, Olga,” she shook her head. “How did he imagine this? Without your signature, you can’t sell the apartment.”
“That’s what I think,” I fiddled with a candy wrapper. “Unless…”
“What?”
“Well, there are all sorts of stories. Maybe he planned to forge my signature. Or… something worse.”
“Okay,” Ninka raised her hand. “Enough overthinking. We’ll quickly make a gift deed to Yulka and close the issue.”
“Gift deed?” I was surprised.
“Yeah,” Ninka shrugged. “You gift half the apartment to your daughter. You’ll live as before, but your husband won’t be able to do anything. Even if…” she hesitated.
“If what? Finish.”
“If this ‘Option N’ is something really bad.”
I shuddered. Nonsense. Igor is a scoundrel and stingy, but not a criminal.
“And we’ll make a will too,” Ninka added. “For the other half. Also to Yulka.”
“Do whatever you want,” I waved my hand.
When we left the notary, I felt lighter. The anxiety receded.
“Damn, Mom, how did you even live with him?” Yulka took my arm.
“Like everyone,” I shrugged. “We got used to each other. And I really believed in love.”
“Should we call him?” my daughter suddenly said. “Let him live with uncle Seryoga until everything settles.”
“It’s already settled,” I shook my head. “He won’t come back. His pride won’t allow it.”
We walked down the gray, rain-soaked avenue. The asphalt gleamed, reflecting rare lights. The air smelled damp and a little of gasoline.
“Wanna live with me?” my daughter suddenly asked.
“You? With your two cats?” I chuckled. “Barsik and Motya will wreck the apartment.”
“Well, what? We’ll go to the sea for the summer, come back — they won’t even notice we moved.”
“The sea?” I squinted.
“Yeah,” Yulka smiled. “We’ll rent a little house with a beach view. Rest for at least a week, nice. Dad always wanted to go to Turkey anyway…”
I sighed. True. Igor either saved on trips or dragged me to Turkey. But I always wanted to go to Crimea, to our native south…
“You know,” I stopped, “only now I realize. I spent my whole life adapting to him. What to eat, where to go, who to talk to. Everything — for him.”
“And now?” Yulka looked into my eyes.
“And now…” I suddenly laughed. “Now I’m retired. And I’ll do whatever I want!”
“Right!” my daughter hugged me. “Life begins at retirement!”
We walked through the evening city, and ahead something new appeared. Some path, bright and free. Without lies, without suspicion, without deceit.
And you know what? I liked where it led.