I spent a long time choosing a restaurant for our second wedding anniversary. I wanted something special: not just a beautiful place with good food, but a space where every detail would contribute to the evening’s atmosphere.
In the end, I settled on “Firebird” — a new venue in a historic mansion with stained-glass windows and antique chandeliers.
Anton frowned when I showed him photos of the interior.
“Why such extravagance? We could just sit somewhere, just the two of us. Who needs that cheap pomp?”
But I insisted. I invited sixty guests, booked musicians and a host. After that terrible car accident six months ago, I wanted a celebration. A real, bright, memorable one.
The preparations took several weeks.
I checked once again if everything was ready: the hall decoration, the menu, the evening’s program, gifts for the guests. I wanted everything to be perfect.
Maybe because this was the first big celebration since I returned from the hospital. Or maybe simply because I wanted this wedding anniversary to be unforgettable in every way. Even in the interior.
I smoothed the folds of my dark purple dress and glanced at the clock. The guests were supposed to start arriving any minute. Anton stood by the window, absentmindedly looking outside. In the glass reflection, I saw his tense face.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked, approaching him.
“Oh, nothing…” my husband shrugged. “I just don’t like these events. So much fuss and pointless activity! And for what? For a show of happiness!”
I kept silent. Over two years of marriage, I had learned not to react to his outbursts. Especially today! On the day I had planned for months.
My parents arrived first. Dad, as always, looked very stylish and elegant. Mom wore a new dusty rose dress that suited her very well. She rushed to me at the door and hugged me tightly:
“I’m so glad you’re with us, darling. I can’t stop looking at you! After that accident, I thought I’d go crazy…”
“Mom, don’t start,” I gently stopped her. “Today is only about good things. We agreed! Remember?”
Next came my father’s colleagues, where Anton and I both worked, friends, and relatives. I greeted the guests with a smile but kept an eye on my husband. He kept a bit distant, occasionally sipping whiskey from his glass. Unusual behavior. Usually, he didn’t drink alcohol even at big celebrations.
Irina Vladimirovna, our chief accountant, came over to say hello. I noticed she paled slightly when I turned to her. Probably remembered visiting me in the hospital. I was covered in tubes and sensors, and the doctors gave no guarantees…
“Karina, you’re just glowing,” the woman said with a forced smile. “You look stunning! Especially considering you just recently came back from the dead!”
“Thank you! You look wonderful too. Don’t doubt it!”
Something about her gaze seemed strange to me. But I decided to ignore it. There was no point, at least for now.
The celebration began.
Toasts were made, music played, guests danced. From the outside, everything seemed perfect. But I felt the tension growing.
Anton kept to himself, occasionally joining conversations with colleagues. Sometimes he cast strange looks toward Irina Vladimirovna, who carefully pretended not to notice him.
I approached my husband and smiled:
“Shall we dance? After all, it’s our celebration.”
“Not now,” he waved me off. “My head’s a bit dizzy.”
“You’re acting strange today…”
“Just tired. You know I don’t like big gatherings. No need to make a fuss!”
The evening gained momentum. The MC — a young man in a trendy suit — expertly managed the crowd’s mood.
I watched the scene, trying not to reveal my inner anxiety. Only I knew how special this celebration would be. We just had to wait a little longer.
Anton continued to keep his distance, forcing smiles at acquaintances. I noticed his brief glances exchanged with Irina Vladimirovna, but I pretended to be absorbed in the party. Each time, something tightened painfully inside me, but I kept smiling and accepting congratulations.
“Karina, we’re so glad you recovered!” chirped the wife of my father’s deputy. “It was awful when we heard about the accident.”
“Yes, terrible time,” her friend agreed. “But now it’s all behind, thank God!”
I nodded, thanked them, but my thoughts involuntarily returned to those days in the hospital. Strange time… like in a fog. Fragments of memories, conversations, footsteps in the ward…
“Sweetheart, everything is just wonderful!” Mom hugged me by the shoulders, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Such a beautiful celebration. And you look so beautiful today! Magical!”
“Thank you, Mom.”
“Only…” she hesitated. “Anton seems tense. Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” I smiled faintly. “He just doesn’t like big companies.”
At that moment, Dad approached and gently hugged Mom:
“What are you whispering about?”
“Oh, women’s talk,” I brushed it off.
“Daughter! I’m so proud of you. How you managed through all this… You’re a real fighter!”
I hugged Dad tightly, burying my face in his shoulder. He didn’t know half of what I had to endure. And hopefully never will.
Slow music began to play: the song Anton and I danced to at our wedding, as newlyweds.
I quickly went up to my husband:
“Shall we dance? Like two years ago?”
He flinched involuntarily:
“Karina, I told you I don’t want to dance. Are you mocking me?”
“But why?” I looked closely into his eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Just leave me alone! Get off!”
His harshness froze me in place.
After a few seconds, I noticed Irina Vladimirovna hastily leaving the hall, followed by Anton. Waiting for the right moment, I went after them.
They stood in an empty corridor, talking tensely. When I appeared, both fell silent.
“What’s going on here?” I asked calmly.
“Nothing special,” the woman tried to smile. “We were discussing work matters.”
“At our anniversary?”
“Karina, stop it!” my husband said gruffly.
“Me? Stop? You’ve been out of sorts all evening. I don’t understand your behavior at all!”
We returned to the hall. Music blared, guests kept dancing. Dad gave another toast. Irina Vladimirovna carefully avoided my gaze, but I saw her hands trembling as she raised her glass to her lips.
“Anton, talk to me,” I approached him again. “Don’t you want to explain what’s happening?”
“No! Enough!” he raised his voice. “How many times do I have to say?”
“But I really want to understand…”
“Leave me alone!” He abruptly turned away from me.
At that moment, the music suddenly stopped. Silence hung in the hall. And in that silence, his words sounded like a verdict:
“I’ve been sick of you since our wedding night! You disgust me! Get off me!”
Anton’s words hit my face like a whip. For a second, the world blurred before my eyes, ringing in my ears. Time seemed to stop, and everyone froze as if in a silent scene: shocked guests, pale Irina Vladimirovna, triumphant Anton.
I slowly exhaled. This was it! The moment Dad and I had been waiting for. Strange, but instead of pain, I felt relief. As if the heavy burden I’d carried these past months finally began to lift from my shoulders. A faint smile touched my lips as I barely nodded to the MC.
The lights in the hall went out. On the large screen set up for the festive presentation, an image flickered.
A black-and-white hospital ward, the dim light of life-support devices. I lay unconscious on the bed, tangled in wires and tubes. The date in the corner of the screen—three months ago.
I remembered how Dad showed me this recording for the first time. It was a week after I came home from the hospital. He hesitated for a long time, looking for the right moment.
“Sorry, daughter, but I had to watch how they took care of you,” he said then, playing the video.
The ward door opens. Two figures enter. Their silhouettes are clearly visible in the semi-darkness. Anton and Irina Vladimirovna. They creep like thieves, thinking no one sees them.
“Quiet,” the woman whispers. “What if she wakes up…”
“She won’t,” my husband’s voice sounds dull, almost satisfied. “Doctors said she has almost no chance.”
The hall was so silent you could hear a fly buzz. I saw the guests’ frozen faces, their eyes wide with horror. I saw Anton’s knuckles turn white as he gripped the back of a chair.
The video continued. The man pulls Irina to him and kisses her. Greedily, passionately, as if forgetting where they are. Right next to the wife’s bed, who, in his opinion, would never wake up.
“Everything turned out better than I could’ve hoped,” he whispered between kisses. “Now we can be together. We just need to wait…”
“Anton, wait,” Irina carefully pulls away. “What if your wife survives?”
“She won’t. In this situation, the chances are practically zero. Everything happened exactly as it was supposed to. You know I always calculate everything in advance.”
The recording continued. They talked about plans, about the future, about how to dispose of my share in the company. About how long their affair had lasted. Apparently, it all started before our wedding. About how skillfully they pretended all this time.
I remembered how Dad’s hands shook when he first showed me the footage. How he apologized for not seeing my son-in-law’s true face earlier. How we planned this evening together, choosing the moment to expose them.
More clips appeared: their secret meetings in the hospital, conversations by my bed, their confidence in impunity.
Each frame was like a nail in the coffin of their future.
I pressed the remote button. The image froze on a particularly telling frame: the two of them by my bedside in a passionate embrace, and in the background, the monitor shows my vital signs.
The hall was completely silent.
The first to break the silence was my mother. Her scream cut through the frozen air:
“My God… How… How could you?!”
The woman, furious, rushed at my son-in-law, but Dad held her back.
Irina Vladimirovna tried to sneak toward the exit, but the security, prudently placed by Dad, blocked her way.
Noise rose in the hall: guests stood from their seats, some pointed fingers at the screen, where the last frame still hung.
“This… this isn’t what you think,” Anton tried to compose himself, though I saw his fingers tremble. “Karina, you misunderstood everything. We were just…”
“Just what?” I slowly approached my husband, feeling every step echo in the hushed hall. “Just discussing plans for my inheritance while I was dying? Just kissing while I was fighting for my life?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Dad’s deputy shaking his head, whispering something to his wife. The legal department director hurriedly typed something on the phone. Some guests openly filmed what was happening.
“You know,” I continued, feeling incredible satisfaction in the moment, “at first, I thought it was just cheating. Disgusting, vile, but… usual. Then I started remembering. Strange details before the accident. Your insistence on taking exactly that road. Your call a minute before the brakes failed…”
I saw Irina Vladimirovna flinch at these words. Anton’s jaw clenched. The parents exchanged glances.
“You can’t accuse me! You have no proof!”
“Not yet,” I smiled coldly. “But tomorrow morning all the materials, including this video, will be handed to the prosecutor’s office. Let the investigators figure out what this was: accident or a carefully planned attempt.”
“Karina,” the chief accountant stepped forward, nervously fiddling with her pearl necklace, “we can discuss everything calmly, without this… spectacle.”
“Spectacle?” I laughed loudly. “Oh yes, you two are experts at spectacles. For two months, I watched your performance. Every day, every minute. I saw how you, Irina, ‘accidentally’ stayed late in his office. How you exchanged looks in meetings. How you found excuses for business trips. Now it’s my turn.”
Dad approached me and put his hand on my shoulder. I felt it tremble slightly with barely restrained anger:
“Daughter, should I call the police right now?”
“No, Dad. Let them go. Tomorrow they’ll have enough to worry about.”
Anton threw a careless glance at his wife and hissed with hatred:
“You… you staged this! You deliberately arranged this pathetic evening to create a scandal!”
“Yes, I staged it. Played by your rules. Like you staged our wedding when you were already having an affair with her. Like you married me just to get half the company. Like you staged…”
I didn’t finish. Anton abruptly turned and quickly headed for the exit. Irina Vladimirovna hurried after him, stumbling on her high heels.
“You’ll regret this!” the man threw over his shoulder.
“No,” I answered quietly. “You’ll regret a lot.”
When the door closed behind them, the hall was silent. Mom quietly cried on Dad’s shoulder. Guests looked at each other, unsure how to react. Some began to hurry and leave, others froze in place, afraid to move.
I raised my glass and said sadly:
“Sorry for spoiling the celebration. But I had to do it. I had to show the truth. And now… now let the competent authorities deal with it.”
… Three months passed.
I sat in the investigator’s office watching him shuffle papers. Another refusal to open a criminal case. The wording was always different, but the essence was the same: insufficient evidence.
“You see,” the investigator took off his glasses and tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose, “we have checked all versions. We inspected the auto repair shop where your husband repaired the car a week before the accident. We interviewed the mechanics. We reviewed all camera footage. But…” he shrugged, “the time was lost. The examination cannot conclusively establish if the brake system malfunction was intentional.”
I nodded. This was to be expected. Too much time had passed.
“We did everything possible. It’s time to close this matter. Forever. Unfortunately!”
But other consequences of that evening proved more tangible.
The very next day, Dad convened an extraordinary board meeting. Anton and Irina were fired for immoral conduct incompatible with their positions. Dad used all his connections: the doors of major companies in the city were closed to them.
I remember Anton coming to my home a week after being fired, begging:
“Karina, let’s talk! You can’t just erase everything like this…”
“I can,” I didn’t even invite him in. “The divorce papers are already with the lawyer. They will be sent to you.”
“But how… We’ve been together for so many years…”
“Indeed. You played your role perfectly all these years. But the show is over, Anton. Curtain.”
I slammed the door loudly in his face, not letting him finish. That’s when I realized I no longer felt pain or hatred. Only fatigue and a desire to turn this page of my life as soon as possible.
Irina Vladimirovna was the first to leave town. They say she went to relatives in Novosibirsk.
Anton held on longer, trying to find work, knocking on different doors. But when all his attempts ended in failure, he left too. Where? I didn’t ask.
“Darling,” Dad hugged me on the shoulder when I returned from the prosecutor’s office, “don’t worry. The main thing is we know the truth. And they got what they deserved.”
“You know, Dad, I suddenly realized I don’t regret that evening at all. Yes, it was painful. Yes, it was scary. But better bitter truth than sweet lies.”
Mom set the table and brought out my favorite tea. The three of us sat together as before. I was slowly returning to life.
In a week, the first court hearing on the divorce would take place. Anton called and asked not to take it to court. Promised to settle everything peacefully. But I wanted everything by the law. I wanted to put a definitive end to our story.
And yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I smiled at my reflection in the mirror. And saw in my eyes not pain or fatigue, but hope. Hope for a new beginning.