The turn of the key in the brass keyhole sounded sharp and alien in the silence of the entryway, as if shattering a fragile calm. Exhausted after a long workday, Maksim tensed at the sound. With a heavy sigh, he pushed the solid oak door, crossed the threshold of his own home—and immediately felt that what greeted him wasn’t coziness but a ringing, wary emptiness.
“Alisa, I’m home! Katya, hey—where’s my team? Where are my applause?” he tried to joke, but the voice that answered his own laugh faltered. He listened.
In response—silence. Not just the absence of noise, but a thick, heavy, almost tangible silence, taut as a string. At this hour the apartment was usually alive: his daughter’s voice chiming as she told him about school, music playing, the TV murmuring, the air filled with the aroma of dinner. Today, the only scent in the house was Alisa’s expensive perfume—his young wife’s.
Somewhere beneath his ribs, anxiety stirred—small and nasty, like an insect. Maksim tossed his jacket on the hanger and headed deeper into the apartment, stepping over the soft carpet that deadened his footsteps.
Out of the half-lit living room, where a lone floor lamp cast a yellow circle of light on the sofa, Alisa appeared.
“Hi, love. Dinner’s in the oven, you can heat it up,” her voice was even, lifeless, as if she were reading a meeting schedule. “Get some rest. We need to talk. About us. About the future.”
“Did something happen?” Maksim asked hoarsely, taking off his watch. “Where’s Katya? At some club? Is she running late?”
Alisa didn’t answer right away. With elegant precision, she took a sip of lemon water, savoring the pause, stretching the painful wait.
“Katya is where she belongs,” she finally said, each word landing like a blow. “This morning I drove her to the village. To your parents. She gets in the way of us. Let her live there.”
Maksim froze. The world around him seemed to stop existing. He felt his knees buckle and instinctively grabbed the doorframe to keep from falling. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat.
“What… what are you saying? For the weekend? Why without telling me?”
“For good, Maks,” her voice didn’t waver. “I’ve made a decision. A considered one. Final.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” he burst out, his shout echoing off the sterile walls of the living room. “She’s my daughter! Get dressed right now—we’re going to get her! This instant!”
Alisa didn’t flinch. Not at his rage, not at his pain. She set the glass down slowly, as if performing a ritual, and unhurriedly walked up to him. Her movements were smooth, hypnotic. An inch from him she stopped, took his hand, and placed it on her stomach—still flat, still hiding everything.
“No,” she whispered. “We’re not going anywhere. I can’t anymore. Your daughter is driving me crazy. I shouldn’t be stressed. You know that. Maksim… you need to choose. Now.”
“Choose?” He closed his eyes. “She lost her mother a year ago. Do you think it’s easy for her?”
“I don’t care!” Something feral suddenly edged into Alisa’s voice. “She’s a crybaby. She looks at me like she’s the ghost of her dead mother. She reminds me I’m not the first. That you loved someone else. That your home, your life, your heart aren’t entirely mine. I’m carrying your son, Maks! And I’ll do anything to make sure he has everything! No useless ballast. Not her.”
She spoke, and tears streamed down her cheeks—but they were tears not of pain, but of anger, power, manipulation.
“I can’t sleep! The doctor says stress is dangerous! Do you want to lose the baby? Do you want something to happen to me because of that girl? Answer me!”
Maksim was silent. Before his eyes rose an image of Katya—fragile, with big gray eyes just like her mother’s. He saw her hiding under a blanket with a book, crying at night, trying to be quiet, invisible. His little girl. His vow—to protect her.
But Alisa stood before him. His passion, his dream, the woman for whom he’d upended his life. And her stomach, where a new life pulsed—his blood, his future, his heir. The instinct to continue the line, stoked by fear and pressure, proved stronger than a father’s heart.
“I can’t choose…” he whispered, as if losing himself with every word. “It’s impossible…”
“You have to!” Alisa pressed herself to him. “Choose me! Choose us! Choose our son! We’ll be happy, Maks! And Katya… Katya will be better off in the village. Fresh air, grandma and grandpa, nature. Isn’t that better than seeing every day how you’re building a new family? Isn’t that more traumatic for her?”
Her words, sweet and enveloping, finished him off. Maksim felt the last stronghold of his resistance collapse.
“Alright…” he forced out, the word burning his throat like a red-hot stone. “Let her stay with my parents. Not for long… Until you give birth. Until everything settles down.”
Alisa lit up. Fury instantly gave way to a radiant smile. She wrapped her arms around his neck, covering him with kisses—on his lips, his cheeks, his forehead—whispering words of love, delight, gratitude. She praised his “wisdom,” his “strength,” a future full of happiness.
She had won. Totally. Unconditionally.
And he stood in the middle of his luxurious living room and felt something inside him die for good. Something pure, bright, irreplaceable. A weight settled on his shoulders—icy, unbearable. The burden of guilt he would carry for the rest of his days.
The next day Maksim drove to the village alone. The conversation with his parents turned into a nightmare:
“Have you lost your mind?!” his father roared, his face flushed with crimson rage. “To throw out your own daughter for that… that schemer?!”
“Dad, she’s not like that! She’s pregnant! It’s hard for her!” Maksim justified himself, not believing his own words. “Katya will be better here, honestly! Fresh air, nature…”
His mother was silent. Only tears streamed down her cheeks as she held her granddaughter tight. Katya looked at her father with wide eyes, full of pain and confusion:
“Dad… do you not love me anymore?”
That quiet question squeezed Maksim’s heart like a vise.
“I love you, bunny, of course I love you!” He knelt before her, hands trembling as he stroked her hair. “It’s just… right now we need to take care of your little brother. And it’s good for you here, isn’t it? Grandma bakes pies…”
“I’ll be really quiet,” the girl whispered. “I won’t cry. I’ll help. Take me home.”
But the decision had already been made. Maksim stood, kissed his daughter on the forehead, unable to say another word, and walked out. He left, leaving a piece of his soul in the old house, and taking with him a stone of guilt that grew heavier with every kilometer. In the car he sobbed, banged his head against the steering wheel, but there was no way back. He had chosen. And chosen forever.
Life with Alisa at first seemed like salvation. She was tender, attentive, spoke of love, of the future, of the son they had created together. The pregnancy went smoothly. Maksim tried to muffle the voice of conscience—with expensive gifts he regularly sent to the village, and rare, increasingly strained phone calls. His parents answered coldly. Katya would pick up, say “hi,” and silently hand the phone to her grandmother.
Seven months later, Alisa gave birth. The delivery was easy. When the doctor handed him the bundle, Maksim froze, bracing for an explosion of happiness, hope, redemption.
“Congratulations, Dad, you have a son,” the midwife smiled.
He took the baby in his arms—and the world collapsed.
The child was beautiful. But… he didn’t look like him or Alisa. Like anyone in their families. The newborn had thick dark hair, brown, slightly almond-shaped eyes, a distinctive eyelid fold—clear Asian features. Features that neither Maksim nor his fair-haired, blue-eyed wife had.
“He’s… a bit swarthy…” Maksim managed, swallowing the lump in his throat with difficulty.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Alisa smiled weakly from the bed. “All babies are like that. He’ll grow up and look like you. Or like my great-grandfather from Kuvshinkino… You don’t remember him, but he was… well, not quite like everyone else.”
But time passed—and the baby, whom they named Artyom, came to look less and less like his father and more like that Korean fitness instructor with whom Alisa had been “training” three times a week before the pregnancy.
Maksim secretly ordered a DNA test. The answer came quickly. Probability of paternity—0%.
The scandal exploded with such force the walls seemed to shake. At first Alisa cried, swore she was innocent; then, realizing the lie was uncovered, she pounced on him like a predator:
“And what did you expect? You sold your daughter for the illusion of a family! You chose to be a weakling! You let me do it! You’re the traitor, Maksim! Not me!”
He didn’t drag it out. That same day he threw her out. The divorce went quickly, but not without poison. The prenuptial agreement Alisa had once signed with a smirk now protected Maksim. She left with nothing.
The first thing he did was rush to the village. His heart pounded. He flew down the rutted road as if he could turn back time, fix his mistake, beg forgiveness.
His father opened the door. Coldly, without a greeting.
“What do you want?”
“Dad… I understand. I was blind. I’ve realized everything. I want to take Katya home. To come back. Start fresh.”
“You won’t start fresh,” his father cut him off, blocking the doorway. “Guardianship is formalized. At her request. By court order. You voluntarily gave up custody. You signed the papers yourself.”
His mother came out from behind him. Her eyes were full of sorrow, but not malice.
“Katya doesn’t want to see you, Maks. It’s too painful for her. Go.”
“Mom, at least let me talk to her! I’m her father!”
“You stopped being her father the day you chose someone else’s child over your own blood,” his mother said quietly. “I’m sorry. But we have to protect her. Go.”
The door closed. Maksim stood on the porch like an exile. For the first time in his life he had truly lost everything.
Years passed.
Maksim lived alone in a huge apartment where the echo of his steps bounced off cold walls. He grew older, quiet, withdrawn. He avoided women. He couldn’t forgive even himself.
Katya, meanwhile, finished school and went to university. Her grandparents were proud of her—of her mind, her kindness, her strength of spirit. The neighbors would sigh:
“As for the Gavrilovs—though their son grew up ungrateful, at least their granddaughter is a gift of fate!”
And indeed she was a light. And in Katya’s life there was no father. Neither in words nor in her heart.
Sometimes Maksim would go to her social media page. He would look at the photos. At one—especially. Katya stands between her grandmother and grandfather, arms around their shoulders. All three are laughing. The caption:
“My most important people. Thank you for everything. You are my real family.”
He sat in the quiet, watching the sunset, and for the first time in a long while, he wept softly. Without shouting. Without anger. Only with a dull ache in his chest.
He made a choice.
And he paid the highest price for it—
with the price of eternal loneliness.