It seemed that from the very moment Margarita came into the world, fate itself had showered her with its gifts. Many who watched from the outside couldn’t suppress a quiet, sweet, and soul-corroding feeling. They saw only a flawless façade: a huge mansion behind a wrought-iron fence, cars with tinted windows taking the girl to an elite school, a wardrobe that could make any fashion critic’s head spin. Her life appeared to them like a pearl polished to a shine, glittering in the velvet jewelry box of the world. Trips to distant countries were not a dream but a routine route, as if she were simply moving from one room of her vast estate to another.
But behind this dazzling, perfectly constructed façade lay a different reality. For young Margarita it was not a fairy tale, but an endlessly prolonged theatre of the absurd, played out upon the fragile glass of their prosperity. Her parents’ marriage had long since turned into a frozen truce, held together only by the flickering digits in their bank accounts and shares in their joint business. They existed in the same space like two hostile elements, poisoning the air with silent hatred and sudden loud quarrels.
Her father, powerful and unapproachable like a cliff, found comfort in fleeting affairs, and more than once Margarita had seen, either in his office or in the guesthouse on the estate, young women whose strained smiles spoke louder than any words. Her mother had chosen another way to escape reality. Her downfall was arranged with exquisite, almost theatrical taste: crystal glasses, expensive aged liquor, sophisticated snacks. But that didn’t change the essence. Her mornings began with the tart aroma of wine; by evening her gaze turned glassy and unfocused, and her speech became slurred, full of reproaches.
Margarita’s world was full of things, yet empty of warmth. Her questions, her small childish sorrows sank into the abyss of her parents’ indifference. Her father would brush her off, handing over a wad of cash with his usual, “I don’t have time for this.” Approaching her mother was dangerous: either a flood of complaints and tears would crash over her, or the woman barely understood who was standing in front of her. Coming home from school, the girl would lock herself in her spacious, museum-like room, stare out at the manicured garden, and dream only of one thing—of the day she could break free from this beautiful but soulless prison. No loud parties with her peers tempted her, for deep down she knew: if anything happened to her, no one would notice her disappearance right away.
Getting into a prestigious university was not an achievement for her, but a logical step toward freedom. And when she finally gathered her courage and told her father she wanted to live on her own, he simply nodded without taking his eyes off the computer screen.
“Fine. I’ll give you a realtor’s contact. He’ll find you something worthy.”
In that moment her heart fluttered with anticipation. At last—silence. No more arguments, no smell of alcohol mixed with expensive perfume, no whispers over the phone through the wall. But her illusions quickly dissolved. On the eve of signing the papers for the apartment, her father invited her into his office. The air there was always thick and heavy, smelling of old wood and money.
“After you finish university, you’ll start learning all the intricacies of our business. It’s time to bring you up to speed, to prepare you for management,” his voice was even and peremptory, like a pointing finger.
Margarita shuddered inwardly. The thought of tying her fate to what had destroyed her family filled her with physical revulsion. Instead, she was drawn to another path—the world of tourism. She dreamed of creating unique itineraries, of showing people the beauty of the world. It was only during those rare trips, far from home, that she truly tasted life. Although even there the shadow of the family discord caught up with them: rows in luxurious hotel suites, her mother’s drunken tears on the ocean shore. Once she had become an involuntary witness to her father waiting until his wife passed out, then heading to the neighboring bungalow, where yet another companion was already waiting for him. As a child she had been saved by her nanny, a kind woman whose arms were her only refuge. When she grew up, she was left alone with all this chaos.
“I don’t want that,” came her quiet but firm voice. “I’m not interested in the family business.”
And then the man for whom she had always been nothing more than background suddenly showed an interest uncharacteristic of him. He issued an ultimatum, cold and merciless: any further financial support was possible only if she fully and unquestioningly submitted to his will.
At once, an image of her mother rose before her eyes—a woman who had once traded her youth and dreams for the guarantee of a luxurious life. Margarita swore to herself she would not repeat that sad fate. She refused to become a bird in a golden cage whose morning begins with a glass of alcohol to drown out despair.
“I won’t obey,” she said, and for the first time in her life she saw in his eyes not indifference, but something like surprise and anger.
He kept his word. The bank cards were blocked, access to the ancestral home was forbidden. He expected to break her, to bring her back docile and compliant. But as she looked at his confident face, she felt only determination. Gathering her few personal belongings and the modest savings she had previously wasted on trinkets, she walked out into nowhere.
The money was enough to rent a small room in an old building on the edge of the city and to live frugally for a few months. She got a job as a waitress in a small café. For a girl whose hands had only ever touched cutlery at formal dinners, it was a trial. Piles of sticky plates, rude remarks from customers, feet aching by evening—all this became part of a new, harsh, but real world. At times despair rose to her throat, and she was ready to drop everything, go back, and agree to any conditions. But then she would recall her mother’s glassy stare and, clenching her teeth, she pushed on.
Night shifts gave way to days of classes. She lived in a state of constant exhaustion, but inside her there appeared, for the first time, a strange feeling—pride. She managed to save up for the next semester’s tuition and to extend the rent on her room. It seemed this vicious circle would last forever. But one day, the café manager took notice of her. He appreciated not so much her clumsy movements as her innate grace, clear speech, and a restraint unusual for that place. Soon she was offered the position of administrator.
The new job brought not only a slightly higher income, but also an acquaintance that turned her whole life upside down. A young man named Denis began to come to the café frequently. He would sit with a notebook, sketching something or jotting down notes. Their eyes started meeting more and more often, and one day he smiled and asked if she’d like to take a walk around the city sometime. That’s how their story began.
Margarita, who by then had become simply Rita to everyone, didn’t tell him about her past. She said only that things with her parents were complicated, that her mother was unhappy and her father a man who didn’t know the meaning of fidelity. Of the millions, the mansions and the private drivers—she said nothing. She feared that the truth would destroy the fragile trust between them, that her sincere feelings would be taken for calculation.
Their relationship developed naturally and warmly. Before long she moved into his small but cozy apartment, which smelled of fresh baking and books. She changed her phone number, cutting off the last threads connecting her to her old life. She not only managed to get her degree, but also to find a job at a small travel agency, where she threw herself into her work. A little later, once they were married, the two of them made her cherished dream come true—they opened their own, tiny at first, travel bureau. But that was not her main victory. The main thing was that she was happy without her parents’ millions. She had built her own world, full of meaning and simple joys.
They had a daughter, whom they named Veronika. And Margarita poured into this small warm bundle all the unspent tenderness of her heart, all the love she herself had lacked in childhood.
The years passed. Veronika had already turned four. One quiet family evening, filled with their daughter’s laughter and the gentle rustle of pages as Denis worked at the table, was interrupted by an unexpected buzz of the intercom.
“I’ll go check,” her husband said, getting up.
He returned with a puzzled expression.
“Rita, there’s some man downstairs. Says he’s your father.”
Silence rang in her ears. Her legs went weak. She slowly walked to the hallway and opened the door. He was standing on the threshold. Time had left its mark on his face: the wrinkles at his eyes had deepened, and there was a slight stoop in his posture, but his gaze was still just as piercing and imperious.
“Hello, Margarita.”
“Hi,” her own voice came out hoarse.
“How are you?”
“As you can see,” she made a small gesture with her hand, indicating the modest but cozy hallway, full of life. “Everything is wonderful.”
“Our last conversation was… not the most constructive. I was hoping common sense would prevail.”
“You were hoping I’d fail,” she couldn’t help a bitter smile.
“Perhaps. But you turned out stronger. Stronger than your mother.”
“How is she?” Margarita asked, suddenly realizing that all these years she hadn’t allowed herself even to think about her.
“Unchanged. Or maybe even worse. I want to restore our relationship. I found out I have a granddaughter. I can give her everything: the best education, an elite kindergarten. And for you… It’s not right for you to live like this.”
She silently shook her head. Not a word that he had missed her. Not a hint of remorse. Still the same language of deals and purchases.
“We don’t need anything, Father. We’re happy.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” he snorted. “Can you really call this a happy life?”
“This is a life I never had before. A life where there is love, not lies. Where difficulties are overcome together, not bought off. Where the warmth of home is valued, not the size of a bank account. But you’ll never understand that.”
“Seems so,” he sighed heavily. “Well… If you ever need anything… you know where to find me.”
Margarita nodded and gently closed the door. Resting her forehead against the cool wood, she suddenly felt tears running down her cheeks. They were not tears of hurt or longing. They were a farewell. A farewell to the last shadow of the past, to the illusion that one day something might change. He hadn’t come to see his daughter and granddaughter. He had come to reclaim his asset, to restore control.
“Is everything okay?” Denis’s anxious voice sounded behind her.
She turned around. In front of her stood her husband, and from the living room came Veronika’s cheerful laughter. Here, within these walls, was the smell of their shared life, their love, their future. Here there was no room for ghosts from the past.
“Yes,” she said softly, and the truest, brightest smile touched her lips. “Everything is just wonderful. I have everything I ever could have dreamed of.”
And there was not a drop of insincerity in those words. She had found something that could not be bought for all the wealth in the world—her own present, hard-won and so precious, happiness.
At that very moment, when the footsteps of her past faded away behind the closed door, Margarita fully grasped the immeasurable depth of her life as it was now. She stood on the threshold of her modest but light-filled home, ringing with a child’s laughter, and her heart was singing. It sang a quiet, melodic song of simple joys: of evenings spent the three of them reading fairy tales, of the support she saw in her husband’s eyes, of the boundless tenderness she gave her little daughter. This was not that deafening yet empty life that had been left behind, but a real, deep, and genuine harmony. She had traded the glitter of cold gold for the warmth of her own hearth and had gained something immeasurably greater—her own, unique, and so beautiful destiny.