Valentina Sergeyevna was sorting through her closet when her phone buzzed on the shelf beside the bed linens. Her daughter. Lera didn’t call often—between work, family, and the constant Moscow rush, time always slipped away.
“Mom… how are you?”
The question sounded careful, as if Lera were checking whether her mother had shattered into pieces after the divorce.
“I’m fine,” Valentina said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Going through the linens. Half of them are still from the Soviet days—can you imagine?”
“Mom, listen. Remember Giovanni? The Italian teacher I told you about.”
“Sure. You were going to Milan with him for classes.”
“Right. So—his dad. He’s been widowed for two years. Lives alone in his own house. Giovanni says he’s been really sad… He’s sixty-three.”
Valentina stayed quiet, not seeing where this was going.
“Mom, I told him about you. It just… came out. And he got interested. He wants to meet you. By video first.”
“Lera, what are you doing?”
“Mom, just try talking to him. His father is an intellectual—he used to be a history professor. He understands some Russian; he studied it at university. And you did Italian at college, didn’t you?”
“That was forty years ago!”
“But the basics are still there, right? Mom, just have one call. If you don’t like him, fine. But what if you do?”
Valentina glanced at her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe door. A short haircut. Gray hair she no longer dyed. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Sixty years and three months. Her ex-husband Gennady was probably at the dacha with that Sveta—the neighbor. Valentina still couldn’t say the woman’s name without tasting bitterness.
“Alright,” she heard herself say. “Let’s try.”
Her first conversation with Marco Benedetti happened on a Saturday evening. Valentina spent nearly an hour getting ready: she put on a pale-blue blouse Lera had bought for exactly this kind of moment, lined her eyes, even sprayed perfume—then laughed at herself. As if he could smell it through a screen.
Marco’s face appeared on her laptop: silver hair, thoughtful brown eyes, a kind, open smile.
“Good evening, Valentina,” he said slowly, clearly shaping each word.
She answered in Italian, stumbling through long-forgotten phrases. He switched to simple Russian; she filled in with Italian. They laughed at their chaotic mix of languages. They talked about books—both loved Nabokov, it turned out. About music—Marco played the cello. About cities she’d never seen, but he described them so vividly she wanted to go immediately.
They spoke for two hours. When the screen went dark, Valentina realized she was smiling.
After that, they called every evening. Marco talked about his house with a grapevine, about the neighbor’s cat that had “adopted” him after his wife’s death. Valentina talked about her job, the books she kept rereading, about Moscow—an imagined place to him, known only from novels.
“A week from now you should come,” he said. “At least for a month. See whether you like Tuscany.”
“Marco, that’s insane.”
“Why? We’re both alone. We enjoy each other. What more do we need to try?”
After that call, Valentina sat for a long time staring into the dark window. Then she opened a search engine and started looking up flights.
Gennady appeared two weeks later. He rang the bell while she was packing her suitcase.
“Valya, open up. I need to pick up a few things.”
She opened the door. He looked gaunt, older. Apparently the dacha fairy tale with Sveta hadn’t gone as smoothly as he’d hoped.
“Come in,” Valentina said, stepping aside. “But please be quick. My flight is in five hours.”
“Where are you off to?” he asked, walking in and noticing the open suitcase. “Sochi again with Lena?”
“Italy.”
“Italy?” Gennady laughed. “You? On your pension? What, you bought a tour?”
“Not a tour. I was invited.”
“Invited by who?”
Valentina folded another blouse into the suitcase without answering.
“Valya, who invited you?” His voice sharpened.
“Someone. We met a month ago.”
“Met?” He stared at her. “You did?”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Because…” He faltered, flushing. “Listen, some Italian sees a Russian pensioner and invites her to his house? Valya, it’s a scam. You’re sixty!”
“Sixty,” she agreed, zipping the suitcase. “And?”
“Who needs you at sixty?” Gennady raised his voice, and Valentina caught something in his eyes beyond concern—anger, resentment, confusion. “Valya, wake up! They’re frauds. There is no Italian—”
“His name is Marco Benedetti,” she said evenly. “He’s a retired history professor. He lives in the countryside. Our daughter studies with his son. If you want, I’ll give you his information—you can check everything yourself.”
Gennady stood there with his mouth slightly open.
“You’re really going?” he finally managed.
“I am.”
“For how long?”
“A month at first. Then we’ll see.”
“Then we’ll see?” He dropped onto the couch as if his legs couldn’t hold him. “So you might stay there?”
“I might. If I want to.”
“And what about your job? Your apartment?”
“I took unpaid leave. The apartment isn’t going anywhere.”
Gennady dragged a hand down his face. Valentina watched him try to process it—understand it, swallow it, accept it.
“I don’t believe it,” he said at last, quietly. “It can’t be that you… that someone would…”
Valentina sat beside him and looked at the man she’d lived with for thirty-five years. The man she’d had a daughter with. The man whose affairs she’d survived, whose midlife crises she’d endured, whose constant dissatisfaction with himself and the world she’d carried like a burden. And then he’d left for Sveta from the dacha, tossing over his shoulder as he walked out: “You don’t inspire me anymore. I need change, understand? New emotions.”
“Gena,” Valentina said softly, “you left six months ago because you decided life was passing you by. Because you thought that at sixty-two you could still change something. So why can’t I think the same?”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Well…” He hesitated. “Because I’m a man.”
Valentina laughed—real laughter, from the gut—for the first time in six months.
“Do you hear how stupid that sounds?”
“But I… I just didn’t think you’d go anywhere,” he said, getting up and pacing. “Valya, it didn’t work out with Sveta. She’s not what I thought. We’re different. I… I thought I’d come back.”
“Back here?”
“Yeah. To you.”
Valentina glanced at the clock. The taxi would arrive in half an hour.
“Gena, you want to return because Sveta didn’t work out—not because you need me. Because it’s convenient. Familiar. I understand perfectly: I’ll wash your clothes, cook, listen to you. Right?”
He said nothing.
“But I don’t want to be convenient anymore,” Valentina continued. “I’m sixty. And for the first time in my life, I’m doing something purely for myself. Something crazy, unclear—maybe even foolish. But mine.”
“What, did he propose?” Gennady sneered.
“Not yet,” she said calmly. “And I’m not going for that.”
Gennady grabbed the jacket he’d brought.
“You know what—go. See what it’s like to be nobody in a foreign country. You’ll be back in a week. I know it.”
“Maybe,” Valentina agreed. “But it will be my experience.”
He slammed the door.
Valentina walked to the window and watched him leave the building, climb into an old Gazelle van, and drive away. And suddenly she felt sorry for him. Not because she still loved him—that feeling had burned out over the last years of his restless drifting. But because he still hadn’t understood: she had changed. Not after he left—long before. He just never noticed.
At the airport, Lera met her and hugged her tightly for a long time.
“Mom, I’m so happy for you.”
“I might come back in a week,” Valentina said honestly. “Or sooner.”
“You can,” Lera replied. “But try. Just try living the way you want—without worrying what people will think.”
“Dad came by,” Valentina said.
“I know,” Lera answered. “He called me. Yelled into the phone—said I let someone mess with your head.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That for the first time in sixty years, Mom is doing what she wants. And her daughter has every right to support her.”
Valentina burst into tears right there in the departures hall. Lera didn’t speak—just rubbed her back, then dabbed her mother’s cheeks with a tissue.
“Go on, Mom. Marco’s waiting.”
Italy greeted her with the honey-gold light of September sun. Marco stood in arrivals holding a bouquet of yellow roses. When he saw her, he smiled so warmly that Valentina suddenly understood—she wasn’t afraid. Not at all.
The first week she adjusted. To the terracotta-roofed house. To vineyards beyond the window. To the scent of rosemary and olive oil. To a quiet that didn’t press down on her, but wrapped around her like a blanket. To Marco, who made coffee in the mornings and read the newspaper in the garden. To his hands—strong, weathered, gentle—helping her carry groceries from the market.
They walked a lot. He showed her the countryside, tiny towns where time seemed stuck in the Middle Ages. He told her stories—about his wife, his son, and how hard it had been to survive loneliness.
“I thought my life was over,” he admitted one evening on the terrace, as they drank wine and watched the sunset. “That at my age nothing new would happen.”
“And what changed?” Valentina asked.
“You,” he said simply.
The second week she helped in the garden. Learned Italian names for plants, laughed at her terrible pronunciation. Marco taught her to make pasta—real homemade pasta you roll by hand and cut with a knife. He played cello concertos, and they danced in the kitchen—clumsy, but happy.
Gennady called every day. Valentina didn’t pick up. He texted: “Valya, how long are you going to do this? Stop being foolish. I get it now, I’ve changed.” Then: “Sveta moved out. I’m alone. Can we talk like normal people?” And then: “Lera says you’re happy there. Is it true?”
Valentina replied only to the last message: “Yes. It’s true.”
The third week, Marco’s son arrived—Giovanni, Lera’s teacher. Tall and slender, with his father’s smile. He hugged Valentina like an old friend.
“Papa looks ten years younger,” he said in Russian. “That’s thanks to you, Signora Valentina.”
They had dinner together. Giovanni talked about Moscow, his work, about Lera—whom he called “my best student.” Marco looked at his son with pride, and at Valentina with tenderness. And Valentina suddenly realized she felt like part of this family. Not a stranger, not a guest—part of it.
In the fourth week, Marco suggested they go to the sea. They drove along winding roads past vineyards and cypress-lined avenues. The water was calm, warm, turquoise. They walked on the beach and collected shells like children.
That evening, as the sun sank and painted the sky pink and orange, Marco stopped and took her hand.
“Valentina, I need to tell you something.”
She looked at him—at his gray hair tossed by the wind, at his eyes filled with a special kind of seriousness.
“I know we’ve only known each other a month. It’s madness—this kind of madness, at our age. But I don’t want to wait. Life is short, and we both understand that.” He paused, searching for words. “Marry me. Stay here. With me.”
Valentina didn’t speak. Waves rolled in, foaming around their feet. Seagulls cried somewhere in the distance.
“Marco…”
“I’m not asking for an answer right now. Think about it—however long you need. But know this: I want you here. Not as a guest. As my wife.”
That night she returned to the house and sat on the terrace for a long time, looking up at the stars. She thought about Moscow—her job, her apartment where she’d lived for so many years. About Lera, about future grandchildren she might not see often. About Gennady, who never understood that he hadn’t lost a wife—he’d lost himself.
And then she thought about Marco. About the way he looked at her. About how safe and peaceful she felt beside him. About how, at sixty, she finally felt truly needed—not useful, not familiar—needed.
In the morning she said, “Yes.”
Marco hugged her so tightly she could hear his heart.
Valentina called Lera at lunchtime Moscow time.
“Mom, how are you?”
“Lera… I’m getting married.”
Silence. Then a sob.
“Mom, I’m so happy! So, so happy!”
“Are you okay with it? I’ll be far away…”
“Mom, I want you to be happy. Are you happy?”
“Yes,” Valentina smiled. “Yes, I am.”
Gennady found out from Lera. He called that evening, and this time Valentina answered.
“Lera said you’re getting married,” his voice was dull, strange.
“Yes.”
“To that Italian?”
“To Marco—yes.”
“Valya… are you serious?”
“Completely.”
He was quiet for a moment. She could hear him breathing into the phone.
“You know, when you left, I was sure you’d come back. I thought you’d wander around, play tourist, and return to normal life.” He gave a bitter little laugh. “But you’re not playing.”
“I never played, Gena. You just didn’t see me.”
“Who needs you at sixty!” he snapped. “I said that, remember? And you… you went and proved you are needed. Just not by me.” His voice dropped. “Never by me.”
“Gena…”
“No—let me finish. I lived next to you for thirty-five years and didn’t see you. Didn’t see you, do you understand? I thought you were a given. That you’d never go anywhere. That you’d always wait. And I’d go searching for something else—something better.” He fell silent. “But there wasn’t anything better. It was worse. Much worse.”
Valentina looked through the window at Marco trimming rose bushes in the garden—calm, sure movements. Every so often he lifted his head and smiled at her.
“I wish you happiness,” Valentina said quietly. “Real happiness—the kind that doesn’t depend on other people. The kind you find for yourself.”
“Valya…”
“Goodbye, Gena.”
She ended the call and went outside. Marco turned, read her face.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” she said, hugging him. “Now everything is.”
They married in a small church in the next town. Giovanni came with his wife, along with Marco’s neighbors and a local priest who’d known him his whole life. And Lera flew in from Moscow with her husband. She cried through the entire ceremony, then hugged Valentina and whispered:
“I’m so proud of you, Mom.”
At the wedding, Valentina danced. In a white dress she’d picked in a little local shop—nothing long or extravagant, just simple and elegant. She danced to the sound of the cello played by her new husband. And she didn’t care what the neighbors back in Moscow might think. What Gennady might say. What her former coworkers might decide.
She was sixty years and two months old. And she was happy.
That evening, after the guests had left, they sat on the terrace. Marco poured wine.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“That life is a surprising thing,” Valentina said. “At sixty, it can be just beginning—if you allow yourself to live.”
He raised his glass.
“To beginnings.”
“To beginnings,” she echoed.
And far away, in Moscow, in an empty apartment, Gennady’s phone lit up with a photo: Valentina in a white dress, smiling, happy—unreachable. He stared at the screen for a long time. Then he typed: “Congratulations.”
Valentina read it in the morning. She replied briefly: “Thank you. Everything will be fine. For you too.”
Then she put the phone down. Birds were singing outside. Marco was making breakfast. The air smelled of coffee and fresh pastries. A new day was waiting. A new life. A new version of her.
At sixty, Valentina Sergeyevna finally understood: happiness isn’t something you’re handed. It’s something you choose—every day, every minute. And age has absolutely nothing to do with it.