“This can’t be happening!… It can’t!” Nadezhda thought, staring at the photo where a young, pregnant girl had her arms around her husband’s neck, perched on his lap and beaming. Twenty-five years of marriage… was it all going down the drain now? Her heart clenched painfully as she stared at the image, forgetting she’d even … Read more
Many people thought Natasha was a bit simple. She had lived with her husband for sixteen years, raising two children: Tanya was fifteen, and Dima was eight. Her husband cheated on her openly—starting on the third day after their wedding, when he had a fling with a waitress at the restaurant. And that was only … Read more
“Watch where you’re going, chicken,” my ex-husband shoved me in the office hallway. His shoulder was as bony and unpleasant as it had been five years ago. The smell of cheap cologne mixed with sweat and stale tobacco hit my nose. I staggered, and the heavy folder with documents for Viktor slipped from my hands … Read more
The text message from the bank arrived at 7:15 a.m. “Debit transaction in the amount of…” I swiped the notification away without opening it. Dima often transferred money for building materials for the dacha. It was routine. The second came a minute later. The third—while I was pouring water into the kettle. The phone started … Read more
“I told you, I’ll handle this myself,” my husband snapped, tossing his coat onto the chair. The smell of expensive cologne and the street rushed into the warm entryway. “Alexey, this isn’t just a ‘matter,’” I tried to keep my voice even. “You’ve blown the deal for the third time by insulting the realtor. My … Read more
The door opened before I could make it to the hallway. On the threshold stood Tamara Pavlovna, my mother-in-law. And behind her, like a shadow, hid a slender girl with the frightened eyes of a fawn. “We’re here to see Dima,” my mother-in-law announced without a greeting as she walked into the apartment. She smelled … Read more
Anna froze on the threshold, and a cold steel plate of bewilderment seemed to stab beneath her rib. The door was ajar. Only by an inch or two, but even that upset the entire order of things. Her mother-in-law, Margarita Stepanovna—a woman of iron discipline and principle—forget to lock the dacha? Unthinkable. That simply didn’t … Read more
She came into this world to the whisper of condemnation and the heavy sigh of shame. Her birth was no blessing—it was the fruit of what the remote villages with stone-hard faces called “sinful love.” Her mother, Vasilisa, was a local marvel, a beauty who drove all the nearby suitors mad. But her heart proved … Read more
“Nastya, come in,” Igor Petrovich’s voice sounded routine, almost lazy. But Anastasia, who had learned to distinguish dozens of shades of his mood over twenty years at the company, understood at once—this wasn’t good. She stepped into his glass “aquarium,” feeling a dozen and a half people behind her freeze and prick up their ears. … Read more
“Don’t wear that dress again, Anechka. It makes you look cheap.” My mother-in-law, Tamara Pavlovna, said it in a deceptively soft voice—like a cashmere scarf that’s been moth-eaten. She tossed the line over her shoulder as she passed me in the hallway without even turning her head. I froze in front of the mirror. A … Read more