“Not directly. But she makes it clear. Constantly. With every look, every sigh, every comparison to some friend’s daughter who cooks better, earns more, and respects her husband as she should.”
Vasilisa Nikitichna shook her head, and in that movement was the bitterness of someone who had seen too much in her life and could no longer be surprised by anything.
“There are families, my child, that demand obedience from a wife as long as she’s needed in the house, as long as she serves them. And when she decides to leave—they want her to go with empty hands and be blamed for everything. So that she gets not a penny, not a corner to call her own, not a kind word. Don’t fall into that trap. I’ve seen many like them in my life.”
Yulia wanted to argue, to say that the Makarovs were a normal family, that her mother-in-law was just strict, demanding, raised with different traditions, but the words stuck in her throat, refusing to come out. She looked through the glass door of the ward at Gleb. He was sitting up, propped against a pillow, had already taken out his phone and was typing something, a smile playing on his lips—a soft, tender smile, the kind Yulia hadn’t seen in a very long time and which was clearly not meant for her.
Yulia didn’t sleep that night. She sat in the chair by her husband’s bed, listening to his steady breathing, watching the shadows cast by the light from the corridor, and thinking about the old woman’s words, replaying them over and over. Gleb fell asleep around two in the morning, lulled by painkillers, and his phone lay on the bedside table, screen down, as always, as it had every day of their life together. Before, it had seemed like just a habit, but now it looked like evidence.
She got up on her tiptoes, trying not to let the chair creak, not to bump the bedside table, not to betray herself with a single sound. She took the phone, walked over to the window where the light from a streetlamp was bright enough to see the screen. A password. She tried their wedding date—the very date he had sworn to remember forever. It didn’t work. Gleb’s birthday—also wrong. Then she typed Gleb’s birthday followed by his year of birth, and the screen flickered and unlocked, revealing what had been hidden.
The messenger app opened immediately. The latest messages were unread notifications, and Yulia saw the chat with the contact “L”. The profile name: “Lyubov” (Love). Hearts, sweet words, photos. A woman in her thirties with chestnut hair, in a summer dress against a sea backdrop, in a restaurant with a glass of wine, in some apartment with white walls and modern furniture.
“I miss you,” “when will you come,” “I can’t wait anymore,” “I love you, my sweet.”
And Gleb’s replies—the very words he hadn’t said to Yulia in a year, maybe longer, the very intonations she had almost forgotten. One message hit her like a punch to the gut, knocking the air out of her lungs: “Just be patient a little longer, my love. She trusts me completely, she doesn’t suspect a thing. I’ll sort everything out, and we’ll be together. I promise.”
Yulia read and couldn’t cry. The tears had run out somewhere beforehand, dried up inside before they had a chance to fall. “Trusts me completely”—that’s what her trust was in his eyes. Not a virtue, not a sign of love, but a weakness, convenient to use. A tool he had exploited for the five years of their marriage.
She scrolled further through the chat, unable to stop, though every message caused her pain. And she found screenshots of bank transfers: 15 thousand, 20 thousand, another 15. Every month, regularly. From their joint account to a card in the name of Lyubov N.
She remembered how she herself had saved money on clothes, bought cheaper face cream, skipped the hairdresser, wore the same coat for the third season, putting money aside for a rainy day, for the future, for the children they were planning. The rainy day had come, just not the one she had been preparing for.
Yulia turned off the screen and put the phone back in its place—exactly as it had been, screen down, in the same spot on the bedside table. Gleb didn’t stir, didn’t even change the rhythm of his breathing. She returned to the chair and sat until morning, staring into the darkness and feeling something inside her rearranging itself, like a house after an earthquake: the walls are the same, but the foundation is different, and you can no longer live in that house as you did before.
In the morning, she went home “to get fresh linens for Gleb”—that’s what she told him, and he just nodded, not looking up from his phone. The apartment greeted her with silence and disorder: dishes in the sink, clothes scattered about, an unmade bed, dust on the shelves that no one had wiped. She opened the top drawer of the dresser, where they kept important documents, and froze, not believing her own eyes. It was empty.
The title deed to the apartment, the sales agreement, the registry extract, her savings book, their joint papers—everything had vanished without a trace, as if it had never been there. Yulia searched the entire dresser, then the wardrobe, then the desk, then the mezzanines—to no avail.
She dialed Gleb’s number, trying to keep her voice calm, casual, without suspicion.
“Gleb, do you know where the apartment documents are? I was looking for the insurance policy, and the drawer is empty.”
“I have them,” he replied with irritation, not even trying to hide his annoyance. “It’s safer this way. Nothing to do in the hospital anyway, so I’m sorting through the papers, putting things in order.”
“Why do you need the apartment documents now? What kind of order are you putting them in?”
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